'These books have special content, where should I put them' Wu Hai had been relying on Qu to do a lot of things like sorting.
He had been looking over the bookshelf for a few minutes and couldn't figure out where to put them. He felt the need to start doing some of the sorting himself. Qu could find anything in the tower quickly, but Wu Hai couldn't rely on Qu alone. The Prince had always strived to be self-sufficient, and then he kept meeting companions.
"Ahh, here." Wu Hai found the right spot for an Elven History book and some of the other cultural books he had gotten from the bookstore.
There were books on races he'd never heard of.. like, the beholders and the Kerions. Spending the night on the bottom of the Ocean was something Wu Hai would never forget, the quietness of it all was like being inside the void. Wu Hai could feel the pressure from the depth and the drop of temperature. Expanding the Tower under the water took longer than expected, but when it settled the sea floor kicked up a bunch of sand.
There were shipwrecks all over the place. It was a veritable graveyard just a days' voyage from the coastline.
"So, this above us is the place where everyone gets robbed." Wu Hai looked up to the surface of the water and saw the current, the water shimmered just barely inside of it.
The Current's delicate, constant motion drove the ships to and from ports.
Wu Hai and Mike searched a few of the ships and found a bunch of loot. It was easy enough to pick the ships up themselves and sort it out inside the tower. The problem was searching for scattered cargo, some of the shipwrecks were on top of others and some had exploded or drifted from the sinking wreckage.
There was a litter of items covering the seabed. If the Tower had not kicked up the sands, no one would have found the ships.
"When you finish clearing this area, I want to go out and just see what else we can find as we swim. If we stick to the bottom, I wonder how many ships we'll recover by the time we get to shore. We have already picked up more than 30 boats. Each boat had what looked like full cargo holds and there is still the scattered treasures. Erinle can point out treasure that's particularly meaningful, but blind wealth is literally laying in front of us." Mike made some pretty good points.
Not everyone was as lucky as the 'transmigrated' that were able to create gold out of the air. It was highly unlikely that the majority of the loot would be precious metals, Gold was heavy, slowed ships and lengthened the journey. It would have been simpler to store the gold into a ring, however.. even rings were not as common. It was safe to say the Clan had it easy and that was mostly thanks to Wu Hai's constant collecting.
"You forbade us from making gold... it would destabilize the world if we brought too much wealth into it, but good lord.. look at this mother lode of nest eggs. The Clan could build an entire city on a whim and never spend all the Gold if we just pick it up casually crossing the Ocean." Mike was right about the rules of the Clan, but he was a little hurt that Wu Hai hadn't responded to his request.
Wu Hai waited for him to finish digging through.
Grinning he said, "I never disagreed with that prospective, I just didn't want to take time from the journey on my own accord by being greedy by myself. Now that you've made the acknowledgment that its worthwhile, I'm down. Lets loot everything.. its just laying there, so. Free game."
"Loot everything"... Laughing like an evil duo Wu Hai and Mike ransacked the floor of the ocean as they passed the journey away.
The pair of Vishnans were like a comet collapsing the water as they passed. Their wakes would sometimes stir up sand revealing even more wreckage and treasure or cargo. Erinle spent the time following closely and pointing out special auras possessed by magical objects. In total, Erinle had found 382 corpses thus far, Most of the corpses had very full spacial rings.
Erinle had been paying attention and noticed that a lot of the 300+ corpses were wearing similar clothing, like they had been part of a passing Fleet.
Every time their rings would fill up they would pull the pagoda out and pass everything off to Qu for sorting. Erinle was helping Qu sort items before Qu showed he was faster and whisked them off to the proper places.
Occasionally a nice treasure would interrupt their processing. A lot of the things that Wu Hai and Mike found scattered about on the sea floor were useless to anyone unless they processed them.
Raw Ores and waterlogged Ancient Timber lurked around every corner.
It wasn't until they got about 500km out to sea that they were unable to find more goods as easily. Erinle came back out to help search while they traveled. With his speed, he could pick up while they went. Wu Hai had given him many spacial bracelets. The rings wouldn't fit on his webbed fingers or toes.
