Lucian wanted to find out what else his AI could do in this world, in his current body, but he had to focus on the class for the time being. As far as he was concerned, he had all the time in the world to figure out the specifics later, as he had to continue fitting the persona of his predecessor, and that meant adhering to his schedule like normal.

  “Now where was I…?” The teacher continued speaking, but couldn’t quite manage to pick up where is previous memory trail left off.

  “You were just about to introduce to us the political outlook of the world… sir.” It took a student sitting in one of the front seats reminding him for his thoughts to come back to him. And once they did, it was practically like he never had to pause at all.

  Yes, Lucian wanted to go back to his dorm or somewhere private to find out more about his AI, but it turned out this lecture was actually quite interesting. Learning about the politics and geography of this world was something he was very keen to do, so this was perfect timing for him.

  His headache was all but gone now as well, and his mind had cleared up, so this was the perfect time to absorb some new knowledge.

  “Oh yes! That’s right. Ahem, so the lands we occupy, as I’m sure most of you are aware of already, are called the Barren islands. We are but a small place, with no established kingdom to rule over us. Right now the strongest ruling power is Count Nessus, who’s child sits right amongst us as we speak. Anyway…” The teacher rambled on.

  ‘I didn’t know that…’ Lucian muttered inwardly, crossing his arms as he listened to the lecture.

  Lucian had a frown on his face as he pinched his chin and pondered over what he had just heard from the teacher. The smartly dressed man said that everyone should know about the Barren islands, yet there was no recollection of such a place in his inherited memories. It wasn’t like there was a missing piece to the puzzle either, it was simply that the knowledge was never there in the first place.

  ‘How the hell did this kid Lucian manage to weasel his way into this academy without first knowing such a basic fact?’ He questioned himself.

  Even for someone with such lack of emotion like Lucian, it was almost laughable. It was clear that his father didn’t raise him to be a smart boy, which was evident enough from the fact he was sent to a knight’s academy, rather than to normal school to become a scholar — a much more respectable occupation in these ‘Barren Islands’. But to not even know this? Things were clearly dire in the Verdan family.

  “… Outside of these Barren Islands, many other islands and continents exist with established powers dominant over each one of them. Compared to each of them, we are nothing but ants standing under an elephant’s foot. At any moment this elephant could take a single step and crush us all to smithereens!”

  Some of the young student’s faces turned pale white after hearing what the teacher had to say; it was clear that this information was too much for their young and inexperienced minds to handle. Yet, to Lucian, this was all fresh and interesting knowledge that he was fully absorbing.

  Learning about the outlook of this world was one of his primary goals after finding out he had transmigrated into this place. It seemed his choice of returning back to the classroom instead of following the teacher’s advice and heading to the school nurse was a good one.

  ‘Once I’ve learned all that this academy has to offer, I should get out of this backwards place before it’s too late.’ Lucian silently set himself a goal.

  He’d already started to make plans in his mind regarding his next steps. Learning that he was placed smack bang in the middle of nowhere wasn’t exactly what he wanted to hear, but he could find ways to make it to these so called ‘elephants’ the teacher was talking about.

  “Though, many speculate that the lack of future prospects and resources on our Barren Islands is due to our lack of Mages. For those of you who don’t know what Mages are, go ask your parents. They’ll probably remember the last time they came to visit this place…” The teacher continued his lecture, maintaining the same mysterious air he tried to hard to put on.

  ‘Mages?’

  Lucian’s ears perked up when he heard this word. It wasn’t an unknown word to him, but it was to his predecessor. Back in his previous world, Mages were something of fiction — a type of scholar similar to scientists who study the magic arts rather than the real, fundamental laws of reality that make up the universe.

  Mages were a rather popular concept among the youth of his world, and there were countless video games created surrounding that concept worth tens of billions, but as a scientist he was never interested in the world of fiction.

  So, why was something known only as fiction mentioned here in this world, and spoken about with such reverence and fear like these made up concepts were real enough to haunt them? Lucian had to dig deeper into this. He had to learn more — to satiate his ever growing curiosity. If it weren’t for the fact that he had to continue living the persona of his predecessor, he would have ran straight to the library to read up on this topic.

  “This world is filled with all sorts of energies and laws, but unfortunately for us the Barren Islands with which we occupy are the place where they are the weakest, and least dense. It’s said that for one to become an Apprentice Mage here, it would take up half the wealth of an entire County to succeed! And that’s just the Apprentice stage, you can forget ever becoming a Mage here!” The teacher continued enthusiastically.

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  He was very exuberant in his rambling, it seemed like telling stories was his passion, and working as a politics and history teacher was his medium of fulfilling this passion. Though, it was unfortunate he worked in a preparatory Knight academy, where most of the students couldn’t care less about the stories and histories he told. Though, this particular class where he discussed Mages was always the exception to this.

  The young and energetic students always loved to hear the tales about the far away lands and the feats of the elusive Mages. For them, these were more than just stories — they were myth, ones they could relate to. It was the goal of every noble child on the Barren Islands to become a Mage one day. But for one particular child named Lucian, he felt entirely out of place in this classroom.

  ‘Just what is a Mage in this world…?’

