[Solon POV]
It took about 2 hours for the 4 soldiers to return to the camp. To my surprise and annoyance both blessed ones managed to resist my blessings curse, although it was expected since they only had it for a limited amount of time.
During that time the rest of the team didn't stay inactive, they had already build a small wall surrounding the camp and started the fire they were going to use for cooking.
I offered to help, since that's what a normal human would do, but they refused since they already had more than enough help for this small camp.
So I did what I do best, I read. The book Thanatos gave me contained both general knowledge and more specialised knowledge about the council.
The general knowledge had information about the amount of spirits that will be present and what kind of positions they had in the council.
It surpised me quite a lot the fact that ancient spirits, spirits that for unknown reasons don't have a natural lifespans have a place in the council, after all even if they are extremely powerful in comparison to high-level spirits, they are unable to match concept-level spirits.
This piece of information was something I didn't remember from the time I used the record freely.
It gave me a new perspective about my place in the world's power scale.
Other than that kind of knowledge the book had some information about each individual spirit's character.
It was enlightening to say the least.
On the other hand the specialised knowledge proved to be less useful. It had information about how I should act and carry myself in order to protect my reputation.
According to the book, reputation was important, not because of some stupid reason like caring about my image.
It was to avoid trouble. Once in a while a self-centered spirit was born, either because of a concept-level's boredom or an ancient spirit's machinations. These spirits were created by reincarnating random souls found outside the world's boundaries, in the void or even borrowed from Thanatos.
If your reputation was low, these spirits would come and challenge you. It was fun for the first hundred or so times, but the problem was that they never stop coming.
After a while it becomes annoying and you end up killing or even erasing the souls themselves which would anger both Thanatos and Zoi.
In other words, if you don't have a good reputation problems find you.
This information was the most important knowledge I got from the book. So many questions and so few answers. Souls, a concept I hadn't come in contact yet because it was under the complete cotrol of Thanatos.
Yet you could find souls outside the world? How did they get there? Where did they come from? Why reincarnate them, when you don't know what they are and where they come from?
It sounds like ancient spirits are touching things they shouldn't.
The council will be so fun. I wonder if my siblings would mind me reincarnating some people here and there. Add some fun to the war that is taking place.
Give these souls some powers, send them to different sides and let them brawl.
Just imagining it send shivers down my spine. Such experiments are what I desire the most and Thanatos just introduced me to them.
I am so excited.
Unbeknownst to the humans and most spirits of the world, what could be considered the crasiest spirit in existence just made a decision that would change the world itself.
~~~~~~~~~~
[Third POV]
The soldiers sat next to the fire as they cooked whatever animal the hunters brought back.
"What is he doing?" The cooked asked the leader of the team.
The leader looked at Solon who was reading a book while shivering slightly in small intervals.
"It seems like he is enjoying the book a little too much, I can't blame him, any kind of thing that can take your mind off the death and destruction that is taking place around the world is good. Just let him do his thing, after all we will need his support to pass throught the sea and return alive." The man said in a low voice as he turned to his map once again.
"I am sure that book was not among the once he had with him when we left his town, I saw him packing and there was no book looking like that one." The medic added in a low voice.
"I don't trust him everything points to him hiding something. His story doesn't make sense, unknown books that shouldn't be here, a body that can handle what we trained soldiers can't and calmness far beyond what we could consider possible. This guy is trouble." He continues laying his worries to the now leader of the team.
The temporary general took a deep breath and said calmly.
"I will take your worries into consideration, now you go feed the general and you go back to cooking. There is no need to create enemies right now. If he wanted he could have killed us all already. Since we are breathing, either he is not hostile or he needs us to take him to the border. Once there I don't believe our elites will be unable to fight him." He said with sterness in his voice.
He was aware that their worries were justified but they were in no position to leave the human identified as Solon back. They needed his protection for now and beggars can't be chosers.
"Get some rest, we leave in half an hour. I want us to reach the sea before the sea sets." He said loudly as he put a small hourglass on a pedestal he created with his bending.
~~~~{chapter end}~~~~
I would be really thankful if you gave me some ideas about different things and powers you want to see. It could give me a different perspective for the story.
I updated the auxiliary chapter with new information that Solon gained from the book. The information has the tag (NEW) next to it to help identify the added concepts. The tag will be removed once I add more information to the auxiliary as the story continues.