NSLICE-00P and the others returned to the villa. Princess Caecila separated from them, and after a quick organic refueling, NSLICE-00P returned to her room.

It was time to reevaluate her approach based on the newly acquired intel.

Consulting the Imperial Academy’s library and an expert on the topic of other realms implied that no specific knowledge regarding other universes was common within the Empire. The expert stated he had peers he wanted to consult and she had not gone through every scroll in the library, but calculations predicted at least some reference or evidence might have appeared by now if the Empire had been exposed to the topic. The expert, at least, appeared to treat it as a novel idea, implying a lack of formal investigation.

There was also classified intel she did not yet have access to. Apprentice Callisunus had explained the classification levels. Class three, which she had unrestricted access to, referred to general military-grade spells and other information that wouldn’t be general public knowledge, but accessible to anyone within the military hierarchy. Class four and above were where knowledge became need-to-know. Apprentice Callisnus and Senior Mage Faustus were submitting an application on her behalf to access anything related to her primary directive, but it would remain to be seen if permission would be granted.

NSLICE-00P had considered attempting to access the restricted data on her own, but she had been originally programmed to respect compartmentalization of intel. That, of course, did not apply when considering data that might be critical to her primary directive, but the point remained that she needed to justify the necessity of accessing said intel before breaking the data access procedures of a neutral entity. She did not know if the restricted data had any relevance to her primary directive at all at this stage, and so could not justify any action which might be construed as hostile.

Likewise, since all the data was stored on physical hard copies and protected by mana-based means, NSLICE-00P was not sure she could access the restricted sections, at least not while avoiding detection. The risk of provoking the Empire was deemed greater than the potential benefit of such a move, particularly when she already had significant connections to Imperial authorities.

In any case, the investigation of the Empire’s knowledge base regarding other universes was now pending action by Imperial units, and not guaranteed or even likely to produce positive results. Additional investigations would require either contact with additional entities beyond the Imperial Mage’s Academy, or else personal experimentation.

Personal experimentation was the only one she could perform at present, so she proceeded with that task. She opened up the foreign system and began reviewing the available options, searching for anything that might have relevance to this topic.

She found something, but there was a bit of a problem.

Available Skills -> Passive Skills -> Schools of Magic

Name

Cost

Spatial Magic