Chương 45: Older Than The Accords

As everyone got busy trying to figure out what sort of Glyph had just established a permanent floodlight over the entire hall, Ryland wended his way through the crowd. The hall was enormous, so he had plenty of ground to cover. Using his Inscribed Glyphs of Kinetics and Empowerment would have made movement a lot faster, but then, it wasn't like Ryland was in a hurry to get to an exact location. Murmurs hissed by him. Most people pointed overhead like there was a shooting star arcing across the canvas of the sky.

Several were trying to come up with various Glyph names that could have caused the brilliant illumination far overhead, and there was even one Academ who had pulled on what looked like a tinted looking glass to stare directly at the source of illumination.

"As I suspected," the old woman said.

"It's an incredibly high-Tier Glyph. Evolved too. I have no idea…" Her voice faded as Ryland moved off, though he didn't fail to catch that several nearby students were hanging on her words. With everyone else distracted, Ryland had free rein to enjoy the familiarity of the hall's architecture. Keeping with the theme of the City of Glass, the Vortens Hall was constructed from black glass, including both artificial variants and more naturally occurring minerals like obsidian.

Even the floor tiles were glassy, but Inscribed Glyphs of Traction ensured no one fell. There was no wall on the east side of the hall. Instead, a wide balcony allowed occupants to enjoy the nighttime skyline over Arcoryx City's opulent districts, the lightshow of the city contrasting with the glimmering stars studded in the dusk. Ryland always appreciated when Glyphs were used to minimize light pollution.

Normally, in dense metropolises such as Arcoryx City, the night sky's brilliance was often lost in the face of the settlement's harsh glare. That was, until enterprising mages had discovered a way to use Glyphs to prevent the glare of cities from interfering with the brilliance of the heavens. It reminded him of the importance of motivations that drove research.

The technique that had been developed was simple in nature—a spell circle with a Glyph of Refraction as a Centreglyph, alongside Glyphs of Barrier and Efficiency among others as Subglyphs, allowed multiple light sources to exist at the same time with equal overall intensity. Ryland could have come up with something of that nature himself. He just hadn't put his mind to it. This was in great part because he was an inveterate wanderer on his search for the pieces of himself. If he ever wanted to see the stars…

he could just rift far away from a light-polluting city. Most people didn't have that ability. As such, they were forced to find ways to fix the problem they themselves had created.

"You did that, didn't you?" Ryland turned with a smile to face the source of the hissed words.

"Greetings, Alendra. How is your upstaging going?" Before she could answer, Kendren appeared with flashing teeth.

"Forget you, Ryland. She hasn't even upstaged me yet!" Alendra looked like she was exercising extreme forbearance against choking Kendren.

"Yes, well, you didn't do anything. That poor Academ is going to get scammed when the semester ends and the only research you've produced is a few slander articles on your tabloid." Kendren clutched his heart.

"You wound me, madam." Then he grinned.

"But you're not wrong!" Ryland's smile turned congratulatory.

"You've acquired a mentor then, Kendren? Well done. And I certainly hope you don't actually intend to abuse their faith in you." Kendren waved it off.

"Don't you worry your aged head, O' Radiant One. I'll tell them I'm not really into actual research tomorrow. Let me just enjoy Alendra's glares tonight." That made Alendra flush for whatever reason, and she quickly turned to Ryland again.

"To answer your question, I don't particularly care if you've got the brightest light Glyph in the entire academy." She adopted a pose of haughty confidence, her bun of auburn hair shining like a coppery ball under the light.

"My research will outshine everybody's."

"I applaud your confidence," Ryland said.

"I do not applaud your patronizing tone."

"Ah, my apologies. I didn't intend it that way." He took a deep breath as he remembered he had been asked a question, so he spoke quickly.

"Anyway, to answer your query, I cast the Glyph of Dawn, which is a Tier [21] evolution of the Glyph of Light, but there's nothing to fear because bright though it is, its evolved state does allow me to modify the intensity of the light being blasted—""Father of Calamities," Kendren said as politely as he could.

"Slow down, my good man." Ryland stared at Kendren for a good bit, then slowly laughed.

"What's so funny?" Alendra asked. He was spared the need to answer when figures took centre stage on the raised dais at the end of the hall. The High Academs leading the seminar got things going. There was a short introduction from a bunch of the Academs, and Ryland was happy to admit to himself that remembering their names was really not his forte. He hadn't even bothered asking his students' names. That said, the directions of research they mentioned were intriguing.

One Academ was developing a set of universal Glyphs that could not only start the process of taming any manabeast, but also establish a line of actual communication between people and manabeasts. Naturally, the Academ heading that line of research was from the Department of Magical Beasts. It was intriguing because while Ryland had the capability of communicating with almost all manabeasts with his magic, it was far from perfect.

