Seras was idly playing with the Adventurer Society badge when Alicia Caras finally emerged from the meeting room. Seras had been waiting for nearly an hour and had already went through all the official processing to get her membership in order. The badge itself was a small palm sized thing, but in the hour she had been fiddling with it Seras had felt like its weight had grown significantly.

  Or maybe that was just her own perception.

  Getting a membership was supposed to be a trivial step, one that she didn’t necessarily need but would appreciate all the same. But something about that meeting had changed the way she thought about it.

  “Have you been waiting long miss Cross?” the blonde haired Elf asked.

  The badge broke a part in a shower of blue sparks as it returned to her pocket space. “Not too long,” Seras deflected.

  Alicia nodded, “my apologies all the same. The Director and I had some things to discuss about your little journey through the Labyrinth.”

  “Oh?”

  Alicia frowned, “the Pheonix nobility are concerned with the wave of mobilizations from the Akemi and other tribes. They think you found something of significant value down there and don’t wish to be left out. At the least a new deposit of floatstone is worth investigating. But the preparations on the Akemi side indicate great danger down below.”

  Seras shrugged, “I can’t speak to any of that. Just about everything down there was deadly to two iron rankers.”

  Alicia looked unconvinced. “Yes, well all that aside I’m glad you decided to wait for me, I would like to extend a personal invitation to speak more privately.”

  There it was, the reason Alicia had helped her get her membership. “And what would we discuss in this more private setting, because I’m under a strict gag order from several powerful gold rankers.”

  Alicia pursed her lips, “well that was part of my intentions, but not all of it. Despite the casual familiarity most people of the five deserts have with Outworlders your kind are still fascinating glances into the realms beyond this one. And above all that it seems to take a certain kind of person to survive the process. It’s said that there are two kinds of Outworlder, the kind who die immediately, and the kind who rise upon above it all. I would like to get to know which kind you are.”

  “But why though? Why does it matter to it matter to you which kind of Outworlder I am?”

  She smiled, “because Miss Cross, no matter which kind you happen to be Outworlders are always interesting.”

  Seras frowned, “I’ll consider it.”

  The Elf dipped her head and produced a small copper token with an embossed Pheonix, “thank you. If you make a decision then just pass this along to the Airey guard, they’ll let you through without question.”

  Seras took the token and used her identification power on to confirm it was what she said.

  Token of the Pheonix’s favor, a token for displaying a connection with the Pheonix nobility of Cupric.

  Alicia walked past Seras, the faint scent of Oleander tickling her nose as the Elf walked by. Seras watched the Elf leave before she sighed and began to leave as well. Her first stop before she left the campus was in the trade hall where she now had access to all the goods and services within.

  She did a thorough look through all the stalls before settling on one of the more upscale venders. There she made several inquiries into some rather specific materials she needed, chief among them was the materials needed for summoning her familiar. But true to Dustin and Flint’s warnings the price on just the quintessence was out of her range, and the Opal of Portent wasn’t even something the vender could consider obtaining. It was so valuable and sought after that it existed in a market of its own.

  It was on the same level as highly sought after rare essences like Dimension and Myriad. Such things rarely appeared on the free market and were often snapped up immediately if they were. The vender couldn’t even promise to look into potential sellers for Seras, since just inquiring into that sort of thing apparently tripped several red flags in the world of rare magical materials.

  Seras eventually purchased some potions and more bomb materials from the man out of pity for wasting so much of his time.

  Her business in the Adventure society completed Seras began to make her way for her last stop. The Magic Society campus.

  The moment she stepped through the side entrance meant for associate members like herself she was stopped by a bland looking functionary. “Miss Cross, you’ve returned. The Director has requested a moment of your time at your earliest convenience.” He then gestured towards a side door.

  Seras frowned, “now my translation power might be sending me, but it sounded to me like I might have a choice in when I meet with him.”

  The functionary smirked, “a polite formality. In plain terms it really means to stop whatever you’re doing and follow me right now.”

