Reincarnated As A Peasant - Book 2 Chapter 12: The How To Guide

Landar

The sun was almost at noon when we emerged from the underground. Tosh had rounded everyone up from the classroom building, and returned to get us, then lead us through another set of side tunnels that eventually brought us back into the light.

“Now we have the mind spirit seed orientation, followed by lunch, and then the assembly with the leadership of the school.” Tosh explained as we found ourselves facing the rear of the classroom building. We could see the mass of students already congregating in the main courtyard. “Most students will be attending the intermediate orientation there.” He pointed at the courtyard. “But we’re going to set up here, and Countess Miera will be taking over. Any questions?”

There weren’t any. “Good. Feel free to take a seat anywhere you like, just stay close enough that when she arrives we can get started.”

“There’s no need for that,” A familiar voice came from seemingly all around us. Then in a flash of multi-colored mana filled the space next to Tosh, and suddenly the short, brown haired woman appeared beaming as if she had just played the world’s best prank. Tosh stepped back and bowed towards the woman.

I wonder how long she’s been here. Waiting. She was probably sitting on the steps, bored out of her mind. All so she could show us an invisibility spell? Interesting.

“Thank you Tosh. You are dismissed. I will handle the class’s orientation from here.”

“Yes ma’am.” Tosh turned, and entered the classroom building through the back entrance.

Miera smiled as he retreated. Once he was out of earshot, she spoke. “Such a dutiful boy. He will make an amazing arch mage one day. If he lives long enough. Now, for the rest of you,” She turned towards us. “Do any of you have any experience with mind spirits? And no, Mr. Vaush, I will not be accepting an explanation from you. Despite your prodigious experience, this is to test the students’ knowledge.”

Vaush chuckled, “Yes, my lady.”

“Now, any hands?” Only one rose into the air. It was the oddly young girl. “Yes young lady?”

“A mind spirit is a spirit being that lives off of, manipulates, and can at times generate mental energy. They are often used to help students, soldiers, and investigators of all kinds catalog data and sort it into useful forms of information. As well as to authenticate messages, and protect from outside mental interference.”

“A perfect textbook explanation! Thank you, Lady Naga. If I am not mistaken, you already had one such spirit? Is that correct?”

The young girl bowed. “Yes Countess. My father was a researcher among the delegation to the southern islands. Among the frog people, and toad princes for decades. When he grew ill from the Danjin Fever he sent Insight, the name of my spirit, back as his legacy.”

She’s way too mature. No eight year old should be speaking like that, what the hell? Maybe it’s her spirit doing it.

That is correct. Her mental maturity and growth has been accelerated by approximately seven years. Insight and I are talking, and she seems very loyal to that little girl.

Speaking of Insight. You’re going to need a name. Or do you have one already? There was no response, as my mind spirit retreated to contemplate the question. Also, who gave you permission to go around talking to other mind spirits? There was no response.

“I’m sorry for your loss, Lady Naga. But we hope to help you make the best of your fathers gift.” The Countess nodded. “Lady Naga is right, your mental spirit seeds are intended to help you learn at an accelerated pace.” A few hands went up, and Meira smiled. “The reason we have you start with a spirit seed, rather than a legacy spirit like our Lady Naga here, is rather simple. While a Legacy spirit can grant you accelerated growth, learning, and intuition. There are often problems with integration, and information filtering.”

“I’ve found this to be true. It took me almost six months to get Insight to let me adjust her settings, and begin customization. And we’re still not finished with the process.” Naga said.

“And we have experts who will help you along the way. As you can tell, Naga’s case is a special situation. In fact, most of you students are. Though technically, you are all in the remedial section, in truth I expect great things from all of you given time. And that you live long enough. Let’s have those of you who have the seeds, open up your interfaces, and begin familiarizing yourselves with the setup. Once you do, I’ll be around to each of you to see what you have, and how we can best customize your seed for your current needs and future growth.”

Would you like me to open the little menu thing I would have displayed before I integrated into your, wonderful, mental construct?

Yes please.

Welcome to the Seed System. Please select an option.

Self

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Environment

Past Active Scan Results

Wiki

Journal

Advanced Display Options

What’s under the advanced display options? A list of dozens of options, from HUD color, design, and layout, to displays of estimated target health, percentage chance to hit based on type of attack, and even estimated percentage of my chance to successfully socialize with a given individual. How would you even quantify this data? I asked, both impressed and mildly concerned.

Most of it comes from your instinctual understanding of your surroundings. Data that your brain naturally processes into vague and unhelpful feelings. I helpfully turn it into quantifiable, if somewhat squishy data. Flesh based life forms are difficult to pin down.

Flesh based life forms? Alright, we’ll need to have a chat later about where you’re picking up some of this lingo.

Oh I can help with that. There’s an entire library in your brain of life experiences around something called ‘pop culture’ from your former operating run time. I’ve learned Oh so much from perusing those memories! So, so helpful!

