In order to get his money from Erza, Zeth had to go to the tax office and report his ie, paying them a portion of the coin he received the moment he got it. It was an annoying and cumbersome system, and one of the reasons many people preferred to work under the guild, where they didn’t have to deal with it. If you didn’t report your ie, it was considered a particrly punishable crime; and the government had magical means of tracking the currency they controlled, so there wasn’t much way around it.
Rosalie decided to apany Zeth and Erza as they went through the legal process, simply watching silently as she did. Once they were done, and Zeth had his share of the money in his pocket, Erza departed, but Rosalie stayed.
“What is the point of all this?” she asked as they stood outside the tax office building.
Zeth frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Why not just send tax collectors once per year? Or base tax collection off of property ownership, rather than taking it out of all wages collected? Does this not punish the poor and needy, who need every scrap of coin they can scrounge together?”
“...Is this not how everywhere else in the empire does things?”
“No,” she said. “Your town is quite unique. It is despicable, what the guild has done to it. Corruption seems to run all the way through to the top of your leadership.”
“Yeah,” he said, “I’m beginning to believe that’s the case more and more myself,tely. Do, uh…Do you think that might be connected? Y’know, with the Blood Mage stuff?”
“I can’t think of many reasons your ownw enforcement would not have caught them already.”“Well, to be fair, they aren’t very robust. Apparently they’ve been downsizing, or something—they don’t protect too far out into the forest anymore.”
“And who do you think might be making the policy decisions to downsize your town’sw enforcement?” she asked.
“What, you think the mayor might be the Blood Mage?”
“I’m saying the Blood Mage is controlling the mayor.”
Zeth bit the inside of his mouth. The more he thought about it, the more his instinct told him it was Garon, maybe being helped by some other people in the guild who also had the ss.
“Anyway,” she said, “I must be going. Thank you for forgiving my mistake in using you. I understand if you wish to never work with us again.”
“Actually…” Zeth felt the weight of the coins in his pocket. Now that he knew why Erza had originally decided to hire him, and that issue had more or less been resolved, he almost felt <em>more</em>fortable. He knew what Erza suspected him of, and why he suspected it. Zeth could work around it now. And, ultimately, no matter Erza’s personality, he was clearly knowledgeable about magic. And Zeth knew how his personal ignorance of the topic could harm him. “I wouldn’t be opposed to continuing work.”
She blinked. “Really?”
“Erza’s paying me a lot of money.”
“I…see,” she eventually said, pursing her lips. “I will do my best to ensure work goes smoothly for you, then. I hope you don’t see this as putting your life in danger in order to earn a living.”
And with that, she left, heading back in the direction of the attacked portion of town—the same direction in which many guards were still rushing.
Zeth, however, had a different destination in mind. With his pockets finally full of coin, he was heading to the library.
After a long time browsing, Zeth eventually settled on four separate books to purchase. Two of them were, of course, for Sophie, each with their own area of focus on magic. The first was a detailed history book, going over all the developments that had urred in recorded history—the discoveries, wars, shifts in poprw, and everything in between. And the second was more explicitly a tutorial for aspiring magic users—something she desperately needed if she was serious about that path.
Zeth had skimmed through it in case he learned something important, but it was mostly full of information he either already knew or didn’t need. Things like what mana was on a basic level,mon Universal Skills people took to get used to mana control before getting their sses, and overviews of all the most popr magic-based sses.
The other two books he got, though, were for his use. These two were explicitly about illegal sses, full of every bit of information that was allowed by the empire to be spread. It was a bit redundant to get two books about the same subject, but he didn’t want to miss a single scrap of info when the situation was life-or-death. Besides, they did ultimately have a few differences.
One of them—<em>Defense Against Forbidden Practices</em>—was more traditionally a book about how tobat attackers who possessed illegal sses—a bit like that one he’d given to Sophie, <em>A Traveler’s Guide to Magic and Combat.</em> Only, this one was entirely centered around all illegal sses, rather than simply containing info on the few that were considered to be magical in nature. This one also focused less on specifically the physical fighting aspects of the sses. It seemed to talk about anything you’d need to know if you were worried about them. Ways to spot whether a person has a given ss, where people who had that ss were most likely to be in the world,mon ways they applied their abilities—that sort of thing. It certainly seemed useful not only when it came to Blood Mages, but also generally when fighting bandits, who often utilized plenty of different forbidden powers.
Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any urrences.
The second book…Well, it was a little suspicious. From its sensationalized title—<em>Unlocking the Unmentionables: Secrets of Illegal sses Revealed!</em>—to its gaudy cover showing off poorly-drawn depictions of the hallmarks of various illegal sses, with undead crawling around, assassins lurking in the shadows, and even an extremely inurate drawing of a ritual circle sitting in the corner, the book was clearly unprofessional. But when Zeth skipped to the chapter on Blood Mages to see what kind of nonsense it contained, he recognized several statements it made to be true—and it gave away far more information than any other book he’d read had.
