We walked quietly. Partly because I had to run to keep up, partly due to my own thoughts being in disarray. While my messy mind would have enjoyed being left alone, Magnar had other plans.

  “So… Why were you so interested in that formation? It’s not like it’s a rare formation or complicated one. I also know how to set up a version of it…”

  “You wouldn’t understand…” I said shaking my head.

  “Try me! You keep saying I wouldn’t understand as if it’s some impossible stuff.”

  “Because that fucking array should be impossible…”

  “What do you mean? You’ve seen it working…”

  “Yeah, and I understood nothing of how it works… And that so called professor is just as clueless…”

  “Why do you even think it shouldn’t work?”

  “Because it basically makes energy out of nothing… It should be impossible…”

  “But isn’t aether energy?”

  “NO!” My eye twitched at his stupid question. How could aether be energy… “Or rather it is, but not in the way you most probably think of it… Aether is a carrier for energy. A carrier and a transformer or amplifier.”

  “…” Magnar shook his head and raised his hands. “I feel like you’re talking in another language. What do you mean aether is not energy in the way I think?”

  “I’m not going to start explaining all that… You might not understand even if I did.”

  “There you go again!”

  “It would take at least a month to explain from top to bottom so that you understand. And it would be a simplified version of the reason, not the full undeniable proof.”

  “Damn… For real?”

  “Yeah…” I said. His repeated questions only served to aggravate the pulsing in my head. I brought my hand up and rubbed my head.

  “You know how aether has its own flow, right?”

  “Yeah… Pretty much anyone knows that…”

  “Have you seen it? Have you explored it?”

  “No. Who even sees aether?”

  “Anyway, the flow of aether can be seen as that of a river… Only that there are many flows on different frequencies. It’s not that we truly gather aether, but that with our minds and bodies we create lakes on this flow.”

  “I don’t follow… What do you mean by different frequencies?”

  “…” I stopped running suddenly my entire body felt like lead, while my muscles were numb and unresponsive. “Just take it as different rivers then… Like we are submerged in different rivers at the same time…”

  “Ok…” He was frowning, his big hand scratching the back of his head.

  “Well then a breakthrough after aether gathering can be seen as being able to influence another river. In other words we are… walking dams to aether… By exerting our will we shape the flow of aether.”

  “Ok, let’s say that’s how it is, but what does this have to do with anything?”

  “We are alive and have a soul. We have energy we continuously exert to bend a flow. That array however… doesn’t. It’s like saying that use the river to get power from the river. Not only does that formation redirect the flow of aether but it uses the same flow it redirects to redirect more. It also directly gives out energy to the other formations you link to it while it clearly has its own losses outside of its function...”

  “But you have to kickstart it… Doesn’t it mean it has energy?”

  “But it loses that energy. Most of it is passed on to the next array and doesn’t cyclically flow for a while so to say. Or even if it did it’s like saying that you can exchange more energy with less.”

  “I don’t follow…”

  “It’s difficult to explain. In the first place, the way I explained the aether is flawed… But either way aether has energy. It can definitely be harvestable; I just find it impossible for something non-living to order out the noise of it and draw the power from around… Even our bodies pretty much only influence the aether on two or three fingers away from the body…”

  “How do you explain domain powerhouses then?”

  “Don’t exactly know. Not at that level. But that doesn’t change the impossibility that the array represents. I’ll come up with a good way to demonstrate it…”

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  “What do you think then?”

  “I don’t know… The flow they tap into might be so fast that the aether refined by them is still under their control even while out of the body and away. In other words, the size of the domain is determined by how well and fast one can refine aether.”

  “Hm… I don’t know man… You sound like you’re making sense, but I don’t get it… Must you really be asking all those things of yourself? Like isn’t it good as long as it works?”

  “Why’d you ask me what I was thinking? Like wasn’t it good as long as I was?”

  “…” Once again, he raised his hand to scratch the back of his head. “Did anyone ever tell you that you’ve got an annoying way of talking back?”

  “Yeah, more than once. Well, you’ll get around and used to it as long as you hear it used on someone else too. You’ll experience how funny it is.”

  “I doubt I can see ‘fun’ in that, but I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt.”

  We had not stopped walking, yet now we slowly noticed subtle smell of pure alcohol. We kept our eyes on the door plaques and soon found the class. When we arrived a somewhat hushed but piercing voice could be heard from outside delivering the lecture. We looked at each other. Although we didn’t look at each other, his stillness confirmed to me that we were thinking the same thing. How are we going to get in?

  In the end I just pushed the door open. There was no other way than to brave the storm.

  “And whom do we have here?” The old female professor’s eyes moved to us. Her nose was long and narrow. Her face wore lots of scars and burns, which offered her an intimidating look and aura. Her whitened hair was all gathered in a bun behind her head.

  Her brows were soft and the eyes deep. Although the skin was pale and wrinkled, it was still firmly held together. She was carrying a cane, just as gnarly as she was and wore a scowl with the ferocity of a dragon… She thought for a second then told us.

  “Get in your seats before I change my mind and make an example out of you!”

