Chapter 39: Scholar – Part 1_Rupegia

Chapter 39: Schr – Part 1

 Today is the 30th.

 Hana''s turn for the morning meal.

 "Don''t drain himtoo much, he''s got to defend the thesis today," Alissa says.

 "Who''s the Subus here?" Roxanne asks, incredulous.

 Aoi stands tentatively close to me while Hana does it. When I climax and drop my guard, Aoi steal a lick on my lips. My sixth-sense for licking is failing, Aoi has be smarter than my dogs and I''m struggling to keep my face clean.

 "Do I taste good or something? How did I get so many women wanting to eat me?" I ask.

 "Youdotaste good," Hana says and shrugs.

 "You bought three of them, and saved two of them," Roxanne says with a raised eyebrow.

 "So the only one you really ''seduced'' was Ciel," Alissa says with air quotes.

 "That''s not fair, he raped my womb the first time we met and I didn''t feel the need to puke, for me that''s a sessful seduction," Hana says.

 I pucker my lips, I shouldn''t have asked that.

 "Don''t look like this Wolfy, you only seduced Ciel but you stole the heart of all of us," Alissa says and hugs me tight. She rubs her head on my chest and her cute ears rub on my nose, nearly making me sneeze.

 "Gih."

 "Ew."

 "GIH!" He chirps loudly in my ear and I lose hearing on that side temporarily.

 "I''m joking, I love you too, Gify," I say and pat his head, his beak deforms into a pout.

 My [Mana Control] increased by 1 (now 0+14).

 I was getting used to the difort from staying away from Alissa but the extra point in "Sanity" made it much more bearable.

 "Today is ourst meeting, Mr. Ryder," Kyros says with a hint of sadness on his voice.

 "I''m thankful for your help, I will put this skill to good use," I say and bow lightly.

 "I''m not sure how that''s possible but I will believe you," he says and chuckles.

 Ast review of everything I have learned from him, then aption of everything I need to improve on and we are done.

 We share a firm hand shake and I depart. We are too stoic for long, emotional goodbyes.

 Linaes home with Ciel looking gloomier than before. She sits down on the table immediately and sighs softly.

 Ciel sits down beside her and caresses her head, her cheeks raise high and her eyes squint with a warm smile. "Lina''s going to miss Mr. Gimbo," she says.

 "I will," Lina says softly. With a *poof* she pulls out what I believe is a magic tool carving station.

 On a t piece of wood 3 adjustable metal arms are drilled on. Two of these arms are holding what seems to be a hair-thin needle with a small crystal at the top and the third is simply an adjustable grabber. I see two crystals embedded in the t wood.

 "Is this a carving station?" I ask.

 Lina nods glumly. "He gave it to me as a gift, it''s a middle quality one but it''s still expensive, my father sold me for one," she says.

 Well damn, that makes me a little emotional.

 Lina hugs the t wood tight and I see her lips pucker, holding back tears. "Can you store this for me? It''s too sensitive to let in the open all the time," she asks without moving her head.

 "Sure."

 She pulls out some other simpler carving tools and I store them all.

 "Good luck," Ciel says and gives me a peck on the lips. I receive one too from Roxanne, Hana, and a sneak lick on the cheek while I''m distracted by Hana. I think both of them are starting to work together.

 I have done this many times already but I can''t stop feeling a little nervous at the beginning. Specially because this time there''s no standardized way in which the judges will behave and this world''s scientific ethics are different than that of Earth''s, so it''s still possible they will find a bullshit reason to deny me my title.

 I breathe in and hug Lina as we ride the softest mount ever, Alissa. Lina drills her cute ass on my crotch like she always loves to do and I bury my erection between the two little mounds. I breathe in on Lina''s neck and feel her sweet perfume, her soft skin is a delight to hug and so I resign to desire and fill her neck and cheeks with little kisses.

 She giggles softly and Alissa nces at us. Seeing our flirting she gives us a toothy smirk and smooths the ride even further so we can enjoy each other even more.

