The Quantum Wanderer

I hold the bridge of my nose.  Cecilia is trying to hold the laughter, to a small level of success. 

“Well, there is this adventurer that visited them, and provided some knowledge on a simple machine to obtain water without magic, among a couple of other things.  They got really thankful for that person, and a church was created.”

“Of course, sir, thank you for the lesson.”

I think I am handling Rudolph well, but I am not sure.  Rudolph went to the kitchen, and we went upstairs.  Cecilia was laughing out loud after the stairs.

“Great Adventurer, you don’t really think you fooled Rudolph, right?”

“Well, as long as he doesn’t spread the rumor, I am good.  It is getting harder and harder to just enjoy a common life.  Anyway, lets rest a little bit.”

The couple of months are calm.  The girls are starting to have tests at the schools.  The dragonesses train their fighting among themselves.  I do give out some pointers, but after several months of training, there is not much I could actually teach them.  They really did grow stronger.

I help Siratra with some math questions.  I cannot help her with her strategies studies, even if I think that the strategies being used are a little simplistic.  I tell her some tales that I know about the trojan horse, and a battle by Alexander the great, where they used stealth on an army level, and decimated the enemy.

 With Cecilia, I help her visualize mana, and I explain to her how she can use this to improve efficiency.  She manages to produce the same results, using less mana, as well as starts learning my sanctuary spell.

I spend my time between getting fluent in [demon], visiting the guilds, sometimes here, sometimes Orora’s, and also some researching.

One thing I noticed was that the dragons can breath almost anything.  Their body seem to partially feed on mana.  I don’t know if other high mana monsters have this kind of physiology as well.  But then again, I am not big on biology, I didn’t get to go to college for it.  It’s just high school knowledge.  I do have a good memory and I was an honor A student thanks to my geekiness, but I have an idea on how limited I am in the subject.

During the research, I come to a breakthrough.  We are not our bodies, we have our bodies.  I am starting to try to do some manipulation on my soul, in order to ingrain the surface knowledge deeper.  It is a shock on how this work.  It’s like having a deeper core that carries deep ingrained values and decision making.  The less important the decision, the farther away from this core it happens.  Some of them are done by the outer layers of the soul.

The deeper the knowledge is, the closer to the core it is.  If something gets ingrained a lot, it can be carried over from one life to another.  By that token, if there is a math researcher dies, in his next life he will not keep his ‘outer knowledge’, but all the math thinking, tactics to solve math problems and the like might get carried over.

And the closer to the core, the denser the soul is, and that’s why it doesn’t dissipate during death.

We reach the final week of classes for the girls, and I decide to go with them to the school, to see what it is like.  I turn on my stealth, because their room is a girls only.  Once we reach the dormitory, I jump out the window, and Muninn and Huginn go to a nearby tree.  I go to some place with mixed people.  Then I come out of stealth at an inconspicuous place and walk a little to meet them.

We meet and I give each one a peck on the lips.  Even in a semi armor my girls are the best.  When we are walking towards their classrooms, someone, with a students’ armor, stops in front of us.  He seems to be 17 years old, and is on the way to bulking up.  He has square jaw, and a male cut, but on the longer side.  He has other two students, one on each side, with their arms .

“Halt!  Who are you?  Are you trespassing?”

I look around at the girls, and Opal is the come to come forward.

“This is the person that keeps sending me flowers, my lord.”

She turns around.

“Howard, leave!”  Ruby said.

There are other people coming around, a circle is starting to form around us.

“Kid, I am their husband.  I am authorized to be here.  Let’s just calm down.”

This did not work the way I planned.

“Kid?  Kid?  Who do you think you are, peasant?  I am the son of a count!  I challenge you to a duel.”

Finally, I see a professor coming around.

“Your lordship, what is happening?”

“Professor Keaton.  We have a trespasser here, and he offended me!  I demand a duel.”

