On the weekend, there were no classes at Crawford University, but its facilities are open for student's use. Students normally come on the weekends for either private studies, research or club activities.
Leon had dropped by Royal hospital earlier and fed his foster father an All-Purpose Healing Pill. It had worked wonders and Brian had mostly recovered from his injuries within minutes and could be discharged. However, Leon wouldn't be able to explain to the doctors how his foster father had recover so fast, so he decided to continue letting Brian rest in the hospital for now.
Brian was pleasantly surprised at how mysterious and capable Leon had suddenly become. He was initial in shocked of being treated at the Royal hospital knowing full well how costly it was compared to the local medical center. Leon had already assured him that everything had already been paid for by him and that Brian didn't need to worry as it was legitimate money earned by him although the details weren't explained.
'Kid's will grow to have their own secrets.' Brian thought.
He had felt the medical efficiency of the pill and it wasn't something he thought was possible. Leon had after all, used spirit herbs from his world space and not the normal herbs he had collected from the Cromwell's vault. The effects between spirit herbs and normal herbs are like the difference between heaven and earth, worlds apart.
Leon was currently now browsing through the list of books in the Library. All students enrolled to the University are free to browse the books provided by the library. However, they would have to pay a fee and record their name and item if they wish to take it outside the library.
Leon was mainly interested in books pertaining to history and the world. As he browsed the books in the history section, there was numerous books with simple but interesting titles that caught his eyes. [Battle for Humanity], [Changes of the World], [History of Humanity] and [Discovery of Ancient Ruins].
The [Discovery of Ancient Ruins] book had especially caught his eyes. He wanted to take the book for a look but someone else had beat him to the chase. Unexpectedly, it was his history teacher, Lina Greene.
Lina realized another hand was stretched towards the book she had grabbed and traced the hand's source through the arms with her eyes before resting on Leon's face and was startled. Her startled expression did not last long before it quickly changed into a frown after realizing who it is.
"Why did you skip my class?"
Leon was taken aback by her first choice of words to him. It couldn't be helped that he didn't attend any of his classes yesterday. He had important things to do.
"I was busy…?" Leon wasn't sure what else to say.
Lina pouted. Clearly, she wasn't happy with his answer.
"You skip my class because you were too busy and yet I find you in the history book section? Sounds like a poor excuse. Were my lessons too boring you?"
Leon frowned in thought. He just wanted to learn more about the world, and she may not necessarily teach what he wanted to know in class, not to mention her class only goes for two hours. It wasn't enough to cover the information he wanted to know in a short time.
When Lina saw Leon's frown, she instantly flinched, thinking back to Leon's previous violence with the thugs.
"S-sorry…Did you want to look at this book first?" Her dominating teacher aura seem to have sudden dissipated as she turned into a timid little girl and she apologized and offered the book in her hand slowly with some unwillingness.
Leon was amused at her sudden change in attitude and chuckled as he shook his head. He wasn't frowning because he was unhappy with her words or anything. He just seems to have developed a tendency to frown when he is in thought.
"No, it's fine. There are other books I can read." Leon said with a light smile as he reached out to grab the [Changes of the World] book that was next to where the [Discovery of Ancient Ruins] book was.
However, his actions and words didn't seem to match his previous impression of him and seemed scarier to her instead as retracted her hands and subconsciously stepped back.
"Look, I was just grabbing the book, okay?" Leon waved the book in his hand, "Am I really that scary to you? You even hugged me and wailed the other day."
Lina was reminded of that night and blushed.
"You're not allowed to mention that night!" Lina gripped her spare hand into a fist and said with false anger, making her look particularly cute and her previous apprehension dissipated as Leon appeared to be very easy going this time.
That night had been a traumatic experience for her, but the way Leon mentioned only made her embarrassed and not disturbed by the event. She felt Leon was very reliable and felt safe around him, although she didn't notice this before.
She was a bit puzzled from her past interactions with Leon. She felt he was like a different person with each encounter and yet he seems to be the same. It was an odd feeling.
'Maybe this is the real him and the one he usually displays in class was just a facade to stay low key?' she thought.
However, Leon would have protest if he could read her mind.
'If I was low key before, how could I be attracting such animosity that someone wanted me dead?' is what he would have thought.