The level of communication varied based on the intelligence of the manabeast in question. For instance, there was no way Ryland could have a frank conversation with a low-Tier manabeast like Tallow. And mid-Tier creatures like the Lightraptors from the other day could understand simple commands only through advanced spells. On the other end of the spectrum, a Fatehound like Castigor didn't need any magic from the mage's end to communicate.

If these people could develop a spell circle or Glyphtech or something else that could level the communication playing field, that would indeed be unprecedentedly magical. In the same vein, there were other very intriguing research directions that Ryland found his ears perking at. One Academ was using Glyphs and Glyphtech to innovate what he called "prediction models" for all kinds of fields. Another professor was developing a mathematical theory that put Ryland's soulful magic practice into a neat little formula.

Kendren and Alendra were hooked on certain kinds of research too. Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more. An old High Academ presented the latest developments on his extremely complicated Glyph that was supposed to contain an entire novel in one Glyph. It was Tier [18], apparently the strongest Tier of magic a single sorcerer had produced in the academy in recent memory.

"If a Glyph like that could be manifested easily," Kendren said.

"It would basically spell the end of the publishing industry." He grinned at them.

"Get it? Spell the end?" He laughed at his own pun. Ryland joined him with a chuckle, though Alendra remained stone-faced.

"Upending established industries hardly ever goes well," she muttered. What followed next were short presentations about how different Academs had undergone their journeys in academic research. They spoke about how they had found the direction they wished to pursue and the fields they had enmeshed themselves in, they explained how they had found their mentors and supervisors, and all sorts of related things. None of this was entirely new to Ryland, but he politely listened anyway. These were stories.

And stories were never new or old, just different from person to person. One of the last stages of the seminar was the intermingling stage. Everything about the seminar revolved around getting the new graduate students started on their academic journeys, and this last section included encouraging the social side of that journey. Connections were rather important, after all.

"You know," Kendren said, looking around.

"We're missing someone, aren't we?"

"Sint?" Alendra asked.

"I saw her chumming up with the Academs directly." The image of Sint "chumming up" with anyone was so ridiculous, Ryland found himself chortling lightly. Although, it made him curious what exactly she was doing. She still hadn't gotten back to him about her own offer… The great sea of people milling about caused a small tidal shift within the hall. Ryland and his little group were slowly being forced to move along as well.

It was slightly awkward because none of the three of them actually had people to talk with besides each other. Kendren's mentor was off attending a conference about the effect of magic on propaganda at Fifthmarche, near the southwest border of Androvia and its neighbouring nation, the Coloidan League. Ryland's mentor… was Ryland's mentor. And Alendra didn't even have one yet.

"Truly?" Ryland should perhaps have not raised his eyebrows at her but he was a tad surprised.

"Kendren has a supervisor before you?"

"Kendren's Academ really isn't his supervisor," Alendra hissed. With a smirk, Kendren shook his head.

"That wasn't the question at all, Alendra." She grumbled to herself but said nothing further to exonerate her apparently mentor-less state of academic existence. Not at first. But she couldn't remain silent for too long.

"It's fine. I've already got my research direction figured out. Unlike the two of you."

"Please," Kendren said, flourishing gracefully.

"Do elaborate." Alendra squared her shoulders and straightened.

"My research topic is not only at the forefront of magical innovation but is also more daring than any other research at the academy." She allowed a dramatic pause to settle in and drive up the suspense of the moment.

"I'm going to tame Living Mana Incursions." Kendren and Ryland both stared at her. And it wasn't just them, either. Several other people nearby had heard Alendra's words, and the combination of their looks and mutters made the half-elvhenan woman's face take on a colour not that dissimilar from her hair.

"Taming Living Mana is one thing," Kendren said with a disbelieving shake of his head.

"But Incursions? That's crazy."

"I think that's admirable," Ryland said.

"Exactly! If something's admirable in Ryland's eyes, that just proves it's crazy." Both Ryland and Alendra frowned at Kendren, who refused to be moved from his stance.

"I've already got ideas I want to test out," Alendra said. She looked momentarily shifty.

"I just need—"" There you are!" All three of them fell silent when a new figure burst onto the scene. Ryland frowned as vague memories stirred. He recalled seeing the man somewhere…

"I see you don't recognize me!" he said. He was old and clearly important, dressed with the silver wand insignia of a High Academ on the chest of his deep blue and white robes.

"Just adding insult to injury."

"I'm afraid I don't…" It clicked in Ryland's head.

"Ah. The Trials!"

