NOVEL NEXT Recap - 25.1 The Journey So Far
Archmund Granavale sat atop a hill on the Granavale Estate, chewing on an apple he'd plucked from the orchard.
The air was beginning to chill, as summer gave way to autumn, and in the far distance he saw tenant farmers and hired migrating workers harvesting wheat from the golden fields.
It was hard to believe that his life had changed so much in just the last three months.
Three months ago, he'd been resting right here, indulging the last hints of weakness induced by the Crylaxan Plague, when he dreamed and remembered.
A world called Earth, with miraculous screens that interconnected their whole world. A world where it was normal to work after sunset, using drugs to maintain consciousness and not for recreation. A world where one of the highest forms of labor was sitting at a computer and making sure spreadsheets lined up with each other.
That was his last life.
In this life, there was nothing of that. There were no computers and no bullshit officework, at least not for nobles of his pedigree.
He'd been content to take his second life slowly at first. Experimenting with the basics of magic, figuring out the nature of society and what would be expected of him, and looking for ways to get rich independent of being a noble.
That had all changed when a Dungeon Storm occurred, opening a door to the underworld in his backyard.
He'd gone in with the Crown Princess of of the Empire, though she had been incognito at the time, and perhaps made a friend. Together, they'd fought through the uppermost of the three tiers of the Dungeon, but more importantly he had looted a lot of very valuable and expensive Gemstone artifacts, the crystallized intentions and weapons of the dead that could sell for massive amounts on the open market. But because each was best used by a single individual, or perhaps a series of very closely related individuals, the supply of Gemstone was always decreasing, and so it remained forever profitable.
Simply put, he was rich. Richer than he had been previously, at least. He was hazy on the numbers, but 10 or so polished Gems had composed half of the Granavale wealth; He'd brought back twice that much in the form of unpolished Gems and Gemgear. His father was managing the boring stuff, the unpolished Gems, though he'd left him enough of the Gemgear to play with on his own, to give out as he saw fit.
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But even that hadn't been the real haul of the Dungeon.
He'd gotten a Gemstone Tablet.
He called it that because it resembled a tablet computer from his past life, as opposed to its similarities to the Emerald Tablet of Hermes Trismegistus. It let him see his stats — strength, dexterity, constitution, intelligence, wisdom, charisma, and luck — along the same lines as video games from his past life. But it was also far more detailed. It gave him insights into his Achievements — Conqueror of Granavale Dungeon, for example — his Bound Items, such as his Ruby of Energy, through which his magic flowed, and his Skills, such as the Infrared Lance he could channel through the Ruby. And for some reason, it also told him who his allies and friends were.
There was something fundamental and deep in the universe that transmitted this information, and it was one of his goals to follow this path as far as it went. To test his powers, and see how that changed their entries in this System of his magic.
This world followed only some of the same rules as his old one. Nobility existed, and the laws of physics seemed to be the same, yet they could be bent through the power of Gems, which could do anything from let you shapeshift your flesh and bones to controlling magnetism itself.
He sat up from where he'd leaned against the tree and took a look at a Red Tetrahedron in his left hand and a large sword with a jagged blade in his right. Both were of Gemstone, and his magic flowed through them. Together, they'd helped him defeat a fearsome Monster in the depths of the Dungeon, a ghost that resembled his late mother. With the power of Gems, the last traces of his illness had all but faded, and he felt younger than he ever had in years.
But there was still so much further to go.
He closed his eyes as he remembered the powers of Princess Angelina Grace Marca Prima Omnio. How she threw lightning through the air, manipulate magnetism, shapeshift her hand into a massive dome, like an acolyte of Jupiter. Such power existed in this world, and one day he would attain it.
And so that gave him two goals for the next few weeks of his life.
First, to improve his magic, and become stronger.
But second, to understand his lands and his peoples better. He'd gone through life as a noble so far, ignorant of the common people and their struggles. Yet while he had the power afforded to the nobility, he also owed it to his people to take care of them, to uplift them, and also to figure out what threatened them.
As a noble, he had access to more resources. Money from the capital. Money from his family's coffers. Money from his stockpile of Gems.
And with those, once he learned the issues with his home, he could spend some of that money to make it a better place to live.
The world was full of open questions, and answering them might set him free.