Cecilia dropped the wire, staring at the pile of rubble. She turned to Alice, and for panic surfaced in her eyes.

“It… it broke? What? But there was no problem – I checked it with my Perks and there was no –“ Suddenly, the panic in Cecilia’s eyes faded completely, replaced by an oddly emotionless and mechanical expression. Alice started to wonder how widespread emotion-modifying Perks actually were – using them for long periods of time couldn’t be healthy, right? Seeing Cecilia’s panicked expression suddenly turn into mechanical indifference just felt off. Before Alice could think further, Cecilia continued speaking.

“That should not have been possible,” said Cecilia. “My Perks indicated that this procedure wouldn’t be harmful. I tripled checked it to make sure that it wouldn’t be a problem. None of my other Perks came up with any information at all. I wasn’t sure if there was actually an interesting item or material inside of the rock, or if it was just some sort of fluke, but it shouldn’t have been able to destroy itself like that,” Cecilia said. Even though Alice could tell Cecilia had turned off her emotions, the other girl was still emphasizing words and hissing out some of them. The fact that Alice could still tell what the other girl’s emotions were despite the emotion-smothering Perk being active meant the Perk was failing. That, more than anything else, was a sign of how rattled the girl was – her face was transitioning back and forth between panic and abnormal calm over and over again. “My Perks… my Perks said it would be all right. Even if I’m not as high level as my father was…” Cecilia sighed. “I just…I don’t understand. It was a request from Illa, too, and it broke. But my Perks…”

Alice was starting to notice a pattern in how people dealt with information in this world. Even while she was on the Expedition, the first response the Expedition had when encountering strange situations was to throw more Perks at it. Most of the time, that was fine – even if no one understood why they were getting information from the System, or how to do it manually, it worked in most cases without a huge issue. But what about a scenario like this, where Perks failed? Perks were a readily available tool that could be used by practically anyone, as long as they had the right classes and met the requirements. That meant that people here were very reliant on their Perks.

Alice shook her thoughts away, before she hesitated. The last thing she hadn’t told other people in this world yet was about her home world’s religions. After all, she still didn’t know how people in this world felt about religious differences. Then, she closed her eyes, took a calming breath, and opened her eyes again. If she kept trying to hide for fear of what might happen, it would be hard to progress forward. That wasn’t to say she was going to blindly shout out all of her secrets and information to the world without regard for the consequences – but if she wanted to trust people, and if she wanted other people to trust her, someone needed to take the first step. So far, Cecilia was a bit odd – but Alice felt that she could trust the girl.

“What Perks did you use to look at the rock?”

“I – there was one to appraise the material, which failed. Then there was one to detect enchantments, which gave me nothing –“ Cecilia shook her head. “That was obviously wrong – the inside of that rock didn’t look natural at all. There are plenty of weird phenomena that have come out of clusters of mana before - but that wasn’t ‘natural’ at all. It was highly structured and specific. If it wasn’t made by human hands, I’ll make [Enchanter] a secondary class and go farm for the rest of my life, since this world clearly has no need for human enchanting at all. But… my Perks said otherwise. They didn’t claim anything was there at all. When I tried to check to see if there was a problem with my intended next action, I got nothing. I don’t understand.” Cecilia just sat there, staring at the pile of rubble with a lost expression.

“Well, if it was immune to Perks and man – made… have you ever thought that someone fooled the System?” Asked Alice, finally broaching the topic she had been trying to lead up to while looking at Cecilia’s eyes. “If something is manmade, and exhibits strange properties that contradict your understanding of what should happen when you interact with it, it’s at least plausible that someone created that contradictory property intentionally, right? In this case, immunity to whatever governs the System’s Perks.”

“That’s impossible. The System is god,” said Cecilia. It was an immediate response – there was no hesitation, no thought put into the answer. It was as if someone had asked another person what color the sky was, and they had simply responded that the sky was blue. Then, Cecilia frowned. “Wait, but…” Cecilia turned back to the pile of rubble sitting on her enchanting table. A moment later, whatever Perk Cecilia was using to deal with her emotions seemed to be deactivated – her face suddenly regained the traces of emotion it had lost. However, in addition to panic and nervousness, Cecilia also looked intrigued. Alice smiled, faintly – the most important aspect of exploring the world around you was curiosity. Without that, it was nearly impossible to move forward. With that, other aspects of how to explore the world around you could be trained. Even if Alice was only an ordinary science nerd that had just started high school, even she knew that the one of the biggest driving forces behind human advancement was curiosity.

“Alice, you’re raising the question of whether the System is actually a god, right? Or at least, you’re trying to go down a road of thinking that implies that. You don’t seem to react to the idea of the System not being god the same way most people would, either. Do you have some sort of reason for this?”

Alice nodded. “I do. Is there some way to ensure we aren’t being monitored here?”

