Cloud Data

What is the deal with that Allen?!

That kind of person is simply the worst existence imaginable!

He might not have any malicious intent himself, but he deliberately steers things toward chaos just because he finds it "interesting"! This kind of self-indulgent person is even more detestable than those driven by greed, because the latter might still choose to back down after weighing the pros and cons, whereas almost no one can stop a thrill-seeker like Allen!

Why would Mr. Angell plant such a guy in this dormitory?

Is it a test?

Silverleaf frowned in thought.

Silverleaf always overthinks things.

Silverleaf knows this habit of his isn't great, but his living environment has forced him to ponder things for a while whenever something happens, rather than acting like other top students who would just go find a teacher the moment things seem amiss.

Just like now, even though Silverleaf rationally understands that the workshop needs a massive amount of Rune Cores and everyone is already working overtime to keep up, making Mr. Angell the person who least wants anything to happen to his runemasters, Silverleaf still feels uneasy.

After all, that guy is a Black Robe!

Who knows if Allen is playing some sort of human nature test under his instruction?

While Silverleaf was lost in these random, groundless thoughts, he heard three rhythmic knocks on his dormitory door.

"Who is it?!"

Silverleaf asked cautiously.

He knew very well that none of his classmates had the habit of knocking like that.

That meant it could only be Allen.

What could he possibly want at such a late hour?

Silverleaf instinctively glanced at the wall clock; it was nearly one in the morning.

Silverleaf didn't want to interact with that suspicious individual at such an hour, so he deliberately replied in a sleepy tone: "It's very late. Can we talk about whatever it is tomorrow?"

"...It's me, Angell."

An unexpected voice came from outside the door.

Silverleaf sat up on his bed at once: "Mr. Angell?"

But he still had no intention of opening the door, instead glaring at it even more warily: "Is something the matter?"

"You're the top student of the academy, right? How is your mathematics?"

"Mathematics?" Silverleaf was stunned, answering only by reflex, "My grades are decent, I suppose!" To be precise, aside from science subjects like mathematics where he couldn't compete, he was still among the top tier in the City of Academies.

"How far has mathematics developed now?... Have you studied integral calculus?"

"We've reached the part about derivatives; I think integrals are something the School of Mathematics is currently researching."

"Researching... that should be enough," Angell let out a strange sigh for some reason, and he knocked on the door again, "I need your help with something. Come out."

"Alright, please wait a moment." This time, Silverleaf didn't hesitate to get out of bed.

In the face of mathematics, all his overthinking and suspicions vanished.

Silverleaf quickly changed out of his pajamas into his regular clothes, though he hesitated and glanced at the sky outside the window before opening the door.

Thankfully, it was a waning moon.

Silverleaf first touched his tailbone, then felt the sides of his head, and threw on a hooded cloak before finally opening the door.

It was indeed Angell outside.

He was looking at the time on his pocket watch with an anxious expression, yet he didn't seem angry at the delay.

—In fact, Angell felt he understood Silverleaf's mood perfectly. If he were in his past life and received a company call in the middle of the night about a server failure, he would have wanted to smash the caller's head in too.

"Tonight's pay will be five times the usual rate, and you can take tomorrow off." Angell tried to appease Silverleaf.

He didn't know that the Succubus youth's mood, which had just calmed down, had become tense again due to the excessively high pay.

Silverleaf had only ever encountered one situation where he would receive an inexplicable premium:

The commodity was himself.

Silverleaf looked at Angell with concern, only to find Angell hurrying toward the stairs.

Silverleaf hesitated for a moment before following behind him.

But as he walked through the hallway, Silverleaf felt that something was increasingly wrong.

It was too quiet.

Even though it was the middle of the night, that usually made sounds that were ignored during the day even more noticeable—the sound of the wind, the creaking of the old building's walls, or the tossing, turning, and even sleep-talking of classmates (colleagues) in other rooms—but all these subtle sounds seemed to have vanished entirely.

Thinking back, he and Mr. Angell had been talking through the door for quite a while, and in such an old building, it was strange that they hadn't disturbed anyone.

Silverleaf realized this belatedly.

Silverleaf felt as if he and Angell were the only two people in the entire space; he even had the feeling that if he were to kick the door next to him with all his might, it wouldn't disturb a soul.

And it wasn't just the sound; the sense of space was also strange.

The entire world had turned into black and white, and as they walked through what felt like a flat space, the world not only became distorted, but even the concepts of up, down, left, and right became ambiguous.

Silverleaf remembered clearly that he had been walking downstairs, yet now he was walking up.