"Master, I sense something about a kilometer away to the south. I'll be right back" Shooting off into the distance Erinle came back with another shipwreck. The pattern kept going until they finally came closer to the other side, and then the shipwrecks not only continued, but multiplied significantly.
"Master, there are so many ships. There must have been a war, or several wars." Erinle didn't have a problem with anything, but he was surprised to see so many broken ships just laying around. It took the group an entire day of picking up boats before they realized that most of them were filled with corpses. The corpses held weapons, armor and treasures that were ready and polished.
Although rusting would occur on earth, that process didn't necessarily apply to magical weapons.
Qu dismantled ships nonstop, every last thing was being sorted and resorted. The Tower was starting to fill up in sections. Wu Hai had to sacrifice a number of the spacial rings to contain wreckage and save the space in the tower.
Rotten wood had a purpose, Wu Hai had already been in a mushroom cave once. These boats were made from all sorts of wood, some were even magical; Disposing of such valuable materials would be foolish.
Just when Qu was starting to complain Wu Hai enlarged the pagoda again to deposit.
"QU!" … Wu Hai was excited.
"Qu!, I found a ship loaded down with magical scrolls. They were everywhere." Passing the ring over, the Tower Spirit went through the ring.
With a crashing sound the ship materialized on the 19th floor. Leftover water flooded the room briefly before being sent outside by Qu.
"Lets have a look then." Taking apart the ship was pretty easy, Qu had been doing the same action for a few weeks already.
When the contents came out in full there were over a hundred thousand scrolls. Many of them were stacked on top of each other.
"These are battle scrolls, beast contracts, magical references and formulas." When he got further into the pile after sorting a large portion out, there were 9 golden scrolls.
"What are these golden scrolls?" Picking one up Wu Hai passed another over to Mike he started reading.
"Qu....The scrolls are....." Mike was dumbfounded and excited.
"The Golden Scrolls." Qu immediately knew what they were.
"Master, Imperial Guards from the 108th Emperess of Ciline all carried one. They are the scrolls contain the weapon training methods of the Imperial Family. The Sword, The Spear, Hammer, Mace, Halberd, Bow, Two Handed Sword, Two Handed Hammer and Bolo."
"There is no unarmed technique?" Mike asked a fair but completely useless question in his view.
"No, The 108th Emperess felt that the weapons were an extension of the body. She kept it to herself. Her Fist technique was suppose to be supreme and unblockable." Qu praised the ability and marveled at the find.
"Master is indeed lucky, these will give you more than you'll ever know if you can master even one." Qu swept everything up and watched Wu Hai and Mike return to Human form to take a nap.
They needed a break. The coastline was littered with boats, but they were close enough to shore that it was time to start asking people where to go.
"We can always loot whats left when we go back if we really want to. Lets find a city." Mike watched as Wu Hai packed up the pagoda.
When they left the water they arrived on a deserted shoreline. There was nothing in the vicinity, not even trees.
Returning to their normal forms Wu Hai and Mike took to the skies. Using the Compass, It didn't take long to find a large city, it was crawling with Undead.
"The odds are terrible. I could probably sneak in and see what's laying around.. Haha.. I wanted to use my second Die more.. If we're both Ghosts they might ignore us." Wu Hai considered the idea with Mike and eventually both of them decided not to go in. The effects of being an Undead were too unknown, for all they knew showing up as an Undead would only lead to their subjugation or capture; the problem would occur in the future, he would eventually be tempted to try out the Undead Forms from the Illusory Die.
"Lets get to the air and head to the north-east. Qu's Map showed another possible city about 400km away." Mike signaled Wu Hai and they both went to the clouds.
A massive storm was coming from the southwest. Thunder and lightning brought pounding rain. The Duo were ahead of the storm, but the indigenous wildlife that tried to escape it was often in their paths.
Flying among birds, Wu Hai felt the dreams of his earth childhood being fulfilled.
"I think I can see it in the distance, the daylight is disappearing. We should be able to see lights or activity from the City, even at night." They pushed into the wind and rushed to the city.
Wu Hai didn't want to raise the Pagoda so soon after entering the other Continent. He needed to know what sort of creatures and people he would be dealing with. When they finally arrived at the City, it was night time.
The City was Guarded.
Wu Hai and Mike saw that the guards were Human, it was a relief to know that humans were on this continent.
