The orange hues of twilight greeted me as I exited the library. I gave the librarian one last wave, which was met with faint annoyance before they closed the doors.
The library did have another entrance besides the one in the guild. Lucky, since I didn't want to run into Chris again. My head already felt like mush, and I don't think I could interact with anyone.
I turned and walked in the direction of the church. The streets were a quiet hum of activity that I used as background noise while I let my thoughts wander as I walked.
The library was the right call, I had to admit. It had a ton of books, plenty of them on dungeon monsters. I also begrudgingly went and learned about some other stuff, too.
I spent the entire day in the library, bashing my head against the books to try to learn. Good news, I could read more than the manual. I have no idea how, but I could, so I'll take it.
Despite that, my results were mixed. A lot of the stuff was interesting, it's just that the stuff in question was presented in a very boring way that made me want to die.
Much like school, now that I think about it.
Anyway, the library was both helpful and unhelpful. A mixed bag of possibilities that left me both satisfied with what I learned and needing to come back later.
I was able to find multiple books about the monsters on each floor. They also provided some basic information on each one, including a general description, strategies for killing it, and how the monster attacked.
It also gave me two more pieces of information. The drop items you could get from them and the recommended stats an adventurer should have before exploring each floor.
The dropped items would appear after you extracted the magic stone and would be the only thing left after the monster turns into smoke and ash. They were rare, but they fetched a good price if you could sell them.
I didn't notice anything dropping, though I was mostly focused on killing the monsters and getting their stones. I doubt that the drop items would be useful for my cultivation, but I'll have to see when I get my hands on one.
As for the stat recommendations, they were useless to me. I didn't have stats, so I couldn't use them to find out if I could take on a monster or not. Also, why the hell did stats use English letters? And why did they start at 'I' and then go up before jumping down to 'S'?
That's so random. Why start at I? Why not go through the whole alphabet? Seriously, why not just use numbers? What good was adding the letters to the numbers?
And even after doing some reading on the falna, I still couldn't figure out how the adventurers even knew their stats. Did they have a stat screen like a game system? Do they just know based on feel? Do they have to do a breakthrough like I do, and that's how they know?
Don't know. I couldn't find it in the books that I looked at. Maybe if I come back and dig through some more, I'll figure it out. But in any case, it was useless to me, and I regret spending as much time as I did on it.
Hmm… on second thought, they aren't entirely useless.
I could use them to compare my strength to the strength of the adventurers. If I could easily kill the monsters, then I knew I had at least the equivalent of the adventurer stats. It's not exact, but better than nothing, I suppose.
So, using the infant dragon as a base point and what Meteria told me, I am about level two. Something I found extremely funny since I was technically at the second level of cultivation.
Now, the less-than-helpful part of the library was how it was organized. No database look-up, not even the decimal system. It took forever to find the information I wanted.
That, combined with how long it took me to read everything, made me spend the whole day there. And I didn't even get everything I wanted!
I wanted information on every floor down. Unfortunately, the library's information past the eighteenth floor drops down a lot.
The eighteenth floor was called a safe floor since no monsters spawned on it. Why? Don't know, the book sure as shit didn't even guess. Everyone was just glad that it didn't spawn monsters. Though monsters from the floors below come up every once in a while.
Oh yeah, there was a town down there too. River town or something. I can't remember the exact name, but it keeps being rebuilt after it gets destroyed by the monsters that come from the floor below it.
That was the last detailed thing I could find. There was some mention of the monsters and the floor environment you would find up to the twenty-fourth floor, but past that?
Floor twenty-five was known as the water city and had a big waterfall. That is all the information available. Why?
Well, I went and asked. I wasn't sure if it didn't exist or if it was just me not being able to find it due to the awful organization of the place.
So, I gathered up my courage and asked the librarian if they had more information on the deeper floors, and the short answer was no, they did not.
The long answer was that they didn't because they didn't feel the need to. This library was for adventurers who were just starting, i.e., level ones and fresh level twos. Anything past that wasn't listed since it was expected that the familias figure it out themselves.
