My heart was pounding in my chest as I walked through the relatively empty halls, each beat sending another spurt of adrenaline throughout my system that was giving me far too much energy right now.
But there was nothing I could do to reliably get rid of that energy, so I just focused on controlling myself as best I could while also thinking about how 'dangerous' this world was going to become to me.
These characters were crafted for the sole purpose of being attractive, be it through appearance or personality, and as such meeting them was going to be difficult for me since I was a pent up mess who had done despicable things to most of them...
Either in the game itself or by watching and rewatching what they had done in the game... so having one of my favorites tell me that I was pretty and fish around for another chance to see me was just...
Yeah, I wasn't ready for this world just yet, and knowing that this was going to be my new reality was just something I was going to need a long time to acclimate too, though I did find solace in something rather 'odd'.
Thinking of the things in the game that I could go get right this instant helped cool my head, and the idea of being able to still - albeit somewhat crudely - build craft something unique for myself had me all kinds of excited.
It was inevitable that I would end up fighting someone or something, and it was therefore a top priority of mine to acquire some means to defend myself if the need arose sooner rather than later; to that same point I should definitely try and make friends with a few people as soon as possible as well.
There were quite a handful of characters who loved nothing more than protecting someone from dangers, and if I ever found myself in need of an item or material inside of any of the Dungeons that the Academy had Teleportation Circles connected to then they would be more than willing to come accompany me.
Especially if I made sure to pick the Dungeons that they wanted to get something from as well; I really was going to need to scrounge the depths of my memories to create a list of all the people who liked x or loved y...
For the here and now though there was an easy yet really crucial item that I could get right this second right here in the Academy; like any good magical, fantastical melting pot of all sorts of people over who knows how many centuries, there were goodies hidden in every single nook and cranny for those with the nose to find them.
Some were far riskier than others, while some were simply put back whenever they served their intended purpose to the person that found it; most, if not all of them had their previous owner's request left beside it to whomever acquired it next, and they all asked to be returned so that another witty, inquisitive soul could find it in the future.
The one that I was searching for was in the most obvious spot in an Academy; it was in one of the libraries hidden behind a secret panel built into one of the innumerable shelves, and it served a single purpose to whomever found it.
Improve their 'learning capabilities' and increase their comprehension regarding anything academic; in the game it was a nice 10% experience boost as well as a 25% reduction to any skills learned from skill books.
It had a limit of usefulness since you couldn't stack more than three accessory buffs at any given time, so it was usually utilized for the first year at most before being replaced by another item that improved experience gain by 50%...
Anything would be an improvement to me at this point in time, and since I planned on picking up a few books while I was here anyways I was definitely hoping that it still worked the same way it did in the game, since that could potentially cut my time down exponentially in these initial weeks.
Heading towards that specific library - the 'Atoma Mirabelle Library' - with my body still flush with heat had its own problems when I realized that I was sporting a partial erection, causing a rush of embarrassment to wash over me as I tried to hide it.
I never once had to deal with this before, so now that it was happening I was praying the things I had read online in my old life worked, namely the flexing of my legs to divert the blood flow while also thinking pure, normal thoughts.
What I was going to be looking for, what I would need to do in order to get it, what else I was going to look for inside of the library, the things I would need to get today before nightfall - and after nightfall - amongst many other things.
All while I flexed my muscles and prayed that it would go away, which sent me into a mini spiral of walking stiff before having a moment of peace that was immediately shattered by another minute of walking stiff.
How they dealt with having this sort of pleasure tingling down there was beyond me, and I knew that I wasn't helping myself since I was actively thinking about how good it felt whenever I got too hard... which then prompted a set of fear at being discovered so I clenched all my muscles again.
This was going to take a long time to get used to as well, stacking more and more problems on my shoulders that had no immediate solution - at least none that I could find - while also being in a completely 'new' world all on my lonesome.
No one to rely on besides myself, no panicked calls to my Mother, no hoping onto a forum and just chatting with someone random about something to help take my mind off of things... all of that was gone, and I desperately needed to replace it with something, anything at all really...
It was that sort of thinking though that would cause me problems, and thankfully opening the doors to the Atoma Mirabelle Library helped take my mind off of everything that was worrying me since it was just... absolutely breathtaking.