Early next morning, Luke and James got on their horses and left for the family house. Luke had learned a great deal about nobles and how they operated everything behind society and about the ranks. Baronet on the bottom, Barron, Viscount, Earl, Marquess, Duke, and King on the top. James had already given a warning to Luke because he did not want his son to be taken away from him. In the house of Earl Evert, it was a custom for the oldest son to take sons from the other younger brothers to avoid succession disputes. The only thing is that the child has to say “I want to stay here”, James gave Luke the whole story because he believed Luke was better than the average kid and James was ready to finish his brother’s stupid succession dispute once and for all. James did not want anything, he just wanted to be alone with his wife in a far away from nobility. James was the second son but he renounced his right to succeed as the next Earl because he thought it was just a stupid and cruel thing, so he left to be an adventurer and he earned his place in the adventurers guild. All James had was his fire magic and some martial arts skills from being born into the Evert family.
Luke knew that James was worried and as they get closer to the 3rd wall by noon, James had a very painful smile. Luke was kind of pissed off that they would even try to take him away from his biological parents. The isekai protagonist in him was rearing to burn down the Evert family home with a fire tornado and then burry the whole place so it could be a grave for all the petty nobles. This was probably the first time Luke had gotten angry. Luke thought of things he could do if he was a nobleman but James and Samantha had already given him everything he wanted. The third wall of the capital city clearly reeked of nobles. Luke thought “Who the hell goes on to grow flowers on the walls?” Luke already knew the answer to that, people who have way too much time and money so they go to college to get a degree in art and nobles. Inside the 3rd wall, there was a lack of people. It was just some horse-drawn carriages and a very few fancy-looking coffee houses.
Looking at the fancy-looking coffee houses, Luke had the idea to maybe grow coffee in a greenhouse, combining his light magic and earth magic to create a building and then automate with his newfound skill called program. Luke still didn’t know how exactly to use Program. When he was doing C++ in school, they had given him some documentation on keywords and phrases but here, all he got was “Null Magic Skill Obtained: Program”, what type of programming was he supposed to use? The only thing Luke decided to “BS it all the way till the program runs”, by that he was just thinking of pretending everything that can be used in a programming language could be used here with Program. It was a bold assumption to make.
Luke had finally arrived at the hated family home of Earl Evert, it look beautiful. This would be like the equivalent of a 2.8 million dollar house in the middle of Ohio. It was huge, the definition of impractical. It had a gate, and a road leading up to the front steps of the mansion. Luke was going to be on his best behavior and try not to offend everyone. He was going to absolutely not utter the words “I will stay here”, not even to himself. It was mid-day when Luke and James walked into the useless mansion. Luke knew that if he wants to learn about magic, he could probably gain access to the study or the library of Earl Evert and there was probably a low chance of him not finding anything. Before being greeted, Luke greeted his grandfather the earl and he made it a point to bow extra low to boost the man’s ego. Luke and James got invited to dinner and the Earl as if knowing Luke had come to look at books, invited him to the study after dinner to see his collection.
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Luke found it profoundly odd that a man he just met; who happened to be his grandfather, knew what he wanted. Was this some kind of magic? What is the old man up to? What exactly was his “collection”? He was not ready to find an old man’s collection but to his surprise, it was just a bunch of books on 10 to 20 shelves. Thinking about it, this was a really small collection. Considering that it was the house of an earl, it meant that books were a precious resource in this world. The earl spoke to Luke, “I already know how powerful you are boy, and James specifically told me that you were interested in books. That is why I invited you to my study, this is one of the biggest collections of books on magic you will ever find in this kingdom. You are free to use everything in here for the next 3 days, after that you can go home.”
Luke didn’t know where the creepy started and the manipulation ended with this old man. He was probably keeping tabs on James the whole time. This was just supposed to be a trip to the stupid family mansion and a trip where he could go to a library or find somewhere to buy books from. Luke was the dummy variable in this whole grand scheme he realized. Luke had been taken from a home he never left to go on a trip where he was going to decide if he wants to be a nobleman of house Evert or just some farmer and his grandfather was keeping tabs on what he considered to be private. Luke was going to need to figure out a way of getting rid of the spies or at least get them under his control somehow, otherwise, he was just going to be this old man’s puppet till he benefited enough and decided to try to finish Luke off for good. Not that he could but he would try if Luke was no longer useful.
While reading a book on Null magic, Luke conveniently found out about a skill called Contract. It depended on the user’s magical abilities to make a person never disobey the person who is superior in the contract. Luke knew that even the earl was not up to his level. After reading more on the skill Luke learned it.
“Null Magic Skill Obtained: Contract“
In that instant, Luke just learned how he could learn any Null Magic Skill. He just had to read about it and know exactly how to use it. In the case of Program, he already knew how to program from his classes in university. In the case of Contract, he just learned it after he read on all of the contents of the skill Contract. Luke didn’t know if this was something that everyone could do or because he had the capability for Null magic and seven other magic types that he was able to use every type of Null magic. Maybe God had just screwed up when he told Luke that he made it so that Luke would be able to use magic. Whatever the case, Luke found that the book only contained another Null magic spell called Gate. Gate allows a person to pass through a portal and instantly transport to anywhere where the caster has been. Then he got the notification, just like he expected.
“Null Magic Skill Obtained: Gate“