Chapter 41 Expanding horizons
Realisation suddenly dawned on Nero, and a few things suddenly clicked for him. Seemingly random facts now appeared to be vaguely connected, even if he had not known before, and all of them were being influenced by the ruins.
Of course, Nero had seen and connected many things to the ruins already. The heavy military presence, the terrorist attacks, the arrival of a Sage, the sudden appearance of a foreign exchange student, all of these he had been able to connect to the ruins. Although his theory about Vanessa was still unconfirmed, Nero preferred to err on the side of caution in such a matter.
But the extra attention he was getting from Footer, who his teacher so fondly called Harvey, and this chatterbox of a teacher suddenly made sense. The heavy emphasis on not training on his own made sense. The MI token for the meal made sense, as long as all of it was connected to the ruins.
For these two teachers of his to make preparations in advance, they may have heard of some rumours, and it seemed to be related to the ruins. Was the attendance going to take place there? But why? Shouldn't that be closed off as a highly secured area?
Taking a step back, if he assumed that every odd thing happening around him was related to the ruins, then it added new context to the situation.
His father had been behaving oddly, and it had been over a week since they last talked. Did that have something to do with the ruins?
Speaking of which, Silas' father's sudden return as well as interest in him may have something to do with the upcoming recruitment tests. Was he being paranoid? His speculation was still within the realm of possibility. It's not like he was attributing Mrs. Aedile's sudden obsession with pudding to the ruins.
"You know something?" Nero asked, turning his attention towards his chatty teacher, and recalled everything he knew about her.
Apparently, from what Gabriel had told him, she was a highly celebrated card artisan and teacher, as well as former military. Like his mother, she had been discharged due to injuries. She was called Ms. Zim, and she did not have much presence in school, unlike the notorious Footer. From what he had gathered during their classes, she liked to focus all her energy and time on studying and research. No wonder she was a successful artisan.
"I think, instead of these random things, you should focus more towards your syllabus, yes? After all, the effects of your card won't last much longer."
Sensing that the chatty Ms. Zim was unwilling to discuss the matter further, he put the matter aside and focused on class once more. Knowing or not knowing made no difference, because Nero always put his full effort in his efforts to grow.
"Now resuming our previous discussion, since all spell models exist in nature already, how do we translate a spell model into a spell recipe? That's…"
The class did not continue much longer, for Ms. Zim truly had to go attend to another commitment, but it was one of the most fruitful that Nero had taken. Just the knowledge that anything could become an ingredient in a card widened his horizons greatly. Although he had already accepted it, he found it difficult to begin imagining the ramifications.
Mainly, he kept wondering about humans. If humans were used as ingredients, would the result be their innate ability?
If so, then that just added a whole new purpose to cremating people after they die, rather than burying them as was tradition in some other countries. At least this new information did not increase the danger of being targeted by a malicious group any more than already existed. After all, if anyone had a particularly valuable innate ability, it would be worth more to kidnap them and have them continuously produce innate cards rather than killing them to use for materials.
At least, that's what Nero hoped. There was just too much about this world he didn't know. That severe lack of answers was something he only noticed when he started asking questions. For example, based on his current knowledge, farming for food was extremely dangerous.
If that was the case, how did humans, who had nothing more than basic innate abilities and no means of using spells, survive before the advent of the Eldrim cards? Everything that existed today, which supported their way of life, from the technology to their tools, depended on the use of cards, or abilities from professions.
But even without the tools available today, humans had somehow survived. Not only that, but there was a surprising amount of diversity amongst them, and ancient records showed that prior to the Valeriya empire, the humans actually had drastically diverse cultures and even various languages, rather than the common tongue spoken in all 6 countries today, also known as Valen.
For example, compared to Kolari's, who mostly had very fair skin, blue, green or grey eyes and blonde or brown hair, folk from Nova had a darker skin tone and black hair and mostly brown eyes.
Vanessa, whose tan had reduced considerably in just the last two weeks, revealed her natural skin colour as a beautiful caramel.
Although Nero had never met them, he'd heard that the citizens of almost each country seemed to have a significant difference in appearance, which was one of the primary reasons for the way the countries had broken up after the fall of the empire. He thought that was a stupid reason, and that the truth was likely something else.
In short, there was too much he didn't know about the world, and the more he learned, the more ignorant he felt.
There was still some time till he left with Silas for his home, so Nero took the chance to get some training done with his spear. At this hour, none of the gyms were empty so he had to share, but that caused no problems.
After a particularly long session, fueled by the endless amounts of energy his lunch provided him, Nero decided to go take a shower before leaving. It would not be appropriate if he showed up to someone's house smelling like sweat.
After freshening up, Nero left, making sure to bring his card case and wallet. Although he planned on testing his luck to see if he could get a better card than Enhanced learning out of Mr. Rodney, Silas' father, he was not going to depend on it. He sent a message to his father as he left his apartment. He's messaged his father every day since Nero noticed his absence, but had not received a response yet. If this pattern continued for a few more days, he'd begin to worry.
But his old man was an Archanist, so Nero was pretty confident in his survival ability.
When he reached the front of school, he found Silas and Vanessa waiting for him in front of a dazzling, black truck that stunned Nero where he stood.
"Is that a G-Truck?" he could help but blurt out. But he already knew the answer. This truck, while being of civilian issue, was about as close as one could come to army standard in terms of durability and power. That was not to mention its extremely luxurious interior. Even if his mother had not spent all her amazing income on her health, his family would not have been able to afford such a car.
Instead of responding, Silas only smiled shyly, while Vanessa gave him a look filled with scorn. But Nero did not care. How could she understand the beauty of this amazing ride?
"If everyone is here, shall we depart?" asked the chauffeur, who was standing beside Silas and Vanessa.
His cold, irritated tone immediately alerted Nero. That was not how he expected a chauffeur to talk to the son of his boss.