Okay, maybe insulting some dude on an answer sheet was kind of a dick move. But in her defense the questions required her to write and reference her answers word for word. Not only did the test want to test her ability to memorize a bunch of crap, but it also wanted her to memorize the whole danm textbook and quote it word for word. After her sixth time rewriting Dundee’s ridiculously long-winded explanation of what people here called the memory of weight Seras was a little salty.


    How was she supposed to know that the very same long winded bastard was the director of this one magic society campus?


    What even were the odds of that?


    His aura pressed down on her harder, and Seras was starting to get pissed. Who was he to suppress her? She was Blackiron, Ruin’s most successful Merc.


    Her own aura rumbled and bucked against his. But she was iron while he was silver. No amount of anger would ever broach that barrier.


    “Say that again” he said slowly.


    “I, said, I’m, not…” his aura tripled in strength. But [Limit Breaker] kept the worst effects at bay. “apologizing,” she grunted out.


    His eyes flared, but then his aura vanished. “I see, care to explain why?”


    Seras resisted the urge to take a deep breath. Instead, she summoned a small book from her pocket space. It was maybe a finger width long. “I wrote this after I wasted nearly a month getting through your first four volumes of Unlocking the world. This is everything actually useful about those books. You need to learn how to get to the point.” Seras said while tapping a finger on the book.


    He looked at and then drew a circle in the air with his finger, where his finger went runes flowed out. When the circle was complete he reached his hand into the rune gate and withdrew a small worn book. He dropped it on the table next to Seras’ book, it was just a little thinner than hers.


    Seras glanced at the booklet and then to her own. “I take it you agree?” she said slowly.


    The director gave her a small smirk. “It was an unfortunate requirement of my apprenticeship. Large texts full of flowery words and anecdotes are how you earn respect amongst other researchers, but I always preferred a simpler approach.”


    Seras sat back, the tension in the room quickly faded away. “Back home we had a saying. ‘If you can’t explain it simply then you have business explaining it at all.’”


    Roland Dundee stroked his wavy orange beard. “I like that. But back to the topic at hand, why did you come to take a test that was obviously beneath your skill just to insult me in my own branch?”


    The aura came back, but not nearly as forceful.


    “Would you believe coincidence?” Seras asked.


    “Not without an explanation.” He said flatly. Despite his tone the pressure of the aura dropped by several degrees.


    “I only came here today because I needed the ability to access magic society resources. Some of my… okay most of my work is unsafe, in an explodey sort of way. And my travel companions didn’t like me doing it in our Inn. That aside I also needed access to more advanced textbooks to further my research.”


    “And the insults?”


    Seras shrugged. “I was getting frustrated copying your flowery-ass speech. Seriously who makes a test that requires you to not only memorize facts but also the whole passage?”


    He glanced down. “Magic textbooks are often full of loose details, and in the course of research you might find yourself skimming through dozens of books a day. Knowing the exact contents of your material is an important skill. Often times the wording can be tricky and misremembering it could be deadly.” He explained.


    “That would not be an issue if everyone simplified things.” Seras pointed out.


    He grunted. “Yes well, that doesn’t seem to be an issue for you. Eidetic memory?”


    Seras looked away. “Not exactly. At least not the way you''re thinking. I’ve got a trait that makes storing knowledge trivial.” She opened her pocket space, tossed her rifle in, and withdrew Unlocking the World Around You Vol.1 “I can read any books or other information in my pocket space without pulling it out. It doesn’t even take up space with the pocket space. It just gets converted into pure information and is stored away for my convenience.”


    “So you cheated.” He said with a look of disappointment on his face.This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.


    “Maybe, if you consider memory cheating. It’s all there for me to access just like normal memory, I just happen to be able to store it more easily and call it up with absolute precision. Not really different from Eidetic memory in that way.”


    “And how much can you store, is there a limit?”


    “We think it''s tied to the spirit attribute, maybe. But at the moment looking at what I have left, maybe a few hundred more books as thick as unlocking the world.”


    His eyes widened. “That is a lot.”


    “Yeah, text files are pretty small so it doesn’t take up much space when compared to the information I brought from my world.”


    His head jerked downwards and stared at her. “You’re an outworlder?” he said in shock.


    “Yeah, wasn’t that obvious. I think I wrote it down on the application.”


    He withdrew the application. “Under race of origin it says human, place of birth Mantel, date of birth… you have two listed here. One I can''t understand and another for about three months ago.”


    “Well Outworlders are reborn when they enter a new world so I figured two dates was appropriate. And I think you’ll find the form says Origin Race, not race of origin. Which is a weird way to put it.”


    “Its for the half breeds. People who are part of one race and another. They only get one so we ask for that instead.”


    “So if a Leonid and a Smoulder had a kid the kid would only be one of the parents'' races. No Lion person with black fur and burning eyes?”


    “They might inherit a racial trait or two but yes,” he heaved out a sigh, “Miss Cross if you had told the receptionist you were an outworlder then we would have drawn up an appropriate form for you.”


    “I didn’t even know that was an option. When I said some of the options were non applicable, she said to fill out the form entirely.”


    “I see, and the essences you have listed?”


    “What about them?”


    “One of these essences don’t exist.” He said pointedly.


    “It doesn’t exist on Pallimustus, since there’s no tech here. But Ruin is a world of high-tech marvels.”


