Emily returns to the dorms and spends the rest of her evening rexing with Juliana and filling her in on the pnned expedition. The m after breakfast, she sits at her desk ready to start her preparations.

  Reag around the back of the desk, she pushes in a small loose panel. After hearing a light click, she moves to the front, pulling a key out of her robes and iing it into the keyhole otht drawer. Twisting it sets off a series of clicks and thuds, and after waiting for five seds, the sounds stop and she opens the drawer. It slides open to reveal her notebook, surrounded by a series of meisms and a few partments: one filled with bck powder; another with powdered fire crystals; and the st with a rough mix of the two.

  Emily smiles with satisfa as she admires the booby trap she set up to protect her ideas after Kyle attacked her for the Cws. The fight made her realise it was a bad idea to carry around a notebook taining all her ideas, not to mention a more advanced knowledge of physics than anyone else seems to have.

  Guess I’ll never get to find out how big the explosion would be. I wonder if it would have vapourised the desk or my entire room.

  Since she has acquired all her knowledge about raw powdered crystals from textbooks and talking to Ivor so far, she doesn’t have an accurate guess of the power of her makeshift bomb yet. Closing the drawer carefully on the explosives, unwilling to test such a dangerous mix herself in the small room, she lifts the notebook out and pces it on the desk before opening her system, navigating to the new bnk sub-system.

  How do I write in this? Maybe through fog on it and thinking about what I want to write? This would be a lot easier if I could physically i with the system.

  Lifting her hand and swiping through the window with irritation at that thought, she is pleasantly surprised when the window moves with it.

  “I touch this one?!” she excitedly cries out.

  Grabbing the er of the window to firm, Emily tries moving the window randomly and finds it responds to her touch. She ’t feel anything, the window remaining a proje within her mind, but the fact that she physically i with it at all intrigues her.

  Now if only I had some way of ging its size and shape.

  The moment the thought occurs, the window freezes in spad, as her hand keeps pulling the er, it stretches.

  It responds to my thoughts? Of course, the rest of the system does too, so why am I surprised?

  Grinning, she sets about testing the usability of her hereal notebook. Through a mixture of thoughts aures, she finds herself able to easily manipute the window. By resizing and duplig the window, and creating folders for different notes, she forms the sub-system into a virtual suite for aking, spell notation, and blueprint design. She’s even able to overy the virtual notebook on top of her physiotebook to write into both at the same time. With the ability to instantly copy down anything she sees and add to the notes with a simple mental and, the plethora of features leaves her pletely satisfied with the new addition to her system.

  After setting up the notebook to her liking, she copies all her current physiotes into a folder, then rips them all out and burns them to a crisp with a quick cast of burning hands. For the sake of fort, she quickly maes a piece of iron into a small pen that perfectly fits her hand. Testing it, she overys a virtual page on her notebook and starts writing with the iron pen. Words appear on the virtual page and she gets the feeling of writing normally, but the actual notebook remains bnk.

  Perfeow I take notes normally if I want and no one will be able to see them.

  Pleased with her oy, she clears the page and begins pnning.

  “What do I need for this trip?”

  Tapping her with her pen, she starts sidering the destination.

  “I probably want some more equipment, maybe I use this as a ake some of the E rank maes for my progression.”

  Pg the pen to the page, she starts writing a few ideas down.

  Boots?

  Armour?

  Explosives?

  -Bright light for disorientation, was effective against people

  Ranged on?

  Sed circle attack spells

  Better deteethods for in dense foliage

  -Thermal vision? Spell or mae?

  Method to remain guarded against Oscar’s friends at night?

  Pg the pen down, she stares at the list thoughtfully.

  This is all I think of for now, maybe I’ll ask Jules for other ideas ter.

  She grabs the note off the page, pg it in the air before her and splitting each lio form new notes within a folder belled ‘Expedition Prep’. Pig randomly, she selects explosives to develop first.

  I either go purely magical with fire crystal powder, purely physical with bck powder or stay with a mix of both. First, though, I should probably test the potency of each to see what I’m w with.

  She fishes out a feouches from one of her drawers and goes through the process of safely opening her security drawer again. She fills the pouches with the assortments of powders before closing the drawer, tying the pouches to her trousers belt loops, and moving to her workshop area. Grabbing a few small empty metal s, cls, and pure alcohol, she leaves her room to head towards the training rooms. On the way out she runs into Juliana in the corridor, returning from her m lesson.

  “Hey Emi,” Juliana chirps, pulling Emily into a hug. “Where are you off to?”

  “I’m starting my prep for the expedition with a bang, I’m going to the training rooms to test explosives.”

  “Haha very funny,” Juliana responds dryly. “What about starting with something to prevent yourself from getting killed?”

  “Don’t worry, that’s on my list,” Emily says with a grin, already fident in The Clock’s ability to keep her alive. “Do you have any gestions though? I’ve got defence, offence, aion on my list already.”

  Juliana pauses to think for a few seds. Emily watches her face sch up cutely as she does, resisting the urge to pinch her cheeks.

  “Have you thought about ing? You said you were pnning on staying for up to a month, right? I ’t imagine going that long without a shower,” Juliana finally says with a shiver.

  “Good idea!” Emily smiles, adding ‘ing’ to her notes. “Thanks, Jules.”

  Giving Juliana a quick kiss, Emily starts walking away backwards.

  “I’ll see you ter. Let me know if that cute little head of yours es up with anything in the meantime.”

  Juliana sticks out her tongue in respohough it doesn’t stop Emily from notig the slight blush on her cheeks. With a small skip iep, Emily makes her way to the training rooms only for her mood to e crashing down when she finds them all occupied.

  “Damn it, I’ll have to e back ter.”