Quickly regaining human form, they strolled up to the gate.
"10 silver to enter, Inns charge 100 silver per night in the lower quarter." The guard stuck out his hand.
He seemed uninterested in anything else.
Paying one gold coin, they felt like they overpaid. The Guard was happy with the tip and gave them better directions to the Inn. Renting the room for the night was simple enough after paying with gold, they had a week with just one coin.
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"Qu is busy dismantling more of the loot we picked up, but I'd like for him to get back to reading the science books in the library as soon as possible. Its amazing how much of knowledge and culture similar to earth exists in this world. Anything that does apply will be of great use to us." Wu Hai was happy with the situation.
They finally found another human city. Humans were the minority, they were prepared for a search, but they honestly thought there were would be more communities.
Wu Hai looked over at Mike and smiled. They had found humans again, Mike was going to high five Wu Hai and noticed the tattoo on his hand was still there. "I wonder what this tattoo is all about. Its been 4 years, And its stayed on my body no matter the transformation."
"Who knows, but.. we will search for answers. After all the people that I've helped transform into another form or gain power, you're the only one who gained a Tattoo. It is probably something very special." Wu Hai laid down on the bed and got ready for sleep.
Morning would come fast enough and they had a lot to do.
"When we find a school, assuming one exists in this world.. I'm going to get laid. This world has some kinky looks." Mike was thrilled at the possibilities, he had read many light novels about transmigration.
The speculative history of many races were in the Pagoda Library.
"I want to meet a goddess of my own one day." Kicking off his boots Mike laid back on his bedroll and they both were fast to sleep.
When the first morning sun came, so did a thunder-crack in the distance. The Sun might have been coming over the horizon, but the foreshadow of hurricane like weather was looming over the city. High winds and dark clouds rose and fell.
Roars of thunderclap filled the area and surrounding City. The smell of Ozone and fresh electrical discharge made strolling through the city completely out of the question, shops would not open due to the incoming storm.
The Innkeeper waited by the entrance, watching the streets rush with water and passing clouds.
"Today is going to be one boring day. You two want some breakfast?" Closing the door the innkeeper asked her guests.
The two men looked at each other and nodded. It had been over a month since they had someone else cook for them. Neither were terrible at making food, but it got repetitive. Plus, eating new foods was a past time even on Earth. Both Wu Hai and Mike were salivating at what might show up, would it be monster meat? Would it be eggs? Some soup? The Video Games of Earth had it all wrong. When the Innkeeper brought up the breakfast, it looked more dubious than edible.
"Yes, that sounds great. We have some questions about the city if you don't mind answering them." Putting another gold coin on the counter as an incentive Mike started asking questions before he stuffed a piece of his 'breakfast' into his mouth.
He tried not to gag.
"Where's the best bar, forge and tailor . My friend also wants to know what the best school you've heard of and where it is located?" Mike tried mixing in the questions a bit.
"Best Bar is 'Rogue Queens Chamber', as for the best forge.. I suppose that's Gefést, he never lets people leave with broken stuff, the best tailor is probably Swift Tailors on the northwest side of town by the gate. The prices are outrageous at those places though.. do you have the gold to pay for them?" The innkeeper was happy to answer.
She continued explaining, "As far as schools go, that depends on what type of school you're looking for. Most people have to join a clan to learn at a school. Clans send special disciples and royalty to national or state schools."
"You seem to know a lot about the schools.." Wu Hai wasn't disappointed, it was a good sign if the public knew about things like this.
"Yes, I went to a school when I was a child. But it was nothing special, in the end I still ended up an innkeeper." She knew that life never gave you everything you wanted.
"I think I understand. So, can you tell me about the schools you know of? I'm looking for a fighting school, a forging school and an alchemy school. Honestly I don't know what exists, we are not from around here and we haven't run into humans in a long time." Wu Hai replied casually and matter-of-fact like.
Mike and Wu Hai waited and ate their breakfast delicately while they listened.
"The best Magic school is Ifrit's school of Ashes, they win every mage school competition. The best Fighter school is Fordem Screams, they have a tendency to trivialize the death of their opponents; most competitors end up brutally mangled or dead. If I had to say forge schools, we don't have one. You can try Gefést but he doesn't have a school or accept disciples.
