Chapter 6 Are You Interested In Gold?

Esdras investigated the symbol and discovered that it was only a shadowy outline. It was not truly made of spiritual energy.

That outline, it was like a guide, telling him to follow it, what would happen if he constructed that symbol first?

This was a very dangerous thought. The number of apprentices who lost their minds and became vegetables because they messed with the sea of consciousness was not low.

The original Esdras was on this path too, but it was not just him, many others who were more talented than him fell victim to this issue.

"Don't think that you are better than thousands of years of history. There were smarter and better men than you in the past who paved the path of magic we have today. Just follow the instructions, don't attempt anything half-assed."

This was said by the sub tower master in the few times she deigned to talk to the apprentices.

But Esdras trusted more in the divine shard than the words of the mages in this world, it was the same even to the words of a Great mage.

But what annoyed him was the time constraints, he may need two days to clean his sea of consciousness but using spiritual energy to construct that symbol was going to take some time a week or maybe ten days.

He was in a pinch.

He wanted to start with making the elemental sigil first so he could have some power of self-protection. With the amount of spiritual energy he had now he could be done with that in three days.

But Esdras had a hunch, that he wouldn't be able to engrave the Planeswalker symbol if started with anything else.

Basically he felt that it had to be done first.

However Esdras's life was currently in danger, not just being in a war zone but also because of Robert's killing intent against him.

If he was in Robert's shoes and the person he schemed so much to kill actually survived, what would he have done? How would he react?

He would react by trying to kill the slippery bastard again.

He did not know why Robert wanted him dead but that didn't matter now. His life was in real and present danger.

A week to ten days was too much!

But he also didn't want to throw away this opportunity provided to him by the divine shard. Think Esdras! Think!

A moment later he got a perfect solution to this problem. He had a martial talent too, so why not put it to use early?

Esdras commanded the spiritual energy sphere above his head to start cleaning the pollution.

He saw dozens of green wisps extend out and into the sea of consciousness. He observed the process and smiled.

It wouldn't take two days, just one was enough.

Back in the real world Esdras rummaged through his stuff and took out a booklet. This was his family's Vigor breathing technique.

In this world the mages were divided into four ranks, from lowest to highest they are, Apprentice mage, True mage, Great mage and Master mage.

The warriors were divided into two ranks, Strength unleashed and Vigor knight.

The warriors of this world could not hold a candle to the mages at all. The Vigor knights, were only equivalent to a level 4 apprentice mage.

Even then, that was already good enough for Esdras right now, after all he was only buying time.

Besides he did not think that the Vigor knights were to be underestimated. After all this world's mages suffered from their classic weakness, vitality.

As long as an enemy made it close to the mage then he was no different than a normal person. At least that was the case for True mages, he didn't know about the two greater ranks.

Although the mages didn't like to talk about it, there were many cases of mages getting ambushed and killed or assassinated by skilled but ordinary people. Poisoning was also a way to easily kill a mage.

Esdras was from the viscount family Varthos in the kingdom of Zaarath. And his parents died in a tragic attack during the royal parade among a few other nobles.

Since he was younger he could not inherit the noble title so his uncle was given the role of regent and took care of the matters in the estate.

He also raised Esdras until he was eleven years of age when his talent in magic was discovered.

In that time he trained in his family's Vigor breathing technique but he didn't show any improvement. After joining the mages tower he focused all of his attention on becoming a mage.

Esdras returned the booklet back to the bag, he didn't train in it. The original Esdras was told that it was the family's vigor breathing technique and he trusted his uncle blindly.

However that was not the case for him, he read so many webnovels and watched too many movies and TV series. More than that he was a 23 year old when he died and could think critically.

His uncle's actions were very suspicious, it was not a far stretch to think that he may have tampered with the technique. He wasn't sure but he was suspicious enough.

Esdras didn't need to take the risk, while they were far away from civilization they had Vigor knights traveling with them.

He grabbed his coin pouch and walked out of the tent. It was the time of twilight, the darkest before dawn, the world was sleeping but he was awake.

He looked around and made his way to a tent close to the center of the camp. Unexpectedly the owner of the tent was also awake.

Calvin, one of the seven Vigor knights traveling with them to fort Kuzdin for reinforcements according to the order from the higher-ups.

"Hello there," Esdras greeted

"… hi, how can I help you?" Calivin who was practicing with a spear stopped and looked at him and asked curtly.

"I'm Esdras, let me ask you, ser, are you interested in gold?"