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We are on the last leg of the journey to the Royal Academy, and with such interesting reading material, I am thankful for the silence in the carriage, but not the reason for the silence.
What I read of Zhang Jun’s journal before I went to bed last night tells of his arrival in this world. Unlike me who was born into this world, Zhang Jun came into this world as he was. As for the how, he thinks it has something to do with what he calls “Divine Lightning” which struck 1 of the bandits that had ambushed his group.
The next thing he knew, he was on the ground and opened his eyes to a new sky in the middle of nowhere, just him, the clothes on his back, his satchel still slung on him, and his Jian (Traditional Chinese double-edged straight sword) by his side.
As I read through the first few days of his journey, besides being slightly poisoned from eating a few of the local fruits and berries to stave off his hunger, he also ran into and fended off what he described as “Demons”, but from the rough sketches of said “Demons”, I could only assume they were just wandering goblins and kobolds.
Reading a few days into Zhang Jun’s journey, I got to read about his life before coming to this world.
Zhang Jun was the 3rd son of a small escort family, he never had a talent for fighting like his bothered, so he decided to take another path and take the imperial exam so he could become a government official.
He was on the way home from taking the exam with a bunch of other scholars when it started raining. When the group's guide was leading them to some shelter, they were ambushed by bandits.
Zhang Jun did what he could to defend himself with the sword his father gave him and what basics of swordplay he had learned over the years, but that did not help him.
Some people were just born without the talent for fighting. Ironic, coming from an escort family whose job it is to fend off the very bandits that were accosting him.
As he was knocked to the ground by a bandit and was about to be dealt the killing blow, he saw a flash of light from the stormy skies above and opened his eyes to this new world.
After getting out of the goblin and kobold filled woods, Zhang Jun found a dirt road and followed it until he found a small farming hamlet.
When he first encountered the inhabitants of the hamlet, he was met with suspicion, but after both sides having no idea of what the other was saying and seeing the haggard state Zhang Jun was in, an old couple in the hamlet decided to take Zhang Jun in.
After a lot of miming, they came to an agreement that Zhang Jun would help them with their farming, and in return, the old couple, whose names were Ben & Irene, would teach him the local language and provide him provide house and board.
2 months into the journal, when Zhang Jun was more familiar with the language, he started dating his entries using this world’s dating system instead of just counting the days, and included the kingdom he was in at that time. The Duplis Kingdom, which if I remember my geography lessons correctly is on the far east of the continent, if I want to visit there, I will have to travel through a few small kingdoms to get there.
For me, that earliest dated entry stated is around 64 years ago, if Zhang Jun is still alive, he is an old ass man by now.
After the first few dated entries, Zhang Jun did not have any entries for his journal until a year later when he stated that he was leaving the hamlet to try to make his way in the world by going to a town to look for work.
Upon his travels, Zhang Jun entered one of the larger villages close to town to rest for the night. That was where he first encountered the magic of this world.
He was amazed. A common looking man conjuring fire to light a stove, a woman innkeeper summoning the wind to blow away the fallen leaves from her inn’s entrance, a boy pulling water out of thin air to wash his little sister’s hands, it turned his understanding of this new world upsidedown.
These acts of “Sorcery” as Zhang Jun called it, were straight out of myth and legend that he thought only grandmasters of martial arts or enlightened beings could achieve, not these average looking people. Zhang Jun even noted down that he suspected that he may have stumbled into a village of hidden masters or something.
That gave me a hearty chuckle, which spooked my carriage mates.
The only thing that snapped Zhang Jun out of his wonder, was observing that besides the 0-circle magic people were using to do chores, everything was… mundane.
When he mustered up the courage to ask 1 of the people who were so casually “practicing sorcery” about the spells they were casting, he was called something to the effect of being worse than a country bumpkin for not knowing of the existence of magic and pointed Zhang Jun in the direction of an old retired mage.
From there, he got acquainted with the retired mage and was taught the basics of 0-circle spells, beyond that, the rest of the pages were filled with Zhang Jun’s illustrations of the hand gestures used for casting, the spelled out chants, and even a failed attempt of translating the chants into Chinese.
By the time I got to the last page of the journal, it was clear that Zhang Jun had struck a deal with the retired mage to learn magic because, after the notes in regards to 0-circle spells, the rest of the journal was filled out with 1st-circle spell and magic theory.
After finishing the journal, I lean back in my seat to think of what I am going to do when I graduate. I know I am expected to do as most nobles do, get married, pop out some kids for Mum, Dad, and my grandparents to spoil, and manage the territory, but I hope I would have a few years to go galavanting around.
Hopefully, I can go abroad to the Duplis Kingdom and try to track Zhang Jun down if he is still alive, he may be from a different time period but we are from the same Earth… at least I think we are, unless there is some multiple Earths shenanigans going on. We should have a lot to talk about, I can even give him spoilers of what happened around the world after he got here, should be a blast.
Thats good that you included other reincarnations in our story.