Beauxbatons, Side Hall
While enjoying an exquisite French meal, Lucien pulled up the interface to check the loan details for the Earth Elemental Rune.
[Loan: Advanced Earth Elemental Rune]
[Repayment Period: 30 Days]
[Loan Content: Grants the Host an Advanced Earth Elemental Rune. Increases affinity with earth elements, accelerates the learning speed of earth magic, and increases the power of earth magic by 50%.]
[Loan Task: Improve the Fountain of Beauty at Beauxbatons.]
Lucien mentally communicated with the System.
"Are there any specific specs or standards for the improvement?"
[None. The design is entirely up to the Host's preference. The System will be responsible for judging whether the final effect meets the requirements of the loan.]
Hearing the System's reply, Lucien immediately felt a bad omen.
Great. So the System has basically become the Client.
And not just any client—the worst kind. The kind that refuses to give you a clear brief.
Earth Elemental Rune... fitting, I guess. Why do I feel like I'm turning into a civil engineer or a general contractor?
He could already see it happening: he'd submit a blueprint, and the Client (the System) would say they weren't "feeling it." He'd have to tear it down and start over, only for them to eventually realize the first draft was the best one all along...
On top of that, while the repayment period was technically thirty days, Lucien was only staying at Beauxbatons for two weeks. That cut his working time in half.
Still, once I take this loan, I'll have Advanced Runes for both Water and Earth. That boosts my affinity for two foundational elements, which should make Alchemy significantly smoother.
I can also write to my teacher, Nicolas, and ask him directly about the core principles of the Fountain. That should save a lot of legwork.
Combine that with my SS+ Alchemy talent, and I should be fine.
Lucien decided to ask the System one last thing.
"System, old buddy... we've been together for years. You wouldn't go out of your way to reject my blueprints just to mess with me, right?"
[Hehe ( ͡° 3 ͡°)]
"..."
[This System aims to help the Host learn more knowledge. Please do not worry about the System playing pranks (๑•́ ω •̀๑)]
I certainly hope so, Lucien thought, and proceeded to apply for the loan.
[Ding! Loan application successful!]
[Evaluation: By improving the Fountain of Beauty, many girls will be very grateful to you.]
Seeing another one of the System's occasionally unserious evaluations, the corner of Lucien's mouth twitched slightly.
It did remind him, however, of the requests he'd received from several female classmates before leaving Hogwarts. They had all asked him to bring back some water from the Fountain. Their excuses varied wildly, but the true intent was obvious—everyone wants to be beautiful.
Lucien figured he could use this opportunity to research some skincare potions and alchemical beauty products while he was modifying the fountain.
Well, I promised quite a few people I'd bring water back. But since I'm going to be reverse-engineering the Fountain's structure and principles anyway... maybe I should just build a replica back at Hogwarts later...
---
After lunch.
Madame Maxime announced that during their two-week exchange, Lucien, Riemann, and the others were free to attend Beauxbatons' regular classes.
Lucien was naturally quite happy about this; he was genuinely curious about the teaching standards at other magic schools.
However, he immediately realized a problem: Beauxbatons introduced Alchemy classes much earlier than Hogwarts, starting in the third year.
I might need to talk to Madame Maxime about sitting in on the upper-year classes.
Unsurprisingly, out of all the subjects at Beauxbatons, Lucien was most interested in their Alchemy curriculum.
Normally, students participating in an alchemy exchange like this would be fifth or sixth years at minimum. Lucien, being a second year, was definitely an "accident."
Since I need to ask Madame Maxime for permission to modify the Fountain of Beauty anyway, I might as well ask about the classes at the same time.