The Liberomancer [Isekai Progression LitRPG]

Much like the meeting with the lizardmen, after this meeting I approached Jiah Pei, another Master Liberomancer in the room. There was one other such person, but they had already left. I would have to reach out to them some other day. I had a limited amount of time, and I needed allies. The other Master Liberomancers were the best investments when it came to the reward to effort ratio that I could achieve through socializing. That, and there should be something akin to professional courtesy in this world even among Master Liberomancers.

As it was, Master Jiah Pei and I already had a connection in the past, even if it was rather brief. He had made a large impression on me, and it looked like the same was true likewise. At least, I hoped it was.

"Ah, I didn't think we would meet again like this in such a circumstance," Master Jiah Pei said. "I thought it would be at this year's tournament."

"Yeah," I said, although I had no real desire to attend this year's tournament even if it had been held.

"You know, I knew there was something remarkable about you when we faced off," he said. "I didn't think you'd reach this Rank so quickly though - it's as if I barely blinked, and here you are!"

"Ah, I guess I was lucky."

"Please, join me for dinner. I have a few things I wish to talk to you about," he said.

"I uh, would - hold on, I just need to speak to my carriage driver, he was supposed to take me back but…"

"...no issue, my family has its own as well, let him know I'll send you back!" Jiah Pei said.

I explained this to the driver, who said he would rather wait no matter how long it took. It seemed he took his job very seriously and I felt slightly bad for making him wait outside as I rode to Jiah Pei's house and went inside.

Jiah Pei's house was naturally smaller than the governor's palace, but still quite fancy - of note he had the pelts of several animals hung up in various places, so he was clearly a fan of hunting.

"So, what did you want to talk about?" I asked as I sat down.

"Oh, this isn't about business," Jiah Pei replied. "I just wanted to get to know you better. Who knows when the next chance might come up? I was thinking of inviting you for dinner for some time now, but the right opportunity never came up. I was busy with something or the other - I'm sure you can understand."

I nodded - he was probably extremely busy given the size of the small business empire he had built up.

I was a bit surprised by one thing though - after dealing with political bickering for the last few hours I found it hard to believe that there was no ulterior motive here from Jiah Pei. I had agreed to tag along because there really wasn't anything else I was doing currently, and I did make it a point to try to at least build some connection with the other Master Liberomancers like I had tried to do back with the lizardmen. Reputation can take you nearly everywhere - but to build it I had to interact with people, especially because I would not be leaving the city as soon as I had thought.

"After all," he continued. "It's not every day that I get to meet someone who can beat me in a round. It's not every day I meet someone who legally got their hands on a demonic grimoire. And it's not everyday I meet someone who became a Master Liberomancer seemingly overnight - tell me, was the Rank Three grimoire that you made the first Rank Three grimoire you memorized?"

I nodded.

"And afterwards, you made yet another Rank Three grimoire yourself?"

"Yes."

"Incredible - it's almost unbelievable. They might be right about you then," he said.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

"Uh, regarding what? And who's 'they?'"

"The guild when they said that you might have a real shot at making a new Rank Four grimoire," he continued. "You know, everything you see here- was started by my father. I built on the foundation he had given me - it was easy with this starting advantage, but I wanted to go beyond. To create a Rank Four grimoire - I tried twice but failed both times." He sighed. "Years of effort down the drain - I've given up on that dream since then. But I thought that maybe one of my children or grandchildren might be able to - but no, sadly none of them had anything close to approaching my talent. Forget about surpassing it. You though," he said, pointing a finger at me. "You're still very young and you made it to Rank Three with your own grimoire. I think you have a good shot at reaching Rank Four."

Rank Four…

I had no firsthand experience as to how hard it was to get there, but if someone like Jiah Pei had failed - someone who was called 'the old monster' even by lizardmen for his skill in making grimoires in Liberomancer Duels, no wonder the prize for making one was so large.

Rank Four grimoires were about the size of a modern textbook, or so I'd heard. If I could get my phone to work, I had a few texts in there which I thought would fit the bill. Either a textbook, or something like Hamlet might work - but I hadn't memorized anything of that length from Earth. If I did have access to a modern library from Earth though, this would've all been so much simpler- even better than having my phone working again.

I was sure that I could probably make a full repertoire of thirty Rank Five grimoires and even some Rank Six ones (if they existed outside of legend) if I could've just had all the books that were in my local library with me right now. Unfortunately, I had been transmigrated without any of the books in that library.

It had taken a year for me to get to Rank Three, and if things went smoothly, I could perhaps fill out all of my Rank Three slots in another four or five years. This length of time could be shortened to around two years if I could get my phone to work, but I had failed with every attempt to do so up till now. Failing that, there were some television shows which I vividly remembered, as well as movies that had sequels or were trilogies, or stories from some video games, that I thought could be translated into long enough scripts to make a Rank Four grimoire.

Still, even if I succeeded, that didn't mean that it would be something useful - I could end up making a Rank Four grimoire that just gave a stat boost instead of a powerful spell or ability. That, or it might give me a spell or ability that required me to have a set of Rank Three or Rank Two grimoires first which were not available within Chipker or otherwise very hard to obtain. I would still get the prize, but it would not be as spectacular as for creating something like the grimoire that gave out [Inferno].

Something clicked in my mind then - maybe the reason I was getting all this respect from everyone wasn't just because I was a Master Liberomancer. While that title definitely played a role, I felt there was more to it than that.

Sure, if I wasn't at least Rank Three most of these people wouldn't even look twice at me - but a Rank Four grimoire had been mentioned to me pretty often by this point, so it was likely also on people's minds.

Perhaps all of this respect was not because of what I was right now - a Master Liberomancer, but what I might become. Someone who would make a Rank Four grimoire and become an earl. I was a rising star, and maybe people wanted to latch onto that.

"Maybe, but that would still take a few years," I said, feeling like I had repeated this line several times before.

"Of course, absolutely, the mightiest of oaks was just an acorn once," Jiah Pei said. "You're a foreigner, so I don't know if you knew this - but there is no Rank Four Liberomancer who's human in all of Chipker. We have been hoping one would appear - you know, in truth, a lot of us are terrified of the lizardmen." He said the last bit in a slightly hushed tone. "I mean, Rank Four - there is a big gap between that and Rank Three. If we had someone who was Rank Four on our side anywhere though, we would feel a lot more relaxed."

Was that why they had fought so hard to get the death penalty for that lizardman who had killed a human? They knew that they did not have the upper hand, and so they felt like they had to compensate for it by being aggressive? It seemed counter intuitive somewhat, but one reason I had been told as to why smaller dogs were more aggressive than bigger ones was because the smaller one were more easily threatened. If you felt you were powerless- you might be more likely to be aggressive, because you simply did not want to show any moment of weakness.

They had agreed to drop their insistence on the death penalty during the earlier meeting however, something I was sure Zeke would be happy to hear about tomorrow.

"You could indeed be that person," Jiah Pei said. "If you've gotten this far - even if it takes you twenty years to do so, it would still be a great achievement. It's too bad that I didn't meet you earlier - otherwise I would've offered to marry my granddaughter off to you."

"Ah I-" I wasn't sure how to respond as I felt some of the wine I was sipping go down the wrong pipe, causing me to cough to clear it up.

"Well, she's married already, so things can't be helped there," Jiah Pei said. "More wine?"