14 - [Stealth]

The guard woke up tied to a chair, wounds still healing but no longer bleeding, in an inn I had rented a room in.

Me and inns, man, we had a touching love story going on between us.

No matter where I go or what happens to me, inns are always there for me.

Ahem.

"What do you want?! Please let me go, I promise I won't tell anyone."

"Shhhhhh. Calm down. I'll let you go. Just answer some questions for me."

"A-alright. Of course. I can answer some questions. Yeah."

The guard answered while panting from fear.

"Why are the people's struggles ignored like this? I've looked arpund the city and what you did was the tip of the iceberg. Why doesn't anyone uphold justice?"

"..."

The guard was silent for a moment before getting his bearings and responding in a solemn manner.

"You're not from around here, are you? Who would offend someone who could kill them with a flick of a finger merely for some thinly idealistic notion of 'justice'?"

"Then, why don't the people revolt?"

"Can they? Do you think they haven't tried? What are you supposed to do when the enemy is boasting raw mana-infused strength? One well trained, talented knight can take down hundreds of ordinary soldiers. Not dozens, HUNDREDS!

The people born into good bloodlines monopolize all the talent to come work for them, while also being talented themselves. They marry to the knights in their service, keeping purity in the strength of their bloodline while also making sure noone can go start a new family clan of their own.

A family with just a few knights, a couple talented sons, and a family head who is strong too, is equivalent to thousands of soldiers. Who wants to die fighting them? Plus, if they escape, or play it smart, or some on the people's side defect, then normal people can never win, no matter what they do. It's hopeless.

A hopeless, cruel world, where might makes right."

'...'

Well, I didn't expect that passionate of an answer. Perhaps I struck a chord.

"What's the strongest combat power in this city?"

"The head of the city guard. He's at the liquid mana explosive heart stage, with a whole squad of over a dozen knights in the early gaseous mana explosive heart stage."

'!!!'

Good thing I asked. I'd still have some trouble running away from that line up.

After that, I asked him where the library was, and let him go after threatening him one last time.

If things were really as he had said, since I was much stronger, and he was a mere guard, not even a strong guard, there probably wouldn't be anyone to seek justice for him even if he did tattle.

I had walked around the city earlier and seen all minds of heinous crimes committed essentially in public, or barely hidden from view.

This small matter should pass with no issues.

At the library, I read up on history, widely available knowledge of magic, and the structure of this side of the continent.

Seemed boring, and it was, but it was necessary.

The structure of the continent was interesting but I'll get to that later. What was more important that I found was the books on magic.

Not only did they fill in a lot of the gaps in rudimentary understanding that I had been missing, but the biggest gain was this:

[Basic 1st Circle Spells]

It was a book on 1st circle spells. It wasnt much, but it was still a treasure to me who knew nothing.

I read it front to back, before putting it down despondently.

'Yeah, no. I still understand fuck all.'

1st Circle my ass. Surely mages didn't learn the way I was doing. I had to be doing something wrong.

I decided to just leave it for now. It would come if it was fated...

...

Bullshit! I want to learn magic damn it!

Frustrated, I left the library and headed home. It was past dusk by now. The sky was dark, and the streets were dangerous.

I could fight, but I'd rather not stand out right now, especially since I was in a bit of a bad mood. Who knew what ruckus I might cause if I let loose in a fit of rage at some thug?

So, I activated the ability of my cloak and clothing to help me hide amongst the shadows, and went home.

Home being an inn.

I was so used to staying at inns, I might never buy a house anywhere.

Ok, that might be a bit much.

As I went to the inn, my thoughts drifted.

'Come to think of it, there's no treasures in this city. How come? The mortals had some but these mana breathing knights and such don't? Odd.'

Thinking about this, and various things, suddenly I felt a sensation.

It wasn't an enemy attack, or anything else, but a sensation from within my own body.

In the next instant, I felt like I had "learned" part of the stealth that my equipment imbued me with, and my speed and stealth factor significantly increased.

I must have gotten 50% faster. And just as much more well concealed.

Confused, I asked Ixtra if he knew what was going on. Of course, I whispered.

Ixtra spoke to me through the shadows.

"It seems you've learned a 'skill', Sir."

I didn't know how Ixtra should address me, since "Master" seemed too much, at least for me, so I recalled liking being called "Sir Merca" and told him to call me Sir.

'A skill, huh. Guess that makes sense. I have mana, and I've been stealthing around like this every chance I could get. It was about time, really.'

Skills were things you had to learn instinctively. Then, your body would remember the feeling and automatically circulate mana to increase the effectiveness of the technique. The mana merely circulated without being used, so skills didn't use mana unless the mana usage was a lart of the skill in some way.

For instance, say you obtained a skill for launching blade beams from your hand. Doing so would inevitably involve, well, launching blade beams from your hand.

It was impossible not to use mana. Meanwhile, this [Stealth] like ability I was using right now was not something that used any mana. Moreover, I felt like if I channelled my mana and willed it to be used, I'd speed up even more, while also growing more stealthy.

I tried it.

It worked.

I'd just call this [Stealth] for now, since I didn't know what else to call it. Since I had been doing it before all the time with the help of my equipment, it was already 2nd nature to use.

Using [Stealth] without mana was like breathing, it was almost subconscious, while with mana it required just a moderate amount of focus.

Without my equipment, I could go as fast and stealthily using [Stealth] plus mana as I could with my equipment before I had [Stealth].

With my equipment, the manaless activation was 50% faster than before, and the mana-infused activation was 100% faster.

In other words, I just gained the ability to travel twice as fast on foot as before.

There was also another effect of obtaining [Stealth].

I could now feel something weird in my heart, and it seemed to be at odds with my mana.

