Reborn as God: The strongest system

Esdras talked with David and he jumped at the opportunity. Of course, Esdras didn't tell him that they were escorting the crown prince.

He did as Ron ordered and told him that they were transporting important items to the capital, which was not a lie, technically.

After all, the prince was taking an important royal relic to the capital.

Interestingly enough they were not told anything else about the item, in normal circumstances, it would not have attracted their attention.

But the fact that the higher-ups seemed to dismiss it, and emphasize it simultaneously gave him the impression that it was just as important as the crown prince, or perhaps even more.

In any case, having observed that much, he decided to curb his curiosity. Too many questions could get on the nerves of the higher-ups.

Celine was insistent on coming out with him, no matter how he tried to dissuade her. They were going to move tomorrow night and in the morning of the next day, the others would go back to the tower.

So Celine still had more than a day to rest, and she didn't seem tired at all. Refusing her request was very difficult for him right now. Besides, it was true that he wanted to keep her by his side.

In any case, both Celine and David were well-qualified level 4 apprentices.

Esdras had a hard time acting normally in front of Celine but he was going to get used to it. There was also another thing that bugged him about Celine.

He remembered that she had a question mark in her stats, so he wanted to see what it was now. He was still unable to do it with his current [Third eye] but he didn't mind raising it further.

He did not want any surprises later on.

However unexpectedly he saw the dreaded Error message.

[Error, insufficient points.]

Using one skill point wasn't enough anymore? Damn it. He used two and finally it went through. He now had 5 skill points left.

Everything was the same so he skipped most of the information to the last part of the character sheet.

[Name: Celine]

Rank: 1

Class: Apprentice mage Lv.4

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Trait:

1) Shadow-touched

2) Hand of the Queen

The Pharaoh might have been right, but Celine may have been touched by the shadow fey a long time ago. That was fine, no matter what they planned he was going to put an end to it.

At night, Esdras reviewed the spell stones given to him by senior Ron. There were two Fire elemental cantrips and two earth elemental cantrips.

The fire elemental cantrips were; Flare and Flame thrower. Flare created a burst of blinding light that could blind and stun opponents and Flame thrower was a continuous release of fire in a straight line.

While Esdras could do something similar, he was purely relying on the three skills. This may look no different from a regular spell at first glance but it was different.

For one thing, the mana consumption was reduced by at least half and he assumed that using them wouldn't take any preparation time and just a simple thought would trigger the spell.

After he started meditating to learn the first cantrip he found himself looking at a 3-D spell module, there were a few flickering nodes of light that were connected together.

This was not the entire spell; there were also instructions about the amount of mana that should pass through each node. As well as the spiritual pressure that should be applied when triggering the spell.

Esdras got to work and just like he engraved the elemental sigils, in his sea of consciousness he did the same to the spell module. After this spell module was completely ready. It was absorbed by the fire elemental sigil.

Now, if he wanted to cast that spell all he had to do was channel the mana through the nodes in the right order, and with the right amount of mana.

all of this process from engraving the spell module to it, being absorbed successfully by the sigil should take one or two weeks. But for him, it only took ten minutes.

The Earth elemental cantrips were Stone fist and Pebble bullet. Naturally, they followed the same process and he was pretty much done with learning the cantrips.

Next, he started practicing.

However during the training he became sure of several issues he noticed in the cantrips, they were inefficient.

So, he started modifying the modules. The problems were too many, the mana consumption for an apprentice-level spell should be even lower than this! And the power and effective range were all wrong too.

Did they make a mistake? Why were the cantrips so backward? Didn't they update them? Shouldn't the mages spend some time to at least fix these glaring issues?

Feeling frustrated he started his modifications. The stone fist now covered his entire arm with much thicker and harder stones, also he tightened some of the gaps that could be exploited by skilled knights.

The other spells all saw similar levels of improvement. All with reduced mana cost. The regular apprentice should finally be able to actually use these cantrips in combat.

Esdras didn't like to leave living time bombs on his person, and he had one in his sea of consciousness right now.

But he already figured out a way to neutralize the threat, and even turn it into a great advantage. There was no denying that the Pharaoh had a great amount of knowledge and experience.

Unfortunately, it was also extremely evil and even psychotic. Although he had calmed down considerably since losing all of his power. he did not seem particularly disheartened.

If he could reach a certain understanding with him, then he could gain many things, especially if he agreed to teach him some of his otherworldly magic.

As for the trust issues between them, he found a way to solve all of it in one fell swoop. The infernal contract. With this, as a guarantee, they could make the best of their relationship.

Obviously, there would be some things that he had to contribute in exchange for the knowledge and help that the pharaoh would provide. An easy guess would probably be to find him a buddy or something along those lines.

But that was something that Esdras didn't mind doing as long as he did not go overboard.

The night passed and morning came bearing bad news.

The orc army of Belkazak breached the Crawling pass and was now advancing to the capital in full force leaving behind scattered forces in Menheir and Garnhelm.

Esdras thought that the mission to escort the prince to the capital would now be in jeopardy, but contrary to his expectations, Senior Ron did not withdraw the mission.

However, this did not make any sense. Esdras thought that the prince being recalled was a good sign of the war. Logically this meant that the king was certain of victory, and didn't fear for his heir's life anymore.

But he was wrong, the prince was summoned, even though things were getting worse. He could not help but feel that there was something wrong with the situation.

He was missing a key piece of information that prevented him from seeing the full picture.

In the past, this was something that didn't concern him very much so he didn't pay it so much attention, however, right now it was a different situation.

Esdras was not going to use Divination for every little thing. Not only did it cost too much. There was also another aspect about it, which was unexpected outcomes. This trait must be used only in dire circumstances.

Even the prince himself did not seem to understand what was going on exactly, but the prince seemed to have grasped something that he did not.

When night fell, señor, Ron sent them off with two carriages. The prince also picked two companions. One of them was Calvin, his friend who seemed to have gotten a terrible scar over his left eye.

Honestly, Esdras had too much on his plate and he had forgotten to check up on him something that he felt slightly guilty for.

Daylen brought two other apprentices with him, a boy called Rasta and a girl called Gwen. They were both level three apprentices.

However, all of them were wearing the coats of the mercenary company, Feathered sword.

They traveled for two days and they walked well out of the forest, this was the first place that he knew of since transmigrating to this world.

They brought as much supplies as they could from the only town in the area called Westen and then completely diverged out of the well-trodden trails, and roads out into no man's land.

They wanted to buy much more, but because of the war, no one had anything, if not for them, paying well above the market price, they would not have been able to get anything.

The prince seemed especially concerned with the situation of the villages and citizens of the kingdom. This was at least a good indication of his character.

Esdras was optimistic that the situation of the kingdom would improve after he became king. If not for anything else he at least had the ability to sympathize with the commoners who were pretty much out of luck in the war.

There was no shortage of people who died of starvation in the village.

Five days later, the peace and quiet of the journey was interrupted, rudely when they were ambushed by bandits.