Threads of Knowledge II

After a few more nights, Zephyr eventually simplified all the information in his head. Essentially, he lived in a small village named Dustwood in the country of Lumos, which was a monarchy. Moreover, people weren't supposed to see their curses before they received their magic, and the reason he got cursed was due to his tantrum and the elderly man.

"Tch, how petty. A man can't even complain to the gods these days without getting cursed," he said, completely ignoring the fact that he was ready to throw hands with the elderly god.

Other than magic, this world was vastly different from his old one because of many other things. For instance, this planet Gaia was a sister to another planet called Atlas in the same orbit. The moons of both were supposedly normal and there were only two, one for each.

There were also many other races usurping each other's lands, and their strength was defined by the number of Greater Rifts. Greater Rifts are considered permanent portals that connect planets with each other, specifically linking two locations anywhere in the universe and inexplicably connecting only planets that harbor life.

Originally, thousands of years ago, Gaia and Atlas were only home to one evolved species: humans. The rest of the species slowly came through the rifts and conquered lands. Meanwhile, the places where humans were able to win, they extended their territories further through the rifts into other planets. Unsurprisingly, humans had the smallest territories with only two Greater Rifts under their control, mainly because of their inability to get beyond the heart phase-I except for a few individuals.

'Technically, that means the rest of the species are aliens,' Zephyr chuckled to himself.

The races he learned about from his mother were namely Demons with a different magic system from humans, Elves who were born with phase II hearts, Sages who were different types of magic users that used Seals, Dwarves who were extremely skilled at creating machines and artifacts used by utilizing arcana, and the Silverkins who forged all the money used among all the races.

Not that all that mattered to him; what he cared about was getting rid of this curse and getting his revenge. But still, knowledge was power, and he needed power and magical strength to realize his impossible ambition of slaying a god.

Then there was the question Ava asked: what are Grimoires and rifts? Rifts are mainly divided into two parts: Greater and Lesser Rifts. Greater Rifts, as described, are permanent portals that connect planets with each other, or more broadly, two locations anywhere in the universe. Lesser Rifts, meanwhile, are smaller portals that do the same but are temporary and occur more frequently than the former, often leading to accidents because they are extremely random and can even open in someone's home, yes, if the victim was unfortunate, it can even open in their toilet when they are relieving themselves.

As for the Grimoires, they are divided into three types. They are supposedly ancient memories or records that take a person into the so-called records and give them an opportunity to push their ranks up faster than normal, and if they are lucky, they might get some good shards from those ancient books. The process of entering the memories of these Grimoires is called Weaving.

There are multiple types of Grimoires: Ruby Grantha, the most common type, allows multiple people to weave them; Emerald Grantha, a bit uncommon, allows three people to weave them at most; and the rarest, Sapphire Grantha, only lets a single person enter them. Even after the three divisions, the Grimoires are further divided into seven tiers, with Tier I being the weakest and Tier VII being the strongest.

Weaving the Grimoires is quite important. Why? Because they periodically spawn monsters if they are not cleared. Although clearing them gives the challengers rewards in the form of rank-ups and shards, it's not all sunshine and daisies, because if a person dies inside them, they die for real with no return, so challengers have to carefully choose if it is worth the risk or not. After the Grimoires are successfully woven, they sometimes remain instead of disappearing. Although they do not spawn any monsters after being cleared or even give rank for clearing them again, they are still useful for people who want to practice and absorb prana from the hearts of monsters within the Grimoire.

The explanation regarding Hearts that he initially found complicated now made sense. What he understood about the heart and its Phases was quite simple. Any creature with a heart with the potential of awakening can call their heart phase I. If, by any chance they have multiple hearts and still they cannot awaken any of their hearts, the scroll will simply show 'null' instead of 'Phase I,' like it did right before Zephyr's reincarnation. That means even if he was an octopus, if none of his hearts had the potential to awaken, they would be shown as 'null' instead of 'phase-III.' That doesn't mean that they can't reach the phase of awakening, though. How did he know this? Because he saw his own heart as null before being born.

[A/N: For those who don't know octopus has three hearts.]

Along with the fact that every human can see their own scrolls only, he also discovered that both his sisters could see their scrolls. It was not very surprising to him as he would have been more surprised if they couldn't at their age. But Grace was always one step ahead to compliment and love her children, much to Zephyr's annoyance.

"Tch, why can't she get the clue and keep a bit of distance from me? It's not like I am her son, at least that's not what I feel. She doesn't even let me keep my distance from her. Annoyingly enough, she also brings the other two critters along with her to annoy me," Zephyr muttered to himself while staring out of the window.

'I must keep my distance from her and get away as soon as I can stand on my own two feet properly. For now, no one will even bat an eye at a three-year-old child trying to find a job or train with some weapon and magic. I will need to ask Grace for magical training as soon as I get my rank.'

Thinking about his mother, Zephyr pondered, 'Is it not kind of suspicious how educated and knowledgeable she is for a commoner living in such destitute conditions that she can't even get enough money to put food on the table? Personally, I think she could have made much more as a local teacher, but for some reason, she seems to be avoiding that.'

"Speak of the devil," he muttered as he observed his mother going to a neighboring house and knocking on their door.

*Knock Knock*

Grace knocked on the door holding a jute bag in her hands.

A fat lady with brown hair and freckles opened the door with a smile, but her smile was replaced by an expression of disdain as soon as she saw who was standing at her door.

"What do you want, girl?" the lady asked with eyes that looked as if she was gazing at an insect.

"Greetings, Mrs. Marge," Grace bowed with a polite smile.

Mrs. Marge kept looking at her with the same disdainful look and spoke, "I won't ask again, girl, what is it that you want?"

Grace smiled, ignoring the rude tone of the woman, and spoke, "Ma'am, we ran out of funds and food for the week. We will pay you back eventually, so I just wanted to ask if you could perhaps help me by providing some wheat so that—"

"Girl, didn't I tell you not to knock on my door for begging from us?" Mrs. Marge spat angrily.

Grace tried to explain, "Actually, I didn't get any work for the day, ma'am, that's why this happen—"

"I have nothing to offer to beggars," Mrs. Marge said, her nostrils flaring.

"But we will pay it back—" Grace tried to reason.

"Do you think a bunch of beggars who can't even get their own food properly can repay us for the food we lend them?" Mrs. Marge continued, then proceeded to slam the door in her face, saying, "Don't knock again."

Grace stood there for a few moments, face down with a downtrodden expression. Slowly, she lifted her head and walked back towards her home with her usual radiant smile.

Zephyr quickly hid from view with a grimace on his face.

"What a b*tch," he said, thinking of the scenario that occurred a few moments ago.