  Seras’ frown turned to a scowl, “this had better be good,” she muttered as a grenade appeared in her hand. She followed the functionary while fiddling with the pin on the grenade. She was led deep into the campus and behind eight different locked doors, each one with a very different and striking magically based key. The first key alone was several steps beyond Seras’ knowledge of such magical locks.

  She was eventually led into a wide private complex. Just from the entry room she could see a private library, a personal lab, and well-equipped ritual room, with more locked doors leading to unknown rooms.

  The functionary then promptly pushed her through with a surprising amount of strength before closing the door behind him. She wheeled back around, but the door was already closed and locked before she could get one last look at the man. Seras was greatly alarmed because that meant the dull man she had dismissed with a glance must have been Silver rank, and she hadn’t even felt a hint of it from his aura.

  She turned back around and kept her finger on the grenade pin, ready to pull it in second. She stepped forward only to feel an unexpected tug on her arm, Seras turned back around to see that without her notice Director Dundee had teleported behind her and was holding her hand in a way that prevented her from pulling the pin.

  “I understand your trepidation Miss Cross, but I must insist on you putting this thing away. The explosion might destabilize some highly delicate projects and cause the whole Magic society campus to be vaporized in micro-seconds.”

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  Her eyes were wide at the second unnoticed intrusion from a Silver ranker in so short a time. “I’m really getting tired of people fucking around with me,” Seras growled.

  Dundee snorted, and didn’t let go until Seras had vanished the grenade back into her pocket. “I’m afraid you’ll have to get used to it until you’re stronger.”

  Seras’ eye twitch, “yeah, until someone stronger than you decides to fuck with me.”

  Dundee looked sympathetic, “yes, there is always a bigger fish in the see of power. Even Diamond Rankers have their own pecking order, even then I’ve heard rumor of a step beyond Diamond rank. One wonders if there might be ranks among transcendents.”

  Seras scowled; she felt something with herself rankle at the idea of there always being someone stronger than her. “Why’d you have me brought here? I doubt it’s for philosophical discussions.”

  The Magic society director considered her, “well, it might. Follow me.” He ordered without waiting for Seras to acquiesce. He led her into one of the locked rooms, as Seras stepped through she was briefly astounded by the sheer quantity of hastily scribbled notes posted to every inch of spare wall space. There were even taped pages dangling from the ceiling like a string of beads.

  “Holy murder board of all murder boards,” she muttered to herself.

  The director turned back to her for a second, “none of what you see is to leave this room.” He ordered waspishly.

  Something in his tone made something click into place in Seras’ mind. She looked at the director with clear eyes and noticed the small bags under his eyes, the slight green paler to his skin, and the odd ‘neutral’ scent that came from normal people using crystal wash. “How long has it been since you’ve slept?”

  He glared back at her, “I think you already know the answer to that one.”

  Seras nodded, “right,” she said to herself as she began to pace along the walls of the room. Most of the magical concepts in play went way over her head, as quickly as Seras had picked up the basics she was still a novice in the world of magic. What she did recognize was a single equation appearing over and over again, F=G(m1m2)/r2

  “I see you’ve been looking into gravity.” Seras said slowly.

  Dundee scoffed, “you make it sound so trivial. Do you have any idea what this represents?” He strode forward and put his finger on a set of papers, Seras walked over and saw dense mathematical and magical formulas, then below it all she saw a single much simpler set of equations with the term for gravity inserted in. “This is the current formula for calculating needed to stabilize and open an unstable astral gateway. As you can see its incredibly complex and has many points where a single mistake might cause catastrophic failure. This second one is the formula simplified by the existence of a single term. Gravity. What would have taken hours of painstaking work simplified just like that.”

  Seras looked at it and nodded slowly, “yeah, that’s about right.”

  Dundee’s eyes rose, “do you have any idea what you’ve done?”

  Seras turned back to Dundee, “in broad terms yes.”

