Rayne moved through the old library, looking through the titles of different books in each section of the room. Dust clung to his gloved hands with each title he pulled out. These were clearly very old, and no one had bothered to update the library since then.

  Fortunately, what he was mostly interested in was all the old information—from the gods to how the status and class system actually worked. Alongside those, he also picked up a few books on sword styles and the history of war around the kingdom.

  Sadly, he didn't find any bestiaries.

  When he moved back to the table with Casper flipping another page of her tome, he put down the titles and asked, “Do you know where I can find a bestiary?”

  Casper paused, looking up at him. “I don't think there's one here. Bestiaries are rare to say the least. You will either find one in an ancestral noble house or in Astra Academy in the capital.”

  “Why isn't it here?” He frowned, taking a seat in front of her. He’d told her that he could sit at a different table, but she had insisted on him taking the same one. “A bestiary would have been helpful in killing the warlord.”

  She let out a dry chuckle. “It would have been, but from what I know, only a few mages have been interested in studying monsters throughout our history in extensive detail. And even if they wrote a book about it, it's hard to make a lot of copies of them,” she said, looking over at the pile of books he had gathered. “If there’s one, some noble house would lap it up simply to have it in their collection. The Valerian army relies on older soldiers to pass on knowledge instead of books, and you could guess why.”

  Rayne nodded. “I do. It still feels like a missed opportunity. Knowledge could save a lot of lives.”

  “It can,” she replied. “But I think that much knowledge should be enough for a month.”

  Casper pointed at the collection of books. Rayne smiled and pulled out the one he was the most interested in while she went back to reading her tome.

  The leather cover cracked as he opened it. It smelled of decades-old ink. The title on the first page read: “Gods and their Divine Machinations” by Dwathe Brownson.

  Rayne leaned closer to the script, lips moving silently as he pulled up the first page and read.

  There are a lot of theories on the status that we see while peeking into our souls. About the classes that the gods grant us, but there’s hardly any work gone into truly understanding it. The status, as we know it, might just be the only thing binding each kingdom, empire and even the farthest tribes together into believing in the gods.

  As a result of it being tied into religion itself, even looking into it is regarded blasphemous by some churches. To the readers, I would like to make it clear. The book doesn’t insult the gods, it merely tries to find reasons in their divine actions, and why they have granted us mortal creatures a way to grow stronger and keep track of it.

  The major theories I have been able to gather regard it as a boon granted for our devotion, but there are also ideas about it being a tool the gods made to help in the growth of humans and other races towards the greater threats plaguing our world. The most outlandish theory I was able to find was that it had been there since before the gods ascended…

  Rayne took a breath as he read through the first half of the book in the next hour. Just after the introduction, the book revealed that the author did manage to offend the churches, and got executed. Even if he hadn’t been outright blasphemous, his words had bordered on it, and that had been enough.

  Thankfully, the churches hadn’t burnt down copies of it.

  And he had to say the ideas in the book were surely really interesting. It moved from talking about probable theories on how the system worked, the classes, and even tried to justify the walls everyone faced.

  One passage in the book even talked about how there might actually be an explanation given by the gods on the system, but all knowledge of it had been lost as the gods had stopped communication with the mortal world after the second epoch.

  The epochs were another interesting topic for Rayne since the last epoch was one time in history when quests were common. They were now in what was named the third epoch, and no one had heard of receiving a quest.

  The third slide in the status was completely ignored now.

  He continued reading the book, and it moved to talking about the different stats and their functions, and trying to reason why they might be the ones selected out of countless other options.

  But Rayne soon noticed that the book didn’t really talk much about the Arcane stat, only mentioning it in passing and focusing more on the physical ones.

  He sighed, having selected it thinking it would shed light on how he could grow it.

  None of the monsters had given out that stat, and although he knew it related to mana, he had never heard anyone talking about it. Now that he had [Lesser Regeneration] that took both energy and small amounts of mana to heal his body, it was pertinent for him to grow it.

  Rayne closed the book and took out another from the pile, titled: “Stats and How to Grow Them” by an unknown author.

  It was a pretty straightforward title, and he quickly moved to reading it, but he closed it down after reading through a quarter of it.

