Harwin stayed in the library till dusk. He read through almost everything Eiza had recommended, mostly skimming for important parts. He collected all sorts of information, few tid bits were:

  ● The Shadow Ruins were as old as time, or so had been reported by the pioneers of the civilization in this land. None actually knew what the ruins were or who built them, yet these structures have stood for thousands of years.

  ● Most interestingly and mysteriously, there were no mentions of any land beyond this large island, either Harwin did not read the right book or there was something much sinister at play.

  ● All of these lands were a part of the empire of "Khalezkat" with various cities and towns spread throughout the vast island, or more precisely, a subcontinent.

  ● Now coming back to the ashen lands, these are divided up in zones. The further one travels, the more dangerous the place gets, but the capital of Khalezkat lies in the middle of it.

  ● Magika training and usage was different here. A mage was trained to only learn connected types of spells — a healer will only be taught a healing spells while another might only know how to cast fire spells. This was inefficient if seen on individual level but highly utilized in groups. Most notably, advanced or even expert level mages were more common in this region.

  ● As for the ruling class, it was different from the rest of the world. The descendants of saints, who were considered pious men of great influence, ruled the lands. The saints represent a religion specific to the region, worshiping one deity: "Alomos the pure".

  ● The descendants of these saints ruled from shrines of their predecessors instead of castles or mansions. Well, the shrines themselves were built lavishly so there was hardly any need for anything else.

  ● Similar to the rulers of the rest of the world, the leaders of this land were also corrupt. Although, it was believed by some that the saints themselves were nothing more than con-men who manipulated the masses to make a fortune.

  The last bit was something Harwin had concluded himself. He read through the biography of one of the saints: "Yanis of Yugsolvia". This man was nothing more than filth, he had more than a hundred women and men in his service, but all of them were basically concubines. He regularly engaged in grasping power for himself in the name of divinity. He carefully came up with a system where people, regardless of their source of income or class, had to donate a tenth of their earning to the saint and his descendants. Such a man could hardly be pious.

  Now, the lad was not a genius who could have remembered everything he had read especially the bits about the monsters found in the ruins. For this purpose, he made sure to take notes of anything of importance.

  Harwin wanted to read a bit more about the types of spells in this part of the world, but he did not know which books to select for this purpose.

  Suddenly, he noticed a man sitting next to him wearing a cloak and appeared to be a mage as well. Harwin was intrigued by what the person was reading so he tried to peek a little, only to be immediately caught.

  "You a mage?" He asked.

  Harwin nodded.

  "Who do you serve?" The man asked.

  In this region, this question meant which saint did one serve. As much as the ancient saints were corrupted, they were still incredibe mages. "The Great Five" were the greatest of all magika practitioners — saints — in Khalzekat. Each of them represented one type of magika, said to be strong enough to cast even king level spells — only said to be, though.

  "I serve all of them." Harwin answered, this earned him a surprised reaction from the questioner.

  "Hmm, how interesting. Surely you are not an expert level mage in all the disciplines?" He asked.

  "Hardly, I am only an intermediate mage." The young mage replied.

  "Intermediate? That explains it, although, it does not hurt to take bits from all. Anyways, I am Lyam, student of 'Tiroth The Inferno'. Interested in reading this book?" The mysterious fellow asked.

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

  Tiroth was part of the great five. As suggested by his title, he was the greatest fire mage in these lands.

  "Yes, but it might be too much for a person of my standing to comprehend." Harwin replied.

  "Might be. You can check out aisle five of the second floor for something that is on your level. Magika is ever evolving, one must try to keep up with it." Lyam said.

  He seemed like a nice fellow, but Harwin was already late for today.

  "I beg your forgiveness for I have to be somewhere. I did not notice the time and it is already quite late. Although, I will be sure to heed to your advise." The young mage said while getting up

  "Not a problem. You can find me around this time almost everyday, so ask any question without hesitation." Lyam replied.

  Harwin bid his farewell and returned the books to their place. He found Eiza sitting outside of the library, reading a book by herself.

  "I am sorry to keep you waiting." He bowed slightly.