  “This, this one term invalidates entire magical specializations. I know of experts who practice in just this formula alone, but with this ‘gravity’ term you’ve made it possible for even students to calculate this out.”

  Seras shrugged, “yeah, I get that, it's like the invention of integral calculus made all prior manual attempts to calculate pi child’s play. This one new term will simplify everything going forward. Would you like me to give you the formula for relativity as well?

  The Director gripped at his hair and yanked at it in frustration, “you arrogant girl! You still don’t see it! You have just ruined me, I will never again be able to do the basic calculations I have been raised on without ever remembering how worthless they all are. The brilliance of hundreds of men and woman invalidated by the casual importation of knowledge from an Outworlder!”

  Seras crossed her arms, “I don’t see the problem.”

  “No, no of course not,” a little bit of spittle flew from the director’s mouth, “then tell me Outworlder, who discovered this?”

  “Thermov, he also developed the conservations of mass and energy, as well as a few other big things. He was a brilliant man who died before he was forty from a freak sinkhole.”

  Dundee nodded, “Yes, yes, he must be a very well-respected man on your world, but where’s ours. Who will be our Thermov now that you have stolen this discovery from your world? It would be one thing if this was your work, but to casually regurgitate such a world-shattering discovery without ever being a part of those who worked tirelessly on such things…” he through his hands up in an explosion of frustration.

  Seras shifted uncomfortably, “I, I never thought about it that way.” She was quiet for a moment before speaking up, “but that doesn’t mean there wont be other great discoveries here. There is still so much my people don’t know about the universe, and that number has become much higher since I learned magic was apparently a thing. Your world already proves that some of the things I thought of as constants aren’t so iron clad. The tides for one are nowhere near as high as they should be despite the added pull of two large moons.”

  Dundee’s eyes went wide, “tides, gravity, moons, of course, how could we, but, but, GAH!” he roared and stumbled away.

  Seras teleported behind the man and caught him before he could fall. “Wow there, calm down, I really don’t want to find out if Silver rankers can die of aneurysms.”

  He sat there and clutched at his head, “do you have any idea how disheartening this all is,” the man muttered, “I feel like smacking my forehead, but I know that no amount of smacking will ever make the urge go away.”

  Seras tried to swallow but her throat had gone dry. She had been so smug when she had given Dundee the gravity formula, as if the discovery something for her to be proud of. But he was right, Seras had done none of the hard work discovering it, nor had she been one of the thousands of physicists refining the model for universal gravity. It was just something she had grown up knowing without ever comprehending the amount of work and effort that went into discoveries like that. Worse yet she had just given it to a world who now never had a chance to discover it for themselves. She had robbed the future Thermon’s, Iskalians, and Moriss’ of Pallimustus.

  “I’m sorry, I don’t think I had any idea of what I was doing when I did it. But at the same time its only bound to get out now, unless you kill me and then yourself. Neither of us can ever approach our work without knowing these basic concepts.”

  Dundee slumped further until he was sitting on the ground. “We’ve had Outworlder’s before, what I don’t get is how this hasn’t happened before.”

  “It has” a soft voice said before them.

  Both of their heads snapped up to look at the woman now standing before them. This time the Goddess knowledge was a lightly tanned woman with light brown hair and green eyes. She looked to Seras and glared at the Outworlder. Despite her own feelings towards the Goddess Seras couldn’t begrudge her this.

  “My lady,” Dundee gasped.

  “Hello Roland, Seras, I see you’ve finally seen why I ask Outworlders not to spread their knowledge around so casually.”

  Seras looked down in shame, “maybe, but I still don’t see how you’ve managed it for all the other Outworlder’s who’ve come before me.”

  “Not all of them are blessed with the ‘memory’ you have, most have shaky understandings of these things. But when people as educated as you come, I have a little chat with them to show them the consequences of their actions. But I knew you wouldn’t listen unless you saw for yourself.”

