Aeren stared at the book as it disappeared from his hand and merged into the world of knowledge. Then he looked around and saw several dead monster bodies around him. Aeren had killed them and left their corpses in this world, but now the world was slowly consuming them.
Aeren watched for an hour as the bodies were devoured by the world. A few more books appeared in this realm afterward.
Aeren left the area and began thinking about the books and their contents. From the book he had obtained, he learned information about this world's species and continents. There were 8 continents in this world—4 ruled by humans, though they were neither the strongest nor most intelligent beings.
There were 4 human kingdoms: Verdias, Balient, Himton, and Thorne. These were the four continents where humans lived. Each kingdom had a top academy, and these continents held a major event where all top academies from every kingdom gathered at one academy, treating it like a festival. This happened once every four years. The event would take place in 4 months in the Verdias kingdom, and Roan, Alice, and others were planning to attack during this event to find quality sacrifices for summoning a demon god in human territory.
Aeren had joined a demon organization that wanted to summon a demon god into the human continent.
The other four continents consisted of 2 demon continents, 1 elf continent, and 1 monster continent. These continents remained beyond human reach.
In the demon continents, there were two types. One demon continent wanted nothing from the world and lived peacefully like humans, solving internal problems. On that continent, demi-humans, demi-demons, and demons coexisted under demon rule.
The other demon continent housed only demons who knew about other continents and wanted to rule the world. They had a demon god who controlled his demon continent and learned that weaker beings possessed more territory than them. So they decided to cross into human territory to establish dominance, but to his surprise, he couldn't enter the human continent.
However, he didn't give up. He somehow managed to send his consciousness to the human continent and created organizations for himself, wanting to summon his real body. When he couldn't find a way, he discovered this book and learned the method to summon his main body to the human world.
As for the monster continent, they could break their restraints but only to a limited level. Their monster ruler couldn't enter the human continent, so intelligent monsters created their own organization. They also wanted to summon their monster ruler, so they received help from the demon organization.
This book was a desire book—if you desired to know something, the book would show you, but it took some knowledge from your understanding in return.
The elf continent was quite unique and more troublesome for Aeren. Elves had no worldly desires and possessed regenerative abilities, creating cultivation through mana. This extended their lives to thousands of years. If they pursued mana cultivation further, they might interfere with his plans.
Aeren needed to eliminate them now, or they would cause him more trouble later.
There was also a being unconnected to any continent, known as dragons. A dragon was born once per generation and became the strongest in the world, ruling from the shadows. To Aeren's surprise, he had already met this generation's dragon.
It was Roan. Roan was this generation's dragon, which was why the man on the throne made him lead the summoning effort.
Aeren didn't think much about the dragon, as his main target was the elves, and he would eliminate them.
Aeren looked at the group of people practicing battle techniques for the academy attack. Their eyes met his, and Roan glanced at Aeren and said, "Hey Aeren, come here. We need to plan the academy attack, so we need your opinion too."
Aeren stared at Roan and said, "You all decide whatever plan you want, and I'll follow it."
Everyone stared back at Aeren and Roan, expecting some conflict, but before anything could happen, Alice stepped forward and said to Roan, "Leave him alone. We'll decide without him."
Roan turned to Alice. A month had passed since their spar, and Aeren hadn't joined their team activities. Roan and Alice had grown closer and become leader and vice leader of the team, but their coordination was still poor with four months left until the event. They were all still weak and needed more power.
Everyone followed Roan's orders, but they didn't trust him with their lives yet. Aeren showed no interest in him, and while everyone had initially feared Aeren, that fear had faded. Now they all thought of him as a lazy person with a strange personality.
Aeren observed them all with cold eyes when one bulky man approached, blocking his path. "The leader told you to join training," he said, raising his hand to punch. "So follow the—"
Before he could finish his words, Aeren attacked, but his attack was blocked by Roan. Aeren's attack had been seen by Roan, who managed to block it.
Aeren stared at Roan, who said, "What are you doing, Aeren? That would have cut his hand clean off."
Everyone was shocked by Roan's reaction. People hadn't even seen Aeren's attack, but Roan had seen through it and blocked it.
Aeren stared at Roan, then left the area. Everyone looked at Roan and the bulky man—Roan had protected him, but his finger was still cut. This made them fear both Aeren and Roan.
Alice came to Roan and asked, "What happened, Roan?"
Roan turned his head and said, "Nothing major. Aeren attacked our own team member, and I need to protect all members of the team so our attack doesn't fail due to internal interference."
All of them heard his words and felt warmth inside, wanting to follow him even more.
Alice's heart also skipped a beat, but she ignored that feeling and asked again, "I mean, how were you able to see his attack? I couldn't even follow it."
Roan stared back at Alice and said, "What do you mean? He sliced through the air with his hand, about to cut the guy's hand off. His slice wasn't that fast, so I was able to reach him and block it to protect our teammate. If Aeren had moved a little faster, I wouldn't have been able to block it at all."
Alice glared at him with questions in her mind: What air slice, you fucking meathead? There was no visible attack at all.