I was about to respond, when a familiar short woman cleared her throat in front of me. “Alright Landar, let’s see what you have. Do you know how to make your display visible?”

After a moment of instruction on how to express my mana in such a way as to make the screens and HUD visible to those around me, Meria examined the main menu. “You already have access to advanced options. Interesting. But no Characteristic, or point buy systems yet. Meaning your mind spirit has yet to build up enough energy to reinvest in you.”

“They can do that?” I asked, concerned and interested at the same time.

“Yes, but only with your consent. Otherwise they’d basically be trying to possess you. And even the most powerful mind spirits don’t really have that much spiritual substance. Lots of mental processing power, but very little pure Life mana integrated into their structures.” When her explanation was met with a blank stare from me, she smiled.

“Don’t worry you’ll understand that later. Basically, it means mind spirits have a difficult time processing someone’s body. Or doing things against their will. They can help you grow stronger, like any monster bond, or spirit contract can do for you. Though with them, it’s all quantified and highly, highly specific. But you don’t need to worry about that for some time. Stand very still please.”

I did as instructed and she placed a hand on my head. Suddenly bright purple lines and complex symbols, many I recognized as they ran across my vision appeared. Slowly circling in the air around my head, I quickly realized I was looking at my mental journal spell made visual. Inside the purple light, was a slightly deeper purple.

If my spell was like a crown, then at the center of the spell was a dark purple seed, with tendrils that had integrated itself into every part of the crown. Dozens of connections sprang from the seed to the spell, and power pulsed through both in steady waves.

“Very interesting. It’s not unheard of for more advanced students to have the mental journal spell already created, and perhaps to have tinkered with it a bit. But yours, I am guessing, was much more complex than most when the seed integrated with it. It gave your system a nice little boost. I’d say, your mental seed is now equivalent to, oh, maybe a second year student. Maybe even an early third year. Well done.”

“Uh, thank you. I . . . I was a bit worried that something had gone wrong.”

“Well, it has grown in a few directions that might not actually be helpful to you. For instance, there’s this little knott of mana lines at the back of the matrix that appears to be the beginnings of a personality matrix. Mind spirits that express personalities this early, tend to be a bit. Well, not to alarm you. But it’s possible it can become a bit manic. If that happens however, there are remedies.”

“Ah. What do you mean by manic?”

“Overly obsessive about a certain topic, trying to hijack some of your processing power for unrelated tasks, getting easily distracted by unimportant stimuli, and the like. Basically, if the mind spirit starts becoming a problem for you in any way, please let one of us professors know. And we can take precautions to help.”

“Thank you Countess.”

“You’re more than welcome.” She winked at me. “Cousin.” With a smile she brushed off to the next person in line. Turning their mental seed visible in the same bright purple color as she had turned mine.

Hear that? Start going haywire, and we’ll have to get you fixed.

I heard, and agree. My personality matrix, while fun and an interesting experiment, is not a necessity at this stage of your growth. Or mine. You don’t need me to operate part of your mind for you after all.

That took me aback for a moment, and I didn’t really know how to respond. Uh, okay then. Just don’t go crazy on me, and we’ll be golden. Sounds good?

You have a deal, master.

***

It took about an hour for Meira to go to each member of the remedial students, and give them insight into how best to operate the systems. When it was finished, the group was lead back towards the courtyard.

Is it just me or did this place get bigger? I asked myself as I walked between the main buildings of the school.

Unknown.

Right, it definitely got bigger. There have to be nearly two or three thousand students here. No way the courtyard I was in this morning would have held this many people.

“Now, we wait and listen to speeches, and generally be bored for the rest of the day.” The countess said as she came up beside me. She was right, a few moments later someone stood on a disc made of force mana, and hovered into the air.

“My name is Archibaled McNealy, professor of Magical Historiography and Practical Appraisal. It is a pleasure to meet you all, and to be the first to officially welcome you to our home here at—”

Archibald was a lanky, bespeckled man with glasses thicker than 1920’s coke bottles back on Earth. Thankfully, his speech was short, welcoming, and concise. Something I would not be able to say for the next fifteen or so professors each wanting to introduce themselves, and entice late comers into taking their classes.

Finally, after the last teacher lowered herself down to the ground off her force disk the Countess smirked. “Looks like it’s my turn. Don’t worry,” she winked at me. “It won’t take long.”

She summoned a force disk, and shot up into the air before I blink. The airburst in a riot of colors under her force disk, and a gentle rainbow bathed the entire crowd.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, boys and girls, friends of the kingdom, and our new neighbors here in the duchy. Please be welcome!” The crowd politely clapped at the light display.

Her speech, despite being filled with many of the same sentiments and information as the previous professors, was by far the most entertaining. At least it wasn’t an entirely useless hour, I thought as the crowd dispersed and I began making my way back to my rooms.

I still have a lot of prep work to do for tomorrow. First day of classes, here I come.