Chapter 383: Citation Needed

I was excited for the upcoming tournament, but I wasn’t going to let it dominate my thoughts. Also, doing some quick math on how much time I had left at the School, how much time the Gladiator Gauntlet was going to take, and how long it was going to take to verify my claims had me realizing that I was in a little bit of trouble.

I had wanted to wait as late as possible to start telling people I had written the Medical Manuscripts, to enjoy a peaceful life at the School. I was happy at the impact they had, and I didn’t need the credit. The System had already rewarded me twice over for them, once in a capped [Oath], a second time in powerful classes.

But I wanted social recognition. Credit. I had earned it.

After doing the math, I teleported the book I was holding back into my storage, stopped writing my homework assignment – wartime triage was interesting, but the homework assignment wasn’t going to make or break me in the class – and strode over to my little storage chest.

I opened it up, looking at my little collection of treasures.

The cloth with the stitched prayer from my parents, the last memento I had of them. A few angel feathers. My Sentinel badge. A couple of gems.

Artemis had my armor, and it sounded like it had saved her life a few times. I just wasn’t sure if armor would do anything for me these days.

A few sets of nicer clothing. A few birthday presents from Iona – mostly romance stories she wrote about the two of us. They weren’t well written, but they were made with love, and that’s what counted. The rest were her best efforts at drawings of the two of us, and I treasured each and every one of them.

And in the corner, a few bamboo scrolls and charcoal sticks that Amber sourced for me. They weren’t exactly the same as the ones I had in Remus, but they were close enough.

I took them to my ‘office’, my old room where Iona and I had crammed both of our desks in to jam our beds together.

Technically, I could multitask, but some things just felt important enough to give my full and undivided attention to.

Like my ‘final thesis.’

I was rewriting the Medical Manuscripts, although for integrity’s sake, I was only going to present the ‘original’ version.

My major issue was going to be in validating them. I had a plan, but I had no idea if people were just going to blow me off. The truth was too wild, too fantastical, too out there. It was far, far easier to believe that I had a [Conwoman] or [Forgery] class.

I had some ideas of how to handle it, but fundamentally, I was taking a shot. I was going to flat-out hope curiosity and my reputation – as weak as it was – would be enough to get people to start looking at me and my work, instead of dismissing me outright.

That all came later. First, I needed to write a copy of the Medical Manuscripts as they existed in my time.

[Astral Archives] made it easy to remember exactly what I’d written, although I cringed slightly at a few errors I now realized had slipped through my editing, and a couple of flat-out incorrect bits of information I’d written down. I kept the language in the original Creation, although only a handful of people would be able to read it.

It took me a few hours to carefully write out the six scrolls. I didn’t sign them once I was finished, instead rolling them up and carefully storing them back into my chest.

It was time to arrange a meeting.

“Marcelle. Ratcatcher. Thank you both for agreeing to meet with me.” I politely smiled at my biomancy mentor and one of the School’s [Archivists] I was friendly with.

Ratcatcher rubbed his hands together.

“Am I finally getting to see what goodies you’ve brought from Remus? Should’ve given them to me to study years ago, who knows how much damage you’ve done to them.”

His hands slowly drifted towards the scrolls I was holding, before he clenched them and withdrew them. I shuffled them under my arms a bit more, hiding the title.

“Yup. In a sense.”

“I’m curious what you have, and why we’re meeting here.” Marcelle glanced around the fancy administration building.

I gave her my best mysterious smile, which for all I knew made me look like a loon.

“Well, you know how anything done before the School can also count as a thesis?”

Marcelle nodded, and recited.

“Knowledge is knowledge, no matter how or where the boundaries are pushed.” Her tone shifted into a more normal one. “Although that’s only for the most advanced degrees. You can still qualify perfectly well in your healer tracks on knowledge. And that doesn’t explain why we’re here.”

I shrugged.

“I needed one more person to help me out with this. Marian.”

Marian was the name of the incredibly high level devil who was the head [Administrator] of the School. Over level 3000, it was kinda overkill to ask her for help, but she was the best person for the job.

Marcelle lifted an eyebrow at the door we were waiting outside of.

