Chapter 2: Finding Dr Schugel

"Oi, this isn't a place for a piss reek pussies like you to swagger into, kid. Leave while I still feel generous."

"Tch, all bark but no bite." I whispered with a scowl on my face because of my bad mood.

Like who thought the security was that tight, not even a fly can pass through the entrances and secret paths. The latter are guarded by the gangs while the former are the Imperial soldiers.

All the funds I accumulated from my travel from the frontline to the Imperial capital had been used to pay the 'entrance fee' since I can't exactly pass through the checkpoints with weapons and shits without being a soldier or having permission to carry firearms. At least I'm inside the capital of the Empire and money can be earned with time.

"Oi, brat! Are you listening to me? Scram or I gut you clean and sell to those aristocrats with weird fetishes." The mob tried to intimidate me again but I had enough.

Channeling mana to the bayonet strapped to my waist, then creating a mana string that tied to the bayonet before throwing it with my reinforced arm to the neck of the thug.

Leaving him to die an agonizing death, I rummage through his belongings and find nothing but a few coins and a pistol with just three bullets loaded. Ignoring the bloody gurgle he is doing, I pulled the string and yanked out the blade from his neck, leaving him to bleed and asphyxiate to death.

It's been more than a week since I escaped the town and hitchhiked a train to the capital with a new ability that I manage to create along the way by acquiring [Sneak] and [Hide] literally by doing the action and leveled them from novice to adept and merge the skills to produce [Stealth].

Essentially a skill that makes a person less noticeable and hides from the perception of sense. Not fully invisible as a camera and something as mundane as a mirror can still reveal me.

Besides that skill, I also manage to acquire or create [Dagger Mastery], [Gradation Air], [Quickstep], [Throwing Mastery], [Body Strengthening], [Pick Pocket] and finally, [Firearm Mastery].

Although those skills look like a lot, the majority of them are passive and don't really have instant improvement on my overall strength. Instead, they need constant usage and improvement of proficiency to be useful. For example, [Body Strengthening] increases my STR, VIT, HP and AGI by 0.5% at level 1 and 5% at max novice rank.

To increase proficiency I need to use Reinforcement on my body. One use equals a 5% increase from level 1 to level 2 but level 2 to 3 will only give 2.5% proficiency. Who knows when it will reach level 10. On the other side of the spectrum, I have [Quickstep] that passively increases the distance I can cover each step. The proficiency increase is 5% per step from level 1 to 2 and 2.5% per step from level 2 to 3 but by now, it's my highest leveled skill at level 4 Adept rank. I can cover the distance of 5 steps in 1. Not much on face value but during battle or life threatening situations, this will be the skill that could decide my life and death.

My gain during the week aside. Now is the time to find Dr Adelheid von Schugel. He is the crux of my plan on entering the rank of academic members, hopefully as a core researcher or something. A position where I can relax in a laid-back manner to pursue what I want and need.

Oh, did I also forget to mention my appearance?

Yes it seems. So, unbeknown to me on how I never realized this until my third day into this reincarnation. My appearance is similar or nearly identical to Tanya herself. Although more masculine at least, my D is intact. Thank god.

So, I hope to use my appearance to ride on Tanya's coattail. Maybe Dr Adelheid will be more likely to take me in, thinking I'm Tanya's sibling or twin. Both of us are orphans anyway in this world. Not impossible for this to happen. She was raised from newborn to her age in orphanages, never knowing her biological parents' face . Meanwhile, I was stranded in the middle of a warzone with no past memories at all in this body.

Now, to enter the research facilities and find Dr Adelheid would be impossible since I cannot enter. But I know the intervention of Being X, allowing him to create Elenium Type 95 made him a devout believer of god. So, there is a possibility I can find him in a church. But to search each and every church in the capital would be very inefficient. Thus I am now heading to the slums or something similar

———

"Oi kid, you are wandering into the wrong place." I was stopped by a thug-like guy with a scar over his left eye as his defining feature.

"I'm here to buy information. Do Mister know where to find the broker?"

"Hahahaha! Can you even afford the price?" The man laughed after seeing my outfit. A Ragged gray cloak made from a coat I pick somewhere and hold together by a pin then the same outfit I've been wearing since the start.

"I got plenty of junk to pawn off." I said before fishing out a gold ring with name engraved on it and throwing it to the guy who immediately caught it and evaluated the piece of jewelry.

"Hmn… decent gold ring mostly commissioned from jewelsmiths by soldiers. That means you looted this from a dead soldier." The guy said while rubbing his chin and looking at the engraving very closely. "This can't be sold in shops due to the engraving and the only way to get any value out of this is only by melting it and selling it for just the material instead of the jewelry."

"You'll need twenty more of these to afford what you need, boy."

I didn't pay attention and immediately took out a whole pouch of it and threw it to the guy. The pouch contains various pieces of jewelry I looted along the way with intention to pay for the information. Not that I can use them for anything else because they contain personal markings that can be identified. The only way I could think of to dispose of that stuff is through gangs and the underground.

