Steampunk: Sixth Era Epic-Chapter 1030: Preparations for the End of Term

"Actually... I’ve always wanted to find an item in the Academy Library."

Shard hesitated for a moment but decided to speak up.

The sorceress smiled:

"Then tell me, what do you need?"

"A stone tablet, roughly this big." freeωebnovēl.c૦m

Shard gestured with his hands:

"And the corners are covered in yellow material; I’m not sure if it’s brass, gold, yellow jade, or some other material."

The first two are silver and red jade, the third probably isn’t blue or black.

"To be honest, this stone tablet is related to time, and I need this special item to advance a certain arcane technique. The information I’ve found so far suggests that the tablet is likely located in Saint Byrons."

Shard spoke truthfully, and Miss Danester considered it for a while:

"I can check the library’s asset records and archives, and if I still can’t find it, I can try looking for records in the Hall of the Keeper of Secrets."

"Hall of the Keeper of Secrets?"

Shard raised an eyebrow, and the Thirteen-Ring Sorceress laughed and asked:

"Did I mention this? Well, it’s a special space like the Silvermoon Library, and all three major academies can utilize parts of its power. Because of its trait of passing down knowledge and storing memories, previous librarians might have left information in it."

Shard nodded, suspecting that the special space related to the Ancient God, the Secret-Keeping Mentor, was indeed the Hall of the Keeper of Secrets.

The entrance to the Dark Dungeon is controlled by the Dawn Church, so it’s not surprising the three major academies can utilize other spaces:

"Thank you, Miss Danester."

The sorceress shook her head:

"This is a small matter. Someone is coming to retrieve that mirror tomorrow morning, so I should have it and be able to conduct the experiment by next Wednesday. I’ll contact you then."

"Alright, I’m available anytime."

If it’s by Wednesday, the demon issue should be resolved by then.

"Let’s pray, then, that Lakin Prisia’s spiritual light proves useful."

The sorceress said lazily:

"Otherwise, I wouldn’t know where else to find another Circle Sorcerer that might meet the requirements."

Having two matters progress overnight put Shard in quite a good mood.

Since Miss Danester mentioned someone would come on Saturday morning, he got up early to wait for the pickup. At 7 a.m., a knock sounded at the door, and Shard, who was watching Dorothy cook in the dining room, almost immediately stood up. When he opened the door downstairs, a gentlemanly middle-aged man stood outside, wearing a black wool felt hat and round-frame glasses, with a golden beard.

The carriage behind him was not a standard four-wheeled taxi; the carriage and the shaft were very dark in color, and the driver sitting high up seemed to come from the Far North.

The gentlemanly middle-aged man removed his black velvet gloves and shook hands with Shard, examining him curiously:

"Mr. Shard Hamilton?"

The Delarion was not very standard, with a Northern tundra accent.

"Yes."

Shard also extended his hand and learned that this was a 9-Ring Sorcerer.

"I am Deputy Professor Lyon of the Academy Library Management."

He stood at Shard’s doorstep and, seeing Shard’s surprised expression, said:

"Don’t be so surprised. Miss Danester said there was an important item for me to collect."

"Oh, I just didn’t expect Miss Danester to send... yes, it’s right here."

Shard immediately stepped aside, pointing to the large box placed to one side:

"Did Miss Danester mention that this is a hazardous item that requires cautious transportation?"

"Yes, our librarian is very cautious."

Deputy Professor Lyon smiled and nodded. Shard never expected that one day he would discuss such matters at his doorstep.

The middle-aged professor let the coachman assist him, and the three of them lifted the box onto the carriage. He also gave Shard a receipt stamped by the school and signed by himself to prove that the item had been transferred, which served as his private contact with a Correspondence Circle Mage.

Of course, the item on the receipt was listed as "the corpse of an ancient mutated unknown breed of man-eating rabbit (a type of hazardous item)."

"Almost forgot, there’s also this."

As he spoke, Deputy Professor Lyon handed Shard a parchment. This was an Academy Bounty Notice, issued by Deputy Professor Lyon, for acquiring "the corpse of an ancient mutated unknown breed of man-eating rabbit (a type of hazardous item)." The bounty’s release date was last Monday, with a reward of two practical credits and no other material rewards, but the stamp and signature were complete.

"Congratulations, Mr. Hamilton, you’ve excellently completed my bounty."

The professor smiled, patting Shard on the shoulder, then took back the parchment he had just handed him and winked:

"You see, if you’re going to act out something, you must do the whole set, so there are absolutely no oversights."

"Indeed quite meticulous."

Shard nodded and courteously invited:

"Would you like to come upstairs for a cup of hot tea? The temperature is really low today."

"I’ll pass on the tea. I still need to escort this quickly to the next stop, Miss Danester is in quite a hurry."

Deputy Professor Lyon waved farewell to Shard and said:

"As a rule, professors on business trips like us aren’t supposed to mingle with local correspondence students, but this time is an exception because of the bounty order."

After boarding the carriage, he handed Shard three strawberries in a paper bag:

"Consider it a greeting gift. I rarely interact with correspondence students, but I must admit..."

He looked up at No. 6, Saint Delan Square again before the carriage drove away:

"Today’s students are really affluent."

Waving goodbye to Shard, the professor from the academy hastily left No. 6, Saint Delan Square.

"Where did the strawberries come from?"

When Shard returned to the second floor, Dorothy had already set breakfast on the table. The cat, which looked particularly soft in winter, lay by the plate with its little paws pressed under its body, staring at the food with wide eyes.

"They were given by the professor just now."

Dorothy didn’t ask why a professor from the academy appeared downstairs so early in the morning. She accepted the few strawberries and examined them:

"It seems that the professor is well-versed in the power of nature and plants. These strawberries have been treated with High Ring Sorcery ’Fruit of Nature.’"