I once saw a guy kneeling outside of his shop for a year, but in the end Gefést just laughed and slammed the door in his face. The only alchemy school is Saint Cauldron, If they even hear about another school they lose their civility and attack." Snagging the gold coin off the counter like it was well earned, the Innkeeper grabbed the plates too and went back to the kitchen.
The raindrops fell for most of the day, in the end Wu Hai and Mike had completely lost the day's productivity. Despite having a few names of destination, they still lacked a number of pieces of information including where these places were and how to get accepted.
"Mike, switch to close combat for your specialization.. I know you've been using downpour since the Battle at Zao City but we have different needs now." Mike agreed with Wu Hai's choice, It was better than becoming targets of bitter clans.
Breathing in the morning air instead of the sterilized air within the tower, was much more fulfilling.
The fog was thick with pollen, the terrain was filled with trees that were trying to seed before the coming winter.
"Mike, get up." Wu Hai kicked the edge of Mike's bedroll and finished talking.
"The rain has stopped and its time to go check out schools." He wanted to get an early start.
"Uhhhh... The suns aren't even up. We spent so long underwater, it was so quiet. Ugg.. fine. I'm up, I'm up." Mike got up and got dressed in commoner clothes.
It was important to blend in, rather than stand out. They were in unfamiliar territory, talking to unfamiliar people with unknown customs. Conflict was inevitable, but they had to walk on eggshells for the time being, the good news was that it was unlikely that anything would affect the Sect.
"Where's the first stop?" Mike was finally wide awake after they started to stroll.
Wu Hai thought about it a bit, "Lets just start with what's closest and go from there, Gefést is in the north of the city. After that we can hit up the bar for answers and information."
They made their way through the crowded streets, they could have jumped from rooftop to rooftop but it would have eventually garnished attention from the wrong people. They didn't want to draw unnecessary problems onto themselves while making their way through the city.
They found a few stalls with neat items and a few books on culture along the way. Wu Hai made change with some of the more successful shops and got the correct currency, it was better than tossing out way too much money. Wu Hai had learned from Jin during his time on Earth that he didn't have any understanding of money. He might hold immense and almost immeasurable wealth, but to put a value on it?
No. Wu Hai just didn't care about such things.
"How much further until we reach the forge?" The Prince asked himself rhetorically as they climbed the stairwell to another street through an alley.
"I think its another kilometer up the road and to the right. The Map showed that the forge had a small footprint, so it was probably easy to miss." … Wu Hai stopped for a moment.
"Look for smoke, the forge would have a hot fire." Pointing to the chimney they both made their way.
"I think I see it already!" Mike pointed at a huge fire in the distance.
"Lets hurry up, something feels weird." Mike picked up the pace while Wu Hai followed.
Rushing to the scene of the fire, some low level magicians were trying to use water magic to quench the flames in vain. There was no use in them fighting the fire, it was magical in its creation. Throwing water just spread the fire like oil and gasoline on a ponds surface.
"Stop." Wu Hai yelled out.
Jumping past the mini-mages, Mike threw up an Ice wall. Using his control over temperature to lower the flames to a reasonable level made the heat somewhat bearable for the water mages.
When the Ice made contact with the Flames a smoldering steam that wrung the sweat from anyone nearby swept across the streets.
"What the hell man? We're helping put out the fire. Why did you block us?" Before he could get around the Ice Wall, one of the lowbrow mages was already complaining.
"Oh? the fire is out?" His faced was distorted like he couldn't understand.
Another voice started yelling from inside the building.
Gefést came walking out of the forge with an angry look. "WHO PUT OUT MY FIRE!?"
Mike wasn't sure what to think, but he still admitted it. "It was me, these ass-hats outside were having problems putting out a fire. I helped finish what they couldn't."
Gefést was laughing at Mikes response, Gefést's flames were very hot to begin with. If it weren't for the limits of the forge itself, he would have chosen to have the fire much hotter.
"Okay, you can come in. The rest of you fuck off, you don't understand the first thing about forging." Gefést waved Mike and his friend inside.
