Fate Alchemist - A Regression Academy LitRPG

Wulf waited outside the Blacksmiths Guild Lecture Theatre (named that due to donations). It happened to also be Dr. Arnau's lecture theatre.

When she finally dismissed her last class of the day, Wulf walked in afterward. "Professor, do you have a minute?"

Dr. Arnau dismissed her TAs, who held boxes of papers, then pulled her notes off the lectern at the front of the theatre and turned to Wulf. "Yes, I have time."

"Is anyone around?"

She chuckled. "Do you sense anyone?"

"I've never been good at that, ma'am."

"Well, let me give you a quick lesson. You were never taught this? It should have been in the first semester of this year."

"I'm taking Arcane Presences 312 this semester," Wulf replied. He'd known about arcane presences and pressures well before the academy, and he'd practiced a little in his last life. He'd frustrated Dr. Arnau so much when she'd tried to teach him that she gave up, and instead honed his fighting instincts to such a degree that, even if someone snuck up on him, he'd be able to deal with it.

Maybe this time, he was ready.

"You should have been taught in the first half of the semester," Dr. Arnau replied. "You've had your midterms, haven't you?"

"Yeah, however…" Wulf winced. "Alright, I didn't really get it Dr. Pselphia tried to explain. But in my defense, she was awfully artsy about it. I had to think about how objects made me feel, or something like that. It was a bunch of babble that went in one ear and out the other."

"Your grades in that class have been…suffering."

"You don't have to remind me, professor."

"I am still your sponsor, remember?"

Wulf sighed. "Yes. Do you, uh, happen to have a different way of teaching it?"

"Pselphia is a Mage," Arnau said. "The least rigid of all the classes. Her teachings were never going to work for Pilots—or those close to being a Pilot—and Artificers. Ideally, we'd have had a Ranger teach that class, given how they're much better at deploying their senses than Mages, but our usual professor was busy. But I digress…"

"Do you have any tricks for feeling arcane presences?" Wulf asked. "Especially of people. I can sense objects well enough, but other people and creatures? That's a bit of a struggle."

"There's a notion in the Far West of a sixth sense," Dr. Arnau said. "That you could open a third eye to see the world around you in greater detail. It likely came from early Ascendants developing their arcane senses. The Field helps us with that nowadays, but it still takes a little effort."

Dr. Arnau scrunched her eyebrows. "Wait a moment. You're telling me that you never learned any of this before? Not in your past life?"

"So there is no one else around?"

"Correct, but that's not what I asked."

Wulf winced. "Professor, in my past life, I was…different than I am now. I was stubborn, and you think I'm bad at fine movements of mana now? You should have seen me back then. By the Field, I was awful."

"I believe you," Dr. Arnau said with a laugh. "Who was your teacher?"

"Well…you."

"You made it to the Centralis Academy?"

"Not quite. In fact, you came to Istalis a few years after I'd been kicked out of Istalis Academy. See, Lord Umoch had made up some sort of accusation of plagiarism, got you kicked out of the academy—same thing he threatened to do now, really. Except it worked last time. I don't know why, but I can guess."

"Are you saying you saved me?"

"Well…yes, in a way," Wulf replied. "But that's not important. The point is, I was a bad student. I frustrated you a lot, and…alright, you might have given up sooner than you should have." Wulf shook his head. "That doesn't matter. We aren't those people anymore. I'm here to learn."

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Dr. Arnau nodded. Her mouth hung open slightly, but she shook her head and recovered her senses. "Well, for people like us, our arcane senses don't work well if we think about flowing with the world. We insert ourselves into the world and tell it to move. The Field is everything."

She turned around, picked up a piece of chalk, and turned to the chalkboard behind her, then drew a set of horizontal lines. "The Field is in everything. It flows through all matter—living, dead, arcane, none of that matters to the Field. It just knows what exists and what doesn't, and it can manipulate it. But it jumps between different objects differently. Rangers can feel what the objects are, what their general composition is, if it's alive or not, and more. You won't get that much detail."

Wulf nodded slowly. He'd probably been trying to pick up too much about the objects.

"What's important to you is that something is there, and knowing how strong it is. Those are things you can figure out with ease. Instead of letting the arcane flow through you, you must make it bounce off you. Try it."