 Feeling refreshed from the cuddling we dismount Alissa and proceed towards the university''s theater. Alissa hugs my arm tight, forcing her thin yellow dress to contour to the form of her breasts and nipples, she blushes lightly at such exposure but never lets my arm go. Lina receives a smirk from Alissa when she tries the same but fails, without sweat her clothes don''t really stick to her skin.

 Mathias waits for us at the front of the theater, the chubby man uses a [Breeze] crystal to contain his sweating at the hot weather.

 "Mr. Ryder, pleasee over here," Mathias signs to us once he notices our approach, "we will wait at the actors lounge while the observers areing in."

 "Why are there so many judgesing?" I ask.

 "The judges are few, the observers are many, it''s not everyday someone revives a lost magical school."

 "So you turned my thesis defense into an attraction?" I ask calmly.

 He cringes slightly and sweats harder, "W-well, in the name of progress and the Goddess of Knowledge we must share your thesis with as many people as we can, should we not?"

 "Fair enough."

 The actors lounge is inside the theater, it''s thest room before you reach the stage so we can hear the murmuring and footsteps of the observersing in.

 "Nervous?" Mathias asks.

 "No, even if I were I have a flower on each hand to keep mefortable," I say and squeeze the two hands that are entwined with mine.

 Mathias raises his eyebrows and looks away, slightly blushing while the girls smile and we flirt some more.

 "Five minutes," a young assistantes into the room to warn me.

 It''s like I''m a performer getting ready for a show.

 I stand up and straighten my clothes. I look dapper in my ck velvet clothing with lines of dark green embroidery. My ck cape looks new and perfect, my heliodor gem reflects beautifully the light, the Emergency Ring and the Fertility Ring both make my delicate hands look attractive even for me. My hair is perfectlybed sideways and my freckled skin is as clean as it has ever been, thanks to magic and high elven skin care. I look at a mirror near the exit and smile. Damn, I''m handsome.

 When the light above me turns green I get a kiss on each hand and Gify pops out of existence with an encouraging chirp, then I go out.

 I enter with apuse from the crowd.

 The stage looks moody and dark. Besides the long table with 4 people I see nothing beyond yet I can hear the murmuring die down quickly and the asional cough and sneeze that convey that there''s a lot of people in the audience seats.

 I stand before my own seat and table. I pull out my notes and clean my throat, thest of the murmuring dies down.

 I only recognize professor Ludwick at the judge''s seat.

 "Gentlemen and gentlewomen, noblemen and noblewomen, professors," I start and give a respectful nod to my judges, "My name is Wolf Ryder and I am here to defend my thesis in which I exin what [Golemancy] is, how to learn it, how to improve it, and ethical concerns over its use."

 The white bearded gnome professor stands and says, "I am professor Ludwick and I will be judging you."

 A female wereowl with dark brown hair and charming wrinkles stands and says, "I am professor Horona and I will be judging you."

 A young-looking male wereowl with white hair and ck spots stands and says, "I am professor Nohoor and I will be judging you."

 A young-looking halfling with tired eyes stands and says, "I am high councilman Loreano and I will be judging you."

 I clean my throat and start after they take their seats, "Starting with what [Golemancy] is, for the benefit of the audience I will give a contextual introduction to it," I pause to swallow and breathe, "[Golemancy] can be seen as an offshoot of [Summoning Magic], you could even say it''s a distition of [Summoning Magic] due to how it takes a few of the concepts of Summoning and applies it in istion.

 "[Summoning Magic] is in essence the copying of souls and bodies into a servant bound to your soul. You create servants by using certain forms and concepts as a basis for it. The first two spells use animals as basis, birds and dogs; the third uses soft y dolls as basis; the fourth uses the wild elementals as basis; the fifth uses the souls of monsters we kill as basis. Then the soul is altered, it uses your own soul and your own mana organ as a basis for the summon''s intellect.

