I looked at the line apprehensively - this could very well take until sundown, I realized. But I wondered if I might be able to use my influence here to make things go a bit faster. I had gotten into a number of quagmires because of my reputation, why not try to see if it could get me out of one?

Actually, as I thought about it and reached for the invitation in my pocket; I realized that all might have been completely unnecessary. I had been invited here by the king, hadn't I? And I remembered then that it also had his seal on it.

I went up to the guards and showed them my invitation, and they led me right to the front of the line.

Several people glared at me, likely wondering why it was that I was getting such special treatment, until they saw the purple sash I was wearing; and seemed to just shrug it off afterwards.

I felt bad about this, because some of them might have been waiting in line for a few hours…

...but on the other hand, this saved me the problem of having to wait in line for a few hours.

"I see, so this is it," the lizardman overseeing the requests to see the king said as he examined my invitation. He nodded to one of the guards. "Without a doubt, it's genuine. Ah, we will send word to the king, Master Liberomancer, and will get back to you in a few day's time."

"Do I need to come back here?"

"Not at all - we would not dream of wasting the precious time of an esteemed guest such as yourself," he said, and it struck me that he was being rather uncharacteristically polite and cooperative for a bureaucrat. I doubted he was this way with the others in line. "Just leave your address here and we will send a messenger to your place."

"Thank you."

"The pleasure is all ours."

I walked away, quite surprised that I had managed to get this thing off my list in just under ten minutes - if you removed the time it took to get to the castle in the first place. It had actually taken more time for me to get to the castle than it had taken to fix a potential meeting with the king.

I decided to explore the city a bit before returning home.

While the place was cluttered and congested, there was quite a bit of history that you wouldn't find back in Arconia. As an example, a shopkeeper I was talking to pointed to a nearby bridge and said, "Oh, you're new to the city, are you Master Liberomancer? That over there is the bridge where a single soldier made a brave last stand and fought nearly three dozen others before being killed - unfortunately, his name is lost to history, but there used to be a statue honoring his sacrifice before it was destroyed when the Ruler of the Astral Winds took the city. So, anyway, would you prefer the red or the green robes - ah, actually, this new kind of design has been in fashion lately if you'd like to see it before making a decision…"

Between the two places though, I definitely felt that Arconia was a better place to live. History and culture were all fine, but it couldn't beat the freshness of open spaces and clean air.

Once I got home, I started reading the grimoire I had gotten that gave [Ansoon's Blessing]. Thankfully, I remembered a good portion of it, and I was able to shift through the first few pages far faster than I otherwise would have.

It was rather late in the night when my mana ran out and I fell asleep, leaving the rest for another day.

The next day, the Liberomancer's Guild had followed up on a few of my requests.

For one, there was more than enough paper and ink to last a month delivered to my doorstep. They had also furnished me with a few bags of rice.

As for grimoires, they had found a Rank One mana-raising grimoire and two Rank Two grimoires that did the same as I'd asked for.

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

It had been hard to find grimoires like that which I didn't already have, and it was a bit disappointing that I had only gotten three, but I supposed that was to be expected.

I had consumed nearly all the ones back in Arconia which I could find after the siege was over, and these were just the ones made in the capital that hadn't found their way down to Arconia in significant numbers yet.

They were a bit pricey, but that was to be expected given the expected demand. And it wasn't like they were not worth the price. Three grimoires meant my mana bar went up by three points, which meant there was an extra [Grand Fireball] or [Shark Tornado] I could cast whenever I was fully charged. And it meant it was slightly faster and easier to both read and write grimoires.

I had to get rid of some of the old grimoires I knew to make way for these three, but it was an easy enough decision regarding what to get rid of. Things like [Self Insight] were rather redundant if I could just make my mana bar as large as possible.

I was in the middle of reading more about Lady Ansoon when a messenger arrived telling me the king would be ready to meet me in one week, and had invited me to dinner hosted in the castle for the same. They left a scroll with the proper invitation as well as the time for me to show the guards on that day, and I thanked them.

One week… well, I was planning to stay in the capital for a while before heading out. I wanted to see if I could find some more grimoires, as well as read the ones I had in the safety of a building. I did not want to land up in another situation where I lost a grimoire because something happened in the wilderness like it had back in Arconia during the siege.

I was very close to finishing the grimoire which gave [Ansoon's Blessing]. I had to say, it was one of the few grimoires that I had genuinely enjoyed reading - not just for the sake of getting a new power-up. The ending, whether it was fictional or not, was quite heart-breaking. It was a story that had likely been heavily romanticized by the lizardmen after all; but I thought that it was more likely that Lady Ansoon had just been the first person to discover that waterfall that flowed in reverse than her chancing upon a river spirit. Arconia was not as well-developed during her time, and so it was not unreasonable to think that the waterfall had been lying there unknown for quite a while.

As for why it flowed in reverse, it was more likely to be a form of 'natural magic' like Granny Qi said rather than a spirit's charm.

At least, after listening to both the human and lizardmen versions of stories regarding that waterfall, that was the conclusion I thought was most probably true. Much like how, personally, I doubted it was the actual Spirit of Darkness that led to the Ruler of the Astral Winds getting killed. The whole Spirit of Darkness convincing the Blood-Emperor to wipe out a village seemed far more metaphorical than anything.

As a matter of fact, I was beginning to heavily doubt whether or not spirits were an actual thing in this world. A lot of people, even those like Master Jiah Pei, thought they did - but no one could claim to have actually met or seen a spirit. Everyone seemed to know somebody who knew somebody who swore their neighbor's stepson living across the city had seen one.

Was it weird to doubt the existence of spirits in a world where magic was real? I mean, even if magic was real - the magic of the Liberomancers followed certain strict rules unlike what the spirits were supposedly capable of. And just because magic existed, it didn't mean that this was a world where 'everything goes.' Even if I didn't fully understand why the rules worked like they did, there still clearly were a specific set of rules like being unable to write a grimoire of a higher rank than you.

As such, the thought of there being something which could completely bypass these rules, creatures most definitely existed as per everyone, but no one had concrete evidence of struck me as being something more than an exaggerated fairy tale rather than fact.

Regardless, they were said to be extremely rare anyway, which meant the chances of me ever running into one were practically zero. So real or not, I didn't see any need to dwell on the matter.

Sun Jiao was lying in a cold cell, fast asleep. After Stefan had turned him over to the guards, they had locked him up while deciding what to do with him.

"Human…" a voice called out, startling him awake.

"Wh-what's going on?" he mumbled. His cell was suddenly completely dark, there was no light from a nearby torch or lantern like there was earlier, and even barring that, there should be something coming from the window like either starlight or moonlight.

Somehow though, his cell was completely pitch-dark; and the source of that voice unclear.

"Human," the voice repeated. It seemed to come from everywhere around Sun Jiao, and it carried neither warmth nor a trace of kindness. It was a voice as cold and unforgiving as the north wind, and Sun Jiao withdrew a little in his cell when he heard it again, but where could he go? There was only darkness all around. And even if there had been better lighting, he was still trapped in the prison cell. "You may consider yourself fortunate, human, for having been graced with my presence. Your heart cries out for aid. The hearts of many humans cry out each night, and yet, so few of them are blessed enough to receive my answer. I can hear your soul scream out for power - power that I can give you, human. So long as you take care of a matter of mine you may have it. There is a man who is somewhere near this city who I need to be… removed…"

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.