After consuming each one, they provide a slight healing effect and directly replenish a third of the spirit of a Low Ring Sorcerer or a fifth of the spirit of an Inner Ring Sorcerer. However, continuous use will cause a significant reduction in effectiveness, and like your ’Satiety Food,’ they cannot be stored for a long time."

Dorothy checked it once more:

"These can be preserved for about eight hours."

Today is Saturday, and the only thing scheduled is a meeting with the doctor in the afternoon. There is no likelihood of intense battles that would require spirit replenishment, so Shard distributed the three strawberries to Dorothy and Mia.

The fruit was remarkably sweet. Even an outlander would feel lucky to taste fresh strawberries in the winter.

Using fruit to gain strange powers through sorcery and arcane techniques is quite common. The Circle Sorcerers from the Church of Nature are very skilled in such powers, as are the Circle Sorcerers from the Pantanal Voodoo Society. They are mostly not basic abilities and have prerequisite learning conditions.

Take Dorothy’s mastery of the arcane technique ’Divine Berry Arts,’ which requires the ’Fruit’ spirit rune and also mastery of the sorcery ’Food Preservation.’ ’Food Preservation’ is a mandatory sorcery for pharmacists like Priest Augustus, so the Circle Sorcerer system is quite miraculous, and Shard’s understanding of it is only the tip of the iceberg.

After breakfast, Dorothy accompanied Shard to the photo studio to pick up the photos they had taken together a few days ago. This way, Shard could include the photo of him holding Mia in an envelope to send to Miss Gawder.

Dorothy happily looked at the photos of her and Shard together, while Shard checked his solo shots. The photos were divided into three sets, one each for Shard, Lecia, and Dorothy. Shard planned to hang his solo photos in the living room and bedroom and place the photos with Dorothy in the study.

Thinking this way, No. 6, Saint Delan Square, more and more felt like home.

The afternoon was the study meeting for this Saturday. Priest Augustus and Luviya couldn’t attend due to some engagements. Priest Augustus was called away to help by Bishop Owen, while Luviya was called to participate in a divination training at the Prophet’s Society — Shard learned of this when he went to tell her about Sir Prisia at noon.

Even Dorothy couldn’t make it with Shard, as she had to check her mail at her apartment in the morning and discovered a letter from the ’Steam Bird Daily,’ discussing the republication of ’Hamilton Detective Story Machine’ Volume 1.

So, that Saturday afternoon at the doctor’s clinic, there were only Shard and Dr. Schneider, yet the doctor wasn’t surprised:

"At the end of the year, everyone has many things to handle. Now it’s only the eighth day of the Slumber Moon. In half a month, it will truly start to get busy."

Though he said this, the doctor seemed to have plenty of time at the moment. Since no one else was there today, he and Shard discussed the progress on the demon.

"It’ll probably happen tomorrow."

The doctor said casually:

"It hasn’t managed to leave the Tobesk area."

"No problem."

Shard nodded and then asked:

"Doctor, how is your year-end exam preparation going? Although the demon issue is significant, the exam should be more important."

"Except for ’Aether Mechanics,’ everything else should be fine, although I still owe a final paper."

The doctor shrugged. He had been stuck at the Five Rings level for over two years, and most of the fifth-grade courses were already completed.

After chatting with the doctor about the scholarship assessment after the year-end exams, Shard also obtained a catalog of arcane techniques and sorceries from the academy. Shard, who hadn’t acquired any new arcane techniques or sorceries for a long time, spent a total of 69 pounds to choose the sorcery ’Flash Mark’ and the ’Feather Fall Incantation.’

The former can release a long-lasting mark that only he and Circle Sorcerers five levels higher can see on the surface of objects to mark his belongings; the spellcasting material is any dust. The latter requires feathers as casting material and allows the caster to reduce fall damage by increasing air resistance when descending.

Advancing to a higher grade includes mastering a certain number of sorceries and arcane techniques. Planning to skip grades, Shard needed the abilities of two grades. His number of arcane techniques barely met the requirement, and sorceries barely matched. But those spells from the ’Book of Pink’ weren’t ones he’d care to mention, so he casually filled up the quantity with some basic sorceries.

After all, spells like ’Animated Rope Trick,’ ’Partial Hardening Spell,’ ’State Transmutation Curse: Pain and Delight,’ ’Summon Candle of Light,’ ’Hair Loss Spell,’ ’Passion Mark,’ ’Suffocating Gaze’ might not mean much individually, but having them all appear on one Circle Sorcerer could be quite suspicious.

Upgrading too quickly left Shard with little time to study and delve into many arcane techniques and sorceries. He planned to properly learn some useful arcane techniques after advancing to the Inner Ring. But this way, his current savings of over ten thousand pounds probably wouldn’t be enough.

Although that afternoon’s study meeting only had two participants, it still lasted until four-thirty. After bidding farewell to Dr. Schneider, Shard took his cat to find Dorothy at the ’Steam Bird Daily’ office, where he encountered enthusiastic readers of Miss Writer. To answer the enthusiastic inquiries from those readers, they stayed for another hour at the office.

During this time, the warehouse cat raised by the newspaper, to prevent documents from being gnawed by mice, suddenly leapt towards Shard, triggering a strong reaction from Mia. The two cats darted about the editing office, nearly causing ’disaster’ there. But Calvinson, the editor-in-chief who laughed heartily, didn’t mind at all and instead praised Shard’s cat for looking very spirited.

A delightful Saturday was nearing its end, which also meant a new Time Key adventure would begin in the morning. After concluding the adventure with the eight witches in the Fifth Era, 5177, Shard genuinely looked forward to what stories and people he would encounter next.

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