  ***

  Lucian continued listening intently to the lesson, waiting for the teacher to speak even further. His mind was churning, practically begging to learn more about these so called mages. But no matter what, it seemed the teacher had no intention of mentioning them any further than just that brief introduction to the political landscape of this world.

  He continued listening for the remainder of the period, but found that nothing else the teacher spoke about was of interest or use to him. He didn’t even get to learn the names of the surrounding islands or continents, with the second half of the lesson being a complete and utter waste of his time.

  But, he had to keep up appearances as ‘Lucian Verdan’ the cowardly and timid son of Knight Robert Vernon, so he made no verbal complaints or efforts to skip out on it. Instead, he took the opportunity to return back to his dorm as soon as possible to learn more about this new life, and more importantly the things he had brought over with him from his previous world.

  He was known as the failure of his father, with his older brother and sister taking the limelight all away from him. The best thing the original Lucian could have hoped for was to be sent to the Knight academy and become a normal, average knight to at least satisfy his father.

  The original Lucian was quite a sad child, even the new Lucian could acknowledge this. He had no real friends, no girlfriends, he was bullied by his older siblings, his father didn’t pay any more attention to him than he needed to and his mother died giving birth to him, which might explain some of the resentment his father and siblings felt. Quite the tragic backstory indeed.

  ‘Tsk, no wonder this boy’s body is so frail and useless. He was underfed by his family, and even here in this academy he was too scared to go to the cafeteria to enjoy some food, only going out after the other students had already eaten their fill and left.’ Lucian ridiculed. He wasn’t a fan of cowards, so it was safe to say he felt some disdain for the original Lucian.

  Walking across the grass, Lucian looked around for the building his dorm was located in. Thanks to his memories not fully integrating yet, it was hard to distinguish what was what, especially when the architecture of this place wasn’t all that special, so the buildings largely looked the same.

  However, one thing he did notice was that the architecture of the buildings fit the image of the Medieval style world he imagined this place to be even more. There were also many youths of all shapes and sizes wandering about the school, whether in groups or alone, and they all had bright smiles on their faces. The only difference compared to Earth being that these students all had some eccentric hair colors.

  *Rumble!*

  However while he was mid walk back to his dorm, Lucian’s stomach decided to make a great cry for help. The lack of any nourishment seemed to be getting to him, and Lucian couldn’t help but scowl at his predecessor for not taking proper care of his body.

  He deviated from his original path and walked over to the cafeteria building, pushed open the doors, ignoring the stares and walked over to the buffet area. He picked up a few pieces of bread and some soup before finding an empty seat to sit in.

  As more and more people spotted him, they looked over in his direction with smug smiles and disdain in their eyes. Their despise for him was obvious. Lucian thought himself to be quite uncaring, but this was still somewhat annoying to endure. However, he still had to eat.

  “Chop chop! I don’t have all day! Hurry the fuck up!” However, mid bite Lucian was interrupted by a somewhat high pitched shout, clearly belonging to a woman. But to his satisfaction, it wasn’t directed at him this time.

  “S-sorry, L-lady Sofia!” A familiar looking boy frantically apologised and ran away, forgetting to take his fair share of food.

  ‘Interesting…’ Lucian thought amusingly.

  He cracked a slight smile at this scene, as he recognised this boy to be Roderic — the very same child who attempted to extort him for a few coins earlier in the day, right after he found himself transmigrated into his new body.

  [Alert! Danger is nearby! Recommend action: Maintain a distance of at least 100 metres!]

  ‘Oh?’

  But the surprises kept coming, with this being the second time his unlikely accomplice, the AI implant, activated.

  Lucian’s eyes slightly widened when he heard the familiar voice ring in his mind once again, but his reasons were different this time. The source of danger his AI was talking about happened to come from the direction of the young girl who just scolded Roderic a few seconds ago.

  ‘I’m curious about this thing. How did it transmigrate with me? Or is it even the same AI that I remember? Because I don’t seem to recall it having the same features this thing has back in my old world?’ Lucian recalled. As far as he knew, his previous AI implant had no such ability to detect nearby danger. That was something only the military grade AI’s had.

  Lucian found it incredible that something could be brought along with him from his other life — if it even was from his other life. He decided to test his hypothesis now that he had the chance.

  ‘AI…? Scan the source of danger in front of me!’ He took a wild chance and sent a command to the AI.

  Using the same prompts he remembered from his previous life, altering them a little to suit this new ability it had, he sent a command. First informing the AI you were actually speaking to it by calling out ‘AI’ whether verbally or with his internal voice, and then voicing said command.

  A few seconds passed where nothing happened, and Lucian began to suspect that perhaps he was wrong, and his AI implant didn’t transmigrate with him after all. But just as he was about to give up and go back to eating his soup and bread, the mechanical voice of the AI returned to his mind once again.

  [Scan complete!]

  [Sofia (Last name unknown). Age: 15. Sex: Female. Vitality: 2.4, Agility: 2.2, Strength: 2.6, Mind: 0. Status: Angry, Hungry. Bleeding from below, seems to be her time of the month.]

  A mental image of this girl, Sofia, projected itself into Lucian’s mind. It displayed not only a naked projection of her body, but also the various different parameters pertaining to her physique.

  He may be in the body of a 12 year old boy, but Lucian was unbothered by the sight of a naked female, and instead was intrigued by the figures and statistics he was seeing.