Shard sternly looked at the elective course parchment that looked more like a price list. Based on his real-life situation (city, profession, age), the academy had opened nearly 200 elective courses for him in his first year, including quite useful classes like [Intuitive Divination] and [Easy Acquisition of the Four Elemental Marks].
Some courses required the completion of basic or other elective courses to choose from; otherwise, Shard would have seen even more electives.
The costs of the cheaper courses already exceeded 20 pounds, while the most expensive ones couldn’t be paid with currency but required [Relics] or other requirements and tasks.
Fortunately, elective courses could be chosen at any time. When coming to see Dr. Schneider on Saturdays, contacting the academy directly would suffice to pay for them if he was interested.
Dr. Schneider suggested that Shard should get familiar with the basic courses for a while before considering elective course issues. The old cleric recommended some particularly useful courses, and Miss Louisa helped Shard cross out some of them directly. When she was a freshman, she spent a lot of her publication fees on many courses and knew which ones were temporarily unnecessary.
“Elective courses don’t have to be passed; the academy and professors don’t care about that. But elective courses are a good opportunity for us distance sorcerers to get in touch with and familiarize ourselves with the academy’s professors. You should know that whether some valuable elective courses are opened also depends on the professors’ intentions.”
Miss Louisa elaborated while Shard, who was quite familiar with such systems despite some differences from the past, adapted well to the rules.
Reading through the elective course list in his hand, Shard flipped it over subconsciously at the end. He didn’t expect any writing on the back of the parchment, but surprisingly, there was:
[One-ring Sorcerer Shard Solomon Hamilton:
Please prepare four wooden chairs without any divine emblem decorations in an empty room today at midnight. Arrange the chairs facing each other in the exact East, West, South, and North directions, surrounding a non-pure silver bowl filled with clean water. You must sit on the northern chair before midnight, light the paper roll, and throw it into the water basin.
Please dress formally. You can turn on the gas lamp, close the curtains, and do not tell anyone about this, including other ring sorcerers in your group. Professors Harms Sanchez of the Library Management Academy and Hessinger Garcia of the History Academy wish to see you.
St. Byrence Integrated Academy – Student Management Office
Professor Harms Jane Sanchez]
“What’s wrong?”
Seeing Shard staring at the back of the parchment, Miss Louisa also looked at it.
“What’s so special about an empty page? Oh, I get it; you probably haven’t used parchment before. The common knowledge is that we usually don’t use both sides of the parchment, so there shouldn’t be anything on the back.”
Miss Louisa was in a position where she could clearly see the writing but exhibited that she saw nothing.
“Only I can see this? What’s the academy’s intention? Is there a secret mission for me? A private conversation, could it be that my identity as an outsider has been exposed?”
Shard pondered this as he recorded the information, re-rolled the parchment, and placed it on the sofa.
Due to Shard’s [Time and Space] core symbol, the History Academy promised to provide a [Secret Keeper Level] relic for his protection upon joining. This relic appeared only after confirming its receipt when all the books and documents were sent.
Poet-level relics could transmit items up to [Secret Keeper Level], and only some Secret Keeper level relics could be transmitted. So, it seemed the History Academy put much effort into Shard’s situation.
The [Relic] was housed in a small, rusty bronze box, less than the size of a palm, with unintelligible vine-like patterns engraved on its surface.
Under the bronze box was a description document explaining the [Relic]’s function.
The relic would not be given to Shard, as it had to be returned if he left the History Academy or St. Byrence Integrated Academy but not if he graduated normally.
[You have encountered ‘Whispers’.]
Common sense dictated that Shard shouldn’t immediately know it was a relic, as he didn’t know its properties.
“[Twenty-sided Dice of Destiny]?”
Without shying away from the others, Shard opened the antique-looking bronze box directly. The inside of the box was almost solid metal, with a bronze-colored die embedded in the center.
Its surface was covered in rust; the 20-sided dice had golden numbers etched into the metal, some nearly merging with the rust—an engraving from time.
“I know this!”
Miss Louisa exclaimed in surprise, raising her hand as if to touch her earlobe but shook her head.
“No, it’s ‘another me’ who knows this. Probably, I inadvertently skimmed the information about this die in a book. But why would the academy give such a dangerous relic to you?”
“All relics are dangerous, condensed fearsome remnants of past whispers.”
Cleric August reminded, but the golden-haired author shook her head, her hair swaying gently.
“This one is particularly dangerous. Its properties are twofold.
One is that while carrying the die, most divinations can’t affect the carrier. But it only works when carried, and carrying it long-term will permanently reduce one’s luck. I know luck is an immeasurable concept, but the [Whispers] element genuinely interferes with luck.
The other is the active throwing of the die, limited to once a day. When thrown, one event related to the thrower will be affected by the die’s number. The higher the number, the better the luck, and no tricks can determine the number.”
“Any event related to the user?”
Dr. Schneider latched on to the critical point. Often deemed unlucky by the group, he was particularly interested in such relics.
“Yes, so usually, you won’t immediately know which event is affected after throwing it. But you’ll understand eventually, which is also one of the characteristics of the Twenty-sided Dice of Destiny.”
The golden-haired lady distanced herself from the bronze box in Shard’s hand in fear.
“But most of the time, it throws numbers below 10, inclined toward bad luck. This has been statistically proven. Moreover, if a 1 is thrown, something worse than death might occur. Why would the History Academy give such a dreadful thing to a detective?”
The academy-provided information was similar to Miss Louisa’s explanation. The die could only be contained in that special material bronze box. When not contained, the die would always subconsciously tempt the holder to throw it, and the probabilities weren’t equally distributed, making below-10 numbers more likely and leading to dire consequences.
Hence, Miss Louisa strongly advised that Shard should avoid using the die’s active effect and only treat it as a divination-interfering [Relic].
