Chapter 89: Better airborne

"By the way, why are the Cosmics so focused on collecting money, in the first place?" Evin wanted to ask this question for a long time.

"We're not really sure. It's been like this for as long as I can remember. But if I have to give a reason, money was the most efficient way of taking over the World?" Rith cocked her head.

"Wait, you're trying to take over the world?" Evin asked with a shocked face.

'Well, that came completely out of the blue'

"Who isn't? Even the North, who advocates peace, likes to take part in some matters personally, since some countries like the South aren't upholding their peace-loving doctrines. Guess you could say that they're trying force the world to be like them, or something," Rith shrugged.

"Wouldn't it be faster if they just, you know, take over the World, if they wanted to do that?"

"Well, yeah, but they'll definitely meet the combined resistance of the three countries. Most likely, the Layeq will be tasked with tying their hands, while the West and the South will be in charge of attacking them," Rith said.

"I've always wanted to ask this, but why don't the three countries mount an attack on the South?"

"Well, first of all, complete annihilation of a country is extremely difficult to pull off. It's not like the Southerners are weaklings as well. Some of the races there, like the colossi, they have the strongest base specs compared to the other races. Add magic on top of it, and it gets even worse," Rith began.

"On top of that, The North doesn't want to mount a unified attack, since they most likely won't be able to get anything substantial from the attack. Even after they succeed, they'll get some of the upper areas of the North, while the West and East share most of the territory. They will probably agree if the West and East decide to act as the vanguard, which will most likely not happen, since the two countries would not wish to leave the backside open for the North"

"Guess it all balances out in some weird way, huh?"

"Yep, and the wars with the South aren't all negatives in the first place. Most of the South's soldiers are expendable Myrmis, so it works as a pretty good real battle training for the new soldiers. I heard that Aran used to be a thin, scholarly mage, but after he went to the war, he got much buffer and manlier than before, right?" Rith said.

"Myrmis? The ant people, right?" Evin heard the term before from his father, but never had the chance to ask for more details.

"Yes, you're right. Like normal ants, they have a queen that gives birth to hundreds of them in a month and the Colossi and Griffins use them to grind out the Kingdom's resources,"

'And the South still sends those Myrmis to war, because the damage they can do is undeniable… But if I had an army like that, I'd likely use them for manual labor, instead of throwing their lives away… but perhaps they're hard to feed?' Evin could only think about the Myrmis for a few seconds before they found the Scroll-making shop that Rona recommended to them.

Entering the shop, Evin found that this one was much simpler compared to the Artificer's luxurious shop. Stacks and stacks of round scroll holsters filled the walls, and the smell of ink and paper would give the place a cozy feeling. There were no other customers in the shop this time, only young teenage boy who looked to be around 12 was sitting behind a counter.

"Welcome to our shop! How can I help you?" the boy asked, noticing the newcomers.

"I wanted to have a scroll appraised, so you can tell me what spells were used and how," Evin asked. He didn't ask Hector directly, as he felt that it was a bit rude. And he was going to a Scroll-making shop, anyway, since it was one of the few magical shops that he could access.

"Oh, you've come to the right place! Let me have a look at the scroll," the boy said.

Evin didn't waste time and pulled out the scroll from his storage device. The boy took the scroll and scrutinized it with gleaming eyes.

"This one is not a professionally made scroll, but it's still pretty well done. Let me show you a similar one that we've created," the boy said and pulled out another scroll from somewhere.

Evin looked at the two scrolls side by side and could see some similarities on them.

"They're both floating spells, so they look quite similar, but here are the differences. Your scroll focuses mostly on flight time and speed. You can tell with all the speed, air resistance and stability runes in the scroll. This means that it's either used to cross a large distance or to run away from some place. Sure, there're some essentials like runes for sharp turning and such, but the scroll's strongest point isn't on that," the boy slowly explained, as he pointed out at the relevant parts with his fingers.

"Now our scroll, on the other hand, is more focused on maneuverability. First of all, our scroll does not remove your weight completely, opting to leave some weight and some inertia alongside it. It's a common misconception to think that being weightless is much better for movement, but tell me, don't you feel extremely bad when you do a sharp turn when you're flying around? That's because the organs inside you aren't just used to having zero inertia. It's much better to leave some weight so your movement in the air feels natural," the boy explained.

Evin could personally relate to the words of the boy, and the problems he listed occurred quite commonly. It was practically impossible to do a full stop while floating at considerable speeds and doing a sharp turn would more often than not hurt your body in the process.

"The other thing that our scroll does differently are the jets that propel you to move around while you're floating. Since you're left with some slight weight on your body, there will be 16 main jet cannons around your body facing towards 16 directions, blowing air slightly downwards. Probably the most commonly used jet cannon will be the ones that are facing towards your back, so their maximum powers are much stronger than the rest. There will also be a few supporting jet cannons on your limbs, neck and back, designed to put you in the correct posture, if you ever find yourself in an awkward state while flying around"

Evin really liked this feature. When he was first trying out the floating spell, there were many times when he would get stuck upside down, or his feet and hands would be left in a weird state. It still happens to him sometimes, when he sparred with either Ssatsko or Arza, since sometimes they move so fast and Evin has to maneuver in ways that are uncomfortable to him.

"But I understand that you're trying to recreate the spell in your own way, so you won't ever need to use a scroll in the first place, right?" the boy asked, noticing Evin's reactions.

The latter nodded, as he could guess that there were probably many others like him, who wanted to recreate the effects of a scroll themselves.

"Well, I can apply a Thought Imprint on our scroll… One that will help you understand the nitty-gritty details of the spell inside the scroll much better, what do you say?" the teen asked with a business smile.