  I hit Magnar on the back, urging him to move faster. Luckily first row seats did not seem popular so we could claim two of them yet again with no trouble.

  “Where were we, ah, yes… As I was telling you, this is a rigorous discipline. You can’t afford to mess up, or you might die blown to smithereens. Better yet, no one would mourn your death as the plants you wasted were far more valuable than the useless prick that died refining them!”

  She continued “As such I want no sign of hesitance or disobedience when I tell you to do something. I don’t want to hear complaints nor any other form of protest. I have full authority to exclude you from the class if I sense any form of incompetence, as in this environment you’d get more people killed, not just you or the one consuming your faulty potion.”

  “Understood?”

  “Yes!” Everyone answered together.

  “Good! Then we move on to a short history of Alchemy.”

  ‘Oh shit… Not again…’ The corner of my mouth twitched as she said this. I did not want to hear another useless heap of information… But there was nothing I could do… Memories of my days on Earth when the teachers did the exact same thing at the beginning of the semester resurfaced. ‘Aah… I can hear the voice of my old java programming teacher start with the first computer…’

  My lips bent into a crooked smile… I patiently listened, after all, some of this stuff might unexpectedly become relevant… We live in a world of dungeons and abandoned magic lairs… Who knows what old bones left a legacy behind for us to unravel and what sort of trial he’d have set up… Learning ‘bout them might not be a bad thing after all…

  “First off, you should always remember Madam Agatha, the founding mother of alchemy, the one who documented and passed down countless potion recipes and catalogued most of the plants used commonly today. Her contributions cannot be surpassed by anyone else.”

  “Even the recipe of the strength potion commonly used today is only a slightly modified version of the one left behind by her. Most farming methods for aetheric plants have also been documented and spread by her, very few have been added afterward, most prefer keeping the knowledge to themselves instead of sharing them…”

  “Now you may be asking what kind of contribution may be called in the same breath as hers, considering how vast and valuable it is to all mages. Well the nature of the contribution still has to differ, but we have Paracel. A commoner who realized that the bodily fluids of aetheric beasts could also serve as ingredients within potions.”

  “Once again most documented ways to extract various fluids from beasts have been released by him. He was pushed in his selfless actions by his wish that the common people would have access to his knowledge and hold a new chance to rise and thrive in our, power driven, world.”

  “Basil Valentine is the next and the last name on my list. He single handedly classified which potions could have their liquid removed and kept in dry form, effectively his work is also used to alter the concentration of potions, but the main use is in the creation of pills. Basil has also discovered and publicized several ways to turn the dry, dusty remains of potions into pills.”

  “His discovery had been revolutionary, as in this way most potions no longer had a shelf life. They could indefinitely be kept and stored, turning alchemy from a casual, helpful field of study into one of strategic importance.”

  “You may wonder why I gave you all these examples of people. But notice the pattern, all three, regardless of origin have made their findings publicly available, benefiting the study on a large scale. I hope that in the future, if you discover something, you will follow their example, regardless of your status, and not keep your discoveries to your own, as guarded secrets that will gather dust in your abandoned lab after you die.”

  “The world needs such contributions, yet the pursuit of short term profits is blinding some to the deeper truth, and that is, if they give knowledge, they may soon be rewarded back with even more.”

  “I want you to listen and listen well, progress comes through shared efforts way faster.”

  Then we went through a few of the well-known plants, such as Frost-Nettle or Iron-Bark dust. It quickly dawned on me that once again… I’d have to memorize a bunch of shit… Worse yet… It seems first year would be just this… Very little practical activities…

  Next class, strategy was even worse. The teacher spent a whole damn hour praising Leoric’s noble spirit that frightened his enemies. He did not mention that his enemies were a lone group of rebels, nor that he occupied a position of high ground or that his troops all had new shiny equipment… He was in an unassailable position and the rebels didn’t throw their lives away…

  As for why the class praised only nobles… Well, I could only imagine that they never allowed a commoner to lead, ever. A fired up old teacher, that only knew how to sing praise. Haven’t heard from him a single analysis of the situation unfolded in the records. And what he presented were only successful campaigns… How is one supposed to learn without knowing the mistakes…

  But alas… The day came to an end, and I could go back to what I knew and enjoyed! Work on the tower!

  by Rowen_Kun

  With two bodies, they will rise above all others — twice as strong, twice as unstoppable.

  Justin was just an ordinary college student when the world ended. In an instant, civilization collapsed — and the planet was overrun by monsters, blood, and ruthless rules of evolution. Now, he finds himself trapped in a brutal sort of tutorial, where surviving means hunting, fighting, and learning faster than anyone else.

  But Justin carries something no one else does: he awakens in two different bodies, both sharing the same mind. Each one feels, sees, and experiences the world from its own perspective — and coordinating both is an almost insane challenge. One mistake, and he dies twice.

  To master this impossible condition, Justin will have to learn how to control two lives at the same time. If he fails, he’ll be torn apart by his own confusion. If he succeeds… he might be able to perceive and act beyond any human limit.

  And perhaps this new world was made for Justin — and for his strange condition.

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