Fest city

Savine leisurely took in Fest city's sights as the carriage trudged on. As for the palace, naturally, it was located at the city's center. The area in its immediate surroundings was the best the city had to offer, so Savine didn't find any flaws in them.

Here, the duchy didn't feel like one that lost a civil war. It was the same situation on the southern side of the city. That was the place where most of the Honorary nobles and scholars lived. To the south-west, the craftspeople gathered. To the northwest, the low-middle class lived, and that was where most of the farmland was concentrated.

But the whole east side of the city was basically the slums. It didn't help that Fest city was shaped like an elongated sideways ellipse, so it wasn't that the east was just a small corner of Fest city. It was literally 30% of the whole city.

It sounded ridiculous. Third of a city being the slums. Savine couldn't imagine how they survived till now. They still needed to eat and sleep, right? Where did they get the food? Did they grow it themselves? Then shouldn't they be better off? Why was it called the slums? Or did they get it from the government? But such spending would be impossible to sustain in the long-term, wasn't it?

Either the concept of slums was completely different for Savine and Eliseline, or there was something going on that Savine was unaware of.

But she soon put the matter of the slums out of her head as she arrived at the temple.

It was located at the edge of the high-class area and the low-middle class area, acting as an intermediary between the two sides.

The architecture of the holy buildings was subtly different in all the worlds, but the main themes were similar. Grand styles and grand colors. Sometimes the colors were vibrant – a bit of everything mixed in.

In worlds where there was no magic, the color of the earth and the greenery tended to dominate. Sometimes, people became obsessed with blue colors as well, worshipping the skies or the oceans.

But the most pious color to use was of course, white.

Savine walked up the white stone tiles of the temple and looked inside. There were no grand paintings on the ceilings, nor meticulously crafted details. The whole building felt somewhat underwhelming. The feel she got was more of… efficiency and frugality. Like it wasn't a place where people worshipped gods, but a place where people got things done.

That was a rare charm. And it was a rare variation in worlds with magic in them.

'Somehow, this world's residents came to the conclusion that mana wasn't something of divine origin, but something of a natural resource.'

They were correct, but out of 100 worlds with magic, 99 would think that the origin of mana was the divine.

More and more, Savine found herself interested in the world. She really wanted to collect various history books and see what exactly happened to this world so it could turn out like this.

But for now, she had some things to do.

"Where will my room be?" she asked.

"We'll get to that soon," Eliseline said. "Before then, let's head into the Grand Chambers."

Savine was brought to a tall-spacious room with various magic tools placed around. With a glance, she could understand what they did, but there was one tool that grasped her attention. It was a blue orb filled with mana, connected to another tool that seemed to be made for teleporting energy.

"Is that the Link to the North?" Savine asked.

She had heard about this tool. It was a big surprise, hearing that the people here could already teleport energy, but Eliseline quickly gave her another surprise by revealing that they could teleport people and things as well using the Teleportation Circles.

"Yes. As you are still unable to use your own mana, you won't need to worry about these tools. Just go to that black one and prick your thumb… just give it your blood. It'll register you as a member of the temple officially."

Savine nodded and walked up to the device. There was a needle on its tip and she gently pricked it into her arm again.

'It feels like my arm will never not have a needle-wound of some sort.'

Every time it healed a bit, she needed to stab it on something again.

Beside her, Eliseline nodded subtly.

"Now then, onto your Vasa. First of all, you mustn't hurry to hold it. You should carefully reach for it and when you make contact, you will feel your mana drain into the Vasa. That's normal."

Savine waved her hands and interrupted Eliseline.

"And when it doesn't absorb any more of my mana, I should keep it in the Vasa and try to control it as much as possible. It's because the material makes the mana much tamer. Do that for a bit before recalling it back into my own body, right? After that, I should take a bit of rest and restart the process until the Vasa loses color, at which point I ask you for more and merge it with the old one."

There was a difference between how the Magicracy and the Sovereignty used their Vasas. The former brought mages to the Wisdomtree itself and made them tame their Vasas there. The process was slow and arduous since they had to fight against the Wisdomtree's will, but the effects were solid and the Wisdomwood wasted was at the minimum.

The latter, however, ripped pieces of the Wisdomtree and distributed it to the mages. The effects were worse, and the amount of Wisdomwood wasted was high, but it was a much easier method.

"Yes…" Eliseline nodded unconfidently. "But don't do more than one session per day."

"It's okay, I got it. Don't worry about me," Savine shrugged. "Is there anything else?"

"No."

"Good. I'll be going to my room, then. After I can control parts of my mana, I'll reach out to you."

"Even so…"

"I told you, I'll be fine. The first thing I learned from God was how to become a mage."

Eliseline's eyebrows creased when Savine said that. For some reason, the woman still refused to believe she was the real deal. Well, that was fine as well. It was a matter of time.

Savine said her goodbyes and immediately went into the room she was provided.

The room looked clean, but it smelled faintly of dust. It was wide and well maintained, since it was meant for people of nobility. But it looked desolate with only a bed, a table and a chair in it. There wasn't even a wardrobe.

'At least the bedsheet's clean.'

Savine locked the door behind her, went around the room, checking if there was anything suspicious, and sat down on the bed.

She got comfortable and opened the wooden box.

Sure enough, a piece of untainted Wisdomwood was in it. Though its texture was like wood, it was shaped more like a shard plucked off a cliff. Was it better to describe it as a tree's bark? It wasn't important.

Expectant, she felt into herself. She still felt full to the brim. It was almost as if her body underneath the neck was nonexistent.

Keeping her focus high, she touched the Wisdomwood. Just like Eliseline warned, a piece of the gathered mana slipped into it and immediately filled up the Vasa. The wood's wrinkles shone a faint blue.

'Hmm?'

The process was completed without issues, but there was something odd.