Parallel Memory

In school, what they teach is that artifacts and external help are for weak people, and only when one relies on their own power can one be considered strong.

This might be to discourage the students from using artifacts to increase their strength temporarily and encourage them to train more.

But in a life and death battle, winning is everything. It is not like a battle between students where honor is everything.

In students' fight, even if one wins using an artifact, others will insult and mock him/her for using the artifact.

However, in a battle to the death, winning means living, and losing means death. Who cares about honor when you are dead. Everything is meaningless before death.

Having a high-rank artifact can drastically improve my strength, but the price of the high-rank artifact is ridiculously high. Even if I get 100 Silver Lavender, it may not be enough.

I need to think about increasing my wallet size. I only had 10,000 Ethan coins left after only buying what I need. I want to increase my money to be able to buy what I want, not what I need.

I thought of a possible way to make money. Actually, I had lots of ways to make money.

For one, I can just raid the dungeon and sell my things. Due to information from the novel, I know the location of some rare treasures that I can get in the dungeon. With it, I may be able to earn lots of money.

But even with that, the money I needed cannot be acquired in a short time. Also, I could only go to the dungeon once a week.

What I need is a constant flow of money without me doing anything. Maybe like buying shares of a company or something.

I also had the option to use the knowledge from the alternative world to make money here. I could make apps such as Facebook and TikTok, I bet with it I will be the next Mark Zuckerberg.

In this world, though we have mobile, however, the app we had was very limited. Especially apps for entertainment. Most of the app was for news, and the rest was about strategies in battle and the dungeon.

The focus of this world is on power and other things were only secondary. The development of technology is mainly for increasing fighting power.

Well, we are constantly at war with other species. It is only natural that people are more concerned about the fighting power than investing in some entertainment app. However, what is life without a bit of entertainment?

Considering I was a Computer Science student in the other world, I have excellent knowledge of how to create these apps. I had to make something like Facebook or another interesting app for me to get money.

With this, I had lots of things on the to-do list. First, I had to rank up but it will take some time even with the use of Exp potion and when I reach the peak of Rank-E -, I can breakthrough using Galanthus Nivalis.

Second, on the to-do list was to learn about markets and other life skills. If you want to survive in a world filled with scheming people, you need the knowledge to deal with them.

Third on the to-do list is to make an app. For now, I am thinking of introducing something like Facebook. It would take some time to make the app, but I bet it will be popular.

In this world, the ones who learn technical stuff are those people who had no talent for fighting or don't want to be Explorer.

But the majority want to become Explorers. Why? Simple, Power. For example, you are a successful businessman and become rich but if you care for your safety, then you have to go under a guild or else someone will annex your business.

The world is ruled by powerful fist.

That's why becoming an Explorer is always more profitable than other professions. No matter what business you do, you have to have a guild as a backer.

Well, that is the situation for business right now. But in the future, I will show this world how much power big tech companies have over people.

I went home to think of the plan. The plan had a big chance of success. Who won't use Facebook when this is the only app for entertainment?

I spent my whole Sunday thinking about how to develop the app. I had to write the code and set up a server and buy some other essentials for developing the app. It cost me around 3000 Ethan coins to buy all those.

The next day was a normal class.

I had to attend the practical class. This time almost all the students were present. I went to the Magic Art training class. This time, professor Mia was there to teach the class.

[ "What is the method to increase the power of your Magic Art? Does anyone know?" ]

One student raised her hand. She was wearing glasses and seemed like typically more theory type of student, though I know she is good at fighting considering we are in The Ace Academy.

We can consider everyone in the Ace Academy as an elite fighter compare to other school students.

[ "T-to increase a Magic attack, we need to supply the attack with more mana." ]

[ "Yes, you are correct. We can increase the Magic attack by consuming more mana. However, this type of method is inefficient and only wastes more mana. The art you have teaches you the optimal mana needed to use the art. If you use more mana it will increase your attack but the mana consumed is not directly proportional to increased power. For example, a fireball of size 1 meter consumes 10% of your mana, so you might need 30% of your mana to increase it to 2 meters. You can see it is pretty inefficient." ]

Oh… This is also the case for my Ice Shard. Increasing the size definitely increased the power but my mana consumed was much more than when I just use it at an optimal level. Not only that, to increase the power of my ground freeze, I needed much more mana.

For example, when I normally use Ground freeze I could use it continuously for 10 minutes keeping Rank-F frozen but that power is not enough to freeze the Rank-E. I increased my mana to increase the power, and I could only keep the Ground Freeze for 1 minute. Thinking about it again, it was really inefficient, a waste of mana.

[ "Does anyone know another method?" ]

[ "Artifact?" ]

Someone said that in the loud sound though I don't think he was answering. More like he was thinking out loud.

[ "Artifact can also be used to increase the power of your skill but have you ever considered why artifact can make your attacks more powerful?" ]

This time no one made a sound. I was also listening seriously. How could we know how they strengthen it? We just know how to use them.

[ "The answer is by making your mana more condensed. The attack of the same skill can be different based on who can condense more mana. Though not all but most artifact uses this logic, the artifact helps your mana condense more, resulting in more powerful attacks. If you can do it by yourself then you will become more powerful than those who don't know how to condense the mana." ]

Yes, condensing. Such a simple yet effective method. It is like we have a limited amount of iron. One can make paper out of it and use it to attack but it will have a low attack power, however, if you can make it compact like a needle then it could even pierce the flesh.

[ "This is the concept you all are unconsciously using. All the Art in some form condenses the mana, just that you are doing without realizing how you do it. But that is just beginner level, you should learn to condense the mana while using the skills. However, condensing mana is harder than you might think, it differs from learning an Art and you need precise mana control or else mana will be out of control. If you try to condense a huge amount of mana when you can't properly control the mana then it could lead to serious injury. First, try to condense a small amount of mana." ]

This lesson has opened a new door to becoming strong. If I can condense my mana more, then my Ice Shard could even pierce Rank-E defense skill.

Professor Mia showed us a demonstration of the difference between the attack with mana condense and without mana condensing. To say her power is strong is an understatement.

Just a casual attack of hers could kill all of the students present here. Doesn't matter whether you are Rank-E or have artifacts on your body.

After that, we were free to train. Everyone was eager, and some had even started trying to condense the mana. I also tried to condense the Ice energy.

When I master this, I will be on a whole new level.