That night, Alice and Cecilia stewed in anxiety while they waited in Demor’s mansion. Alice’s worries about how to finish her last few problems had been tossed to the back of her thoughts. The Society’s appearance – or, perhaps more accurately, their reappearance, cast Alice’s thoughts into disarray.

  About two hours before Alice usually went to sleep, Allira and Ethan knocked on her door. Alice frowned, as the two led her back towards the common room. When Alice got there, she saw that Cecilia, Jonathan, Jonathan’s family, and even Demor were also sitting at the dining table.

  Before Alice could raise her voice to ask, Allira sat down at the head of the table. She moved with such force that she nearly shattered the poor wooden chair that she had sat down on, causing Alice to wince as she heard the distressed creaks of the furniture. The [Strength] of an Immortal was incredible, even if Allira was young by Immortal standards.

  “The Society is, indeed, behind [Scholar] Metista’s disappearance,” said Allira, with an angry huff.

  Alice frowned. So they had confirmation now. Allira worked as something like Illvaria’s spymaster most of the time, so Alice was willing to trust Allira’s word if she said the Society was behind this. However, why was Allira so angry? The woman usually seemed polite, if emotionally disconnected. Seeing her get worked up was… unusual.

  “So, are we going to rescue her?” asked Alice. “Or turn it over the local authorities?”

  Ethan sighed.

  “That’s the problem,” he said. “Nobody cares that [Scholar] Metista was abducted. Under normal circumstances, this case would have caused outrage. People would be demanding that the [Guards] of the city do something. I would have expected that [Soldiers] would be hunting down every possible lead, if only to stem public outcry.

  “Unfortunately, these are not normal times. The government is in too bad of a condition to worry about the disappearance of a single [Scholar]. Thus, the ruler of Morendia has told us that the country can’t follow up on this case right now. We were told that if we solved this problem, Morendia would thank us and wish us good luck… but the country will not offer us any assistance in rescuing Metista. After that, we were basically shooed out of the throne room.”

  Alice frowned.

  That was… a problem.

  Now that Alice thought about it, it wasn’t actually that surprising. She was mostly sheltered from the gradual breakdown of social order that was happening outside… but the visit she and Cecilia took outside of the mansion had opened her eyes to just how bad things were getting. People on the streets were being left to die, and few people were still lucid enough to help others. Mana madness was starting to shatter what little social order remained. Monster hordes were ravaging other countries, and even though the most problematic mana-related catastrophes such as monster swarms and manaborn weren’t as notable in Morendia, they were still creating obvious problems. In light of everything else going wrong, it made a twisted kind of sense for the monarch of this country to focus on other, bigger problems. The Society of Starry Eyes was a small problem compared to the avalanche of extinction events crushing Morendia under their weight.

  But Alice had been hoping that [Scholar] Metista would have the answers she needed. That maybe she could piece together a few final clues after a conversation with her, and solve the entire situation. Alice knew it was a slim hope, but she had been hoping for some kind of insight from [Scholar] Metista. To hear that the woman had been kidnapped by the Society, and that the local government had no ability to help her was disheartening.

  “How important was Metista to your research?” asked Ethan. Alice’s breath caught in her throat.

  As she looked at Ethan, she realized something. The local government wasn’t the only one that had given up on [Scholar] Metista. Ethan would, at least potentially, ignore the disappearance of the [Scholar] if Alice didn’t deem her necessary for her research.

  Worse, Alice could understand the logic behind it, even if it made her feel rotten.

  [Scholar] Metista was nowhere near the only person suffering right now. The world itself was crumbling apart, like a house of cards falling down. The end of the human species on this planet, or at very least the serious weakening of the human species, wasn’t just imminent anymore – it was happening every second that passed. People were dying left and right, and every moment Alice spent doing one task was a moment she didn’t spend doing another. Her manpower and resources were limited, and she needed to find the way to fix everything. Could she really justify wasting Ethan and Allira’s limited time on a problem that didn’t directly relate to the bigger picture? If she did, wouldn’t that unfair to the hundreds of thousands of other people who were suffering?

  At the same time… was ignoring Metista the right thing to do? Was it truly a good idea to ignore a potential clue to solving the crisis, the moment the Society appeared?

  Alice felt a headache form, as she realized that the life and death of [Scholar] Metista probably rested on her words. If Alice said she wasn’t useful enough, Ethan and Allira would abandon her to her fate. If Alice said Metista was useful to her research, and the group wasted resources and time rescuing her, Alice would need to turn that into something useful for the crisis – otherwise, she would be letting all of the people dying of mana-madness down. As she felt stress and anxiety start to build up, Alice suddenly had another thought.

  The Society… had probably done an awful lot of unethical experimentation recently. Especially after the collapse of the System, local law enforcement had gotten much harder. While that was terrible for the humans of this world, it was great for the Society, since they were essentially a group of outlaws to begin with. In such circumstances, they would surely thrive, even if the collapse of the System would bring them down eventually. Furthermore, many members of the Society of Starry Eyes would be driven to perform unethical experiments, not necessarily out of their own long term interests… but purely as a result of their Class, and the associated mana.

  However, the direction of their research probably wouldn’t be very well controlled. After all, those who were part of the Society were probably people with lower [Willpower] stats to begin with. If they had a high [Willpower] stat, they would find themselves less tempted to do things like unethical research in the first place.

  Would the Society have any other useful research that Alice could use? Something that would boost her progress along considerably, but that she would never be willing to test herself?

  Not to mention, the nations that Alice interacted with weren’t the only places that would suffer from the mana and class related illnesses plaguing the world now. The Society was very clearly suffering from the same problems. With that in mind… how much of the Society’s command structure and fighting force remained intact?

  Surely, the Society was struggling to maintain proper communication between bases, if they were maintaining communication at all. As more people fell into mana madness, the Society’s research would only become less effective and focused. Similarly, their fighting power would become less directed and controlled with every day that passed. Alice remembered that the first time she had seen Ethan lead an assault upon a Society base, it had practically been a small battle between armies. However, by now most armies were only semi-functional. Alice doubted the Society would be much more than a band of disorganized madmen at this point. Of course, she could be underestimating the Society… but she felt that the Society would be weakened, at least.

  Furthermore, the Society was a group of madmen that would experiment on other people for the sake of their research. When other Society members fell into mana-madness, would the Society members start to use each other as research subjects? Normally, Alice suspected that some kind of rule would be in place to prevent that. No organization would be able to sustain itself if the members were constantly murdering each other and using each other for experiments. However, if everyone was dragged into madness… that might change. No matter what the Society tried to do, they should be in even worse condition than the rest of the world.

  All of a sudden, Alice found herself tempted. There were some experiments that she wanted to know the results of, but she was unwilling to perform herself. There were lines she wasn’t willing to cross, because she still had a conscience. However… Alice felt much less bad about stealing research results from the Society, especially if she happened to rescue a few kidnapped test subjects along the way. If she stole the results from a bunch of murderous scum, Alice was more than happy to use the Society’s research. Alice would be saving lives when she raided the research base, and then saving lives again when she actually found a solution for the collapse of the System. Even though a small part of Alice felt guilty for treating the Society like a pi?ata she could break open for unethical experiments, Alice quickly silenced that part of her mind. With circumstances being what they were, she was already desperate. Refusing to use research results she needed in order to save lives would be dumb.

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  And so, Alice made up her mind.

  “I think that rescuing her is for the best,” said Alice.

  “Are you sure? Keep in mind, if we do this… we are going to lose a fair amount of time setting up a raid on the base. This isn’t something we can do casually. Allira will need to spend a few days scouting things out with her shadows, and I’m going to need to spend some time putting together… at least a basic [Mercenary] group to make sure we’re backed up during the raid. As powerful as an Immortal is, I can’t fight an army by myself.”

  “I won’t be helping either,” said Jonathan. “I’m sorry, but… I’m really not cut out for real combat. I can fight against a couple armed enemies fine, but attacking a military base is too dangerous.”

  Ethan’s voice, as well as his gaze, grew firmer as he continued to stare at Alice. “I know you probably feel bad for [Scholar] Metista… but we still need to keep an eye on the bigger picture. It stings, but it’s the truth.”

  Alice nodded.

  “I have another thought. The Society certainly has conducted other unethical experiments. I’m not willing to do them myself…. But if we steal them from the Society after raiding their base, I wouldn’t mind that outcome. And there are some things the Society might have researched that could speed me along a lot.”

  Ethan paused, before he slowly nodded.