“Wowowo…  I am their husband, so I have a right to be here.  You can check with Edward, I got his permission.  And the duel thing…  Do you guys really fight to the death here?”

The professor scratched his chin. 

“The duel law has not been applied in over 100 years, but it is still there.  Do you wish to accept his challenge?”

“My lord, can I just stomp on the ant?”  Shandon asked calmly.  “I fail to understand why you even pay any attention.”

Opal just raised her eyebrow.  I pick my Comm Gem to Siratra.  I inject the mana, so that the other one shakes.  Half a minute later, I hear her voice.

“Master?”

“Hi Siratra.  I am having a situation here, a knight school student is trying to pull me into a duel.  Can you please Edward know?”

“Sure, master, right away.”

I turn to the professor.

“Are you sure you are going to risk the student’s life?”

“You are going to fight his champion.”

“Nananano…  I don’t mind fighting his champion.  But if I am fighting for my life, his champion is fighting for his.  If the champion looses, I will get the kid’s head.”

“You see this professor?  This brute has to be taught a lesson.”

I hear some people in the peanut gallery.

“Let them duel, professor!” “Duel!  Duel!  Duel!”

All this is so middle school it is funny.  I just wait a little bit, and Edward starts to get close, with a couple of guards in tow. 

“What is happening here?”

“Dean Von Akkad, there seems to be an honor issue with these two, the son of count Edinburg challenged him to a duel.”

I can see the fear in Edward’s face.

“Are you going to hide behind your women, coward?”

And Edward is now horrified.

“Edward, what is the deal here?  Do you guys have duels to the death in the academy as well?  I don’t really mind, but it could escalate.”

“Guards, take student Howard Edinburg to the cell.  He has to cool his head.  You all are dismissed.  Professor Keaton, I will have you in my chambers.”

The whole thing died down pretty quick.  The end was kind of cliché, with shouts of “my father is going to hear about this!  This is not the last you heard of me!”

The two friends that were behind him just left without further issues.

After it died down, I followed the girls to their class.  They were starting with the body enhancement lesson.  I am looking at their mana flow, and while they are already strong, they actually learned to manipulate the mana and reinforce themselves.  There was already some brute strength, due to their nature, but now they were stronger.  I am thinking how stronger they could get if they reinforced their brains…  This is going to be a fun experiment.

Their second lesson in the morning is sword fighting.  They really are managing to keep their strength and speed controlled.  Their movements with a sword is now fluid.  They can get around with a lot less movement than their opponents.  I am amazed by their new found fighting skills.

We go to the cafeteria, to have lunch.  I get a tray, and offer to pay, but I hear that they received orders from the dean to put the lunch in his tab.  Apparently, he has already been doing that with the girls.  Cecilia and Siratra come over, they are getting their food.

There is a lot whispering coming around us, with a lot of looks.  Some mentioning “… duel…”, some mentioning “…wives…”,  but everyone looking at us with a side eye.  I sight at all this, and just ignore it.  Cecilia looks at the whole scene, and comes to our table, with Siratra right behind her.

“Hello, my villain!”  She gives me a peck on the lips and sits down.  The whispering starts going around again.  Siratra comes behind her, and just sits down.  Cecilia is the one to ask what is going on.

“So…  Where is the body?”

“Huh?”

Cecilia pointed to her necklace, containing her Comm Gem.

“What happened?  Did you kill the kid?”

“No, Edward took him away to some jail somewhere.  The kid tried to get a duel with me, but Edward intervened.  I asked a professor that was close, apparently the kid was intending on using a champion as well.  Sometimes I get tired of these idiots.  But, let’s talk about good things…  Are you enjoying the school?”

“Yes, my lord!  I followed your wisdom, and I noticed how better at fighting I could get.  I feel like I can take at least an adult on right now!  That is a big thing.”

The dragonesses looked at each other, and nodded in satisfaction.

“What classes are you going to have on the afternoon?”

“We are going to have unarmed combat and introduction to herbalism.”

“Introduction to herbalism?”

