"In my opinion, they are just a bunch of savages. What's the point of using a cave when you can have a house!"
Vic joined the conversation, expressing his complaints.
"Those "savages" belong to one of the three most powerful nations in our continent. It wouldn't be wise to underestimate them."
Hazel said to him.
"*hic* is there a ranking for the nations?"
Noah asked, feigning some hiccups.
"Yes, you can say that our continent is ruled by three large nations. Our Utra nation is ranked second or third and it occupies the southern side of the landmass, that's why the capital is situated to the north, there is only sea over the southern borders. On the opposite side of the continent, there is the Papral nation which is ranked second or third as well. Their strength matches that of our country but they are too far away from us so there has never been any war."
'So, Utra nation on the south and Papral nation on the north.'
"What about the central area? *hic*."
Noah had almost forgotten that he was pretending to be drunk and hiccupped only when his question was voiced.
That time, it was Ada that gave the answer.
"At the center of the continent, there is the Shandal Empire, the strongest nation on our landmass. They are a military nation built on strength, where even a farmer can have access to rank 3 body nourishing techniques. If it wasn't for the joint resistance of the Utra and Papral nation, they would have already conquered the whole continent."
"What *hic* about the other *hic* countries?"
"They are either underlings of these three nations or weak allies. The Shandal Empire usually uses the people of the countries that it conquers as slaves, it has an economy heavily reliant on war. Oh, there are some uninhabited zones where the magical beasts have wiped out the humans, but they are scarcer than the inhabited ones."
Their conversation continued for the whole night before they decided to go back to their respective habitations.
Noah pretended to stagger a bit as he returned to his place only to resume his normal expression when he entered his room.
'This is quite troublesome.'
He thought, dispersing the "Breath" accumulated by his last usage of the Blood drain spell in the air.
His Yin body was complete, he could not annex external energy anymore, he could only wait for his dantian to slowly propel the body toward the peak of the lower tier.
As for the alcohol in his blood, the basic regenerative abilities of his new body were enough to dispel it as soon as Noah drank it.
The main quality of his body-nourishing method was regeneration after all, how could booze affect him in the long term?
"Is that good wine that I smell?"
Ivor woke up due to the smell that lingered around Noah.
"What do you know of this continent except for the three big nations?"
Noah ignored him and drew a simple figure on the floor of the room with the tip of his saber.
It was just a big oval with three marks on it: two at its vertexes and one at its center.
"I'm pretty sure that our continent is not that linear."
"Come on, old man. Tell me something useful."
"Mh, let's see."
Ivor took out his knife and drew a second figure around the oval.
"This should approximately be the actual coastline of our continent, I remember it from when I studied in my mansion."
Noah fixed that image in his head and nodded.
"It is quite big, the three big nations occupy only half of its territory. The other half is divided between weaker countries, wastelands, and big danger zones. What do you want to know precisely?"
Ivor asked, lifting his head to look at his student and drinking from one of his jars.
"Anything that you can remember regarding geography and political situations of each area."
Noah didn't raise his head and continued to inspect the map.
'Going into big danger zones would surely be the best solution. The problem is that the magical beasts in there managed to kill all the humans for a reason, I won't be surprised if rank 5 creatures occupied it.'
Due to his studies of magical beasts, Noah vaguely knew about the layout of the continent.
Part of that topic was about the location of such beasts, it wasn't strange that he had learnt about some specific environments.
Yet, he really didn't have enough strength to establish himself there, the danger was too high.
As for the other two big nations, they were to be avoided too.
He wouldn't be surprised if both of them tried to exploit him like the Royals were doing.
'I need somewhere messy, where there isn't a fixed government and its hard to gather information.'
Ivor began to describe the fragmented information that he could remember.
What he said mostly concerned peculiar places where rare magical beasts were discovered and he marked them on the simple map.
Little by little, the number of marks increased.
However, that was just circumstantial knowledge in Noah's mind, he still couldn't find a safe place where to develop.
Then, Ivor finally said something that interested him.
"All around the three big nations, there are destroyed countries. The Nerere country is one of them but its destruction was caused by something that I'm unaware of. Especially in the territories between the Papral nation and the Shandal Empire, there are a lot of areas where cultivators can build their own little tribes and strive for survival. As you can imagine though, the strength of those tribes is not that high otherwise they would be annexed in the nations near them."
Noah fell deep in thought after those words.
'Territories without any fixed ruler, that seem perfect. However, how far are those? How do I reach them? How can I cross the Shandal Empire unnoticed?'
Noah shook his head, punching the map on the floor to erase any trace of it.
'I don't even know my actual battle prowess yet. I should think of a way to test it.'