Chapter 4
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Breakfast was the same as the night before. Greasy, unpalatable, brown, and beige. When it was done, the pink-haired maid, who Lopi had found out was named Janice, cleared up the table, and the purple-haired maid, who Hana had called “Mrs. Tilly” sat a cup of strange naturally sweet and sour tea.

Lopi managed to drink it even if he wasn’t a fan of the flavor. He felt more alert, so he guessed he would be able to love it for the caffeine after he got accustomed to the unfamiliar taste.

“Mrs. Rose is back,” said Hana, running from the door to inform the other maids and Lopi.

The red-haired maid calmly walked into the house and up to Lopi, pulling a silver stick with small grooves on it out of her apron.

“Here, since my husband is your steward, you can use this to call him out of closed-door cultivation.”

Rose handed Lopi the metal stick and held it, unsure how it worked.

“Just break it.”

Lopi tried breaking it simply proving to himself that it was a solid metal stick. Rose could see that there wasn’t any magical power coming from his body.

“You have to put your magic power into it. It can recognize your magical signature.”

Lopi began to sweat. He had no idea how to use magic. He tried concentrating, but nothing was happening. He was probably going to faint from or develop a hernia if he tried any harder so he gave up and sweated some more. Can he even use magic? His brain is still an earth brain.

Rose grimaced. She knew that her lord was an utter waste, but this was going too far. Even babies just old enough to hold up their heads were taught how to use their magic to this extent. How is this level of uselessness even possible that he even forgot how to use his magic? Rose guesses it couldn’t be helped.

“Here,” Rose says, and she reaches towards Lopi’s daintain with her magic, stimulating it. It tentatively reacts to her magic and is drawn out of his body.

Lopi is relieved. Wow, he can do magic. It isn’t a mental thing. Using his magic is like moving a limb.  Lopi stretched his magic around, testing the limit to it. He could also see other magic if he tried now that he was aware of this magic of his. His magical limb was in a limited area, but his magical perception was in more of a vague cloud shape around him.

Lopi wanted to test out his magic, but he was somewhat afraid to use it on the wrong thing, less he break them. He turned his magic on the magic object in his hand, and as soon as he reached his magical tendril into it it fell in two pieces and blue magical sparks flew out in the shape of butterflies and flew out through the window, leaving a faint trail of glitter behind it that he wouldn’t have been able to see before. Fascinating, simply fascinating. He needs to find out more about the magic in this world, at least until he finds a way to go back home.

“Well, now that that’s out of the way, we just need to wait for my husband to arrive. He’ll get the town back under your hand. If you tried to now…” Lopi would be killed outright with no way to protect himself. The capital representatives were an awful bunch. And if she, a simple maid from the outskirts of the country with a questionable past, said that they murdered him no one would believe her. They’d likely pin the young Lord’s murder on her head instead, the snakes.

“I see. Well, now that I’m dressed I’ll head out and meet him by the front gate. Come on Hana.”

Lopi was ready to see the world of magic.

“Wait-” said Rose. She didn’t know if it was safe for Lopi to go out without an adult to protect him, but he was already out the door without pause like a tornado, with Hana close at his heels, also moving like a tornado in a very Hana-like fashion. It was impossible to ask them to be careful, not to talk to strangers, not confront anyone, especially the capital representatives.

Lopi headed out onto the street. It was the beginning of the summer quarter, and he could feel the magic all around him now. It was shocking at first, but he quickly got accustomed to it. There had been a map of the fief on the desk. The town of Crystalberg where most people lived was only a small part of the land that he controlled. He technically owned a little over 500 square miles of land, which was mostly uninhabited and hard to travel through due to the high elevation. He was the ruler of a lot of caves and mountainside. The town of Crystalberg itself only had one meandering two-way road that could fit large carriages with wide footpaths on either side and a lot of narrow one-way streets only a couple of feet wide for people to walk on by foot or for a single carriage to ride through. His dilapidated stone home was on this street, nestled into the mountainside. The highest spot in the city was the town hall, where the capital representatives had their offices, and across from that was his newer family home, which he had unfortunately signed over to be turned into a hotel, thinking he would never have to personally visit Crystalberg again.

The streets were filled with magical carriages being pulled by all sorts of magical beasts and men flying on their swords. As Lopi walked through he was fascinated. It was amazing to see the impossible happening all around him. Well, he supposed a lot more was possible on this new planet, or maybe different things were possible. Lopi nearly bumped into a few people, and Hana had to guide him. The lord was acting foolish today. Maybe he really had hit his head or he was coming down with some sort of cold after the trip. Or maybe…. There were rumors, ghost stories really, that if someone had drastically low cultivation then the ghost of a soul stage or above cultivator could possess their body. Her lord certainly fits the first criteria, but looking at him, he became way too foolish. He's gone off in the plumb opposite direction.

