“I can finally rest.”

  An alliance with the most powerful mage in the country, though at least that’s what I think. No one who was out of the country for longer than the Crown Prince was born could brazenly build a magic tower beside the castle and even overshadow it.

  I have no idea about the importance of image between royals and nobles, but based on everything so far, it must be huge as fuck.

  Once the conversation with Orfield was finished, my body screamed for rest. There wasn’t really any exhaustion on my body, just mental exhaustion. It was morning, but I felt like sleeping. My eyes slowly closed as I tried to entertain my mind.

  Then in the blink of a second, I woke up at the sun slowly setting.

  As soon as I woke up I stretched my entire body, yawning and moaning in satisfaction. “Ahhhh… I have protection in this palace now, right? I can basically train until I want, forever.”

  “Well, of course, I do want it to be over in less than 6 months, hahaha. I’m in a fantasy world, there’s no way I’m spending it rotting in this shithole.”

  The sun was shining at me with a dim yellow hue. It was neither bright nor hot, just a light shining through my window. I got up from my bed and jumped over the railings down to the first floor. For a good whole day, I haven’t eaten a single thing.

  I entered the kitchen, down the hall of the servant’s room. My dirty plates were still on the table in front of the stairs. There were no insects nor any other creatures crawling around. Such a thing is a surprise looking at how this place wasn’t as finely made as the training ground.

  “Well, I’m here to eat, not to critique. Oh, that rhymes. Cool.”

  The ceiling had many strings that hang across the entire kitchen with some having meat hanging on them. It was a weird way to preserve food or even just a place to place them. However, I was here to eat, and not to critique.

  I took the meat hanging above and moved onto one of the ovens. It was a long pillar that stretched near the ceiling with a hollow bottom where charred woods were placed. This was the first time I had seen such things in real life. The oven interested me for a few seconds until I realized I didn’t know how to light fire properly.

  Being a writer, of course, I know the principles of how to start a fire, but I’ve never done it, so I actually have no experience with it. “If only I could make fire with qi.” I pondered it a little bit. From the novels I’ve read, cultivators could obviously create fire, however, the only explanation that I’ve ever found is that it was caused by their natural spirit root. “Or something… maybe I should have written at least a single cultivation novel rather than simple fantasy.”

  Even then, the first mage I’ve seen in this life used pure white magic which could also be called non-elemental magic. Then there is Orfield, who created a tower out of nowhere, that can’t be made without using earth magic. That means there is a way to create fire using mana. There must be. There should be.

  “Well, I give up. I’m a simple person, if I won’t die, I won’t think too much about it.” I dropped the meat on the ground to free my hand of some space. However, just because I gave up on thinking about making fire from mana, doesn’t mean I gave up on making fire. There was no way the servants would roll wood together every time they wanted to make fire.

  I searched every nook and cranny of the oven to find something, anything. Then after a few minutes of looking, behind the metal plates placed on top of the oven, neatly hidden, I was able to find a box filled with papers engraved with a circle and markings inside them.

  “Oh… so a fire talisman paper, or fire magic circle paper, or… ah whatever, uggghhh… my head is already hurting from having to think of other things.”

  As the metal plates and pots stayed in view while taking a single talisman, there was a thought that came to my mind.

  I stood in front of the oven. Without knowing how it actually worked, once the paper was ripped a small blazing fire at the size of a bean fell from the bottom of the paper. My instincts reacted quickly and jumped backward before the fire touched the wood and erupting.

  “Well, I got fire. I thought it would have exploded though, hahaha.”

  The fire danced on the wood while it slowly devoured the surface that I could see. A few seconds ago, I didn’t even dare to take a single pan out. I raised my hand and coated it with mana. With my eyes fixated on the hot glaring fire, I placed my entire arm inside.

  “As I thought.”

  My skin wasn’t getting burned, however, it does feel like a warm bath. Out of a little more curiosity, I coated my entire body with qi and slowly fit myself inside. Because of the child’s body, I was able to fit myself inside the oven. It was like a sauna without the sweat. The sensation I was feeling was something I’d never felt before. No one in my past world has even felt this before, well, no one that’s alive. It felt so warm and cozy, other than my position, it was like a perfect sunny day.

