Mathilde

Moving along the rows of bookshelves, marveling at the richness of the church's collection, William also came to a remote corner, where several shelves were filled with novice skill books, densely arranged like walls.

This knowledge was the root of the continuation of the coronal church, but it wasn't considered important because there were just too many copies of them, and they were kept in any regular church in the countryside to train the grassroots friars.

Rarely would anyone visit a cathedral's library, as William had done, just to borrow a few novice-stage skill books.

But William knew it was necessary because, based on later experience, only the institutions in the cities, which served as regional headquarters, had full collections of books.

Many institutions of much lower ranks, while theoretically keeping some skill books, when you went to ask, they would tell you that the book had been lost for some reason or some shit like that, and then issue a completely pointless quest for you to complete it just to get a skill book that was supposed to be there.

But to William's surprise, there was actually someone who was one step ahead of him in this remote corner, similarly flipping through these scriptures that were prepared for the church's low-level cultivators.

Although he couldn't tell the level of the other person, but considering that it never harm to respect older NPCs, William still saluted him briefly and greeted him before starting to rummage through the skills he wanted.

''Healing'' ''Detoxification'' ''Restoring Sight''. After choosing a dozen or so spells, William had taken all the books he needed, which were more than a meter tall, and was put aside for the time being.

After that, he went to the other side of the bookshelf and took a book on Basic Weapon Use Techniques (One-Handed Hammer) and carried it to the librarian along with the pile of books from before, ready to be registered for borrowing.

The librarian was an old priest and had obviously seen all kinds of oddballs who joined the church over the years, and didn't pay much attention to what William was doing with so many books, but only reminded him to return them by the due date, or else the church's fines could be a lot.

Putting the books away, William went out and originally intended to walk to the nearest ride point to take the church's carriage to leave the cathedral, to prepare for other adventurous necessities.

But a carriage stopped in front of him before he could make a practical move, and the Reverend Malthus stepped out of it, somewhat surprised to see William appear in front of him.

"Good afternoon, Mr. Malthus; I have come here to borrow some books, that I may better understand the teachings of God."

"Good afternoon, William, your piety is always marvelous," Malthus invited William to board his carriage "I am now going to see Excellency the Bishop, take a ride in my carriage wherever you are going."

William made no excuses, and after thanking him, he waited and boarded the carriage, and after telling the driver his destination, the carriage moved along smoothly.

There were still a few minutes left on the road, and with nothing to do, William took out a skill book that he had just borrowed and started flipping through it.

As a player, William certainly didn't need to actually read the entire book to learn the skill, he just skimmed through the book a few times and got a 'Spell being learned: Heal (Lv 0)' prompt.

After that, he put this skill book away and took out another one as he did, and it didn't take long for a dozen or so learning progresses to be added to his status bar.

By the time these progress bars were complete, the spells and other skills were also learned by him.

The next day dawned at dawn, and as promised, William showed up at the agreed upon meeting place to meet up with a group of four from the 'Mountain Breeze' squad.

"Good morning, Mr. Green."

"Good morning, Captain Julian, Mr. Bartlett and Mr. Mitchell, and Ms. Martial."

Before the official departure, William took out the map and both sides reconfirmed the mission, then took advantage of the cool climate at dawn to start the journey.

Because of the rough and distant road, Captain Julian specially discussed with William about the issue of rushing, and finally both sides agreed to rent five robust dwarven goats as mounts, with each side bearing their own costs.

This kind of stubborn character of the animal settlement and dwarf infested areas duplicated, by the dwarves widely bred as mounts. Their strong muscles, thick build, and hoof friction make them suitable for rushing between the hills and mountains.

Only when ridden by a human, its not-so-high shoulder height would make people feel slightly awkward, as if they were riding on a pony.

Sitting on the saddle, William skillfully controlled the mount with the reins, the goat, although not as cool as the bipedal skeleton flying dragon or the fire-treading hell warhorse that he once rode, was also very easy to manage, and the comfort as a traveling substitute greatly exceeded his expectations.

He even had the time to chat with the nearest puppeteer, Mathilde, and casually gossiped about puppetry.

William had been playing 'Thrones' for so long, and although his level had always been at the amateur level, he liked to read all kinds of stories and decryptions in the game's forums, so he was considered to be well-informed.

Not to mention that he spoke with a wry sense of humor, and soon broke the stiff atmosphere between himself and Mathilde, and the two of them had a good conversation.

"William, I can't imagine that you know so much about making skeletons, is this knowledge from the church as well?"

William laughed and explained, "This is all something I learned from my previous travels, I have visited extremely distant lands, which also includes the land without living, Skuland."

Speaking of that place, his tone also became much more nostalgic as he added, "The necromancers of Skuland are actually not as horrible as the rumors from the outside world, they just like to kill the living and then process them into undead creatures."

Mathilde bristled, thinking that this was just horrible, she would rather die and enter the divine kingdom of Jovisius, the 'God of Automatism' that she believed in, than exist in the world in such a way.

Suddenly she twitched her eyebrows and without revealing it, she glanced at the puppet De kana next to her and decided to make up a story to scare William.

She coughed gently twice to organize her thoughts, then said in a mysterious manner, "William, have you ever heard of the story of the Sage's Stone?"

Of course, William wouldn't tell her that he didn't just know the story of the Sage's Stone, but also the formula of the Sage's Stone, he just smiled poignantly and asked her to continue, showing that he was very interested in her story.

Naturally, Matil did not show any weakness as she said, "Before the Black Iron Era, although the gods had departed, transcendent species still ruled the earth."

"At that time, there was a group of creatures that had established and extremely developed magical civilization known as the Silver Elves, and so that epoch was also known as the Silver Era."