Finally putting his mind onto the task, Franz started to look around. The cave had only a couple of things in it, but now Franz finally got a better look at them.
The closest part of the room to Franz and the closed door behind him was the bed in the corner straight to the right of him. It was a fairly large and grey mattress looking thing with a couple of pillows and covers.
The wall above the bed was filled with weapons. Looking over it, Franz could see swords, spears, daggers, bows, katanas, and many other cold weapons.
On the wall to the left of the weapons were some hanging clothes and jewelry. The center of this whole wardrobe was a large and expensive looking red leather cape. Even from a couple of meters away Franz could swear he felt heat radiating off of it. The jewelry had a similar feeling to the cape. They all gave off dangerous and mysterious vibes. Franz decided in an instant he would not be inspecting the corner.
Finally, coming to the last side of the room, was an antique secretary desk. Compact like the rest of the room, it was colored a light brown with many books and writing utensils on it. Franz couldn't explain why, but he somehow felt drawn toward the desk. Quickly, he stood in front of it before being able to stop himself.
That's bizarre. How could I just kind of lose myself like that and walk over here…
"Hey, you guys that were talking to me before, what are these books?"
Franz waited. He had a hunch that since the voices helped him before, they would help him again. His guess was not wrong at all.
"This desk contains the information cataloged by the village leaders for centuries."
What the hell? That's a much bigger thing than I expected. Hehe, what goodie have I stumbled upon?
Franz quickly sat down and cracked his knuckles. He was about to pull out a random book before he stopped and thought for a moment.
"2 questions. 1, who are you voices? 2, what book do I start with?"
Just like before, Franz waited. It seemed like there was some pattern these voices followed as they replied after a short pause once again.
"We are spirits controlled by the human Greus. He had instructed us to arrive at this cave and help his child Peus. We have knowledge and are tasked with helping out Peus as best we can… You shall begin with the greyish blue book titled "Book of Beginning and End". The ultimate catalog of the leaders of Kaiya. It shall explain a lot."
With that, the spirit stopped talking. Even with the natural affinity that Franz now possessed with spirits, he couldn't feel this one at all. Hehe, I guess that Father sent some powerful spirit to help me. I know now that intelligent spirits that can learn are really hard to come by, so how lucky am I actually.
Shaking his head, Franz looked over all the books with different titles and picked out the book titled "Book of Beginning and End."
It was a fairly thin book, but that didn't deter Franz at all. Always having been a nerd in his past life, any book got him excited. Especially now, with a book that can answer most of his questions it made him extremely excited.
Cracking open the book, Franz leaned down and started to read.
'The successful creation of this book has been done. I, the first leader of this village named after me, have successfully made the Infinite book. I, Kaiya of Kaiya, the Saint of the Corpse Collector pathway, have made this book for future generations of magic users to study from and to learn from. As the civilization before us said, "the goal is not to just survive. It is to thrive!"
…
Hours upon hours passed. The drowsiness Franz had from before had vanished completely, replaced wholly by pure excitement. He had read through thousands of pages within the last 6 hours, totalling a time passage of 287 years.
How magnificent. How beautiful. I have never, and probably will ever, be able to have the joy of reading something as detailed, complex, educational, and uplifting as this collection of, essentially, diaries of daily lives and research results of the village leaders.
Wiping a non-existent tear from his eye, Franz stood up and started to walk around the room as he better digested the information he received. As he was doing this, he picked up the spear on the wall and started to swing with it absentmindedly. Out of curiosity and from what he had read, Franz braced himself and swung the spear in a 12 to 6 arc as hard as he could. To his amazement, the spear made a sonic boom right as it stopped and came to a rest.
Holy crap, the leaders were right! They said that the Warrior pathway was the strongest pathway in terms of physicality, and they were clearly right! Hmm… the force needed for this metallic spear weighing about 20 lbs to create a sonic boom is ~500 kJ! That's like if a car ran into a wall at 35 MPH! The damage this could do to a person… it's no wonder that demonic wolf was cut in half by a Sword of Dawn!
Grinning wildly, Franz put the spear back onto the wall and grabbed a dagger. He then repeated the same process he had with the spear, but also looked at how fast he could swing a dagger. Once he was satisfied with that, he put the daggers back and picked up a broadsword. Repeating this process, he quickly went through all the weapons on the wall. When he had tried the last rapier, he walked over to the bed and plopped right on it. Rolling over onto his side, he closed his eyes and started to think once again.
I ended up learning a lot from the BBE. The different leaders have all done and focused on different things and came from different pathways. They have all truly cared about the village and the people, but it was difficult for all of them. They all stated that it was impossible for them to rise above sequence 3, attributing that to the fact there are limited amounts of sequence 2's that can be had.
I also now know what year and epoch it is. The current year should be about 2292 of the 2nd Epoch. It is completely unknown what happened in the 1st Epoch or Pre-epoch, so I won't even try to understand. This world has no sun, only the crimson moon from before. Where Kaiya is located it currently doesn't have much of different seasons, but that is different for other human villages and towns. Also, Kaiya is located towards the edge of the Eastern Continent, really close to the sea. I don't know what the rest of the world looks like, so I don't really care about these continents.
During my reading I also learned of my abilities and normal abilities of the Corpse Collector and Warrior and Sleepless pathways.
Apparently, I have more strength, speed, defense, and mental fortitude than the regular Pugilist, since my powers combined with the Corpse Collector powers which also have physical enhancements.
Then I have more resistance towards the elements. A Pugilist already has natural resistance to all outside influence, but mixed with a CC's cold, decay, and corrosiveness resistance I have gotten a slight boost.
Then there's also the suppression effect. Pugilists can naturally suppress the negative side effects of magic tools. Mixing that with the CC pathway it means I can slightly better nerf magic tools of any pathway, and majorly nerf the tools of the Warrior, CC, and Sleepless pathways.
Finally, I have the Eye of Death. Regular Gravediggers possess the Eyes of Death, an ability that lets them see the weaknesses of the dead and spirits. But I also have the Eye of Life. I can see the weaknesses of living creatures up to sequence 7. Mixing that with the knowledge CC possesses about the human body and my past life's military training, I believe I am quite extraordinarily powerful.
Sigh, it's a good thing I also got information on other pathways. If I didn't get the ability rundown of like every other pathway I would feel much more scared. Granted, most of the information is up to sequence 7, but there are a few that are up to sequence 5 so…
Wow, after organizing my thoughts I fear my identity as Franz Jager isn't enough anymore. What matters if I have multiple masters? What matters if I worked in the military industrial complex? The only things that matter now are my memory, my KSK training and background, the memories of Peus, and the information of this book. Yes, that's right. I am no longer Franz Jager! I am now Franz of Kaiya!
With that, Franz of Kaiya pumped his tired fist into the air and fell asleep. A whole day of running - both literally and figuratively - leaves even a superhuman like him exhausted.