Shepherd Wizard (Novel) - Chapter 12
Chapter 12
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Discord
Turan was born with the bloodline of the Zahar family, also known as the Pursuer or Hunter bloodline.
Its main characteristics were excellent sense of smell and reflexes, and the ability to use tracking and stealth magic more easily than others.
Among these, the stealth ability was particularly powerful, allowing not just invisibility but complete evasion from all living beings’ perception abilities.
However, while Zahar was one of the counted powerful families, it was far from being absolute rulers.
Even in the war with the Arabion family that Keorn belonged to, though they had some advantage, they couldn’t claim victory.
So how could Turan, not even a direct descendant but born between a knight and commoner, be so special?
“Could you tell me more about my bloodline?”
“Shouldn’t you ask your parents about such things?”
“I’m an orphan.”
“Is that so?”
While a human might have added meaningless words of sympathy, the spirit just accepted it and moved on.
Turan wasn’t looking for sympathy anyway, so it didn’t matter.
“Hmm, shall I check for you then? Just agree to let me examine your body.”
“Yes.”
With consent given, the librarian immediately thrust his finger into Turan’s chest.
Being an illusion, there was naturally no pain.
After a while of changing expressions as if seeing something with closed eyes, the librarian exclaimed.
“There are some minor ones, but the main bulk is Pursuer, Hunter. This must be the Zahar family trait? The ones living in the desert?”
“Yes.”
Since the other party had no ability to leak information anywhere, Turan readily admitted the truth.
But even after discovering this, the librarian seemed to see something more and exclaimed.
“Oh? Oho… there’s another one! It’s mixed!”
“Mixed?”
“The power you possess is the result of two bloodlines combining. You know what that means? There was related content in the books I recommended.”
At those words, Turan recalled the book about magician families he had read on the second day.
There was definitely related content written there.
Bloodline combination.
Noble bloodline abilities usually pass down to children either completely or in weakened form, but rarely they become stronger.
This happens when abilities from parents with different bloodlines combine to bloom into more diverse and powerful abilities.
Like a bloodline that can handle both water and ice being born between water-controlling and ice-controlling bloodlines, or a bloodline that can heal both wounds and diseases being born between wound-healing and disease-healing bloodlines.
Families that became founding houses through such powerful combinations of multiple bloodlines were called great houses.
“Then what’s the other one?”
“That I don’t know. It’s still locked. Probably will unlock as you grow stronger.”
The librarian said such ‘locked bloodlines’ were one of the symptoms occurring in the first generation of newly combined bloodlines.
In other words, half of Turan’s power definitely came from his mother’s side.
‘Mother…’
In Turan’s memories, his mother was always gentle and elegant, but also visibly tired.
Having to work as a shepherd, a job difficult even for strong men, while raising a child alone, she couldn’t help but be tired.
No matter how he thought about it, she didn’t seem like she could have been a magician.
But thinking again, she was too well-mannered and knowledgeable for a mere commoner.
Not just around Hisaril Hill where Turan lived, but even in cities like this, those who could freely read stories were limited.
Perhaps she was a descendant of some noble family.
One whose bloodline had become so diluted she couldn’t even possess knight-level magic power.
After a long time of organizing his thoughts, Turan finally rubbed his face with both hands and said.
“Alright, I understand roughly. Thank you.”
One of Turan’s goals when starting his journey was to trace his parents’ footsteps.
To find out why his father, who was said to be a ‘good person’, didn’t live with his family, who he was and where he was, and why his mother had to flee with Turan to the western edge of the world.
And thanks to what he learned this time, Turan received even stronger motivation.
That answer would probably be in the Enril Desert, the land of the Zahar family that made up half of Turan’s bloodline.
* * *
After discovering the library spirit’s identity, Turan didn’t just immerse himself in solitary reading, but asked about the books’ contents and requested explanations.
Above all, the librarian knew even the knowledge contained in books that had been plundered from the library over thousands of years, and the ‘natural laws’ he taught directly were nothing short of treasure, since all the books were lost.
“Are there really that many invisible small substances?”
“Yes. If you make water float in the air and shape it like this, you can see for yourself.”
When he created an oddly shaped water droplet in front of his eyes as the librarian instructed, amazingly, objects appeared magnified several to dozens of times.
Through the following explanation, Turan learned that all kinds of diseases arise through such microorganisms, and that the decay of organisms is caused by these bacteria’s consumption.
That wasn’t all.
Light refraction, heat generation from friction, the principles behind how organisms get injured and heal…
Many of these were related to the principles of magic he had learned from Keorn.
For example, while before he only knew that lightning magic became easier to use when there were many clouds, now he understood why.
There were some fields that even the librarian didn’t fully understand or could only teach superficially, but even that was enough to change Turan’s perception of the world.
Moreover, this knowledge didn’t just end with knowing.
“Then, I’ll experiment with decay first.”
When Turan touched an apple he had brought from outside with his finger, the apple quickly began to rot after a short while.
As if time had been accelerated hundreds of times.
“How is it?”
“Amazing…”
While such magic wasn’t impossible before, both its effectiveness and magic consumption were terribly inefficient.
But now it was different.
Just by simply understanding the principle of decay, Turan could achieve this using far less magic power.
