Back at the church, after eating and meeting the rest of the church's staff as well as receiving the key to his room, Jack returned to his original residence.
This was because he still had to take the magic quill, which he now nicknamed the mutated quill, as well as the money he still had there.
The previous Jack only had two sets of clothes; as for any other valuables, there were only the bronze cup and a bronze fishing spear. The rest he was not really bothered to take back with him and decided to let them be burned later that week. They were not his, anyway.
The bronze cup itself was left at the graves of Original Jack's parents.
After taking all that was valuable, Jack returned to the church. The most exhausting part of this trip was the horrid, eye-tearing, damn near poisonous smell that Faithful Street currently had. It seemed to be at its peak; it was worse than the slums in the city, which were also hit hard by the disease.
But unlike Faithful Street, there were people with nothing to lose willing to drag the corpses and burn them so as to claim the dead man's home and humble fortune. As for whether that led to more deaths, it was unimportant to the desperate men.
Opening the door to the housing provided, he found it to be the one given to the Deacons and Trainee-Deacons like Aldric. This was because Priest Aldwin felt responsible for Jack, the sole survivor of Faithful Street.
As for the woman that Jack found washing a cloth before on the same street, she was dead.
Jack was curious as well and looked through the window, only to regret it.
Back to the housing, Aldric was there as well waiting for Jack.
"Jack, you have a letter." —Aldric
"A letter?" —Jack
"Yes, the same man that dropped you off returned with it." —Aldric
"I tried reading it for you since you can't read, but it's in a different language..." —Aldric
Jack received the letter, which had an unsealed wax seal. The quality of the paper was high; it was smooth and flexible.
While I get the intention behind it, you need to ask before you read private things.
He read the first line, which was 'The basics of Spellcasting'.
I can read it thanks to my translating ability, but I didn't tell Victor about it...
Did he send it without thinking I can't read? In this other language as well...
Aldric stared at Jack, almost begging for an answer.
"I'll head to him tomorrow and ask him what's written on it. Hope it's nothing important." —Jack
It's better than telling him and finding out I can read it.
Aldric tapped his forehead with three fingers. "Let's hope that it's nothing important." —Aldric
Jack went to his room, which was on the first floor right past the main hall, which was a prayer hall. The room itself was the same size as his original home, with much better walls, bed, everything.
Indeed, it was an improvement over the original home. No wonder Aldric kept mentioning it.
He placed the cloth bag on the bed and took out the quill and papers and placed them on the table in the same room. Then he took the letter and read it completely.
"This is..." —Jack
It's the quadratic formula! What do you mean it's in the upper academics? It's eighth grade!
...No, now that I think of it, eight years of education is indeed a lot of time for this medieval world.
But even so, quadratics are a cornerstone of Algebra! You tell me that this world is so backward it didn't discover the formula?
He kept reading it, as well as the warnings about God.
He then looked at the ring on his hand, the one which he repeatedly threw out the carriage window only for it to return via coincidences.
Could it be that God is preventing the world from discovering quadratics?
It does make sense. The best way to solve a problem is to not have it in the first place. Since magic creates instability, then make it harder to use.
But then why allow magic in the first place?
Wait... no.
Now that I think about it...
The formula itself probably isn't unknown.
What's important is that somebody realized compression behaves like a quadratic system.
But that itself is being suppressed. High mana ranks probably fight very hard to maintain their position, thus leading to the formula for making this easy being suppressed from being tied to it?
Wait, Victor just wrote the formula. I don't know much about him, but he might be a magical elite.
But a human can't possibly control all math in the world. One way or another, there will be someone to bring the formula and gain the honors.
So God really suppresses math?
And why send me the formula? Is he not afraid I'd share it?
Jack exhaled, folded the piece of paper with the formula, and placed it in his pocket.
Magic is much more scientific than what I expected it to be.