It was then that I learned something very interesting. The vast majority of the adventurers I've seen around are level ones. Like, I'm talking like half of every adventurer in the city was a level one.
The other half were level twos and up. And the percentage just got smaller and smaller the further you went up. By being the equivalent of a level two, I was stronger than half of the adventurers in the city.
Which was a bit of whiplash if I'm being honest. Like, I was expecting to have to dodge young masters left and right, and now I find out I'm more likely to be the young master. Gross.
When I asked what the highest level was, the librarian said the captains of the Zeus and Hera familia were currently tied at level eight. I'll have to make sure I don't run into them.
Shouldn't be too hard. Not like they are in the city at the moment. They're off completing the second great quest.
I did find out what that was by the way. The three great quests are the quests to go and kill the most powerful beasts currently roaming the surface.
The Zeus and Hera familias had already completed one by killing Behemoth, and are currently out killing Leviathan. After that, they had one left, killing the one-eyed black dragon.
I freaked out a bit when I saw that name. The description the book gave was very similar to the dragon I met when I first came to this world. It also didn't help that I haven't been able to find any more mention of dragons besides that one.
Meaning I met the final boss of this world when I first came here.
I stared down the beast that had been terrorizing the land for thousands of years.
And for whatever reason, it didn't kill me. For whatever reason, I was lucky enough that it just dropped the broken lady in front of me and kept walking. Or flying, I guess.
Whether it was because it was feeling merciful, doubtful, because it didn't notice me, don't think so, or because it was playing with me, that one probably, I survived my encounter with the ultimate danger of this world.
It made me feel better that it wasn't a mob like I thought it was when I first saw it, but it was a cold comfort when I realized what I had to go up against.
An ancient beast that has terrorized the world for the past thousand years, letting a lone boy live due to random chance.
I stopped thinking for a moment, letting the scenario wash over me. It was the perfect setup. All I had to do was slay the dragon and maybe rescue a princess on the way.
I smiled at the joke and shook my head. I was a long way away from thinking about fighting that thing, and I might not even get the chance to. As long as the Zeus and Hera familias succeed, then I wouldn't even need to worry about it.
Probably for the best. After all, where am I going to get a princess?
I let out a snort before pushing the thought from my head. Not important. Focus, Leon, you need to review everything. Otherwise, it's all going out the window.
Ugh, I wanna go out a window.
Wait, wasn't there a word for that? Like a super specific word for pushing someone out a window. De-something. Detonate? Decadent? De-De…Decimate? What was it? It was in a funny video…
Defenestrate!
I want to defenestrate myself.
Wait, why can I remember that and not what I was just talking about? Seriously, I read more about the dragon, too. What was it? It had something to do with how old it was…
Nope, it's gone.
I let out a groan and put my hand to my face. This is just like school. I read something important, get distracted by random thoughts, and forget about what I wanted to remember.
I rubbed my head with my hands as I let out another groan, this one louder. I was trying, I really was. I just couldn't get my brain to function anymore, the whole day study session had fried it and drained it of any power, and me of any will to live.
I'll have to find that book tomorrow. Otherwise, there is just no shot I remember on my own. So yeah, get back into the library and find out what I was forgetting.
It probably wasn't that important, but I needed any information that I could get. Who knows, maybe it will be useful later on. Once I figured out what it was.
I arrived at the church and pushed everything out of my head. I would go back to the library until it stuck. But, past that, I wasn't going to think about it. I need to focus on my arguably more important task, cultivating.
Well, healing, I guess. I wasn't going to cultivate until I finished healing my wounds. I could only handle so much Qi at a time. Trying to do both at the same time, or cultivating and waiting to heal the normal way, is just a recipe for disaster.
I took out some of my food supplies, made a mental note to go grocery shopping tomorrow, and ate a quick dinner. I kinda wish Meteria would show up and bring me some delicious food again, but that wasn't gonna happen.
I shook the thought from my head and set up for the night. I took out my sleeping bag and laid it on one of the pews that would be my bed. I did a quick rinse to wash out my mouth before sitting on the floor in lotus position.
