Above the mage

Chapter 43 Earth Veins

During this period, whenever Gaode went out to sell medicine, he would take the opportunity to wander around Hogan City.

Firstly, it's about getting familiar with Hogan City, and secondly, it's about relaxing and experiencing the "other world" atmosphere.

Secondly, it helps us understand local customs, habits, and even prices, thus deepening our understanding of the world.

It was this action that led him to discover that there had been a significant increase in people in the city who were clearly not local residents of Hogan.

This alerted Gaode.

He inexplicably felt a sense of impending storm.

In addition, there was an unexpected gain that even Gaode itself did not anticipate.

In this world, books are a rare and expensive commodity.

Only in larger cities are there libraries that specialize in selling books.

In small towns, you can forget about it; only nobles, scholars, and wealthy merchants would have private collections of books.

This is due to the monopoly of knowledge by the powerful classes in this world.

After learning about this situation, Gao Deben had given up on the idea of ​​buying any books in Hogan City.

Unexpectedly, while strolling around, he discovered a small studio selling books in a working-class area.

The owner of the studio is named Derich, who was once a monk at the Bremen Monastery.

Most monasteries have their own libraries for monks to study doctrine.

They also reproduce and sell the books in the collections of scholars and wealthy patrons who need them.

While at the monastery, Derich was responsible for copying and producing books.

Later, due to high maintenance costs and a depletion of funds, the monastery could no longer continue operating and had to close down.

The monks were then dismissed and sent home.

When the monastery closed, the monks divided up the monastery's belongings, taking away everything they could carry.

Derich was already quite old and couldn't snag any good stuff, so he could only pack up some books from the monastery's collection and return to Hogan, the city where he was born.

He is old and his physical strength is not up to par, so he can't do any physical work. Even though he can read, his age means that not many people are willing to hire him.

But people always need to eat.

After some discussion, the old monks rented a small house in the commoners' area and opened a small studio.

He made and copied books in his studio and sold them directly to customers, struggling to make ends meet in his old age.

The books this old monk sold weren't particularly valuable; they were mainly religious texts.

This includes religious liturgical guides, church doctrine manuals, church history books, and even church literature including hymns.

In addition, there are a few heroic epics reflecting heroes and historical events, as well as a few scattered chronicles, travelogues, and books on geography and humanities.

There wasn't a single knowledge-based book or practical manual available.

Of course, even with Gaode Maps, I still couldn't afford it.

Here, any book that involves knowledge can be priced exorbitantly.

Those traditionally considered "miscellaneous books" would be much cheaper.

However, this price is only relative.

Although the variety and quantity of books are limited, they are precisely what Gaode needs.

He bought all four travelogues and books on geography and culture, spending two gold coins in the process.

This price is simply astonishing—in my previous life, it wasn't uncommon to get a pound of books for 50 yuan by "bargaining".

Gaode may have felt the pinch, but they still obediently paid, adhering to the principle of "when in Rome, do as the Romans do."

Upon returning to the herb garden with the four books he had acquired at great expense, Gao De couldn't wait to pick up a copy of "The Bremen Gazetteer" and begin to learn about this world.

Speaking of which, we must also thank Master Seda.

If he hadn't been taken back to the herb garden and taken in as an apprentice, how would Gao De, who was once a beggar, have learned to read?

After flipping through a few pages, Gao De's face showed an expression of extreme surprise.

"This is completely different from what I expected!"

The entire Bremen region, located in the western part of the Principality of Sien, is far more vast than Gaudé had imagined.

Because the overall landscape of this world was too similar to medieval Europe, and because Hogan City was indeed not very large, its productivity was extremely low in his view.

This led Gao De to subconsciously regard the Principality of Sien as a small country of tens of thousands, or at most hundreds of thousands of square kilometers.

The fact that Bremen, the largest city most known to the people of Hogan, is actually less than 200 kilometers away from Hogan further supports his conjecture.

The result was that the Bremen region alone was actually larger than the Duchy of Sien had imagined.

The entire Bremen region stretches over 400 kilometers from east to west and 800 kilometers from north to south, covering a total area of ​​over 300,000 square kilometers!

This is already the size of Guangdong and Fujian combined.

In addition, there are nine major rivers in the Bremen region.

Seven prominent mountain ranges.

The mountains, forests, marshes, and lakes are scattered throughout the area.

This is only a western region of the Principality of Sien.

One can only imagine how large the Duchy of Sien must be.

"With the current level of technology in this world, is it possible to manage such a vast territory? Won't it be too much for them to handle?"

The question instinctively popped into Gaode's head, and he muttered, "This doesn't make sense!"

The next moment, he smiled sheepishly, realizing that he had subconsciously been thinking about the problem using fixed ideas again.

Although this world has a low level of technology, comparable to medieval Europe, it possesses extraordinary powers such as magic.

The reason why extraordinary power is called extraordinary is precisely because it is unscientific, isn't it?

Shaking his head, Gaode turned the page and continued reading.

Despite its vast size, the Bremen region is actually quite desolate.

Centered on Bremen, a development area of ​​nearly 10,000 square kilometers is formed by surrounding eight smaller cities, including Hogan.

The remaining 300,000 square kilometers are undeveloped wilderness, teeming with wild beasts and dangerous leyline creatures.

Further down the line, Gaode finally learned a little bit of information about the creatures living on the earth's veins.

Although he often heard the term "ley line creatures" and frequently mentioned them, Gao De didn't actually know much about them.

He was overjoyed to find information about creatures living on ley lines.

"After the planes converged, ley lines began to appear frequently, their numbers increasing daily, and ley line creatures emerged. However, no new ley lines had appeared in the Bremen region for two hundred years. King Jeros XII once praised Bremen as a blessed land."

The text only mentions the creatures associated with the ley lines briefly before moving on to other geographical descriptions.

However, this short sentence already contains a lot of information.

"Dimensional convergence—does this mean there's more than one dimension in this world? Or is the dimension here different from the dimension I'm familiar with?"

The phrase "the earth veins are frequently generated, and earth vein creatures emerge" is easy to understand. Earth vein creatures come from the earth veins, and the earth veins are constantly being generated, increasing in number.

The number of creatures living in the earth veins should be similar.

Indeed, a world where extraordinary powers exist is undoubtedly incredibly complex and strange, containing countless secrets.

The statement that "no new ley lines have appeared in the Bremen region for a century" did indeed reassure Gaode a little.

Gao De had already witnessed the terrifying nature of the creatures living in the ley lines once in the herb garden.

It goes without saying that the appearance of ley lines is a natural disaster for humanity.

Once a natural disaster occurs, there are too many uncontrollable factors. How could a weak first-class mage apprentice like him not be affected?

Gao De doesn't want his peaceful life to be disrupted.

He is still young and lacks strength, but he has unlimited potential.

I'll just quietly "develop" and wait until I'm much stronger before making any moves.

(End of this chapter)