Past Life Hero, ch 41

It was somewhat unsurprising to learn from the golems that all of the most expensive rooms were empty. In fact, for Max, it was more eyebrow-raising that the golem spoke with such a normal human-sounding voice. He'd been expecting them all to sound robotic, maybe echoey or mystical sounding, or perhaps even like the grinding of rocks together. Instead, the first golem that he talked to had introduced itself as Bob and very politely informed him of the room's cost and availability.

The building was seven stories tall and Max gave some serious thought to what floor he wanted to be on. On one hand, being on a high floor would give him a better view and theoretically better security. However, the ground floor would be much more convenient and all of the rooms were supposed to come with really great security anyway–regardless of floor. Max eyed the stairs and thought about it for a while. Finally, he said, "I would like to take a room on the bottom floor, please."

The golem said, "Bottom floor.  Understood."

Then Max added, "I would also like to include the extra one hundred stones in order to have extra guards."

"Understood," said the golem. "Please pay using Quartet-standard mana units."

Max pulled mana units out of his money pouch and just kept handing them over.  Meanwhile, the golem somehow kept making them disappear. Max was curious if the golem would try cheating him.  Apparently not, because it eventually said, "That is enough, sir. Thank you for your prompt payment.  Please tell me your name and hold out your hand to be scanned."

"It's Max Cunningham."

Then the golem produced a stone wand similar to the ones that Max had seen all the professors using so far.  It scanned him.  That done, the magic construct did something with the door behind it, even running the stone wand over the door in a complex pattern. Max watched silently and finally, the golem said, "Your new room is ready, sir. Whenever you need something, just please come out and ask a golem attendant."

Max entered his new room and his jaw dropped in amazement. He'd known that it would be much nicer than his original room. He had also known intellectually that having an entire floor to himself would be much larger, even in a smaller building than the other dorms. However, the reality of how much better his new accommodations were made him momentarily speechless.  When he’d collected himself, he said, "Is this a sitting room?"

"Sure is," said Lavinia, “and it looks like it's made of nothing but expensive materials too.”

She popped into visual sight in front of Max, acting like she was walking around the place, inspecting every surface. "Wow! Just the sitting room is better than the regular dorm rooms. You could put some blankets on that couch over there and this would be fantastic."

Max nodded dumbly, but then he cocked his head in confusion. "There's no door out."

Lavinia pointed at a flashing circle on the wall and said, "You probably need to inspect that first."

Max approached the circle and studied it for a while, but nothing happened. Finally, he remembered how the staff were always touching his hand with stone wands and realized the circle on the wall was the same diameter as the stone wands were. He placed his hand on top of it and a new window popped up in his vision.

Congratulations and thank you for your purchase of your executive level dorm at Summoner Academy! This is a modular accommodation. You may choose the layout and rooms that you would like.

He quickly relayed what he'd seen to Lavinia and the ghost girl gasped in delight. "Well, hurry up and start decorating! I want to see the rest of this place!"

Max grumbled a bit, but he was excited too. He went through the menus and eventually settled on a layout that he liked, listed as 5D.  It included a master bedroom, a master bath, a guest bedroom, guest bath, hallway bathroom, and three other rooms. He liked keeping all the rooms really large. With large rooms, even with clutter around the outside he'd still have plenty of working space in the center.

“Is this really best?” he wondered.  After going over the menus a few more times, he shrugged.  “Screw it.”  Max hit “Accept” on the screen and in less than five seconds there was suddenly a door on the wall, presumably to the rest of his residence.

“You going through the door?”

“Not yet.  Going to decide what my three bonus rooms will be first…”  Max turned to his contracted spirit.   "Lavinia, I'd like to get your opinion on something, please."

“I’m listening.”

Max explained what he'd done and read the long list of potential room options out loud to her. He said, "I'm already planning on making one room a martial study room, basically like a practice room that can double as a gym. But what about the other two?"

The ghost paused.  "My suggestion is to make the second room a general magic utility room."

"Okay," Max didn't really have much else to say and keyed the first selections into his screen. The last option was still open though. "What about the last one?" he asked.

Lavinia fidgeted before saying, "Actually, I'd like to ask a favor for that one."

"Really? Just say what you want."

