Chương 76: 75 - When The Daily Quests

Alexandra cursed Qafit for not telling her who the professor of her Introduction to Curses class was. Out of all the lessons packed into her schedule, it had to be this one.

"Well, it seems like we have a new student today," Tristan said.

"Name?" Chairs scraped. The room was already facing her.

"Alexandra."

"This class is not usually taught to Iron ranks. But since you're here, I assume you have a good reason." He paused.

"I'm not going to restart the course from the beginning, so you'll have to catch up by yourself." She nodded.

"Of course."

"A curse is a spell." He picked up a piece of chalk.

"I want that to be the first thing you understand. Most of what you'll read on the subject treats them as something apart. It's not completely wrong, but it misses the big picture. A curse is a pattern, like any other spell. Except that what it disrupts is not the external world. It's the target's mana." He turned to the board and started drawing.

"Your mana is not passive. I'm sure you know that already. It circulates. It responds to intent, to physical state, to emotion. A skilled caster learns to work with that response. A curse intervenes in that process without the target's consent." He picked up the chalk again.

"It introduces a foreign pattern into the mana core and compels it to behave in a specific way." He moved to the center of the board, revealing a diagram that Alexandra didn't understand.

"Curse of blindness. Common curse, well-documented, I'll use it as an example." He tapped the word as he wrote it.

"But the concept is the same for all curses. The curse of blindness does not touch the eyes. It does not act on optic nerves or the pupils. What it does is introduce a pattern on the target's mana that compels it to continuously cast a self-blinding spell." A Silver raised his hand.

"Wouldn't the curse fade as soon as the target is out of mana?"

"No." Tristan turned to face them and shook his head.

"The curse's initial cast is a spell. But once it has successfully disturbed the target's mana, it might be more intuitive to think of it as an enchantment." He hesitated.

"Running out of mana is a technically inaccurate term. You may not have enough mana available to cast a spell, but you are never completely out of mana. A good curse will reserve a portion for its needs. Then it's a matter of the target's ability to stop it from doing so."

"What if there are too many curses competing for the target's mana?" someone else asked. Tristan pointed at the Bronze who'd asked that.

"Good question. Complicated answer. You'd think the most powerful curse would win. But it all depends on the way the curse was designed. Some weak curses have very high sticking power, while debilitating ones can fade very quickly." He scanned the classroom.

"Anyone else?" Alexandra raised her hand.

"Yes?"

"From what you're saying, it sounds like anyone with a good grasp on their mana can neutralize a curse." Tristan nodded.

"It's not a question. But yes, it's true that someone with mana control exceeding the level of the curse could dispel it. But they'd be fighting their own mana, exhausting themselves." He paused.

"Which is, of course, the point." He returned to the board.

"Duration. Curses are not permanent by default. A pattern introduced into a mana core is a foreign element. Like a disease. The core works naturally to reject it and reestablish its regular pattern." He drew a line across his diagram.

"Higher levels of curses work around that. Sicknesses trick the core into thinking the curse is normal. Maledictions make it believe the curse is beneficial and should be reinforced."

"What about plagues?" Another Bronze asked. Tristan paused. He turned around.

"Plagues are a different category. Self-replicating curses, sicknesses, or, the Seven protect us, maledictions. I won't teach you how to make one, for reasons I hope are obvious." The class continued as Tristan went into details on how curse of blindness worked. Alexandra was out of her depth and had trouble following along as he explained how the spell crystallized into a pattern. But she tried her best to listen until Tristan announced the class was over. Chairs moved.

Students gathered notebooks, and exchanged low words. She was halfway to the door when he spoke.

"Miss Alexandra." She stopped. Turned. The classroom was empty. Tristan stood at the front desk with his hands clasped behind his back.

"Close the door," he said.

"I'd like a word." Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings. Alexandra pursed her lips but did as she was told and turned back to him.

"I won't apologize for what happened yesterday. I was in the right, and we both know it." He paused.

"That said, Qafit informed me of your malediction. I expect you'll attend this class to the end, and I would prefer to put the issue behind us." Alexandra opened her mouth. He didn't let her speak.

"Do you have Mana Manipulation?" She nodded.

"Good. That's your best bet at wrestling back control of your core. It won't be easy, but with time and effort, it's not completely impossible."

"What about Curse Unraveling?" He stared.