“You need Marian’s help? What on Pallos could you possibly need her for? She’s not a medical person.”

“Signature validation!” I said.

“Now I’m real curious.” Ratcatcher continued trying to stare a hole into the scrolls I was carrying. For all I knew, he had a skill like mine that let him read through the paper.

“That seems like overkill to ask her when every [Clerk] and [Scribe] in the School could do the same thing.” Marcelle gently reprimanded me.

I shrugged.

“I figured with what I’m going to show you, the higher level the better. Makes it less likely that you think I’m running some sort of scam, or trying to pull a fast one.”

Ratcatcher opened his mouth to say something, but the door opened, and a smiling professor I didn’t recognize left. I walked inside, impressed again by Marian’s office.

Books. Books everywhere. The ceiling was coated in them, and dozens of open books lined a hallway behind her, quills industriously scribbling in them. I had some vague idea of how she managed it, and I was all the more impressed.

I restrained my urge to peek into her books. They weren’t mine to read, and they were mostly student and other administrative records. I wouldn’t want someone poking into Marian’s office, and reading all about me.

“Marcelle. Ratcatcher. Elaine. Excellent, you’re perfectly on time. Now, what can I do for you Elaine? You mentioned this would probably be short, and I’ve got another appointment in a few minutes.”

I gave her a curt nod.

“Real simple. I just need a signature done. I dunno if verified signatures have changed throughout the ages, but if they have, I’m hoping you can do an ancient Reman one?”

Marian gave me a doubtful look.

“To the best of my knowledge, signature skills have never changed. Why would they? It would ruin half the point of the skill. Right, place your papers here, and grab this quill.”

I did what Marian said, and I got a scandalized gasp from Marcelle as she saw the title of the scrolls.

I quickly signed my name without a flourish, and turned to Marcelle with a grin.

“I did tell you I wrote these.”

There was stunned silence from Ratcatcher and Marcelle. Marian looked with a quirked eyebrow between the three of us, then spoke.

“Well, if that’s all – ah, I just leveled, thank you Elaine.” Her words broke the silence.

“What.” Marcelle’s tone was stern, and she crossed her arms.

Ratcatcher grunted. Marian held up a single finger.

“Please wait one moment.”

Ink flowed across the top paper on a pile on her desk, then neatly folded itself into a crane. It flew circled around the room once, then flew out the window at high speed.

“Now. Explain what all the fuss is about please?” Marian demanded.

She held a finger up, forestalling any of us from answering, then pointed it at me.

“Elaine.”

“I wrote the original drafts of the Medical Manuscripts when I was living in Remus. I want to use them for my thesis presentation.”

“Within the rules. Ratcatcher?”

The goblin looked longingly at the scrolls, and his shoulders slumped.

“I got excited in the moment, but they’re not Remus-era artifacts. Just a reproduction. You’ll want an [Appraiser] to judge it.”

I frowned, but Marian shot me a glare, and I kept my mouth shut.

“Marcelle?” She pointed to the pale vampire.

“Elaine’s basically claimed to be the original author of the single most famous treatise in medicine. It’d be like someone coming along and claiming that they founded the School. It’s absurd. There’s no way to prove it, and nobody will believe it. Elaine, frankly, I’m disappointed.”

I’d expected Marcelle’s reaction, but it still stung.

“And back to Elaine.” Marian pointed at me.

“I wrote them. I deserve credit for them. And I can prove it. Look at my signature. Compare it to the degraded version on the Medical Manuscripts you have. Ratcatcher, you’ve got a skill for that, right?”

The goblin stroked his beardless chin.

“That… is a potential way to verify parts of your claim, yes. Get me a few more copies of your signature, and I’ll take a look. I was never big on the Manuscripts myself, I prefer [Runesmith’s] work, but in theory it’s incredibly easy to disprove… as you well know.”

His eyes narrowed as he looked at me, putting together a bunch of questions I’d asked him over time.

“It does explain your curious obsession over signatures and validation though.”

Marcelle sputtered in indignation.

“You’re not seriously considering her claims, are you!?”

Ratcatcher nodded, and Marian narrowed her eyes at us as she slid another paper and quill towards me. I quickly got the hint, and picked up the quill, signing my name a few more times.

