He opened the book and browsed through the specific contents that interested him, but even then most of the information seemed to be useless details. But some of the things were indeed interesting that he did not know about.
A long time in the past, something unimaginably large fell from the skies, but it detonated high in the sky before it could reach the grounds. On that day the whole continent witnessed an event that almost destroyed the world itself.
After that thing detonated in midair, all over the continent, countless black pillars fell from the skies. The pillars pierced the ground in various places of the continent, and they were so tall that they almost seemed to reach the skies. Those black pillars were not too wide, but they were so tall that it is said that they may even reach above the clouds.
Many years later, beings called 'Seekers' appeared. What are Seekers?
Beings who can grow stronger through specific ways. The path to becoming stronger was named the Seeker's Path.
Unfortunately, there were not more details in the book. Then he moved onto a few books related to politics. As usual, most of the information was useless.
Suddenly, he heard someone knocking at his door. It was Clara, she brought some snacks for him. She entered and put the tray on the table. She said to him in a teasing tone.
"Why is the young master reading a white book?"
Axel looked at her confusingly, he asked her what she meant.
Clara sighed and shook her head, "I was joking young master, you probably don't know but to us those books seem white and without any writings."
Axel exclaimed, "You're joking, right?"
Clara shook her head, "No, young master. All the books in the library are magically inscribed. Only the patriarch and his heir can read those books freely. Even the librarian can read only the covers, but anyone else can't even do that. Not that many servants know to read in the first place. Only the butler has access to some books, that's all."
Axel asked in bewilderment, "How can that be? And what's the reason behind so much secrecy?"
Clara hesitated for a moment and said, "Any information related to Seeker's is very strictly monitored. This is also the reason that there are rarely any Seekers from a commoner's background. If anyone from the commoner suddenly becomes too powerful, all the political hierarchy could shift."
She then leaned closer to him and whispered, "The royal family also would not let any noble become too strong that could overthrow their rule."
Axel's expression changed. In the original story the main character, the royal prince did face countless hardships but he obviously did not face the collective suppression of the royal family. He could already see countless headaches coming just because of that.
Clara soon left, and he resumed his reading.
After reading some crucial parts of 2 or 3 books related to politics. He reviewed the information he had.
The Suncrest kingdom had 3 main factions within,
One, the Royals faction.
Two, the Nobles faction.
Three, the Merchant faction.
All three forces form a kind of power balance that does not let any single faction become too strong or allow it to do as it wishes. This also allows all three forces to strive and continue to become stronger to not get left behind by other forces. The royal family holds total governance power. The Noble faction has private armies and territorial influence. The merchants hold economic and trade power.
There was some information about the academy as well. To be precise, it's called the
'Unified Human Academy' the human lands have 3 great kingdoms and other small forces in it. Those three forces together created the 'Unified Human Academy' that nurtures the best talents of the great kingdoms together.
Which creates a competitive atmosphere, it also shows which great kingdom has the best talents for the next generations. It's a friendly way of competition for the 3 main forces of the humans.
Axel knew that the Humans were by far the weakest race in the entire continent. Its so damn weak that even a small fraction of any forces might just wipe it out, but the powers in the continent simply acts as if the human's doesn't even exists. In a way, it makes sense since humans are in the region of the continent with the lowest amount of energy.
If you live in the lands filled with greater energy, the more chances you have for becoming a powerful Seeker. At least that's what he remembered. He skimmed through a few more books, but there wasn't anything useful for him.
He was too tired and went to sleep. The next morning the usual routine followed: he trained in the morning, and he performed basic attack stances in the afternoon. Browsed some books in the evening then went to sleep. Even after 2 months had passed, he did not receive any kind of positive or negative feedback about his training from the Butler or his father, which kind of worried him from time to time.
He asked William many times about it, but the man only gave him vague answers that did not say anything good or bad about him. His body had changed significantly in two months. He had good muscles on his body by then. Chiseled abs could also be seen on his stomach.
Coupled with his blue hair and blue eyes, it made him look extremely charming. Even he sometimes felt baffled by how good looking he was seeing himself in the mirror. Some maids would peek at him from time to time on the training grounds in the morning since he had to train while keeping his upper body unclothed.
But Axel knew himself too well, he could enjoy himself with any beautiful maid, but he would not be able to stop himself from continuing to indulge himself in pleasure. The beauty of the maids only made the situation worse. Every single maid was beautiful enough to be a model in his old world.
Even his personal maid was so beautiful he would stare at her with obvious desire without realizing it. But with a firm will, he kept his mind focused on what he was supposed to do.
He couldn't let himself be distracted.
Axel was assigned another instructor, his name was Lex, who would teach him about politics and merchant trading and various responsibilities. Train him to be the next heir of the Obsidian Trade. The instructor was assigned to him because Axel was continuously reading books every day despite being dead tired.
Axel was looking for certain information in the books, unfortunately, he did not find it.
But now that he had an instructor who would teach him all economy-related topics, he could get reports about the surrounding areas and maybe the thing he was looking for.
There were 2 main components he needed to get his hands on. One was a bloodline source of a demon. Second is a specific demonic plant, which somehow helps one integrate with a demon bloodline and hides the existence of demon blood.
It was called the "Demonic integration plant." Unfortunately, he couldn't get his hands on a bloodline source at the moment, he could only get the plant. Axel only remembered that the plant was near a small rural village in the Dusker dukedom. Thankfully, The Obsidian Trade also operated in the Dusker dukedoms area and it is the area he was living in.
When two month had passed since when his training started, his exercises in the morning became even harsher and in the afternoon real combat training replaced the simple attack stances with the sword.
The first day fighting against William went as expected. He got beaten like a dog for almost 3 hours until he fainted. The butler came and fed him a potion then dropped him on his room. He woke up next day in a panic, he was almost terrified.
He got up and again went to the training, but there was some lingering fear for William in him now. But William didn't care and proceeded as usual. In the afternoon, when it was time to fight William again, he was visibly scared.
William taunted, "Oh, don't be scared, boy. This is nothing much. We're only going to do more and more every day."
After that, Axel fought with all his might against William, but again, he was beaten black and blue. After taking some rest in the evening, instructor Lex came. Today, he taught Axel about the etiquette and culture of the noble society.
But it was only today that Axel finally heard some news about the traces of the plant he was looking for; to be precise, there were some rumors. About a certain rural village in the outer areas of the Dusker Dukedom.
The Dusker Dukedom was right next to Royal capital and it is valued greatly for its agricultural importance. So, the merchants in the area are often tasked to solve agricultural problems since the authorities are always short on manpower when it comes to small tasks and the outer area always suffer from usual situations like this.
Axel was immediately ecstatic when he read the full report. Though the Obsidian Trade wasn't tasked to solve the problem specifically, they could try and solve the problem and they might receive a reward. He obviously didn't care about the reward, he only wanted to get his hands on the demonic plant.