"Is that enough?" I asked while still hiding my appearance under the makeshift cloak.

The guy nodded with a grunt before signaling me to follow him. I followed without asking a lot of questions.

"Oh, yeah kid. I forgot to ask." He suddenly stopped and turned back to face me after we walked a few meters.

"Why do you seek Dr Adelheid von Schugel, kid?" Suddenly the air became still and felt like answering it wrong would get me killed in an instant.

I quickly show him a magic I am quite proud of. I conjured a simple throwing knife. Basically just a knife without even a proper handle, made as a disposable weapon. Then reinforced both the knife and my arm before throwing the knife, strong enough to be half planted into the stone slab brick on a building.

"Is that enough?" I said after dismissed the knife into blue magic particles for show. "It's a magic new to the world and created by myself."

The reply I got is an impressed whistle as he lead me into a door few buildings down the empty alley. Past the door as a cafe with no one but us and the staff.

"Welcome, do you want me to take order immediately?" The male waitre wearing a butler like outfit minus the usual black coat I seen in anime walked up to us and lead us to a secluded corner of the cafe, away from prying eyes.

I ordered none but the thug-turn-information-broker ordered a cup of coffee. Even asked to put on his tab which mean he is at least a regular.

"So, where can I find Dr Adelheid." I went straight to the point and demanded the information I paid for.

"Not gonna order anything, kid?" He asked with a raised brow. "They sell one of the best cup of coffee in the capital."

Instead of answering, I kept my silence while eyeing the staff or possible trap from him. I swear I had been paranoid lately because of how the manga protrayed the internal of the Empire. An iron fist grip through and through. Though I doubt he does work for the Imperial military intelligence warfare branch that has spies all over the Empire to gather intel for the military. But I couldn't help but believe he did.

It was through this method that Imperial military can find and locate every capable mage in their territory and conscripted them according to the law passed down that state all mage that reached certain magic capacity will be recruited regardless of age. That's how Tanya was able to join the military in the first place despite her age.

"Just give me what I want and we can end all these farce." I said with impatience and growl of annoyance seeping into my voice that made him sigh deeply like a worried parent would when their child enter their rebellious phase.

"Calm down, kid. Not that I didn't want to provide you the information you paid for. But can't we just sit down and have a talk. You know, connection is important and you never know when you need it. Especially you look like one of those lone-wolf type of people." He said while adding a cube of sugar into the coffee that just arrived before continuing. "Especially when you want to enter the military. Even if just the R&D branch."

Realising the truth in his words, I nodded and calm down a little. Probably after have to fending myself for whole week along the way to capital had made me unnecessary tense and alert which made me interpret everything negatively. I need to find a way to get the prized self-hypnosis and other mental techniques all magus in Fate world use. Though it's easier to say than done since I have no fucking clue how to induce the creation of the skills unlike physical one where I usually only need to mimic action to make the system register the them as skill. For example, Dagger Mastery need me to wield a dagger-like weapon or Pickpocket need to to pickpocket someone.

Following his advice, I relax a bit and rested my back on the chair and ordered a cup of warm chocolate. I swear, this body is affected my taste because I would normally go for iced black coffee or expresso.

"So, what you want to talk about?" I ask while talking to him who is eyeing with a smirk.

"How about an introduction?" He proposed before starting with himself.

"My name is Viktor or other usual call me Scarface. How about you?"

"Ray."

"How about your age?"

"9? Or 10 maybe." I replied but corrected after seeing this body's age on the status screen.

"Quite young." He said while nodding. "How about your magic spell? Do you really create those on your own?"

I nodded nonchalantly which made him lean closer to the table and look at me with interest.

"Really? Kid, you do know how hard it is to create a spell right? Even the entire academy and R&D branch working together for almost a decade and they barely create any new spell other than improving the older spells."

I nodded again, to affirm my words. Although I didn't create the actual my self. I still the one creating them first in this world and registered them as ability under my [Gamer] system. What I stole is the idea how the spell work and the inner mechanic like Reinforcement is to strenghten the essence of an object by filling the 'gap' with mana to enhance it. Like food will become more nutritious or tasty. Knife become sharper or sturdier. Then I manipulate the mana to do similar act in this world which allow the system to register them as ability I created.

Though, it seems I have to lie a bit.

"My family are mages for few generations. A fallen noble family that declined immensely because technology and breakthrough on magic made the old ways is very inefficiency and almost useless especially after creation of Operation Orb. With how the olds desperately cling strongly with their old ways, they failed to adapt and got left behind to decline. However, I adapted and use the generation of research in magic craft or magecraft and improve them to become usable as you can see.

I use [Gradation Air] to conjure a spoon and stir my drink that arrived a while ago. Then I took out a coin and duplicate it with similar method.