The surrounding environment had also changed; at some point, he was no longer in the staff dormitory, but on the floor above the workshop storefront—a place even higher than Angell's bedroom on the third floor.

"Mr. Angell, where are we going?" Silverleaf couldn't help but ask.

"The brain of the Sky Spring... or rather, the Cloud Data Center?"

Angell replied with words Silverleaf didn't understand.

*

It didn't matter that he didn't understand; interpreting it literally was likely the correct approach.

Silverleaf didn't know how long he had been following Angell, but at the very top of those black-and-white stairs, an opening represented by a small square finally appeared.

Angell crawled out through that square without hesitation, and Silverleaf followed him, feeling numb.

In truth, Silverleaf had walked through that twisted space for so long that his sense of time and space had become distorted; he even began to wonder if he was dreaming.

A gust of cold wind woke him up.

Silverleaf blinked, looking around in a daze, and found that sound and color had returned.

But more shocking than that was the realization that he seemed to be above the clouds. Looking up, he saw an unobstructed, brilliant starry sky; looking down, he saw the dark outline of the city and streets dotted with kerosene streetlamps.

The most magical part was the soft sensation beneath his feet. Silverleaf discovered that he and Angell were standing on a small white cloud. It was difficult to keep his balance, and rather than trying to stand firm, he felt an urge to simply kick off his shoes and feel that softness with his own bare feet.

This sensation felt even more like a dream than before.

However, he shouldn't be able to dream of such a beautiful scene; even imagining it seemed unlikely.

Silverleaf thought with a sense of self-awareness.

Just then, something suddenly jumped onto Angell's head:

"You finally made it, meow!"

The Black Cat complained. It was so blended with the darkness that one wouldn't notice its existence without looking closely.

"I'm late," Angell said, stroking the head of Mithril as he asked, "How is the mana overflow situation now?"

"It's even worse than before, meow!" Mithril raised a paw. "If we don't expand the capacity soon, a small section might collapse."

"Tsk! How did it get so serious so suddenly?" Angell complained.

While they were talking, Silverleaf felt the cloud beneath their feet begin to move.

Silverleaf curiously observed the city below. Although the city appeared somewhat blurry in the night, it was nothing to a Succubus half-breed with a degree of dark vision. Furthermore, Silverleaf noticed that the direction the cloud was moving felt somewhat familiar.

This was rare for Silverleaf, as he was not a native of Cecilia; he had come to this city for work and hadn't had time to get to know it.

The only place of any distance Silverleaf had visited was the Charity School that served as Angell's "educational pilot program."

This wasn't an activity required by the workshop, nor did Silverleaf go on the day the Mana Base Station was founded. He simply had a habit of collecting information, so after learning about it in the newspaper, he took advantage of his day off to visit the Charity School in advance.

It was a very ordinary Charity School, no different from the ones Silverleaf had stayed in before.

Silverleaf had toured it briefly and concluded that even if it was an "educational pilot" run by Angell, it probably wouldn't show results in the short term, so he planned to check back in half a year.

Now, the cloud beneath his feet was moving toward that very school, and Silverleaf could already see its outline.

In the dead of night, the school was naturally devoid of teachers and students, appearing peaceful and undisturbed.

The problem was above the school.

Silverleaf saw a massive layer of clouds piled up there, with lightning faintly flickering within; it looked terrifying, as if a storm were imminent.

Mithril, however, patted its paws, directing the cloud beneath them to fly into the center of those flashing thunderclouds.

The thundercloud had looked terrifying from the outside, but it was even more so from within.

Silverleaf felt sticky, and the lightning was so close that sparks exploded near his cheeks several times, causing his already wavy, smoke-gray hair to curl even more intensely, like the wool of a sheep!

What made Silverleaf even more uncomfortable was that the lightning seemed to contain immense mana, causing his body to stir restlessly.

Silverleaf hurriedly pulled his cloak tight, pulled his hood over his head, and cast a nervous glance at Angell.

Angell was completely unaffected by the lightning and hadn't noticed Silverleaf's gaze.

It was only when Mithril glanced at Silverleaf and patted Angell's face with a paw that Angell turned his head in confusion, finally noticing Silverleaf's miserable state.

"My apologies."

Angell waved his hand, and a mana barrier enveloped Silverleaf, effectively isolating him from the lightning and the surging mana, which allowed Silverleaf to breathe a sigh of relief.

By this time, however, they had reached the center of the thundercloud.

There was an inverted platform there, and a massive crystal ball floated beneath it.

Enlise was sitting on that inverted platform, looking like a tiny snowflake compared to the giant crystal ball. When she saw Angell and the others arrive, she called out in pleasant surprise:

"Mr. Angell!"

