The Novel's Professor

Chapter 20 20: Skill Synchronization

At a quiet and lavish room, a thin noble man wearing a night gown sat in his bed. He looked at the servant that was kneeling before him. He couldn't believe it what he had just heard.

"..What did you say?" The noble asked softly.

"That, an ordinary professor has chosen to mentor four of the geniuses in the first ye—" The servant answered before getting disrupted by the sudden noise of breaking glass.

"I know that! Do you know who the professor is!?" The noble growled as he threw the cup he was holding towards the wall.

"I-it's Rio Salem, Lord Vin..!" The servant hurriedly responded in obedience as sweat poured out of his forehead. His lord was a Rank B Miracle Invoker, if the lord had chosen to kill him, he wouldn't be able to do anything. He was a mere Rank D.

"Rio, Rio Salem.." Vin muttered as his eyes revealed spite and despise, "One cannot just capitalize over four geniuses and get away scot free."

His voice, while soft showed threat. It had been a while since there was an audacious person that didn't think about consenquences appeared. He was irritated. All those geniuses were capital good, and possible connections, that all of they nobles were supposed to share got stolen by a mere teacher.

But he didn't let irritation cloud his mind. This was a perfect opportunity to rise his ranks as a noble. The agreement he had with others about the four geniuses were clear and fair, however he was greedy for more.

"Elm, find that Rio person and tell him to submit to me." Vin ordered calmly with a smile. As long as he controlled Rio Salem, everything was good as his. As for the notion that professor not accepting him? Never even crossed his mind.

"As your command, my lord." The servant, Elm, nodded as he stood up and left. There were no questions needed. The lord ordered for submission, failure to do so is death.

What would one meager professor from the academy would be capable of, anyway?

—

Rio sat at the couch inside his dorm, he looked at the skills he borrowed from the library. They were mostly low quality and was barely used by others outside of unique situations.

The skills he borrowed were related to mind magic. He only managed to find a few one's here and there. However, that was barely a problem to him.

These free skills that he borrowed might be useless, but he wasn't going to directly use these anyway. He was going to do a «Skill Synchornization», a process where you combine two skills together to recreate a new skill. A good example of this was the skill he used previously, «Acid Bomb», a combination of «Acid» and «Detonation».

He remembered the thousands of combinations of the skills clearly, in that itself was bizzarre and something he wasn't normally able to do. Somehow, after transmigrating in this world, his memory was so clear and photographic. However if he had to guess what the reason was, it most likely had to do with the one that made him forget his friend.

Rio would call that existence "Mystery A" for the time being, a mysterious being who was possibly the one the brought him here. For now he had no clue of what the being is capable of, it's motives, and identity, so he would focus on strengthening the defenses of his mind first and foremost.

The last experience with the cube and his memory dissapearing was a trauma to him. At the matter of the cube, It was in his room, hidden in the somewhere. He still didn't know what to do about it. He had a lot of time, anyways.

"Alright, let's start this." Rio quietly muttered in the room. While this was a fantasy world, this wasn't a world where you can just command a magical system to fuse two skills and be done in an instant.

This procedure was a manual operation. He personally have to find the two right skills, their common point and combine them to recreate a new skill.

This was why often or so, «Skill Synchronization», was dismissed and deemed as a waste of time by others. The sheer time that was needed to find two right skills, research both of their common points and finally to combine them was astoundingly long.

However, this was not a problem to Rio. With the knowledge of the novel, the time needed to find two right skills and find their common points was drastically shortened. However, even if it was shortened, it doesn't mean that it wouldn't be long.

In fact, it was probably still long. He would be lucky if he were able to finish this in a night.

Rio stared at the pile of scrolls on the table. He grabbed two scrolls, and prepared himself.

"Let's start with this."

—

The morning sun shined through the hallways. The fresh wind breezed in the whole school, and noises of the chirps of little birds that flew outside the academy.

"Haa..." Rio sighed tiredly as he walked around the hallways. Last night was tiring. His brain was constantly running to perfectly synchronize both skills. He didn't get any sleep nor rest.

Regarding the synchronization, he had only made 3 synchronized skills in the whole night. While those numbers were only few, the skills were useful at the very least.

Oh, someone familiar was approaching him from the back. The skill he synchronized was useful indeed, it already showed its practical uses.

"Aha!" A cute voice resounded behind his back as he felt a touching sensation in his shoulders.

"…Wha." Rio turned around in 'suprise'. It was Samantha.

"Mr. Rio, atleast try to be suprised." Samantha said with resignation.

Rio suddenly felt a little bad. lt wasn't his fault he already felt her presence a little earlier. The reason for that was one of the synchronized skills he made worked automatically.

Rio decided to call it «Auto Sense». An automatic, or self-functioning skill that senses things on the area. It was a considerably great help to him, he could potentially avoid danger by noticing them beforehand.

"Sorry, I'm just a little tired." Rio said with a small smile.

"Did you not have any rest, Mr Rio?" Samantha asked in worry as she noticed the dark lines under his eyes.

"I had something to do in the night," Rio answered vaguely. Even though It wouldn't really matter if someone knew what he was doing, he still wanted to be careful.

"I see, I won't bother then." Samantha said as she nodded with a smile. Everyone had their private matters, she had enough tact to not continue questioning.

After that, the conversation turned silent. It was not the awkward type of silence, it was a serene comfortable silence. Both tacitly agreed to just walk together silently.

—

In a place full of bussinness deals of any kinds, filled with costumers searching for something unobtaineable in legal means. The Black Market.

A man with a face covered by a plain black mask, and only notice-able feature is his shoulder length black hair that flowed behind his back.

The place doesnt look anything of sorts sinister, Ciel thought as he walked around the place. It looked like an ordinary market at a glance, but the bussinness people were making were anything but ordinary.

He had just arrived at the Black Market. He was only here for one reason, that was information. The agency deployed him to resolve the issue regarding the famous mass murder in a dimension a few days ago.

He didn't have any luck at the Miracle Plaza in collecting information, the best he got was just guesses. He needed concrete answers. The best place to find information was the Black Market.

Even though he was an agent at the side of the law, he didn'FFt out-right despise the Black Market. Even if most of the things inside it was questionable and illegal, he couldn't deny the usefulness of the place.

"So, do' ya need anything?" A masked person with an accent approached Ciel. He was a guide, or helper for newbies. Atleast that was what he was currently.

"Information." Ciel answered straight-forwardly. He wanted this to be over quickly.

"Ya' have two choices for that.." The masked man said, he continued after a slight pause, "The Seer, or Vainhood."

"…Which is better?" Ciel questioned. He had never gone in the black market before, most of his previous missions didn't need it afterall.

"Strictly speaking, both are equal at information. It's just that they tackle two different things," The masked man said as gestured his hand.

"The Seer focuses on general information such as people, supernatural events, weird occurences and rumors at general." The masked man said as he continued, "The Vainhood, on the other hand, focused on information about skills, powers, and abilities and what not."

"The Seer, then." Ciel said as he decided. Weird occurences and rumors seemed to tie in with the information he needed. The amount of credits was neglible, the agency was the one that would provide it.

"That was fast, I'l lead you the way." The masked man commented in response.

"No need, just tell me the directions." Ciel replied. He didn't trust the man infront of him one bit. Sure, the man helped him, but most likely with an ulterior motive.

"Tsk," The masked man clicked his tounge annoyance, he continued as he left, "Go find them in yer' own then."