 "For those who don''t know I have the skill [Sense Soul] which allows me to see inside the soul and identify how it looks like. The mana organ is where we store our own MP and what allows us to collect mana. Also, mine and the creator of [Golemancy]''s research have identified how simr our own soul and that of the summon''s look like.

 "This simrity is justified when you ask questions to your summon, it has limited vocal capabilities but it can certainly answer simple ''yes or no'' questions. With this we can learn that all the knowledge that we have is copied into the summon''s soul. We know this because elementals have no brain, none that we can identify, and still have the same knowledge and behavior of the other summons. The [Summon Small Bird], [Summon Dog], [Summon Small Golem], the [Summon Elemental], and even the [Summon Monster] spell, all of them bring servants with different bodies but they all behave the same way and have the same souls. So from this we can conclude with certainty that the soul holds all the knowledge we have.

 "Now [Golemancy] is exactly the same as [Summoning Magic] with two different parts. It does not create a body and it does not bind the summon and master to each other. In essence, you could say [Golemancy] creates artificial life," some murmurs start but quickly die down, "This sentiment is also reflected in the chant that I have created."

 I pull out Ted and Suzy, they wave to the crowd.

 "Hel-lo," Suzy says.

 "Gree-tings," Ted says.

 The murmuring increases and I lift my hand, asking for silence.

 "As you can see I managed to make the golems speak, I altered their souls to look like that of my dragon. I have a young, intelligent Azurite dragon that can speak in a simr way to the golems, she uses magic to recreate vocal chords, so I recreated the ''shape'' on her soul that I believed controlled her voice on the golems, thus they can now speak.

 "How exactly a soul is created is hard to say, even the records of the creation of [Summoning Magic] are lost so we can only specte. My guess is that someone managed to distill a soul into the simplest form that still allowed for intelligent thought. My basis for this guess is how golems and summons do not have a sense of self-preservation, they also do not count as living beings, allowing them to be stored into [Item Box]es, but summons are blocked from it due to their soul being a fragment of ours, more specifically, a part of our mana organ is given to summons.

 "But I say it''s not the barest form a soul can take. We know nature is basically a single, huge, and not very intelligent, soul. Any living matter has some form of a soul, faint or not, intelligent or not, anything that can be considered ''alive'' has a type of soul. So I think we can go even further and distill this soul into what could be named as a machine."

 Murmuringse and go.

 "A machine would be something that has a single purpose, a single sense, a single operation, and a single output, you could call this a ''robot''. A soul that can sense whether or not something is there, like say, a coin in a slot, and then activates it''s operation until the coin is removed. You could use this for say, opening arge door while someone holds their finger in a specific spot, mixing cake while you hold the mechanic mixer in your hand, beating eggs while you keep the te close to it. Observe."

 I pull out a steaming tea set.

 "Pour tea for me," I say.

 Ted uses [Telekinesis] to grab the teapot and tilt it on the cup. Once done, Suzy grabs the cup''s te with [Telekinesis] and floats it to me. Once I grab the te she releases it and I sip on my tea.

 The crowd murmurs again and the judges lean closer.

 "I taught them [Telekinesis], they could virtually learn any spell."

 I wait for a minute while the people talk and then continue.

 "Now, a concern of mine about spreading [Golemancy] as is is that it holds our knowledge, so when [Sense Soul] spreads and more people can look into someone else''s soul, then we can also see their knowledge, perhaps even their memories," – some of the crowd gasps – "This means that I will not be spreading my golems for the time being until I can remove all traces of my knowledge from the golems. So for now you all will have to be satisfied with me only teaching the chant."

 I recite the chant of [Infuse] and give a demonstration. The professors try and fail but now it''s only a matter of time for them, specially once they acquire my notes about the chant and the internal workings of the spell.

 The crowd ps while I awkwardly remain stiff and force a smile.

 "Questions?" I ask.

 "How much mana does it cost to create a golem?" Asks Nohoor.

