It was already midnight, but sleep didn't come to Lorian. He was still feeling a bit weak, but fortunately, he received no more injuries in the battle, so a little rest would be sufficient for recovery.

Lorian lit up the lamp and searched for some book to read. Finally, he found one in the small hill of books, that were messily scattered on the table. The book cover was rusty and unadorned, while the papers were thick and coarse.

Unknowingly, he was absorbed in reading.

''The magic has two main characteristics: Polarity and alignment.''

This book was like a hidden gem, containing inspiring and enlightening basic information about magic, narrated in a simple and easy to understand way. Lorian was fascinated as he read on.

The world was based on laws. The people who were talented could gather 'world essence,' a type of energy that existed in the world to use it as a medium to control the minimal fraction of world's laws according to their understanding and insight.

Lorian's anti-poison body accommodated ice into his body so he developed resistance and affinity towards the ice element. This allowed him to start on the path of magic. He could now absorb ice element from meditation and turn it into world essence. As a result, the synergy of frostbite and magic gave birth to ice, which was much more potent.

Besides, ice element was of negative polarity, which became more active (stronger) at night.

The elements of water, earth, fire, and wind were called basic elements because they were everywhere. Hence, their laws were easier to grasp at the basic level. As for more complicated laws, the training in them was harder, but correspondingly, their spells were more unique.

Pyromancers, necromancers, priests, arcanists...though their path differed, the stages they had to go through in world essence cultivation was the same. Hence, the mage was their collective name.

The world was harsher on people, who used dark magic. They were labeled as heretics and condemned by the holy church. It couldn't be helped. The dark magic was of the evil alignment. Dark spells were stronger and harder to defend against. Of course, it was harder to advance in the corrupted path.

Like magic, the warrior was collective name of people, who developed their physique. Archers, guardians, assassins...their battle style and skills didn't matter. They were still called warriors. People's training methods and innate genes would determine slight variations in physique.

Lorian found more time to dive into books, so he became more knowledgeable about things he was previously ignorant about. For example, he didn't know, that after ascending to 1-star warrior rank, normal exercises wouldn't help one advance any longer. No matter how many push-ups he did, his strength wouldn't grow. Of course, exercises could help his body stay in peak condition, but that was about it...

To advance, one had to practice a set of skills. Such skills were long since acquired and monopolized by higher-ups. Many were unwilling to become slaves of noble families and chose to sacrifice their future, forever stagnating at a 1-star level. The people at the top had many harsh ways to manipulate and control pitiful commoners, who desired stronger power...this is why people were reluctant, but this wasn't the case for everyone. Ambitions and greed were human nature, after all.

Fortunately, Lorian didn't need to worry about allegiance. With the help of the system, he could become stronger simply by killing.

''I've stagnated for a long while now. Fortunately, I found the suitable monster and its location, but the way I am now, I have no chance at beating it. I need to recover first. I'll need high-grade holy water for that, which requires a lot of money. Because of that, auction can't go wrong.''

The person, who submitted the item could also bid for the same item to increase the price, but if something went wrong and the last bidder became the submitter of said item and didn't have the money, he would have to publically announce that he was the seller and the item would return to the previous bidder. The repercussions of such mishap were tripled commision fee, which was quite harsh. To avoid such embarrassment, the information about the bidders couldn't be lacking. Lorian knew city lord's capital, the value of the item in his eyes and other small details, that needed to be noted. He also required accurate judgment in case variations occurred.

Lorian continued reading and committing the important details in mind. He would sometimes experiment after reading a certain paragraph. His experiments were docile in nature as he focused on precision and control of magic, rather than explosiveness.

To be blunt, his magic was already quite formidable if he used holy water as a catalyst, so he needed to focus on reducing the usage of world essence by sheer control.

Just as he turned over the new page, his mind trembled as information was stuffed in his mind.

Looking down, he read

''6 paths of ascension''

Then came a system notification.

World ascension knowledge gained.

The attributes have been finalized.

Title gained: Maven of truth

+0.1 vision

Lorian's mind trembled as he processed the information gained. He closed his eyes, then opened them and started appraising his 6 attributes. The system didn't give a stingy answer this time.

''So that's how it was. I needed to find about them on my own. Well, I think I found about it much earlier than expected.''

Spirit - Power of soul. Affects willpower (Mental resistance) and talent. Leads to the path of Celestials. Attunement - Affinity with world essence, laws and elements. The attuned host has a higher chance of gaining enlightenment and can deal higher elemental damage. The purity of world essence is more compact and vibrant for those with high attunement. Leads to the path of Transcendents. Vision - Increases perception, insight, and foresight. Leads to the path of Sages. Faith - Belief has become mysteriously powerful law under the influence of gods. Those who believe can even perform miracles throughout life. Leads to the path of Saints. Bloodline - The ancestral heritage of high entities left in their descendants. Leads to the path of Ancestors. Physique - Increases overall physical capabilities. Easily the hardest attribute to raise. Leads to the path of Asura.

These attributes weren't as simple as Lorian had imagined. According to information stuffed in his head, these attributes remain 1.0 for the majority of the people, regardless of how powerful they become. It was a rarity to find someone, who raised even one attribute beyond 2.0. Obviously, some people were born with superior attributes. The world wasn't fair, after all.

What did it mean to have 2.0 physique for example? It meant that you were two times physically more powerful than someone on the same level as you, regardless of which stage you were at. This was simply an overwhelming advantage.

The way to raise the attributes wasn't set, but Lorian guessed one way was through consuming natural worldly treasures, which could thoroughly reconstruct and change the person. However, obviously, despite high demand, there would be the scarce stock of such items. After all, who in the right mind would sell something like that?

Another way to increase attributes would be some special circumstances, where one broke through one's limits as it happened to Lorian. The third, the most obvious way was gaining various titles. There was no 4th way Lorian knew of.

''Status''

Lorian opened his status window to see whether other attributes appeared or not...they did, but they were set at 1.0

Lorian Ellins

Warrior (Level 0) (10000/10000)

Mage (Level 0) (1450/10000)

General Exp: 321 Battle Exp: 887

Titles: Returnee (+ 1 affinity with negative alignment, + 1 all resistance value, + 1 killing intent)

Maven of truth (+0.1 vision)

Innate trait: Anti-poison body (Level 2)

Skills: Basic sword mastery (Level 3) (1600/20000)

Basic dagger mastery (Level 1) (1100/10000)

Frostbite (Level 2)(0/400)

Force step (Level 1)(430/1000)

Spells: Ice thread: Cocoon (1st incomplete circle)

Ice block: Repel (1st incomplete circle)

Attributes:

Spirit: 1.2

Attunement: 1.1

Vision: 1.1

Faith: 1.0

Bloodline: 1.0

Physique: 1.0

There were some changes in his status. The anti-poison body reached level 2, but it seemed to have reached the bottleneck. Constant use of frostbite no longer seemed to be affecting it. The two magic spells were created by himself through trial and error, so they were a bit unstable and inefficient in usage. However, they weren't basic spells, but 1st circle incomplete ones. Hence, the world essence consumption for them was enormous for current him. He could only use the two spells once in battle before he ran out of world essence.

...

*Yawn

After all that, Lorian's eyelids started feeling heavy. He fell asleep in the pile of books.