  “All right then. I’ll do what I can to pressure a few of the weaker [Nobles] into lending me some troops, and see what local [Mercenary] groups are in the area. It’ll be hard to put everything together, but if I work on it, I should be able to find a way.” Ethan laughed bitterly. “I’ll see how long that takes. Make sure not to waste time while I put something together for an attack, all right? It’ll take a while, and we need you getting as many experiments done as you can.”

  Allira also nodded, before the two of them left the mansion again. Jonathan and his family looked at Alice and Cecilia, as if trying to figure out what all of this meant for them… and then they left the room.

  Alice sighed.

  She just hoped that this judgement call wasn’t a mistake on her part.

  * * *

  The next few days were spent neck-deep in research.

  Alice constantly worked on finding new ways to make her magic seeds ‘light up.’ However, She had a difficult time finding the solution. Trying to force the double helix of mana in Jonathan’s toe into a tighter, compact ball of mana didn’t work. All that did was destroy the structure entirely. Trying to interact with the now ruined glob of mana produced no new results, and eventually, Alice was forced to admit that her attempt had totally ruined the mana structure and scrap it using {Broken Seed}. This left her with no small amount of regret, as she had been hoping to develop the mana helix into a functioning Class seed. The only upside was that Jonathan reported no abnormalities in his thoughts or physical body. Even though Alice constantly checked everything with {Safety Analysis}, she lived in fear of the day she made a mistake and hurt Jonathan.

  Alice was also unable to resolve the issue of the mana seed not properly absorbing mana on its own. By her own theory, the best way Alice could think of to fix this problem was to make the mana helix produce mana on its own and then use it, just like how magic seeds did. The problem was that Alice had absolutely no idea how to do that. Even though she knew the ‘solution,’ she had no idea how the solution was supposed to work. Thus, once again, Alice ran into a brick wall that she had no good solution for overcoming.

  After a few more days of research, the only thing Alice really accomplished, besides ramming her head into problems she couldn’t find a solution for, was to gain a few levels and finally get her Perks off cooldown.

  The Perks were something Alice had been waiting for a while for. After all, she had discovered or invented several new types of mana that she wanted, and her {Experimental Seed} was incapable of keeping up with the supply of mana that she needed. However, the levels were also rather exciting.

  This was for a simple reason. [Explorer of Magic] had reached another Perk level, as had [Careful Enchanter]. [Explorer of Magic] was especially exciting, because Alice had hopes that the Class would solve her current predicament entirely. As for [Careful Enchanter]… it also had some chance to provide solutions for Alice’s current predicament.

  Since Alice didn’t know how her Perks and needs would change after taking her new Perks, she decided to deal with her new Perks before handling her Perk cooldowns.

  She looked at [Explorer of Magic] first.

  Thus far, Alice’s needs had been pretty comfortably met by combining Perks that were both part of the [Explorer of Magic] Perk. However, Alice had never forgotten that Perks above level 75 had one more advantage over regular Perk combination – they could also grab perks from totally outside of their Class, as long as one of the two ‘ingredients’ was from the correct Class. Right now, Alice was trying to figure out how to make artificial magic seeds, and there was a Perk that she suspected would help her do that correctly. It wasn’t from [Explorer of Magic]… but she suspected it would work well as a base for the Perk she wanted.

  {Raw Mana Enchanting}, the most recent Perk from [Careful Enchanter]. It was directly aligned with her current goals and needs, and Alice felt like it had a lot of potential as an ingredient for Perk combination.

  The problem Alice had was finding a Perk to combine it with.

  Alice couldn’t currently use Tier 3 Perks as fuel for combination. That would only happen once she evolved her Class again at level 100. {Broken Seed} was also far, far too valuable to ever give up, so it was completely off the table as a Perk combination ingredient. Thus, Alice had three choices left. {Combat Seed}, {Seeds of Magic}, and {Enhanced Regeneration}. {Enhanced Regeneration} was just a basic mana regeneration boost, which Alice thought might give her the results she wanted. After all, Alice was trying to figure out how to make Artificial magic seeds, and it did seem like one of the more important aspects of a Magic seed was its ability to generate mana. However, {Seeds of Magic} was a Perk directly related to Magic Seeds, so Alice suspected it would ALSO give her what she wanted. The question was which one would do a better job of giving her what she wanted.

