IMPERIUM INSECTUM

“And that the last one, Whew love. You're making this old lady work  hard today.”

“A heh. Sorry…..”

We had spent the last 20 minutes running around the library, gathering everything From books, scrolls, newspaper articles and copies of ancient scripts. All in all, we had around 30 different pieces of literature to look at.  

“Thank you. Really.” Apollinaris said. The old lady had been very useful. She knew this place like the back of her hand. I wouldn’t even know where to start without her.

“No problem, love. It’s nice to see someone so young, so interested in learning.” She said with a chuckle.

She placed one more book on the trolley she gave us before stepping away. “If you need somewhere to read all this. There is a private room back there.” She said, pointing to a wooden door poking out from behind a pile of books. “It’s a little bit out of the way, so people won't disturb you.” She turned away and started walking.

“If you need me, I’ll be at the front desk. See ya around, love.”

“thank you!” Apollinaris yelled. We waited for a few seconds before heading towards the private room.

“She was nice, wasn’t she.” Appolinaris chimed.

“She was tolerable. Don’t get to attached. I've told you this.”

“I know…. But…”

“No buts! Don’t get to attached. Now Come on, We have a lot of reading to do.”

And reading we did, I Learned several things about this world. First, what Cindi told me was true, the world is made up of 4 continents. They don’t have any specific names like on Earth. They just go by northern, southern, eastern, and western. The one I'm currently in is the southern continent. This continent is split into 2 empires. The holy Bisrin kingdom and the Odatis Empire. The one we are currently in. Separating the two empires in half is the Consecrated Forrest. The history of the nations isn't anything to write home about. The Bisrin empire was founded several hundred years ago by a priest called Bisrin; go figure. Whilst the Odatis empire was formally a bunch of warring independent states which were all conquered under Emperor Oscar Odatis The 1st. The history books here paint him as a firm but fair leader, but my money on him being a tyrant. Either way, it doesn’t affect my plans. These history books are going to become irrelevant very soon, anyway.

Now the current political climate of these nations is interesting. It turns out these nations have been at war with each other intermittently over the last hundreds of years, and only recently, in the last 50 or so years, was a peace deal made between the two, with the queen of the spirits being the mediator. I guess they didn’t like their home being used as a battleground. I mean, these battles were brutal. Nearly half the forest was burned, chopped, or simply destroyed in some of the battles that took place. Anyway, as a sign of newly founded trust, both nations and the queen agreed to allow the building of a road that connected both nations and to appease the spirits, both agreed to exchange large pieces of land for reforestation purposes. Ever since then, the relationship between the two nations has been growing to the point they now consider themselves allies helping each during times of great drought or after a disaster like an earthquake. Most of this wasn’t even imaginable a few decades ago. Most of it wouldn’t be possible without the efforts of the current Emperor Oscar Wilhelm Odartis The 5^th. According to some newspaper articles, he is very popular amongst his people due to ending mandatory military conscription and current economic policies that have grown the economy severalfold. These policies have also turned the empire into a significant trading and merchant hub for all the other continents. According to one article, he is one of the most well-liked kings the empire has seen due to his firm but fair approach to leading and treating his people. I doubt any of it is genuine. Either way, all this does is confirm that I can't attack this town first.

“Good news appolinaris. We’ll be dealing with the city of spirits first.”

“Ehhhh, why?” Her face twisted with confusion. “The city has a way larger army and is several times bigger than this border town. Surely it would be easier to deal with this first.”

“You're not thinking it through properly. Whilst yes, It would be easier to deal with this town first. It wouldn’t take long for the rest of the empire to know something was up if I attacked Doonvatel. There isn't a guarantee I could kill everyone in this town. Some will escape, and they will tell the next town and then the next, and soon we will have the military knocking on my door. And, even if I were to somehow kill everyone, someone would notice something is up when no word comes from this town for over a month. It doesn't help that this town is on the border, so there are many visitors. From my reading and the stories, you told me, the best bet is to take the city of spirits first. The pure spirits are isolationists. They don’t engage with the wider world outside their city much. This means that if anything happens to them, no one would know or even care, allowing me to keep the element of surprise and use the people there to grow my hive even more so I can fight these empires. Especially seeing how it would most likely be a two-front war.”

I took a deep breath and slumped into my chair. My head twisted towards Apollinairs, who was gawking at me.

“What?”

“Nothing. Just seeing you talk military tactics is…..”

“is What?”

“Nice”

I sat up in my chair. “Thank you. But this is all speculation, and much of it is easier said than done. One big issue is that we don’t even know where the city is?”

“Sorry, I can't help. When I escaped, the smugglers were very secretive. I was blindfolded for most of the journey; once I was out, they took off my blindfold and left me.”

“Do you think you could recognize the place they dumped you.”

“I don’t know, probably?”

“that’s something at least we'll have to investigate that area. Either way, we’ve come full circle. My hive must grow for any of this to be possible.”

I picked up another book. “A Master Class in War” By acclaimed General Hague. Sadly the book wasn’t as interesting as it sounded, but it was very useful. I'll need to figure out a way to handle logistics as well. Keeping all of my children fed will be a hassle. Like that famous general said. “An army marches on its stomach” I Put down the book and picked up another. This time it was a bestiary. I had read through a few pages, and whoo boy, that alpha mana beast was not the worst thing I could have stumbled into that night. For example, one thing here is a Rock bird. A bird capable of wielding earth magic to throw small pebbles at insane speeds. It can also harden its skin to be tougher than most armours. Good job. I told my children to build defences around the hive.

