The Liberomancer [Isekai Progression LitRPG]

I had become somewhat accustomed to having all of my coworkers being lizardmen, so it was a bit surreal to see so many humans where I was working. I had not, given the societal atmosphere of the city, been dumb enough to go to one of the warehouses frequented by lizardmen.

Of course, I was immediately reminded of the fact that I was not truly one of them either when I approached. I looked quite out of place among them as they cast curious glances in my direction, though to my relief, they didn't reject me instantly.

Naturally, questions were raised about my origin and what I was doing in Arconia, and with some time, a few of them recognized me as the person who had acquired a demonic grimoire through legal means. It was my greatest claim to fame - or rather, infamy, you could say as several of them instinctively moved a few inches away from me when they realized I knew a demonic spell.

As the mood lightened up somewhat, it was my turn to ask a few questions to slake my curiosity.

I had originally planned to take my payment and leave to do something else, but it was going to take time for my mana to recover anyway, so I figured I might as well try to get to know something about the city better.

Foremost among my questions was - why? Why were all of them doing this when it did not exactly pay very well, at least relatively speaking? Not to mention it wasn't like the job had any real scope for advancement. Most of them were not just doing this once and then leaving like I was, a lot of them told me that sitting here and making clean drinking water was their only job. As in, they would come in early in the morning, make a barrel or two of clean water (most of them could only accomplish that much with their mana reserves), wait for their mana to return, and then repeat the process over and over again until it was evening. Then they would come in the next day and repeat the cycle. For the life of me I couldn't understand why anyone would want to do that.

There were a few reasons, as I found out.

First of all, a lot of them just couldn't really advance much further than learning a few Rank One spells and skills. They hadn't received much formal education and their reading and writing skills were limited. It wasn't that they were any dumber than people from Earth but they hadn't benefitted from a robust public schooling system. It also wasn't like they could turn on Reading Rainbow whenever they had free time and learn that way. It was hard to find someone to teach you how to read and write unless you were born to parents who could, and even if you could find someone their fees would not be something to sneeze at. Not to mention it was easiest to learn how to read and write when you were young, not that it was impossible to do so later, it was just a lot harder to grasp it.

As a matter of fact, most of the Liberomancers in the city were like this. With that said, even if you could only learn a select few Rank One spells and skills, things like [Create Water], [Create Flame], and [Nightvision] had very good practical uses and so nearly everyone tried to learn them. Since you could still earn a decent amount with [Create Water] and it was better than toiling in the fields somewhere, many naturally chose to do so.

Secondly, there was a group of people who had a decent aptitude when it came to reading, but who couldn't write. At least, they couldn't write well. "Aye, I can make out the letters and words fine," one of them told me. "But, I never got the hang of holding a brush." He picked one up awkwardly. "Would probably take me half a day to write a single page."

Third, there was a group of people who just weren't interested in working as scribes. "I tried it once, it was so tedious it felt like my brain was leaking out my ears!" one of them said, exasperated. This job wasn't much more exciting, but did give far more time for rest.

Fourth, some people had obligations like family to support or debts to pay and so couldn't make the initial investment to move onto something better.

It gave me a lot to think about. Not only had my coworkers all been lizardmen, but it looked like they were all a cut above the average Liberomancer.

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My respect for Hei Nan deepened, if he had been able to make his way to the top by doing a job like this. He must've had to scrimp and save every penny; especially as he was also supporting Granny Qi at the time. Granny Qi had told me he oftentimes worked fourteen hours a day for several days in a row when he had first started as a Liberomancer - I had thought that she was exaggerating though I now realized that I could take her words at face value.

I left, and had the rest of the afternoon and evening to myself to work on advancing my abilities as a Liberomancer.

Overall, creating drinking water was a decent enough part-time gig for the time being, but I was on the lookout for something better.

Next, I found some work moonlighting as a healer. Granted, I only had a single true healing spell, but I was mainly assisting the healer who actually owned the clinic.

Healing magic was the second major reason that cities could grow to their size in this world. It was perhaps the only aspect in which this world was superior to Earth. Rank Three magic could heal almost anything, and do so instantly without leaving any scars not to mention it lacked any kind of side effects. Rank Four healing magic was said to be even greater, able to bring back people who were quite literally on death's doorstep, though Rank Four Liberomancers were rare enough that there wasn't a single Rank Four healer in Chipker.

Even Rank Three healing magic could do many things that modern medicine could not do, such as regrowing limbs or eradicating tumors that might otherwise be inoperable.

Of course there was a caveat to this - you had to be able to afford the price of healing magic, which was nothing to sneeze at. The price made Rank Three healing spells out of reach of most common people, but Rank Two healing magic was usually good enough for most things. Some healers led charitable drives where they tried to reach out to those who could not afford healing magic, and in times of crisis, the city might mobilize the city's healers to deal with certain things that in modern times would be called 'public health emergencies.' The concept of public health wasn't as well developed here as in modern times, but they did comprehend things like the importance of clean drinking water and that if there was an outbreak of communicable diseases if nothing was done to treat those who were sick it would quickly spread. From a net profit and loss perspective, it was worth it in those moments to pay to treat a small group of people rather than risk the disease spreading all over the city and then causing even greater economic damage.

I had to say that the job was far more rewarding than making clean drinking water. There was a joy to seeing the look on a cured patient that couldn't be matched elsewhere, despite that though, I didn't stay at the job for long.

I ended up quitting after two weeks, as working like this still cost too much mana for my liking. I also couldn't earn as much as I'd first thought, the reason being that to do so I would've needed more spells and skills that would help with healing. Healing magic did not cost such a large amount for no reason, after all, a huge upfront investment was needed to train a powerful healer who accumulated many different spells and skills to cover all aspects of healing magic. Magic that healed injuries usually couldn't heal poisoning or disease, for example, and vice-versa. Specific spells were sometimes also needed to diagnose what was going wrong with a patient. Healing might seem very simple at first glance - just a wave of your hand and broken bones and lacerated organs would mend themselves in a blink of an eye, but there was quite a bit of experience and understanding that was needed.

Additionally, I tried my hand at selling my own grimoires as a freelancer as it was one of the things that I had quite some experience with and which I knew could potentially bring in a reasonable amount.

I had to go to the Liberomancer's Guild to get a license to sell grimoires first. Although Rank Two and Rank One grimoires didn't have to go through the guild to be bought or sold, in order to sell them you still needed a specific license. I had been working under Lauren's license up until this point when I had been a scribe in her bookstore, but that was no longer an option.

The Liberomancer's Guild occupied one of the largest and grandest buildings in the city - I think only the governor's palace was more resplendent. There wasn't a separate guild for humans and lizardmen (one of the very few examples of such in Arconia), though the inside was neatly partitioned into two areas clearly meant for the two species. It was clear based on furnishing which side was for which species - images and statue of Serragnin occupied most of the human side, while effigies of other deities were present on the lizardmen side. Regardless, both of the areas were extraordinarily resplendent. Then again, Liberomancers ruled this world. It was only natural that the administrative organization that governed them would be quite flush with cash.

It was the first time I was going there during all my time in Arconia. I hadn't had many dealings with the guild as anything that needed to go through them was handled by Lauren's shop, which was one of the great benefits of working under a bookstore. Now though, I'd have to take care of all of that on my own.

Unfortunately, I quickly ran into several hurdles when it came to trying to sell my own grimoires without relying on the backing of a bookstore.