The first year's courses did not require the apprentices to attend every session; roll call and the like simply did not exist. As long as you had no questions and were confident of passing the year-end dismissal assessment, it did not matter if you never showed up at all.
That was exactly what Adam did. Apart from the first round of courses, he never attended again.
Potion knowledge taught the apprentices the properties of various plants and how to brew virulent poisons — yes, poisons; potion knowledge taught no healing, only killing. It had an interesting side, though: through understanding plants one could blend all sorts of seasonings, very useful for magical cooking.
At this stage alchemy knowledge came close to materials science and metallurgy. Plainly, it did not teach the core of the subject: however sturdy the metal you refined, without knowing how to inscribe runes into it, it was nothing but a mundane object.
Body-refining knowledge taught apprentices with the aptitude for body-refining Mages to refine mana into their bodies. It was an elective and did not count toward the final assessment. The body-refining instructor, however, was a full-fledged Mage whose looks were... bizarre. He did not look human at all, and Adam guessed that the more advanced content must involve research into bloodlines and DNA.
Once Adam understood the assessment standards, he stopped appearing in the classrooms altogether. Every day, apart from one immovable breakfast, he spent all his time in the library.
Books were expensive; knowledge was expensive — that was Adam's most direct impression. Reading each book cost a varying number of energy stones, the reading time was limited, and reading a book again meant paying again. Fortunately Adam's memory was computer-grade; photographic recall was child's play to him — he could even recite a text skipping every other word and never make a single mistake.
The library was tiered. New apprentices could only read the contents of the first floor, and the higher levels could not be read for any amount of money.
But even the first floor alone held countless books. One day, having lost himself in reading with no thought for his wealth, Adam suddenly discovered that his balance was insufficient.
The library had quite a few old bookworms. These senior apprentices were not as shallow as the batch of Adam's contemporaries. After their first astonishment at his reading speed, they discovered that Adam possessed a frightening memory and a frightening capacity for comprehension. With the most rudimentary spiritual power aptitude, plus such talent, even if they could not be certain whether Adam would ever become a Mage, there was at least no doubt that he would become a senior apprentice like themselves. So they acknowledged that Adam was qualified to speak with them as an equal.
What was more, talent like that easily won the favor of full-fledged Mages and a place as their laboratory assistant. At the lower levels, that already counted as a boundless future.
"Adam, do you remember where Elementary Magical Plants and Their Properties is shelved?" Elliot Pierce was one of those old bookworms — and the apprentices' potion knowledge instructor. He specialized in making virulent poisons; by his own account, in the last tower war he had wiped out six high-rank apprentices with poisons of his own brewing.
"Botany shelves, third tier, sixth column." Adam rattled off the location, still staring expressionlessly at the book in his hands that he could not afford to read: The Most Elementary Modifications to the Fireball Rune Group.
"Oh, thanks." Elliot thanked him and turned to go. They had grown used to asking Adam whenever they could not find a book they needed, and Adam had never let them down — except that in the past Adam had answered without ever raising his head from his reading, and this time Elliot found him staring blankly into space.
"What's this? Out of energy stones?" Elliot leaned in beside Adam and asked, teasing.
Adam put the book back on the shelf, coldly widened the distance between himself and Elliot, and said, "Correct. Please keep your distance, Mr. Elliot."
A highly poisonous organism is obviously not welcome among ordinary ones. No one pushed him out, but no one wanted to get too close either. Adam still remembered the harmful hormones that had surged through his body after his first encounter with Elliot.
Elliot pursed his lips and, obediently enough, stopped where he was. "I've told you, all my poisons have antidotes. They won't hurt you," he grumbled.
Adam was unmoved. "That doesn't make it a pleasant experience."
"Fine, fine. You shallow lot, you're completely incapable of appreciating the beauty of material transformation." Elliot muttered something under his breath, then said, "Adam, I have a way for you to earn energy stones. Want to hear it?"
"Of course."
Elliot's voice turned wheedling. "My laboratory lacks an assistant to record experimental data for me. I fired the fool who was doing it before. With your memory, Adam, you're absolutely up to the job. How about it — want to come and help me?"
Adam suddenly recalled James's earlier invitation. It had not seemed very important, so he had never added it to his memory notes... and the next rune knowledge class was already at hand.
"Don't worry, I will absolutely not use you as a test subject — the academy doesn't allow that. You'd only be recording data for me. And I can pass you outright on the potion knowledge assessment." Seeing that Adam said nothing, Elliot dangled the bait again.