"Neat magic to have isn't it?" I ask as the duplicated coin vanish into mana particles because I couldn't really made it last as I created just the outer layer and left the inside hollow. To create an object that last long, I need to use Structural Analysis to recreate a 1 to 1 copy of the object. Both the inside and outside.

"Very useful one to have indeed." Immediately Viktor's eyes light up and sparkled but also become depressed and sighed immediately after. "Sadly I'm not a mage to use spell or I will be making banks with that magic."

We talked for another 20 minutes before we parted ways. Both of us and mostly Viktor have been very careful to avoid asking for more personal information other than my age, hobby or dream. Never was a talkative person but talking with him is very enjoyable.

After that, I left to do other tasks while finding Dr Adelheid has been postponed for now until Sunday, when he will visit the cathedral near the R&D facilities. For now, I went to acquire material needed to fund my basic research on magecraft to deepen my knowledge with those available to me right now. Especially on my quest to obtain Alteration. No way in hell I'm going to not pursue the magecraft of Emiya, the Projection magecraft.

Although I didn't have Unlimited Blade Work to make use of it's true potential like Emiya himself, there are still many places I can apply the magecraft to. This world after all isn't subjected to Gaia's suppression and the age of god is still going strong. Imagine being able to create any weapon limited only by my imagination.

Just an imitation of Unlimited Blade Work should be on par with the real one especially without interference from Gaia in this world.

But now I should get some real hard cash first and level up my [Pickpocket] skill.

I walk into the crowded street where the market is located and start making use of the skill and earn a decent amount of money. After pickpocketing a pouch full of banknotes and coins. I went and bought various materials that I don't know their names were but look useful for testing my magecraft on. Mainly metals and chemical reagents because I have zero clue what to prepare but when talking about magic experiments, the image that comes to mind is Alchemy.

Not the fully fantasy Alchemy that can make pills that turn humans into gods from crap. But Alchemy that are like science chemistry but with magic.

Next would be a place to stay. Instead of finding a place to rent for the night, I went to the slum and find an abandoned home or building. Then I create a basic Bounded Field that makes ordinary people avoid the place.

Finally, having a slightly secured place to rest, I relax myself and clean a corner of the abandoned house using magic , I didn't feel tired at all since I keep the [Reinforcement] on my body active all the time and my stamina regenerates faster than normal. Without anything else to do, I fish out a steel bar, 4 inches long and 1 inches thick. I applied [Structural Analysis] to obtain information of its internal before using [Reinforcement] to fill the gap with mana as usual but after fully filling the gap, I tried molding the internal structure with the filled mana to a longer and thinner stick.

Quite some time passed but I barely changed it even by a little because it takes a lot of focus to keep the mana from breaking the steel bar. But a few more minutes later, my mental fatigue caught up and I lost my control over the mana which caused the steel bar to immediately explode in my hand. Thankfully there isn't any shrapnel.

Not letting failure become my obstacle, I continue my experiment and note down my mistakes before continuing again and again until I feel tired and fall asleep. By the end, I managed to figure out my problem and faced yet another bigger problem or perhaps an advantage.

The system allows me to level up abilities that I acquired but the abilities are rigidly defined by the level. For example, if the Novice rank [Mana Manipulation] allows me to manipulate 1 to 100 mana. Then that is the limit. Without ranking up to Adept, the maximum limit of mana I can manipulate will never exceed 100 mana.

Thus, the only way I can obtain [Alteration] is only by ranking up [Structural Analysis] and [Reinforcement] to the Adept or higher and performing the similar experiment successfully to obtain [Alteration]. Though that has to wait until tomorrow.

I already spent all my energy conducting the experiment and now feel very exhausted.

—————

Status

[Name: Rayark

Age: 9

Level: 7 (14%)

Class: Magus

Title: Novice Magus

HP: 270 (1 VIT= 10HP, Base 200)

HP Regen: 7HP/Min (1 VIT= 1HP/M)

MP: 210 (1 WIS= 5MP, Base 150)

MP Regen: 12MP/Min (1 Wis 1MP/M)

———

STR: 10(*+5)

VIT: 10(*+3)

AGI: 3

DEX: 4

INT: 10+20% = 12

WIS: 12+20% = 14.5(*+2)

LUK: 5

———

Stat Point: 20

Skill:

Fiction Adaptation LV -

Mana Manipulation LV 2/10 (Adept)

Magic Circuit LV 7/10 (Novice)

Structural Analysis Lv 3/10 (Adept)

Reinforcement Lv 8/10 (Novice)

Dagger Mastery Lv 7/10 (Novice)

Gradation Air Lv 2/10(Novice)

Quickstep Lv 4/10 (Adept)

Throwing Mastery Lv 8/10 (Novice)

Body Strengthening Lv 2/10 (Novice)

Pickpocket Lv 5/10 (Novice)

Firearm Mastery Lv 4/10 (Novice)