    “And is Ruin where you studied magic originally?” He asked.


    “No, we don’t have magic. I think that essence might be my world’s first essence.”


    He looked alarmed. “How… no you have that memorization ability; learning would be easy.”


    Seras was offended “Hey, its not just my Racial Trait, I’ve been studying the basics almost nonstop. This test just doesn’t test working knowledge, only rote memorization, which is easier for me.”


    “That’s the next test, this one is only here to determine if an aspiring mind is ready to have access to more advanced materials. I will arrange for you to take the senior associates test, you’ll find that one much more challenging.”


    Seras nodded, she’d already been held up here for several hours and likely wouldn’t be able to get any work done. Well she could just work through the night, but Dustin got cranky when she stayed up all night.


    Since she was here, and so was Dundee, Seras that maybe now was the time to seize on an opportunity. “I can take another test, but first what did you think of my corrections to the test answers.”


    Roland looked up. “Oh, those, scribbled nonsense. If you hadn’t written the right answer flawlessly beforehand we would have marked off points for those.”


    Seras gaped. “Nonsense, I just gave the truth to concepts you people have been wildly misunderstanding.”


    He looked disdainful. “Miss Cross, you said it yourself, you come from a world without magic, what higher truths can your people know without magic?”


    “We’ve identified the basic building blocks and principles of reality, colonized space, built towers that dwarf mountains, and even pierced the dimensional membrane to allow in magic from the astral.”


    He did not look impressed. “I do not know these achievements; you could just as well be lying. But I refuse to accept that an Outworlder who has been here less than three months could rewrite our foundational knowledge so easily.”


    “And if that foundational knowledge is wrong? How much time and effort do you people waste on the higher concepts because your basic understanding is wrong?” Seras challenged.


    Dundee sighed. “Miss Cross, the magic society has tens of thousands of researchers. Nearly a thousand of which are gold, as well as diamond rank patrons who aid in our development. Do you really think that one Outworlder knows better than all of them?”


    Seras leaned back in her chair and did not back away. “Why do things fall back to the ground.” She challenged.


    He looked bored “Things fall, that is simply what they do.” He said blandly.


    “What causes the tides?”


    “It is not fully known; the best theory is fluctuations in the global magical field. But testing such a thing would be too costly and not worth the reward.”


    Seras scrunched her nose at that. “Okay, then tell me. Why does the world spin, why does it revolve around the sun? Why do the moons revolve around the world?”


    “The phenomenon is called celestial tracks. Invisible to our eyes and current detection methods but plainly observable.”


    Seras growled in frustration a pulled out a pen and paper she began scribbling on it drawing serval equations, diagrams, and even short explanations. Her hands moved with unerring mechanical precision. “There you go,” Seras said as she shoved the paper towards Dundee, “the real answer to all those questions and more. Gravity. One of the four fundamentals of my world, and presumably this one as well.”


    Dundee glanced at the paper, and despite his earlier shown contempt he accepted the paper and gave it a curious glance. “Is that all Miss Cross?” He asked.


    Seras wanted to say more, but ranting at the magic society director about the glory of science was probably a bad idea. Even if she really wanted to. “I guess so, send in the next text.”


    Dundee nodded and left the room, using the door this time. Seras flopped back in her chair.


    ~~~*~~~


    Dundee closed the door gently. It was impressive how fast his anger had left him. He had thought he was dealing with an arrogant young fool who came into his branch to issue him a blatant challenge. And instead, he found an Outworlder with a curious ability and bit more bravado than was strictly wise for long term health.


    He glanced to the aid who was stunned by his presence. “Issue her the Senior associates test.” He ordered.


    The aid blinked. “Senior? Not adept or proficient’s?”


    Dundee shook his head. “None of those tests will challenge her, give her the senior associates test. And then depending on her score extend her a line of credit for magical textbooks of up to bronze rank. Also make a mark in her record ‘while Miss Cross is talented and driven she has an arrogance to her’. Am I understood?”


    The aid’s eyes darted to door then back to the director. “Is she really that talented?”


    “Miss Cross is an Outworlder who has been studying magic for less than three months, she comes from magically barren world and yet aced the junior test. Moreover, there’s a brilliance in her eyes, passion like I’ve rarely seen. Should she survive long enough she’ll prove herself invaluable to magical research. On that matter dig through the archives and retrieve the Outworlder application.”


    “What did you mean by survive sir?”


    Dundee gave the young man a soft smile. “I meant exactly what I said. Outworlders can’t help but find more than their fair share of trouble. Just look at what happened today, she came to take a test and accidentally insulted a magic society director. Outworlders draw trouble as easily as a corpse draws flies, but that isn’t always a bad thing.”


    “Should we offer her an official position then, try to shield her from that trouble.”


    “No,” Dundee said with a shake of the head. “Today very well could have ended with her bleeding out the eyes from my aura, I’m genuinely impressed she stayed upright, and instead she ended up leaving me with a good impression of her potential. That’s the thing with trouble, it can be good or bad. Besides, nothing we do could really shelter her from trouble, she would just bring it all down on our heads as well.” With his final words Dundee vanished from sight.


    Really, it was such a waste of teleportation. But it did make for a good exit.


    He was about to return to his writing, when he recalled the papers, he was still holding. He stared at them for a minute, well, it couldn’t hurt to at least peruse them.