"It has latched onto this place like an infestation. All efforts at eradication have proved futile." - Yeter, Trostad villager
Day 12
It's been more than a week since I've writ upon this diary. Research has proven to be much too fruitful, now that I have a companion and fellow historian. Another person to compare notes, discuss and argue about events, dissemination of insight and wisdom.
These last few days have been a rollercoaster of emotions. I will start from the beginning. The train Doctor Oobleck, his students, and I boarded crashed into the capital city of the kingdom of Vale, aptly named, the city of Vale. Let's start from there.
Vale is a beautiful city, relatively recent in its foundation being only a hundred years old. The kingdom itself is much older, five hundred years since its conception.
The people here are friendly enough. Population-wise, it's comprised of Humans and Faunus. The most recent census indicates that there are five humans for every one Faunus.
Vale is also majorly populated by the feminine sex, roughly sixty percent of all citizens are women. By all means, this is not a bad thing. To the uninitiated, this is a sign of a developed kingdom and a sign of one that is still growing. Which leads me to believe that Vale is one of the major factions on this plane.
Speaking of other factions, there are three other kingdoms in Remnant; Mistral, Vacuo, and Atlas. I do not know the differences between each one, but once I travel to each of them, I shall document it here.
Vale, and the other kingdoms on the plane for that matter, is controlled by a council. Council members, the people who occupy the seats of the council, are elected by vote by the people, each representing a different political party.
Very different from the way Ravnica handles its politics.
I have also met with the body that upkeeps the law in this kingdom, the Vale Police Department, on that very day the train crashed into the city.
Can you believe that they thought I was a member of the organization named The White Fang, based on my race? I look nothing like them! Alas, prejudice is helpful depending on the situation, thus I cannot in good heart blame them for their actions.
I must commend my newfound companion for stepping in and lending me their aid when I needed it the most. Doctor Bartholomew Oobleck. That man is a saint. He fed them a small lie, saying I was their fellow all along.
I wasn't. I attacked that night in a fit of rage after seeing my pen be damaged by those brutes, but I digress.
Later he said that I had a heart of gold for stepping in and notifying him of Ms. Rose's situation at the moment. Then inquired about my situation.
I withheld no details from him. His mind was blown. He did not, not even for a moment, doubt a word exiting my mouth.
After inquiring why he believed everything I told him, he informed me that he had never seen anyone like me in all his years. When I inquired further, I realized that Remnant had never seen a Leonin before, or any other non-Human or non-Faunus sapient race before. Thus, my visage alone made my story much more believable.
He has become a treasured friend of mine in these few days.
Faunus-kind is categorized here as a separate species from humans. I disagree. For me and probably everyone outside of Remnant, Faunus and Humans are basically cousins. Both are so alike, that blood transfusions and organ transplants between the two races are possible.
The only visible and physiological difference is the added benefit of a singular animalistic trait. I cannot stress my dissatisfaction enough. Faunus traits are random, sometimes.
Sun Wukong is a student of Vacuo currently visiting Vale for a festival. He has a monkey's tail. His father is a human, and his mother has bird wings for arms. How? Why?
Blake Belladonna is a student from Vale, I met her with Doctor Oobleck. She has a pair of cat ears atop her human ones. Her mother also has a pair of cat ears on her head, her father is also a Faunus, though his traits were not inherited by the girl. How? Why?
Biology works in mysterious ways, who am I to question Mother Nature?
Racial similarity doesn't seem to matter much in this plane, however. As Doctor Oobleck informed me, Faunus are often segregated. A racial conflict, embedded deep into each other's culture. Apparently, there has even been a war fought for their rights.
The White Fang exists for that very same reason. Though their methods have taken a violent turn, fundamentally, they fight for the sake of all Faunus. I am very fortunate to have arrived here at the pinnacle of such conflict, as I will be able to actively document events as they unfold.
Eugenics aside, there have been many more interesting discoveries. Dust is the biggest one yet.