"Uh, okay," Lavinia hesitated again before saying, "Could you choose the option for the empty pitch black room?"

Max blinked. "What? Are you serious?"

"Of course I am." Lavinia gave him a withering look.  "It's not a joke. I can't really explain it well, but that option is there for a reason. Spirits don't really sleep like humans do and some never even try to rest. But I can remember being human and sometimes it brings me comfort just to…”  She hesitated.  “To just not be doing something or thinking about anything for a while. Having a dark room is the closest that I will ever get to real sleep.  That is one of the reasons why the room next to your first one probably had so much spirit activity.  No student had been living in there for a long time."

Max smiled and shrugged.  “Alright.  No problem." He keyed the Empty Pitch Black Room into his last entry and hit accept. Then he exchanged a look with his contracted spirit.  He entered his new residence for the first time.

The interior of Max's new home was beautiful and he wondered if each high end dorm was the same inside or if they had individual or unique decor. He suspected the latter, because the floor had inlaid art–the Summoner Academy badge logo–but it looked like it had been made with thousands or maybe even millions of tiny precious stones. The walls were a cool, soothing gray, and the floor a beautiful white marble. The ceilings were dark wood, almost like Earth bog wood, except too large. Max had no idea what the material actually was.

He went straight to the very back of the dorm and decided to amend his thinking.  This was not a dorm, it was a swanky condo.  When he checked out his master bedroom, he grinned like an idiot as soon as he saw it. He had not experienced opulence like this since his heyday on Albion. The bedroom was bigger than the house he'd grown up in on Earth, and Max definitely appreciated the massive bed set to one corner of the room. There were walk-in closets and the master bath had a small utilitarian shower, but also a giant tub with dials that Max decided to experiment with later. It kind of looked like a magic version of a high end hot tub back on earth.

The guest bedroom was not nearly as large as his own but still very nice.  He was pleased to see that there was not only a large bed but also several futons around the room, so if necessary, quite a few people could stay here. The guest bathroom was across the hall from the guest bedroom.

He’d already walked by the door to the third bathroom, so he backtracked and checked it out.  It was still opulent, but not as impressive as the first two he’d seen.  Where it was located was perfect for guests to use if he was entertaining company.

Next, Max went to check on the last three rooms he'd chosen. He marveled that the system had been able to generate–or perhaps configure–this new condo so quickly.

The magical studies room had an altar to one side, a large work table, what was basically a big desk in one corner, and various mystical paraphernalia around the entire room. There was a suspended rack in the middle of the room for hanging or storing herbs and other things.  Plenty of storage was included for keeping artifacts or tools of different mystical disciplines.

Max especially appreciated the large number of lamps with flexible bases scattered around the walls of the room so that he could have direct light on any project he was working on. There was a mat in one corner for meditation and incense burners were recessed into the wall at various places. Max hadn't seen any room dedicated to the magical arts look this nice while also being this utilitarian since he'd visited the Rugustus Academy in Albion.

Next, Max checked out the martial arts room and gym. It basically looked exactly how he figured it would, albeit with fancier walls and ceilings.  An empty room with pads and weapon racks and weights in one corner is pretty much the same in any part of the universe.

The last bonus room, the dark room, Max did not open. He turned to Lavinia and said, "As far as I'm concerned, this is your room. I won't ever go in here unless it's an emergency. You've helped me a lot and I have a feeling you're going to help me even more in the future. So I want to give you this room and be respectful of your privacy as a thank you."

Lavinia didn't reply, just nodded. Max went back to his bedroom and was checking out the desk when Lavinia came back. Max sat down in his desk chair and raised an eyebrow. The ghost girl must have been thinking about something because she forgot to pretend to walk and was merely floating towards him.

"Did you like your room?" said Max.

"Yes, very much," she said. "Thank you. I can tell you that based on all of my senses this new home of yours is completely secure. If I were not contracted with you and didn't have your implied consent to enter and leave, there is no way I would have been able to get into this place."

"Good to know," said Max. He leaned back in his chair and said, "So I have a question."

"Yes?"

