In Oasis, one could see thousands of soldiers either resting, playing card games or training. Oasis was a huge imperial fortress, with walls that could stop giants, archers ready to fire hundreds of arrows and ballistae that could decimate pretty much any army formation. In the past few centuries, Oasis had never once been breached, thus becoming the symbol of imperial domination in its southern territory.
Dalian men and women were easily recognizable. Against most humans who had dark hair, imperial men who came from Dalian families possessed dominant traits such as white or blond hair, blue or red eyes. In addition to their physical attractiveness, imperial men and women usually possessed strong swordsmanship due to the military mindset of the Empire, which highly encouraged families to train their heirs, including commoner families.
Perhaps the success of the Dalian Empire could be attributed to this mindset that had been around for hundreds of years.
In the South of the Empire, there was a plurality of ethnies. Before the Dalian Empire conquered its lands roughly 200 years ago, the South of the Empire was fragmented in tiny kingdoms. The Desert Nomads were the most numerous, with black hair and high pilosity being their main traits. Then came the red-skins, an ethny that was dubbed after their tendency to get sun burns very easily. Last but not least, there also existed barbarians, with black skin.
Although they used to live in tribe, they had adapted to civilization and possessed extremely strong bodies. They also happened to be the most hostile natives, having gathered in what they called the [Brotherhood], a resistance of desert bandits training from a young age to wield sword, plunder villages and destroying military supplies meant for Oasis.
Greem Bluehill's fame in Oasis could be largely attributed to his brilliant predictions of bandit outposts, as well as his monstrous combat prowess, which far exceeded his peers. Although he started as a mere footsoldier, he quickly rose the ranks, first becoming a seargeant and now being a proud lieutenant. There were, after all, only 50 imperial knights in Oasis, and out of them, only 25 possessed the rank of lieutenant or higher.
His predictions were not actual predictions, but actual considerations based on statistics. His biochip allowed him to have a clear idea of water sources, and the places where no villages had established themselves allowed him to guess that outlaws might be hiding in these places. Sending scouts to verify his biochip's analysis proved to be an easy way to accumulate merits.
In his tent, Greem was currently noting down magical formulas, related to magical theories. Although he had already memorized all of the knowledge thanks to the biochip transmitting the data to his brain, there was a clear difference between knowing something, and understanding it. In the book, Leylin made it look like a single glance at a book was enough. But the truth is, in order to cast a spell, one had to understand the principles behind it besides memorizing the spell matrix.
The same went for swordsmanship. Although he had all the theory in mind, it was very complex to display it to a master level. Repetition was key to engrave the moves in his muscles, and although his biochip allowed him to point out his mistakes and deviations, there was no escaping the gruelling daily grind of wielding his sword to progress. In three years, he went from a complete novice to an expert, having reached the [Advanced] stage of his swordsmanship, something that was hardly attained by Grand Knights, not to mention knights themselves.
Putting the desert eagle feather's down, which he used to write with, Greem smiled with satisfaction.
[You have reached the milestone of understanding the underlying principles of the [Mana Rotation Particle Theory], written by Magus Karls Anderson. Your spiritual force is growing slightly...]
[+0.005 Spiritual Force]
Greem smiled.
It was indeed one of the quickest way to increase his spiritual force. With his biochip synthesizing the data, he only had to focus on the key aspects of books, resulting in much faster understanding of theories. On this note, he was fairly confident that his understanding of Earth-elemental magic was much higher than his uncle Richard, even if he spent decades studying the books he had gathered. Intermediate acolyte or not, Richard had relied on meditation and talent to reach this stage, rather than understanding of magic. Otherwise, he would not have remained just an intermediate rank acolyte.
'My older brother Paul must be reaching his 18th birthday...while my little sister Emma must be reaching her 12th birthday. I guess her magical talent will be tested. Hopefully, my father won't send her to the flying citadel', Greem thought
Having read the book, Greem knew that there were not many differences between dark path and light path magi. Although the light path magi hid their experiments, most magi were actually apathetic and lost their humanity. Coming from a modern world, Greem was actually shocked of such things happening. Science without conscience is but the ruin of the soul. And this very much applied to magic. Greem would not want his sister to go through the trials of the flying citadel. Even if she somehow survived and got a decent magus master, there was always the risk of her turning into a monster.
Knights, in that aspect, were much better. Although they grew stronger than the average human, they would often put their honor and values before their accumulation of strength. Most would think that it would harm their potential, but actually, principles and values existed for a reason. Purpose gave training meaning. And with enough meaning, you could achieve so much more.
At least, it was Greem's take on this world.