I continued reading for a few more hours. Honestly, the history of this world really is fascin-

“Diiiiivaaaa.”

“What”

“Please, can we do something else? I’m BOOOOOORED.”

I let out a deep sigh. “Honestly, kids these days…”

I placed the book on the trolley and stood up.

 

Wow, Holy shit. That’s… that’s a stupidly strong title. I picked up the bestiary, flicked to a random page, and quickly read over a random page.

“Here” I passed the book over to Apollinaris.

“What? Why? Do you want me to read this? I told you im-”

“No! I'm just testing something. Just check if what I say is correct to what is on that page.”

“Okay?”

“Good. Now Page 108, the Basilisk. The Basilisk is one of the rarest creatures in the consecrated forest, only choosing to come out at night. The Basilisk is a long serpentine creature measuring up to 100 meters long. The Basilisk is one of the most dangerous creatures in the consecrated forest Due to its ability to unleash large purple puffs of poison clouds and its incredible physical strength making it able to go straight threw any obstacle in its way. Additionally, the Basilisk can use earth mana to harden its skin, making it nearly unkillable. The animal is weak to wind magic, and as such, it is recommended to bring a wind mage with you if you are hunting this creature.”

“that’s correct. Word for word, actually. You got all of that with one look-through?”

“Yep. New Title I got. It's called scholar, which allows me to learn from books a lot quicker. I feel like I could recall that any time I wanted.”

“WooooW, you do know every student in the world would murder to be you right now.”

“I know. You could have it if-“

“I know, I know. I'm still thinking, okay…..”

I sighed as I placed the book on the trolley.

“come on. Let's get this show on the road.” I walked out of the room with Apollinaris, following suit with the trolley. It didn’t take us long to find the old lady who lent us the books. She was nice of us to let us keep them for a week.

“Now what,” Apollinaris said as we walked out of the library back out into the street. The sun was still quite high.

“Well. Seeing how we have the time. Let's go find a magical store. I wanna start learning some magic if I can.”

Apollinaris nodded, and we started looking for a magical store. Luckily, there wasn’t too far away from the library called The Mighty Magister Meghan’s Mystical Mementoes.

“What a stupid name…”

“Oh, come, it's not that bad. It’s a fun name.”

I raised an eyebrow at her before entering the shop.

“GOOD MORN. TO ALL YOU MAGICALLY INCLINED LADIES AND GENTLEMEN. IT IS I, MAGISTER MEGHAN, AT YOUR SERVICE.”

A small lady came around from the corner. She wore a black cloak with a navy blue and gold wizard hat. She held a grey, misty orb in her right hand, and the most stand-out thing was that she was sitting on a cloud.

“Yes, I can see both of you are here in the search of knowledge.”

“Wait! How do you know” Apollinaris yelled.

"Well, you see it's because I'm a powerful-"

“Don’t fall for it. She probably overheard us or something.”I interrupted. I have to deal with my system being a sleazy salesman I'm not gonna deal with it here. 

“Aha. So you need to be convinced! Behold the POWER OF I MAGI-“

“Okay, enough!” the lady looked at me, shocked.

“Look, I know you're trying to wow us into buying whatever crap your peddling, but I don’t have the time. Can you just point us to the magical books?”

The lady looked between me and Apollinaris for a few seconds before letting out a defeated sigh.

“At the back. 3^rd isle on the left.”

Without a further word, she flew behind the counter on her cloud.

“Diva…come on..”

“Oh, don’t look at me like that. We would've been here forever if I let THAT continue uninterrupted.”

She gave me another look.

“Fine, I'm sorry. To make it up to ya. You can buy whatever you want in the shop, on me.”

That managed to put a smile on her face. As she left to go see the magician. I rolled my eyes and walked over to the books section. This section was truly vast, filled with all kinds of books. Ranging from how to use magic in you everyday life to full guides on combat magic.

“There is a lot here.”

“Sure is”

I snapped around to see Apollinaris.

“Finished wasting your time?”

“Yes, and besides, I figured you would need help.”

“Well, you're not wrong about that. Where the hell do I start?”

“Well, I suppose we start with these.”

She placed several sheets of paper on my hand.

“What the hell is this?”

“Litmus paper. You pour your mana into it, and in return, your paper will react in a certain way, depending on your nature. Look watch”

She took a sheet of paper and held it between to fingers. Nothing happened for a while until the paper started to sprout small tree trunks and leaves.

“see. Just like that. It even picks up my nature mana.”

“ahhh, Looks simple enough.”

I took a sheet of paper and closed my eyes. Soon I started cycling my mana around my body. Trying my best to get a feel for it, and then, slowly and surely, I started pouring my mana into the paper. I continued doing this pouring more and more mana into the paper.

“ehh, Diva. Are you even pouring mana into it?”

“What I am!”

I  opened my eyes and saw the paper still in my hands, no changes in sight.

“What? I don’t… Apollinaris, do you know what going on.”

“Not a clue. According to the instructions, that should work. I guess we'll just have to ask an expert.” She said with her face twisting into a twisted smile.

I groaned. “I'm not gonna enjoy this, am I”.

She just shrugged as she dragged me towards the counter.

I hate this.