Adam raised no objection to the price. He only asked, "I agree completely, Mage Kino. It's just that I don't have any ether crystals on hand at the moment."
"By the exchange rates set by the Third Elemental Spire, ten thousand units of energy stone are worth one complete ether crystal. At your laboratory's income, it would take fifteen months to pay it off in full."
After Adam improved the meditation method, the tower had raised his research stipend from five thousand energy stones a month to seven thousand.
Adam simply produced his identity token and set it on the alchemy puppet. During the year and more he had spent unconscious, the wealth his laboratory had accumulated was enough to cover this price; it was only that he would have to endure a stretch of poverty afterward, since he still had to pay Mage Victor in installments.
As for why the reward for saving a life should be worth less than a single use of Mage Victor's services, that came down to the difference in standing created by the two mages' levels.
Once the payment was made, Mage Kino led Adam into his laboratory.
Adam saw that there was not a single apprentice or assistant in Mage Kino's laboratory; the instruments were all operated by alchemy puppets. They came in an enormous variety, and many were huge high-grade apparatuses — Adam had seen a few of the models in the catalogs, and they were extremely expensive.
"I'm the only full-fledged alchemy mage in Mordo Elemental Tower," Mage Kino said by way of introduction. "Moldo Tower lags far behind in this field, and I'm not especially strong among alchemy mages, but I imagine I'm more than enough to solve your problem."
Mage Kino moved without pause from one instrument to the next, performing operations Adam could not follow, and finally stopped him in front of a device that looked like a virtual-reality helmet. "Sit inside," he said, "and open your soul."
Adam sat as told, and once two cold tendrils touched his brain he found himself in a space like a soul sea. Unnamed energy waves kept probing at his soul, only to be blocked by his Mage Armor.
"Don't resist. The waves won't pry into your memories — this is a necessary examination."
Hearing this, Adam dissolved the Mage Armor formed from his psychokinesis and let the energy waves sweep across his soul.
His soul gave an unnatural shudder, and then something like electrical energy filled the whole space in fits and starts.
"There are serious problems with your soul. The manifestation of your soul inclination is discontinuous, which means your soul is covered in hidden injuries. If you can't solve that, you'll never advance to full-fledged Mage."
Adam tried to speak, and his voice rang out in the virtual space: "I know. The feedback from psychokinesis can slowly repair the soul. I estimate I can resolve it within fifteen years."
Mage Kino went on, "The data from this reading suggests your soul inclination has to do with the electrical element."
Adam knew they had reached the main course — and this was the part that puzzled him too.
"An apprentice with electrical elemental affinity is in an awkward position. In the Mage World, research on the electrical element lags far behind the others. The reason is that electricity is a wilder, more violent energy than the other elements; apprentices lack the ability to study and control it, and full-fledged Mages mostly have their own paths and research directions, so few of them would start studying electricity from scratch."
"Almost all electrical magic on the Mage Plane is inherited from the ancient magic system. Modern mages have, through painstaking research, discovered certain properties of electricity, and then used runes to standardize the operation of electrical magic."
Adam spoke up: "You mean they discovered positive and negative charge?"
Mage Kino said in surprise, "Exactly. I wouldn't have expected you to know that — Moldo Tower's library shouldn't have any material on the subject, should it?"
Even so, he didn't get hung up on the question — it was no secret, after all — and went on: "Electrical magic is generated by the process of discharge, and discharge is the flow of negative charge toward positive charge."
"So—" Mage Kino paused there, then asked abruptly, "have you signed a contract with the tower?"
"No, not yet."
"If you sign a contract with the tower, the next piece of information is free. If not, you'll have to pay another ether crystal to get it. If you're inclined to sign, you can submit the application directly through me."
Adam thought it over briefly, then agreed.
Signing a contract with Moldo Tower was a good choice. Starting with the headmaster, every mage acted in strict accordance with the spirit of the contract, and Adam had no objection — besides, signing would benefit him too, because he had a fair guess at what Mage Kino was about to say.
"Every advancement of a mage is a leap in his own understanding of knowledge. First you establish a theory, then through constant empirical verification you integrate that abstract theory into your soul, and your soul receives a gift from the ether. That is how the soul transforms and takes hold of the corresponding power."
Mage Kino stated the secret of mage advancement in a very flat tone, and Adam finally understood why mages devoted themselves to studying knowledge: research into knowledge earned them feedback from the most fundamental force that constitutes the world.
"In the Mage World as it stands today, nearly every path below level four has established knowledge ready to be studied. That saves mages the time of exploration; as long as you understand it, you can proceed step by step to level four. You could say low-level mages have only two bottlenecks: the first is advancing from apprentice to level-one Mage, and the second is going from level four to Transdimensional Mage."
Adam understood his point — this was the advantage of standing on giants' shoulders. On Earth, in the lower stages, you only had to keep learning to reach the level of those before you; but to go further, to achieve higher academic standing, you needed new theory and new evidence.
"But electrical magic has no established system. As far as I know, the path of electricity stops at level one. In other words, if you want to determine your research direction by following your soul's inclination, then you'll have to carve out the road ahead yourself."
Mage Kino signaled for Adam to exit the virtual space, then said, "Here's a piece of free advice: with your talent, you needn't deliberately chase your soul inclination. True, it makes communing with the ether easier, but without established theory to support you, advancing will be extremely difficult."
"I'll give it serious thought. Thank you very much for your help, Mage Kino."
Adam paid the mission fee, thanked Mage Kino, and walked out of the Elemental Experiment Building.
Mage Kino's words did not make Adam timid; they only hardened his resolve.
Having come to this world, it was only interesting to walk a different road. Following the direction of one's predecessors was easy, but it surely cost you a great deal of the scenery along the way. Besides, Adam was still young, not like James and Frank, desperate to advance for more lifespan; he had plenty of time to seek out a new path.
And most important, this world's mages had only a shallow understanding of electricity — but Earth was different. Earth's scientists were far ahead of this world in the study of electricity. Even if the existence of ether meant electricity behaved differently in the two worlds, at least he already had a direction.
The step from zero to one — Adam had already taken it.