"What are you doing?"
Nick asked loudly enough for Marsha to hear him. Marsha turned away from the statue, looking towards the voice and discovered Nick walking towards her position. She ran towards him and patted him on the shoulder three times when she was just in front of him. It was a weird sight since her forehead practically just reached Nick's shoulders.
"Welcome to the library Nick, I got here early because being early for things is a behavior that I like to practice."
Nick felt a little bothered when Marsha patted him on the shoulders but it was a short-lived interaction so he ignored it.
"Okay...but why are you screaming at the statue at the entrance?"
Marsha's eyes brightened.
"I am trying to figure out whether they are magical creatures or artificial lives made from magical tools. Did you know, despite Grand Earth being full of magical energy there are no magical creatures that are born here, only normal animals. Even when magical creatures are brought here from other realms, they are unable to breed, isn't that interesting. Now, although those seem like statues with magic imbued within them, my trained magic sense tells me that they are very similar to magical creatures and I wanted some clarification. What do you think?"
Nick looked over at the statues for a moment and thought. He didn't know much about magical creatures and was fairly surprised to hear that there weren't any that were born on Grand Earth, on the other hand, the fact that Marsha was able to give him such information meant that it probably would not be a waste of time meeting with her. Nick spoke:
"I think that since their function is to surveil the entrance, they might not be able to speak. Can magical creatures normally talk?"
Marsha looked shocked at Nick's question. Nick became concerned that he had asked a stupid question. Marsha spoke:
"Oh right, that's a good point. I, myself, have never heard of magical creatures being able to talk. Good thing you came along, huh? I might have been screaming at those mute statues the whole morning."
Nick squinted his eyes and looked at Marsha, wanting to say something but not sure what exactly to say to that.
"..."
(This woman seems to be a little touched. I guess I should've expected that, this place is full of weirdos.)
"Alright, let's just go into the library."
Marsha nodded in agreement.
"Sure thing."
Both Nick and Marsha entered the library through the wooden double doors. The library was quiet as usual with very little people inside of it. Nick waved to the librarian, Jack Macy, at which point Jack gave a simple nod in reply. Marsha and Nick found a table in the area of the library farthest from the front door and sat opposite to each other. Marsha spoke first while taking out an object from her backpack and placing it on the table.
"This is the Chinese scroll that I was talking about. My grandfather sent me a description of it along with the scroll. Here take a look."
Marsha handed Nick a piece of paper with a correspondence from her grandfather.
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I found this scroll in an abandoned village in the remote parts of a Chinese province. My guide who is a Regular Magician informed me that hundreds of years ago this area practiced scroll writing as a kind of art form and most of their scrolls were renowned for being able to summon animals and magical creatures. This scroll is no different. Based on its inscriptions which are not written in Valteese but are written in a language that I've managed to translate, this scroll is called 'Basic Beast Scroll'. The locals used to use scrolls like this one to store beast of burden or cattle such as cows and oxen and transport them to other places at which point the scroll would be used to summon the animal at which point the laws written on it would disappear.
Here is the translation of the scroll's laws translated to Valteese:
...
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The translation didn't seem all that complicated. It detailed the principles by which the spell worked but Nick knew from his readings that spells written using laws in a certain language will probably not work when translated to another language unless it is reformulated by the Magician translating it. Laws are a depiction of a Magician's will and a plain translation simply doesn't carry the same power as the original but one would be able to recreate the effect based on their own understanding of the translation and their own spell making skills. Nick spoke to Marsha:
"From my perspective this is a pretty useful spell and should involve space magic. That's one of those types that people rarely have a strong affinity for so using scrolls to facilitate the use of such spells is pretty smart..."
While he was speaking, inspiration struck Nick like a lightening bolt.
(So that's the usefulness in scroll writing. To make use of spells that requires affinities that rarely anyone strongly possesses. If they have such a use, then why is scroll writing barely practiced, even with the downside of being less effective than spells cast by Magicians that have similar characteristics? I'll have to ask Norman later.)
Marsha listened to Nick and nodded in agreement.
"Check out the inscriptions of the actual scroll. It should be written in a magical language called Kantone. The Chinese commonly used it a long time ago but it died out when they fully adopted Valteese like everyone else. My grandfather studies dead magical languages so he goes crazy over stuff like this."
