Chapter 61: Chapter 50: Information Cramp

After Jana helped me to get up I looked over the building again. The first thing to notice was that it was bigger on the inside than the outside. The building was arranged like a shopping center, with "shops" placed side by side along a large open corridor that was illuminated by the sun shining through a glass ceiling, and as the sun was setting, there were crystals alongside the walls that were lighting up. It was full of people, but not enough that it was crowded, and everyone had a different outfit and weapons, some had swords, others had axes, bows, and staff.

"Don't stand in the entrance, someone might bump into you while entering" Eleno said.

Jana and I quickly moved from the door and followed them as they moved through the building and waved between the people as if they were covered in lubricant. We arrived in a small shop-like area that I think actually doubled as a shop as there were rolls upon rolls of magic-looking merchandise. Celeber moved to the back of the place where there was a counter with books along it and a crystal ball and a human male with robes that just screamed "mage".

"Oh, hello dear cust- oh, it's you Celeber. I see you've been practicing the illusion spell I taught you" he said.

"Yep, and I've also taught my team about it. Thanks, it saved our lives for walking around crowds and not being recognized" Celeber said.

"Nah, it's nothing, just a mind trick really. Anything for the daughter of my best friend, even more as she is the captain of the Andress University of Magic and Skills's Manaball team" he said as a small cyan hat appeared on top of his head and a small cyan and gold flag with the letters A, U, M and S in the language of this world materialized on the wall behind him.

Seeing from someone that has the perspective of Earth, that flag has an amazing drawing on it, but knowing the language it's really dull, and it seems that I'm not the only one who thinks that way.

"You bought a flag?! You've promised me that you wouldn't buy those awful things. The only thing that the university doesn't know how to do is acronyms. Do you really think that AUMS is something other than a joke even for the university itself now?" Celeber said exasperated.

".... whatever, we're here to ask you to check someone's affinity levels" She said as she showed me to the man.

"Oh, hello there, boy. What's your name?" He asked me.

"Denaru Theris" I answered. 

"Well, nice to meet you, Denaru Theris, my name is Alexsander. So, you want to check your affinities? You've come to the right place, just put your hand on this crystal" he said while pointing to the crystal ball. "It will shine with your strongest affinities.

I nodded and walked to the counter and put my hand on the crystal. Almost immediately a blinding golden light shone from the sphere, covering everything in blinding golden, I even had to put a hand over my eyes because of how bright it became.

"Oh, woah. Take your hands off" Alexsander said with surprise in his voice.

I quickly separated my hand from the sphere and the light disappeared, but it took a few seconds for my vision to return to normal.

"What was that?" I asked.

"Boy, have you been blessed by a god?" He asked me.

"No? At least I don't think so?" I answered.

"That light was pure divinity inside you. I haven't seen a divinity so pure like this before. I already tested a few warlocks before, but the light the crystal ball released was not this bright nor this pure" he said and put his hand on his chin to think for a moment before continuing. "Anyway, we can't do the test properly on this basic device, we would need to use the complete one. Unfortunately, I can't just let you use it for free. If it was for me I would let you use it In a heartbeat, but different from the basic one, the one we need to use has a registry of usage for the operation and for keeping records. I can give you a discount, though. Five silver and we'll go there right now, what do you think?" He said.

Celeber pulled five silver and put it on the counter, Alexsander looked at her but didn't push the subject. He put the coins in a small pouch and left the counter by a small passage that wasn't there a moment ago. He moved us next to a door that was on the sidewall of the place, and if I saw correctly, it should lead us to a small corridor on the side of the shop. Alexsander produced a small key from thin air as he unlocked the door and opened it with it, but instead of the corridor I was expecting, it was a room with a weird contraption all around it.

Alexsander walked first and then I followed behind him, but the moment I crossed the door the room began to spin and turn, the next thing I knew was that Jana and Celeber caught me before I could faceplant the floor.

"Are you alright?" Jana asked me.

"Y-yeah, I just got dizzy suddenly. I'm alright now" I said as I tried to stand up by myself and only managed to do so after a few tries.

Alexsander just looked at us during this interaction with a thoughtful look.

"Ok, let's get started" he said and moved to the center of the room and pulled a small lever on the floor.

The room came to life and began to unwrap and transform into a complex machine with too many things going all at once for me to properly keep track of it all. In the middle of the room, where Alexsander stood, a small pillar, containing two crystal rods that looked like they were made for holding, rose from the floor. As it stopped rising to around adult waist height, Alexsander began to manipulate a few crystals on the pillar.

"There, I've made it so it'll scan the divinity on you separately from everything else. Just hold each rod with your hands and push your magicules into it" he said.

"Uncle, won't you put the magicules batteries in their slots?" Celeber asked.

"Tsk. Tsk. Tsk. You should be the one telling me to not use them, not asking why I didn't use them" Alexsander said.

"Could I ask why?" Jana said from behind me.

"This scanner requires an absurd amount of magicules in order to properly analyze your affinities, and even more if it needs to bypass any kind of divinity. Normal people won't have anywhere near half of what's needed to actually power this beast, that's why we use magicules batteries to charge it alongside the person using it" he explained, then pointed to me. "But you friend here, probably has enough to power it alone, if I go by the magical energy he's leaking"

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"I'm leaking something!?" I almost shouted in his direction as I tried to look over my body trying to find anything out of place, but didn't find anything.