"You have it?"

"Yes."

"Then that raises your odds quite a bit. Shorten the timeline, too." He frowned.

"A malediction is probably too much for you. But you can try disturbing it. It's unlikely to make it worse."

"Only unlikely?"

"Unlikely is good when we're talking about magic. Any new spell is likely to blow up in your face." The next class was geography, and it was long. The professor knew his subject. Alexandra could at least give him that. She hadn't registered much, as most of the topics covered in the lesson mentioned names she'd never heard and places she knew nothing of. She spotted Louis in the corridor between classes. He was talking to a pair of yellow-robed students. She lifted a hand.

He saw her, nodded, and returned to his conversation. The malediction had been making itself known since she left the refectory in the morning. She ate standing at the serving table with a plate loaded higher than was reasonable. When she was done, she pocketed a sweet roll or three and left. Her afternoon was reserved for self-study, practice, and, more importantly, her daily quest. She stopped in a courtyard in front of the library and summoned her journal.

Quest Journal Daily Reset: 06: 00 | Streak: 21 Days | 1% All Stats Next Milestone: 25 Days Daily Quests: Take a book outside the Iron Library (0/1). She sighed. Her quests had been a bit too easy lately. She'd known it couldn't last. Did it mean that she was going to give up? Of course not. It was a risk, but what choice did she have? She sent her journal away and walked into the library. This time, she was allowed in without difficulty, and she plunged into the maze of shelves.

Alexandra roamed the alleys, letting her mind work on the problem. There were so many books on the Iron floor. Would they realize one has gone missing? Possibly. After all, the books were somehow linked to the kiosk system. Only, she didn't know how. If it was a library-spanning enchantment keeping track of all books, she was done for. If it was manual input, she'd be fine. Maybe. She ran her hand on the spines of dusty books as she crossed a particularly narrow passage. Which book should she take?

The first that came to mind was the slime book she'd first read yesterday. Nobody would miss it. That, or Recipes for Mouthless Pets. But the quest said to take a book out. It didn't specify which. If she was going to risk it, she might as well take something worth stealing. She stopped walking. Worth stealing. Right. She was approaching this wrong. The question wasn't which book they'd miss least. It was which book she actually wanted. She thought about it. Curses. She certainly needed to learn more about that.

Lifeforce was also an option. She shook her head and kept walking. This wasn't the right idea. Taking a valuable book outside increased the risk she was taking. Students had unrestricted access to the library. The only books she might want to read but couldn't were on the higher floors, and she was even less likely to succeed there. She remembered the Enchanted Books section from yesterday. She'd passed through it twice without stopping. Her head tilted. She changed direction.

The section was laid out around the central pillar hosting the staircase to the Bronze floor. She found a kiosk and browsed the books. There were enchanted books in every section, but this one gathered those that didn't fit anywhere. Books that existed for their enchantment alone. Improved Penmanship. She stared at that one for a moment. Nobody would miss it. But she might as well take the slime book instead. Mana Regeneration sat three entries down. Passive mana recovery. It sounded significant.

She looked over in the direction that the kiosk indicated. The book had its own display stand. She wasn't touching that. Treatise on Perfect Recall. Enhanced memory retention, comprehensive. Again, incredibly valuable. No way she made it past the door with this one. She kept scrolling. Clarity of Mind. Passive concentration enhancement, minor. Recommended for examination periods. Minor. She could work with that. She found it on the bottom shelf. It was a slim book, with a pale green cover, lighter than it looked.

She opened it to blank pages. The benefit was the object, not the content. She put it back and did a slow loop of the section. Two students at a table near the entrance, neither looking up. Nobody was watching the bottom shelf. She still didn't know about the kiosk system. She'd find out the hard way if it tracked books or not. She went back, pulled Clarity of Mind from the shelf, and tucked it inside her robes. It sat flat against her ribs. She walked toward the exit. The receptionist was the same as yesterday.

Alexandra slowed to a pace she hoped read as unhurried and looked straight ahead as she passed. Nothing to see here. She didn't look up from her ledger. Alexandra moved fast through the courtyards, under the arches, the corridors. She was almost at her room's door. Head down. Hurry. She turned the last corner. Her head collided with someone else's, and she fell while the book slipped out of her robes and onto the floor. Her vision swam. She blinked. In front of her, two books. And Willow clutching her head.