Almost as if it wanted to convert the mana into something more compatible.

Ixtra and Tom both had no clue what was going on, so I was left to guess.

I had no good guesses.

Shaking my head, I left it at that and continued back.

In the library, I learned that this was a city near the western edge of a place called Nyla, and unlike the western side of the mountains, this place only had this one empire.

It covered the territory of several empires in the west, and to its right was a variety of natural hazards.

Directly to the right was the "eternal forest", named that not only for its size, but also the existence of a species called "Elves", who were extremely long lived, and "Fairies", who were Immortal.

In the past, humans and elves had been in conflict with one another, so now, although the kingdom of Nyla had been trying to better relations, they were still bad, and it was extremely difficult for a human to make their way past the eternal forest, both due to its size and the hostile elves.

And as native residents of the forest, the fairies, also helped the elves with a variety of things. Although they were weaker than humans, they had natural affinities to magic, so they could prove to be a nuisance, especially in groups.

To the north was a barren, charred landscape with volcanoes and dangerous creatures everywhere. It was even more dangerous than the eternal forest.

As for the south, there was a large queendom of "Snow Elves", who were hostile to humans for similar reasons to the elves, and cooperated with the forest elves in stopping any human advances, even just of individuals.

The terrain stretched up to the northeast and down by the southeast, and there was land beyond the charred volcanoes, forest, and ice and snow, but there were no documents known to the public on what lay beyond those regions.

I also learned of the power structure here in Nyla.

Solid crystal mana users could already be the head of a noble house. If there were no sons, they could directly marry the daughter of a noble house and become a lord. Of course, they would have to change their last name.

Alternatively, they could gain the highest position in the army or be part of the king's private guard.

In other words, the peak power.

I already had an understanding of this from the technique book, since it described how rare the plasmic mana stage was, so solid crystal mana was the strongest mortal power, but it still surprised me to read the details about it now.

Someone like me, in the liquid mana stage, could still live a lavish life and be respected anywhere I went, if I chose to openly show my power.

At the same time, I made the decision to definitely not do that.

There was a lot missing from my training compared to normal knights, so I was weak compared to my level, and I was no longer the strongest around level-wise either.

It would be better to be cautious and keep my cards close at hand. Moreover, if someone started to keep an eye on me due to my power, it would be a hassle, since if there were a lot of treasures somewhere, I still wanted to steal them.

The city was located at the edge of a duchy, which was the largest land a noble could own here, and it was about the size of half the empire I grew up in.

The capital was in the main territory of the kingdom, which was right next to the one I was in, so it was close. I had an urge to go inmediately, but I decided to lay low for a while here instead.

Who knew if I might get into trouble in the capital? I'd have noone to cry to if things went wrong.

Well, Ixtra could still help me, so I shouldn't be completely powerless even then. He also had power in the liquid mana stage, albeit near the peak of it, unlike me who was closer to the middle.

I asked him once if he could improve his strength, and he said he'd need to purify his bloodline to do so. He then listed off a lot of ways to purify his bloodline, but unfortunately the common denominator was that they all required demonic energy and essence at some level.

I had also asked him why he couldn't just practice the knight breathing technique, and he said he'd need one that incorporated demonic energy.

I thought of these things as I returned to the inn, and recalled the book of 1st circle spells from earlier.

Suddenly, as I neared the inn, I had an epiphany.

I hadn't thought of it earlier since I didn't have a spell book besides the one on sealing magic, and I didn't make the connection with just that, but after encountering 1st circle spells today, I suddenly realized.

"Hey, Ixtra."

"Yes, Sir."

"Can you learn spells?"

"I don't know, Sir. I've never tried. I lived in an unknown little corner of the 1st Hell after all. There were no libraries or anything there."

"...I'm a fucking idiot."

I facepalmed very hard at that moment.

"Why didn't you tell me earlier?"

"Like I said, I don't know if I can or not. I thought Sir would tell me if he wanted me to learn."

"You weren't the slightest bit curious?"

"I would never overstep my bounds to ask for Sir's treasures, even if only for a casual read."

"..."

This brat, I swear. Him and his damned loyalty. I wonder where he got it from.

"Forget it. From now on, use my treasu-no scratch that. Just the books. Read the books as you please."

"Really?!"

He suddenly came out of my shadow slightly and had an excited look on his face. It was the first time I had seen him like that.

He actually looked like a normal kid then. Well...besides the half of his body not being visible inside the shadow.

"Yes, really. Now, take this book on sealing magic. Read it right now, show me what you've got. See if you can learn spells."

I took out the book and gave it to him, and he impatiently opened it to the first page.

I waited for a while in an alleyway beside the inn, telling him to come out of the shadow completely in case anyone walked by.

I don't exactly know why I didn't go inside first and then do this.

About 15 minutes later, as I was toying with a dagger, a light shone next to me.

Looking over, it was a magic circle.

Ixtra had used a basic sealing magic. The same one that took me months to learn, and also the only one I knew.

"..."

I took the book from him, while he was still engrossed in it, and led him inside the inn and went up to my room.

Thankfully noone was around or they might have gotten the wrong impression with me taking a 12 year old looking boy up to my room in haste.

Once inside, I had an incredulous look on my face as I walked over to the wall and banged my head against it.

I was feeling very frsutrated at myself right now.

'Am I just that retarded, or is he just that talented?'

Meanwhile, Ixtra was looking at me with curious eyes.

"Sir, did I do good?"

"..."

I banged my head against the wall a second time.

I might've woken someone up with that one.

"Haaaa..."

Sighing, I laid on the bed and went to sleep.

Before sleeping, I told him to finish reading the book and master as much magic as he could by the time I woke up.

I told him to be careful not to wake me as he did so, too.

"Yes, Sir."