  Grumpily she turns around to leave, but as she exits the B-grade training room hall, she bumps into an ued face.

  “What’s got you upset? Did your training not go well?” Oscar asks cheerily.

  “No,” Emily says with a sigh. “I wao test some stuff but the training rooms are full, so I have to e back ter.”

  “Oh?” rin grows. “I just so happen to have a spell here with your name on it and I’m on my way to a training room now. Would you like to join me and do your testing there?”

  He touches his delicate neckce, suddenly produg a full-sized scroll and it to Emily, who is more ied in where it came from. She quickly ss Oscar’s jewellery with her system.

  ˉˉˉˉˉ

  [Dimensional Ste Neckce]

  [Rank:] D

  [Description:] A finely crafted neckce holding a lesser space crystal engraved with a simple ste spell.

  [Effect:] Creates a ore cubed pocket dimension, accessible through the holder’s will.

  _____

  I want one of those.

  She reaches out and takes the spell scroll without noticeable dey, thanks to her mental processing speed, and tucks it into her pocket for ter.

  “Wait, do you mean to say that you bring other people into your training room?”

  “I wouldn’t have offered if I couldn’t. So, you ied?”

  Emily stares at the proud noble as she siders.

  Should I do my explosives testing in front of him? I don’t want it to bee publiowledge that I’m the one making my ons sihe Mandragos may hear and ask for some too… But he’s shown distaste for them before, so I don’t think they’re allies. Maybe I could sell him some creations iurn for money and tribution points. I’d have to swear him to secrecy; let other people think I gave up my source? I trust him? It would be a good way to gather money…

  “Sure, but only if you keep a secret,” she says deg to rewind this day if it goes poorly.

  “Of course, I swear on the Salvia hat nothing I see heh shall be spoken of to a living soul,” he says dramatically, pg his hand on the family crest resting above his heart.

  Emily rolls her eyes.

  I wonder if his infted noble pride actually means anything.

  “e on thehe way.”

  He smiles and obliges, leadio a nearby door, deeper into the corridor than the B-grade rooms. Stepping through a phasing door, they find themselves in a long, grand hallway, with high ceilings and a plush red carpet.

  “How do they even fit this stuff into The Dome?” Emily mutters in disbelief.

  Oscar looks at her with a brow raised.

  “You don’t know? The Dome itself is only a fra of the facilities. The rest of The Isle is an underground plex spanning most of the city.”

  Emily opens her eyes wide in realisation.

  Of course! Why wouldn’t they spread uhe city whehe bck market does?

  “Oh. I’m holy slightly embarrassed I didn’t work that out,” she says sheepishly.

  Oscar chuckles lightly and tinues guiding her down the hallway. After a few hundred metres and only a couple of doors, they reach a door with ‘Salvia Family’ boldly embossed in the tre.

  “Here we are, e on in.”

  The door vanishes as Oscar approaches, allowing both of them to pass into a cavernous space. Uhe dull white void that makes up the B-grade rooms, the room that greets them has smooth patterone fl. Surrounding them are rge stone pilrs stretg up to the high ceilings above. Hanging from the ceiling are several rge deliers coated with glowing dots ht warm light.

  “Fancy!” Emily mutters with a small, impressed whistle as she looks around.

  “Really? It’s quite empty right now,” Oscar ents with a sly grin, clearly enjoying showing off.

  “Ha, yeah, it’s empty,” she says with a dramatic eye roll. “But it’s ten times the size of the B-grade rooms. They really spoil you, don’t they?”

  “Ihey do. The A-grade rooms are directly sponsored by the family that owns them. My family paid an exorbitant amount of resources to have this room so it better have enough spad features to make it worth it. Now, go ahead a what you want to, I’m curious now that you’ve made me swear secrecy.”

  Emily nods, walks into an open space between the pilrs, and crouches down. Pulling the first pouch from her waist, she opens it and pours a small palmful of pure fire crystal powder. Pg the powder on the floor, she walks back twenty metres and calls Oscar to her side.

  “Stay back, I’m not sure how votile this will be.”

  Pointing a fi the powder, she quickly double-casts air bst and burning hands, fog both spells on just the tip of her finger. A small e and white spark forms and quickly flies out, s through the air and nding in the tre of the mass of powder. Instantly, the powder reacts to the mana and explodes, releasing a searing wave of heat.

  “What was that?” Oscar asks her.

  Ign him pletely, Emily quickly walks over to view the aftereffects of her test. Upon closer iion, she finds the floor cracked at the epitre and only lightly scorched towards the edges of a three-metre radius. Adding the results to her notes, she moves to another empty spot and measures out a palmful of bck powder.

  Returning to a safe distance, she repeats the process of firing a small spark at the pile and watg for the results. Instead of an explosion, the pile simply ignites and violently burns for a few seds befoing out. Grinning, Emily pours out a handful of the powder mix, already predig the results.

  This time, the moment the spark hits the pile, it explodes in a fireball, flinging burning powder out and scorg everything within five metres. Noting the results again, she pces three metal s on the floor and pours the same amounts of the powders into each. Taking a cl, she sends a spark of maa into a Cw, activating the magic crystals embedded and shooting the bde to full extension.

  “Do you always wear those?” Oscar asks, surprised.

  “Wouldn’t you?”

  Oscar thinks for a moment then nods.

  Emily uses the bde to slice up the cloth and dips each strip into alcohol before ying them over the lip of each , ensuring they touch the top of the powder mixture within. With another small spark of maa, the Cw’s bde vanishes bato its housing. Closing the s’ lids, she uses burning hands to weld the s shut other than a tiny gap for oxygen to reach the rags within.

  Smiling at her prototypes, she looks up to see Oscar staring at her in awe.

  “You made your ons yourself, didn’t you?”