  Alice spent nearly ten minutes debating what the correct path forward was, before she eventually decided to go with {Enhanced Regeneration}. It was… probably more relevant to the result she wanted? Alice hoped so, at least.

  It took several seconds for her Perks to finish fusing together, which was rather unusual. Alice spent the entire time using her Perks to watch in curiosity, as two different streams of mana leapt out of her Class seeds and intertwined with each other. They looked almost like two different streams of light. As the Perk combination neared completion, finally, Alice saw her [Explorer of Magic] Class seed slurp up the intertwined mana like someone eating a bowl of noodles.

  Alice looked at her new Perk, and started grinning wildly. Even the thoughts of her Perks, which had just come off cooldown, and her other [Careful Enchanter] Perk fell out of her mind as she grinned in sheer excitement. For days, she had labored to find a solution to her problem. She had bashed her head against wall after wall, finding every single attempt insufficient for her needs. But at last, she had found the key. A magic seed that could independently regenerate mana. She had finally found it. And with that… hopefully, she had found the missing component for how to make a knockoff Class seed.

  Back from vacation. I spent most of the first week running around, trying to get a new computer built. My old one was built on a budget, since my financial situation wasn’t great at the time. Over 2024, my financial situation has been a lot healthier, so I could afford to splurge a bit and build a pretty nice computer. Getting everything to work was a bit of a pain, but I’m pretty happy with the end result. I can finally actually play Baldur’s Gate 3, Cyberpunk 2077, and various other games! My old one couldn’t even run them on the lowest graphics settings without lag that made said games rather frustrating to play. Now I can run them on pretty good graphics settings and it still runs pretty smoothly.

  The second week of my vacation was mostly spent playing Path of Exile 2. Having built this computer to play Cyberpunk 2077 and Baldur’s Gate 3 without lag, it was only natural to immediately play Path of Exile 2, right? That’s logic right there. I don’t see what’s so confusing. I had a friend I wanted to play games with, and since both of us were interested in Path of Exile 2, it seemed like a good idea. I kind of liked Path of Exile 1, but I also had a lot of parts of the game I didn’t like so much. The second one feels like it fixed a lot of the issues I had with the first game, although it does also give the game a very different vibe. I like it, but I suspect some people from the first game probably wouldn’t enjoy the second game very much XD.

  Random thoughts aside, really, thank all of you. Being able to make a living by writing has always been a dream of mine, and for the first few years of writing… I wasn’t really sure if it was realistic. My original goal, before I posted the first chapter of Budding Scientist, was to make enough money to pay for my tea leaves. I had no idea whether I was being too ambitious or not at the time. I thought it was equally realistic that I might have 0 readers and just go back to writing as a hobby in my free time. After I started posting Budding Scientist, a lot of people came to read the story, and I started to see a bit of hope that maybe writing could be a bit more than a hobby. I started hoping for more, and for a few years, I had a really hard time figuring out whether I should keep going or whether I should give up and find a more ‘realistic’ way to earn a living.

  I’m glad I kept going. Last year was the first time I made a decent income as a writer. I was waiting until the very end of the year, because I kept thinking that maybe something would go wrong and my income would plummet at the last second or something… I don’t know, maybe it’s a weird suspicion, but it’s how my brain works. Anyway! 2024 was the first year I feel was pretty financially healthy as a writer. I was able to rent a nicer place. I have a bigger workspace, so it’s no longer incredibly cramped. The air conditioning actually works, meaning that this year I probably won’t boil to death when summer comes around. I was also able to splurge and buy a nice computer for myself, which is something I’ve never been able to justify up until now. No more waffling for a few months about buying a game on steam, only to finally buy it and find out my computer can’t run it anyway. I also got to upgrade my snacks a bit.

  Anyway, I seem to have veered off topic. Or perhaps there was no real ‘topic’ to begin with, and I was just rambling. That tends to happen in author’s notes, I guess. Anyway, thank all of you. Whether you’re someone who just reads on one of the free platforms, or one of my patrons, I’m grateful that I can actually make a living doing one of my favorite things in the world. I never believed that I would actually reach this point. Happy new year, and I hope I can write another happy message in an Author’s Note for the next several years to come. I’m rambling, so I’m cutting off the author’s note here.

  :D

  -Acaswell

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