*Day later, evening, forest.*
Finally reached future years' home. Forest clearing, hour haul via truck on rutted road. Felt roadless at times, hallucinating—but sure, no one comes here!
Picked symbolic city—Nagasaki! Not far from Fukuoka, but decent. Total War: pirate haven; Shogun: Yakuza house from Smugglers den! Started international port.
Transferring game to anime reality folly? Logical: closest continent! Near Korea/China—prime port! Ports mean smuggling, gangs, speculators.
I can honestly admit that I learned most of the world's history and geography thanks to games like Total War and Europa Universalis. And no matter what they say on TV about games causing violence and all that jazz, it all depends on the games!
In my case, it was nothing but beneficial! I passed my history course in university solely thanks to Total War! Boring dates and bland walls of text in a textbook rarely pique interest or stick in memory. But two hours of your life spent and a city lovingly conquered—that'll lodge deep in your heart for a long time!
I learned almost the entire world's geography, where countries and some cities are located, only thanks to EU4! While making yet another attempt to conquer the world... And now, for example, I know where Albania and Wallachia are! And much more! I also know way too much about the Holy Roman Empire and the papal throne—way too much... And it's one of the sources of my hatred for Catholicism—the damn broken papal election system!
Ahem, but I digress a bit. Time to hit the hay—I still have to set up camp tomorrow.
*About a week later.*
Today, while sorting books and stacking them up, I came across one that I didn't just skim 10 pages of to figure out where to put it and move on to the next. Surprisingly, this book hooked me—I got it from the Einzbern manor, and while reading what captivated me, I had a revelation!
No, seriously! And I also realized that the names of some spells don't match reality at all. Like, what do you imagine when you hear "Air pulse"? Something combat-oriented, right? Nope—it's Exchange magic from Alchemy.
Surprising, but yes—the description isn't great, and there's only 1 chain spell, meaning the most basic one—beginner level, you could say. And unlike most books, it actually has it here! Not just a reference assuming the reader already has the needed book with the spell or knows it. So, the spell—creates distortions for moving objects!
Vague description, but luckily the Einzberns specialize in Alchemy—so there are ways to apply it here, and not just the basic: create two clouds, toss a stone or bullet into one, and it flies out the other!
That's no small thing! And yes, limitations only on non-living objects not filled with Mana—so no people, but the foundation for space magic and teleports is clearly visible!
For the Einzberns, this spell is one of the basics in trench warfare! No, the book is called something else—but its whole essence is "my home is my fortress!" For example, it explains how to select a door or window and swap it with the wall! Or remove a wall to open a passage or block a corridor! Or simply lock someone in a room by removing all windows and doors! In short, a builder's dream!
There's also a ton of spells and runes for setting up territory defenses and trap preparation. Yeah, most of the book is about various traps.
But back to the spell! I saw potential in it and started experimenting—picked a stone, marked it, then selected a spot on a tree and performed the exchange! The stone got embedded in the tree, and a chunk of wood lay on the ground! And I played around with the cloud version too. Alas, installation range—1 meter. And max distance between clouds—20 meters.
Well, I'm not picky; maybe I never played Portal, but my imagination is rich! The tests weren't for nothing, by the way—they had a very practical goal: constantly opening the container door so as not to suffocate inside is inconvenient! And living with the door open proved impossible altogether! So I decided to turn it into a wheeled house!
For that, I stole a door, windows, and of course a Toilet from the Shop! I used the builder's dream simply—selected the window, selected the door—hop, and a window mortared in place of the sheet metal! Did the same with the door. But the Toilet... initially I thought of making another tent version of a village outhouse, but with this spell, new horizons opened!
I decided to install it right in the wagon-house! And just relocate all waste with this spell! And digging pits with it? Pure bliss. And yes, replacing earth with plain air is possible too. Initially the book suggested dropping stones on enemies and such, but that'll do for me.
*Another week later.*
Magic is opening more and more new facets for me. Summarizing the past sessions of studying material and sorting it by approximate difficulty and affiliation. Managed to dig up a couple books on the very basics of various magic schools. Alas, most had only general descriptions, but even so I read them and am now ready to sum up.
First stack—3 books. Sacrament magic, used by the Church—mostly creepy prayers. If there were healing magic, I might have a better opinion of it—but either it's not there! Or, more likely, I don't have the needed books. Mostly semi-religious nonsense—I couldn't even read it.
Second stack—Hōjutsu, 2 books. My hated paper talismans, skimmed them and saw nothing interesting. Gave the impression these books were in the library just so descendants would know such magic exists! And that's it—fair approach in a way.
Third stack—Kabbalah. A whopping 43 books, most from the Matou house. If I thought Sacrament magic was dubious nonsense before, I was wrong. This is even more pseudo-religious drivel about secret messages in the Bible and other great books.
All spiced with numerology and astronomy on the level of cheap horoscopes. How this mishmash even works—I can't imagine. But you clearly need to be off your rocker to perceive the writing and understand something. Definitely not for me!
Fourth stack—3 books, Golemancy. Intrigued me, but only general intros and references to magical theories of celestial bodies. Notably the old theory of celestial bodies.
Too bad it doesn't describe what it is, but now I know there's an old and new magical theory of the star system—what does that give me? Just knowledge they exist! And alas, that's the case in most books! References to something—but not what exactly.
Fifth stack—26 books, Runes. Includes the famous Gandr, Rin. Luckily there was solid theory, and I learned why the spell didn't work for me—I need the Ether element. Lots of Ether runes! Hypnosis, curses, and surprisingly—ILLUSIONS! My brain short-circuited—I can use illusions, but no Ether element.
Checked—alas, Illusion Runes don't work either. Runes like earth—body reinforcement like stone, air—shield that deflects attacks. Those fly past me too—the list is actually much longer.
I only have fire and water, and options there are slim—twist one figure with hand and say rune name spending one link, there's your fire stream. Twist two figures and spend two links—fire wall. Reminds me of signs from The Witcher, so I'll learn them—they cast instantly, just need to train fingers to bend right.
In water, besides basic water pistol and ice shard shooting, surprisingly a healing rune—which lifted my mood! That further convinced me—Runes are definitely useful!
These discoveries made me think: 2 elements severely limit me. All my clones, even specialists—except the mage clone with a full star of all five elements—have the same set. Of course I'll read about all elements, even train them in the mage clone! But I doubt I'll go beyond basics.
Reason is simple and prosaic: no point delving into other elements if only one clone can access them. Familiarize to know what to expect—yes, scatter attention and time to cover EVERYTHING would be foolish.
Better focus on always-available elements and achieve success and mastery there. And later, if I find a way to unlock others—then yes, back to shelved books.
Or read them in free time once I fully master what nature gave me. But yeah, it's frustrating.
Back to stacks: next and smallest—Necromancy, just 2 books and intro to the topic with some formulas and terms that meant nothing to me. Also from Matou house.
Next—56 books on Spiritual Evocation magic, or simply summoning. And yes, mostly needs Ether too, and ironically—quite a bit on Servants, working with consciousness, absorbing knowledge from summoned, even a section on ghosts and dead. Probably why I recently found those 2 Necromancy books.
Irony is—no Ether element. Well, precisely, only the mage clone has it, so something I can get. But crumbs. Dug hard through these and found two more unpleasant things. No elemental summoning here, and I hoped for something for my two elements!
***
Read the story months ahead of the public release — early chapters are available on my Patreon: Granulan