I closed my eyes and sat up a bit straighter as the world around me faded and I focused on my Qi. My reserves were full, my minor wounds were already healed from the bath I took earlier, all that was left were the major injuries.
The major cuts I had were taking longer to build up the skin underneath the scab, just because of how deep they went. As for my chest, where the infant dragon hit me, that was still tender, but the bruises were shrinking.
All in all, I give it about three more days until I'm back in fighting shape. After that, I can finally use the stones I had collected for what I originally wanted them for, progression for my cultivation.
I gave an internal sigh when I realized just how long and how many stones this was gonna take, but I only have myself to blame. And honestly, depending on how far along the infant dragon's stone takes me, it would have been worth it.
But I am not wasting it on healing. Honestly, thinking about it, maybe I should go look around for more of those potions Ouka's family was making. Surely there's got to be a potion seller somewhere in this city.
The only question would be if I can afford their prices since I'm pretty broke. Hmm, on second thought, yeah, I need to save the money I had and get some food first. Then we will worry about potions.
I sighed, refocusing on cultivating. I could worry about that once I'm healed up and I've found a job. Until then, I'll take the long way and slowly heal. It's not like I'm in a rush after all.
The night dragged on as I ate some stones and pulled the Qi to where it needed to go. The world faded before I felt my Qi begin slipping from my control. Not because of Qi deviation, but because I was falling asleep.
I let out a grumble, upset that I couldn't replace sleep with cultivating yet, before getting up and going into the sleeping bag. I quickly journaled everything that happened today before drifting off to sleep.
The next morning, I awoke to the gentle sun coming in from the broken windows and the sounds of birds singing. I got up, gave a yawn, and did some minor stretches.
My joints popped and muscles relaxed, and I quickly went down the list of what I wanted to get done for today.
I needed to go back to the library and find some more information on everything, go out and get some food supplies, and look for a job. With that in mind, I went out and started my day.
First stop, the market. I want a good amount of food to last me for a while. And since my ring solved the problem of food spoilage, I was free to get whatever I wanted.
There was the tiny problem of where the market was. I didn't pass any big food places when I went to get clothes, so I'll have to wander around for a bit. I was planning to map out the city anyway, might as well get started.
With a spring in my step and a goal in mind, I set off nice and early.. A little exploration never hurt anyone, and I needed to get the lay of the land.
I soon discovered that the city was a lot bigger than I thought. I had spent a few hours wandering around and hadn't made much progress in mapping everything out. On the other hand, it wasn't as big as a modern city, so this was manageable.
I could literally walk everywhere. It couldn't be that big. Mapping it out will take longer than I thought, but it is still very doable. For now, I'll focus on finding stuff that's close to the church.
The first thing I came across was a huge cathedral not far from the church. It reminded me of Notre Dame, though after I asked around, it was something called Saint Fulland's Cathedral. That name sounded vaguely familiar, maybe I read about it yesterday?
I'm getting a strong sense of déjà vu right now. I'll have to try and find something about it when I go to the library again.
After admiring the cathedral for a few minutes, I moved on. It was nice, but it wasn't what I was looking for. Though I did ask where the market was, and was pointed in the opposite direction, I was going.
Thank you, random citizen, for the directions. I should have gotten your name.
Anyway, I turned heel and went south instead of north, weaving my way through the alleys before the houses turned into businesses, and I found myself in the market.
The hustle and noise of the place crashed into me as I stepped onto the street. Everyone was of different races and different ages as they all made their way through the crowd.
I then went on a shopping spree. Bread, fruit, nuts, and preserved meat made up the bulk of my orders, though I also got some cheese, milk, and some spices. I then went around and just picked random foods that looked interesting.
After what felt like a couple of minutes, but must have been hours judging by the sun's position, I had completely stocked up on food supplies. Enough to last me months if not a year.
I had also completely wiped out my money. I had a handful of valis left, and I only now noticed how low it had gotten after the fact. Finding a job has just jumped in priority.
