Unexpectedly, the first page of the book was a map of the Evernight Kingdom.
Back in Goldspink Empire, any map was considered military secret. Anyone who was not a military that obtained a map, even if unintentionally, would be badly sentenced. But here, the book had the map drawn on its first page, with details. From altitudes, topographic features, to different data numbers.
Was this Evernight Kingdom so strong that they would not mind getting challenged, or was Fey Continent so peaceful that different nations were willing to share their secrets without worrying about wars?
The landscape of Evernight Kingdom looked like a flipped-over turtle. Judging from the measuring scale on the bottom-left corner… The kingdom was several times bigger than the Old Earth! Angor checked the description behind. The Evernight Kingdom was one of the many nations in the south of the Fey Continent, and a middle-sized one at that.
This is middle-sized?!
Angor realized that people were serious when they referred to the Old Earth as the “Marginalized Island”. Compared to the Evernight Kingdom, a “middle-sized” nation, the Old Earth was only an island for sure.
Angor also noticed the traffic lines extending towards all directions. He thought they were government-controlled highways, but the annotation on the right showed that most of them were railways for steam trains.
Did it mean the Fey Continent had entered the age of steam? Or the age of electricity? Angor could only guess.
He went on. From the next page, the book began talking about wizard organizations in the Evernight Kingdom.
Only two big organizations were explicitly introduced: the Sleepless City and Edge of Night. There were also 17 relatively common organizations.
A country over ten million square kilometers only had so few organizations? On second thought, talents were rare, so this was completely normal.
The latter half of the book talked about common meditation methods used by the organizations in the Evernight Kingdom.
Angor learned some principles about meditation from Mara, but no details. He always felt there was a barrier blocking his view. Now, Sunders’ books were about the basics of meditation, so they would do a great job helping Angor know the wizarding world better.
Angor calmed his mind and began reading quietly.
Time flew by in the absolute tranquility.
“Planning to sleep here?”
Flora’s seducing voice reached his ears. He got used to it during these days, but still, hearing the child-like, sharp tone in the middle of the night while he was focused on his reading still scared the hell out of him.
“Good evening, Lady Flora.” Angor put down his book and greeted her carefully.
“Well, I’ll be… Teacher actually allowed you to read his books? Looks like he really liked you.” Flora landed on the floor and stepped onto the soft carpet with her bare feet. She walked in a circle around Angor as she asked, “Maybe you don’t mind telling me your talent now?”
“My talent? I don’t know. The teacher didn’t tell me,” Angor spoke sadly.
“Hey… that’s not right. That guy wasn’t like this before,” Flora mumbled. She asked, “Tell me what happened just now then. In details.”
Angor recalled his meeting with Sunders and found nothing he should hide. Besides, he did not want to offend Flora anyway, so he explained the situation clearly.
“A real wizard? Heeheehee,” said Flora. She let out an eerie smile and inspected Angor’s expression curiously. “I see. He didn’t even teach you channeling, he just asked you to read here.
“He really liked you,” Flora said that again, but she sounded more serious this time.
“Lady Flora, you know something? Can you tell me?” Seeing Flora’s “now I know” look, Angor quickly asked.
“Know something? Your talent? Heehee, nope,” Flora rolled her eyes against Angor’s eagerness. “But! I can tell you some small details that you didn’t notice.”
“Details I didn’t notice?”
“Correct. Do you know the lifestyle of wizards? In this world, everyone obeys a default rule, the ‘equivalent exchange’, unless they’re close relatives.” Flora changed the topic.
Angor knew about the equivalent exchange of course. That was why Mara did not teach him Triangle Channeling on The Redbud… Wait! Angor realized something.
“Are you teacher’s relative? No. This is only the second day after you met,” said Flora. She looked around the bookshelves and asked, “The second day, and he allowed you to read his valuable collections. Are you okay with that?
“You know, everything in the wizarding world has a price. Only knowledge is priceless,” said Flora. She turned away and grinned when Angor could not see her.
“So, equivalent exchange. The teacher has granted you such a fortune, what can you give him in return, to finish the deal?”
Flora then waved goodbye to Angor as she said, “Don’t worry too much though. Maybe your talent is just too powerful so the teacher’s willing to exchange all that knowledge for it?”
Flora “beat around the bush” and quickly left the room. She could not hold back her laughter any longer if she did not leave right away while looking at the boy’s poor and terrified expression.
Angor did not realize that Flora just followed her teacher’s suit and joked on him for a second time.
He was still pondering over Flora’s words because they sounded so true! It was only the second day, and Sunders gave him such a big gift. The teacher was surely expecting something. Just like the saying from Earth – there was no such thing like a free lunch. If one could see one, then there must be a cost. So what could Sunders get from him? The only thing Angor could think of was his talent which he still knew nothing about.
Back to the first question. What was his talent? Why did Sunders take him away in such a hurry? What could he bring to Sunders? And how far did Angor need to contribute? Would it cost his life?
As he thought about the bad consequences, he felt his mind running into a dead end.
In the end, his eyes spun, and he fell on the floor, mind short-circuited.
Flora peeked at Angor’s reaction using her spell and could not help to grin. Maybe because of Sunders’ attitude, or out of envy, she always wanted to give her little junior some bullying.
What she said looked reasonable, but they were only to confuse Angor who just came to the wizarding world and did not know about much yet.
True, knowledge was priceless, but not all knowledge. The books intended for apprentices were as useless as toilet paper to wizards. Of course, Sunders’ collection contained valuable books even the other wizards desired. However, they were meaningless to a mortal like Angor and unless Angor actually remembered all thousands of pages in those books and took them away in his brain, there was no “equivalent exchange” involved.
She exaggerated about the books’ value just because she felt a bit frustrated and wanted to pull a prank on the boy.
He was not even an apprentice yet, and Sunders already began to lead him towards “a real wizard”. Meanwhile, Flora had become a wizard herself and she was nowhere near “a real wizard”!
However, the path of a real wizard was not something one could find with the help of another person. It called for the wizard’s own ability to learn as well as finding destiny. Still, Flora was not happy about Angor’s boosted starting point when he was just an ordinary kid.
Looking at how Angor was struggling with his mind on the floor, Flora felt her bad mood becoming a lot better. She left while humming a song.
Not long after, Sunders appeared at where she was and let out a sigh. He shook his head as if he was thinking about something.
