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Chapter 113: A Small Goal

Roel had once heard a quote in his previous life, ‘studying is the cheapest way to raise one’s worth’. These words were pretty relevant in his previous world, but it was even more so on the Sia Continent.

This was an era when educated individuals were the minority. Just knowing how to write well could become a way of life, as prominent clans would hire them to compile history for the later generations to know of their ancestors.

Of course, those writers usually wouldn’t be so detailed as to include even the fetishes of the ancestors too, unlike a certain someone’s diaries. At the very least, it should be safe to assume that there should be no such awful material to be found in the records of the Royal Library.

At Roel’s request, the librarians immediately marched out and retrieved all records related to Winstor Ascart and Ro Ascart. In total, they were more than enough to fill an entire table. Given the astounding amount, there was no way Roel could feasibly run through all of them, so he could only swiftly browse through the content and select some of the more relevant ones.

After half a day’s worth of work, Roel arrived at the same conclusion as Ponte. It would appear that his two predecessors were similar to the typical hyperactive, restless protagonists one would see in shounen mangas. Even after becoming the patriarch of the Ascart House, they continued traveling around the continent, never hesitating to leap into adventures and explore ancient ruins.

Roel gave the matter some thought, and while he did agree that it was a clue to uncovering the truth behind the Crown Origin Attribute, he didn’t think that the act of adventuring and exploring ancient ruins was the key to the growth of his transcendent ability.

For one, while they had leaped into adventures time and time again, they had no choice but to spend most of their time staying in the Ascart House due to their duties. During these ‘downtimes’, they still continued to grow stronger.

Besides, to actually have to go out on adventures in order to grow, wasn’t that practically a curse to a shut-in like him?!

Roel was more than satisfied with his current life of leisure where he could eat well and sleep well. Ro and Winstor went missing while adventuring anyway, so the least he could do was to learn from their lessons and not walk down the same path as them!

He continued to look through the historical records, but unexpectedly, in the process of researching, the Crown Origin Attribute suddenly began reacting.

It was a slight and vague feeling, but he could sense that he was absorbing mana from the surroundings. The mana was gradually pushing his Degree of Assimilation, slowly strengthening his powers.

It was at this very moment that Roel finally came to a realization. He finally understood why both Ro and Winstor were so passionate about archaeology—it turned out that uncovering the past was one of the ways that the Crown Origin Attribute could grow!

However, this realization also highlighted another issue too. It would appear that not all kinds of historical records would grow his Crown Origin Attribute. For one, he had read the large pile of diaries Ponte had left behind—which arguably could be considered as historical records by now—but it didn’t bring about any reaction.

Why so though? Is it in order to keep it PG?

Roel shook off the bizarre thoughts floating in his head and began analyzing it carefully. Perhaps, he had to uncover a certain sort of information in order to trigger the Crown Origin Attribute. As the name ‘Crown’ suggested, maybe he had to uncover the truth about something related to kings and emperors for it to work?

There were still too many possibilities at the moment that Roel couldn’t draw any conclusions in a moment’s time, but he wasn’t worried about it. The Ascart House had plenty of records anyway, and it was likely that some of them had been used by Winstor and Ro too. Worse come to worst, he would just have to do trial and error and gradually narrow down from there. In any case, he was delighted to have found a reliable clue to growing his transcendent ability.

Without any hesitation, he decided to dive right into his training. He began reading the history of how the various countries of mankind migrated to the west following the Spirit Cataclysm of the Capital. As he read on and on, he began to find it rather enjoyable to learn about the details surrounding well-known events that occurred in the past.

In the first place, he was an arts student in his previous life, and he was particularly good with geography and history. On top of that, the history in this world was much more interesting than the history of the previous world due to the inclusion of all sorts of supernatural abilities and incidents, such that it almost felt as if he was reading a novel.

Most people knew that the Spirit Cataclysm of the Capital that happened in the final years of the Second Epoch was the trigger that led them to migrate westward in search of a land of peace, but what they were unaware of was that this land was far from being peaceful. Aside from its primitive environment, the land was home to many ferocious beasts too.

According to the lore of the Sia Continent, the Goddess of Creation Sia was the mother of all intelligent lifeforms. The classification of ‘intelligent lifeforms’ didn’t include natural beasts that obeyed their primitive instincts. Otherwise, the whole of mankind would probably have to become herbivores in order to survive.

Of course, the term ‘intelligent’ was subjective. Most beasts in the wild did have primal instincts that allowed them to outwit their prey, and some of them could grasp some basic combat tactics. The difference was more or less drawn based on their ability to conquer their primitive instincts, thereby overcoming their natural limitations.

That being said, it would be unwise to look down on the mutated demonic beasts just because they were deemed ‘unintelligent’. One example was the Bloodhorn Deer which Carter had brought back to the Ascart House from the Winter Hunt. Were it not for Carter subjugating it, it could have easily caused widespread damage.