I sighed as the crushing, undeniable truth of all worlds crashed into me once again. You'll always need a job, no matter what.
Still, I was happy with my purchases. Could I have saved some money by not splurging on spices? Sure. Does my tongue cry out for some hot sauce and anything not plain? Also yes.
Money was meant to be spent. I may not have spent it on something necessary, but it would make me happy, and that was fine. Besides, it would definitely last me a while, so there's that.
Though that did beg the question of how the hell I found a job. Is there like a job agency, or do I just need to wander around and ask random stores if they're hiring? I needed more information.
So, to the library I went and dove back into the books again. After pawing through a lot of the books I remembered reading yesterday, I found the one that mentioned Saint Fulland's Cathedral.
It was a book called Dungeon Oratoria. I had briefly skimmed through it yesterday before putting it away, when I saw it didn't have anything to do with the monsters of the dungeon.
Now that I had finished looking up monsters, it was time to dive into the history of the world. Something that I was dreading, but I hoped it wouldn't be too boring…
…
This shit slaps. What the hell?
Is this actually a history book? This reads more like an anthology of epics and myths. Suddenly, I wasn't reading dry retellings of events that I didn't care about, like I was whenever I read about history back home. Nor was I reading a bunch of facts and lists categorized by floor, like yesterday, when I read about the monsters.
I was reading stories of heroes, action, romance, and tragedy. It was like someone looked at high fantasy from my previous life and decided to make a bunch of stories to rival The Lord Of The Rings.
I read about the love triangle between Fulland, Dine, and Belinda. Of how duty and obligation tore Fulland and Belinda apart. Of how Fulland and Dine fought together and grew to love each other, only for that love to be questioned when Fulland reunited with Belinda.
The oaths of love that Fulland swore clashed with each other as he agonized over what to do. The quiet resolve of Belinda to win her love back and rekindle what was lost. The sadness and grief Dine dealt with after Fulland eventually chose Belinda over her.
The brief madness that overtook Dine as she tried to assassinate Fulland, and the resulting fight nearly cost them both their lives. Dine then sacrificed her life to save Fulland, who then built the cathedral in her memory.
I then went on to read about all the other great heroes of old. Some of them were weirdly similar to the stories I heard in my past life, like the tale of the Argonaut. Some were unique, like the Pallum heroine Fianna.
Yet, all of them captivated me. I greedily read all the stories in the book and thoroughly enjoyed each one. And then the last one came. The tale of Albert.
Albert, the legendary hero who went and gathered a party of the strongest warriors of the time. He slayed countless monsters with their help before facing the strongest monster to have ever lived.
The black dragon. The king of the skies, the black death, the monster that had remained untouchable since it was born.
The strongest swordsman and the strongest monster faced off.
And the swordsman lost.
At the cost of Albert's life, the monster lost one eye, thus becoming known as the one-eyed black dragon today. And since then, it has terrorized the world, along with the other two great monsters.
The excitement in my chest died as I read the ending to the tale, and the anxiety that I had been ignoring returned in full force.
The greatest hero to ever live, the man who slayed thousands of monsters and was said to be unbeatable, had to give everything he had to merely wound the monster. A single eye.
That was all the greatest hero was worth. A single fucking eye.
The eye the size of my body glared at me with hatred and disdain. A yellow vertical slit of pure malice sized me up and dismissed me. The woman's body dropped to the ground, completely broken. Yet the dragon looked no worse for wear.
I clutched my hands over my heart as it pounded in my chest at the memory. Albert faced down that thing and only got to gouge out its eye before he died. The lady didn't even give it any noticeable damage before she was killed.
How the hell was anyone supposed to kill that thing when the greatest hero could only manage to take its eye?
The Zeus and Hera familias had a mission, a quest, to slay the dragon. But, they would only succeed if they were greater than Albert. If they were stronger than the team composed of those who fought by his side.
Were the current heroes better than the heroes of old?
The question left me with a cold feeling in my gut as the answer was unknown. Only time would tell, and I hoped that they were.
