Legacy of the Dark Sage

While walking, Kyran did not forget to gather medicinal herbs along the way.

Another thing he discovered while visiting other planes was that some potions he possessed might not work. Thus, he had to sample the herbs of the plane he was at to see which of his potions would work.

In cases where most of his healing and energy-replenishing pills and potions did not work, he would collect the plane’s local herbs similar to those he used and concoct new ones.

When it came to antidotes, Kyran also had them for emergencies. But so far, he did not have the chance to use them. After his body’s transformation from taking the Elixir, he had yet to find a poison that could affect him.

Kyran found a small town after a few hours.

Earlier, when he teleported to the middle of the forest, he had the impression that it was already late at night. If he had been in the Human plane, five hours of walking in the forest would have already shown some light toward the east. But nothing of the sort happened. As a matter of fact, the night seemed to grow darker. Or, to be precise, the light emitted by the stars had dimmed.

From this, Kyran surmised that the night had truly just started.

‘It seems this plane’s time is not the only thing different from most planes,’ he thought.

Most of the planes he had been to followed a 24-hour timeframe, so it was easy to determine if the plane’s time ran twice as fast as the Human plane. It was rare to find a plane that kept a 36-hour timeframe.

As for this plane, Kyran felt it might be following a 52-hour timeframe even more.

‘My body clock needs to get used to this place,’ Kyran mused with a sigh. When he visited a plane that followed a 36-hour time frame, he only stayed for a while, so he did not have to get used to it. But this time, he felt he would be staying a while. He had to get used to its time so his cover would not be discovered.

If he was to pose as a native, he had to keep appearances. It would not do if he were not used to their waking and sleeping hours.

Kyran did not enter the town at once. He observed the ‘humans’ coming in and out first.

He noticed that even though the place up ahead was considered a town at most, it was well-organized. Its barricade and the buildings he could see from the town’s gate were also made of stone.

Back in Ylfaen, town barricades were made of fine wood. Only a small city and above had the leisure to build stone barricades.

Kyran watched as the guards dutifully inspected the back of a merchant’s carriage and also his documents.

What the guards did was somewhat awe-inducing because few would be diligent in doing such things. At least, in most of the towns Kyran had been in, they were too lax to the point a fugitive could be laughing in front of them 

‘This is not the time to feel awe,’ Kyran reminded himself. ‘Find a way to enter the town.’

Realizing how absurd his thought had been, he let out a chuckle.

Was there even a need for him to enter town from its gates?

Nah.

Kyran already confirmed a defensive array did not surround the town. Though the stone walls seemed to emit a smell that kept the feral beasts at bay, nothing would alert anyone if he teleported inside.

And Kyran did just that.

He teleported, targeting the top of the highest building he could see from the outside.

Kyran landed on top of the building with a soft thud. He crouched, made his way to the building’s edge, and scanned the area below.

Kyran did not use his magic sense because he noticed a few inhabitants of the plane perked when his magic sense passed through them while he was checking the walls for a hidden array formation.

Those inhabitants had low mage levels, yet, they were sensitive to Kyran’s magic sense. This showed how different magic energy works in this place. As a matter of fact, Kyran already noticed how thin the magic energy was in the surroundings. It made him wonder how the inhabitants of this plane summon magic with too little energy around.

Kyran checked the signboards on every building he found and confirmed he was in the town’s market place.

The tallest building, where he teleported to, was the town’s city hall. To his left, there was an aisle lined up with stalls selling assorted things. On the other hand, the right aisle was lined up with stores and a pub.

Kyran eyed the only pub in town. Even in other planes, one of the good place to gather information was in a pub. But this was only possible if one understood the plane’s native tongue.

Alas, even with Kyran’s cheat-like innate ability to master things in a short span of time, learning and understanding an entirely different language was a challenge.

That had not been a problem to him when he was training in the Tower of Tribulations because the tower seemed to ‘translate’ everything for him, and the people around him. Basically, no one knew he was talking in his native language when he talked to the natives of a plane, and vice versa.

Kyran knew a few spells that would allow him to understand them, but unless he knew their native language, certain words that only they would understand would not be translated by the spell.

He did create a device that could translate another’s native language to another. But the available language in his device, were the ones he had learned. For short, he still had to learn the Somuli’s native language if he wanted to include it in his device.

Reading their letters was one thing. Kyran had learned thousands, if not a million runes back in the Tower of Tribulations. But even if he could read the Somuli’s native writing that did not mean he could speak it. He had a lot to consider, like sentence structure, pronunciation, and others.

In the end, Kyran could only stay put and listen to the beast-like inhabitants below to learn their language slowly.

For the next few hours, Kyran focused on learning the Somuli language.

When one of the four moons disappeared in the night sky, Kyran managed to learn the basics. By the time the second moon disappeared, his knowledge was already considered average. Finally, when the third moon disappeared, he could be considered a native of the Somuli plane.

Anyone who knew how many hours it took Kyran to learn the Somuli language would have cried tears of blood. The natives had to learn their language for years, yet Kyran only took a few hours to learn it.

It was truly unfair.

Kyran was not only learning the language as he listened to the conversations below. He was also able to grasp the town’s situation and gather enough intel to let him move around.

‘There is an Adventurer Guild located three towns north of here,’ Kyran recalled what he heard. ‘It is similar to the Mercenary Hall in the Human plane. If I want to find someone, that is the best place to ask for information. But the problem is, identification, signed permits, and legal documents are very important in this plane.’

He crossed his arms and sighed while recalling how the town’s guards asked the merchant who wanted to enter the town to show their documents.

‘If I want to ask for information or file a request, I have to show them my identification. They will report me to the Abbot if I can’t.’

The Abbot was the overseer of the city that the town belonged to.

Kyran learned this place was located in the west and quite a distance away from the Kingdom of Cretea. He also learned that the latter was under the Noble faction, while the city the town he was in was part of the Abbot’s faction— or, to be precise, the Eidum.

Eidums were what they called complete beings or beast-like who were ‘sanctified’ by the Somuli’s Eida— a persona they viewed as the plane’s God.

Abbot was the title that ruled the Eidum. And judging by how the beast-like natives talked about him respectfully, it was clear how upright he was.

This brought Kyran back to the fact that identification, signed permits, and legal documents were very important in this place and that he would appear an odd duck without them.

‘I should have asked Wing about how to contact her subject,’ Kyran thought, thinking he could ask Wing’s subject for help in forging an identity for him.𝑶𝑣𝓵xt.𝓒𝓞𝑚

Then again, what if Wing’s subject was a native of the Somuli plane and had his identification from the start? Would he even help Kyran procure one?

Was there even a way to get one?