A Budding Scientist in a Fantasy World
Chapter 227

After the group finally managed to wriggle free of the Sigmusi navy, Alice spent a few hours and some mana helping everyone on the ship deal with their level up notifications. There were still nearly one hundred and fifty surviving [Sailors], and Alice didn’t want any of them succumbing to Class-mana madness during the upcoming trials. Helping them deal with level up notifications was a good way to make sure they had the tools to succeed if they got into another fight with the Sigmusi. After she finished, she dealt with her own level-up notifications.

Alice looked at her increased levels during the fight with no small amount of interest.

[Explorer of Magic] was very close to level 100. She probably only needed one big experiment to push her over the edge - or perhaps two smaller ones. She couldn’t wait to see what her upgrades for Class evolution were. Hopefully, they would resolve Alice’s final needs and make sure that everything went smoothly when she repaired the System.

Alice smiled at the thought, before she turned her attention away from [Explorer of Magic]. Right now, the Class didn’t need any attention from her. She started thinking about her new Perk options for [Survivor] instead.

She started by checking the available Perk combinations, before she shook her head. None of the Perk combinations fit her needs. {Touch the Untouchable} hadn’t been that useful in the previous battle, but Alice didn’t think it was useless - it was just a very Perk that covered a very specific weakness of hers, and that weakness hadn’t come into play last fight. Meanwhile, her other Tier 1 Perks were still quite useful, and most of them didn’t combine well with each other.

Thus, she turned her attention to new Perk options.

There were three options in total, but the first one was a major boost to her wilderness survival instincts. It would give her near-perfect ability to do things like start fires, build shelters, and forage for food. It would also give her some major stat boosts when she was surviving on her own, away from civilization. It even had a small boost to poison resistance, in case she ate something she shouldn’t have. Alice would have loved the Perk when she had first come to this world - it covered almost every basic need a [Survivor] in the wilderness had. Now it was largely useless to her, so she ignored it.

The second Perk was a major boost to her endurance, as well as a variety of smaller, passive healing effects tacked on. With it, Alice would be able to survive devastating wounds for an extended period of time, as long as the damage did not impact her brain. It was like a weaker version of the endurance all Immortals had. Normally, Alice might have been tempted by that - but with immortality so close, Alice didn’t see much need for a weaker version of an Ability she would get soon anyway. Not to mention, this Perk shared the same weakness real Immortals had - if the brain was destroyed, then she would still die.

The final Perk was much more valuable, since it addressed some of her need for magical combat.

Alice grinned. This seemed kind of like a weaker version of Ethan’s signature Perk, which gave him an extra 100 magic tendrils during a fight. The number of magic tendrils this Perk gave her was much lower, but that was only natural. Ethan had probably taken several similar Perks and combined them multiple times to get his current, monstrous Perk that boosted his magic tendrils by 100. This was more like the beginning of the same road. It was still useful, and Alice was sure it would help in the next emergency.

It also strongly reminded her of {Adrenaline Rush}. Adrenaline Rush was a bit more focused on the ‘bullet time’ effect that it gave her, while this Perk only enhanced her [Perception]. However, this Perk also gave her a much longer boost. With it, Alice would no longer need to end fights within a few seconds. Even more importantly, this Perk could be used in combination with {Adrenaline Rush}, which would give Alice a much greater boost during emergencies.

She didn’t need to think for long before she chose {Survivor of Magical Warfare} as her new Perk.

After that, the group continued sailing. For the next week, they didn’t run into any other major disasters. The layer of fog didn’t catch back up with their fleet - Alice hoped that it was busy giving the Sigmusi problems, or perhaps it had drifted back to the ocean and gone to terrorize the monsters there. Either way, the group didn’t see the fog again, and that was what mattered to her.

On a slightly more worrying note, the group had seen a few ships from the Sigmusi fleet occasionally show up behind them. It didn’t look like the Sigmusi were actively trying to engage them in a fight anymore - it looked more like they were trying to keep an eye on them. Myra constantly tried to shake off the Sigmusi fleet, and it seemed to sometimes work - the Sigmusi ships would often lose sight of them the moment the group approached a particularly tricky bit of coastline or had a few islands to maneuver around. However, despite their ability to prevent another engagement, the Sigmusi remained consistently on their tail, despite the death of the [Slave Hunter] Immortal.

