Literary Bender

After receiving a few more books on noble hierarchy, political science, economics, and other topics, I left our appointed classroom and immediately moved towards the object of my current interest.

The library.

As one would expect, it was filled with rows upon rows of towering bookcases. The entire outer wall was lined with shelves that extended to the height of the three-story ceiling with about eight more in the center of the room with booths arranged between them for the many patrons inside.

I immediately moved towards the nearest shelf and began scanning the endless spines for any topics of particular interest.

An endeavor that took next to no effort.

While the first section of books I laid my eyes on were mostly records and biographies of how the many counties in our empire came to be and of the individuals who lifted them to their current status, the adjacent section contained what was essentially a bestiary of all the non-humans encountered over the ages. Neatly arranged into sections by what I assumed were the worlds they came from.

Without hesitation, I grabbed a ladder and started crawling all over the shelves, pulling spines from their places so that they could plummet towards the ground and into my awaiting shadow. Nothing was spared. Even after moving past the bestiary and onto the geology and geography of the world itself. Every text, document, or strange title was deposited into my shadow pocket until my curiosity got the best of me and I climbed down the latter to see the gaping holes I'd left in random sections of the shelving.

Satisfied, I retreated to an unused desk in a quiet corner and dove into my endless bounty of information.

In truth I don't know how much time I spent reading, scanning, and analyzing the literal mountain of words before me and depositing them into my Eternal Eye's server. I only knew that a few of the books had been skimmed over with little interest. Books that told of etiquette and the limited knowledge of arithmetic and science in this world. Others, however, I paid close attention to as I thoroughly read each line. Those about the many different creatures found in this realm; from dragons to anthropomorphic animals and creatures of stone to majestically massive trees that gave birth to entire kingdoms of creatures.

Most fascinating of all was the structure of this world. Or rather, plane. It was so large, so mind-bendingly vast that I had to reaffirm the claim with anyone of scholarly merit as soon as I could since couldn't yet see it for myself.

Thus I hastily loaded the mountain of books back into my shadow before hurriedly trotting up to the desk.

"Well, if it isn't His Grace." A woman with horn-rimmed glasses beamed after settling her large, pitch-black eyes on me. She had black curly hair that was draped neatly around her head and ended at the shoulders, framing her motherly face like that of a picture. Her skin was light brown like milk coffee and wore a smile that instinctively made one want to adopt their own in the same style. "How can I honor you this morning?" She so bubbly asked.

'Morning?' I internally recoiled. It was around nine at night when I began reading, placing my reading binge at around ten hours. Minus the few obligatory minutes for bathroom breaks. 'Whatever.' I shrugged before lifting my arm and flooding it with shadow mana, causing a wall of darkness to cascade from my arm that I then reached into to begin pacing the books on the return desk one by one. "I'm only here to return these." I amiably said.

She had a look of obvious shock on her face but gave hints of nothing else but pride as she spoke. "Wow!" She chuckled. "I had no idea His Grace was such an avid reader!"

"It's the best way to learn." I shrugged, then turned on my heels to begin scouring through the next section of books. While I was sure at least some of my burning questions could've been answered by Mr. Brooks, I found myself unable to resist the abundance of wealth that surrounded me.

Operating under the logic that Mr. Brooks would send for me come time for my studies, I dove back into perusing through the rows and rows of literature. Days must have passed in that fashion; as it was easy to lose track of my now abundant free time when paired with my extended range of movement through the estate. Reading continuously and only stopping for the occasional trip to the service wing to grab a plate from Gerolt and immediately head back.

Not only did I learn details about my family, but I learned of the Deapou family and of one other kingdom within our lands as well. I learned of their magics, customs, languages, and laws. Of what morals were accepted, and what was considered taboo. Which wasn't much different from what I was used to, unsurprisingly. But I was glad to see incest and the other usual deviant acts were on that list.

Most fascinating to me was discovering the surprisingly high level of technology this world had developed. If credited mostly with the elves and their knowledge of enchantments. In addition to the hints of modernity I'd already seen, boats and trains and monorails and all other forms of transportation short of cars, rockets and planes were all commonly used. And all of them were powered by enchantments or sometimes even outright magic.

The last section I scoured was dedicated entirely to mages and magic. Or more importantly, how they were ranked and classified.

Essentially, an individual's magic power level was recognized by the size and density of their mana well and consisted of the standard ranking and those with evolved wells, like my grandfather's.

Though I frustratingly found little detail regarding them, other than the fact that they existed.

The guild or military rankings on the other hand were; from what I could gather, more of a Charisma-based ranking system. Notable accomplishments, valor in battle, magical or physical prowess, the favor of the citizenry, fame or infamy. The repertoire of an individual itself was the basis of their ranking, and that rank granted an individual mage a status higher than they otherwise would have; granted they weren't born with a high status in the first place. In fact, it went on as far as to say that anyone who was born with an affinity core or granted one later in life was treated as highly as a knight. And were referred to as Initiates.

At the far end of the spectrum where my grandfather was, was a Magus. An individual whose power was comparable to that of an entire empire's military might. And thus held the same rights as a sovereign nation.

Something I immediately aspired to become.

After perusing through all I'd cared to in the library, I sat at my table for a moment to go over everything I thought I knew regarding how this realm operated.

Magic aside, humanity lived in an area equivalent to roughly two earth radii, with four continents. The volcanic, boreal world of Deapou Island, which in itself was akin to the size of Australia. The Pangaea-sized supercontinent to the southeast of us, Epethia. The largely uninhabited boot-shaped landmass called Phaegrath to the east of that. And the monster-infested wilderness of Ulai, contained by a single, measly magical barrier. Outside of that were realms that contained everything from frost giants living in ice-covered realms plagued by perpetual storms and cryovolcanoes, to hellish realms of molten rain filled with demons. Areas that uncountable guilds have dedicated themselves to exploring since the start of recorded history. All for the sake of expanding human knowledge.

To achieve that, a screening process was added to the core awakening ceremony. Those who passed would be granted entry into some sort of magic academy and later join the military or a guild post-graduation.

Which meant that if I were to explore this world on my own and learn as much as I could along the way, attending the academy was my best course of action; though I had intense reservations about joining any military.

Thus the only logical course of action would be to form my own guild and explore these realms to my heart's content.

And I figured I had the perfect plan to do it.

"If I didn't know any better, I'd say His Grace has read through every book in this library in just under a week." Caia, the librarian beamed as she pulled out the large box she'd started using to check in my books.

During my extensive stay in the library, I've gotten to know her quite well and learned that her hereditary affinity was ink magic. Which she and her ancestors have used for generations to keep the records of the Cole family in order.

"Not quite." I beamed back. "I found next to nothing on enchantments."

"I'm afraid you'll have to look elsewhere for those, Your Grace." Caia sighed apologetically. "Such things are hard to come by."

"No matter." I waved it aside before turning on my heels back to my little nook to attend to my next order of business.

Once situated, I pulled out the stacks of paper given to me by Jaimess and recalled all the military knowledge I'd ever received throughout my first life before beginning the arduous task of transcribing the information by hand. While many things had to be omitted or altered due to the lack of firearms and the addition of magic, many things such as combat and parade drills, training regimes, first aid, survival training, and others were able to be copied verbatim.

It was agonizing work for sure, but with the memory living in my head, the only other alternative was to have Caia copy my spoken word as if she were a scribe. Though with things like diagrams and models, that would've been hard to accomplish.

It was a good way to practice my handwriting, I supposed. My penmanship was comparable to chicken scratch in my past life. And I was aware that such things simply wouldn't suffice for the status I had in this life.

In the end, I wrote three books for them. One on leadership and military order, discipline, and training. Another on small unit tactics, guerrilla warfare, and survival techniques. And the last book was focused entirely on psychology, espionage, and subversion.

While they were somewhat dumbed down to make them understandable to someone of our age, I didn't go too far with dumbing down the information, as I intended for them to refer back to this information many times over the course of their lives.

"Good morning, Caia." I smiled as I approached the desk once again. "Could I ask you for a favor?"

"Anything for His Grace." She beamed in her usual sunny disposition.

"Can you use your ink magic to copy these for me?"