“Yes, my lord.  It is kind of boring, but it helps us differentiate ‘poisonous plants’ from ‘eatable’ ones.”  Shandon replied, making parenthesis signs with her hands, the Earth equivalent of double quotes.  “It also teaches about some common plants that can be used to avoid infection in wounds.”

“What about you girls?” I ask, looking at Cecilia and Siratra.

“It has been fine.” Siratra answers.

“It has been fun.  They are a lot less creative than you are with the magic, but they have training methods for it that I had not seen before.  Most adventurers that use magic do not have a formal teaching, or at most has very little.  It was my case.  What I had learned, I learned by talking to other mages, and some tips here and there.  The theory is kind of boring, but it ends up helping to understand a couple of things.  And some professors are still pestering me about my entry exam.”

I look at the dragonesses.

“Are you going to have exams?”

“We are going to have to go on an expedition for monster hunting, my lord.  It feels weird having a test this easy.”

“Well, it is not like they can do a test specially for you.  And there wouldn’t be any reasonable targets anyway…  Changing the subject, I have been thinking about doing a visit to the dwarves, to get to know their city.  What do you think?”

“I just want to be by my lord’s side…” Aquamarine surprisingly answered.  I stretch out, and caress her cheek.

“Are you planning anything in particular?” Cecilia asked.

“Not really, I am just curious.  Well, getting a better looking sword might be a good side effect, though.”

“But…  Isn’t your sword a magical one?  Do you really think you are going to be able to get anything better?”

“Well, it is a modified iron sword, and I did the modification.  It would be nice to get a good one to start with, and then doing the modification.  And then I intend on getting you all something better.

“The dwarves are the ones that make them, I am assuming that going straight to the source would be the cheapest.  Everything they sell are 3 or 4 merchants down the line, each of them adding their needed profits, traveling costs, taxes…”

“That makes sense.” Cecilia added.  “You might even make that into a business if you wanted, with your traveling cost being nothing.”

“Well, Cecs, we already have more money than what we know what to do with.  Edward and Anthon don’t let me spend a copper coin here.  What would you like to buy?”

“Well, …  I don’t know.”

“Exactly.  A very wise friend once told me that, if he had a money related wish granted by a gennie, he would wish for the money needed to pay the next bill to appear in his pocket.  If you find something that you want, let me know, and we may get it.  I might have to go on a quest and get a couple of hunts, but I don’t mind.”

“O.k…”

We chatted during dinner, and the Cecilia started talking about what she might want from the dwarves.  She was excited, because they are not only good on forging weapons, but jewelry as well.  Siratra didn’t seem much interested, while the dragonesses were listening with different degrees of enthusiasm.  Aquamarine was asking some questions on the costumes of wearing jewelry, but Cecilia really picked Opal’s and Shandon’s interest when she mentioned that the person importance, on human culture, is sometimes displayed by the usage of jewelry.  At that point, they looked at me, and the continued looked at Cecilia and listening to her talk about the stuff.

***

Edward POV

I send a messenger to the actual count of Edinburg, and I am waiting for him right now.

Someone failed to inform me that his son Howard was trying to court one of Marcelo’s wives.  After some investigation, I got the information that he has been giving her flowers, which she promptly scoffs and throws away, as well as trying to talk to her.

I discovered that he managed to talk to her during lunch break, in the cafeteria.  Apparently, he was going to get slapped, but one of the white haired told her to just ignore him, that he would give up.  The idiot would not give up.

Marcelo was way calmer than I would be.  Being challenged by an ant, and holding in the will to just swat it…  I have to thank him later.

Great, the father of the idiot is here.

“Come in!”

“Good afternoon, your grace.  I just received your urgent message about my son.  What happened?”

“Follow me.”

I go with the count in tow, and two additional guards, to the noble’s cell.  It is more comfortable than the peasant’s ones, having a mattress and furniture.  It looks like a common room, with the fact that there are a set of bars in front.