Being an assistant in a laboratory was not a bad idea, but a poison laboratory was plainly not a good choice. Thinking this, Adam said to Elliot, "Mr. Elliot, do you know Mr. James?"
"Just call me Elliot. James? Of course I know him. He should be the meditation instructor for your batch, isn't he?"
"Mm, that's right. On the first day he invited me to be an assistant in his laboratory."
Elliot understood at once. "Is that so? He still hasn't given up?"
Adam asked, puzzled, "Are experiment assistants so hard to find?"
"That depends. Full-fledged Mages' laboratories are never short of assistants; apprentices' are a bit worse off. But James's meditation laboratory is the exception."
"Why is he the exception?"
Elliot said, "You must have heard his views on Mage Armor, haven't you? And you thought they made a great deal of sense, didn't you?"
"Mm."
"But in truth, Mage Armor isn't that important. Hmm, that's not the right way to put it — it's the apprentice stage where it isn't the most critical thing. Mage Armor can be adjusted, and that adjustment can be made at any rank. The only reason James is so fixated on researching meditation methods during the apprentice stage is that his aptitude is insufficient: back then he barely reached one unit of spiritual power, had no soul inclination at all, and his elemental affinity was very low. So he wants to advance to full-fledged Mage through pure spiritual power."
Elliot went on, "Before the tower war there were a few people in much the same situation experimenting alongside him, but sadly, all of them died. The apprentices who survived don't much agree with his ideas. So what if his meditation method is ingenious? However you look at it, at the apprentice stage our lifespan is limited."
Adam had learned about the lifespan business from talking with the senior apprentices. Because the energy levels of ether and mana were so high, a body of flesh and blood and a fragile soul had to pay a heavy price to bear and wield them. Spiritual power neutralized some of it, but it still cut an apprentice's lifespan drastically; as a rule, without special life-extending medicine, apprentices did not live past a hundred years.
Elliot concluded, "So we all think he's wasting his time, and the academy's full-fledged Mages aren't very supportive of him either. It's only because his research can slightly improve meditation efficiency that they haven't cut his project."
"I see." Adam was thoughtful. Elliot had a point, but Adam did not think James's research was wrong either — at the very least, he thoroughly agreed with the claim that it could make the weak stage easier to get through.
Seeing Adam silent, Elliot pressed him. "Adam, with your aptitude you don't need to research how to improve meditation efficiency. You have to understand: at the apprentice stage, our first priority is to advance within a limited lifespan. If that kind of research interests you, you'll have plenty of time for it once you're a full-fledged Mage."
Apart from wanting to hire Adam, Elliot's advice was mostly sincere. Adam thanked him earnestly and said, "I'm very interested in the direction of his research. I need to learn more about it. Thank you for telling me all this, Elliot."
Elliot heaved a helpless sigh and waved a hand. "Fine, suit yourself. My laboratory will always welcome you." He had reason to feel helpless: if James's laboratory was so bleak for lack of prospects, his own could not recruit anyone because nobody wanted the job. Spending every day among those horrifying poisonous plants and venomous creatures was absolutely no pleasant experience.
On his way out of the library, Adam ran into Cristel.
Cristel was deeply troubled. Her affinity was purely for the air (wind) element, and of the three magic rune groups Mage Blake had left them, every one except the wind blade was a struggle for her to grasp.
On top of that, no matter how heavy the academy's pressure was, it could not compare with life and death aboard the ship, so the kind of cleverness she had shown in desperate straits had no chance to come out.
All she could do was stare at the pitiful balance on her identity token and try to find two air-element spells to study in the library.
It was also the first time in days that she had seen Adam, and because of what had happened before, she was not quite sure how to talk to him.
"Adam, um... hello," Cristel stammered.
Standing by the path, Adam answered calmly, "Hello."
Cristel mustered her courage. "A-Adam, why haven't you been going to class lately? Have you really given up on yourself?"
Because you've been isolated? That, she did not say out loud.
Adam looked at her strangely, not knowing why she had suddenly come out with such a thing. Given how things stand between us, we're hardly at that point, are we? Human logic really was a strange thing.
Though he thought so, Adam still answered, "Nothing of the sort. It's too easy." With that he paid her no further attention and walked straight off in the direction of James's laboratory.
Left behind to stand there in the wind, thoroughly disheveled, Cristel was alone: "Too easy? A reason like that... that's just..."
Only after a long while did she pull her thoughts together and head for the library. By then she found the companions who gossiped behind people's backs utterly laughable — so in Adam's mind, he and they had never been the same kind of person at all.