Chapter 8: Scholar of the Arcane
"Yes let's"
Jack immediately walked towards the far right of the room and started at the corner picking up the artifact and 'studied' it.
"No this one isn't Zulteine"
Celine walked over to Jack peering over his shoulder.
"How can you tell?"
"You see, if you look at here at the wear we can tell that the writing on it is faded but to unevenly, and the grammar is wrong."
"Amazing, can you walk me through your processes this may help me greatly in the future!" Celine's eyes lighted up in excitement.
Jack forced a smile realizing that today was going to be a lot harder than he initially thought, praising himself inwardly for studying up on Zulteine.
As Jack reached reached the 6th one he was about to come up with another reason on why it wasn't an artifact he paused. When he picked up this artifact his Aura reacted.
"Interesting.."
"What is it? Did you find one?" Celine was obviously excited.
"I'm not sure"
Celine looked at him strangely before asking "You don't know?"
"Yes I'm human too not a relic identifying machine. I would have to take this, and do a more through inspection. That would require equipment that I do not have unfortunately."
"Well we'll mark it as unknown and come back for it later if we can't find an artifact."
Jack smiled warmly and put down the artifact "Of course"
As the day went on Jack continued to 'inspect' each artifact making up a whole system to fool Celine.
"Alright Celine you've been watching me do the last 23 artifacts, lets see what you can do. What's the first step?"
"Check the material"
"Correct, now what material is this one?"
"Thimble stone, one of the more common stones within the Zulteine empire"
"Alright that's one check mark what's the second step?"
"Check the design"
"Indeed"
As this went on Jack felt ridiculous 'teaching' Celine like this but she was very attentive and never seemed offended or suspicious, so he kept going with it. It was baffling that a scholar didn't even think of doing something as simple as this, but then Jack remembered that education within in Forgemire had a slight edge above the medieval ages back on earth. Well in some areas they were extremely advanced, such as business and culture, but history and science not so much.
By the time they had gone through all the artifacts Jack had found 4 possible artifacts. How did he know? it was because all four reacted to his Aura.
Standing at the front of the room Jack and Celine were looking down at 4 possible artifacts. Jack sighed and walked over to the wall and sat down with his back leaning on it. Yawning he looked exhausted, Celine assumed that it was from spending several hours identifying possibilities, but in reality his head just hurt from having to bullshit so much of his 'knowledge'.
"Well I'm afraid that this is my limit Celine, those are all potentially Zulteine relics but I can't be 100% sure."
"No, you've already done too much, you even taught me some tips and tricks on identifying Zulteine relics."
Jack wanted to pull his collar in anxiety but refrained from doing so, keeping up his scholarly act.
Celine glanced outside "Oh my it seems that is dark evening already if you don't mind I would love to have you stay over for the night."
"Oh no I couldn't do that, I mean uhh... don't you have to turn another relic in I can accompany you to the museum it's on the way to were I've been staying."
Jack started having cold sweat drip down his back from thinking about having to pretend to be a scholar for several more hours. Or if Celine had 'other motives' he didn't want to risk Miss Sharlet inquiring about him thanks to a relationship. Nor did he think that he could turn her down if she directly offered, Celine was a very stunning lady underneath her bookwormish apparel after all.
"You don't have to worry about that the museum is sending over someone to pickup the relic soon I don't have to go out."
"Uhh.."
"I insist, it's the least I can do in repayment to you"
(You could just give me actual money then) Jack grumbled inwardly.
"I.. If you insist I suppose I could spend the night."
"Wonderful, here follow me I'll show you where the guest room is."
Jack stood up and followed Celine out the room and up the stairs continuing to the third floor. Upon reaching the guest room Celine turned to Jack and said.
"Make yourself at home one of the maids will tell you when dinner is ready, it will be just the two of us tonight as Miss Sharlet is on a business trip currently."
As Celine closed the door Jack gulped. Looking around the room Jack noticed that it was much finer looking than the outside of the villa. the bed was a twin meant to hold one person, along the wall was a large wardrobe and mirror. In the corner was a desk with a small oil lantern placed upon it.
Jack was inspecting the dresser placed next to the mirror before he froze.
(What the hell am I doing admiring the room! I need to figure out how to either get out of here or turn her down.)
Jack opened the window to see if he could get out that way, but alas it wasn't doable. It wasn't the fact that the guest room was 3 stories up, he could simply use his Aura to climb down safely. But it was the fact that the windows were barred.
As Jack was racking his brains on how he was going to escape there was a sudden knocking on the door.
"Mr. Axter dinner will be ready in 5 minutes please prepare yourself to come down."
"Alright"
(Welp, I guess it's too late now. I just have to refuse her if she offers.) Jack spent the next 4 minutes staring at himself in the mirror psyching himself up.
Walking down the steps toward the dinning room Jack saw a large circular dinning table made of mahogany on one end sat Celine, she was dressed in casual clothes and was sitting politely with her hands folded on her lap.
Jack not wanting to be out done in etiquette sat down opposite of her politely. In a short time food was brought out to the table along with wine that almost seem to shimmer in it's deep near purple red hue.
Celine and Jack ate and talked politely for the duration of their meal. The food to Jack was amazing, since Jack had been in this world he had almost forgotten what good food tasted like.
He was almost brought to tears from the mashed potatoes sprinkled with garlic and slathered in butter, as he cut into the steak the juices oozed out combining with the grilled vegetables soaking them in flavor. Then the wine was sweet but refreshing giving the meal an overall balance on his tongue.
As dessert was being served Celine spoke up, "Mr. Axter I have a offer for you"
"..." Jack froze as a million thoughts flooding into his brain, most of them screaming.
"How would you like to learn magic Mr. Axter?"
Jacks thought were immediately broken almost spitting out the wine he was sipping.
"What?"
"Would you like to learn magic?"
"Which one Aura or Mana?"
Celine smiled mysteriously "Mana"
Jack's head was spinning, some parts of him wanted to say yes other parts of him wanted to say no since he already knew it, there was even parts of him that thought this was a ploy to get into his pants.
"What's the catch?"
"Other than the dangers that come with being a magic user none"
The dangers that Celine was talking about were naturally were the ones that came with being a free lance magic user. Since magic users were very powerful they were considered a threat. Many important or rich people bought the protection from magic users, these were known has 'registered' magic users and they were deemed expectable by society.
Those who were not employed by important or rich figures were consider 'unregistered' and would often be hunted. Who would be able to hunt magic users? other magic users naturally. In fact more than 90% of users were 'registered' and were in it for the fame and fortune, they had no comradery and would often support the highest bidder.
As time went on there were people who tried to hire magic users to betray their employer, which resulted in blood or soul oaths being made. Now days if someone where to show potential in magic they would instantly be bought away by a important figure and made to make the oath from a young age.
But not many magic users attempted to break the oaths anyway, as long as they were paid and not annoyed, they were at the top of the food chain so they didn't care. Since there was so little 'unregistered' users they would be considered the highest threat and every 'registered' user would be sent upon them as soon as their existence was discovered.
"You're offering for me to become an 'unregistered'?" Jack cocked his eyebrow.
"Of course we wouldn't want you to be a slave to some snobby rich monster"
"Oh? who is we?"
"Naturally my mother Miss Sharlet and I"
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone