Chapter 23: Journeying out again.

"If you were to change just a few of these sigils and make minor changes within the structure of the formation not only could you potentially increase the amount of life force extracted but also decrease the value lost due to purification and transportation of the energy", Lorthic calmly explained to the Beastwoman, as he learned they were called, Rei.

Lorthic was quite surprised at the time since it was Rei that had asked him to teach her more, even more so she seemed quite energetic when talking about formations, not at all like the lazy woman he saw before. She was, at this moment, sitting in front of him with a straight back sprouted ears and serious expression as she penned everything Lorthic said with utmost focus.

"Do you understand?", Lorthic asked after his brief explanation. Rei thought through everything he said before asking a question. "If what you said is correct wouldn't it be possible to ensure a perfect extraction, purification, and transportation, if you used these sigils in the perfect order and ensured they were running at the perfect tempo.", Rei asked as she pointed out at some of the sigils and runes that she mentioned on the page that she wrote on.

"Exactly so, in theory, that is. But theory is merely that, calculations. One can never truly expect perfection within a formation since the number of variables one can calculate would never outnumber those you can't, for example, if there was just a slight shift within the mana density of air pressure since the laying the formation the outcome would be to the loss of at least 0.0001 percent and at most an entire 2 percent, based on the size of the shift of these forces. Unless one tries to divine the shifts of these forces for the duration of which one wants the formation to run and adjust the formation accordingly it would be impossible for these forces not to affect it. Those are just a mere 2 forces, out of billions, some seen some unseen"

" I understand", rei said as she wrote down what he said. Before looking back at him with a fiery passion which Lorthic found a bit unsettling. "What's next?", she asked excitedly.

"Next?... that would be all", Lorthic said causing Rei's ears to droop a bit in disappointment.

"Here", Lorthic handed her a book, she looked up in confusion, "This is my book on...", she said as she slowly opened the book but her words got caught in her throat, as she saw many places on the book that had side notes written, it not only further elaborated on the subject she wrote down there were even many holes in the theories patched up and errors corrected.

"This is?", Rei asked uncertainly.

"I can see that you have an unquenchable thirst for this type of knowledge, even If I were to tutor you and teach you everything I know, it will still leave you dissatisfied, so I gave you this and I will leave you with a few words of wisdom, Only when you discover something on your will you know the weight of this knowledge. I hope that you will continue on this path and one day should we meet again I would be more than happy to offer advice and peruse through another book of yours, thought at that time your knowledge might equal or surpass mine, who knows.", He said with utmost sincerity.

As a man that has pursued knowledge with a mad abundance he knew the allure of knowledge that others possess, yet he also knew about the dangers of quiring knowledge too easily, it could lead to complacency, it would lead to you forgetting the weight of this knowledge holds and would breed the most sinful of feelings a pursuer of arcana can possess, Arrogance.

Knowing oneself is confidence, blindly believing oneself better is arrogance. It is best to know your limits since it could give the chance of surpassing them, believing oneself to be infallible leads only to stagnation and death.

"Yes!", Rei said bowing towards Lorthic as a sign of respect before taking her leave.

'It seems it is time for our own departure', Lorthic thought, he had already spent two days here since he cured the girl of the corps poison. He used these two days to gather a bit of knowledge from Zazi and the rest of the group, finding it best to know about the surroundings be it countries or wildlife. Zazi was even kind enough to provide a map of the kingdom of Ludvar, where he was currently, the place known as the Dark Forest was at the very south of the kingdom and stretched all the way into its neighboring country, which name was not mentioned in the map but Zazi called it the 'holy land of Barlo' with a hint of discussing in her tone of voice.

Apparently, the 'holy land of Barlo', was a theocracy based on the religion of the god Barlo, it was a land where all humans were seen as superior to other races and thus saw it as right and just to enslave them and treat them as lesser.

"What kind of god would this Barlo be, he seems quite... idiotic and narrow-minded" was all Lorthic could comment on which left Zazi and the rest stunned because of his bravery of openly cursing a god.

In any case, after a brief goodbye, Lorthic set off from the cave with Annabel in tow, but what caused Lorthic to smile bitterly was that the little imp still hadn't forgiven him for putting her to sleep, and had not spoken to him once in the entire time. Lorthic of course wouldn't lower himself to ask for forgiveness and explain that he did it for her own good, he believed that she should at least be old enough to be able to figure it out for himself, since the very thought of humans being used as life force battery nearly broke her tiny little will, seeing it would have left her mentally scarred.

He was also not one to pamper others which might have made the situation unstable from the very beginning since she was a little princess of a marque.

'What is meant to happen will happen and what is not meant to happen will be avoided', Lorthic thought as he continued on as normal, following the map Zazi provided he was able to easily navigate his way through the forest until they came upon a narrow road heading through the forest, looking at the map he saw the road leading out of the forest and towards the main road that leads to the capital of Ludvig and where the royal family lived, according to the map the Frosbringer marque was situated quite a bit to the north of the kingdom in fact it was almost at the northern border.

'I wonder how this child made it all the way to the south of the kingdom'