There was a much more convenient way to classify ‘intelligent lifeforms’ from natural beasts though—the ability to obtain an Origin Attribute. While demonic beasts were astoundingly powerful, they didn’t possess Origin Attributes. Of course, there were also intelligent lifeforms with beastlike characteristics, such as the saint beasts under Sia’s command, but they possessed Origin Attributes as well.

Unlike natural beasts, these saint beasts were often depicted to be sages in the legends, playing a supporting role in the war among different races. Some of them rose to high positions, and they led their own race to unearth new land and develop civilization. As they chose to take on a more advisory type of leadership position, their fighting prowess tended to be relatively weaker, though it would be foolish to shrug them off as weak.

Even though there were no detailed records of it, there were legends that the Ancient Austine Empire in the Second Epoch had a Sacred Guardian Beast. Similar to how the ancient giants and angels had disappeared in the annals of history, however, the saint beasts also disappeared from the face of the world at some point in time.

When the pioneers leading the migration to the west first arrived, they encountered beasts that were far more frightening than the Bloodhorn Deer. It was fortunate that some of these beasts were intelligent enough to be tamed, and they were surprisingly favorable to the arrival of the humans as well, seemingly due to being sick and tired of hanging out with their unintelligent peers. Naturally, the humans were more than happy to tame them too.

However, the other beasts that could neither be tamed nor communicated with became the nightmare of humanity.

According to the records, the human countries that had just settled down back then were still weak. They were unable to deal with the more powerful demonic beasts that dominated the most fertile lands. Subjugation missions often required a country to mobilize every last bit of its resources, but even so, victory wasn’t guaranteed. There were countries that fell in defeat and ended up being utterly destroyed.

This was also why the Five Eminent Noble Houses, who had fought the most tenaciously alongside the Xeclydes to build up the current Saint Mesit Theocracy, were highly respected by the people. It was this solid foundation that allowed them to prosper in the Theocracy for many generations since then.

Humans advanced a step at a time over the course of 200 years, clearing out the overpowered demonic beasts and bringing peace and stability to the region. There were far too many humans and countries that had fallen to the demonic beasts over this period of time, with no way to tally the actual number of casualties. Historians eventually came to term these people as the Crusaders of Establishment.

Roel found himself with many thoughts in his mind after reading up to this point.

Somehow, the development of human civilization was always a war against nature. Humans sought to overcome the harshness of nature, whether it be hoping for summer to be cooler or for winter to be warmer. That was probably the most fundamental motivation behind why generations of humans devoted their lives to reshaping their environment, be it through sowing seeds in barren lands or devising tools to conquer the sky. Their spirit was tenacious, and it allowed them to overcome their natural limitations.

“Now that I think about it, the level of development of our Ascart Fiefdom is incredibly low.”

Roel suddenly recalled the report he had read back at home. The Ascart House had been conferred with a massive territory during the founding of the Theocracy, making it almost the de facto leader of the Five Eminent Noble Houses. Yet, in the past few centuries, the Ascart House had never risen to the top before, not even once. The reason for that was very simple—most of the territory of the Ascart Fiefdom had not been developed yet.

How were the Elrics able to rise to prominence 200 years ago?

It was because the Elrics’ territory consisted of mostly plains, making it very suited for agriculture. While the span of their territory was smaller than the Ascart House, it was the easiest to develop. In comparison, the Belfasts were located right next to the North Sea, the Lucernes had massive forests, and the Weiss had a lot of mountains.

However, none of them posed as great a difficulty as the Ascart Fiefdom, which consisted mostly of mountainous terrain filled with huge swathes of forest. It was truly a nightmare to develop. The Xeclydes had good intentions in mind when they conferred this piece of land to the Ascarts. The conditions of the land were not the best, but the sheer span of it meant that it had great potential. As long as the Ascarts worked at it diligently, they would surely be able to fare decently.

As the current reality showed, they had really overestimated the Ascarts.

With each passing generation, the Ascarts appeared to become less and less invested in developing their lands. They basically tossed all of the work to their subordinates and left the fiefdom to run by itself. For the past millennia, the economic activity of the Ascart Fiefdom had only been limited to their plains, which made up only 30% of their landmass. As for the other 70%, there was hardly anything at all.

To be fair, the other 70% were mountainous terrain and forests. There were many demonic beasts lurking in those areas, and it wouldn’t be easy to clear them out for development purposes. However, if it could be done properly...

Roel looked at the string of zeros in his balance against the System, and he suddenly felt a little nauseated by the sheer amount of debt he was in. If he wished to repay the money before the deadline, he had no choice but to explore economic opportunities for the Ascart Fiefdom.

He had approached Carter to talk about this matter a few days ago, and his father was perfectly fine with dumping it all on him. As long as nothing major happened, Carter wouldn’t interfere with what he was doing.

“It isn’t just about Nora and the others. The collapse of the Ascart House is a major death flag too. The Elrics are eyeing us intently, so we cannot afford to show any signs of weakness. On the opposite end of the mountain range of the Ascart Fiefdom is the Rosa Merchant Confederacy. If I could pave out a route and develop commerce in the area...” muttered Roel to himself as his eyes turned sharp.