‘If you’re not first, you’re last,’ is a saying my parents had told me a lot of times. They were not overly critical of what I did usually, but wanted me to do better - or to be the best at what I did. I was ‘okay’ or ‘average’ in a lot of things like theater and sports, but I eventually ended up dropping a lot of them because I felt that ‘okay’ wasn’t good enough.

  I didn’t want to aim for first place, because I knew I was going to be disappointed if I failed. And until now, although things had gone smoothly, I somehow knew deep down that I wouldn’t be able to get the top spot.

  For example, I knew that I probably couldn’t beat Master Jiah Pei.

  “What’s on your mind?” she asked.

  “Uh, nothing,” I said. I looked through the two grimoires I had made.

  The first one let you cast [Illuminate] which allowed you to light up an area. That was potentially useful, though I felt that [Create Flame] had more uses in addition to helping light up places, though naturally, its illumination would not match that of a spell fully dedicated to that facet.

  The second one gave a passive ability called [Mobile Wallet], which created a pocket dimension which only you could access that could store up to five hundred Denarii. I was once again reminded by this how much video-game like this world was - but if that was the case, where was my tutorial? I felt like I was really owed one any time now.

  I hadn’t decided on whether I wanted to keep the two or sell them so for the time being I just tucked them away and watched the next round.

  That man - Master Jiah Pei, still seemed to be unbelievably good at this.

  I honestly wished that I hadn’t watch his match because it just made me feel even more nervous about this whole thing.

  The next day, the semifinals would take place in the morning; the finals as well as the round to determine who would win bronze would take place in the evening.

  The crowd was even larger this time around, and this time, I wasn’t one of the people chosen to pick out slips. Instead, Master Jiah Pei stepped forward, picked someone who thankfully wasn’t me, and so I was paired with someone else.

  Inwardly, I couldn’t help but think I had already won a small victory. Master Jiah Pei had been paired off with the other Master Liberomancer who was participating, meaning that at least one of the strongest contestants would be eliminated before we went to the next stage.

  If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.

  My opponent was a human - though someone from outside of Chipker. We made some small talk, she told me she came from Hansini, the former capital of the Ruler of the Astral Winds’s Empire . The city still stood and exerted considerable influence over the surrounding region; not to mention it was still quite a vibrant hub for Liberomancy.

  “Why’d you leave then?” I asked her.

  “I wanted to see more of the world before I settled back down there,” she told me. She had brown hair and light freckles - I thought that I could probably blend into a place which had people like her way more easily than here in Chipker.

  I learned a bit more about the pathway that the merchant caravan took - from Hitutsa they came down to Chipker, from here they would cross over to Falmouth, then to Tharius, the Hansini, a few frontier cities on their way down to Meloukas, and then to Hitutsa again.

  “However, there are still places to see where the caravan doesn’t go,” she added. “I’ve always wanted to go to Serragnia - I’ll probably switch to a different merchant caravan somewhere along the route just so that I can see it. I feel like you can’t really say you’ve seen the world ‘till you’ve gone there, right?”

  Serragnia was a country located near the headwaters of the Ragini - said to be the home of the village in the story that Granny Qi told me about how the Ragini had been first formed. There were multiple stories in describing the Goddess Serragnin’s life when she had been on earth. If those were to be believed, she had spent most of her time while on earth in the area now known as Serragnia. Along with Hansini, it was the other place within Libraria where the practice of Liberomancy flourished the most.

  There were other things that I wanted to ask her, but the duel began before we could continue talking.

  “The word is: fish!” the referee said.

  I started writing without hesitation - I knew that I had this in the bag because I already had made a grimoire revolving around fish. It was what had granted me the [Poissonnier] ability.

  It was not against the rules; if by chance, the word they picked described a grimoire you had already memorized, to write said grimoire. It was due to this slight element of luck that these duels were best of three, after all.

  That was another reason why someone who was an old hand at this, like Master Jiah Pei, would naturally have an advantage. Even if you didn’t memorize all the grimoires you’d made, you would still likely be able to recall bits and pieces if you had ever made anything based off the topic.

  I could feel sweat beginning to coat my forehead, and I had to pause to wipe it off just like with the last round. I didn’t want it splashing over the paper and potentially destroying my work.

  I had discovered that the ink used here did not dry nearly as fast as the kind used back home - unfortunately this discovery had been while I was trying to transport a grimoire and I ended up smearing the ink all over the page, ruining it. Ink had to be left on paper for at lest ten minutes before you could say it had fully dried.

  Needless to say I still found writing to be very cumbersome in this world. Even with the fountain pen; it was better than using a brush, but still not as good as something like a simple ballpoint pen from back on Earth.