  Just like the last book, it merely referenced Arcane and mana in passing before focusing on all the ways physical stats were gained, and even gave examples of people being able to grow them faster by doing specific exercises.

  It was all valuable information, but not what he needed.

  He pushed the book away, looking at Casper who was absorbed in her tome. His eyes lowered to it, but the letters looked foreign. Probably a magical tome, he guessed.

  Rayne had already bothered her a lot, and even if she had been nothing but kind to him—which still surprised him knowing her stature and his background—he didn’t know who else to ask about the Arcane stat.

  Maybe some book in the library would have the answers, but it would take too long to look through everything, and he doubted he was going to be coming back to Algar anytime soon after marching to the frontlines.

  Hence, he took his chance and said, “Can I ask you a question?”

  Casper tilted her head, eyes moving to his face. Her not frowning and slinging a spell at him was a good enough start for him.

  “Where will I find actual information on the Arcane stat and mana? The two books I looked through didn’t explain anything.”

  She looked down at the book, then back at him, lips curving up slightly as if amused. “That’s because Arcane directly affects mana, which is the energy that mages use. A class that uses mana is really rare, and typically only mages or those who manage to acquire a class that grants them mana skills require education in it.”

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  “Mana skills,” he said. “Like the one Captain Edran has.”

  Casper nodded. “Yes, he has two of them. One is the [Sword Strike] you saw, and another is a defensive skill. Since he’s a noble, he had also trained his Arcane stat for a long time and is a certified spellsword.”

  Rayne leaned forward a bit, eyes wide. “What do you mean trained? He didn’t get stats in it?”

  As soon as the question left his lips, he cringed, realizing what he had just asked. Information about the captain’s class was sensitive. If she blurted it out to Edran, he might even get punished.

  But to his surprise, Casper simply sighed. “No, he doesn’t. Maybe after another class upgrade, he might get it. Normally, only someone with a mage class gets stats in Arcane with every level up. But nobles of course understand the importance of mana, and train it well before they even get to their class.”

  He slowly took in all the information, the books sprawled next to him forgotten. He doubted any book would give him as detailed information as Casper.

  She was basically saying that the nobles all train their Arcane stat as soon as they can, and it was clear that they did it both for more mana and to influence their class in the magical path. He could understand why after seeing Casper battling against the troll warlord.

  Why learn how to use a sword when you can do much more destructive damage standing far away from danger? Unfortunately, there was no such stat training in his memory.

  A bastard was obviously not privy to noble training methods.

  “Do you want to train your Arcane stat?” Casper suddenly said, bringing his focus back to her.

  Rayne almost nodded vigorously, then stopped himself, trying not to rush an answer. “I’m hoping to learn more and yes, if I can, I wish to increase my mana.”

  “But you don’t have mana skills.”

  “I don’t.” He lied. “But I do want to train it in case I’m able to go past the first wall, and achieve a class upgrade. I believe it would help me.”

  Casper didn’t reply, simply looking over at her tome as if debating something, then she got up and moved towards the center of the library before sitting down on the floor and folding her legs in a meditative position.

  Rayne stared at her. “What are you doing?”

  “You said you want to train your Arcane stat,” she replied. “If so, then you need to sit like this before we can begin. Although I won’t teach you everything, I can help you understand the basics.”

  Rayne got up from his chair so fast, it stumbled backwards and almost fell. He caught it, putting it down before removing his shoes and gear.

  While doing so, he paused.

  He wondered why Casper was being so nice to him. Using him as company was one thing, but teaching him a method almost exclusive to nobles was another thing itself. Was it a trap? He looked at her face and she simply seemed to be waiting for him to take a seat.

  His time in the army told him that there was always some ulterior motive to everything, but then even if there was one, did he really want to let go of such an opportunity? If he could grow Arcane, then [Lesser Regeneration] and any future mana skills he got would be far more effective.

  Rayne weighed the pros and cons in his mind in a matter of seconds before deciding in a favour of it. If it was a scheme, he would deal with it later.

  He put his gear on the table and sat on the floor in the same meditative position.

  It was cold, but he simply looked at Casper.

  “Thank you,” he said. “I really appreciate you helping me out by taking time away from the tome.”

