Chapter 12: Book [3] Over the course of the next few days, I managed to get a good grasp of the book.
After experimenting with the book on every occasion I could get, I managed to decipher the main uses of the book.
First off, whenever I wanted to change something inside of the book, mana would be consumed.
Depending on what I changed, a different amount of mana was consumed to supplement the change I made.
For example, let's take the gravity room example.
I changed the gravity room setting from 2g to 4g. At that time approximately three-quarters of my mana was consumed by the book.
On the same day, after taking a cheap 50 U potion to replenish my mana, I tried again, but this time I changed the gravity setting from 4g to 3g.
The result was that half of my mana was consumed.
Thanks to this I was able to figure out that the change made in the book is proportional to mana consumption. Meaning that the bigger the change I made in the book the more mana I consumed.
To verify this I tried putting '6g', which I regret doing now, as I nearly passed out from having all the mana within my body get sucked out.
When I managed to regain some strength I found that my mana was completely drained. When I glanced at the book to see what changes it brought, I couldn't help but break out into cold sweat. Apparently, the MC broke one of his legs as a result of my meddling.
Quickly replenishing my mana using another cheap potion, I immediately reverted it back to 2g which I found to be the most optimal gravity setting for the MC.
The next thing I tried was 15g. I wanted to see what would happen if the change was well beyond my capabilities.
The result was that, exactly 5 seconds after I made a change, my change quickly reverted back to '2g' almost as if it never happened.
The next thing I found out about the book was that it was 10 minutes ahead of my current timeline. Meaning that it tells me the happenings of 10 minutes in the future.
Moreover, I found out that when the events that were in the book coincided with my timeline, I could no longer add any more changes to the book.
For example, 'Kevin exits the training room'.
When those words appear in the book, it actually means that Kevin will exit the training room 10 minutes from now.
So when Kevin actually exits the training room in real-time, I could no longer make any changes in the book. From this, I could infer that the book cannot change the past, but only change a possible future.
I was actually quite lucky that I had used potions to replenish my mana as I would've been in deep sh*t if the MC had injured himself on the first day.
The last thing I found out was that the book only gives me Kevin's perspective. This means that the book is actually kind of useless to me as I am not Kevin.
I wasn't particularly saddened by this fact as I could use this book to determine whether I could help Kevin without needing to expose myself.
…
Today marked the fourth day of me starting classes, and today is my first non-practical lesson since I had arrived here.
Since people usually come to the lock to develop their abilities, most of the lessons were based on real combat and body training, therefore making theoretical lessons quite rare.
'Molecular Anatomy'
This was the name of the theoretical lecture. An incredibly complex class that looks through the body of monsters and beasts.
Professor Theodore Rombhouse, a renowned researcher with lots of awards to his name, was the professor in charge of this class. He and his team were responsible for singlehandedly finding out the mystery as to why beasts went beserk after mana invaded the atmosphere.
Professor Rombhouse was a plump middle-aged man with curly white hair and a calm disposition. If it weren't for the fact that his eyes were currently transfixed on the huge creature laying on the table in front of the class, people would've easily mistaken him for your nice neighborhood uncle.
"As we can see, the wingspan of the berzerk pigeonette is around 1.8 meters, drastically different from their predecessor the pigeon which tended to be at around 70 cm in length. That is almost a 2.6 times increase in length!"
Excitedly yelled the professor as he caressed the gigantic creature on the table. You could hear from his voice that he was incredibly engrossed by the creature in front of him.
"After long conclusive research, we have managed to source out the reason for the pigeon's drastic growth. As all of you know, my team was responsible for finding out as to why beasts go berserk at the presence of mana."
Finally taking his eyes off the huge creature, Professor Rombhouse took a good look at the class and asked.
"Now can anyone tell me why humans manage to retain their sanity while animals can't?"
As this was common knowledge a lot of hands were raised. Since I wanted to blend in I also raised my hand without thinking much.