Marsha unfurled the scroll and Nick saw its contents. The paper was clearly old as it had yellowed on most of its surface but that did not take away from its magical splendor. The laws written on the scroll were actually moving around on the paper and although Nick did not understand the language used, he could clearly tell that the constant random order of the symbols made the spell seem incoherent. The magic energy emanating from the scroll felt interesting though. Ever since Nick had formed his mindscape, he developed a keener sense of magic energy but because of his lack of experience, Nick still couldn't tell magical natures apart from just the sensations he felt. As Nick looked through the scroll, Marsha spoke again:
"Really interesting, right? My grandfather said that all that moving around by the symbols is an attempt by the spell maker to encrypt his magic scroll. Too bad for him that my grandfather is skilled in magical cryptography as well. Also, do you feel the magic energy that the scroll is attracting and giving off? I noticed when I first came into contact with you at the entrance that you've formed your mindscape. Can you tell? Yup. That's true blue space magic being attracted to this scroll. As apart of my training before coming to the academy, my parents made me interact with all sorts of magic everyday so after a while it become easy to tell different kinds of magic apart. I think most families with Magicians do that, did your family do that?"
Nick's examining of the scroll was interrupted by all of Marsha's talking, Nick felt slightly annoyed. He spoke to her calmly:
"My family doesn't have any Magicians so, no, I did not receive any special training. I've also just formed my mindscape a couple of days ago so I can't tell magic natures apart yet."
Marsha looked a little surprised at Nick's response.
"You don't come from a family of Magicians? That's weird since you seem to have a talent for magic. I mean, you did create magic scrolls that won you a match against someone from a very influential Magician family, the Bartholomews. Don Bartholomew let everyone one know that you must have gotten help from someone in order to get your hands on those scrolls the minute he left the exam venue, although, he got quiet after a day or two. He must've figured out that you are the one who made the scrolls. To be able to make magic scrolls that can compete with spells cast by a Magician on your level, that's actually pretty special."
Nick looked at Marsha blankly and thought:
(Talent? Special? No, No, I've no talent and I'm not special. I just grind everyday, not that you need to know that.)
"I thought that most people with influential families would have gotten a list of the students in their year along with their background, didn't you?"
Marsha looked confused.
"Why would I do that? Oh...I did hear that there are many people who do background checks on the other students so that they can form cliques but in my opinion those people are losers. If they had the skills then they wouldn't need to waste time forming cliques and also, if they were working on their magic like they should, they wouldn't have the time to maintain them either. I don't believe that having a bunch of people around you or having a lot of social connections is the key to success, at least for most normal people. If you want something like respect or authority and have it be genuine and lasting, you're going to have to work for it. That's what my grandfather taught me and I think he is right about that."
Nick looked at Marsha squarely in the eyes and thought:
(If this woman actually believes that, then she is not so simple. I should be careful when dealing with her.)
Nick had an appreciation for people that thought like Marsha, after all, he grew up watching motivational videos with very successful people that spoke the same. The message was, 'Nothing beats hard work and discipline.'. Because Nick had a similar line of thinking, he knew that Marsha was probably a troublesome character despite how wacky she acts. From Nick's own understanding, based on his readings and the videos that he has seen online, those people who go around talking about how important relationships are, and they are, but put too much emphasis on them almost to the point of constantly relying on others in their daily life don't usually end up all that competent or in control of their circumstances; they emphasize using others to help them achieve their goals because they don't amount to much themselves and that's fine when you're starting out in life but later on, Nick thinks that kind of habitual behavior of 'group think' causes a lot of problems in society.
"I think so too..."
"Alright, you said on the phone that you wanted my opinion on the quality of the scroll. My opinion is that I'm too unskilled to be a judge of that. You also said that I could get a copy of the scroll if I came here. This encryption makes things difficult for me so I'll just take the version translated to Valteese. Is that okay with you?"
Marsha's eyes brightened.
"You're planning to use the translated version to make a similar magic scroll right. New deal! If, you are willing to sell me a few copies of the new scroll that you make from our interaction, I'll bring you more magic scrolls to look at in the future so long as you give me the option of buying any one that you derive a new magic scroll from. Do you agree to those terms?"
Marsha sat across from Nick, looking him shamelessly in the eyes and waiting for an answer. Nick squinted his eyes and thought:
(Hmph, so that's what you were after. You didn't care about my opinion of the magic scroll, you just wanted me to recreate a working version of it and get me to do so with other scrolls in the future. I suspected that this woman wasn't simple and I turned out to be right...)
Nick thought for about two minutes on what his answer should be.
(Agreeing to her terms means that I might get to see more interesting scrolls and I get to make some money on top of that. It's a good deal.)
Nick didn't mind people gaining an advantage from his efforts so long as they didn't turn around and create disadvantages for him. He found no good reason to refuse since this was a good chance to test and improve his abilities, in addition, it might not be such a bad thing to get to know another committed Apprentice Magician. Nick steeled himself and spoke:
"I agree."