Chapter 1: Ryan Rimehart

The Northern Wind Province of the Empire was located in the far northeast corner.

Far from the prosperity of the western coast and close to the frigid cold of the northlands.

Poverty and cold—these were among the few words used to describe this place.

If not for the connection known as the Winged Canyon, it would appear on the map almost as an enclave.

The radiance of the Lord of Dawn shone down on the lush mountains and forests, dispelling all the cold, and helped a disheveled, delicate-looking youth leaning against a tree recover from the shock of transmigration.

Ryan Rimehart

"This is my name."

The young man struggled to his feet, looking down at his chest. The once luxurious clothing had a tear, and there was a corresponding wound on his back, damper, and confirmed by touch.

It was the mark left by a rapier thrust through his chest and back by an assassin.

With his pale hand resting on the tree, the youth from Blue Star gradually accepted all the memories now flooding his mind.

"This is my name."

In this fantastical world of Spirits, sorcerers, and magic, Ryan Rimehart accepted everything with determination.

He had transmigrated, becoming Ryan Rimehart, the young baron who had been assassinated on the way to his own fief.

Shaking his head, Ryan felt his limbs trembling—clearly, he had lost too much blood earlier.

And just nearby, a pair of hungry eyes had already set their sights on him.

"No way... I just transmigrated and I'm going to die already?"

Ryan felt he might be the unluckiest transmigrator ever, especially since he had just sensed the existence of his "golden finger"—his cheat.

I transmigrated, I even got a cheat... and now I'm about to die?

What could be more hopeless than having hope within reach, only to lose it?

Fortunately, a voice calling from deep in the forest rekindled that hope in him.

"Young Lord Ryan!"

"Young Lord Ryan!!"

"Beard, I'm here."

Ryan looked toward the sound and saw an elderly man with graying, disheveled hair rushing over with eight blood-stained trainee knights in a panic.

They were his steward and his knight escorts.

Seeing that Ryan was unharmed, the old man visibly breathed a sigh of relief.

"Young Lord Ryan, thank the heavens you're safe."

"If anything had happened to you, even dying a hundred times wouldn't have atoned for our failure," Beard said, reaching out to examine Ryan for injuries.

"I'm fine, Beard."

Ryan pushed aside the old steward's rough hand, not taking offense—after all, this man had taken care of him for most of his life.

"By the way, what happened to those bandits you encountered?"

Changing the subject, Ryan asked.

At that, not only did Beard's face fill with anger, but the eight trainee knights nearby shifted from shame to fury.

"Those peasants had the nerve to call themselves bandits—they dared ambush a baron!"

Knight Captain Derren gnashed his teeth, as if trying to cover up his own failure that led to Ryan being separated from the group.

Ryan remained silent. It seemed the so-called bandits—made up of refugees—were just a front to mask the true assassin.

A noble dying to a professional assassin was no trivial matter in the Empire.

Because that would mean certain factions had begun acting recklessly in the political arena.

Moreover, the reason he was in this remote and freezing province was itself a product of political scheming.

"No matter, I didn't die, did I?"

"Let's go. We need to reach Frostsoil Territory by noon."

Ryan, still only fourteen and weakened from blood loss, had to be carried on a knight's back.

Trekking through the unpaved mountain forest, he resisted the urge to sleep, too afraid of not waking up again.

He was busy organizing the memories and awareness suddenly added to his mind—over ten years' worth.

All those flashy spells and knightly combat arts filled him with wonder.

This world had gods. And 130 years ago, many of those gods faced their twilight in a cross-dimensional war.

The War of the Gods lasted thirty years. Many deities either perished or fell into slumber.

But the disasters it brought extended far beyond that. On the Noris Continent—called the "main world" by some gods—two-thirds of the land was plunged into an eternal winter.

Since then, the frigid north was known as the Northern Frontier by those in the south.

Snow and ice covered the entire Northern Frontier. In the deepest parts of the glaciers, there were even crystals of eternal ice that never melt.

It became uninhabitable for humans. The survivors fled south.

The Flor Empire, once obscure in the south, instantly became the dominant power on Noris Continent, expanding significantly in the decades that followed.

The Northern Wind Province, where Ryan now was, had been conquered just over a decade ago by Duke Meyers, one of the Empire's four grand dukes, leading his tens of thousands-strong Nightmare Cavalry.

Yet today, the province was no longer under Duke Meyers' control.

Clearly, more political foul play.

The Northern Wind Province, far from the warm, bustling western coast, was the Empire's territory closest to the Northern Frontier.

And since various factions in the Empire had interfered with Duke Meyers' efforts, the area was now a complete mess. The so-called "bandits" who attacked Ryan were likely just common folk turned desperate by endless oppression from their lords and occasional raids from others.

Such was the Northern Wind Province—so much of a burden that the Imperial capital was even considering abandoning it entirely. Every year, it cost the Empire millions in gold coins.

And Ryan was heading to his fief, the Frostsoil Territory, which lay at the very northern edge of the entire Northern Wind Province.

If the province itself was like an exclave of the Empire, then Frostsoil Territory was an exclave of that exclave.

Once they passed the swamps and forests constantly harassed by raiders, they would arrive.

It was his domain—untouched by others, but hardly a good thing.

If it had any value at all, someone would've claimed it already. The only reason it remained unclaimed was that it offered nothing—not even a silver coin's worth.

Too far from the west coast, too close to the frozen north.

That alone would be enough trouble. But the assassination attempt made it clear that his problems weren't limited to the northern cold—they also came from within the Empire itself.

Every noble title in the Empire was highly coveted, and Ryan's baronship was the product of high-level political strife.

Ryan Rimehart—one of many children of Count Rimehart, and perhaps the most overlooked.

Many of his relatives were far more capable, all dreaming of a noble title, even if it was just a frontier knight.

So the fact that Ryan was granted a barony spoke volumes.

And yet...

"Three months ago, Count Rimehart led his 30,000-strong Flame Dragon Cavalry deep into the heart of the orc territories, traveling 1,200 miles. He killed the high priest of the Mammoth Orcs on a snow-covered mountain and destroyed over a hundred orc clans."

"Over 300,000 orcs were enslaved and are currently being transported back to the Empire."

"Gold revenue in the tens of millions—that's just what's publicly known. Rumor has it that Count Rimehart even obtained a fragment of divine power hidden among the Mammoth Orcs."

"Within the Empire, the Rimehart family is maneuvering to have Count Rimehart named the fifth grand duke."

"Thus, even before he returned, a silent political battle had already begun."

"There's only so much pie to go around. No one—especially not the royal family or the four existing dukes—wanted to share it with a fifth."

"The result? A nobody like Ryan Rimehart was granted a barony—in the Northern Wind Province, no less."

"In the end, a single barony was used to offset the count's glorious campaign against the orcs."

From just these few memories, Ryan could already sense the perilous, cutthroat nature of Roel, the Empire's capital thousands of miles away.

"If it had been just the old Ryan, he'd have died on the road to his fief."

"If I were just a regular transmigrator, facing a world this rigid and hierarchical, I wouldn't stand a chance."

"But I have a cheat."

At this thought, Ryan's nerves relaxed a bit.

With a thought, a translucent screen the size of a palm appeared before him:

[Spirituality: 9]