“Father!”

“What is the meaning of this!?  Your grace, I demand my son be released immediately.”

“Did you hear about the recent change in the duel law, enacted by the emperor?”

“Yes, the one that states that if your champion looses, you also have to forfeit your life?  We did express our indignation against it.”

“Yes.  Exactly.  Count, do you remember the rumor on why this law was enacted?”

“The duel with a champion that the emperor watched…”

“Exactly.  HIM!”

…

“Now, kid, how strong do you think your beloved Ruby is?”

“I can see that she is very strong, her body is toned just right, she is fast, and beautiful, her green eyes and red hair shine when she attacks…”

I sigh, and the count shakes his head.  The kid is in love.

“Do you remember the menhir exams?”

“Yes, she was awesome.  She kicked one, and it made it into dust.  She is having her time wasted on that guy.  He is a coward that won’t even fight for a woman as special as her.”

“Good.  Count, can you come with me for a minute?”

I take the count to a place we were storing a couple of menhirs that were left from the admission test.  They are in a deposit, several minutes away from the holding cells.

“What do you want to show me, your grace?”

“Just come.”

…

…

When we get there, I show him the menhir we were talking about.  A 15 feet high piece of solid rock.

“Now, what your dear son mentioned is that Ruby destroyed one of these with A SINGLE KICK!  AND THE MORON CHALLENGED HER HUSBAND TO A FUCKING DUEL!”

The count’s eyes are bulging, and he finally realizes the amount of trouble.  He gets near one of them, and inspects it.  He takes his gloves off, and exams it.

“Was that one just like this?”

“They were made from same rock, by same crew.  They are as much alike as possible.”

“May I?”

He grabs an axe that is by the wall, embeds it with mana, and tries to hit the rock.  A little chip comes out from both the rock and the axe’s blade.

“Ohhh…”

“Yes.  My suggestion is to keep the kid in the cell during this week, he can attend a private end of semester tests in his cell.  Once the classes are over, he may be transported to your lands.  Just for a precaution, I would suggest prison transportation.  And a very thorough apology to Marcelo.”

“Thank you, your grace.  I am indebted to you.  I will set my son straight.”

“Sure.”

I go back to my office, while the count goes to the holding cell to say his goodbye to his son.  Perhaps some scolding.  I really hope he can set the kid straight, the way he is going is not a nice one. I wonder if the scolding would be the same if Marcelo was just a common peasant.  Are we becoming Arthuria?

***

Marcelo POV

The next week is a normal one.  The dragonesses and Cecilia go on their trial, that meant hunting a direwolf.  I ended up learning, during that week, that Cecilia had two tests, one written and one practical.  The practical one involved going with the knights, so that they could form a tighter unit.

Siratra is going to do a presentation on a topic for her final test.  I am going to go there to listen to it.  I obviously checked with Edward if there would any problem.

The students start presenting some group works.  They work primarily on calculating food or water needed for troops, or some theory about marching armies time or stuff like that.  I am sitting in the back.  Edward decided to come watch as well.

It is Siratra’s turn.  I can see she is nervous, she never liked being in front of people.

“Today I am going to do a presentation on circles and triangles.  In particular, the square triangle.

“First, I am going to make this the notation of a number times itself.  When a number is multiplied by itself, I am going to say it is elevated to the power of two.  This is how I am going to express it.

“That being said, if we have any sum of two numbers, if we elevate that to the power of two...”

She went on to prove the Pythagorean theorem.  Of course, it doesn’t really have a name here.  After that, she went on to use that to enclose the circle into an internal and an external hexagonal, and do some calculations to find a lower and upper value for pi.

It is clear that the rest of the room is bored to their bones.  Professor Ambrose is focused on the white pomme rock board, inspecting every comma, everything that is written.

After that, she gets on demonstrating a way to calculate the area of the circle, using that number pi, and ends up with writing that the current known pi number she calculated was 3.1416.