His magic ability improved just by changing how he perceived the world.
As if he had instantly ‘mastered’ such magic.
Turan chuckled at a sudden thought.
“The Rug family head was wrong.”
“About what?”
“He said there were no amazing ancient magic or secrets to increasing magic power in this library.”
Though the librarian didn’t actually know such knowledge, these principles were even better secrets than those.
He thought perhaps some powerful families might be monopolizing such knowledge.
Since their competitiveness would decrease if all magicians knew these things.
The librarian agreed with this thought.
“I wondered why people’s knowledge level seemed to keep declining over time, but if what you say is true, it makes sense.”
The natural laws the librarian taught Turan came from books written directly by the Frea divine tribe during the old empire’s existence.
After the empire’s fall, such books became extremely rare.
“Come to think of it, you said this library was built during the old empire era. Was your creator, who made you, a god?”
“Yes. The Lame Goddess created me. Actually, most of the old empire’s legacy was probably created by her. Even among gods, few had creative talent.”
The Lame Goddess.
She was the greatest blacksmith and architect among the Frea divine tribe, who created all sorts of powerful treasures and palaces used by the gods.
Because of this, families that created magical devices all claimed to be her descendants.
“Did you ever converse with the goddess?”
“If you’re going to ask what kind of being she was, I’ll answer in advance that I don’t know well either.”
His creator, the Lame Goddess, gave the librarian his mission to protect after creating the library and immediately disappeared.
As if too busy to delay even a moment.
When Turan sighed in disappointment, the librarian chuckled.
“Don’t be so disappointed, you fool. There are many divine legacies in this land. Perhaps among them there might be spirits who, unlike me, were close to the gods.”
After ten enjoyable days of receiving direct teachings from this new teacher while chatting…
Turan bid farewell to the librarian.
“You’re leaving?”
“Yes. The owner of this place has been openly hinting at it.”
Though any loss from Turan staying would amount to just some minor food expenses, the Rug family head seemed annoyed by having the prey he missed constantly lingering before his eyes.
He briefly regretted not leaving some room instead of outright rejection, but Turan soon dismissed such thoughts.
Going that far wouldn’t have been proper as a guest.
“I see.”
The librarian’s impassive face showed no trace of disappointment or frustration at parting with a conversation partner found after many years.
Turan could freshly feel that his words about being able to wait another thousand years weren’t empty talk.
“Then, I’ll see you again.”
“Come if you want to, don’t if you don’t.”
“There are still many books I haven’t read.”
Actually, there wasn’t much reason to visit the library anymore.
He had acquired most of the common knowledge he’d need in life, and had learned pretty much all the ‘natural laws’ the librarian knew that would help with magic.
But Turan intended to return here someday.
He wanted to tell more stories about the outside world to this old teacher who could wait for a very long time, perhaps even longer than he remembered.
* * *
After briefly greeting the Rug family head, Turan immediately left Orem City.
The clothes he wore were neither the rags from when he first arrived nor what he wore as a guest of the Baltas family.
White shirt and stiff but sturdy pants, durable leather shoes and a hooded cloak that could cover his head.
Far from looking like a noble aristocrat, wearing all new clothes made him look like a wealthy traveler.
Though the worn sheepskin backpack at his waist looked somewhat out of place.
According to the continental map obtained from the library, the Zahar family’s stronghold, the Enril Desert, was about a month or two’s journey east from Orem.
There was no need to hurry anyway.
If any clues about his parents were going to disappear, they would have disappeared during the past eighteen years, and if they remained, they wouldn’t disappear just because he arrived a bit late.
Turan repeated walking the road and hunting monsters detected by magic to gain power, just as he had before coming to Orem.
He deliberately took winding routes and avoided large cities, having experienced how troublesome it was to visit other families as a guest.
If he had done this without a map, he would have completely lost his way.
The difference from before was that he now paid some attention to hygiene even while traveling.
After living cleanly once, he wanted to maintain it somewhat, and moreover, after recognizing the existence of microorganisms, living dirty felt uncomfortable.
Since there was plenty of water in nearby streams and he had brought a bar of soap, he could maintain reasonable cleanliness, though not as much as when the maids had taken care of him.
After about nine days of walking like this…
Turan’s tracking magic once again caught traces of a monster.
Judging from hoofprints larger than a palm, it was probably a horse that had mutated into a monster.
But when he approached while hiding at a suitable distance, he saw a strange sight.
[Neigh-!]
The red-haired horse roaring in front of a large tree was, true to being a monster, about one and a half times taller than an ordinary person at shoulder height.
Behind it, a person leaning against the tree appeared unconscious, bleeding from the head with closed eyes.
At first it seemed like they had been attacked by the monster, but looking closely, it was actually protecting the fallen person.
With a saddle on its back, it was probably this man’s pet monster.
And right next to the two, a man and woman in unfamiliar dress were having an ominous conversation.
“Damn devil, how can a mere pet monster be so strong?”
“Try to find an opening somehow.”
“Easier said than done!”
They seemed to want to break through the horse’s defense and finish off the fallen man.
Moving closer, Turan was surprised to realize they weren’t human.
Dark purple skin, silver hair, vertically elongated ears…
They were dark elves, beings he had only encountered in his mother’s fairy tales and books.