Chapter 14. Your Star Alignment Is Not Right?
When Fulan arrived slightly earlier than the agreed time at the place she had arranged to meet Laiyi, she only waited for a short while before Laiyi appeared.
Fulan was a little surprised.
“What a coincidence. I arrived a bit early, and there was still some time before the appointed hour.”
Laiyi smiled.
“No, it is because I saw through the stars that you had arrived, so I came down.”
“The stars can even do that?”
Fulan became even more interested in the upcoming visit to the club. This seemed quite different from her own Astrology spell.
Following Laiyi, Fulan entered a house. Inside sat a chestnut-haired girl wearing a shirt with a green coat draped over it. She was seated at a table and looked up as they arrived.
“This is Haya, the president of our Night Sky Book Club,” Laiyi introduced.
Fulan looked at Haya’s face and felt it seemed somewhat familiar, as if she had seen it somewhere before.
Yet she clearly remembered that she herself had never met her. It was probably the original owner of the body who had seen her.
Haya also looked toward Fulan. She examined her for quite some time, as though recalling something, before speaking.
“So this is the one you mentioned—the girl who became completely absorbed in the starry sky painting during the Art Appreciation class.”
“Yes, her name is Fulan,” Laiyi replied.
“Oh, Fulan. Then it must be her.”
Laiyi seemed to notice that their president might know Fulan and asked curiously,
“President, do you know Fulan?”
“Of course. She left quite a deep impression on me.”
A smile curved at the corner of Haya’s lips as she continued,
“When I worked as an assistant for the Arithmetic class, I was very impressed by her arithmetic skills. Very few apprentices manage to get so many assignments wrong.”
Fulan nearly cursed internally.
She had to admire the original owner of this body. How had she managed to do so many things and yet do every single one badly?
She was practically unskilled in everything and had completely ruined Fulan’s reputation.
Laiyi’s face flushed slightly red. Under Fulan’s puzzled gaze, she said something rather strange.
“Even if her arithmetic might not be very good, she might still quickly grasp astrology if she encounters it.”
What did that mean?
Why did it sound as though arithmetic and astrology magic were somehow connected? That was not at all what Fulan had imagined.
She had thought astrology magic would be something like prophecy or divination. Why was mathematics suddenly involved?
“I never said she would not be able to learn astrology spells. Come on, let us test what her talent is actually like.”
With that, Haya stood up and walked deeper into the house. Fulan and Laiyi followed behind her.
After climbing one floor, Haya opened a door decorated with peculiar patterns. The room inside was completely dark.
The light from outside seemed unable to reach inside at all. Fulan could not even see the floor.
“The one at the back, close the door.”
Laiyi took the initiative to remain at the rear and shut the door. Haya then opened another door within the passage, which Laiyi closed again.
After passing through three doors, the three of them finally arrived in a room decorated with many faintly glowing ornaments.
The surroundings were still extremely dim. Fulan could barely see her own fingers when she raised her hand. At this point, she could hardly even tell which of the two figures beside her was who.
“All right, wait here while I activate the device.”
As she spoke, Haya walked toward a corner of the room. Laiyi seemed to notice Fulan’s confusion and explained,
“This is a specially designed room of our club. Its effect allows us to observe the stars even during the daytime. The three doors earlier were meant to block out the external light.”
Fulan knew that stars were actually present in the sky during the day as well. The sunlight was simply too bright and concealed them.
In a magical world, having a method to observe star alignments during the daytime seemed perfectly reasonable.
After a soft CLICK, the surroundings gradually brightened.
Fulan looked toward the source of the light and realized it was above her head.
The ceiling formed a circular dome. Now countless tiny points of light slowly appeared across the dome, gradually forming a starry sky.
And Fulan found this starry sky extremely familiar.
Was this not the same night sky she looked at every evening?
Ever since discovering that she could foresee the future through the stars, she had taken this practice very seriously.
Before sleeping each night, she spent at least half an hour observing the sky.
Unfortunately, the results had been rather disappointing. After that first day, she had never again experienced the same visions of the future.
Even the increase in proficiency had been painfully slow, rising by only one point per day.
“Come here. Stand here and look at the sky while holding this sheet.”
Fulan accepted the paper and looked toward the direction indicated. Only then did she notice many circles drawn on the floor, apparently meant to assist with positioning. The spot where she stood was exactly one of those circles.
Fulan carefully read the contents on the paper. It described a method of determining one’s current location by observing the positions of stars.
At the same time, it included an extremely complicated mathematical formula. Seven or eight pieces of information needed to be substituted into it.
Fulan studied it for quite a while, trying to find where to begin. The two people beside her simply waited quietly without speaking.
Gradually, Fulan began to understand how the formula should be used. Just as she was about to begin, she glanced at the starry sky above.
According to the instructions on the paper, one was supposed to observe the sky from different angles and determine one’s position based on the changes in star positions.
That had been exactly what Fulan intended to do.
However, the moment she stared at the stars above, a sudden thought arose in her mind.
There was no need to go through so much trouble. She could simply write the answer directly.
Taking the scrap paper Haya had handed her earlier, she wrote:
‘316.4; 70.8’.
Then she spoke plainly.
“I have finished.”
[You used the stars to complete a calculation. Astrology proficiency +4]
Only after saying this did Fulan snap out of her dazed state. When she looked up, she saw the two of them staring at her in shock.
Haya took the paper and glanced at it, then looked at Fulan with a complicated expression before pulling out another sheet.
“Calculate how far this location is from us.”
The sheet contained several drawings of starry skies. They had clearly been sketched by hand and seemed to preserve only the necessary information.
Fulan found them very comfortable to look at since there were no distracting details.
After only a brief glance at the three star charts, that same strange feeling surged up again. She immediately wrote down another set of coordinates.
When Haya finished reading it, she stared at Fulan with astonishment.
She felt as though she had just witnessed a miracle of astrology.
How could someone stand in the same place without even observing the stars from multiple directions and still directly determine the coordinates?
At first, when Fulan wrote the first set of coordinates, Haya had thought Laiyi might have been collaborating with her to play a prank.
But the second calculation confirmed that she truly could determine the coordinates.
Haya understood that this type of calculation had two fundamental principles.
The first was the user’s affinity with the stars. In truth, moving a few steps on the ground could not possibly cause any positional change among the stars in the sky.
What the user perceived was actually the change in the stars caused by themselves. The stars were telling the user where they stood.
The second was arithmetic. Every user experienced these sensations differently, and arithmetic served to standardize those perceptions. It allowed people to communicate and verify the results.
So… was Fulan making the stars themselves shift position simply by standing still?
This display reminded Haya of something her mentor had once said. There had been a student—now already a fully fledged mage—who had displayed exactly the same ability. He could determine coordinates simply by standing still.
“Please, you must join our club.”