"You on the left"
"…"
He's looking at me, isn't he? Just to make sure I looked behind me to see if anyone had their hands up. Don't want to end up in one of those awkward situations where someone waves at you but it turns out they were actually waving at the person behind you.
"No don't look behind you, I'm talking to you dimwit!"
"Me?"
"Jesus Christ! Yes, you!"
This bastard! Is that how you talk to your own creator!
Ambithaba this poor monk shall be benevolent for once.
Pretending to fall into deep thought, I looked at the professor before I started speaking. Of course, I pretend to be nervous at first so that I didn't stand out. If I acted confidently it would make the professor automatically assume I knew my stuff, which would result in him asking me more questions in the future which I didn't want.
"Ah, uhm. Compared to us humans…uhm…animals don't have a cortex as developed as ours. As mana stimulates our neurological system, it inadvertently needs us to…uhm…to process the mana in our body to redirect it to the correct areas in the body so that it doesn't accumulate in a specific area of the body. Because we are wired differently from beasts we have the capability to think and react to situations, which beasts are incapable of. Therefore when presented with an invading force a.k.a mana, because of their low intellect beasts are incapable of reacting to the situation causing the mana inside of their body to slowly accumulate inside of them, specifically their brain, slowly turning them berserk. This process is known as mana poisoning"
"Impressive answ…"
Impressed by my answer Professor Rombhouse was about to applaud when he noticed that I still didn't finish talking.
"There are two solutions to solving this problem. One is to wait for nature to take its course and let the beasts slowly evolve allowing them to process mana, or second to directly use external aid to stimulate the mana within beasts. Simply put, since they can't use their own brain to stimulate their mana why not use others?"
"For example, if we used a normal circulation technique like the [Three-star constellation] technique and directly stimulate where the mana is concentrated in a way that it stimulated the nervous system of the bea…"
"STOP RIGHT THERE!"
"Huh?"
As I was talking I heard a loud shout and felt two large hands holding me down.
"REPEAT WHAT YOU JUST SAID!"
"Hu-h w-what's going on?"
I flusteredly replied as I found Professor Rombhouses's face sticking in front of me. We were so close that his nose was inches away from my face.
Glancing around I noticed everyone staring at me in shock, even Melissa the smarted student in class glanced at me for a few seconds.
What happened?
I'm sure I only recited normal information. Everyone should know this stuff…
"REPEAT WHAT YOU JUST SAID!"
Shouted Professor Rombhouse at the top of his lungs. I could even feel some of his spit splashing on my face.
Just as I was about to protest I noticed his frenzied eyes staring down on me, and decided against doing so.
"Compared to us huma…"
"NO! NOT THAT PART!"
flinching and taking a step back, I confusedly stare at the professor.
You want me to repeat myself and yet when I do you still shout at me, are you mentally okay?
Noticing my expression, and seeing everyone staring at him. Professor Rombhouse calmed down and took two steps back.
"Cough cough sorry for that."
"No, no, no problem"
I said as I waved my hands.
"Dear student could you repeat the last part of what you said, about the two processes that can cure beasts of mana poisoning."
Frowning I looked at the Professor skeptically. Did I miss something?
"There are two solutions in curing mana poisoning. One is to let nature take its course through evolution, and the other is through external aid."
"What do you mean by external aid?"
Interrupting me once again, Professor Rombhouse looked at me with sparkling eyes.
Taking two steps back I warily look at the professor.
"Sir I'm into females"
"Huh?"
"…!"
After a couple of seconds, you could hear Professor Rombhouse enraged roar resounding in the classroom as he understood what I said.
"I'm in no mood for your silly jokes, repeat what you had just said before!!"
-Ding! -Dong! -Ding! -Dong!
"It seems that it's the end of the lesson, thank you for your time professor, and goodbye"
Without letting him react on time, as soon as I heard the bell I got my bag and left in a flash.
That dude was seriously too creepy.
First, he kept asking me elementary knowledge stuff, and secondly, he kept shouting for no reason at all.
Just what did I do wrong?
…
Click!
As I closed the door of my room I immediately grabbed the mysterious book and opened it.
I needed to find out why the professor caused an outburst like that on his first day of class.
===
As Kevin left Professor Rombhouse's class he was left into deep thought
If what that weird student said was true, then a groundbreaking discovery had just been made. If his solution could really resolve mana poisoning, then it could drastically reduce the stress humanity was facing. Take Park city for example. Every year they are constantly attacked by sea creatures who have gone berserk.
What if they could resolve the mana poisoning inside of the beasts?
Wouldn't that help increase humanity's manpower in fighting against the demons?
Because of his hatred towards demons, Kevin couldn't help but be excited by the prospect of humanity taking one step forward in the war against the demons.
As Kevin was walking towards his dorm he could faintly hear Professor Rombhouse's hysterical shouts asking for the name of that mysterious student.
Oddly enough most of the students didn't even know who he was. If it weren't for the fact that the second-lowest in the class pointed out his name, none of the people in the class would've known about him.
"Ren Dover"
===
"…"
What have I done!
How did I make such a stupid mistake!
Because I wanted to perfectly play the role of a mob, I completely neglected the fact that some of the information I knew may not have not yet been discovered.
I was truly careless.
I was actually pretty sure that what I had said was already known by most of the people present. In the novel, although I don't remember it word for word, I remember them knowing this sort of information at the begging of the novel.
Yes, I was indeed careless. My theory behind the slip-up was that because I had never mentioned when and who discovered the mana poison treatment in the novel, I may have prematurely exposed this solution.
Essentially I forwarded the theory a tiny bit before the original creator of the theory could present it.
In short, I garnered attention towards myself and possibly pissed someone off.
Without a second thought, I took my pencil out and erased "if it weren't for the fact that the second-lowest in the class pointed out his name" in the book, and replaced it with "None of the people in the class knew his name"
-Voom!
Instantly all my mana was sucked out of my body causing me to go limp on my bed.
Taking a look at the changes I let out a satisfied smile.
===
As Kevin was walking towards his dorm he could faintly hear Professor Rombhouse's hysterical shouts asking for the name of that mysterious student.
Oddly enough most of the students don't even know who he is. None of the people in the class knew his name, making him really mysterious.
Whoever he was, he was either lucky or he was hiding quite deeply.
===
Though what I did was not gonna change anything since professor Rombhouse could just look at the register to figure out who I was, I still did it since it could buy me a day of peace.
…This should serve as a good lesson for me.
Just because I wrote the novel didn't mean I knew everything regarding this world.
You only realized once you found yourself inside of a novel how many things the novel missed when compared to reality.
For example, back when I was looking for the [Keiki style], if not for the fact that I had a general idea of where to find it, I wouldn't have ever found the place. What I had written in the novel did not even come close to how it was in reality.
It's all the little details that were beyond my control…
Letting out a sigh of relief, I looked at the new passage of the book.
In all fairness, I didn't really have to do this because people saw my face, but at least I wouldn't find Professor Rombhouse annoying me anytime soon.
Fortunately, I only mentioned two solutions and excluded the third, which was the sure way to eliminate mana poisoning.
The second method could have been considered groundbreaking as of right now, but it really wasn't that efficient as it was way faster to kill than to cure.
Yes, it was possible to cure them and then train them to fight back, but that would be a long-term solution as it would simply take too much time.
All in all, even if I do explain how to do the second option, it wouldn't really attract too much attention to me.
Strenght rules over the brain in this era after all.
With my low potential, the higher-ups would only lightly glimpse at me and then go back to what they were doing.
Though I do think I may have pissed someone off…primarily the person who first came up with the hypothesis.
I'm sure whoever it was that put forward the theory was already at their late stage of experimentation.
I just hope this doesn't come back and bite me…
Closing the book down, I looked at the white ceiling and let out a long exhausted sigh.
"How troublesome…"