  “My lady,” Roland Dundee interjected, “will I… will you…”

  The goddess shook her head, “no Roland you won’t be punished for Seras’ mistakes, but I would caution against revealing all this as your own work. Not because of anything I’d do, but because the backlash from the Magical community might be quite harsh. You could very well see you career going the way of Al-missou.”

  Dundee shivered. “I understand.”

  Knowledge nodded “that said, I know that you can never forget what you’ve seen here. So I have a recommendation for you. Miss Cross has revealed something very fundamental to her understanding of the world, but you know that she isn’t one hundred percent correct. My recommendation is to make it yours, push your understanding in a way that exceeds her own.” She turned to Seras, “and as for you, I hope you’ll be more prudent in the future. I won’t stop you, but just know that your casual unraveling of current magical theory could have unintended consequences.”

  Seras nodded her head stiffly.

  The Goddess smiled, “good.” She said before winking out of existence.

  Dundee looked around the room and slowly got to his feet, he waved his hand and a paper detached from the wall and flew into his hand. From the quick glimpse Seras got into the paper she saw a few hastily scribbled notes around some formation, the one that stuck out was a single ‘not constant!’. He turned to Seras and the page disappeared from his grasp. He glanced around the room and nodded to himself. “I’ll have a copy of all these delivered to you later in the week, but I’ll keep that one to myself.”

  Seras blinked, “what?”

  “That reminds me, Miss Cross, what specialization were you planning on pursuing.”

  She blinked again “What?”

  “Specialization, it would be the next step in your journey as a magic researcher. If your to be taken seriously by the magic community you’ll need a specialization. I can have more advanced texts delivered to you in any chosen field… except astral magic. That one’s a bit tougher to get ahold of.”

  “What?” she repeated.

  “The basics of Astral magic are available to the public, but more advanced texts are carefully guarded by a select few branches, and intruding on their work often comes with censure. Not that it stops the truly driven, Al-missou was one such researcher, he was from Karstess and had interesting ideas about Astral spaces. In fact, I think I have a copy of his work, I got it before they were all destroyed.”

  “Hold on!” Seras snapped.

  “What?”

  Seras gave the man a flat look, “you were on the verge of a mental break down only minutes ago, but one word from Knowledge and your suddenly fine?”

  Dundee chuckled, “ah, I see. Your right, I was close to going off the edge there. Which is why the Goddess directed my attention to a small idea I had dismissed before. I was upset by this fundamental shift in how I viewed the world, I was afraid there wasn’t anything left for me to improve upon. Just the mass rewriting of greater works than my own. But this, well, I shan’t say more just in case you get any ideas.”

  Seras’ jaw dropped. “I, uh, no. What?”

  He sighed, “Miss Cross, Knowledge said it best herself. All this nonsense is something you have stolen from your world and cursed me with, but there’s still a way to make the knowledge my own. To add to this great new field. Now I won’t feel like such a fraud when I reveal it. Please don’t go sharing gravity with any more researchers besides myself.”

  “You, you were upset because you thought there wasn’t anything for you too discover, but know that Knowledge confirmed there was your suddenly fine?”

  “Of course, what greater pleasure could there be in research than the pursuit of greater knowledge. One can study all they want, but they won’t ever make their mark on history unless they add to it. That is what it means to be a magical researcher.”

  Seras felt dizzy from the quick turnaround, she threw up her hands and cursed, “fuck it, be a crazy bastard, I don’t care, I’m going to back to making my bombs like sane person. That was my plan anyways before you derailed my entire day.” She promptly turned on her heels and strode out, stopping only to kick over an empty trash can in his lab just to emphasize how she felt.

  But even as the first functionary led her through the twisting hallways of the magic society campus Seras couldn’t help but smile to herself, “pleasure from the pursuit of greater knowledge huh, what a load of crap. What matters is what you can make with that knowledge, that’s what it’s all about.”

  The bland silver ranker looked down at her and scoffed, “ugh, artificers.” He said disdainfully.

  “Nah, I'm an engineer,” Seras corrected.