Studying all Night

After the incident, Aster was carefully led to his hotel room before more people could see him.

The place he was given a room at was called the Twister Hotel, characterized by its unique shape, which looked like a double-helix DNA strand from afar, stretching far up into the sky.

It was a tall building, probably reaching over 50 floors in total. Each floor was rectangular and narrow, with each higher floor having a slight clockwise offset. It was also a marvel of engineering, similar to the Mayor's Office—the Gravenne Tower.

Aster was carefully guided in and led to his room on the middle floors of the hotel. To be specific, his room was tagged as the 28th floor; however, since floors 4 and 13 were missing, his floor was technically the 26th floor.

As soon as he arrived, he asked for a Holo-tablet and requested that someone teach him how to use it before beginning to roam around the internet and research things.

'I know too little of the world. I should at least learn basic common sense.' He thought as he began "studying."

He was so engrossed in studying, in fact, that he forgot dinner until it was delivered to his room. By then, he had learned a bit of "common sense."

For example, magic.

It is a special power granted to everyone who can use their mana skillfully. Magic has two types: one that has limited usage, like Helvetica's Wall of Stone, which had two uses a day, and one that consumes mana, like the giant transparent shield he cast.

Other than magic, he also investigated the Anti-Human Movement, finding that they were a radical group pushing for hastening the drop of their human DNA. As such, Aster's existence was like a thorn in their sides.

They treat monsterification as people returning to their natural states, instead of it being a harmful mutation that can't be cured.

Lastly, he also studied dungeons and panacea. Adventurers and monsters. Currency—Tels, the common prices of items, loot from monsters and their prices, and many others.

One thing that he tried to look for but couldn't figure out, however, was the weird mark on the back of his right hand. "Dr. Zell said it was a legacy-level carved seal, but..."

After looking for information about legacy-level carved seals, he gave up soon enough. There was just too little information about it. Most of his sources of information about it were books on history and legends... Right, the legacy-level carved seal on his hand was treated as a thing that existed in "ancient" times!

Fortunately, normal carved seals existed too, and even their usage was explained in detail. Aster decided to try it out first, to see if he could make use of his seal.

"Let's see..."

To summarize, a carved seal responds to the strong wishes of the user. A clear image of what one would want to achieve was also required. Other than that, concentration and a lot of mana were needed to activate it.

"Again with Mana..." Aster scratched his head.

He already checked if he had mana through instructions from a different article. It was originally for kids to see if they had mana enough to be "mages," and after trying it out step-by-step, he ended up disappointed. Apparently, he didn't have any mana in him!

"But back inside the laboratory, it should've been this seal that froze the place, right?" He mused while confused.

Curious, he tried to follow the instructions again, step by step, other than the instruction about the "mana" use. He imagined freezing the room solid, concentrating deeply until only the thought of what he wanted to do was left. At that moment, the crest on his right hand shone.

*CRAAAACK!*

"...!"

When Aster opened his eyes, he was surprised. The room froze over!

"It's a success!" He cheered, taking a crisp step forward.

As the entire room was covered in ice crystals, each step he took released the crunching sounds of thin ice snapping.

"And as expected, I don't feel the cold." He added.

As a test, he used the Holo-tablet's thermometric functions. He placed it away from him, and the value started dropping at a rapid pace. Its internal temperature was brought down to minus 20 °C!

After seeing it stabilize in that range, he then moved closer to it. As soon as he was 1 meter away from the tablet, it started to show changes. The temperature gradually returned to normal!

"Hmmm. So everything within one meter of me will be forcefully returned to normal room temperature...?" That was as much as he could guess with the data he had gathered.

Aster stretched his limbs before looking around the room.

He closed his eyes again, concentrating. Instead of freezing the room, he was instead reversing the process, returning it to its previous state.

*SPARK!* *POP!*

"...!"

But when he tried it out and succeeded after a few seconds, he heard the sound of electric arcs, followed by a light pop. The light in his room died... His breaker tripped!

"Oh, right. Ice will become water when thawed!"

He realized this belatedly while looking at the wet wall sockets, which most likely caused the tripping. He thought they would return straight into moisture in the air, a big miscalculation on his part.

After that, hotel staff soon came to fix his room but deemed that it would take a few days to dry the wet electric lines. As such, they moved his room to the next one instead. Of course, Aster apologized even though the hotel staff weren't voicing their complaint. It was obvious from their gazes, after all.

In the next room, Aster had a quick breakfast. His meal was much "heavier" than before since his body now needed more energy to function. He had a medium-rare steak, with mushroom soup as an appetizer and salad as a side dish. It came along with orange juice, freshly squeezed, and a few gyozas as something extra.

He ate them all deliciously, leaving the dishes empty as if he had licked them clean.

"Hnng~!"

After stretching, he moved to the wardrobe and selected a pair—a black, hooded windbreaker over a plain white shirt and thick black pants. The clothes were something prepared specifically for him beforehand, so the sizes were a perfect fit.

After checking himself in the mirror, he nodded as he smiled.

"Now, time to register as an adventurer!"