Mike and Wu Hai walked inside, there were pieces of weapons and hand crank mechanisms all over the place. A broken hammer was picked out of the side of a pit. It split in half. Gefést threw it into another pile and grimaced when it crashed into the pile of rubble that use to be weapons.
"I thought you repaired weapons..?" Wu Hai said a massive question without knowing it.
"Hmm.. I make weapons. Once a Weapon is toast, its toast. I can take it apart most of the time and make another. A real art of the forge is creation, not 'repair this, or fix that'. Besides, how else would I get so many opportunities to work my craft?" Gefést wanted to make a good impression, it wasn't everyday that someone could actually put a stop to his fire.
"Back to the point, I felt the fire go out earlier. What fire did you use to overtake it?" phishing for answers, Gefést asked.
"I just used Ice Magic." Allowing his Frost Aura to leak out, Gefést took a deep breath and watched the temperature fall in the room.
"And you?" Taking a glance at Wu Hai for the answer he wanted, Wu Hai flexed his hand and produced a black swirl the cracked with arcs of electricity.
He had considered swapping to fire-metal beforehand, but no one ever said that you had to have the power of fire to forge. Welding for instance, never existed in this world.. introducing it would make his crafting unique. Wu Hai didn't want to throw opportunities away.
"Amazing, and you put out my fire with ice..." … "so confusing." … Gefést held his head and paced in circles.
"Can you swing a hammer?" Gefést tossed a 25lb hammer over to Mike somewhat ignoring Wu Hai in the background.
Grabbing the Hammer by the handle and raising it above his head, Mike started swinging it down to a perfect 90 degree arc, then he stopped suddenly showing his ability to stop the force of the blow.
"Pound this into a plate." Gefést tossed a piece of raw ore over to Mike, Mike paused in disbelief.
"Its raw ore, I don't have fire." Gefést heard Mikes plea and kicked a bellows machine that operated with a windmill.
Wu Hai had to give him props for working with what he had.
Soon, the smoldering coals roared back to a high heat flame. Mike walked closer to the fire, but no matter how close he got he didn't feel the flames. The Fire could harm him, sure. But the Ice power's he had kept him cool and allowed him to stand directly in front of the flames. Wu Hai took note, Mike's ability could help measure his own.
Wu Hai slunk off to a corner and rolled to Fire-Soul in secret. He was originally going to go for Fire-Metal, but when he landed on soul he could feel the pressure of every strike and sense the temperature of the forge in great detail.
"I'd like to give it a try." Wu Hai walked up and pulled a piece of ore about the same size from the pile and walked to a hammer.
"This hammer looks good enough to use." Wu Hai felt a pulse that matched the forge coming from the hammer itself.
The hammer was one Gefést rarely used because it didn't like him. Whenever he'd used it, it would purposefully miss because it was left idle for too long. When Wu Hai grabbed its handle and waved it around. Gefést wasn't confident that Wu Hai could do anything but still watched.
Lightning Mages rarely had talent.
"Very well, A plate." standing back and crossing his arms as he sat in a chair by the wall Gefést saw Wu Hai walk up next to Mike and sink the ore into the furnace.
"Good." The Forgemaster sat in his chair to watch the children play.
The pounding of hammers rang for about an hour until Gefést got tired of hearing the pounding, the two had been smashing and stoking the furnace in the forge repeatedly. The temperature even seemed like it was in good pace, but it was too long. A plate could have been done in a matter of minutes by some of his previous students.
'had these two never worked a hammer before?' "STOP. TIMES UP." Gefést called for the stop of their process.
Each of the men stopped stoking and quenched their work. Placing the plates on a stone table in the middle of the room, Mike and Wu Hai looked at their plates. "What the hell did you guys do?"
Picking up Wu Hai's plate it looked more like a mirror shield. It didn't have a handle and it was as flat as could be. The metal had been folded about 5 times and pounded to a cleansing shine. Gefést said nothing but set it down and grabbed Mikes Plate. The plate had a nice ridge and looked like a modern food plate, The finish on it was fair enough but considering its edge and thickness, it would have taken some effort to keep it from warping while it was being hammered. Typically metal 'Dinner Plates' were cast.
"I think you both did well, Honestly, I can't figure out who was more literal. A Dinner plate and a flat plate of metal." … "I expected you guys to make some sort of plate armor but you actually both took an hour to make these instead."
