The next two days made Louis the happiest he had been a long time – even happier as when he got Civet and Emeti as apprentices. Amelia and Hefra had yet to curb their bad habits of attuning their mana before absorbing it, but they had travelled a long ways in the path of fixing it. At the very least, they could more finely control just how much of each element they absorbed, so on their third day of training, they could actually meditate as a single circuit rather than two smaller ones, connected with Louis as a center. The two saw much greater progress in the use of Divine Magic – forcing the two to sit down and actually use the other elemental Divine Magics opened their eyes to magic beyond simply creating a mass of an element. Louis created sculptures of dragons, tigers, spiders and more with every element – failing some, especially with wind and earth, which was more than a little embarrassing – but was enough to catch their attention and motivate them.

On his own part, the circuit meditations helped him gather vast amounts of mana that Louis would otherwise find difficult to collect. And by the end of the third day, he had opened up the basic meridian loop within his body, which connected to his mana core, as well as the meridian loop that passed through his legs. The finer meridians within his arms and legs were still unopened, but Louis already reaped most of the benefits.

This left Louis with a mana reserve incomparably larger than the one he had just a few days ago. It actually took him most of the third night meditating in order to refill it. But with dawn, came the day of Uta, the day of light. Perhaps irrelevant to other two religions in Riveta, Harmonics and Naturalists, but the Faith of Six appointed the day of Uta as the one day for its festivities as well as its day to congregate to pay respects.

And Louis wanted no part in that. Part of it came from the fact that his last interaction with the religion as a whole involved a political power struggle that exiled him from Efrye, almost killing him. Louis briefly considered revenge during his meditation that night, but he currently lacked his normal gear and his former strength. Plus, he valued his time with Hefra and Amelia far more. But Louis was not quite ready yet to go to the Faith of Six temple with them.

So as dawn came, Louis created a small sphere of earth, about an inch in diameter, and imbued it with his mana. Then Louis cloned it and attached the two with a bit of Divination magic, so he could find his way home after he explored the city. After all, Louis only remembered how to get home from the academy, a place he wasn’t intending on going back to.

The sun had yet to rise and the two girls were still sleeping, so Louis tiptoed out of the room, down the stairs and out the house as if he were going to use the outhouse and left.

҉҉҉

Once Louis was onto the street on the other side, he cloaked himself with darkness with ‘En Gabrielle’ just enough so his figure disappeared into the darkness. Then he said ‘Cal Aether’. A decent chunk of his mana flowed out of his body, disappearing into the wind. A few moments later, a part of the mana returned to him bringing him a faint outline of the district around him. So Louis began running east to the main part of the town, something he paid little heed his past life but would no longer.

In a short twenty minutes, Louis reached the central district, completely winded. A good reminder for physical endurance, Louis thought, crashing next to a tree, wheezing. The cloak of darkness had dissipated, mostly because the sun had risen. People were still moving about, mostly servants, though the occasional adventurer, in their fancy-yet-somehow-still-magically-insufficient armor.

“Vyt: Cal Uta x Cal Aether x En Meng.” Louis said, feeling a good chunk of his mana reserve deplete. Each Divine Magic did the same thing, only with a different sense. Uta created a visual map, Aether created an auditory map, while Meng created a spatial map. Together, they created a comprehensive map to see things that may otherwise invisible. Rather useless in a civilian setting but a good time as any to test how much of his skills remained after the rebirth.

Not as much as he hoped. The spell failed immediately - taking almost half of his remaining mana in the process. His circles were gone and his mind palace unformed. Not the worst result, given how poorly he formed his establishment originally. Until Louis rebuilt them, however, combination Divine Magic would at least need more practice.

Instead, Louis used the three spells sequentially. A few blocks appeared within his mind. The main road cut through the district still looked rather empty, with no storefronts there at all. There were a still a few stalls and encampments that served the few costumers that were coming by. The next few roads over had a mishmash of stores, stalls and even empty spots. Most of those stores seemed to be preparing to be open, though there seemed to be one or two packed full with customers.

Interesting, but ultimately an empty provocation by the stalls and stores. Without a single silver coin on his person, all Louis could do was walk by the stalls and hope their scents could fill his stomach. That was fine. The hunger within his stomach, while annoying, was bearable, if barely. What interested Louis more was the library – they must have some type of book about meridian opening – or perhaps some tutor and the like.

Louis only knew that those services were located somewhere within the central, northern, or eastern districts. The western and southern districts were unable to afford them at all. But besides that general guidance, Louis basically wandered about, using ‘Cal Uta’ or ‘En Meng’ to find the desired buildings. While he would like to practice more combination Divine Magics, his mana reserves disagreed.

҉҉҉

Finding the northern district was easy enough. As the buildings grew closer to the northern district, more and more houses and stores transitioned from being built from soil, to rock, then brick and wood. Buildings began to vary in shape and size, from large dome buildings for various temples and holy grounds; mage schools that had multiple buildings and floors; even open parks where land was premium.