“Hana,” Lopi decided that he could ask the child some questions about magic and she likely wouldn’t get too suspicious, “what is magic like? How do I get good at it.”

“What? You mean like cultivate?” Hana asks.

“Sure.”

“Well, you can just cultivate using a method in your cultivation manual. Once you get better at your main magical cultivation you’ll even be able to branch off at the next stage into physical magic so that you can be a better swordsman!”

Physical magic? Swords? That sounds useless unless he wants to fly around while standin, but ut cultivation still sounds interesting. He needs to check his things for a cultivation manual when he gets back.

“There are all sorts of magic you may have an ability for after you master your main magical attribute to the foundation stage. So even if you have a bad type of magic you can still become strong as long as you practice.” Hana tried to convince Lopi to think of the future. He thought that any magic type other than fire, wind, or something that could be used in battle was pointless.

The town, other than the smell, was quite idyllic. Because of the winding mountain road, all lined with shops, and restaurants with outdoor seating spaces Lopi was reminded of a family trip he once took to Cyprus.

As Lopi and Hana made their way through town on foot they received a few curious looks. Many of them knew Hana, and could only assume that the well-dressed youth next to her was her lord.

“Oy, look at that guy there. I’m sure he’ll have a pretty penny or two on him.”

“Aye, wait. Don’t you know who that is.”

“Yes, an easy target.”

“No, that’s the lord of the whole fief.”

“Oy, that useless git. What weight does he have?” The thief walks forward, knife in hand.

“Yes, but, he runs two businesses in town still. Do you know what those are?”

“Aye, I do. The mine and the hotel.”

“Yes, precisely. The only two businesses not taxed near bankruptcy. If he comes across the wrong side of the sword those two businesses fall to the rest of his family, who have been running the rest of the town to pieces. Then what it’ll be of us?”

“You’re right mate, I won’t kill him yet.”

Lopi heard most of this conversation. So if he didn’t run the town well the citizens would have no qualms with offing him!

Lopi and Hana came across the hotel, which was almost out of place in the town, with tall windows and marble pillars. He considered walking inside to see what it’s like, maybe talk to the manager, but while he was pondering someone crashed through the window from the inside.

“Hey, I told you that the table was reserved.” A burly man wearing a leather vest with a thick mustache and brows stepped outside of the hole the first man left behind with a curved sword in his hand.

The bruised man on the floor coughed up a mouthful of blood and brought something out of his storage ring, throwing it at the stronger man in a sneak attack.

“Ha, you think that can defeat me, swine?” the man asks with a chuckle and sends a fatal wind attack with his sword, throwing the magic item off to the side, and killing the man he was fighting. Blood soaked the pavement from the dead man’s wounds.

Lopi was shocked. He’d never see anyone die before, especially so ruthlessly. Everyone else on the busy street didn’t seem to have much of a reaction other than maybe to avert their eyes. They didn’t even take care of the body. A few street urchins came by and dug through the man’s pockets, but otherwise, the man’s body was treated like he was roadkill. Also, no one confronted the man who went back inside the hotel to get back to his lunch. Understandably, somewhat, since the man is dangerous. Apparently something like this is completely commonplace. The world that society that Lopi must survive in is one of the strong have power over the weak, and can end their lives at any time without any repercussion.

However, isn’t Lopi’s body very weak? Lopi decided to step lightly and not make any waves for as long as possible. Maybe he can become stronger. Even then, it’s not like he was ready to end someone’s life over a table reservation whether he was in the right or the wrong. He decided to try to not offend anyone for the first time in his life, which meant, he had learned to not offend their feelings about certain mythological sky beings stupid, not call them stupid, not call their significant others stupid, not call their children stupid, or at least not directly. It wouldn't be easy.

Lopi decided to skip the hotel for today and continued to the entrance of the town.

“Hey, I heard a market popped up on the end of Hovel Street. There are a few out of town merchants there selling things without that 300% tax, some fresh food, some cultivation manuals, some ~wine too, eh?”

“Really? then let’s head over there.”

The people turned a few streets down and Lopi followed them down a one-way street what was apparently “Hovel Street”. The name of the place was giving it too much credit. The smell of filth that permeated the rest of the town was five times as strong here. Packs of filthy urchins ran through the streets. There were blankets on the floor for some of the residents to sit on, with bare feet, and tattered clothing. The destitution was rampant.

