After the meal, the two headed towards the common washroom. They needed to clean their eating utensils, unless they wanted to eat with a dirty bowl and spoon the following day.

  It was a large complex of small rooms, each fitted with two sinks and a faucet, as well as space next to the sink to put the washed utensils. The water was free to use, however it was possible to buy oils and scented water for when one wished to wash their clothes.

  In fact, although they were prisoners there, it was ultimately a military academy with the addition of holding cells. The eastern part of the structure was mostly reserved to training grounds and dormitories for the cadets. Currently, they were in the western side.

  The academy, taking after the empire as a whole, followed a meritocracy. Cadets who did good in mock battles and exams were allowed more benefits and better rooms, fitted with a personal washroom, and weekly pay.

  On the other hand, those that didn't do that well, were forced to wash their clothes, and whatever needed to be cleaned, at the public washrooms. In the rooms adjacent to the one Arthur and Ayn were in, he could spot a few uniform-wearing youths.

  Ayn had explained all of that to the transmigrator, on their way to the washroom. It wasn't vital information, but having any information at all was nice, to be sure.

  Arthur didn't trust the source of his information completely, to be fair. He seemed to be connected to the reason he was summoned to this world, but avoided the topic completely whenever he tried to bring it up.

  At the same time, asking him questions without needing to explain why he didn't know anything about that world, was comfortable. Despite the reason behind Ayn's knowledge of the transmigration, Arthur was going to trust him, for now.

  He fidgeted with the valve on one of the sinks. The light poured in from a window on the wall between the two sinks, brightening up the room. It was still quite early. The sunlight bounced off of the metallic material of the faucet, the glare hitting Arthur's eyes.

  The design was similar to a faucet of his world's era, despite this world clearly being in a less modern time. Slick, curved metal, with two valves to regulate the water's flow and the temperature.

  Though, it seemed like the water just didn't want to start. He kept trying to turn and twist the valve, to no avail. On the opposite side of the room, Ayn had almost finished cleaning his bowl, while humming a tune.

  Running a finger on the faucet's metallic surface, memories once again flooded Arthur's brain.

  The mechanism that this type of sink relied on was fundamentally different from those he was used to. Rather than an underground water system making the liquid available to most houses, it worked under the basis of ‘Gemstone Technology'.

  Fitting for a world where magic existed, even simple, daily appliances abused that fantastical power. When talking about Gemstones, it's usually to refer to a specific kind of crystal, colloquially known as ‘Moonstones’.

  ‘Repetitive,’ he thought to himself, but it didn't matter much. Carved with the same patterns that allowed any normal person to cast spells and use magic, they had similar effects, such as lighting fires or ejecting water.

  To activate a Gemstone's function, one needed to be able to use magic, at the very least. It required the foundation of magic, the mysterious energy known as Ark. Prior to this flood of information, Arthur had no knowledge at all about whatever Ark was.

  He understood that it was the basis for all magic, alongside the patterns carved on the Gemstones. When powered by Ark, a Gemstone would come to life, in the case of this sink, by emptying the reserves of water it had stored up.

  The valves were to regulate the water's flow, and to regulate the temperature. A second Gemstone, which heated or cooled the water, was accessible by the valve on the left.

  This technology was created more than a thousand years in the past, by the first king of a neighbouring country, the Kingdom of Goetia.

  The first king, Fern Astros I, led a revolution against the dictators that ran the country, turning it from an absolute monarchy to a constitutional one. Alongside his discovery of a crystalline cave, where Moonstones could be easily mined, he soon went down as one of the greatest rulers in history.

  The name ‘Moonstone’, itself, took after the name of the caves in which it was originally mined. The Moon Mirror caves, named so due to their positioning. A cave complex with various entrances surrounding a lake, the surface of which always seemed to reflect the moon.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Teiws was founded much later than Goetia, and the possession of Moonstones was something the Kingdom valued highly. Rather than buying them from possible enemies at extremely high costs, Tiwez found another source of those gems.

  A city not too far from the one he was in currently, named Haegllfeld, the Field of Hail. Multiple times a year, crystalline hail blanketed the land with precious gemstones, those very same Moonstones that Fern Astros I discovered in the Moon Mirror cave complex.

  ‘That Tiwez, sure was lucky…’ Arthur pinched his nose while thinking. With each rush of information came pain akin to his brain being shredded to bits. But more than that, it annoyed him that he couldn't dig out more memories out of his own volition.

  ‘Finding good land for an empire, coastal territory for the production of salt, gemstones literally falling out of the sky… I wonder if ‘magic’ helped with all that.’ He could only wonder, for now. Most likely, there were no accurate historical records about those times, if not under the form of legends or myths.

  He pressed his palm against his forehead, trying to squeeze out more information from the brain of that body, but to no avail. With a sigh, he looked back down at the sink.

  He still had to wash his utensils, and he still hadn't figured out how to start that faucet. Although he understood the workings of the mechanism, he had no idea on how to supply it with Ark, not even knowing clearly what Ark was.

  He tried fidgeting with the valve some more. He couldn't feel the coldness of the metal as he twisted and turned it, even pressing on it or looking for hidden buttons. After clicking his tongue in annoyance a few times, Ayn walked over.

  “Valve's not working?” With a smug expression, he'd put his hand on the valve on the right, the one regulating the water flow. Twisting it slightly, liquid would quickly come pouring down.

  Arthur glared at him, annoyed at his shortcoming in the field of understanding how to utilize Gemstones. Though, so long as he could clean his bowl and spoon, it didn't matter for now.

