A Scholarly Week (9)

Having finished his meal in top speed, so much so that Minerva did not have the time to finish her own studies and reach the café, Cyrus left on his own with a curt and sudden goodbye to Imran. He then navigated his way to the Contracts and Clauses Department run by Judicar Iuris.

Reaching his destination swiftly, he entered the unassuming office and instead of heading into the Judicar's offices he took a hard right and entered a much smaller room that only had two words tacked onto the door:

"Fidem Acquisitions"

Entering the room, all Cyrus saw were a few chairs separated by wooden dividers, a crystal ball on a table in front of each chair, and a small slot for perhaps dropping papers into.

Following the order of the next sign that read,

"Take a seat and wait"

Cyrus did just that.

"Not exactly what I expected. I had in my mind something similar to the coin exchanges that you can find in the mercantile districts, more lavish and busy rather than this extremely barebones room that looks like it costs about the same as an expensive meal or two. I suppose when magic is involved assumptions should be thrown out the window, but for a population of 300 I would have expected there to be at least one other person here" thought Cyrus as he waited in the rickety chair.

After a few minutes had passed, a change in the essence around was detected but was done so quickly that by the time it was noticed it was too late to react.

"What on…a barrier? If that had been an attack I would be dead…" thought Cyrus as he inspected the barrier, throwing the cork of a long emptied jug of wine towards the back of the room behind him.

"It went through easily, but there was no sound. The barrier only exists to block out the sound of the transaction for the sake of privacy I assume. If this was used on a battlefield the strategic value of such a fast and efficient spell would be immense. I wonder how large this barrier of silence can get as well as if it can move?"

Not caring about the shock, awe and curiosity of Cyrus, the crystal ball began to emanate a dim glow and a vast sense erupted forth from it that actually entangled with Cyrus' own like two pieces of yarn. Except while his own sense was one such piece of yarn, the other might as well been a massive link of chains.

"Greetings…Quintus. Your total Fidem balance is 4760. It should be noted that this number also includes Fidem from two beneficiaries. What would you like to do? Refer to the booklet provided by the Academy if you wish to make a purchase. Write down any instruction and pass it through the slot below" said a voice without any unique tone or even hint of life within Cyrus' mind…yet not within his mind but actually instead inside his sense which made it appear as if it was within his mind itself.

"This, this is possible? Its communicating through my magical sense, which is essentially like an invisible sense organ that I can move around just as easily as I can my arms or legs…so would this type of communication be considered the same as writing words on ones palm?" gawked Cyrus.

Shaking off his momentary confusion and sudden desire to know more about such a method of communication, Cyrus instead pulled the aforementioned booklet and looked for what he required.

"The Fidem that I now own is from the 1 directive awarded by the academy for free, 10 gotten from my first conflict with the Mors department students, 10 from my cooperation with Caliban, 12 from Minerva, 8 from Imran, 6 from my fights while heading towards the Fullones for the first time, and then twenty from the Labyrinth descent. There is still 40 extra though but that is most likely also from the Labyrinth descent just that it was the twenty awarded to Imran and Minerva. The charges from all the meals that we have purchased with Fidem so far are also not showing up, most likely it is only charged at the end of a certain time period such as weekly or monthly. Thus, I should only be spending my own which amounts to 2720 while also making sure to leave 168 spare for the monthly meal cost for us three"

Looking through the booklet, he memorized each item he wished to purchase and wrote them down one by one.

"First I need experimental subjects, hmm quite the variety that they have. A variety of non-mutated animals, varying levels of mutated ones, as well as a variety of humans with diverse backgrounds and origins. Even no replenishing and replenishing options as well, did they hire a merchant to plan these out? Hah, either way 6 replenishing male humans for 60 Fidem each with a 10 Fidem replenishment cost should do just fine. For lab assistants….wow, the cheapest are normal humans and the most expensive are from the Tower and Legionaries. Since it is possible my research would be leaked if I use the tower, and even though the risk is still there with the Legionaries my token will at the very least give us good working relations, I will have to forgo the Tower and go with Legionnaires. As well as the fact that if they source them from Warrior Temple that I trained in, I may even know them"

"100 Fidem for a monthly contract per Legionnaire or 50 a month for a pre-initiated Legionnaire. Since I do not think I should try to cut costs when my life could be at stake I will hire two fully fledged Legionnaires." thought Cyrus as he gleefully looked through the list, a happy shopper indeed.

"Restraining equipment and surgical tools for 20 each…pocket time keeping devices for 10 each, will testing and measuring for 100, and bottling/containment equipment for 100. All together that is… 810 total with a replenishment cost of 153 replenishment cost and 200 monthly cost. Quite expensive considering that if I were to use all my resources I could be looking at 1k a month with just this. All of this only covers one half of my domain experimentation as well…looks like I need to take vying for more Fidem seriously whenever the chance comes up"

Sighing at the ingenuity of Glacies, not even allowing the fifth ranked student the luxury of quietly researching their days away, Cyrus finished writing down all of his purchases and dropped them into the slot.

A few moments later the voice started once more,

"All purchases have been confirmed. All the personnel, equipment, and materials will be arranged for and delivered within twenty-four hours. In the event of a delay a discount will be applied based on how long the delay is, transaction over"

With those last words the barrier that was erected around Cyrus dissipated and the glow of the crystal ball ceased. Perhaps most noticeably, was the force that was wrapped around his sense had left as well taking along with it a massive pressure that Cyrus did not even realize he was under.

"What a harrowing experience, but it has shown me yet another method of utilizing sense that I was not aware of before. It seemed to come from this crystal ball, but how could an inanimate object have magical sense or even talk? The only guess I have is what Caligo mentioned about relay���s, perhaps this is a method of extending the reach of a mage's abilities with sense included."

With half of his mind trying to puzzle out what exactly he had just experienced, Cyrus stood up and left the room.

"The unfamiliar and intense experience ordeal that must be gone through in order to simply spend some Fidem, perhaps this is part of the reason why it was so empty" mused Cyrus as he walked, his feed automatically taking him back to his room for a moment before he stopped himself.

"Woops, I still have one more lesson today. A lesson in Vita under professor Cilla, whom I am somewhat familiar with. While Vita does not have the obvious destructive capabilities of the Mors domain, it is still equally important for me as it directly relates to my future research on the undead as well as it has a wide array of supporting abilities that's utility should speak for itself. While I may not be able to divide an equal amount of time to my domains, I should not neglect one for the other as both bring great benefits. It just means that I have to not only work harder, but also work more efficiently so that I can balance the two as well as I can."

Thus Cyrus turned around and headed towards the Vita department as fast as he could, but being forced to slow down as the halls leading to this department were far more crowded compared to the rather empty Mors department.