This? This was Lopi’s responsibility now? The town was in worse shape than he thought. He made his way further down the street and found the front of the market. One of the first things he saw was a young destitute man selling vegetables.

“What are you selling,” Lopi asks. He sees that inside of the guy’s small fabric tent that he has a patch of dirt with plants growing.

“Lots of things. Corn, grain, tomatoes, lettuce, tubers.”

“I’ll take tomatoes, lettuce, and potatoes if you have some.”

The young man had the tomatoes and the potatoes ready, but most people wouldn’t buy plain lettuce so he had to prepare it. He dropped a few seeds into dirt ground of the street and used his plant ability to help the plant grow to full size. Lopi appreciated the skill of the man.

“Thank you. Hana, can you please pay the man.”

“Yes, sir,” Hana responds and pays some coin from the space she uses to pay for things while shopping with her lord. She stuffs the vegetables into her space and catches up to Lopi who has continued walking down the street.

There are a lot of strange things being sold. A few people are trying to sell magic books, but Lopi doesn’t know which book was right for him since he doesn't know what magic type he has. Also, what was he looking for in a book? He needed one that was beginner-friendly. He glanced through a few different bookstores, picking up a few cultivation manuals from each one, trying to pick up one of each type of magic. The prices for the books were also quite all over the place and he had no idea whether or not he was being scammed. The cheapest one was worth a few copper coins, but some, nearer the better-dressed merchants, were worth two or three bits of gem currency. Eventually, Lopi decided to make his way back to the entrance of where the marketplace started. Off on the side-street of a building he saw a colorful tent with a sign up front that said they offered the service of reading people’s magical signals, along with a specially curated cultivation manual.

Most children in villages like Crystalberg would have their cultivation tested once they learned to read at around age four at a special event, taking place twice a year in the town hall. Someone testing it individualy was more common for people who live far outside the town walls.

This tent didn’t look like it was from Crystalberg, too ornate and clean, so the person inside wouldn’t tell many others that Lopi didn’t know what his magical element was.

“Stay outside here for a minute,” Lopi tells Hana, “I’ll call you when you’re needed.”

Lopi then went inside the tent. The first thing he realized when he got inside was that it was much roomier on the inside. Outside, the tent looked only ten feet wide, fitting comfortably in the alley, but inside the room was the size of a medium-sized shop, with all the amenities of a nice store. There were wooden floors and solid plastered walls. Small tea lights were floating near the top of the tent, obscured by gauze, giving the entire room a mysterious feeling. It reminded Lopi of a fortune teller tent so he considered leaving. He just wants to know what style of magic he has. Lopi squashed his feeling of skepticism from all the smoke and mirrors, however, since he’d since many purposefully mysterious things so far that were real since coming to this world.

A young shop attendant popped out from next to a bookshelf. He looked like he was organizing the contents on it.

“Hello sir, let me go find my master. He’ll be with you in a second.”

Lopi nodded and the young lad went to through a beaded curtain. A couple of seconds later a late 20s to 30s man with a heavy aura wearing a rich purple robe and partially obscured face came into the room. Lopi supposes that this was the owner of the shop and shook his hand, not seeing the shopkeeper who had just come back in the room gasp. Mere lower realm people don’t casually touch his master.

“I read on the sign near the front that you can test people’s magical attributes. I’d like to have that test done on myself.” Lopi requested.

Lopi ignored how mysterious the shopowner was and decided to politely go about his original business. The shopkeeper froze, shocked for a second as his hand was shook.

“Then we’ll get you sorted out in the next room, child.” The store owner said while the young shopkeeper gaped at Lopi, pulling Lopi by the arm into the next room. The shopkeeper was a soul mage, so he could read a person’s intentions towards him the moment they enterred a room, much less if they touched him directly. This kid was the first person to touch him where the intention was exactly what he said it was. The child didn’t have even a potential sliver of animosity towards him potentially. He wouldn’t hurt him, he wouldn’t even rob his shop for all the treasures in the world, none of that. It was honestly refreshing for a complete stranger to be this simple.

Lopi, not knowing that he was brushed off as a simpleton, was guided through a beaded curtain. They took their seats around a very typical fortune telling setup. The shop owner sat in an ornate velvet chair and asked Lopi to hold onto a large white jade sphere.

“Sure.” Responds Lopi. He places his hand on the ball, and at first nothing happens. He panics for a second, thinking maybe he doesn’t have magic after all, or maybe his magic is too weak to be recognized, but then he remembers he just used magic back at the house, right? Lopi reaches a tendril of his magic into the ball of fog and it begins to glow and transform into a brown color at first.