"Relax, boy. I'm talking about the magical energy everything releases naturally, some mages, myself included, call it magical leakage. It's usually only detectable after your [Magicule Detection] skill reaches level 8 or 9. But basically, the more energy you "leak" the bigger your magicule capacity is in an exponential increase, and boy do you have a strong magical leak. If it weren't because of so many people in the building causing interference, I could sense you approaching the moment you entered the building" Alexsander said. "But enough of that, just out your hands on these rods and push your magicules into them"

I did as told and put my hands on the crystal rods, they felt cold and had a hard texture that is difficult to describe, it feels smooth as glass at the same time hard like concrete. Ignoring the almost paradoxical touch from the crystals, I began to push my magicules into them and used [Magicule Detection] to keep track of where they were going and discovered that they entered the floor and disappeared into a way more complex set of magical rituals than the part that's visible.

The thing came to life and the room was lit by colors dancing in the air as magical power passed through a series of crystal bars that acted like wire to the magicules. Eventually two blue beams shot from the ceiling into two crystals that Alexsander had put on top of the pedestal. I didn't really understand what was happening with the crystals, but I knew that whatever it was, it had a lot of information as I could practically see the information floating inside the beams.

The contraption eventually stopped from feeding on my magicules and the beams stopped together with all the light and sound the thing was producing, leaving the room with a deadly silent for a few seconds as we just observed the two crystals the size of my fist on top of the pillar before Alexsander broke the silent.

"Well, I knew you had a lot of magicules, but seeing you not even flinch after powering this beast was something else" he said.

I checked my status and saw it had drained three thousand MP, leaving me with five thousand MP remaining… I really don't understand how those numbers match with things…

"Anyway, those two crystals are information crystals, made to store the output of information magic before it is translated to whatever language you'll use to write them down. As someone's affinities are something very personal, people usually just try to read them by feeling. Oh, I had to use the default settings because the array had to compensate for the divinity, so when you see small numbers, don't worry because it is normal, beastmen usually have around 12,5% from the default as the highest affinity, 6% is the average and anything below 4% is not worth to report" Alexsander explained. 

I picked up one and looked at it. It was a reddish-purple color and cold to the touch, it had the appearance of a random crystal that you can buy from a jewelry store. I kept looking at it with no idea of how to use it, eventually I just looked at Alexsander in hopes he would explain to me.

"Just place it on your forehead and try to connect it with your mind using a string of magicules" he explained. 

I pressed the crystal against my forehead and willed a string of magicules to form between it and my brain, connecting both. As the connection was made, I felt there was something out of place, like I had just connected to a Wi-Fi that had no internet access. Thinking about it for a moment, I tried to will my mind to connect to the crystal, just like I willed the string of magicule to form, and the moment I tried, I knew that was the answer as a small flood of information came to my mind in a rush.

Inside the crystal there was information about three different things, but the information wasn’t in writing, but in feels. The first one felt warm, like the embrace of a mother that’s giving you life. The next one felt cold, but not in a bad way, it feels like the cold of death that is patiently awaiting for you to live your life to the fullest, it’s not bad, it feels like a complementing part of the first feeling the crystal recorded, the reason I say it’s not bad, it’s because of the last one. The last one is somewhat different, it doesn’t feel like the same as the other two, it feels like something else, something alien, and it’s angry, it’s anger is not at anything in particular, but an anger so primordial that it has no logic, only emotion.

“This… I have no idea what that is” I said as I looked over at Alexsander.

“That one contains the information regarding the divinity that a god bestowed upon you. Try the other one, it contains your affinities” He said.

I put the crystal back to the pillar and picked the other one. Following the same steps as the last one, I formed a connection from it to my mind, but that was a bad decision as my mind was flooded with so much information that a headache immediately began.

[ Proficiency points have reached the threshold. Skill [Faint Resistance] achieved Lv. 7 ]

[ Proficiency points have reached the threshold. Skill [Parallel Processing] achieved Lv. 6 ]

[ Proficiency points have reached the threshold. Skill [Thought Acceleration] Lv. 1 successfully obtained ]

The world slowed down as my headache took over as my brain was struggling to process whatever was entering my mind at that moment, my consciousness holding itself by willpower and my [Faint Resistance] skill, but it was a close call as if I even tried to even think about anything else other than holding on, I could pass out.

[ Proficiency points have reached the threshold. Skill [Thought Acceleration] achieved Lv. 2 ]

Everything seemed to slow even further down, and the information flood my mind was racing to keep up seemed to slow down as well. I didn’t know why as I hadn’t had the time nor the processing power to understand what happened to me in the few seconds after I formed the mental connection to the crystal, at least now I could began to properly think, sure, it was not a pleasant experience to be thinking about multiple things at the same time by force, but it was what I had. I doubt that if I didn’t have [Parallel Processing] I would be conscious by now.

The information flow stopped after a few minutes, leaving a very confusing mess of information that I couldn’t even fathom. The world seemed to resume normal time and I almost fell over due to the mental exhaustion I was feeling and the disconnection between the slow time and the normal time.

“Oh, hey, hey, are you alright?” Celeber caught me before I fell.

“My head hurts so bad….what was that?” I said.

“You must have a lot of affinities for you to get a headache. Normally people just leave confused, I’ve never personally seem one to actually have an information cramp” Alexsander said. “But anyway, did you understand anything from it?”

I shook my head, but the movement made it hurt even more. [Pain Reduction] may help to  ignore the pain, but it isn’t a fair exchange as my head felt like it was going to burst open like an overpressurized balloon.

“We offer the service of translating the information crystal, for free of course, if you don’t understand it and want to. Not everyone wants a stranger to know their affinities, but if you want to…” He said.

I nodded. I came here to know my affinities and how much screwed I am for being a solar dragon instead of what my affinities would have led me.

“Okay” Alexsander said as he picked up the two crystals and put both in his forehead at the same time.

He probably wanted to show off, absorbing the information from both crystals at once. But it backfired as the moment he connected to the crystals, he fell on his back like a bag of potatoes dropped from a truck.

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