Jack blinked up at the girl, looked around for a few seconds, looked back at the tree, and even under where he sat, before saying "I don't see your name on it." with an innocent face.
The girl furrowed her brows a little as she said "Everyone knows that I read under this tree."
Jack gave a slight shrug and retorted "I guess not." With that, he tuned the girl's protests out and looked back down to his scroll.
A dozen seconds later he felt the tree he leaned on give out a slight quiver. He looked over his shoulder and saw the girl's back leaning on the other side of the tree. With a slight shrug, he went back to his studies and tried to ignore the world.
'I never imagined that sigils would respect some of the rules of math.' Jack thought as he looked at some sample sigil combinations 'These connecting and severing ones turn up all over the place. I wonder if the more advanced ones work like…'
"Would you stop that!?" a voice from Jack's back broke his line of thought and made him sit up in surprise. He looked down to his left leg and saw a jagged black line going across his whole sheet of paper.
He snapped his head back and asked in a frustrated voice "What's your problem, lady?"
Angry eyes met Jack's own as the lady in question answered with "Your atonal humming is my problem. Ever since I sat down you kept humming that dreadful tune. I demand that you stop it at once."
Jack froze for a second as he thought back, and realized that he did hum a song from his past life without noticing while taking his notes.
After an awkward moment of realization, he calmed his emotions down and said "Sorry about that, I didn't realize. I'll stop doing it." The girl looked mollified by the apology so he turned back to his scrolls.
When he unfurled a new scroll his eyes focused on a familiar symbol near the top 'This compression sigil looks a lot like the one from the Air Blast spell. Can I focus on that to make the area of effect more concentrated, or does it just mean that it compresses the air better so the spell has more power? Does the intention of the user make the difference? I need to find more of the sigils from the spell so I can compare and contrast the effects. Maybe if I…'
"Laaaa la la, laa la la laaa…" a sweet singing voice interrupted Jack's ruminations on sigils. He turned around and looked at the girl's back. After a second he cleared his throat and asked "What do you think you're doing?"
The singing abruptly stopped as the girl turned to look at Jack with a slight blush on her pale cheeks and said "I just attempted to improve your sloppy composition. It sounds much better now."
Jack furrowed his brows and countered "That's not how the song sounds. The correct melody goes like this: Hmm hm hm, hmm hm hm hmm…"
The young lady's mouth turned down in displeasure as she said "It cannot have that tempo. The rhythm feels wrong. Who composed it?"
In his zeal to defend one of his favorite songs Jack almost blurted out the truth, but in the end he held himself back and told a half-lie "My mother told me that a Queen from a far land made it popular, she used to sing it to me when she put me down to sleep."
The girl's eyes lit up and transformed her scowling face into a gorgeous one as she asked "Really? Do you know the name of this Queen or her song? What about the words? My mother is a well-known zither artist, maybe she heard of her."
Jack shook his head slowly and answered "I doubt that she would know her, this song comes from a faraway land in the direction of the setting Sun. To understand its name or words you would have to know their language."
The girl's face lost a lot of her fervor as she looked with just a glimmer of hope at Jack and asked "Do you know this language?"
With an awkward feeling in his chest, Jack answered "I know a little."
The glimmer of hope spread across the girl's eyes as she said "Can you tell me the name of the song? I will ask my mother if she knows it. Only then can we decide whose melody stayed true to the original."
'Only if she comes from Earth.' Jack thought with an inner chuckle, but he said "In this language, it would translate to something like 'Young Masters of the Cosmos'."
The young lady closed her eyes and repeated the title out loud a couple of times to remember it, then opened them and said "Come here tomorrow at the same time and we will settle this argument once and for all." She put on a smile that she must have thought looked charming, but to Jack, it looked sly, and added "If you think your version is correct we could do a little wager."
Jack stared at the ridiculous facial expression this strange girl gave him and almost laughed in her face, but he held it in and acted curious as he asked "Oh, what kind of wager?"
The girl's smile widened as she proposed her idea "Whoever gets the melody right, gets to use this spot in the future."
Jack almost choked on his tongue when he heard the wager. After a couple of restrained coughs he steadied his breathing and said "Fine with me, but if your mother doesn't know the song I win."
The girl looked to the side; a second later she looked back into Jack's eyes, and agreed with a nod while saying "Very well, I accept your addendum."
Jack said "Great." and turned back to his scrolls. A few seconds later he turned back and asked "By the way, how much did Disciple Brother Li charge you for staying outside while reading?"
The young lady turned around with a confused look on her face as she said "What do you mean? I only paid for his help with locating the scrolls I wanted. Anyone can come and read outside if they want."
She turned to the other side, pointed to a different shaded alcove, and said "Look there, a few people are in the middle of a discussion on the proper use of spells."
Jack turned and saw four people engaged in a furious whispered debate over a few scrolls.