I hoped they were better than Albert, better than his companions. I hoped they could kill Leviathan before going to slay the dragon.
Because if they weren't, then I had no idea how anyone was going to kill that thing.
The terror in my chest didn't fade, but somewhere in the back of my mind, a faint hope lingered.
Albert may have failed, but that didn't mean the Zeus and Hera familias will. It would be a clash that would be written down in the annals of history, but I had no part to play in it. For now.
I needed to grow stronger, gather more information, and experience fighting monsters. And get over this all-consuming fear that I felt whenever I thought of the dragon. Then I could worry about the legendary clash that was about to happen.
I pushed the thought out of my mind by slapping my cheeks and imagining puppies. I'll open that can of worms later. For now, repress it and forget it.
I calmed down and decided that I had had enough of the library today. I put the book back and left. The sun was low in the sky, the dusk bringing an orange hue to everything.
I walked back to the church, my mind wandering back to the heroes that I read about in the stories. I noticed something thinking back on it.
None of them were blessed. Every single one of them drew their power from somewhere else, somewhere other than the gods.
Some stories mentioned spirits, others mentioned that they trained or had an awakening to their power later in life. But, not one of them mentioned being blessed by a god.
The book never mentioned levels or stats or anything like the modern power system of the falna that was currently in place.
Which, now that I thought about it, was weird. The only other way to gain power, it seems, is through cultivation…
Were the heroes of old cultivators?
It was the only thing I could think of. How else were they getting so strong? What other power system existed?
Training could have been another way of saying cultivating, awakening their power later in life, could have been enlightenment, and the spirits could have been manifestations of their Qi.
It would explain a lot. How they had the power to level mountains and armies, and how their bodies were able to take so much punishment.
I don't know for sure, but I think that the heroes of the past were cultivators. There was just no other explanation that made sense. The theory did have holes in it, but it was the best that I could come up with.
It still didn't answer the question of how the hell there didn't seem to be any cultivators left in the modern day. The heroes had children; surely those children would have inherited their parents' power.
Unless…the gods did hunt them all down and destroyed the cultivation methods. But, if they did do that, then how did I meet the lady when I first came here?
Nothing fits. If I had discovered the manual in some forgotten ruin, then that would be one thing. But, I got the manual from someone who I have to assume was a cultivator.
Seriously, she looked like someone had just ripped her out of an xianxia world. Complete with Chinese clothing, weird artifacts, and a super powerful cultivation manual.
I thumbed the necklace that I had gotten from her. The ring's function was pretty obvious, same with the manual, but what the hell was the point of the necklace? It hadn't activated at all, no matter what I did to it.
Briefly, my mind went back to the cliche of the old master in the ring. Is that it? I thought about it before, but usually in those stories, the master whispers in the wearer's ear immediately.
There hasn't been a peep from the necklace since I've put it on. And it hasn't been draining my Qi either. At least, I hadn't noticed it draining my Qi.
"Augh! There are too many mysteries for me to solve. I just wanna go back in the dungeon and punch things. It's simpler," I let out a scream before shaking my head and forgetting everything I had been thinking about.
I'm not figuring this out anytime soon. I'll just keep going in circles and never get anywhere. I should use my brain power on important things. Like finding a job and healing.
I arrived at the church again and got ready for bed. After a quick stretch session and a change of clothes, I sat down again and ate some stones.
The world faded into the background, and I guided the Qi where it needed to go. I was close to healing, I should just focus on that before tackling cultivating again.
I spent a few hours meditating and healing my wounds before going to bed. The next day, I didn't even bother leaving the church; I just sat around and meditated all day.
I still need to go find a job, but that can wait for a moment. I had food, I had shelter, I had clothes. I didn't need money urgently,
Hence, I stayed cooped up and time lost all meaning. The hours blended and eventually, after a couple of days, I was all healed up and ready to go back into the dungeon.
I checked my journal and saw I had been in the city for a week. It didn't feel that long, but the pages don't lie. I stretched and felt my body give a few pleasant cracks as the joints popped from being in one spot for so long.