"I can't wait to see what they look like after we polish them." Wu Hai let out an exclamation and it sent Gefést into a questioning mood.
"Polish? Didn't you already polish it? Now Gefést was really curious...
he took his finger and rubbed furiously on the plate, sure enough the finish became very bright.
"Five minutes" Passing them back to the men, he watched what they would do.
Wu Hai pulled his T-shirt off and mike did the same thing, when the five minutes were up Gefést was astounded.
"You really didn't polish that.. wow, to have such a clean surface on either before its even polished is something else." … "I didn't ask what you came for earlier.. what did you want?" Gefést was playing senile, but the duo just had to endure.
They had played enough video games to realize when they had to work up a reputation.
"We wanted to learn how to forge and we also wanted to know the best place to learn, we were told this place is the best but you don't accept students. If that's the case, could you tell us where you would recommend we go." Mike was pretty straight forward.
They still had other schools to go see, and this had burned up part of their morning.
"It sounds almost like you're not very interested in your goal, to immediately look somewhere else... tisk tisk." .. Gefést clicked his tongue and walked around both of them.
"Do you want to learn forging or not?" Gefést was well known but he was losing his patience with the pair already with their hesitation.
"I want to learn, But I'm not sure that forging is the way I want to go. We were going to learn several subjects on this trip, including weapon making. Forging just comes as part of it." Gefést was a little bit furious with Wu Hai's response.
What Mike said next broke his concentration completely.
"I thought there would be more to forging, what sort of books are there on the subject?... maybe we can just read our way through this." Mike laid it on thick, he wanted to be taught how to forge cool stuff.
Being made to craft a plate was monumentally boring and a considerable waste of his time.
"Effective with your tongues.. I can relate, I had a hard time believing that creating weapons was pretty easy. The hard part is coming across materials and technique, opportunity and usefulness. I can make armor all day, but to what purpose. A lot of smiths can make decent weapons, most of them are completely wasteful." … Gefést continued,
"There is a lot of reusable material in older weapons. That hammer was a lightning hammer, it made it quick but brittle. The core inside the center of the hammer was from a Raiju, but the hammer didn't allow the Core to shine. I have some materials I'll make another hammer out of, and it will still have the same abilities.. but mine will use 1/3 of the more rare materials."
"Oh, so you can rearrange the materials to be better for the particular job. Is that in the books?" A knot appeared on the side of Gefést's temples as he clenched his jaw.
"Yes, there is quality and then there is ability. Anyone can forge a simple weapon, it takes skill to bring out the best possible combination of materials and technique to create a true masterpiece." Feeling like he had won them over with his speech, Gefést sneered in aggravation.
Wu Hai had an idea, but it might eat up the rest of their day. "Brother Mike, I think we should just look for someone who's willing to teach us. Gefést has been nice enough to allow us to show him our technique even though we have no skill. Since he has yet to offer to teach us personally, I think we should go."
Mike caught on immediately. "Yeah, Alright.. It was fun, but if we can't learn from the best then we should at least learn from someone."
Gefést's feelings were slightly on the mark, he knew that he was being manipulated. But, if they had talent and he turned them away or to a competitor that would be drastic to his own popularity and pride. "Fine. I'll teach you both, but you'll have to read the right materials and understand them while I'm teaching you. Follow me."
Leading the way to the upper chambers far from the forge's furnace they entered a room that was slightly cooler. Mike let his aura out and the place quickly cooled off.
"Thanks." Gefést enjoyed the brisk temperature change.
"What I have to offer is guidance, what you learn and take away is your own faults or merit. Now, Acknowledge me as your teacher and come back tomorrow. Tonight you're to read up on forging techniques." Tossing a scroll and a book on the table Gefést looked at the duo as they left from the front doors of the Forge.
"Why did I just accept two disciples..?" Shaking his head and laying down on the floor Gefést looked at the carved ceiling in his study.
"Two of them.. this is going to be a busy year." The old Forgemaster closed his eyes to daydream of his past ambitions.
The Suns were high in the sky and Wu Hai still wanted to check more things out.
Mike reminded Wu Hai about the Bar and they set out for the Rogue Queen's Chamber.