"That cheating bastard…" Jack swore under his breath as he looked down at his scrolls and thanked his lousy luck that he decided to pay Li Manning only at the end of the day. He turned to the girl and said "Thanks for the information, I owe you one."
The girl gave Jack a strange look and turned back to her studies.
The next few hours passed without any further interruptions. Jack managed to find over half of the sigils that appeared in the Air Blast spell during his search through the scrolls and learned some additional secrets of how to make various sigils work together.
When he packed up and stood up to go, a voice from behind him asked "Leaving already?"
Jack turned in slight surprise and said "Yeah, have to go back to my job."
The girl looked down at his robes, and her eyes widened like she just saw them for the first time. She let out a silent "Oh…" as she stared at them.
Jack scratched the back of his head as he said "Yeah, I'll see you tomorrow. Bye." He turned and left the stunned girl there in the shade of the tree, next to the little pond.
When he got to the library's reception desk he plopped the scrolls down on it and gave Li Manning a withering glare.
"Found out?" Li Manning asked with a slightly rueful smile hanging on the corner of his lips.
Jack just looked at him for a few extra seconds, then turned and left.
He left the library half an hour earlier than last time so he could make a stop on the way.
After a few turns in the side alleys of Tranquil Lake Town, he arrived at a doorway that had large metal doors blocking it. He knocked a few times and yelled "It's me."
The banging on the other side of the door stopped, and Jack heard hurried steps before the door swung open.
Tan Boli stood in the doorway and bowed while saying "Welcome, Sir." He moved out of the way and said "Please come in."
Jack went in and followed Tan Boli to his house. As he passed through the courtyard he nodded towards Tan Boli's two sons in greeting, and they did awkward bows in return.
Once more he had to refuse Tan Boli's wife's hospitality as he jumped straight to his reason for being there "Did you receive the shipment of Deep Water Iron?"
Tan Boli nodded his head as he said "We have, right the next day like you promised, Sir."
Jack's face spread into a slight smile as he said "Excellent. Any progress on my request?"
Tan Boli rubbed his hands a little as he said "Sir, we just started to make the molds and smelt the metal. It will take at least fiv… no, three days until we have a finished prototype."
Jack did some calculations in his head and gave a slight nod as he comforted the nervous man "That should do just fine. I will visit in four days to see the first results."
Tan Boli gave out a sigh of relief and thanked Jack a few more times. Jack just smiled and made for the exit. He couldn't stand the awkward atmosphere.
The rest of the day went by fast as Jack helped his men with their digging, and they finished before the sun set once more. The reason wasn't just his help; the entire unit had more strength and stamina than in the past.
Before Jack took over they kept their pace down to a crawl, because they knew that if Du Angliang found out about their capabilities they would get even more work. Now they got extra free time and food so they worked as fast as they could for it.
After he dismissed the unit and took the Star Bag from the mansion, Jack led Shi Furui to the shack next to the graveyard to wait for dusk.
While there, he took out the notes he did in the library and shared his new knowledge with his friend. A short discussion later, they both took a few papers and checked them on their own.
Fifteen minutes later Jack got interrupted by Shi Furui asking "What's that song?"
Jack looked up at Shi Furui with surprise and realized that he started humming again. He sighed and said, "It's an old song from my past, got it stuck in my head for the whole day."
"Oh, sounds nice. You should sing it to us sometimes." Shi Furui said and looked back down at the notes in his hand.
Jack looked at him for a few seconds, and then returned his focus back to his studies.
After the graveyard shift and the evening meal, Jack went out to his clearing to practice the Air Blast spell.
He first tried a couple of blasts while just focusing his intent on increasing its power. It didn't show much of a change so he sat down on a stump and studied the sigils composing the spell.
'What would happen if I focused on the sigil parts that link compression, strengthening, air, and forward?' Jack thought and extended his hand.
The spell took shape and he focused his intent on empowering the sigils that connected the sigil for air, strengthening, compression, and forward. In the last second, a part of his attention slipped and he glanced at a sigil right next to the sigil for forward.
'S*it, that's the severing sigil…' flashed through Jack's head as the spell formed and, instead of blasting out to the front, as usual, it reversed its force and shot straight into Jack's chest.
The force lifted him up and blasted him spinning away for over five meters, straight into a thorny bush.
A minute later, he staggered up to his feet with a few shallow cuts while the world still spun in front of his eyes. He looked down at his right hand and saw that all the connecting skin in-between his fingers got split open and bled. His hand slowly turned crimson.
Jack stared at it for a few seconds before he clenched his fist hard and raised it into the air. He looked up at the star-filled sky and sang out in English "No man could understand, my power is in my own hand!"
A second later he lowered his hand and chuckled at himself "Silly bastard." He looked down at his left hand and went back to his practice.