I wanted to go and immediately dive back into the dungeon, but I realized there wasn't a point. I hadn't gone through all the monster stones I had originally gathered, still, and going down would just make the stockpile bigger.
It made me a bit antsy just sitting around and not moving, but that's what I needed to do. More sitting and more waiting.
Cultivating wasn't boring, it was fun feeling the Qi move around, and it wasn't particularly tiring. I just had a problem staying in one place for so long, especially when there was a hole full of monsters to fight right there.
I sighed, pushing down my impatience and deciding that I wasn't going back into the dungeon until I finished all of my magic stones. Though if I stayed in this church any longer, I would go stir crazy.
Even when I was in the cave, I still had to go and take some breaks every couple of days. If just to move my body a bit.
Alright, let's go practice my kata for my martial arts. While it wouldn't be as good as going down into the dungeon, it would still help with refining my movements.
And I needed to check and see if I was still happy with everything now that I knew what I was fighting. I developed my style with the assumption that I would fight other cultivators.
Now, I needed to develop it with the understanding that I would be fighting not only human opponents, but monsters as well. Something I could do much better now that I had experienced fighting monsters that weren't just humanoids.
I went to the back of the church, where there was a courtyard. There was an overgrown garden, a dried-up fountain, and a wide space where I could practice without hitting anything.
I stripped down to my underwear since I didn't want to get my clothes sweaty, and started going through the basic forms.
I started out slow and rigid. I made sure to feel each basic stance and try to pick out any problems with my positioning. A few adjustments were made to allow for better mobility but I was satisfided with the basics.
After that, I transitioned into letting them flow into one another. Punches into elbow strikes, elbow strikes into blocks, blocks into parries, parries into counterattacks, counterattacks into dodges.
Slowly but surely, I went through all the movements and found the problems. A misplaced foot here, overextension of an arm there, an opening that needed to be covered. Everything was analyzed in a new context.
I pictured each monster and fought with it. The humanoids fell easily, but the problems began when I had to adapt to the weird animal monsters.
My forms were too sloppy, too unbalanced to respond to their speed or specific anatomy. So I changed them. I adjusted everything, changing the forms until I could fight the monsters easily.
Then I switched back to imaging human enemies and shifted the forms again. Only to find myself struggling to fight the humans easily. I fixed it and switched back to monsters.
The same problems occurred, and now I had a hard time fighting monsters. On and on the cycle went, and through each repetition, I learned something.
I currently have two styles, one for monsters, one for humanoids.
But that had a problem. They would forever be separated, and having to switch between them would slow me down and leave me open to the other.
That was one of the problems I encountered when I went down there. It was part of the reason why the frog shooters and needle rabbits and dungeon lizards had given me so much trouble when I was fighting with the war shadows.
So, instead of doing that, I would need to develop a style that was serviceable to both. I needed to average the two styles and make it not full of holes.
I kept going, my muscles began to burn from the repetitive motions, and the sweat started dripping down my hair. Each repetition brought forth a new idea, and each try brought forth new problems.
I imagined fighting both humans and monsters at the same time. Each imaginary scrap, hit, and stab made me try harder and harder. But the style wouldn't come together.
The moves wouldn't flow, the basic framework just wouldn't allow for it. No matter how many times I went through it, I just wasn't happy with it.
I huffed in frustration as I thought about it. I couldn't fit the pieces together; they were mismatched. Like I was trying to fit pieces from separate jigsaw puzzles into one thing.
…
Wait a minute.
That's what I'm doing. I'm trying to combine my human fighting style with the monster fighting style by just switching between the moves of each one.
A human elbow strike isn't going to transition into a monster block. They were just too different from each other.
I needed to create a new style from the ground up. One that was flexible enough to fight humans and monsters.
I brought my hands in front of me and centered myself. I let the frustration flow away with each breath and tried to imagine the basic moves I needed.
I went through the basic moves again. I then transitioned into each style and found that while some of the basic moves were incompatible with each other, some moves were the same.