  “It’s just about the lost sanctum of a sage. Reports about it. Nothing important right now, and it doesn’t hurt anyone if I teach you the basics. Most people are barely able to make progress in it anyway.” Casper shrugged, then took a breath. “What I’m going to teach you is called mana cultivation.”

  “Cultivation?”

  “Yes, it’s the art of cultivating mana, but you are far from being able to do something like that. For now, you need to achieve the first step of cultivation, which is to sense your mana, and then we will move towards the mana pathways…”

  Casper slowly spoke about mana cultivation. Rather than running or lifting weights to train physical stats, mana was a completely different beast in comparison. From what he understood, basically every being has a core in their soul.

  That was the region in one’s body where mana was stored. And mana cultivation was the art of sensing it, opening up pathways in the body for the mana to flow, and then learning more about absorbing it from the atmosphere.

  Every word that came out of Casper’s mouth felt like it was breaking everything biology classes had taught him. But he doubted none of it.

  Once she finished her explanation, he asked one simple question. “So how do I open up a pathway?”

  Casper’s lips curved in a smile. “Pain. You need to sense your mana and push it through the one going towards your heart. The pathways there are mostly easier to open up and perfect for beginners.”

  She moved close to him and he almost flinched, but if she noticed it, she didn’t show. Her finger slowly traced a path from his gut to his heart.

  “That’s one pathway. You need to open this up, and it should push you on the path of cultivation.” She moved back to her seat. “Close your eyes.”

  Rayne hesitated, then did as she said.

  “Now,” Casper’s voice grew softer, more deliberate, “ignore your breath, ignore the ache in your muscles. Search beneath it all. There’s a warmth buried in you, small but steady. Like an ember.”

  He frowned, brows tightening. If he had an ember in his chest, he would have noticed, but he did as he was told.

  At first, there was nothing. Just the dull throb of his pulse and the ache from yesterday’s duel. He moved to calm his breathing, recalling a breathing technique from Earth.

  Then, faintly, he noticed something. A flicker. Deep in his gut, like the phantom heat of a coal under ash.

  “I… think I feel it,” he muttered.

  “Good. Don’t grab it. Just notice it. That’s your core full of mana. If you tug too hard, it will scatter, and you’ll spend hours chasing it.”

  Rayne focused, steadying his breath and keeping his attention there. The ember pulsed faintly, almost in rhythm with his heart.

  Casper continued, “Now, will it upward. Picture a thin stream leaving the core, flowing into your chest. The first pathway runs straight to your heart. Opening it feels like pressure, like a door being forced.”

  He grimaced as he imagined it.

  The ember wavered, and nothing happened. He tried to force it, but then recalled Casper’s advice and stopped.

  Once he felt ready for another attempt, he willed it to move. A flicker of it heated up and made a line through his stomach. He smiled, but the next second, it disappeared.

  “Don’t rush it.” Casper’s voice came before he could frown. “You are doing good enough. Just imagine it a few times before willing it upwards.”

  Rayne did exactly that. He felt the ember and visualized a trickle of it moving upwards to touch his heart. He did it a few times, steadying his breath and aiming to make it as perfect as he could.

  Then, when he tried again, a strange heat trickled up his torso. His chest tightened, and sweat prickled at his brow. But a smile etched on his face.

  “Good,” Casper said, her voice almost melodic to his ears. “Don’t stop. Guide it. Make it flow.”

  Rayne gritted his teeth, forcing the warmth higher. It felt unnatural, like fire crawling inside his veins. Pain lanced inside of him with even a little movement. His hands curled into fists at his side.

  “Steady,” Casper’s voice sharpened. “Not too much. If you burn the channel before it opens, you’ll scar it. That’s permanent.”

  He let out a breath, steadying himself again, letting the flow ease rather than forcing it. The heat crept upward. Pain followed it as if he was carving through his skin with a dagger, but he focused.

  Pain was second nature to him now, and Casper’s voice helped him keep up until something inside him gave way as soon as the trickle reached the heart like a knot loosening.

  Rayne’s eyes flew open. A strange sensation of pleasure overwhelmed him and he felt the ember burn from his core to his chest, but it didn’t hurt anymore. It simply felt like warmth.

  He looked at Casper who looked at his chest with a smile, knowing he had opened up the pathway. But before he could say anything, a notification buzzed in his mind.

  +1 point in Arcane.

  ***