(MC POV)
I let Xun Guan lead the way into the archives, posing as her manservant by walking a step behind her.
Almost immediately, an archivist came up to us with a respectful bow.
I know from experience that most of the archivists working here are males so the one who came to greet us was no different.
"Welcome to the Royal Archives, my Lady. May I see your permit pass for entry please?"
Xun Guan didn't even bother to acknowledge his existence, "I'm not here to visit today. I heard your archives has need of more staff and since I'll be going away for some time, my servant here could use some work while I'm gone."
That's the story Xun Guan and I had agreed on beforehand.
With a 'Noble Lady's' recommendation, I should at least be able to secure an internship with them at worst.
The archivist looked at me head to toe before bowing his head to Xun Guan, "Very well, My Lady. I will see if there is a suitable position for him."
"I'll leave it to you," Xuan Guan told him flippantly before leaving through the doors, leaving me alone with the archivist.
He sighed when my slime girl left the building before turning his attention to me.
"Please tell me you have experience?"
I nodded, keeping a hunched posture to make myself look more pathetic, "I've served in my mistress's library, I am familiar with the role of an archivist."
"That's good, I was afraid we'll get another useless bum."
"Another?"
He gestured towards the inside of the building, indicating we should walk and talk.
"They are here because of the same reason as you are. Your mistress is probably going to investigate that energy explosion the other day right? Many of the Practitioners had gone off to investigate, dropping their men here for us to take care of while they're gone."
"Oh… And you guys don't reject applicants?"
"We're surviving on the donations of the Nobles after all. I'm guessing your mistress does not let you keep up to date with the news?"
I shook my head.
"We're only called the Royal Archives because the first Empress had donated a large sum of money to have this built. Sure, they still pay visits to us, but they don't exactly fund us. All of our money comes from the Nobles who make use of our services like bookkeeping, scroll making, inscription carving and other miscellaneous tasks. Which is where you will be working as well."
He paused in his tracks to gesture to a group of male archivists hunched over their tables in a room separated by a wall of glass, all of them scribbling away on the parchments in front of them.
"That's where we carve our inscriptions, are you familiar with them?"
"I do have experience in making inscriptions, yes."
Normally, you can use Quarks to inscribe inscriptions in the air to create a Technique like my Protection Inscription. But sometimes there are Practitioners who are bad with picturing the shape and symbols needed to materialise an inscription so we have people like this to copy them on a piece of paper.
Then all one needs to do is to pour the required Quarks into the pre-drawn inscription to activate it, making it a rather convenient tool.
But because a normal inscription is already quite complicated in shape, it is not easy to draw one by hand. A single mistake would render the entire inscription useless so these can fetch quite a high price for one, depending on the complexity and the skill of the maker.
Back in the Earthen Plane, I could carve out several dozens of mid-tier inscriptions per day and those sold for a few silvers each since none of them were that complicated to make.
"We have more orders for inscriptions than we have inscription carvers on hand. You get paid two coppers per inscription you manage to make."
My eyes widened at him, "Two coppers?"
He nodded, "Seems generous but we don't pay by complexity, only by volume. So it's really a gamble of what inscriptions you get to draw that day."
Oh right, men are at the bottom rung of the societal ladder. To even get paid extra on the job is a luxury already.
"Why don't you take one of the empty tables there and try it out first? The director is still busy so I'll inform her of your arrival and she'll see you when she's ready. Though honestly, it's all just formality anyway. If you don't think you're up to inscription carving I can assign you somewhere else first."
"No, no. I'm good with that."
"Perfect, I still need to sort out the books before the morning crowd comes in later so I'll leave you to it."
With those words, he immediately turned on his heels and left, obviously seeing me nothing as more than a burden.
Well, it's nothing new to be honest. I remember when I was working here I was constantly being beaten up by everyone, so this was already a big improvement.
"What's the plan, Master?" Xun Guan whispered.
"I'll work normally for now, have your clone sneak in and scout the area. See if you can find anything of note, maybe traces of that girl or something. If I can ingratiate myself to the people working here, it'll be easier for me to get information too."
"Understood, Master."
I made my way towards the inscription room, pushing open the door to let myself in. The well oiled hinges made no sound as the door swung open, meaning no one within the room looked my way when I entered.
There were twenty tables, each of them stacked high with papers of inscription requests and only six of them had someone working on them.
I chose one of the tables that seemed to have the biggest piles of papers, figuring that since they were looking to pay by quantity, this would be a good place to start.
I picked up the top most paper and glanced at the inscription drawn on it.
"... Huh, a simple lightning bolt Technique… Does this even warrant an inscription? The inscription itself also looks kind of lacking… Using this rune here just decreases efficiency by twenty percent, and the way this thing is shaped just forces the user to use more Quarks than necessary. Who the hell would even find a use for this?"
"Master… Please remember that this Plane is supposed to be weaker than ours… I would advise against making changes to the inscription."
"Yes, yes. I'll keep that in mind, I'll just draw it exactly like what is inscribed here."
"That would be for the best, Master."
"Ironically, I got most of my Cultivation knowledge from this Plane too, so it's weird to find something of such low quality here. Interesting to see how much it was amplified back in our Plane."
"Eh? Master studied Cultivation here?"
"In my previous life, yes. And in this very Archive too. I'll show you around the place after I'm officially hired here. Kind of hilarious to know that this Plane is considered 'lower' than the Earthen Plane with all the knowledge they have. I guess our Plane's Cultivation Techniques aren't as developed as here or maybe they have obtained lost knowledge from somewhere else."
"That would seem so, Master."
In that short conversation, I had already inscribed twenty of the lightning inscriptions and stacked them neatly on the side.
The inscription was that easy to inscribe since it's a Basic level Technique after all. You would definitely not find inscriptions of such simple make back in the Earthen Plane where everyone's making at least Intermediate tier Techniques instead.
Maybe I'll just stop at two hundred, that should be enough to get their attention but also not seem too overly conspicuous, right?
Yep, let's just go with that.