Of course, on the bright side, the Sigmusi fleet was forced to send ships out to scout the group’s location, instead of being able to keep their entire fleet together while knowing exactly where the group was heading. This also made the Sigmusi fleet more vulnerable to counterattacks. Allira savagely retaliated against any ship that dared to peek its sails over the horizon. Still, the continued presence of the Sigmusi worried Alice - she wasn’t sure what would happen if the Sigmusi found the mainframe of the System, but she also didn’t see a good way to get rid of the Sigmusi before they arrived.

The Sigmusi fleet wasn’t the only thing that had changed over the last week. Doll’s golems had also started to roll out of her workshop, which replaced some of the manpower that had been lost during the battle. While the golems might have been few in number, their exceptional work efficiency made them capable of compensating for the loss of numbers the Illvarian ship had suffered during the fight. Especially since, unlike an actual human being, the golems had bodies made of metal. This naturally made them a lot harder to hurt, since arrows would need hefty Perk enhancements to punch through their metal skin. Of course, the golems also had a fatal flaw that humans of this world did not share - golems did not have access to the System.

Alice couldn’t help but find the golems rather interesting. They didn’t seem to possess the same self-awareness that a ‘proper’ artificial intelligence would - but they didn’t seem completely dumb either. If she had to put it into words, they were kind of like exceptionally advanced chat bots with libraries of information stored inside.

They were a welcome addition to the ship, especially given how many Illvarian [Sailors] had fallen during the last two battles. A certain minimum number of hands was required to keep the ship moving and working properly, and while the golems didn’t have any Perks, their innate biology was far superior to humans - likely due to Doll’s pride as a [Blacksmith].

During the several days of travel, the group also remained on the lookout for another ambush. She was keenly aware of the fact that if the Sigmusi had another fleet stashed near their coastline, they might be able to drag the Illvarian ship into another fight - and this time, they might not escape. Especially since Alice knew that the Sigmusi navy was supposed to be one of the strongest in the world. This only heightened her anxiety, because in her mind, it didn’t make very much sense for an Illvarian ship to escape from the Sigmusi navy. Illvaria was a small country with no proper navy and no coastline, while the Sigmusi was a vast, continent-spanning empire. She seriously doubted two fleets of ten ships was the entire Sigmusi navy.

However, much to her surprise, even as the group rounded the tip of the southern continent and began heading north, no new Sigmusi fleets appeared. The only evidence that the Sigmusi hadn’t forgotten about them was the occasional brief reappearance of a Sigmusi ship, trailing far behind them.

“Is that all of the Sigmusi navy?” Alice finally asked one day, as the group continued sailing north.

“Of course not. I believe they have somewhere around five hundred ships in their navy,” said Ethan.

“Then where is their navy?” asked Alice.

Ethan grinned. “I suspect they’re near the Sigmusi Imperia, rather than the Sigmusi Colonia.”

Alice fell into thought after Ethan spoke. She started to revise some of her earlier thoughts. It was true that the Sigmusi had one of the largest navies in the world - but they also had a very large empire to keep watch over. If the Sigmusi fleet was near the Sigmusi holdings on the central continent, it would also neatly explain why only twenty ships had shown up to attack them. However, it also raised new questions.

“Why hasn’t the Sigmusi colonia called in more ships from the imperia?” asked Alice.

Ethan’s grin widened. “There are three possibilities that I can think of. First, communication issues. The Sigmusi might have a hard time relaying information to and from the colony and the mainland, due to monster attacks or perhaps navies from other nations. If the Sigmusi literally can’t get information moving, they can’t call for reinforcements. Of course, I have a hard time believing this. If a problem like that occurred, I imagine the Sigmusi would realize it quite quickly and find a way to solve the issue.

“The second possibility is simple - perhaps the governor simply hasn’t passed word of you on to the central continent at all. If he is looking to gain credit for taking you prisoner or killing you, this might make him reluctant to share information or ask for help from external resources. After all, it’s far less impressive for someone to report critical information than it is to receive information, act upon it, and dramatically improve the Sigmusi position in the world without a word.” Ethan frowned. “If that’s the case it also means that we might run into a larger fleet later, when the government gives up on taking credit for himself and requests aid.”