Even on the day of Uta, with almost one-third of the city attending religious services, many families and servants roamed the streets. Louis soon felt like the odd man out among them. All the servants wore wool; commoners wore cotton; adventurers wore fancy armor and robes; nobles wore silk and velvet. Louis wore wool like the servants, but many people stared at him, something Louis only noticed about after an hour of wandering but he could never quite ignore since. So he disappeared into the park to refill his mana reserves and avoid the growing mass of people.

And so, Louis spent the next half a day sitting on a tree branch while casting ‘En Uta’ with an increasingly larger search radius to find some semblance of a library. Some libraries were part of some of the mage schools, but Louis had a very small chance of accessing those without becoming a servant. Perhaps, he could enter Amelia’s and Hefra’s school with such an identity, but Riveta had to have some sort of public library. It was simply too big to not have one.

Before Louis ultimately gave up, he did find the public, located at the border between the northern and eastern districts. The library stood five floors tall, taking up the entire block with more than a few armed guards patrolling its vicinity.

So Louis began making another sphere of earth, this time as large as a human head, infusing it with his own mana and binding it to small rock he carried from home. “Cal Meng,” Louis said. The head-sized rock disappeared then Louis casted a Divination spell to find the rock.

Two results: a relatively weak signal coming from the western district and a smaller one coming from the eastern district. Success as far as Louis was concerned. So he began making another rock, human-sized with roughly the same durability as him. Louis did not have the mana to complete the rock immediately, so he had to meditate once more.

With increased size, Louis could carve a delay spell into the rock itself before he teleported it to the same place as the previous rock. A few moments later, a series of images of the alley the rock teleported to appeared within Louis’ head. Both rocks remained intact and there were no one around.

“Cal Meng,” Louis said, feeling the word distort around him for a brief moment before he appeared next to his two stones. He sighed in relief. It would be truly unfortunate if Divine Magic Meng fell with Divine Magic Bryn. Would be the first time that multiple Divine Magics fell simultaneously, out of the blue, but then again, rebirth into the past was not exactly believed to be theoretically possible either.

Louis grabbed the two rocks laying on the ground that he made. “Zet Gabrielle,” Louis said, as he felt his mana within the two rocks fade. Then Louis pulsed his mana into the rocks, shattering them. Grinding them into dust would take too much mana for him at the moment, so Louis just scattered them throughout the alley.

Before he left the alley, however, Louis first said, “En Imaru.” A sheet of ice appeared on the wall around the same height as Louis head, like a mirror. Louis saw short black hair, cut short but uneven. He golden eyes befitting any nobility and his hair and eye color was coveted. Only, he lacked the elemental affinity, of darkness and light, denoted by their color. In his previous life, Louis was by no means a body builder, but he could probably physically beat his current self in a purely a physical fight, without martial skills. Not the biggest problem, everything could be repaired with some lifeblood.

Disappointment aside, now that Louis had ascertained what he looked like, he could change it. It took a couple of ‘En Uta’ for Louis to get his hair a flamboyant green, his eyes red and his skin sickly pale. Then he began walking around the library as he refilled his mana reserves.

The sun began to set once Louis approached the library. Guards stopped him before he could even pass its gates. “Are you an adventurer or part of one of the mage schools?” a guard asked.

“No.” Louis said.

“Admission fee is five platinum coins.” The guard said.

Louis paused for a moment, then asked, “five gold, you said?”

“Five platinum coins.” The guard repeated.

Louis blinked a couple of times. He couldn’t quite remember just how much platinum coins were worth, but it would not be surprising if that much could pay their monthly rent. “Monthly or yearly?”

“Daily.” The guard said.

Louis almost coughed up blood. “Why don’t you take my arm or leg?”

“Organs and limbs are not acceptable substitutes.” The guard said.

Louis did his best to stifle a witty retort and started walking around randomly in the district, using ‘Zet Gabrielle’ to remove any potential trackers on his person before entering an empty alley and teleporting to a few random places. After using another ‘Zet Gabrielle’, Louis divined the path home with the stone and teleported home.

Unfortunately, it did not even take a ‘En Meng’ to figure out that the household had returned, for the conversation downstairs could be heard from his closet. So Louis used ‘En Meng’ to find a deserted street teleported to it and changed his appearance as he turned the corner. Odd, how he needed to walk up to a house he just teleported into, but it was better to keep the extent of his magical abilities quiet.

“Where were you?” Amelia said, opening the door. “You missed all the amazing dances and singing.”

“Was this year better than the last?” Louis asked, closing the door behind him.

“They got a really young, exceptional priestess to dance in flames.” Amelia said.

“Truly a shame.” Louis said. “Perhaps I will see it next year.”

“There’s one next week.” Amelia said, taking a seat at the table.

Louis simply sat down, thankful that there was a rule of silence. He would hate to lie or making promises he knew he wouldn’t keep. After filling his stomach, a wave of exhaustion overcame Louis, just in time for him to skip the family discussion over dessert. How odd, Louis thought, crawling into bed. He had only been awake for three, maybe four, days. Were mortals always this week?