"I'm sorry, I'm late!" Angell said for the second time.

Mithril steered the cloud to the vicinity of the platform, and Silverleaf immediately felt his center of gravity flip; by the time he reacted, he was already standing on the inverted platform.

However, within the flashing thunderclouds, his sense of space remained ambiguous, so Silverleaf didn't feel much of anything at all.

Conversely, when Silverleaf steadied himself on the platform, its surface area immediately expanded more than threefold.

"Wow, Mr. White Sheep is amazing," Enlise said, looking at Silverleaf with instant admiration.

White Sheep? Was he referring to him?

"Indeed impressive," Angell also gave Silverleaf an appreciative glance. "I had assumed all succubi were love-struck fools; it seems that was my prejudice. There are normal ones among them after all!"

Succubus...?!

Silverleaf truly bristled this time.

Silverleaf dared not let these mages discover his succubus heritage. Back then, the amiable teacher in his ritual magic class had changed his expression instantly upon discovering Silverleaf's lineage, intending to capture him as magical material. It was only because that teacher ran into some trouble that Silverleaf "luckily" escaped, subsequently finding a way to transfer his major to the rune department, where direct spellcasting wasn't required and his identity was harder to expose.

As for a Black Robe like Angell, who legends claimed would eat people, Silverleaf was even more terrified of him knowing the truth.

"...When did you find out?" Silverleaf asked nervously.

"Find out what, when?" Angell asked back, bewildered.

He walked up to Enlise and patted her little head. "Hard work!"

"Not at all," Enlise smiled sweetly, feeling quite happy that Angell had actually let her work overtime. "I think this is very interesting!"

As she said this, Enlise picked up the tube in her hand.

This tube was made of crystal but was as flexible as rubber and quite long. One end was connected to the base beneath the crystal ball, while the other was inlaid with a silver filter tip, looking much like the hose of a hookah.

The method of use was also similar to a hookah.

Enlise took the tube, inhaled deeply, and exhaled white smoke upward.

The smoke condensed in mid-air into the shapes of tiny sprites. They had dragonfly-like wings and bee-like tails, flying into the surrounding clouds. Like someone hammering bricks, they knocked down the lightning and clouds that had just condensed into form, brought them to the platform, and processed them into square bricks.

Other sprites were busy stacking these bricks high, looking vaguely like they were building a house.

However, for such tiny sprites, this must have been a massive project; they had only managed to stack a foundation so far.

"Switch hands. You go help the sprites build the house first!" Angell said to Enlise.

Enlise nodded obediently.

Angell pulled out another "smoking tube" and handed it to Silverleaf. "Enlise has good talent, but her processing power is still a bit lacking. I'll leave the rest to you."

Clearly, Angell didn't consider Silverleaf's succubus bloodline a big deal at all.

Silverleaf stared blankly at the tube, suddenly feeling a sense of relief.

It seemed that prying further was meaningless.

Silverleaf took the tube and inhaled deeply. A massive amount of numbers flashed through his mind, but as he exhaled, his brain became clear, feeling as refreshed as if he had just finished a math problem.

In the face of mathematics, all wild thoughts and conspiracies ceased to exist (to reiterate).

Moreover, the clouds Silverleaf exhaled were much larger than those Enlise produced, and the sprites formed were far more numerous. Under their efforts, the amount of lightning in the thunderclouds dropped rapidly, while the bricks on the platform increased quickly.

Angell nodded with satisfaction as he watched Silverleaf's movements.

He took Mithril and walked to the front of the crystal ball.

"Come to think of it, it's only been a few days, so why has such an exaggerated amount of mana accumulated?"

Angell complained, raising his hand to press against the crystal ball.

Following the Black Robe mage's action, the crystal ball bloomed with a faint white light, projecting an image from within.

*

These past few days, little Bolo felt very dissatisfied!

Extremely dissatisfied!

Because the time for magic meditation class was simply too short!

There were only two sessions every day, and even counting the breaks, it didn't even total three hours!

The magic textbook clearly stated that a mage needed at least three hours of meditation to maintain their daily mana consumption—little Bolo, thinking this, clearly didn't realize he wasn't a mage at all.

But little Bolo trying to use the time from other classes to sneak in some meditation clearly wouldn't work either.

The main issue was that the Block Meditation Method was too conspicuous!

Not only did one have to draw runes, but the summoned blocks would float in mid-air, and there was music! It would be strange if the other teachers didn't notice!

And there were clearly quite a few children who thought like little Bolo. Over these past few days, teachers of other subjects had caught who knows how many students attempting to sneak in meditation during class.

"If you like magic so much, go home and practice!" the language teacher said angrily.