Unfortunately, He wasn't exemplary in reading a woman's thought. A woman's mind had always been an enigma, unable to be comprehended by men. They could say one thing and mean another.
"Hahaha I won't mention it anymore, so put away that big fist before you hurt someone with it." Leon joked as he surrendered his arms up in an exaggerated manner.
Pft* Lina laughed.
"Yeah, my fist is really big and dangerous. Be careful not to get on my bad side." She threatened him with her small fist.
"Alright, I'll try my best not to. I am going to go read my book now." Leon surrendered as he wanted to end the conversation and read his book.
Leon didn't want to interact with Lina for too long in case their interaction was discovered by her admirers and cause trouble for himself.
"Mm, I'm going to read my book too."
They sat down across each other at a big table provided by the library for students to study.
'Even teacher Lina has her adorable side.' Leon secretly glanced at her before reading his book.
Probably only he gets to enjoy such an adorable side of her. Leon figured she probably put on a strong front in front of her students to make them fear and respect her in order to cover up her weakness as to not be bullied by them.
She may be a teacher, but she was just an ordinary person that will never awaken. The University was a place where the young nobles and wealthy scions of the kingdom gather. Each having background and power greater than her own.
There was silence between them as they focus on reading each of their books.
Lina likes spending her time reading books related to history on her weekends as to reinforce her knowledge. It would be embarrassing if she taught her students incorrect knowledge or her students asked her questions, she didn't have an answer to.
As for Leon, he was very drawn to the book as he read it with incredible speed. He had sharp eyesight and strong memory, which was bolstering his reading speed.
…
The world of the past was very much different to the present. The beasts of the present use to be normal animals that weren't feared by man. Some were reared as livestock, while some were tamed as pets. Human intelligence had allowed them to stand at the top of the food chain and allowed them to span their development across the entire continent.
However, everything changed when the blue skies was suddenly painted gold and the world was suddenly swept in a massive energy storm. The world was like a beast that was starved for eons as it swallowed the unknown energy greedily.
The earth changed, the plants, the trees and the animals changed. Everything changed noticeably except humans. The years of oppression by the humans have led the beasts to concentrate their hatred on humanity after their intelligence was awakened.
The first wave of beast tide erupted across the continent. The humans fought back but with each battle they fought, their warriors grew less, while the beasts continue to grow increasingly in numbers and strength.
Cities were razed, while people were slaughtered and devoured. Gradually, they were pushed back all the way to the corner of the continent where they made their last stand and the legend of the first Hero King was born.
…
At this point, Leon already knew what happened after as he had learnt it in his history class. Leon couldn't help but frown after reading to this point. Something didn't add up. Reading the book had raised more questions than answers.
They didn't possess the present technology back then. There should have been many kingdoms and empires across the continent. How did they all congregate to that corner of the continent to make their last stand?
They shouldn't have long distance communication back then and their carrier pigeons should have been useless after the change.
'Such an important point but there was no mention of the reason. What happened back then?'
After flipping to the next page in the book, there was an incomplete map of the world. Leon noticed that most of the map was covered in black, which suggest it was unexplored and thus unknown. Only the continent and its surrounding were detailed but the continent only covered a tenth of the map.
"This is strange…" Leon voice his thoughts.
"What is strange?" Lina asked after his voice interrupted her own reading. Many hours have passed but she was surprisingly still present. They had both been caught up in their own reading unaware of the passage of time.
"How do we know the world is this big and the continent is only this small?" Leon shared his thoughts with Lina, should be more familiar with the world than him.
"I'm not too sure either." Lina gave honest thoughts.
Leon was speechless.
"However, in the past there was a group of mysterious people, who claimed to be able to read the stars in the skies and divine the world's fortune. Could they be related to the how the world map is portrayed?" Lina added.
Leon's eye lit up momentarily after hearing. He had a few guesses, but he didn't want to share them with Lina.
At this moment they both finally realized how late the time was and they should continue reading another time. They had spent the whole day in the library. Both their stomachs began to rumble.
"Let's find somewhere to eat and head home together after, shall we?" Considering they didn't live that far apart, Leon suggested.
"Mm, alright. That would be great." Lina was happy to walk home together.
She would be able to feel safe and secured with Leon around.