- Karna and Byron (B):

Karna: So Byron, I must ask.

Byron: Yes, Professor?

Karna: What was the motive behind your learning before coming here? Surely, one doesn't get bored of learning unless they started to like in the first place.

Byron: ... At first, I only began grade-skipping due to the fact that I was triple-booked in taking care of Vidar, bounty hunting and other odd jobs to keep ourselves fed, and earning my magical license from the Faerghus' Mage Academy just to go legit someday. Or at the very least, have a stable roof over our heads somewhere in Gideon.

Karna: What changed?

Byron: I realized that I couldn't triple-book forever, so I had to cut off one short. But rather than abandon my education completely, I decided to... expedite my education and graduate early so I can make more time for self-preservation later on. I passed, top of my classes, but upon finishing, it... then hit me. I suddenly now knew everything within the public sphere of Fodlan's knowledge. What I knew that the others didn't, I didn't have answers for. Suddenly, a new kind of torment came over me. I was now at the peak without realizing what I've done.

Karna: ... Perhaps it may be hysterical strength, but intellectual? I mean, the way you described it, you're one of the very few of the gifted that managed to utilize their full potential at such a short rate. It's not that you were learning from the ground up, but rather, you always had the potential to intake more knowledge than other students without realizing it.

Byron: ... So you're suggesting that I was doomed to dissatisfaction from the very start? This... hollowness was meant to be my destiny?

Karna: Only if you let it. With that in mind, I think we're both looking at this from the wrong angle.

Byron: What do you mean, Professor?

Karna: ... Instead of learning what you know, how about you make your own knowledge? I mean, who knows. you're the kind of person who made derivatives of the [Blizzard] spell into a fully-dedicated branch of ice magic just for the hell of it. Perhaps instead of being beholden to the current status quo, you can... usurp it perhaps?

Byron: ... Huh. Never thought of that. But what if I fail?

Karna: Do you really have anything to prove when others can't even comprehend you or your intellect? I mean, fire had to be discovered by someone. Human ingenuity isn't made in a day!

Byron: ... Perhaps. But... thanks for showing me what I have look forward to. Even if it's for self-satisfaction, maybe I can do what the other greats have done. I'm a minor Noa, by all means. But that has nothing to do with what I myself am capable of.

Karna: Be sure to write a book about it. Knowledge being exclusive to a certain few are doom to become myths that people will worship over without utilizing them fully.

Byron: Look forward to it.