'Fwip.'
Flipping through the pages, Alex made a preliminary judgement of a few things. The books, as expected, were not of much help and provided only surface level information. However, to Alex, something was better than nothing.
According to "Travelling the World" by Bethal Abraham, there were different methods through which one could gain powers. Those who gained such powers were called "Mages." Interestingly, magic in this world did not "awaken" in a person and hence was not tied to talent, for the most part.
To become a Mage, as mentioned before, there were several methods. Some of them included flaying your skin to mark yourself with Sigils in the language of the gods. The nature and type of power depended on which God's language was used, and a person could awaken one or more powers from that domain.
This kind of magic was common in the barren wastelands, and amongst the wildlings. Most people living in comfort of walled cities could not even think about doing it. Just the pain of having your skin flayed and reshaped was enough to kill a lot of people, and then one has to endure the divinity being trapped inside mortal flesh.
The other method of becoming a Mage was relatively safe. It was to gather ingredients and form a potion out of it. The mixture of ingredients was the key, as the correct combinations could lead to specific Classes and incorrect ones could lead to corruption of Mana inside one's body, leading to a different sort of Corrupted Class.
However, as with anything in his old world, the recipes for the potions are guarded by kingdoms, sometimes specific families and the like. For example, the Royal Family Holt controls Athlete Pathway, Clerk Pathway and the Corrival Pathway.
Similarly, House Thorne controls the entirety of The Clown Pathway and House Styrn was in control of half of the Athlete Pathway. Meanwhile, House Bolton had a few recipes for Vagabond Pathway, but the material required to craft it was so rare and expensive that the number of Vagabonds in Boltons family could be counted on one hand.
And it was not just the Northern Continent, there were all kinds of Pathways in the Southern, and Western Continent, and even the Barren Eastlands where savages had their own Pathways and methods of progression.
Nodding to himself, Alex quietly put the book down and picked up a scroll. It looked old and new at the same time and was made out of bleached leather. This was the formulae of the Vagabond Pathway.
'Less than what I had imagined. But well, this Pathway is so neglected and undesired that there is virtually zero information about it in the books. Usually there is subtle information on Sequence 9 of each Pathway, but for Vagabond there is literal zero. Sigh... anyways, let's see the ingredients.'
The ingredients were not much, contrary to what he was expecting.
[Sequence 9: Vagabond - 10ml of a Black Direwolf's marrow, 3 grams of wind-dried Dandelion Seeds, 200 ml of Black Direwolf's blood
Sequence 8: Daredevil: Pituitary gland of a Fearless Ape, 1 pair of dice made from a serial killer's bone, a pair of balls of a Fearless Ape
Sequence 7: Knight of Chaos - Spinal fluid of a Blink-Cat, 1 flower from a "Sudden-Bloom" cactus.]
Alex rubbed the bridge of his nose as he read them. He had quite a good memory, and while reading "The Art of Potion Making by Frank Lee" he did not remember any such ingredients. Magical Botany was a giant compendium of Magical Ingredients that the greatest scientist to ever exist, Frank Lee, had written.
The first half of the book was basically full of the ingredients that could be used in one pathway or the other and their possible locations. And since Alex could not remember seeing these ingredients in that book, he suddenly felt despair.
'That's a bummer... I really wanted to try some of these magical powers. Trading a formula would cost a lot, hundreds upon hundreds of Krones. That would just drain our treasury dry. Hmm... I should probably ask Godfrey and ask him to take me out on a hunt to The Scar. Since no one really hunts there, it is bound to have some surprises.
Hopefully I will find something. The Scar has a lot of species of Wolves, so at least one thing could be solved. That said, Dandelions are very rare in the Northern Continent and the sun rarely fully comes out to dry anything, almost all over the year. How am I supposed to find it?
I can't just go to the Southern Continent for that...'
Krones and Crowns were the unit of measurement in the Northern Continent. There were different kind of Krones, all of which followed Bullion Currency system. The "Krone" came in Bronze, Silver and Gold and the denominations were decided by the weight of each coin.