“You are an earth mage, these are all the elements that you can control: soil, metal, stone, jewels,” responds the shop owner. Lopi is kind of amazed by the magical sphere. He knew that there was an earth type of magic by looking through a few books on how to make magical tools, but the books were too elusive when it came to describing all that was possible.

The stone had transformed before Lopi’s eyes into layers of steel, rock, and dirt. Lopi was amazed. He felt like the luckiest engineer in the world, no, two worlds. He had been missing technology this last couple of hours, but it's more or less easy for him if any of the methods described in the magical tool guides were accurate.

“What about ceramics?” Lopi asked, forgetting his shyness. The shop owner tilted his head.

“I can see,” the shopkeeper said. He can after all, as a powerful warlock, see nearly anything. His eyes began to glow, which shocked Lopi, who went back to playing it cool.

The shopkeeper was astonished. He barely tried to ask the question “what is a ceramic”, thinking that Lopi is interested in pottery, but Lopi is thinking of a very specific inorganic nonmetallic elemental compounds, and what is an element, well, that’s another rabbit hole to look at in Lopi’s consciousness. If you were to move onto the word “compound” the explenation for what the boy was asking becomes even worse. Significantly worse.

This was strange. The shopkeeper can’t look into people’s memories, except for the facts that they know on specific words.

“Hmm, maybe.” Said the shopkeeper. The boy sitting across from him was mysterious. He’d only seen this type of innocence in children and people with child-like minds, but this didn’t seem to be the case. The shopkeeper took a bit of a bit more of a liking to him coupled with a fascination. His eyes widened.

“I have a perfect cultivation manual for your specific fortitude.” Said the shopkeeper. The shop attendant who had come into the room to watch nearly fell over.

“How much money is it?” Lopi asked, even though he wanted to turn down the offer. He’d already bought at least fifty cultivation manuals.

“10 copper.” The shop attendant nearly choked. Lopi saw that the book was a very good price since some of the books he purchased cost around 50 silver. Besides, he didn’t think he had found a beginner's earth manual.

“Yes, I’ll like to purchase it. Let me just call my maid to pay you.” Lopi said without even seeing the book.

“Okay,” said the shopkeeper, sliding a thin white leather booklet on the table from his storage space. The book said “Holographic Rock Comprehensive Cultivation Manual.”

“Master!” the shop attendant said. Even if his master was going to sell one of his priceless cultivation manuals he shouldn’t sell them to a waste. And even if he was going to sell them to a waste he shouldn’t sell it for next to nothing.

“Good then, we have a sale.” The shopkeeper said, shaking Lopi’s hand again, his eyes crinkling a bit at the corner.

Back in the street with the black market, Lopi could hear a lot of noise, and a crowd had gathered.

“How dare you put up an illegal shop without first paying registration fees, you vagrant!”

A group of three well-groomed men were confronting the young homeless man that Lopi had bought vegetables from. 

“Poor Ricky,” whispered a person in the crowd to their friend in front of who Lopi had walked near, “when his father passed away there wasn’t anymore income from the mine, and they were kicked out of their house for not paying land taxes, now his mother has gotten sick. He needed to hire a doctor, but now he’s going to meet his end.”

“I swear those capital scum are the worst. I’d rather have our city ran by a dog than by them!”

“Shhh, they’ll hear you.”

Lopi heard their conversation as he looked at the men. The one who had spoken just then seemed to be the one in charge since he was the most obnoxious. He was with two other men. One was lanky man in similar brightly colored clothes who was smirking while looking at the young man who couldn’t get off the ground, and the third man was just frowning at the boy on the ground.

“Representitive Oswalt, it was only for today. I just needed-“

“Shut up scum,” Oswalt said, sending a fire attack to the young man. The only way he could remain conscious was because he was beginning his fire cultivation branch. “You follow our rules even if you do. Peasants like you belong as our slaves. Rolant, kill him to show everyone what happens when you don’t follow the rules.”

“No need Rolant, I’ll do it,” said the man who was smiling. He started gathering a powerful wind attack. The boy on the ground, blood dripping from his mouth closed his eyes. This was the end. He didn’t want his mother to be upset. Oh shit, his mother. She may not make it with him gone.

The powerful wind attack gathered. The representitive in charge always tried to flatten his enemies as much as possible, he was hoping that this splash zone would cover at least the second row of onlookers.

However, a second before he sent his attack a bedframe, a bookcase, and several heavy armoirs fell onto the wind practitioner.

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