Carven Dill

Lucian Professionals' University had originally begun as Lucian Public School.

It had been a place where the children of nobles and members of high-ranking professional families studied before graduating and pledging their loyalty to the Kingdom of Lucian.

Of course, that had been long ago. As the Kingdom of Lucian developed and expanded, its need for professionals had grown accordingly.

National wars, plundering, and everything else required the involvement of professionals.

In this world, professionals represented both social class and power.

Thus, the Duchy of Luxian had made a great reform, changing the Duchy of Luxian Academy into Lucian Vocational University.

It began admitting anyone with talent, regardless of status or birth, allowing them all to study at Lucian Professionals' University.

Of course, at first, its students were still primarily children of the royal family and nobility, with a small number of wealthy merchants' children admitted to study and train as professionals.

By now, however, Lucian Professionals' University had truly become a university that primarily admitted commoner students.

Any student with the talent to become a professional could attempt to gain admission to Lucian Professionals' University.

Those with outstanding talent could even receive scholarships and royal student loans.

It could be said that the Kingdom of Lucian's current civilizational development had far surpassed that of the other kingdoms and duchies of the age.

This was also one of the reasons the Kingdom of Lucian was later able to annex the countries across this vast region and ultimately establish the Lucian Empire.

The vocational university before him was much as Lister remembered it. Many of the advanced skills his former character had learned had also come from the university.

Looking across the vast campus, only this laboratory building differed from his impression.

"Sir, where are you from?"

"The Duchy of Will, the Merick Family."

At the gatehouse, a student on work-study duty was registering Lister's entry.

After noticing the badge on Lister's chest marking him as a third-tier professional, the student was quite polite.

"Entry requires the consent of the person you're visiting. May I ask whom you're here to see?"

"Must I be visiting someone? Can't I just look around?"

"I'm sorry, sir. The professionals' university doesn't accept visitors for tours!"

Lister hadn't expected such a rule. Players had originally been able to send their game characters straight into the school, as they were all considered students of the professionals' university.

Getting in had naturally never been a problem; it was something they had taken for granted.

Now he had become a visitor instead, and to his surprise, even his status as a third-tier professional wasn't enough to get him straight in.

"Aren't you here to see a younger relative?"

"I actually wanted to visit Professor Kavin. I wonder if you could make an exception?"

He held out a small pouch of gold coins.

Lister didn't know whether the gold would work, but for now, it was all he had.

"Sir... well... if you only want to look around, how about you come in as though you're visiting me?"

"There's no need to make up someone like Professor Kavin who doesn't exist."

The ability-type student, who was only first tier, ultimately couldn't resist the temptation of the dozens of gold coins Lister offered.

Lister was, after all, a high-tier professional from a vassal duchy, and the Kingdom of Lucian wasn't currently at war with any foreign power.

After weighing the risks, the student still wanted to earn the money.

"All right!"

"But I really did want to visit Professor Kavin. Does your school not have a professor by that name? Or is Kavin a student?"

He had assumed that a member of the royal family like Kavin would be well known at the university.

Once he gave the name, the student should have recognized it.

Instead, the student before him had no idea who he was. Lister couldn't help pausing, and didn't give the man's surname right away.

The information he had bought at a high price from the Professionals' Association shouldn't have been wrong.

Could the "professor? student?" in the information mean that even the association wasn't sure of Kavin's identity?

"Sir, are you really here to find someone? I've never heard of a Professor Kavin among the school's professors."

"If he's a student, I'll have to use the communicator to look him up for you. What's his full name?"

"I only know he's called Kavin. I really don't know his surname. Sorry for the trouble, but could you look him up for me?"

In this peculiar situation, Lister ultimately kept the Lucian Royal Family's surname to himself. He couldn't shake the feeling that the sixth prince was more mysterious than he had imagined.

He wondered whether he had chosen the wrong person to approach for a connection to the king, and was already considering finding another way to arrange a meeting with one of the other princes when he had the chance.

The student pulled a palm-sized black mechanical crystal from the duty room behind him. It had some strange buttons on it.

After the student operated it, the crystal lit up, casting a beam of black light onto the paper beneath it.

About a minute later, the crystal returned to its original black color.

At the same time, new words had appeared on the paper.

Lister knew that the professionals' university had some special creations, including distinctive mechanical communication stones for each of its students.

In the second act, he too had carried one of these standard-issue system items in his inventory, a creation that was part mechanical and part alchemical.

But players had the system's friends list and private messages for communication, as well as the game's public chat.

He had thought these university creations were merely there to make the game feel more realistic.

Now that he was actually in the real game world, Lister couldn't help marveling at how wondrous these creations were. They were somewhat like cell phones from another world.

"Sir, I'm sorry!"

"There really does seem to be a Professor Kavin at the school. His name is Kavin Dill."

"His office is... huh...? On the top floor of the laboratory...? That broken-down place?"

The student looked puzzled after reading the information from the mechanical crystal.

He had never heard of this Professor Kavin. Professors' offices were supposed to be in the administration building, so why was this one on the strangest top floor of the laboratory building?

Lister was no less confused or shocked than the student before him.

Carven Dill. How was that really his name? Shouldn't it have been Carven Lucian?

Carven Dill really did match the cosmic celebrity from the eighth-act expansion as he remembered him: the founder of the Church of Mechanical Truth and a most-wanted criminal!

This was the big shot who would one day be hailed as the "Madman Mechanic" and the "Truth Mechanic"!

At first, he had merely found the Lucian prince's name familiar and amusing.

He hadn't expected that a trip to the professionals' university would suddenly reveal that even the surname Dill matched.

Lister felt a chill. The whole thing seemed intensely unreal.

He couldn't be sure whether the name was a coincidence or whether this really was the same person he remembered.

Could the celebrity from a major cosmic power in the eighth act really have come from the second act's Kingdom of Lucian?

"Sir? Sir!"

"Oh! It's nothing. Register me as a visitor, please. I'll leave the school before tonight."

Lister came to his senses and decided to meet him after all.

At least, the region he lived in was only in the second act for now, so all professionals would temporarily be capped at level 40.

Given his current strength, he figured that simply meeting him shouldn't cause any major problems.

"Would you like me to contact Professor Kavin to arrange your visit, or...?"

The student looked reluctant yet hopeful, slowly taking out the pouch of gold coins he had already put in his pocket.

"Just register me as your visitor. I can find my old friend myself."

A moment later, the student handed him a mechanical communication stone. It was only palm-sized and had a single button.

"If you want to contact someone, press that button. A student at the school administration office's communications desk will connect you."

"Before you leave, if I'm not here, just return the communication stone to the next student on duty."

"Sir, this communication stone only works on campus, so please don't take it outside."