"Here's your payment. Thank you for escorting us." said the merchant leader as he handed me a bag of coins.

"That's what you hired us for. See you around." I said before we started to walk around to find a place to eat and rest.

It's been a few months since the day I unlocked my Nen ability and we had just finished escorting a merchant caravan. Luckily for them, they hired the right people seeing as they got attacked by bandits on the way to their destination. Obviously, we were able to take care of them, rather easily might I add.

Anyways, every day since I unlocked my Mind Palace ability, I had been figuring out the intricacies of the ability and training both my nen and the techniques. After letting my tank refill itself, I dove back into my Mind Palace before reading the book with my name on it. It contained all the memories from my past life and this life. The interesting thing was that once I read the book, I could always remember every single of my memories, and from then on I gained an eidetic memory.

Now, everything that I have ever experienced in my memories is automatically filed away on the bookshelves. But anything I experience from now on pops up in the book and I have to read it before it is properly filed, and perfectly remembered. Before I read the book, it's like a normal memory, but once I read it, I'll never forget it.

Another thing I realized was that my intelligence and the rate I learn things increased after that day. Before if I took two hours to properly understand a medical paper, now I think I could do it in 30 minutes. This is one of the more welcome surprises because House's genius turned up a notch is quite scary.

That's what I discovered right after I got my palace, but about a week or so after that day, I managed to unlock one of the doors in the corridor leading to the library. I had been training my Nen, more specifically my Hatsu, when I heard a door creak open in my mind. Remaining calm and diving into the palace, I first looked at the two doors in the hall which were unfortunately still locked.

So, I went up the stairs and noticed that the doors to the left were now open. Going inside I came upon a theatre room like rich people have in their houses so they don't have to go to the movie theatre. Curious as to why a theatre room would be in a castle, I entered to take a look around.

Seeing a tablet on top of one of the seats I picked it up only to see it said my name. Not seeing anything else around the room, I clicked on my name before my memories started playing on the screen. With that, I figured out that I could play back memories as movies if I wanted to instead of reading a book. The curious thing is that watching all of my memories didn't take that long, only thirty minutes or so.

Another facet I discovered about my Nen ability happened when we were invited by a noble to a gathering because he wanted to hire us.

~~

The group and I were hanging around the back corner minding our business, nursing our drinks when a man came over.

"Sir Darius, I was wondering if we could talk business?" asked the man. He called me sir even though I was neither knighted nor a noble, but we had all turned down knighthood several times, so people just called me sir out of respect.

"Sure, but I'd very much like to know who I may be doing business with?"

"Of course, where are my manners? I'm Leonard Portsmith. It's a pleasure meeting you. I've heard much about you." he said.

"Nice to meet you, Leonard. What do you do?" I asked.

"I'm a collector of artifacts from all over."

"Sounds fascinating. Do you like what you do?" I asked before taking a sip of my drink.

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

"Very much so. History is a fascinating subject, yet a mystery that eludes us."

"You seem very passionate about it. What's your favorite part?"

"All of it. The hunt, the dig, the clues, the mystery, the truth. It's all my favorite." he asked.

DONG

'That came from my mind palace?! I'll make an excuse to leave. I need to check out whatever that was.'

"Fascinating. So about this job?" I asked, quickly going over the details and accepting his job offer before I left back to our inn and meditated.

"Okay, the doors are still closed so whatever that sound was had to come from the library." I said before I walked to the library and a new book lay on the table.

"A new book?" I said before walking over to it and reading what the cover said.

"Leonard Portsmith? Are these his memories?"

I flipped open the book and began to read and experience the memories and knowledge of Leonard Portsmith. It was a mesmerizing feeling reading about the life of a person and not just reading the words, but experiencing them.

It wasn't like I was reading but more like as I read, I lived his life. It's a hard thing to explain, but I felt like I was there for all his life. I experienced the heartbreak and depression of his mother dying, the love he felt for his family, and the feeling of wonder and amazement he had for history. It wasn't so much as reading a book but living a life.

As I flipped the final page, I snapped out of the trance I was in and stood there for a few minutes before I exited my mind palace. Opening my eyes to see the room I was staying in, I got my bearing back.

'Fascinating. I can get the memories and knowledge from someone's life but I have to experience the emotions associated with them. But how did I get his memories? He introduced himself to me, then I asked him questions and he answered.

So, the steps to get someone's memories are to get their name and ask and receive an answer to the three questions I asked. I wonder if the wording is able to be changed or if it has to be identical to what I asked? I'll need to test it some more. I'll ask the gang if I can try it out on them. If they don't feel too comfortable with it, I can always try it out on some nobles.

Cool.' I thought with a smile.

~~

Getting someone's memories, one of if not the most fascinating facet of my Nen ability, so far anyways. I didn't test it out on the gang because they didn't feel too comfortable about me knowing about their entire life, including their secrets, so I tried it out on some nobles.

And thanks to that, I was able to find out that one of the nobles was actually kidnapping girls to keep as slaves. So we decided to pay him a visit. Suffice it to say, he won't ever be doing something similar to that again. Other than that I hadn't been able to find any other way to use my Nen ability, but I had managed to extend the time dilation to 1 minute being equal to 2 hours instead of 1 hour.

Speaking of Nen abilities, Guts had finally come up with his and it was very similar to his Berserker armor. The stronger and faster he gets, the more his sanity slips away. There are more nuances to his ability that just that, but that is the general gist of it.

Ciri, on the other hand, had progressed enough to where she was happy to finally figure out her type. It turns out Ciri is also an Enhancer, much to her chagrin. She wanted to be a specialist like me, but after a while accepted it. Guts told her she could become a specialist in the future, but it was rare. And that was enough to perk her up.

Uzui and Amelia had both signed in enough points to buy [Universal Body] and had just barely started their Nen training not long ago. Turns out they both have good talent, better than Ciri but not as good as Guts nor me. Besides that not much else had happened, we hadn't even run into the Band of the Hawk yet, but I had a gut feeling we would before our trip ended.

Though that does beg the question as to what would happen after Guts kills Griffith. Would the God Hand interfere right before his death, would they take revenge, or would they chalk it up to fickle fate? We'd discussed it before that if we were attacked by the God Hand that we would travel back to our worlds while Guts would use his world travel voucher and go to one of our worlds. As strong as we think we've gotten, we don't want to take any chances.

After finding a place to eat, we went to an inn and rested after a long day of travel before we were going to wake up and do it again tomorrow.

~~

Waking up, I washed up before meeting up with the rest of the gang and eating breakfast before we went out of the gates and on our way to the next town. After an hour of traveling along a dirt path, we were able to see some ruins on a hill.

"Does this place look familiar to anyone?" asked Uzui which prompted me to pay more attention to where we were before I instantly recognized the scenery.

"Someone's coming down the hill." said Amelia.

"Guts, you still haven't told us what you've decided to do if we meet that guy." I said.

"Hm? Why so suddenly?" he asked, confused as to why I brought that up.

"Because we're about to meet him soon." I said as I pointed at the hill.

At the crest of the hill stood a man so beautiful, he would make women jealous with hair as white as snow and blue piercing eyes that were looking right at us.

"Griffith." whispered Guts.