Chapter 48: Going to Oden
Despite wanting to be able to return to the work site that day, the day ran out too fast, and Raze was only able to head back and deliver their pay for the day before heading home himself. He was exhausted and couldn’t even check the work done.
He sat inside his room after a good bath; his muscles were now relaxed, and he could rest. But rather than sleep, he entered the library.
The moment he was in, he spotted the librarian again, and this time it was floating close to the shelves. He recalled that it had been reading a book the last time, so he looked at the table, but it wasn’t there anymore.
’Did it return the book to where it was meant to be? Tsk, I really don’t understand this librarian,’ Raze thought. His gaze lingered on the unbothered librarian for a few seconds before he turned away, his footsteps echoing against the hard marble floor.
He got to the shelf where he had placed the book the librarian had shown him. He pulled the book out and placed it on a table.
"I have so much to do, with training to strengthen my body, learning new magical spells, giving mana to this book, looking for the Fenryr, and more," Raze muttered to himself. He wasn’t complaining; he was simply lamenting how fast time went when he did any of these things.
He deeply enjoyed anything that allowed him to get better in any way, and if he could find a way to extend time inside time to make his sessions last longer, he would jump on the opportunity.
But now wasn’t the time for that. He flipped open the book and looked at the first page, staring at the warrior that stood there. He took a long, deep breath, the cold air pressing against the back of his throat as he calmed his mind and heart to the level where the rhythm of his heartbeat was soft and slow.
He allowed his mana to move, and instantly, the book latched onto it, pulling the mana. His face scrunched; he gripped the edge of the table and forced himself to sit without collapsing.
The book consumed the mana like a hungry beast, swallowing it whole, and in only a few minutes, it had pulled almost everything from Raze. Finally, it stopped.
Raze’s head was in a spiral; he saw double and felt like he would throw up. But he had a plan for this, something he had spent a little time thinking about. He instantly channeled his Qi. The energy came rushing through his body like a wild river that couldn’t be stopped.
In that instant, clarity returned to him; the dizziness vanished, and so did every bad feeling.
"It worked. I can’t believe it worked," Raze said in happiness, a look of relief and joy on his face.
How had he come to this solution? It was when he realized that Qi could be used alone, and people survived with it alone. That meant the body could work with it as the main fuel. So when he gave away all his mana, he instantly used Qi to take its place and ensure that he could still function.
He turned his eyes to the warrior on the paper, and now the color had grown, covering all the way to his upper thighs. The progress was slow, but Raze had already made a mental decision to keep going until he saw what would happen when it was fully colored.
Now that he was done with that, he snapped the book closed and placed it back on the shelf.
"I haven’t made any major progress yet. I am still a novice in the library with limited access," he muttered while looking around. "But even then, I’ve barely covered the books that are actually open to me," he added, then went to search through the books. Since he only had his Qi for now, he decided to pick up something that had to do with combat.
He searched through the vines, book after book, until his fingers stopped on a certain two-toned, back-cover book, brown and black leather diagonally set to make the cover. At the back, it read: [Yin and Yang Beginner Sword Technique.]
The name drew his curiosity, so he pulled it out and walked to a table. He dropped it down, and it let out a loud thud. Sitting down, he opened the book, and there was a message on the first page, handwritten.
[If you ever find this.....]
[....]
A light flickered in a room, Andrew’s room, as he stood beside his bed, his shoulders slumped and a heavy air around him. He recalled the words of Viscount Luke multiple times inside his head, to the extent he couldn’t stop thinking about them.
Kill his own brother? Because of the family name? It was an impossible ask, or so he thought up until now, but it kept repeating in his mind over and over again. No matter how he fought it, it kept coming back, and every time he thought about it, it made more sense.
Unsure of what to do, he grabbed a leather traveling bag and threw it on the bed. He yanked open his wardrobe and picked out a few sets of clothes before tossing them in without bothering to fold them.
He grabbed his pouch of gold and threw it inside as well.
"Where are you headed?" Michael’s voice came from behind. Andrew’s neck snapped as he turned to look at him. "How did you get in?" he asked.
"Your door was slightly ajar," Michael said. "And with how distracted you were with whatever it is you’re doing, you couldn’t hear me." He added, leaning on the doorpost, hands folded and a questioning gaze in his eyes.
"So tell me, where are you headed, brother?" Michael asked again.
Andrew looked at the bag, his eyes carrying a heavy reluctance to speak. But he knew his younger brother, he wouldn’t relent until he spoke.
"Sigh, I’ll be heading to Oden at the crack of dawn," Andrew said.
"Oden? Isn’t that the Viscount’s hometown?" Michael asked.