Chapter 43: Chapter 43
After Darius was done offloading the meat that had been clogging up his rather large Inventory, he parted from Derek and returned to the library. This time, Darius made sure to speak about the history of Andrato with Portia, and she added a lot of knowledge that wasn't penned down for obvious reasons.
Apparently, what Portia heard was that the founder wasn't actually an advocate for men's rights, but the loser of a battle for the crown. In order for the winner to successfully exile her, they pinned this tag on her in order to lower her standing in public.
As for being exiled here to conquer the Plains of Death, it was basically a random excuse so they could send her out to die. After all, the Plains of Death weren't named as such because one could cross it safely and easily.
Darius rubbed his chin as he listened, finding the politics behind this kingdom's formation quite interesting. There was so much to digest and so much that was different from the norm that he found it novel.
Darius then moved onto geography. He learned the general makeup of the world and filled up many areas of his System Map this way. Apparently, the world was split into 10 major continents, with each so far from the other that denizens needed to use warp gates to cross.
Darius was also surprised to find out that each continent was not the same in terms of era. There was a continent called Gravitas that was described as having metal warriors and natives using metal boxes to move around.
That sounded awfully like mechs or robots for the first and some form of car for the second. This meant that the Gravitas continent was either futuristic or set in the modern age, which baffled Darius.
What the hell was Faust? He understood from what Caesar said that Vena created Faust solely to thrust him here and have him act out entertainment, but this world… this stage he had been given… it was too chaotic!
What made Darius even more confused was that there was a continent called Unyris that was basically - from what he could tell of the description - a land stuck in the pre-historic age with giant lizards, t-rexes, and bizarre wildlife.
The 10 continents were as follows; Fallon, Unyris, Gravitas, Houto, Pan, Pokterr, Ludo, Elysium, Armadon, Kiel.
As far as he could tell, they were currently on the Fallon continent which from the descriptions, seemed to be a medieval era land with a focus on magic and cold weapons.
Unyris was the pre-historic continent with sparse sentient life and rich natural resources that made all other continents drool, but its beast and monster populace were the second strongest in the entire Faust.
Gravitas was the least documented land as they were extremely xenophobic and looked down on all other species on Faust. Darius could not find anything more on them despite how much he read.
Houto was a large island nation that - from what Darius could see here - was basically old Japan. There were mentions of three prominent races on Houto, the humans, the Oni race, and the Yokai. That was largely what clued Darius in.
Pan was a bit harder to discern with these confusing descriptions. If Darius had not been from Earth and well-read, he would not have been able to grasp the make-up of the Pan continent. Putting aside the bizarre descriptions, Darius was able to understand that Pan also shared similarities to old China, and there were four races that existed there.
They were the Demon Beasts, Divine Beasts, Mortals, and Immortals. Darius was certain that Mortals and Immortals were the same race, but it seemed that Faustians didn't agree, especially the Immortals from Pan.
Pokterr was a subterranean continent that was hard to locate on the world map, and was almost inaccessible except through warp gates. It was mostly populated by… insects and moles? And as if that alone had not made it special enough they were giant in size as well.
Apparently, entry to and from Pokterr was strictly regulated since the insect race had once launched a horrible invasion of Faust that nearly ruined the world. If it wasn't for the innocent mole race that betrayed the insects to help the world, the continent would likely have been shut off for eternity.
Ludo was a saharan continent with sparse human life and civilization. It also lacked natural resources for sustenance/consumption, but its wealth of resources in terms of metals and minerals literally supplied 70% of the world!
Elysium was - as far as Darius could tell - the continent where the Gods of Faust resided and had their main churches set up. It was a location that was relatively easy to enter among the many continents, but getting to stay there was almost impossible.
Armadon was the opposite of Elysium apparently the continent where the demons and devils of Faust made their home. A hellish, barren wasteland of fire and brimstone, it had nothing to give the world except endless brutal demons, monsters, and even worse, devils. Entry to and from Armadon was not controlled as no one knew how to get there but those in the know.
Kiel was a continent located far to the north, and was a snowy continent full of strange tribes. It didn't belong to one particular race or have a set theme per se, but according to what Darius read, it is said that the core of Faust could be located there.
Darius digested the knowledge slowly throughout the course of the day. There was a lot more to read up on as some books detailed the locales, provinces, and states within certain continents, but Darius ended it here today as it was now late.
Portia had long fallen asleep on his lap and Darius found that he had been absent-mindedly playing with her hair. This made him smile kindly as this was the exact same position his beloved Miranda had fallen asleep in when Darius had tried to educate her.
Eventually, he had given up and decided to pamper the darling girl while focusing his teaching on the more stoic Solena and later Martin.