Alice frowned. That was a possibility that felt far more dangerous to her. If the Sigmusi hadn’t used all of their power against her, but might in the future, that also meant that a big Sigmusi army might pop up at a highly inopportune moment and screw everything up.

“The third possibility is the best one for us. Perhaps the governor has sent word of you to the Sigmusi Imperia, but the Sigmusi imperia decided you weren’t important enough to bother committing larger resources to. In other words, while you have clearly  attracted the attention of the Sigmusi colonia, you may not have gathered any meaningful attention from the Sigmusi imperia. Rather than contending with the full prowess of one of the strongest empires in the world, we might only be dealing with the limited resources of a geographically vast but politically divided colony, without the backing of its homeland.” Ethan grinned. “That’s very good news for us. It means that the Sigmusi will struggle to bring a second major fleet against us. In that case, they might actually leave us alone after the last two battles.” Ethan shrugged. “Illvaria doesn’t have a very good grasp of Sigmusi internal politics, so I have no idea which possibility is more likely. Just keep your eyes peeled.”

Alice sighed, but nodded. At this point, there wasn’t a whole lot she could do about the internal politics of the Sigmusi empire. She would just have to hope things worked out, and that the Immortals in their group could come up with countermeasures if things went wrong.

The group continued to travel for another week, this time heading almost directly north as the Sigmusi fleet made the occasional appearance behind them. However, as the group got closer and closer to their destination, Alice finally started to focus less on the Sigmusi, and more on the task before her.

The Sigmusi were a problem that Alice wasn’t very well-equipped to handle. Most action taken against them would need to come from Ethan and the other Immortals, and there wasn’t a whole lot Alice could do about it. However, repairing the System?

Alice’s build was made for this. The moment they reached the mainframe of the System, she would be in her element. She was going to rebuild the System and save the world. Or at least, she was going to try.

Soon, when the group was about two days away from the maelstrom, they started to encounter areas that were more visibly influenced by the System.

After the collapse of the System, Alice had watched the System mana of the world disappear, leaving behind nothing but emptiness in most of the world. The only evidence of System mana was the occasional temporary return of System mana - and that was usually just a brief spasm of rainbow mana flickering throughout the world, followed by a return to darkness.

As they moved closer to the maelstrom, that started to change. Rather than raw emptiness, Alice instead saw crackling bolts of System mana phase in and out of existence every few seconds. They were subtle at first - dim enough that Alice could mistake them for tricks of light, or failures of her eyes. But as the group drew closer, she became more and more certain that they were approaching a storm made of System mana. Energy, mana, and monsters started to become more and more dense with each hour of sailing. When they were half a day away from the center of the maelstrom, the monsters roiled in the ocean like popcorn cooking on the stove. Every few meters, another monster appeared. The ballistas Doll had installed on the underside of the boat started to see more and more action, as they worked to keep the gradually thickening horde of monsters off of them.

“The monster density has ramped up a lot in the past few hours,” said Ethan. “The mana is incredibly thick, too. It’s like a giant cloud of condensed mana.”

“Is it?” asked Alice. She frowned. The crackles of System mana were so bright that she could barely even make out the rest of the mana in her surroundings. The concentration of System mana here was so dense that it was like swimming in a cloud of rainbow paint. Only her enhanced [Perception] let Alice make out her physical surroundings at all. There was too much color here for her to make out anything easily. Still, Alice refused to do anything to block her vision of the mana. She was afraid of missing a critical insight that she might never have a chance to see again.

“Yes, the System mana here is incredibly dense,” he said. “Can’t you see it?”

“Too much System mana. I can barely see anything,” said Alice.

The two fell silent as Doll’s underwater ballistas continued to fire nonstop. Alice tried to swallow both excitement and anxiety.

This was definitely the mainframe of the System. The dense rainbow mana was a greater guarantee than any other. The time for her stage had finally come. She wasn’t facing a battle in the ocean, or trying to manage resource shortages caused by the collapse of the System. She just needed to get into the mainframe of the System, fix everything, and get out. This was her stage. She wasn’t going to fail the people counting on her.