I threw away mismatched moves and focus only on the moves that were the same. Then I tried to strip those down to get to the core of my style. Only to find I didn't have a core.
There wasn't something my style focused on. I didn't have a base to build off of; my so-called style up until this point was just a mishmash of moves that flowed together, yes, but they didn't reinforce a single idea.
That was what I was missing. That's why I was having such trouble merging the styles and moves together.
They didn't have a defining characteristic to build upon. Even if those characteristics were completely opposite to each other, I could still combine them. Defense could complement attack by providing a place to counterattack from, and attack could benefit from defense by providing sturdy footwork.
I had moves, but they didn't have a unifying core concept behind them. They were created to do one thing, and that was it.
Honestly, I'm surprised I got this far. It was lucky I hadn't had to fight someone. Anyone who had a decent understanding of their style would have kicked my ass.
So, I had to start over, only this time, build my moves and forms over one core concept. I just needed to choose what concept I wanted that to be.
As I was deep in thought, I heard the door to the courtyard open from behind me. The squeaky hinges snapped me from my thoughts as I turned.
I thought maybe the wind had blown it open, but instead out came Meteria, holding another picnic basket.
She had a light smile on her face as she opened the door and looked around. She eventually met my eyes, and her smile grew wider.
"Ah, Leon! I brought some breakfast, if you want to eat with– Um," She started to talk, only to click her mouth closed and stare at me.
Her face then proceeded to turn bright red, and she started stuttering.
"W-why don't you have any clothes on?!" she shouted before running and slamming the door closed behind her.
Idly, I looked down and saw that while I still had my underwear on, it was not leaving much to the imagination.
Ah shit, I just flashed someone. Someone who was bringing me breakfast and may have just run away with said food. My stomach let out a loud growl at the thought of food.
Hopefully, she's not mad.
================================================
All done, woo!
Poor Leon, he is not the kind of guy who can just learn from reading stuff. His thoughts get all jumbled, and his mind wanders too much when he tries. He makes up for it by being very stubborn though.
He is suppose to be a himbo sort of character, in case it wasn't entirely clear. The whole reason behind this stories conception was I saw what happened with the Astraea familia and wanted a character to go punch the juggernaut in the face.
What better way to do that than with a himbo? None I say!
Too bad he keeps getting reminded of his trauma with the dragon. I'm sure that will stop soon.
Anyway, he's all healed up and figured out some pretty crucial things. He also discovered that history is fun when the history is something straight out of a story book.
Side note, imagine if some medieval fantasy peasant got reversed iskeai'ed to this world? The technology we take for granted would be to them what magic is to us. Also, imagine if they opened up a history book and stumbled across World War 2.
A global war spanning years, leaving more dead than the entire population of their home world, and ended with a superweapon that had the chance of destroying the world.
Some good sci-fi story material there. It's all about how it's presented. And to Leon, the history of Danmachi reads like a fantasy epic.
He also discovered something very important, he kind has just been winging it with his fighting style. Hopefully I explaiend it well, and didn't over explain it, but he needs to strip everything down and figure out how he wants to fight everything.
Something that will take time. He is trying to create his own style of martial arts from scratch. Something that will help him no matter the situation. A very hard thing to do.
Also, I have recently learned that Aiz kinda got some character assassiantion in the anime. I am anime only, so this is to all of my LN, and Manga peeps, how bad is it?
Is it enough to dethrone Ryuu as best girl? Cause, as far as anime goes, Ryuu wins just by sheer interactions she's had with Bell. I swear, I can not see Aiz and Bell getting together in the anime. She just doesn't really seem to have feelings for him one way or the other in that.
Might be a hot take, who knows, but let me know.
Also, since I can't tag everything that I want on all the sites I use, this is AU. So, characters that shouldn't be here or should be weaker at this point in the timeline will show up close to their canon selves.
This is mostly because I want the Freya and Loki familia characters to show up and not be underleveled. Like, I'm pretty sure Riveria was level two when Levianthan was killed. That's not gonna fly in this fic; they need to be stronger.
Anywho, that's all. Until next time friends!