Books

I walked into the Herald family's store.

After entering, I received a frown from the salesman at the counter.

I politely asked if there were books on History of Augustus empire. He told me that the books cost 1 gold to buy and 1 silver to read for an hour.

I gulped after hearing the prices. I had a single gold coin.

I paid 1 silver and chose a history book. The bookstore leader started the hour glass.

After reading the book for an hour, I got bit of an idea about my surroundings as well the neighbouring countries.

my first suprise came from the fact was Augustus Kingdom consisted of bunch of islands with the central island being the largest. these islands were to the northwest of a large landmass which the Augusters called the East continent.

It was 1300 years ago when Augustus The First united the families on these islands against eastern raiders.

The raiders used to come on their water dragons and water snakes. The book explained how these beasts were like the rulers of the sea. They used to come on these magic beasts with small hordes and take away the food and riches of these islands.

The raiders were situated on the Northwest of the large eastern continent. They didn't form a large nation but lived as large tribes made of up of related families.

The raiders consisted of tall mages who were proficient in water, ice and beast taming magic. They used to hit villages off the coast and quickly leave before reinforcements could be sent.

Finally, it was Augustus who brought the divided islands under him and with his powerful psychic magic repelled the invaders.

It has been over 1300 years since the establishment of the kingdom. The Augustus family still rules the Augustus Kingdom.

The kings retire after a few decades, the great Augustus the first is still alive after all these years spending his time in leisure and magic improvement.

Reading this book, I felt that Augustus can only be described as an ambitious man with a strong magic power. The book also expressed that the August family has strong psychic mages and the slave collar was an item that they invented which could be used on both beasts and humans alike.

The sales of slave collars also triggered a reaction from other countries but now collars have been accepted as means of punishment in the kingdom as well the regions where it was introduced.

The collar was what prevented other families from revolting against Augustus family.

Psychic magic seems too powerful to me. I am thinking which one I should upgrade first.

The immediate brown town was located on the main island of Augustus kingdom.

The island is shaped like a ellipse with longer length in north-south direction. Brown town is almost on the North of Augustus Kingdom.

Towards the North of Brown town are hills which go till it touches the ocean. The island too big. From what I figured out, this island is the size of a continent compared to Earth. I can only imagine what the size of the East continent could be.

This one silver coin told me more about the region and the power dynamic than dead Bruce learned in 16 years.

I decided to get extend for 1 more hour and got magic principles book by Sorcerer Olden. I completed it in an hour but it left me with more questions from when I had started it.

This world had a ranking system with 10 levels as far as Olden talked about it.

It starts with

1. Magic Apprentice

2. Mage

3. Grand Magus

4. Archmage

5. Grand Archmagus

6. Sorcerer

7. Grand Sorcerer

The ranks above 7 weren't mentioned in the book.

The division was mainly based on the mana levels of the body.

There is a crystal ball used to measure mana amount in this world. The number of rings on the balls that light up on passing mana tell about the level of the mage.

It was created by an old alchemist of the Eastern Continent.

According to the book, Mages should be able to light 1 ring on the ball while Grand Magus should light 2.

Also, there is more to the mage levels besides mana level. An apprentice is said to be a mage when he can release magic from inside his body.

Similarly, a grand Magus has quicker casting time than a simple mage.

Another thing I learned from the book was about spells. Spells are ways to utilize magic elements in an efficient and quick way. Many mages have researched spell models which they call their original spells.

New mages can just buy the publically available mage spells at a magic association branch. Obviously, not all mages make their spells public since it can be a potential flaw or reveal their weaknesses.

Generally, mages sell some original spell models to make some money.

Spell model talks about how to make mana flow inside the body, in what way to release mana and from where to reduce casting time. Using a spell instead of mana casting can reduce the amount of mana used, so most mages prefer to use spells.

But spells have a weaknesses, they take years to master and even after mastering, they are rigid in a way that you can not adjust many aspects of spells like you maybe able to control radius of fireball but can't increase speed or decrease speed. Like the earth wall spell will have a fixed thickness of wall, so mana will be wasted when you could have used a thinner wall.

The weakness of mana casting for normal mages is that it takes a lot of focus while fighting to visualize and focus on magic elements while spells make you feel like an experienced driver who can drive subconsciously. This disadvantage probably won't affect me since I don't think I need to focus on elements with my elemental sight.

So, with my infinite mana capacity, mana casting seems like the ideal choice. that would make a freak like magic beasts though. I might need to hide it from others if I use instantaneous mana casting.

All this seemed absurd to me since I just thought about stuff and things happened like I had made the surface inside my house move. It is just that I am still an apprentice and can't control elements without being near to them.

Sorcerer Olden even had released his version of the earth spike to the public for free in the book. The spell is just a high paced stone throw is first shaped into a need shape and then thrown at a high velocity. It is one of the popular earth system attack spells. Little Bruce had heard about this spell and seen it in action.

Olden talked about how to optimise the breathing rhythm while casting spells. All this seemed irrelevant to me to be honest. Still, I learned the chant for this spell. Maybe, I can fake next time if I ever use Earth spike in public.

Soon, the time was over and I left the Herald family's bookstore. The bookstore even had a newspaper for 1 silver but it was just a tabloid thing from what I could see. I was not interested in the gossip of the kingdom right now.

I needed to look for a secure way of income.

With this thought in mind, I walked back towards the North Gate.