It spoke explicitly about how the Fire Ritual traps worked, gave details about demon summonings and how demons would ask for human lives in exchange for favors, and even mentioned the Level-up ritual and how its requirements expanded as the ss progressed in power. Zeth wouldn’t have thought it’d be legal to give all of this information away—and it probably wouldn’t have been for any normal book—but this one seemed to skirt those regtions through its medium.
Instead of posing as a textbook, it was written as a simple collection of interviews conducted with various ‘concerned eyewitnesses’ who told the stories of what they’d seen. So, it didn’t teach the reader how to negotiate with a demon, it instead simply contained the ount of someone’s story where they snuck into a Blood Mage’sir and watched them speak with a demon. If a person believed these stories and drew their own conclusions from them, the book took no responsibility for it, Zeth imagined the argument was.
Of course, if it really <em>was</em> just a bunch of random stories, the information within would be of dubious reliability. Any one of those eyewitnesses could’ve misremembered details of what they’d seen, misinterpreted moments during a high-stress scenario, or simply made the whole thing up for attention. But Zeth suspected he wouldn’t have to worry about that. The details in the stories of Blood Mages—the details he could verify, at least—were all perfectly correct; and the way the stories were written, it was almost like they were designed to give away information on those details.
Zeth suspected that all of these ‘eyewitnesses’ werepletely fake, and this book was really written as a way to get information about these sses to curious readers while posing as a simple collection of stories. Which meant that potentially, it was a ridiculously valuable font of information.
He didn’t just want to learn how to fight against these sses. That was important, of course, but there was more to his search for information. And it wasn’t just about learning a bit more about what woulde next in his own ss’s progression, either. Now that Zeth was close to being able to afford Otherworldly Excellence, he’d be able to go back to Leveling up. And with the extensive collection of blood sitting in his storage room, waiting to be used, he suspected he’d be gaining power pretty fast.
And if he was gaining power quickly, that meant he’d soon hit his first true milestone. A ss Evolution.
Simr to Skill Evolutions, ss Evolutions happened when a ss reached its max Level of twenty-five. Depending on the Exclusive Skills for that ss that an individual purchased, different Evolution options would present themselves to the user. That user could choose to Evolve the moment they hit Level twenty-five so as to not waste any time sitting at their max, unable to progress, or if they weren’t satisfied with their Evolution options, they could wait, spending some additional time at the capstone to purchase additional Skills in hopes of unlocking new options before selecting one.
Obviously, that would be an important choice whenever it was presented to Zeth. But it wasn’t the one he was trying to prepare himself for.
Zeth looked at the top few lines of his ss information.
<strong>[ss Slot 1: Blood Magus - Level 6</strong>
<strong>ss Slot 2: (Locked)]</strong>
Normally, a person could only have a single ss, with all further ss Slots locked. But after a ss Evolved, it would be moved up into the next ss Slot to reflect its more powerful form. That movement would leave its old ss Slot empty, ready to be filled with whatever a person wanted.
Once Blood Magus Evolved into its next form, it’d take ss Slot two, and Zeth could get another ss to fill the newly empty ss Slot one. That one would be unable to Evolve, since ss Slot two would be taken up now, but if he Evolved Blood Magus once more, moving it up to Slot three, then the Slot one ss would be able to Evolve and move up to two, and one would be emptied once again, ready for a third ss.
Theoretically, this could repeat on forever, though it was rare that a person was able to even get a second ss in the first ce, much less a third and beyond. Level-ups were simply too difficult toe by for most sses—especially forbat-based sses, which would require a person to put themself in more and more dangerous situations to continue growing stronger. Eventually, those risks would catch up to a person, and their Leveling would be put to an end for good. And things like crafting-based sses would require you to continue pouring money into materials to Level them up.
Zeth, however, was more optimistic about his prospects. He had a pretty incredible initial ss that put him to an extreme advantage when it came to pushing his Level to further and further heights. The only question was, what would his next ss—or perhaps even sses—be?
This question had been poking at him from the back of his mind for the past few days at this point, and he’de up with a few strong contenders. Another magic ss would obviously be solid—he already had a strong Shaping Stat, so why not get another ss that would use it? Alternatively, he could go with a more melee-focused ss like Swordsman, which would help him in situations where he needed to get close to his enemies in order to hit them with a Hellfire Ritual. Hells, he could even take a crafting-focused ss like cksmith or Leatherworker to try and craft powerful magical gear for himself—gods knew Erza had shown the power inherent to the strategy of relying on magic items for one’s strength.
But in the end, Zeth figured that, whatever his next ss might end up being, there was a good chance he’d find it in one of these books. Another illegal ss. Those things were ouwed in part because of how powerful and difficult they were for the empire to control. Normally, the upsides were offset by the incredible downside of being hunted down byw enforcement for owning the ss, but ultimately, Zeth was already dealing with such a downside. So then, why not at least see what they had to offer?
So, with a pile of books stacked up in his arms, Zeth set off back home. He had some gifts to give to his sister, and some research to do.
And after that, it was time to get back to hisir and start pushing his Level upward.