“I have a Perk that isolates sound and makes it harder to read lips. It isn’t perfect, and it’s pretty common and easy to pick up, so there are also plenty of ways to get around it. It’s much worse than Perks that classes like [Town Leaders] get. However, it would still require a specialized class or Achievement, so it’s much better than nothing,” said Cecilia. Even though Alice was paying attention to the girl, as well as the air around her, she didn’t notice anything. However, judging from Cecilia’s satisfied expression, the Perk must be working now.

“I’ll tell you the truth, because you agreed to research with me, and because I’m going to be learning from you, and because I think you’re someone I can trust,” said Alice. She took another deep breath – somehow, even though she felt resolved to tell Cecilia more about her home world, it was hard to make the words come out. She hadn’t spoken a word of it, because even though people here seemed relatively friendly, she had no clue how people would react to a direct challenge to their faith. Still, Cecilia had already seen something shocking and seemed to be coping with it.

“On my home world, there was no System at all.”

“WHAT?” Cecilia’s expression warped into total confusion. After a few moments, Cecilia’s expression began to warp into an expression of frustration, before switching back into a mechanical, doll-like expressionlessness. “But you – you made it sound like humans were doing well there. Challenging the System’s divinity is already dubious, but… it has to have existed for humans to flourish. If there wasn’t a System, how could humans do anything? That’s illogical!”

“There was no System, but there was also no mana or monsters. I think you heard that already, didn’t you?”

Cecilia nodded.

“I remember talking to you about my experiments – I wanted to trade an Achievement with you, in exchange for getting some of my [Enchanter] learning for free. Did I ever tell you why I started those experiments though? I wanted to investigate mana in this world – after all, it wasn’t present at home. And what I want to know, more than anything else, was what the System is. From my perspective, it’s a seemingly illogical existence – it is very strangely similar to video games at home. However, video games at home are all fictional – not to mention in video games, things like stats are used to create a simplified model of reality for people to interact with. Used to make things easier to simulate. Whereas, here, in this dimension, a made-up way to simplify reality when making games for people to play is real. You can see why that would be surprising, right? So I’ve been exploring, and trying to figure out how mana and the System work.”

“I… kind of get it? I feel like I’m missing a lot of context behind the word ‘video game,’ but I can at least understand part of what you’re talking about.”

“A video game is… well, do children here have any games that they play? Or… umm, books that they read? Well, I know paper and Ink are expensive, but storytelling must still be popular, right? I’ve heard of [Bards] before, and the Perks I saw for the class in the church’s book seemed mostly related to storytelling and singing.”

“Yeah, we have stories here.”

“A video game is… like when we use tools to make pictures of a story, and then let people make choices for the characters in those stories. And video games take that a step further – for example, you might get a choice early on in a game for having your character train swordsmanship versus spearmanship, and that would change the way the story develops in the future or something. And to represent that, we would usually change around Stats and Skills. BUT, we don’t have those things on my actual home world – they’re used to make simple models of reality when we need them. At home, there are no stats, levels, or classes.”

“Then how do you know who’s better than other people at stuff? How do you hire people for jobs? Actually, how do you know who’s better at anything without numbers to back it up? Trying to hire somebody without numbers to back up their ability must be a nightmare.”

“Those subjects are… really complicated if you’re not familiar with the social structure of my home dimension, and I’m not going to get into it right now. But my point is, at home, there is no System. No numbers, no magic, no classes or stats. And yet, here there IS one, and it seems to be directly related to mana somehow, and now there was a weird substance that looked like a rock on the outside that somehow stepped way outside of the System’s Perks or found a way to stop people from scanning it. More importantly, it seems to be manmade. In other words, someone deliberately fooled the System somehow. I don’t know about you, but I want to know why it exists. And how. Because all of this is way outside of my understanding of reality, and I want to know how it all fits together and how it works.”

“All right. I understand your goal.” Said Cecilia, after some thought. “And?”

“And… would you like to explore it with me? I have some massive gaps in my understanding of the way the world works, and some massive holes in the common sense of this dimension. I also miss things sometimes, and I have a hard time taking risks, and you already seemed interested in the subject – and there’ll probably be a lot of Stats and Achievements along the way! Granted, the rock seemed to totally ignore the existence of several aspects of the System, so I can’t promise you with certainty that all of those Stats, Skills, and Abilities are going to always be useful, but… do you want to explore the nature of reality with me?” Asked Alice. Her heart was pounding, and she felt more nervous than she had ever felt before.

“It’s… a lot to think about. Especially because, if I say yes, I’m accepting on some level that a lot of my beliefs are being thrown out the window. I’ve been part of the Church of the Almighty System for… my entire life.” said Cecilia, after some thought. She turned back to the pile of rubble. Then, she turned back to Alice, before she simply stared into space, deep in thought. Alice chose not to disturb her – it was a lot to take in, and Cecilia clearly needed some time to think. Several minutes passed that way, as Cecilia simply stared into space, her face expressionless as she simply pondered. Finally, she turned back to Alice. “All right, I’m in. I want to know who the heck managed to make that object and how. Whatever it was, it was… not like any enchantment I’ve ever seen before. Whoever made it was leagues above what I’m capable of. I want to know who made it, and why, and how. Because I’m curious.” Said Cecilia.