“She did say she was from Remus, and-”

“I’m busy, and this discussion doesn’t seem to need my presence anymore. Out.” Marian ordered. I picked up the paper I had signed, and passed it to Ratcatcher as we dutifully exited her office.

“I know a nearby conference room.” Marcelle was still shooting me dirty looks, but we all went to the room anyway.

“Right, as I was saying, disproving her claim is trivially easy.” Ratcatcher said. “A mismatched signature, a history that doesn’t work, it’s simplicity itself to demonstrate that Elaine’s pulling the biggest prank on us. If not? Well…” Ratcatcher looked significantly at me.

“I’m happy to sign my name any time, any place, anywhere. Just let me know what I need to do!” I told the two.

Marcelle crossed her arms and glared at me.

“This is a terrible prank.”

I rolled my eyes at her.

“You should know how seriously I take this. Do you think I’d pull a joke at this stage? Come on. Here, let me tell you a story. The… slightly less edited version.”

Marcelle finally uncrossed her arms, and sat down in one of the chairs.

“Right. I’m listening.”

I leaned back in my chair, and started to tell the story of my reincarnation.

Marcelle and Ratcatcher were slightly less skeptical at the end of my story, but that just might be my own healthy dose of copium and self-delusion. They went off to verify my claims, and my school life didn’t stop just because they were looking into things.

I wasn’t going to sit around doing nothing while they investigated either.

I had let myself get way too distracted by my cool new skills, my classes – Triage and Warfare, Poisons Spores and Miasmas, Advanced Spatial Sorcery, and more – reading books, and I’d never properly sat down and tested my new [Bookwyrm’s Hoard]. I wanted to test what exactly I could stash and store.

The majority of testing woes came from acquiring niche things to experiment with. There wasn’t exactly a thriving market of books half-hollowed out for potions or daggers to slip inside!

The old round of testing had been lame. Books, and only bound books had qualified. Spellbooks with arcanite spines had been the most adventurous thing that had made it into my [Hoard], but hey. It was a level 8 skill. It had room to grow.

Plus, with my level ups, my [Hoard] was now larger, and I could…

Damnit System.

I was almost literally sleeping on a pile of books, wasn’t I?

The library was pretty good for this, and there was a collection of unusual books that I started with.

The first book wasn’t a book at all, but a scroll. I put my hand over it, and let out a little squeal of delight as it vanished with a faint pop.

“Yes!” I did a goofy little dance in the middle of the library, waving my arms one way as I jiggled my hips the other. It worked! My skill hadn’t said anything, nor had the name changed, but it was better!

Score one for testing!

Getting each of the books to test was a small adventure in and of itself, and had me madly running around the campus. Fortunately, I could split my mind into pieces, and keep doing my homework in one section as I ran around in another.

Or talked with Iona, or played with Auri, or…

Frankly, I should’ve learned about and picked up [Parallel Thoughts] when I was eight. This skill was stupidly good! How did I ever live without it!?

Then again, I’d never heard of anyone in Remus having it… not even Night had suggested it. Knowledge, education, and the strange properties of the island we were on struck again!

Gods, I loved Iona so much for getting me to take that skill. I was going to see if I could get Artemis to pick it up as well!

A hollowed book was next, and that was a dud. I believed it was because it wasn’t actually a book. It was storage masquerading as a book.

Artbooks had always counted, along with picture books. They were terrible for leveling though. Straight artwork on a wall didn’t work, but it was more than a bit of a stretch to call that a ‘book’.

A book made out of food required some of Auri’s finest work, the pastry flakes some of the most delicate things I’d ever seen. It didn’t count, in spite of being a perfectly valid story.

Magic was weird. Arcanite spine? Perfectly okay.

Pastry pages? Nope! Rejected!

Maybe the System was recognizing that it was more ‘food’ than ‘book’, although leather bound books had ended up in my [Hoard] no problem.

I wonder how much arcanite was too much for a book?

The thought had prompted a brainwave.

Fancy covers didn’t cause issues. They were just part of the book.

The currency the world used was entirely gem-based.