"I was doing some mental math and I just went through my money bag, but it's too much for me to count right now. At least that's what I thought until this popped up." He pointed in the air and said, "You can't see it, but there's a screen up here that tells me I have exactly three thousand five hundred sixty-four mana units. I know that I got six hundred from selling weapons, I got five hundred from my duel in the central area, and I got one thousand four hundred sixty-four from self-defense in the central area. I also got two thousand one hundred from my very first self-defense fight. So the total before I paid for this place was four thousand six hundred sixty-four. I paid one thousand one hundred, that leaves me with three thousand five hundred sixty-four.

“And all of this sounds like a lot of money, but I get to keep this up for seven years, right?”  He frowned.  “One thousand mana units is only like one thousand meals, maybe three thousand at cheap places.  Like, if I convert that into dollars back on earth, that's not a small amount of money, but it's not enough to afford all this either." He waved around him.

"If one mana unit were five or ten dollars, then a thousand mana units would only be five thousand or ten thousand dollars. I don't get it."

Lavinia shook her head and said, "You're thinking about it the wrong way." "

What do you mean?"

"The biggest mistake you're making is thinking about mana units like cash in the first place.  Unless you live in the central area, people don't need much money. And even in the central area, the people living there don't actually eat the same meals that the rich students eat from the academies. Instead, they have grocery stores and things like that too. Back on earth, is it more expensive to eat at home or at a restaurant?"

"At a restaurant," said Max.

“Exactly. Not only that," said Lavinia, "most students in each Quartet are going to eat for free at the cafeteria. And more importantly, one mana unit does not have the same value as a plate of food. Not really. Mana units are mostly used by students for equipment, not luxuries. And you've got to remember that for most students, the most they can possibly, probably save up before the end of any year is maybe around thirty mana units. And that's if everything goes right and they don't have to spend too much on other things. So from that perspective, two years of mana units saving up would get you, what?"

Max nodded slowly. "Maybe a low-level weapon."

"Correct," said Lavinia. "And sure, students can earn much more money if they're going into dungeons, but that's usually not something that people really start tackling until third year. And by third year, if a student truly wants better living accommodations, they could probably just get them in the central area since it would be more convenient for dungeon runs anyway. How many third or fourth years are going to want to spend a thousand mana units just to get a really nice dorm like this one when they're going to barely be at the Summoner Academy much anymore?"

Max ran his hand through his hair. "This is really strange to think about."

Lavinia nodded. "Yes, I know that it's a little different.  But still, the amount of mana units that you spent to stay in this room is way outside the means of any regular student. Of course, it's not outside the means of some of the Mystic Spear Path students you killed, obviously.”

“I see your point," said Max.  Then he changed the subject.  "So I checked everything out and the magic room looks really interesting. Is that going to help me learn how to be a Summoner?"

"Yes," said Lavinia. "It's also important for you since you're not going to be attending school anymore, or at least not the way you used to be. I don't know how many classes you want to sign up for or what classes you want to take, but honestly I can probably teach you enough that you don't need many of them. And since it will be one-on-one tutoring, it will take a lot less time. You might still have to buy some of the books for class though, and most of them should be available from the student store. Even if you're not enrolled in a particular class, there's a large discount for Summoner students to buy course books or to rent them. It's like ten times more to buy them than to rent. And if you rent, you only get it for the semester."

Max nodded silently, making a mental note to check out the student center. He hadn't really been there yet, mostly spending his time in the library before classes started. "Seems pretty straightforward to me," said Max. "So you really think you can teach an idiot like me?"

"Idiot. Right." Lavinia rolled her eyes and gave him a pointed look. "I figure if you become a powerful Summoner, it might als help  it comes to your other discipline, too."

"Uh-huh," said Max. He'd forgotten for a moment that even though Lavinia didn't know all of his secrets, she knew far more about him than anybody else in this Quartet.

Lavinia disappeared again, presumably to look at her dark room.  Max started passing the time by reviewing his notes.

He was studying  what he’d written about Summoner Lore when he heard a loud chime. "What was that?" He asked.

The ghost girl appeared.  "I don't know," said Lavinia.

When the chime sounded again, suddenly Max heard one of the golems voices out of nowhere like an intercom that existed everywhere and nowhere at once. The golem said, "Sir, you have a visitor."

Max exchanged looks with his contracted spirit. "Let's see who it is, shall we?"

Lavinia just nodded her head. She followed after him, still visible, and said, "You even have a doorbell?”