Alice felt an ear-splitting smile break out on her face, as she let out a breath of relief. “I’m… glad.”

“So, where do we start? Rather, what have you done so far? In retrospect, the experiment you told me about makes a lot more sense, and I can also see why you were working so hard to figure out how skills and Attributes interact with mana. Why were you trying so hard to figure out what powers mana, though? I can see why it would be interesting, but I can’t see how it directly relates to exploring how the System works.”

“It’s because I was trying to set up some of the background information I thought I would need in future experiments – specifically, I wanted to know how to cut myself off from mana to check whether or not it’s really impossible to survive without it. That sets up a lot of other experiments I wanted to do in the future, but many of them require me to mess with mana concentration – and if I can’t survive in an environment without mana anymore, I need to know that NOW. After all, in my home world, there was no mana, so it’s unlikely that people really can’t survive without mana – or, well, that was my original thought, at least,” said Alice.

“However, I saw the Immortal of Song and Shadow a few hours ago – she looked like she was made out of mana. Which makes me wonder – is the amount of mana inside of a person what makes it problematic for people in this world to be cut off from mana? My original theory was that mana was somehow enhancing people’s muscles, but at this point, I’m starting to wonder if mana outright replaces muscles somehow. Since I have less mana inside of my body than a regular person, I can still safely check… I hope. I also think this area of study hasn’t been that heavily explored – after all, there are still rigorous safety requirements for experiments, and nobody here is able to just perform experiments likely to harm participants without worrying about the consequences. As a result, the number of experiments I’ve heard of that actively check how people react to having mana cut off from them is very low – if there are any at all. Most of what I’ve heard of comes from circumstances that make people think that being cut off from mana is probably lethal. I won’t put another human into a risky experiment – I’m not a member of the Society of Starry Eyes, after all. But I can see what happens if I cut myself off from mana, right?”

Cecilia frowned, before finally, she slowly nodded. “That’s where I come in, I take it?”

“Yeah. I think it’s probably safe, but I really need someone to hit the safety switch if it turns out to be dangerous for me. And, of course, someone else to observe what’s happening would also be a massive help to gathering data. And I only have a vague idea how to make a ‘mana-proof’ room, and I’m pretty sure an Enchanter could make that way easier, right?”

“Yeah, making a mana-proof room is definitely possible with the right seeds. In that case… to cut yourself off from mana, you would need enchantments to block mana from moving around. Mana can move through solid objects, so just using walls or something wouldn’t do it. Apart from that, you would need some way to drain the mana in the room. Say, do you have any magic seed slots left?”

“Two. I also have an [Organic Seed] that I don’t really know how to use, and also has very little mana inside of it. I haven’t messed with it too much yet.”

“It sounds like you really need to get a seed devoted to interacting with pure mana – as well as a good grasp of how to make enchantments. I don’t have any seed slots left – and it’ll be several levels before I’m likely to get another one. Since there’s no way to change a seed once it’s created, that means you’re going to be the one building the equipment for this mana-isolating room.”

“Pure mana, huh… Yeah, that makes a lot of sense, actually. If I want to interact with mana, a way to literally interact with it would be critical. I also still need to learn how to clean up broken mana, and that might give me some ideas on how mana works. Illa still hasn’t gotten around to that, yet… Hmm.”

Cecilia looked at the nearly empty store for a while, before turning back to Alice.

“Since we’re doing this together, I’ll waive the lesson fees entirely – whatever I get out of this is likely going to be worth a bunch of levels in most of my classes, after all. Do you want to work on getting [Enchanter]? We should still have some time before Illa chews me out for destroying the rock.” Cecilia’s eyes twitched slightly at the mention of Illa and the destroyed rock.

“I… I don’t think she would be too upset. Or at least, I hope not – it looks like the rock was made to destroy itself and was built by someone much higher level than you. If you talk about it and explain the details, she might be disappointed, but I don’t think Illa is someone unreasonable enough to get mad at you for failing a task you likely had no possibility of succeeding in.”

“I hope so.” Cecilia sounded depressed when she said that, before she finally turned back to Alice. “I’ll think about it in a few hours. Illa will probably come by to check on us sooner or later, and she almost certainly has other details to sort out since the Expedition just ended. For now, I’ll explain the basic principles of Enchanting.”

“All right, sounds good,” said Alice, eagerly. She had been waiting for this. Her first real lesson in enchanting was going to be critical for a lot of her future experiments, and a part of her was just excited at the idea of creating real enchanted items. Her first lesson in Enchanting had begun.