Could I get a book with a fancy, gem-encrusted cover, and use it to stash emergency funds?

Preliminary testing on a library book said yes! My issue was affording a book nice enough that I could stick gems into in the first place…

Novelty-sized extra large books went in without a problem, although my Spatial magic classes had warned me of a potential issue. Namely, it took up far, far more storage space than it should, roughly taking up the space that 10 books would take, instead of one.

Unfairly, going in the opposite direction didn’t help. Tiny books, perfectly scaled for ants and gnomes with powerful magnifying glasses, still counted as a full book.

And weirdly, thick, heavy encyclopedias counted as a normal sized book. It was only the novelty-sized ones, the ludicrously large ones made for giants, that caused issues.

Notebooks counted now, no matter how little had been written in it. I could even stash entirely blank ones!

Some clay slabs and stone tablets worked, and upon close examination, it seemed like what was written on them changed if it was valid or not.

That realization led me down a spiraling rabbithole of ‘what counts as a book’. Trying to get, say, a shield with a full story painted on it into my storage failed miserably, while the same words on a leaf got in.

The best I could tell was a ‘primary purpose’ test. Was the object supposed to be a book, or something else?

I wanted to test ‘origami books’. Specifically, metal bent and folded into a book, that with some clever manipulation, could be folded and refolded into a shield, weapon, or other supplies. That unfortunately fell squarely into the domain of ‘you want a what?’, and there weren’t any for sale or testing anywhere on the campus. A few [Craftsmen-Students] told me they could do it, but quoted me an insane number just to test an idea that might or might not work.

I also had book frustrations. Between [Parallel Thoughts], [Comprehensive Speed Reading], and [Vivid Dream Reading], I was churning through a lot of books every night. I tried to store an entire bookshelf all at once, only to fail miserably.

I was stuck at one book at a time.

For now.

A book made out of pure water did store itself nicely into my [Hoard], and the magic maintaining it even survived being taken out again!

“You should test how damaged a book can be before you can’t store it anymore.” Iona suggested to me as I cooed over the water book that lived.

I turned to her, disgust and shock written all over my face. I didn’t need to say anything, I just looked at her… while my right hand was busily inscribing the newest spell I’d discovered into my spellbook.

She held her hands up.

“It was just an idea!” She protested.

I considered making a joke about her and the moon goddesses, proposing some manner of sacrilege, but no.

They weren’t the same, and I knew it. It didn’t stop me from continuing my withering glare.

“Why don’t you try making something out of books, and seeing if you can store that?” Iona suggested while she pulled me onto her lap.

“Mmmm, that’s right, I require pacification. Rawr!” I mock-growled at Iona as she dug her fingers into my shoulder, immediately finding exactly the right spot.

I tested dozens, hundreds of different objects, whenever inspiration struck and when time and resources allowed.

A single piece of paper didn’t work, but a folded piece of paper with words on it did. It should’ve been an early test, but I just hadn’t thought of it.

My heart started to beat faster as I realized the implications of that.

“Mom’s prayer.” I whispered to myself, before blitzing out of the library, papers flying in my wake.

I half-sprinted, half-parkoured across the campus back to my room, Auri spinning in tiny circles as I blazed past her.

I think she put some extra spin on it just to complain.

“BrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrpTTT!!”

I ignored my pyromaniacal friend, and reminded myself to open the chest, not smash it.

The prayer my parents had carefully stitched into cloth was still there, still protected.

Still fragile.

I could barely keep armor intact in my life. I had no idea how I was going to keep the last thing they’d ever given me intact.

With trembling hands I picked it up and folded it, then tried to store it.

It vanished with a faint pop, and I sagged in relief, a small tear running down my cheek.

“Brrpt? Brpt!”

My eyes widened at Auri’s idea, the little phoenix having followed me and seen everything.

“Auri. You’re a genius.”

“Brrrpt!”

I laid down in my bed, skipping a class. Then a second class. My excitement was keeping me up, but I wanted to, needed to, sleep.

Sleep eventually took me, and I zipped through all my options in [Dream Reading] to get right to it.

I shamelessly cried as a memory-perfect image of my mom and dad appeared in front of me.