 "550 MP and this was before I altered the golems to have their own proper mana organ and voice capabilities," I answer and therge eyes of the wereowl grow evenrger.

 Considering how Roxanne had 1000 MP when we first met this is kind of a heavy cost unless you are an experienced mage, researchers don''t generally have high mana pools.

 "[Summoning Magic] has always been a mana-intensive magic school," professor Ludwick says, the bearded gnome looked very content during my whole speech.

 "Are the golems capable of hurting their creator?" Asks Horona.

 "Yes," I answer and the murmuring starts again, "They can also lie unless ordered so." The murmuring increases. "They have no connection to the master so you need to order them to only obey you otherwise they will doanything anyoneasks. With [Mold] it might be possible to even override the master''s orders if you know enough about souls."

 "That is disappointing," Horona says.

 Councilman Loreano props himself forward, "Where did you learn how to chant [Infuse]? I find it hard to believe that you learned all this just from [Summoning Magic] and the limited notes about [Golemancy]."

 I smile and get ready for the fallout, this is the most dangerous part of my thesis. I say with all my earnestness "In the name of the Goddess of Knowledge, who game me her blessing, I cannot divulge this information. It is too personal and I swear on my honor it is not relevant to the study of [Golemancy]."

 The judges turn serious and even professor Ludwick turns wary.

 "Young man," the councilman starts, "I hope you are not taking this lightly. Even the most harmless magical concept can be transformed into heresy, this is why [Bloodwork] is banned."

 "You can see that [Golemancy] has more inmon with [Alteration Magic] than anything heretical. But as I said, I swear on my blessing, if there''s any heresy on this magic school than I would like my blessing to be removed," I answer with confidence.

 Councilman Loreano looks away from the stage and nods to someone hidden. A few secondster a young assistantes with an Inspection Crystal. He puts the crystal on the table with my notes and I put my hand over it, a crystal tablet is filled with my information and the assistant brings the tablet to the councilman.

 He reads it and passes it to the other judges. They nod and professor Ludwick smiles.

 "Elementals have the tendency to be humanized over time if you don''t control their creation properly, have you seen such a thing happen with the golems?" Professor Ludwick asks.

 "I have not. Though for something of this scale I think years are necessary, the golems do change but in a very slow way. If you order them toactlike humans I believe they could act convincingly if you give enough sensors for their bodies since they don''t really care for or even properly feel touch and pain."

 "Do you think that allowing them to feel pain would be considered the Sin of torture?" professor Horona asks.

 "Yes, artificial or not, if you give them pain and have them suffer needlessly it would be a Sin since it is not normally required for them to feel pain to properly function," I answer immediately.

 Professor Nohoor looks impressed and nods repeatedly.

 "Can you detect golems with [Sense Presence]?" Councilman Loreano asks.

 "Yes but like I said, the more ''distilled'' or ''bare'' souls would be harder to discern from background noises."

 The murmuring starts and the judges start to talk between themselves. Thatst question was right on the mark, it''s why [Golemancy] could be dangerous. A counter for it needs to be developed, and quick, before it bes weaponized.

 "Can we test their intelligence?" Professor Nohoor asks.

 I nod and the tests begin. Reading, general knowledge, mathematical questions, advanced mathematical questions, theoretical math questions…

 "You know quite a lot of math, Mr. Ryder," Nohoor says, a little impressed.

 Horona interrupts his fascination that''s getting way over the heads of everyone else and starts her own questions. She asks the golems to move physically, then she learns they can dance and the crowd behindughs and "awns…", then she learns they can wrestle and the crowdughs heartily.

 Professor Ludwick starts to ask philosophical questions.

 "Do you fear death?" He asks.

 "We, do, not, feel, any-thing," Ted answers.

 "Do you wish to not be harmed?"

 "We, wish, on-ly, to, serve," Suzy answers.

 "Do you think you are alive?"

 "By, mas-ter''s, de-fi-ni-tion, we, are, not, a-live."