Bronze Krones were usually called Nicks, and they only came in denominations of 1. It weighed about 8 grams of pure bronze, roughly a palm-wide, dull brown with greenish wear and four cuts on the edges. It had a mead cup on the back and a pine tree on the front.
Silver Krones were usually called Marks. They came in denominations of 1 Mark—weighing 10 grams of high-purity silver and equal to 20 Bronze Krones, 5 Marks—weighing 50 grams of silver, octagonal shape and equal to 100 Bronze Krones. The last denomination was 10 Marks, weighing 100 grams of silver and equated to 1 Gold Krone.
Gold Krones were simply called Krones.
1 Krone weighed 10 grams of gold and was equal to 10 Marks or 200 Nicks.
5 Krone weighed 50 grams of gold and 10 Krones weighed 100 grams of gold.
As for Crowns, it was a banknote signed by either the High King or the Hand of Coin. They came in various denominations and were recently becoming more used, as compared to the coins. However, its usage was still tied to government transactions and legal matters. People were required to exchange their coins for a Crown.
The most common denominations seen and kept by people were 1, 5, 10, 20, 50, 100, 200 and even 500 Crowns.
Alex had decided to give Alice and her family 10 Krones. It was a massive amount of money for anyone. For instance, old bread cost 1 Nick at most bakeries, a fish 3 Nicks, and a mug of weak ale 1 Nick, weekly rent for an apartment with 3-4 families living together was 2 Marks per week and one piece of clothing cost 10 Nicks.
Alice's mother and father—Sara and Robert—had a combined income of 3.5 Marks. With this much, most of the times they would only dip their bread in warm water and could only afford to patch their clothes as threads were expensive and costed a lot to buy.
Suddenly obtaining 10 Krones would've let them lead a really good life moving on. However, this approach had an issue.
'Once word gets out, people will start talking that the Duke had done something so vicious to the girl that he had to pay such a big sum to keep her silent. The financial condition of Ironhold is no mystery from anyone.'
Alex packed the books one over the other before calling out the maid stationed outside his room. "Grace."
The doors opened and a middle-aged woman walked in. She was tall and slim; however, she had fat in all the right places with tight breasts and a large back. She had short, shoulder length black hair that were let loose and dark, almond shaped, dark grey eyes. She was the head of maids and had the occasional duty to "serve" the former Lord Bolton whenever Lady Bolton was in labor.
"Yes, my lord? You called."
"Take the books away. And have Ser Godfrey prepare my attire."
Grace hesitated a little. She seemed to have been in shock listening Godfrey's name like that. "Forgive my intrusion, my lord, but asking Ser Godfrey to..."
Alex looked up at her from the floor. His eyes fell on the perky mountains that had casted a shadow on his face. At that moment, he realized that while Ironhold and Castle Black were in quite the cold place, the women wore revealing clothes. Taking Grace for example, she was wearing clothes that revealed her chest way more than it should, at least in this era where people were quite conservative.
As the thought rose in Alex's mind, the small flux of "common sense" invaded his mind. From Arthur's memories, he discerned that unmarried women all wore revealing clothes, showing their skin, meanwhile married one used to cover themselves—well, at least the breast region.
"Do as I say, Grace. If I want Godfrey to sort my attire, then he shall be the one to do it." Alex spoke in the usual tone of Arthur but restrained a huge portion of the rudeness.
Grace lowered her head and then looked up. Alex had only casted a fleeting glance, but it looked like she was biting her lip and trying to bend so low that her nipples were almost visible from the dress. However, since Alex had a lot of other things on mind, he did not pay much heed to it.
"As you say, my lord." Grace replied before leaving. She looked back once; however, the young Duke did not spare her any glance as she went out.
Removing the curtain from his window, Alex looked outside. Inwardly he felt a little sad. He had moved on from everything a bit too quickly, despite reminding himself that he cared a lot for his sister. He felt like he had completely moved on already.
'What can I do about it though?' Alex calmed himself as he kept his gaze outside. From his window, he could see the entirety of Greyharbor and the sea separating Ironhold from the corrupted lands.
A shiver ran down his spine.
'I am thinking too much... Let's deal with this Minister Voss first.'