  “Okay, let’s stop this.”

  The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  After almost losing myself from laughing and squeaking like a dying rat, I picked up a piece of meat and cooked it in the middle of the fire. While my hand acted as a pan, I looked around for any spices that could give any taste to my pure raw meat. There were some placed at some of the tables… however… they didn’t really look familiar.

  “You know what… too lazy to.”

  It didn’t take more than 3 minutes until the meat looked cooked. Once I took it out I had my doubts. There was no way meat could be cooked for less than an hour.

  “It’s an inch thick though, maybe it is cooked, hmmm… would raw meat really harm me though?”

  Just to be sure, I coated my entire body with qi, including my insides before putting the meat inside my mouth. I chewed on the meat like it was air, tasteless, and absolutely felt nothing. It could have been because of the qi layering over my skin or that the meat actually had no taste.

  I filled my stomach with the most disappointing thing in my entire life. Just a second later I left the kitchen and won’t come back unless I actually need to.

  “How funny is it, that I was a really fat man before because I loved eating, but now I just don’t feel like it? Is it because the feeling of cultivating is more pleasurable than eating?”

  There was no point thinking about such baseless things. As my morning started, I led myself to the garden and sat around the tall flowers, hiding myself from the world. Beneath the cozy embrace of nature, I cultivated till the sun had its rightful rest.

  Like an unexpected event, just a second ago I was at the mansion, then outside, and once again I was back. That was going to be my life from now on. Filled with the endless training of self-power till the point where only my strength spoke for me. However, there was something this night that I had to first do before I could enter my long repeating cycle.

  “The library, hmmm… I didn’t think there would be a library in this place.”

  Saying that I stood in front of the library. It was placed opposite my bedroom, just to the other side of the second floor. As I opened the door, I was greeted with the smell of wood and paper. The first thing I saw were the sides of a long shelf filled with books. These shelves stretched to corners of the room, only having enough gap to fit almost three people.

  Seeing a place like it was an actual library, I looked to the left and right of the entrance expecting a librarian desk, however there were only a few tables. There was a considerable gap between the shelves and the entrance where it was completely empty. I walked inside, yearning to learn for the first time of my life, I didn’t even dare shut the door, if I just walked to the end of this place, no one would find me, it was a maze.

  “A maze of knowledge.”

  The shelves were sectioned by category, from history, culinary, many more and most importantly, weaponry. There were many entries of many different weapons, the entire shelf was filled with so many techniques that it boggled my mind.

  “How can these things just be here? For free? Piercing Spear Arts. Cleaving Axe. Moonlight Dancing Blade. Boulder Crushing Star. I don’t know what any of these means. Hahaha! Now for the first time, this fantasy world gives me something other than my cultivation to remind me of murim.”

  I removed my gaze from the books entailing many grand names, all that was important to me was the most basic of basics. After reading every title of every book from my right till I almost ran out of space, I was able to find the book I wanted.

  “Beginner Swordsmanship.”

  It was properly sectioned, along with many beginner books for other weapons.

  “Now this is what I want.”

  As I grabbed onto the book to pull it, the qi spread throughout my entire body due to my weird liking for the feeling it gave me, it reacted to the book as soon as I touched it. I didn’t pay much attention to it as I pulled the book, however, it didn’t budge at all. Mana was entirely encasing the book.

  The others didn’t even have a single ounce of mana on them, so why does this specific book have?

  “Trying to learn?”

  Said a cute yet sharp voice to my right. I turned immediately. It was a small girl, smaller than me surprisingly, wearing a red dress and red bow tying her black hair. She had a pretty face, her skin glistening and smoother than marble. Her hand was pointed outward in my direction, having clear mana at her fingertips.

  “Hah. Just kidding, you never study.”

  Her voice sounded cheerful, however, her stern and expressionless face shows otherwise.

  “You already know everything, why would you study?”

  She bent her head and lifted her shoulders.

  “Who the fuck are you?!”