"But once we go home, we're out of range of the Mana Base Station and can't use the Block Meditation Method!" little Bolo protested.

He had seen it!

The language teacher also practiced meditation every day after class!

Besides, the teachers' dormitories were very close to the school and within the coverage of the Mana Base Station; they could play... meditate all night long and it wouldn't matter! Even Teacher Yara from the meditation class had been coming to teach with dark circles under his eyes!

Thinking of this, a bold idea suddenly occurred to little Bolo.

"Let's sneak back and meditate after school!" he said to his seatmate.

"But the old man who guards the gate checks every classroom to make sure all the students have left!" his desk-mate, who had clearly done something similar before, pointed out. "If he catches us, we'll be kicked out of the Charity School."

"It doesn't matter. We can pretend to leave the school first, and once he finishes his rounds, we'll sneak back in through the back gate!"

"The back gate is locked all year round, isn't it?" the student sitting behind them joined the discussion.

"There's a hole near the back gate. I tested it out last time I forgot my textbook at school; it's just big enough to crawl through!"

"You really are something!"

And so, they made their decision.

These children were indeed highly capable when it came to taking action. After pretending to head home, they circled back and crawled into the school through the back gate. However, this less-than-perfect plan ended right there—before the group of children could even draw their meditation runes, the gatekeeper appeared before them as if he had descended from the heavens.

"It's so late! Why are you still here!"

"Eek! He's here!"

The children shrieked as if they had seen a ghost. Bolo, being quick-witted, tried to retreat the way they came, only to find that the hole they had crawled through had been blocked off!

"Split up and run! Don't get caught!" Bolo shouted to the other children, making a split-second decision.

The children exchanged glances and nodded solemnly.

What followed was total chaos throughout the Charity School.

What these children didn't know was that not only had their entry point been blocked, but the main gate of the Charity School had also been locked. Even if the gatekeeper wanted to leave the school now, he would likely face quite a bit of trouble.

Outside the school gate, several older students were laughing as they removed the key from the lock.

"Good thing those brats lured the watchdog away."

"Yeah, that old man is so annoying! What would it hurt if we stayed at school a little longer?"

"I wasn't even inside the school last time; I was just lingering outside the wall for a bit, and I still got chased off."

"It's not like we're doing anything bad!"

"Exactly, we just want to 'study'!"

The older students grumbled back and forth, feeling not a shred of guilt for using the younger students as sacrificial lambs.

"Alright, stop wasting time! Let's hurry!" the leader finally said.

The other students put on serious expressions, then simultaneously reached out their hands and drew a symbol.

For some, the boxes for the Block Meditation Method appeared before them, but for others, red warning text flashed:

[Your data allowance is insufficient to connect to the network.]

[Would you like to supplement your data allowance with a magic lesson immediately?]

"Ahhh, why is my data allowance insufficient?!" those students wailed.

"You haven't been meditating lately; you've been playing Rune Link and Match the whole time!" someone remarked, unfazed. "You haven't stored any mana, so of course your data is low."

"But I like the rune lessons more than the meditation lessons!"

"Give it up. Just use the meditation method to save up some mana first."

"Ugh~~" The students who wanted to "study" runes seemed unwilling to give up. "But it still works during rune lessons! It only prompted me about low mana back then!"

"It seems that when there are enough people, the system stops calculating individual data usage."

"Yeah, I tested it last time. You need at least nine people to start a rune lesson tutorial."

Hearing this, the students who wanted to play Rune Link and Match counted heads and realized they were short. They looked at the classmates who were currently entering the Block Meditation Method: "Why don't you guys come join the rune lesson too?"

"No way, I want to save up more mana!"

"I think meditation is more fun!"

"That stuff is too hard on the eyes."

"You guys aren't really going to be that disloyal, are you!"

Just as the two groups were arguing and the "after-school self-study group" was on the verge of falling apart, one student noticed a few newsboys passing by on the other side of the street.

"Hey, you guys, come over here!" he beckoned to the newsboys.

The newsboys looked at them warily: "What for? You aren't buying newspapers, are you?"

"Hehe, do you want to learn magic?" the student asked with a mischievous grin.

The other students caught on and chimed in: "It's really fun!"

The newsboys stared at the group of students as if they were lunatics for a moment, then turned to leave.

The students grew anxious: "Fine! We'll buy your newspapers!"

"You're going to buy newspapers just to let us learn magic?" The newsboys seemed to think these students were even crazier.

But the students couldn't care less. They pulled out their meager pocket money, pooled it together, and pleaded with the newsboys, "We're begging you! Just come learn magic with us!"