For the people of Remnant, Dust is a manifestation of the many forces of nature. It is harvested and harnessed in many shapes and forms. Crystals, powders, and projectiles. These are used on many, many avenues of their lives. From heating their food and fueling their vehicles to weaponry and construction.
The reasons why Dust is formed is a mystery to them. No, I should say that they believe Dust to be yet another law of this world's physics. An object, if let go of it in the air, it will fall. Dust, if let be somewhere, will grow and multiply.
Yes, this material of incredible properties can be planted, cultivated, and grown to varying degrees of success.
I, on the other hand, have a different theory. One that I wish I could confirm to be true, however, no one here can use magic in the same way as I, thus I cannot argue with Remnant's denizens of this find.
At first, I thought that Dust was a mineral like any other, only, magical in nature. I was incorrect. Dust is the result of allowing mana to reside freely in a place for long enough for it to coalesce into Dust.
Allow me to exemplify. There are many ways for a crystal to be formed, the most common of which is with water that has absorbed too much in the solution.
Say you have a pan of water, then you add sugar. The water will absorb the sugar until it reaches a limit on how much it can dissolve. By increasing the temperature, water can dissolve more sugar. Now, what happens when water, after dissolving as much sugar as it can with increased temperature, returns to a lower temperature?
It begins a process of crystallization. The over-dissolved sugar will form a crystalline structure over time. Now, the shape of the structure will vary depending on the pressure and the material dissolved, but that's beside the point.
I believe that a similar process is what forms Dust.
A pool of mana that holds more than it can handle. It needs to let go of the mana somehow, or else there wouldn't be a way to recycle the mana. Thus, it creates Dust. Yet, Dust isn't exactly crystalized mana, it's somehow less than that. Dust is only a coalescence of the mana's identity.
This explains why the lands I've come across had their base color, but also a colorless pool despite not producing colorless mana.
Dust can achieve the most bare-bones of magic feats, mostly spontaneously. Lighting something on fire, releasing a gush of wind, electrifying something, exploding something, releasing water. Those are some applications of Dust in its raw state.
The crystal theory also explains how it can also be planted and grown. A crystal's 'seed' is something that can be used to facilitate the growth of crystallized formations, but only if it's the same material overflowing inside the solution. Hence why there is a varying degree of success when planting Dust.
I have not been able to fully interact and document the many variations of Dust on Remnant, but as far as I have observed, most Dust has a tendency to inflict bodily harm. I take it as a core identity of red mana, and also the reason why Dust is found commonly on mountains.
I have analyzed many types of Dust thus far. I shall name them all and list their specialties and peculiarities on a future moment, once I fully grasp what Dust is.
Currently, I stay at Doctor Oobleck's house. He lives alone, so the company is good for him, he says. Alas, I can't be at his house for the rest of my time here. I know a spell that will aid me with that, but I must gather the mana necessary for such a feat. The mana is theirs by birthright, even if they do not use it. There is a possibility that using the overflowing mana would shift the ecosystem in some way somehow, thus I'd like to refrain from doing so.
However, money is tight, and by tight I mean that I have nothing.
To whom should I ask for permission to do so? Maybe I should go for an unpopulated area, outside of the kingdom's borders, and collect mana there? It still feels like I'm stealing from them.
There is more I want to write here, but I must go for now. An associate of his wants to meet me.
I will continue tomorrow. I have some thoughts I want to put into paper regarding the 'Huntsman' and their academies here. Doctor Oobleck is a professor in one of them, so he had much to say about it.
A/N: Hello. It took a bit more time to release this one. Blame it on the other fic I'm writing. Anyway, here's the fifth chapter, cya later.
Avakai: Aye, same. I thought about experimenting with another style but gave up halfway through. I decided against deleting that part cause it could still be used to enhance the humor of the fic. A human? I can see why is that, though, I've not once mentioned him being a human. I can't blame you. That part of him not settling for being a spectator though... They shot his pen, he was mad. As for the whole 'shouting in order to grab team RWBY's attention' bit, think of it as a strategic way to acquire more information. Forming bonds allows for a better understanding of each other's culture after all.