  "Oh, you are back. Not a problem, I only arrived an hour ago and I got to read my book in the meantime as well. Did you find what you were looking for?" She asked while closing her book and getting up.

  "Yes, I am grateful for the help. Although, I would have liked to stay for even more time. I have never been to a library this large in my life." The young mage was literally marveled by the sheer volume of books in the establishment.

  He used to think that in this world only magika and history related writings existed, but here he found out all kinds, from cooking to basic survival guidance. It certainly reminded him of home.

  "I get your feeling. Should we head back home now? We can come back tomorrow if you would like, although, the librarian might not allow it, but I will try my best." She claimed.

  They went back to the same shabby looking building only to find Winston cooking for the them. Stein was munching on some sort of meat, he was certainly enjoying his time in this place where he did not need to hunt for sustenance.

  During dinner, the pair remained quiet, subtly passing glances towards Harwin from time to time. They were awaiting for his response towards the offer of joining the party, officialy.

  The young mage had noticed it as well, but he remained quiet during dinner, although, his mind was anything but silent.

  After wrapping up dinner and helping in cleaning the dishes, he just laid down in his bed without talking about anything. It certainly made the other two impatient, yet they did not utter word.

  Just in the morrow, during breakfast, Harwin finally spoke his mind out. After careful consideration for the past two nights, the lad said:

  "I can not formally join your party." He said which disappointed the duo, but then he continued:

  "I can not remain with you forever, but I can join you under the condition that we travel towards the capital. I have some unsettled business there."

  "The capital? You mean 'Guilmeshan', it is not something us ordinary folks can travel to, you do know that or do you not?" Eiza was the one questioned.

  "Hold on Eiza, we can not travel in our condition, but if we were to accompany a large conglomerate of adventurers heading towards the city then we can reach there without any trouble. However, you have to pay a certain sum for such a service." Winston added.

  "One gold lion tooth for a single group, I believe." Harwin said.

  "Yes, it is the very reason that not many dare travel to the greatest city of the empire. Only the best gather in that place, adventurers like us are basically nothing more than fodder for them." Winston replied.

  "I do know that, and I do not want to leave for the capital immediately even if I had the funds in the first place. I will join your party for an expedition through the shadow ruins. We can work together to gather as much funds as we can without endangering our lives. We you can accept my condition then I shall take up your offer." Harwin demanded, his tone was similar to a merchant haggling.

  The duo looked towards eachother, they did not have anyone else to rely on at the moment. The offer was enticing as well, considering they could obtain a large amount of funds with a proper balanced party. Without any discussion with his companion, Winston assented. Eiza was usually quick to anger in such situation, but she understood that, alone, their situation was nothing short of dire.

  It was not as if they could have just left for the ashen lands just tomorrow, preparations and a well rested body was necessary as well. Harwin looked around the town to find eco-shards, not yet imbued with incantations, of course. Eco-shards were basically just plain stones, so they costed very little considering their effects as well.

  Coming to that matter, incantations were basically written in divine language. So, it was very hard to actually craft even a basic shard on your own, as a single mistake in phrasing could have rendered the whole process useless. This was where the blessing of Harwin — write in all languages — came to the rescue. Although, it also came at a cost. Normally, an eco shard could be filled with magika from the environment as well, but the young mage needed to fill it with his own magika or from another mage.

  It was not simple process as well, as any spell written on the shards required tens times more capacity to be filled than if one were to cast the spell on its own. For example, a basic spell would require magika equivalent to ten times the same spell being casted. This small restriction was certainly a great bottleneck for Harwin. None the less, with help from Eiza, he was able to craft numerous of the shards in a week.

  With everything settled, the trio finally decided to head out for their first quest of slaying as many monsters as possible. Their target was the imourte which granted a large sum even if only one is defeated. Of course, Stein was also part of the party so they certainly had enough strikers, but lacked a tank.

  Soon enough, the colour of the dirt changed once again to the stygian sand which felt accursed to even look at. The rays of the sun began to hide behind the dark clouds once more, as if taking refuge from the creatures that resided in these ruins. With this, the first hunt began.....