Under the gentle morning light, the flagstone-paved streets of the South Vantina frontier city-state appeared quaint and serene.
Lanqi strolled along at an easy pace, a sunny, cheerful smile on his face.
Talia's murderous intent had been settled just like that.
It had not posed the slightest challenge to him.
Next, he was ready to head toward his planned destination for the day: the Frontier City-State Library.
A place his predecessor would never have set foot in was, to Lanqi now, like an endless realm of treasure.
Although the Frontier City-State Library was nowhere near the scale of those in major metropolises or the kingdom's renowned Royal Library, many precious books that could not be found at home were kept in the town library.
Lanqi had plenty of titles he was interested in and urgently needed to look up.
At the thought of being able to live a peaceful life once more, Lanqi felt full of anticipation.
As long as he was not killed by Talia and prevented her from getting that crucial seed funding for her restoration plan, he seemed, in a roundabout way, to be sparing the world from chaos and making it a better place.
As for the mere three pounds a day promised to her—even if she clung to his side until the day she died, that would hardly be enough to restore an empire.
Once she earned enough travel expenses so she no longer had to sleep rough in the elements, she would likely have grown sick of this ordinary town and quickly chosen to leave.
After all, she was different from him. He only wanted to be an ordinary citizen living freely at his own pace, whereas she harbored lofty ambitions that reached for the skies.
With these thoughts in mind, Lanqi arrived at a bakery strongly recommended by the maid, bought his breakfast for the day, and then, cradling the paper bag, continued down the main street toward the library.
The library was not very far from his home.
Even at this leisurely strolling pace, it would take only about thirty minutes to get there.
Shops along the street had long opened their doors for early morning business. All along the flagstones, the tempting aromas of bread and coffee drifted through the air.
Morning glow and light mist drifted beside the buildings on either side, while emerald moss blanketed the far reaches of the winding road, as if whispering tales of history's weight and splendor.
As he drew closer, church bells echoed in his ears, their melodious chimes pure and reverent.
To his eyes, every building appeared grand and imposing.
Lanqi bit into his cheese-and-fruit-filled bread, breathing in the fresh morning air.
Before he knew it, he stood before the frontier library.
Over the next few days, thirsty for knowledge, he was bound to become a regular here.
On the grand façade of the building, a row of majestic stone pillars rose above broad steps, the exterior walls laid with masonry seasoned by time.
Stepping inside, he saw intricate tracery set along the edges of tall arched windows, reflecting a soft halo of light.
He headed straight to the counter and quickly had a library card issued.
Then Lanqi walked into the large reading area.
Guided by the floor plan, he located the legal literature section, running his fingertips lightly along the spines as his gaze swept across them like flowing water.
Soon, Lanqi pulled a hefty tome from the shelf—
*Code of the Hutton Kingdom*.
Taking the book, he sat down contentedly at a long table and began flipping through its pages.
Since he had arrived in such a fantastical world, apart from gathering intelligence and understanding the lay of the land, an ordinary person would surely be itching to explore their own talents or test the possibility of learning magic.
Lanqi, however, would not.
He was going to study the law.
Magic and might were naturally important in this world. Magic cards, for instance, could bring unimaginable wealth and extraordinary power.
Lanqi was also reasonably certain he possessed a decent talent for card making.
Yet becoming an exceptional card maker was not something achieved overnight.
He still needed vast amounts of knowledge in magic engineering, as well as rigorous practice and training.
Looking at the present, knowledge and wisdom were his true foundation for survival.
Sometimes, knowing the law meant your opponent would get life imprisonment if they lost the fight, and immediate execution if they won.
So for the moment, he was in no rush to study magic cards.
He felt that whenever one arrived in a new place, the most important thing was to gain a complete understanding of the realm's laws—
—or rather, the "basic rules."
That was why Lanqi had come to the town library bright and early today, found the latest revised edition of the *Code of the Hutton Kingdom*, and begun studying it word by word in earnest.
Ever a law-abiding citizen, he would never do anything prohibited by law.
...
Until the sun sank in the west.
Warm evening sunlight spilled through the windows into the library, and a tranquil atmosphere drifted through the air.
At the desk, Lanqi's eyes lingered on the book, his fingers gently brushing the thin pages as he read.
The orange-red rays pierced the glass panes and fell upon his face, lost in concentration, lending his features a touch of softness and grace.
"Isn't that literary boy super good-looking?"
"Yeah, so earnest and focused. He's been sitting there reading law books all day—you can tell at a glance he's a top student."
"Wait, isn't he that playboy from the Wilfort family? The one with the terrible reputation, Lanqi Wilfort?"
"Uh... but you can tell he really respects the law. Maybe the rumors aren't all true!"
The girls behind the counter whispered among themselves, stealing glances at Lanqi now and then.
His soft black hair and clear emerald-green eyes complemented his innate aura of a poet and painter; once stripped of his profligate demeanor, he seemed transformed entirely.
Yet Lanqi, engrossed in his reading, seemed oblivious to the passage of time and paid no mind to the stray murmurs around the library.
Only when the light outside gradually dimmed did he faintly realize the library would soon be closing.
Lifting his eyes from the pages, he finally felt a long-absent soreness in them.
Looking up, he found the patrons and staff in the library had dwindled to a sparse few.
"Tomorrow I'll look a bit into the fundamentals of magic engineering in this world," Lanqi murmured to himself. He inserted a bookmark into the legal code and closed it.
It was time to go home.
Besides borrowing the unfinished code, he had also drawn up a rough list of books to check out.
For example, several books he had glimpsed while searching for the code had piqued his interest:
*Principles of Detoxification*
*Resistance Strategies for Mental Interference Magic*
*Prevention Methods Against Curse Magic*
After all, once he finished studying the kingdom's laws and regulations, the next step was magic cards.
A person with a pure heart like his simply had to thoroughly master the countermeasures against such dirty magic!
Just thinking that someone might use these kinds of magic on him in the future made his skin crawl.
And in case...
Just in case, that is...
If one day he was forced by circumstances to resort to these efficient spells himself,
he would also need to know how to bypass such defenses.
As the saying went, know yourself and know your enemy, and you will never be defeated in a hundred battles!
Chapter 4