"Yes, of course. The Entrance Trials. You broke my Glyph." Ryland laughed.

"Was that not the goal of the Trial, High Academ?" Then he saw the man was legitimately angry.

"To pass the test?"

"By wiping my Sand Colossus out of existence?"

"How would you have solved it, then?"

"You don't understand the exasperating thing about all this, do you?" The older man shook his head, his flyaway hair whirling about his head.

"The second stage of the Trials was all about seeing how mages navigate seemingly insurmountable obstacles. You didn't navigate any of them." Kendren and Alendra were looking from Ryland to the High Academ and back again like they were watching a racket-ball match.

"What in the Calamity-cursed Realms did you do in there, Ryland?" Alendra asked. Before Ryland could answer, the High Academ turned to Alendra with the most indignant look he had ever seen anyone manifest.

"He destroyed it," the High Academ said.

"That's it. That's all there is to it. He eradicated my precious Colossus and now I have to remake it from scratch. Do you have any idea how long it takes to create an Inscribed Glyph on every particle of sand?"

"A Sand Colossus?" Alendra turned to Ryland with her mouth hanging open.

"Isn't that…?" Kendren didn't finish his sentence because the implication of it was clearly bothering even him.

"A Titan-ranked Construct," Alendra said.

"Ryland, you really obliterated every single sand particle of a Titan-ranked Sand Colossus?" Ryland looked at the trio all staring at him as though they actually wanted him to answer that. He would have, but the last time he had, it had been unceremoniously pointed out that he had been engaging with a rhetorical question. Which wasn't supposed to have an answer. But there was one thing bothering him, so he addressed that.

"High Academ," Ryland said.

"I believe it behoves you to be honest."

"What?" The old man stared at him in confusion.

"I've been honest! I even have proof of your heinous acts!"

"No, no. I meant that you should be honest that it wasn't sand. Calling the Construct you employed in the second stage of the Trials a Sand Colossus is grossly misleading."" That's what bothers you about all this?" Alendra asked. The High Academ looked at her as though to say can you believe this oddball? Ryland, however, was not to be shaken off so easily.

"We are all well aware that sand consists primarily of silica, and occasionally some other eroded minerals such as feldspar and limestone. Depending on the Realm, it might even have stone ice, adamantium grains, or even obsidian. Not a one of which was present on your Sand Colossus." The High Academ had his mouth open like he was a toad about to shoot his tongue and catch a fly on Ryland's face.

"Y-you—""Instead, from what I gathered in the rather tiny time I had, I found that its main consistency was an alloy of Iron, Silver, and Aludrium, the latter of which you can't even find on Vyrd." All three of them were staring at Ryland now. He went on, undaunted.

"As such, I propose that you rename your Construct for the next go, High Academ. Perhaps go with something like Alloyed Colossus?"

"I can't believe this man…" Alendra said, shaking her head.

"The preposterousness…" the High Academ muttered.

"The sheer abrasive disregard of…"

"There's no reason to doubt me," Ryland said.

"There were papers published on the matter. I briefly recalled it the moment I saw the Construct."

"Published by me, yes," the High Academ said.

"But that—""No, I meant before you, High Academ." He gawked.

"I repeat—preposterous!" And just to prove the preposterousness of what Ryland had stated, the old man brought out a Glyphtech scroll.

"Here, look." He unfurled the scroll, and script began writing on it as Glyphs flared on its back according to its user's wishes.

"This is an archive of published journal papers in every single field. And if you tweak the filters to state the exact phrase of Sand Colossus, look at the list of papers." There was an undoubtedly impressive list of publications with an assortment of journals. Ryland couldn't determine their impact at a glance, of course. But the High Academ was right. All the papers related to that specific Construct had his name attached.

Even in the cases when related searches returned papers without him as a coauthor, his research was always at least cited there. In other words, he had a hand in basically the entire field in modern times. And that was key. Modern times.

"How far does the time filter go?" Ryland asked. The High Academ frowned.

"Are you trying to go too far back? I'm not immortal, you know. Of course, older research won't have my name on it. But of course, they won't be doing what I've developed, so it's a moot point anyway." His non-answer was accompanied by him pointing out that the time field could be set back by almost three centuries. Just a few years after the Accords had been signed. Ryland smiled at them all.

"There it is."

"There what is?" Alendra asked.

"Your perception of your field of research, High Academ, is relegated to developments after the Accords were signed. Because this archive that you're perusing is maintained by a governing body that came as a result of the Accords. So any history prior to that has been more or less suppressed." The High Academ's eyes widened.

"You can't go that far. How would you even access research that old? Where would you get the credentials?" Ryland held out his hand.

"It's simple. Just hand that scroll over to me, please."