"You mean someone with a sorcery aspect did this?" The professor thought of the great Fireshing and her ability to throw fire.
"I'm not talking about Aspects. I'm talking about true sorcery…" Julius lowered his voice to barely a whisper.
"What?" Noble did not believe her ears. Was he serious? "You don't mean those webtoons where the guy has a pointy hat and a wand?"
Julius could not help but chuckle. "Not that kind of sorcery, no. Tell me, what did your student do to get this Memory?"
The question was worded oddly. Shouldn't he have asked what creature Catphine killed? But she hadn't killed a Nightmare Creature, and somehow Julius knew it.
"Sleeper Catphine said she was walking along in the sand and something cracked beneath her feet. Then the Spell told her she gained a Memory. It made no mention of a kill."
"That only seems to confirm my initial thinking." Julius blew out his cheeks. "I think we have spoken about as much as we can here. The sanitizer seems rather anxious to finish cleaning our table."
Glancing to the side, Noble could confirm his observation—another tiny robot with a cloth was humming softly at the edge of the table—, but the professor couldn't help but feel that Julius was more interested in gaining some privacy than he was about the unfinished job.
"Ah yes, how thoughtless of us! We really should be going!" She smiled apologetically and stood from the lacquered table.
The pair gathered up the papers and began the walk back towards Julius's classroom. Once they were more or less alone, the old man finally opened up with what was on his mind.
"Sorcery in webtoons is an excuse to do things that would otherwise be impossible. I suppose that is one definition of the word. But there is another meaning which is closer to my intention. I am talking of something that extends science beyond its known boundaries. It manipulates the very fabric of something's being." Julius's reverent tone put Noble in a somber mood.
"So you think someone who can manipulate in such a way–a sorcerer– made this Memory?" Noble was having trouble with this information. Though she wasn't sure why she was. Nothing else about the Spell or the Dream Realm was fully logical. Why should this be?
"I don't think they made the Memory, but they are the one who changed it. And not well, it seems, or you wouldn't see the changes at all." Julius glanced down at the papers in his hands as he chewed on his lip.
"Then how would Cat have gotten a hold of it?" Noble wasn't about to let her confusion on sorcery stop her from asking more logical questions.
The old man shrugged. "It wouldn't be the first Memory to exist outside of a person. Because she was in a nightmare, perhaps the sorcerer was still alive. Maybe he dropped it or left it behind for a new master to acquire. Or…and this is just as likely if not more so…the sorcerer died while the Memory was summoned and the overlaid runes prevented the Memory from being destroyed with its owner. Which meant your student was able to absorb it when she stepped on top of it."
"That is quite a theory…" Noble wondered if the story had come from some past research on the Dream Realm or if this really was something from Julius's own head.
The teacher tapped his finger beside his nose. "Yes well, you haven't given me too much to go on, you know. I don't suppose I could talk to this student and get her version of events?"
Noble pursed her lips. "I will reach out, but I am not sure she wants to relive her nightmare by talking about it…"
"Few do. For some, they are even more personal than their flaw." Julius sighed. While he could sympathize and affirm that the trauma was very real, he also lamented information that was lost as a result. "At any rate, I will look over what I have and see what I can do with it. Would you prefer I send it to your communicator or bring you a copy of what I find?"
"If it isn't anything specific, the communicator is fine. I prefer the more juicy information in print as always." Noble pretended not to notice Julius's smirk.
"Still paranoid, I see…"
Noble was unapologetic on that front. "If you had seen some of the things I have over the years, you would be paranoid too. My father taught me to always be careful."
They came to the old man's classroom and stopped outside the door.
"A bit of caution is worth a ton of regret." Julius gave a sagely nod and then grinned. He patted the woman on the arm gently. "I will get back to you as soon as I can. I may actually have a book or two for you to read later this afternoon or tomorrow."
"No hurry. I have an appointment later this afternoon anyway. Tomorrow would be the earliest I could look through it." Noble bowed her head respectfully to her colleague. "Thank you…for everything."
Julius held his hand to his chest. "Of course! Always happy to help a student. That goes for former students too."
Turning away, Noble set her feet down the hall in the opposite direction of her classroom. The dedicated teacher had given her an idea. While her gut told her not to look too much into the Memory with her own communicator, there was a place where she could look at research on a public device.
The Academy's library.
Walking between the buildings, Noble relished the soft wind against her skin. While being outside made the forever-floating Awakened slightly nervous, she still could appreciate the sun and the filtered air. It reminded her of simpler times.
Back when her knowledge of the Spell was from webtoons. Before the Category 5 Gate opened and destroyed her home, her continent, and the life she knew.
But that was in the past, and she was far enough removed that she could look on that time fondly. It had been a happy time.
After a quarter of an hour, Noble finally reached a square alabaster building. It bore the same smooth, pristine alloy walls of the rest of the Academy. The shutters of the large windows were opened wide to allow as much natural light inside as possible, but still be able to be slammed shut at a moment's notice.
The automatic door swished open and shut to admit the Awakened professor, and Noble was hit with the smell of synthetic paper. Well, it was more what real paper should smell like.
Some dedicated soul had found a way to replicate the smell of old books and piped it into the library. While few could appreciate the personal touch, it did give the building a more welcoming feel.
All around, shelves of books stretched toward the tall ceiling and back to the far walls. Thousands and thousands of tomes of information, some current and some considered ancient. Tables between the shelves allowed Sleepers, Awakened, and even a few mundane people a place to study what was hidden in these pages.
There were quite a few students using terminals both to take notes and access information. She looked over and saw a lone student taking notes by hand.
'A kindred spirit.' Noble smiled at him when he looked up. Strange sunglasses covered his misty eyes. The professor recognized him as someone who had taken her class a couple of years before. 'And a smart kid too.'
"Hello, Dane," the professor whispered as she passed.
"Professor Noble." The young man nodded at her in recognition before returning to the page. He seemed very absorbed in his work, and Noble was willing to let him be.
Taking one more deep breath, Noble enjoyed the moment of quiet. If not for being a professor, the Awakened would easily have settled for being a librarian instead.
There was something soothing about so much adventure being so close at hand. But the moment passed quickly and Noble glided to the help desk and the two individuals waiting there.
One of them had forgone the chair and was sitting on the desk itself while engrossed in a book. The young person's short, dark hair fell forward as two brown eyes focused intensely on the page. A delicate hand blocked part of the title, but Noble could make out the words "Guardian" and "Rynnlee".
'I know that book!" Noble smiled. 'Nice choice.'
The second individual was tall and handsome, wearing a grey vest with a button-down shirt underneath. Many of the ladies in the library were stealing glances at him, but the librarian pretended he did not notice the attention.
Instead, he looked the professor dead in the eye with a friendly smirk on his face. "Hello, Noble," he said. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"
"What else, Nickel?" Noble chuckled ominously. "I've come to interrogate you."