  He moved the two items, which he had been keeping on the edge of the sink, inside of the latter. Water quickly filled up the bowl, as Arthur passed his palm under the cascading fluid. He could feel it trickle down his skin, but even then, he was sure it was just his imagination.

  He couldn't feel the water hitting his palm, nor the temperature of it. From the contact of liquid and skin, steam started filling up the sink, before Ayn slapped his hand away, quickly twisting the valve on the left.

  “Are you trying to burn your hand, or something??” His expression shifted to one of worry and surprise, as he made sure the water was now colder. Grasping Arthur's hand into his own to examine it, the transmigrator would pull it towards himself, and away from Ayn.

  “I was checking something. Let me clean my bowl. My hand's fine.” Reluctantly, Ayn let him do as he pleased, before clearing his throat with a cough.

  “By the way, uh, you don't know how Gemstones work, right? Basically, you just pour a bit of Ark into the valve, and…” Arthur interrupted him.

  “No, I know, it's fine. Ark powers the Gemstone, and the valve regulates the flow, while the other valve lets you control the heat. It's similar to the sinks I'm used to.”

  The short haired boy tilted his head, a hint of confusion in his scarlet eyes. Looking Arthur up and down, as if he was looking for something in his form, he took a step towards him.

  “Hey, you bastard. Are you sure you're Arthur Luria?” Stopping his cleaning, he turned towards the one speaking. “What do you mean, am I sure? I'm as sure of that, as I am of the fact you're a dumbass.”

  Letting out an annoyed ‘GNNNNNYAAAAAA’ sound, Ayn took a deep breath to calm himself down. He was quick to get angry, but that anger was shallow. Arthur chuckled, teasing him was, at the very least, fun.

  “But I do get where you're coming from,” Arthur continued, while scrubbing his bowl and spoon, under the warm water, “Every once in a while, I get these flashes of information and memory, not my own. I guess it's this body’s brain helping me.”

  Ayn mumbled something under his breath, while nodding in understanding. “So, you have that body’s memories? No, if you did, you'd recognize me, for sure…”

  “I told you, it's just flashes of memories. Brief moments of recollection, I guess. For example, I'm doing something, like fidgeting with those valves, doing something, with something of this world that I should have no knowledge of, and the information just comes to me.

  “It's pretty painful, too, and it's not like I just remember it. It feels like my brain is being fried whenever it happens, and rather than remembering the information, it's more so like I'm being told something.

  “It's hard to grasp as a concept, right? Think of it like, when you're reading a book, and there's a passage explaining the world around the main character. It's like this brain is narrating this world to me. Any idea why is that?”

  Arthur tapped the side of his head twice, before turning towards Ayn with a sarcastic remark. He assumed he knew most, if not everything related to his situation, but he seemed to be at a loss, too.

  He signed, shifting his focus back to the bowl and spoon. They were pretty clean by now, even if the prison didn't offer any dishwashing soap for free. No, wait, did they even have that sort of soap, in that world? Arthur sighed.

  “So, what now? You said something about jobs, so I'm guessing we won't be able to just go back to our holding cell and relax there until tomorrow.” Drying his hands by shaking them around, he asked the more knowledgeable one, who nodded.

  “Yeah. The prison offers jobs to the prisoners, with various degrees of pay. Of course, working isnt a choice, but you can choose what sort of work you want to do. There's tending to the fields, refining Moonstones imported from Haegllfeld, crushing salt crystals… And some more that you probably aren't interested in.

  “By the way, since that body was sleeping until this morning, you were exempted from working. But, you seem pretty awake to me, now. You're signed up for Moonstone refinement, just like me. Well, I signed you up, but if you don't like it, you'll be able to apply for a job change in… a week, I think.

  “The pay is pretty good, for prison work, anyways. We get a Staff each week, and some more depending on the speed and quality of the job. Usually a Blade per month.”

  Arthur understood most of that explanation, apart from the monetary terms Staff and Blade. He expected his brain to supply the information for him, but it didn't seem it would help too much, this time.

  He understood vaguely that they were Teiwesian currency, but he had no reference as to how much they were worth.

  “Is that a lot? A Staff and a Blade?” Ayn stood still for a second, processing the question, before nodding. He understood what Arthur was implying, he didn't know how much they were worth.

  “Yeah, a Staff is about 60 Wingurs… Wait, no, you wouldn't know how much that is either. Let me think… A Staff is roughly half a Spear, the highest monetary value in Teiws. Then there's half-Staffs and Blades, which are worth a quarter of a Staff, half-Blades, and quarter-Blades. Well, they're called quarter-, but they're one fifteenth of a Blade. Dumb name, right?

  “Let me think. Oh yeah, for example, you could buy a wooden bowl and a pair of utensils for around one Blade and a half. That's around twenty Wingurs, but I don't think that can help much.”

  Arthur nodded absent-mindedly, doing calculations in his head. Most likely, the currency he was used to was similar to Wingurs, rather than Teiws’ own. Which meant that, after a few multiplications, a Spear was worth around one-hundred and twenty or one-hundred and thirty Euro, while a quarter-Blade was equivalent to one Euro or fifty cents.

  And with what Ayn had told him about the job he was signed up for, in a month he would make around one-hundred and eighty quarter-Blades, or one Spear and a Staff. It was far from the wages he was used to, but for a prison job, that wasn't bad at all.

  “Well, lead the way. You're t

  he prison expert here.”

  With an exasperated sigh, Ayn started walking towards the Moonstone refinement facility.