Chapter 55: Traveling Time
A few hours later, Roderic was already beginning to regret everything.
He leaned his head against the side of the carriage, staring blankly out the window.
The landscapes, forests and occasional settlements passed by painfully slowly.
At some point, he truly couldn’t help himself anymore.
’’How the hell did people survive traveling like this?’’ he cursed.
Roderic had tried acting like a normal noble would, only sleeping and staring out the window.
But the boredom had quickly become unbearable.
’’Alright!’’ he said, shaking his head. ’’I give up!’’
’’System, I need you to distract me!’’
A blue window popped up right away.
—————World Throne System—————
Name: Roderic Whitemane
Age: 18
Throne Points: 7486
>Status
>Quests
>Shop
>Archive
>Territory
>Retainers
???
- - -
Roderic stared at the screen for a moment.
’7,486 throne coins,’ he thought, smiling widely. ’It’s actually becoming a decent amount again.’
Most of it had come from the quests he’d completed during the past month.
Although none of them had been particularly difficult, the rewards had quickly started adding up.
’It almost makes me want to spend some right now...’ he thought, glancing down at the system shop.
But after a moment, Roderic quickly shook his head.
There was something else he wanted to check first.
’Let’s see...’ he thought, pressing on the Retainers Panel.
Another blue screen expanded in front of him right away.
—————Retainers—————
Total Retainers: 4
>[Frederic]
>[Paul]
>[John]
>[Peter]
————
Roderic stared at the four names for a moment.
’Still looks a little pathetic,’ he thought, rubbing his chin. ’I’ve only got four retainers after a month and a half...’
After picking up Frederic and Paul in a single day, the recruiting had slowed down significantly.
Roderic had managed to find John, the future four-seal knight who was supposed to become a Duke’s knight commander, and Peter, a future three-seal mercenary.
But the last talented person, Richard, was nowhere to be found.
’What a damn shame,’ he thought, shaking his head. ’He would’ve made a nice addition.’
Outside of that, he hadn’t made any strange gambles.
Having hit the lottery once with Paul, Roderic wasn’t planning to recruit random people without his main quest reward.
’Speaking of Paul...’
Roderic’s gaze moved back toward his name.
After what he’d seen on the training grounds earlier, there was something he was rather curious about.
Without another thought, he pressed on Paul’s name, opening up another window.
—————
[Paul]
Age: 27
Race: Human
Loyalty: 88%
Current Rank: One Seal Knight
Knight Talent: Extremely High
Mage Talent: Extremely Low
Traits:
[Unyielding]
[Late Bloomer]
—————
Roderic casually skimmed through the familiar information.
His eyes eventually stopped near the bottom of the screen.
[Late Bloomer]
’’System?’’ he called out. ’’Show me this trait in the shop.’’
The Retainer Panel disappeared immediately.
A moment later, another blue window appeared in its place.
—————
[Late Bloomer]
Rank: Minor Trait
A trait belonging to those whose true potential awakens later in life.
The individual’s growth and development may accelerate after reaching certain conditions.
Price: 500 Throne Coins
—————
Roderic’s brows rose immediately.
’Only five hundred coins?’
That was considerably cheaper than he’d expected for such a trait.
Originally, he’d only wanted to check it out...
But for such a small amount of coins, it was truly worth considering his whim.
’Technically, I could be considered a late bloomer,’ he thought, rubbing his chin.
Roderic had only awakened his aura at eighteen.
That was years behind other knights with a similar level of talent, who had all awakened as children.
’I wonder if that counts?’ he thought. ’I might be stretching it... but if it works and I gain another boost in the rate I grow...’
It would be completely worth it.
After a moment of silence, he slowly nodded.
’Fuck it,’ he thought, grinning faintly. ’Five hundred coins are nothing anyway.’
And even if the trait did absolutely nothing for him right now, the name alone suggested it might become useful later in life.
Roderic pressed the purchase button.
[Purchase Successful!]
[The minor trait [Late Bloomer] has been acquired.]
[Remaining Throne Points: 6,986]
Roderic waited expectantly with a large smile on his face.
Second after second slowly ticked by.
But... nothing happened.
Slowly, the smile on his face began disappearing as well.
’’Meh,’’ he muttered, shaking his head. ’’It was worth a try.’’
Roderic checked his body one more time before shrugging once more.
’’Whatever. Maybe it’ll do something eventually.’’
With that, he dismissed the notifications and leaned back against his seat.
At the very least, his little experiment had killed a few minutes.
After a moment, Roderic’s gaze returned to the main system screen.
’Now then...’ he thought, eyes narrowing. ’It’s about time I start reading through the archive.’
Roderic had put it off back when he could train, complete quests or set anything in motion for the territorial war.
But now, with nothing he could possibly do, there was no better time to finally read through it.
’Usually I just look up people, places or events,’ he thought, pressing on the Archive. ’But that’s really only scratching the surface of its abilities.’
It quite literally had ten years of future history sitting inside.
Whether it was wars, disasters, discoveries, political changes, economic changes, all of it could be used to his advantage.
’Like that recruitment shit I saw a while ago,’ he thought as he started typing. ’There was something about an empire revolutionizing talent recognition...’
After a moment, several rows of text popped up in front of him.
—————————
’’Year 552, Aster Empire revolutionizes talent detection through perception tests.’’
’’Year 553, Aster Empire knight cultivation increased fivefold through perception tests.’’
’’Year 553, Draker Empire follows Aster Empire with their own perception test.’’
...
————————
’This was it,’ he thought, glancing at the titles.
’A crazy increase in knight recruitment after adding a special test.’
And on the surface, something like that might not seem particularly useful to Roderic.
After all, once he completed his Main Quest, he’d gain an ability specifically meant for recognizing talent.
But Roderic knew the exact opposite was true.
’I can’t exactly walk around checking every farmer, soldier and random kid in the territory myself.’
There were tens of thousands of people living throughout the Whitemane territory alone.
And when his ambitions eventually expanded beyond that, the number would only grow more ridiculous.
’So it’d be nice if I understood it and implemented it early,’ he thought, immediately opening the first result.
’I could even make a special recruitment announcement for my force once I’m back and test it out.’
If it worked, he could simply have others perform the tests for him.
Then, only the people who achieved exceptional results would ever need to be personally inspected by Roderic.
’That would make things a hell of a lot easier.’
Roderic quickly began reading through the information.
The further he went, the more his smile grew.
Everything from how the tests were performed to why they worked was recorded inside the Archive.
All he needed to do was understand it well enough to recreate it.
’Perfect,’ he thought, smiling widely.
Roderic immediately made a mental note to spend some time studying it throughout the journey.
But before diving too deeply into the information, his gaze moved back to the archive.
This was merely something he happened to remember seeing before.
There had to be countless more things in there.
Roderic almost started to chuckle.
’I can already imagine it,’ he thought, rubbing his hands together. ’If I start bringing all these things forward by five or ten years...’
His grin widened even further.
’Just how ridiculous can I make the Whitemane Barony?’