Chapter 44: Chapter 44
Darius woke up the next day and headed to the library once again. The pursuit of knowledge was paramount to everything else, for the educated man was the most powerful man in the world.
He met the chipper young miss on his way there after he had taken his bath and breakfast, courtesy herself and some other servants. Portia had her own studies to attend to, so her ability to care for Darius was reduced as the days went by.
This pleased Darius and depressed Portia, but she rejoiced in the fact that they spent the whole day together discussing a wide range of topics. Portia quickly found that Darius was far more mature than anyone she had met, his insight into many things making her pause.
As for Darius, he first used his daily CP to make some more valuable conversions.
[Would you like to change the blank paper into a House Portal scroll? This will cost 0.5 Conversion Points.]
Darius changed 8 of them, making a loss of 4 CP. He also converted one his empty books into another spell manual, which took 5.9 CP as well.
Just like two days ago, he was down to 0.1 CP!
However, Darius was unbothered as he had now settled down and was in no rush to execute phase 3. Today, he continued what was leftover of History and combined it with Geography to fill in the blank spots he had encountered in his previous readings.
Darius was partially speechless to find out that the Valkyrie race were not even a big deal in Elysium, merely the exotic foot soldiers of Odin's church. From what Portia told him, the first founder of Fraterina was a high ranking warrior who had discharged herself well during the war and was granted leave to explore the world.
Why did this sound like a slave owner releasing a hardworking slave as a reward for their suffering, mostly in order to motivate the other ones? Portia made it sound like that Valkyrie meant something to Odin, but that was what the history books wanted her to think.
Darius found himself slightly more intrigued. Now that he was aware of the history of Andrato and the various continents around the world, he next needed to discover the system of power in this world.
It was imperative, crucial, and important that he did. As such, he first read through the combat theory books as well as corroborated his findings with Portia to see what she knew.
Apparently, Caesar hadn't been pulling the wool over his eyes. In the world of Faust - not just Fallon or any specific continent - there were the same Ranks the Artificial Intelligence mentioned.
Amateur, Journeyman, Adept, Master, and Grandmaster. There were legends of a level above that one, but the people of Faust had no idea what it was called. It seemed that for now, only Darius knew about the Supreme stage, which was a great advantage.
They did not have the concept of 'levels', that level 1-20 was Amateur and level 21-40 was Journeyman, and so on. How they did differentiate was by the life level of the target.
Darius scrunched his forehead when he heard the term. It seemed a bit strange for a world like this, but he continued reading to find out more.
Life level simply meant the quality of power, lifeforce, and acuity any being possessed. This made Darius raise his eyebrows, for it sounded like they had a way to sense/measure the Strength, Endurance, and Intellect of any person and used that criteria to measure their power.
Darius thought that calling it 'power level' would be cleverer than 'life level', but he decided to keep his opinion to himself.
As it seemed, the denizens of Faust were not able to raise their stats or strengthen themselves in a way that allowed them to become stronger. It seemed that a person needed to undergo a special occurrence called a 'Spark'.
When their 'Spark' occurs, they would then climb into the Amateur stage and be a different type of organism from those who haven't. They would be able to explore dungeons and kill the monsters within to strengthen themselves through the passive absorption of life force from slain foes.
Darius raised an eyebrow once more. Wasn't that basically killing monsters to gain experience points? Darius felt like he was beginning to understand how things worked in Faust, but continued to read on.
Faustians shared this same system of power no matter where they resided. However, the book made no mention about how one became a deity, only that the Gods and Demons/Devils had existed long before man could first write.
There had never been any new Gods or churches, as it was believed that they were a different form of life. Gods and Demons could reproduce with lesser species, but not with each other, making their pure-blooded members finite permanently.
This rang a bell in Darius' mind as some data he had absorbed from the history books finally made sense. Why the Gods and Demons had fought what was a proxy war using their descendants.
Of course, they wouldn't dare to fight, they were limited in number! One gone was one dead for eternity, with no hope of replacement!
This also answered the question Darius had, which was; 'is the Supreme stage the same as being a deity/god?'
The answer - as far as he could verify - was no. Gods were born at the pinnacle of the Grandmaster stage and existed somewhere between Grandmaster and Supreme.
The book didn't know about the name of the Supreme stage, but there were some writings that described this ultimate stage as such: "The highest of the highest, the God of Gods and the Demon of Demons. The greatest existence in the history of, and for the future of, Faust."
This excited and depressed Darius, for once he became a Supreme, the whole world would be his for the taking.
Naturally, on the flip side, becoming a Supreme would likely be more difficult than what Caesar hinted at.
Gifts
-- Gift
received Weekly Power Status
200+ Power
Ranking 
6 Power
stone 
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