Wulf shut his eyes, turned his back, and tried to sense Dr. Arnau behind him. She all but disappeared in his perception. He took a wide stance, trying to become unmovable. It was like his new vambrace said.

But he was trying to resist physical objects. Of course it wouldn't work.

"Professor…I hate to sound ungrateful," Wulf said. "But that was the exact same advice you gave me in my last life. I'm not sure if it will work for me." He opened his eyes and turned back to face her.

"I see, yes." Dr. Arnau rubbed her chin.

Most professors probably would've given up, but not Dr. Arnau. They would've told Wulf to just keep practicing, thinking that their teachings were infallible.

Dr. Arnau instead said, "You need to resist the flow of the Field. The Fieldfather designed it to jump through objects. It circulates so quickly that you barely notice, and it's always there. Well, you won't be cutting yourself off it. But you're going against the natural order. The Field was never meant to be used as an arcane sense, especially not by stubborn brutes like us."

She turned back to her chalkboard and drew a circle in the middle of the flow, then drew a few lines deflecting off the circle. "You won't ever detach yourself from the Field. But you can get to a point where some of the Field's presence bounces off you. You've already felt touches of it, haven't you? The tingle when you complete a potion?"

Wulf nodded. "Yeah."

"More of the Field emanates from stronger objects. With practice, you'll be able to sense when something powerful is nearby. Try it. Insert yourself into the flow."

Wulf chewed his lip. He tried it for a few seconds, but still no progress. He shook his head.

"You control the Field with your willpower," Dr. Arnau said. "In turn, it controls your mana for you, among other things. Put up a wall of will to deflect the Field."

"A wall…?"

"How do you concentrate your willpower?"

"I dunno. I just think of what I want to accomplish, and I do it. I hate when things and people try to get in my way, so I will the Field to help me overcome that. I think about the people I want to help, or the friends I need to do whatever for."

Dr. Arnau nodded in understanding. "I see. The problem is that people are fickle." Dr. Arnau shook her head. "They're not like spirits. Those are easy to understand. People are more complicated. You can put all your faith in someone, and they can backstab you, or just not turn out to be the man you thought. Or simply, they could be weaker than you thought. How do you get around that?"

Wulf tilted his head. Athllas, the king…in their last life, plenty of people had put their faith in him. He had failed. But this life, he was already doing much better. He hadn't really changed much, but he'd come to have different ideas. To present different strategies to the world.

Wulf couldn't be what everyone needed him to be, and there was no way he could save everyone. Hells, thousands had already died because of him. Because he couldn't save them. He'd learned to push that back and compartmentalize it.

But he could help them save themselves. He could embody an idea. He needed people to do their best, instead of looking to the Orichalcums to save themselves. He needed them to take their fates into their own hands. Average people, normal people could still make a difference. They could grow food, they could make weapons, and they could improve themselves and their world in their own ways.

Even if he hadn't discussed it directly with Dr. Arnau, he was getting closer to the solution he needed.

But what idea to embody?

The best of humanity? He just wasn't. He wasn't the best person. He lied, he was bad at trusting people, and he surely wasn't ever the strongest. Maybe the most stubborn, but there was a difference there.

I'd spend my time more wisely. That was what he'd told Mantri when he'd first sent Wulf back in time.

Not everyone would get a second chance. But he could show them that you didn't have to be locked into one path, that you could change your ways, that you could improve yourself, no matter how late it seemed.

A chill ran down his spine, and he latched onto that feeling, then let it pulse through his body.

A tingle erupted in the back of his neck, coming directly from Dr. Arnau. He couldn't sense who she was or what she looked like, only that she was there, and that she was powerful. A Gold.

"There you go," Dr. Arnau said. "You sensed me?"

"I did," Wulf said. "I couldn't say how strong you were, though."

"No, I don't suppose you'd be able to do that," Dr. Arnau said. "But with practice, you'll figure out how people feel. Keep working on it, and soon you'll be able to tell the different ranks apart."

"Thanks, professor."

"Now, what did you come to talk to me about?"

"Actually…" Wulf rubbed the back of his neck. "I think I figured it out. Thanks, professor."