Professor Ambrose is standing up, in ovation.  Other than him, I am also standing up and clapping.  The rest of her class just have a whatever face.  Professor Ambrose looks around, and sees that I am the only one clapping.  I can feel his feeling of defeat setting in.

The class ends.  Apparently, professor Ambrose had placed her as the last presentation.  I go down, and I can hear Ambrose praises.

“Absolutely fantastic!  Wonderful!  I am going to have this board transported to my office!  Oh, sir Marcelo, nice to meet you!”

“Nice to meet you too, professor.  Hi Siratra, congratulations!  Excelent presentation.”

“Thank you, master.”  Then I heard her mumbling something, which I didn’t really catch up on.  I don’t feel she is as happy as I expected.  I think I am more excited with her grade than she.  Perhaps because I explained some of the math tools she used?  I have to check that later.  I could press for answers, but I am not going to exploit the slave bond this way.  Or any way, for that matter.

We go home after the class, we get a ride from Edward.  We chit chat about the schools, and he tells me the girls shouldn’t have anything to worry about.  He mentions that we are not going to see the duel kid for a long time, but I tell him that I don’t mind, I just don’t want people stressing me.  If the kid behaves, I wouldn’t mind.

As I am having dinner, I feel the girls’ Comm Gem shake, and I inject some mana on it.

“Marcelo?”

“Hi Cecs, is something going on?”

“Well…  I was considering if you would be able to open up a portal for us.  You know, shower, sleeping in a bed…”

“But Cecilia, I don’t know where you are…”

Muninn flies down from the cubboard, and lands in front of me.  He caws.  I get close to him, and he sends the image of their encampment to my mind.  Not only the image, but also the place sensation.

“Cecilia, open the tent.”

I hear the sound of some cloth being messed with, and the scene is this almost 360 view, flying and entering their tent.

“Hey! What is…”

I anchor to the place, and the view fades.  I hear some flapping sound in the Comm Gem.  I open the portal, and Cecilia crawls out of it, followed by the other girls. 

“That was phreaky!”  Cecilia said.  I can see Rudolph looking at the scene from the corner of the room, with a side eye.

The girls come out, and look at the food that is on the table, obviously a way smaller amount than normal. 

“Rudolph, can you ask Roberta to prepare some food for the girls?”  I turn to face Cecilia when I continue, “they are going to have a shower before eating anyway.”

Cecilia, that was staring at my plate with high hopes, go up the stairs with the other girls. Sometime later, they come down, and the food is served.

“So, how is the exam going?”

“Everyone is.  So.  Slow.  We spent the whole day just getting to the outer part of the forest today, my lord.”   Ruby complained.

“Is the actual hunting going to happen tomorrow?”

“I think so.” Answered Cecilia.  “I am excited to try the oxygen removing air magic.”

“Well, there are so many options.  Here, can you feel what kind of gas this is?”   I produce a buble of carbon monoxyde.  “Try to feel it with your mana sense.  I am going to get it again.”   Again, I produce a little buble of that.

“Yes…”  She tries, and apparently she has been working on her gas separation, she was able to actually get some.  Not as pure as mine, but  she managed to do it.

“That gas is called the silent killer.  It doesn’t work on everything…  Dragons are immune, but most breathing animals or humanoids will fall for it.  It has no smell, but if you keep breathing it, it poisons you.  No symptons, you just fall unconscious.  Even fenrirs are susceptible to it.”

“ALL RIGHT!!! THANKYOU THANKYOU THANKYOU.  I am going to train it a little.”

“Just be careful not to breath that.”

“Is there an antidote to this poison?”

“Not that I know of.  If one knows what they are doing, one might be able to heal it, but I don’t think anyone would have that knowledge.  On the other hand, all the poison is going to leave your body in around 3 to 4 days.  From the place I come from this is called the silent death.”

“Silent death…  I like the name.”

We chat the rest of the night, and Cecilia barely eats, practicing her new ‘silent death’ spell.