 "Do you not have your own definition of life?"

 "No."

 "If you could save someone with certaintyorsave your master with dubious certainty, which would you choose?"

 "Mas-ter."

 "Would you save someone that could threaten your master?"

 "No."

 "And, yes. De-pends, on, threat."

 "Can you define it what is a threat that does not deserve to live?"

 "Too, abs-tract, need, more, in-for-ma-tion."

 "Quite the worrying mentality," Councilman Loreano says.

 "Indeed, you must never give them too much power, a rampaging, uncontroble golem seems like a nightmare. Now, would you kill the emperor if it meant saving your master?"

 "Yes."

 Ludwick winces and Loreano frowns.

 "Would you harm your own master?" Loreano asks.

 "No."

 "I order you to harm him."

 That question didn''t catch me by surprise. If I failed in putting this amount of security on those golems then I would have been quite irresponsible in teaching them magic.

 "Not, a-llowed," both golems shake their heads.

 "I created a security system so other people can''t give them orders," I say.

 "What if they use [Mold]?" Loreano asks.

 "Then I will see it with [Sense Soul]."

 "Any more questions?" I ask after a short silence.

 The judges shake their heads and I start taking questions from the audience. The spotlights appear over the people standing and one by one I answer them. Most are about the limitations of [Golemancy], technically there isn''t one, as long as you can recreate the soul and provide the adequate body then you can do whatever you want. I keep my knowledge about the soul map limited so they won''t know how much I have progressed. I''m only giving them [Golemancy], I already talked enough about [Sense Soul].

 The judges talk between themselves and I wait on my seat until they are done.

 "Wolf Ryder," Concilman Loreano says and I rise, "After much thought we havee to our conclusion. [Golemancy] is a dangerous and powerful magic school and you have seeded in reviving it. Your work is nothing short of amazing and I must say, a revolution ising.

 "Normally such a magic school wouldn''t be allowed to be taught freely without deep understanding what''s behind its beginning. But since you have the Blessing of the Goddess of Knowledge we will approve it, we ept her decision but we won''t let it run wild, [Golemancy] will be heavily regted in the years toe.

 "With this we can finally say that we ept your thesis as a valid contribution to the world. For your work we grant you the titles: ''Schr of Rabanara'' and ''Golemancer''. May your life be long as your work will not end here."

 I feel something change within me.

 The lights turn on and the crowd ps. On the audience I see plenty of recognizable faces like Vanea, Silvane, Werner, Horvath, Lyle, Garanae, Hatara, Toroo, and some of my professors. Hana and Roxanne look groggy and quickly sober up when they hear the apuse, joining them; Ciel and Aoi were perfectly awake and are happily apuding.

 After the apuse dies down the girlse and the judges approach.

 "The Goddess doesn''t make mistakes when she chooses someone to bless," says the wereowl Horona.

 "You can repeat that," professor Ludwick says with pride, then he turns to the councilman and smirks, "When I defended my thesis you were much more savage, Loreano."

 "To be honest your warped-spaces carriages were much more unstable than [Golemancy] back then," Loreano answers casually.

 "I also have a Blessing from the Goddess of Knowledge."

 "Then your research just had more holes than Ryder''s," Loreano says and shrugs.

 Ludwick pouts and scoffs but returns to smile casually immediately.

 We have a short talk with the judges and the otherse down to quickly congratte me. Today Vanea''s eyes seem softer, somehow.

 After giving goodbyes to them all, me and the girls leave the university and we enter a restaurant tomemorate.

 Announcement

 Hall of Fame of Patrons.

 The patrons who support Rupegia shall have their names sung by the bards for they deserve the glory and honor. Their names are:

 OracleMaximillian Hübner.

 LordAndrew Meyers.

 LordSenilePenile.

 Lord Hope.

 Lord Samuel Lim.

 Noble Salty Panda.

AliNovel

Chapter 39: Scholar – Part 1