At that moment, Morien entered the church and noticed a bearded, bald middle-aged man sitting not far beneath the statue.
He wore a mostly black Sorcerer Robe and sat on a bench with his head lowered, seemingly lost in thought.
This was...
Morien tilted his head toward the distant castle, then looked back at the bald man before him. A name immediately surfaced in his memory.
What a familiar scene.
He suddenly smiled, shifted his mask to the side of his face, walked over to the man, and sat at the opposite end of the bench.
Sensing someone sit beside him, the man slowly raised his head and looked at Morien.
He sized Morien up, his gaze passing over the markings on his face before finally settling on his eyes.
Suddenly, the man's eyes lit up.
"Are you... a Tarnished?"
he asked, somewhat excitedly.
A Tarnished?
He had mistaken Morien for a Tarnished.
Morien touched his face and immediately understood what had happened.
Is it because there is no "Grace" in my eyes?
The Tarnished were a special kind of existence in the Lands Between.
In the Lands Between, people possessed the "golden light of Grace" in their eyes, a blessing from the Erdtree.
The Tarnished, meanwhile, were those who had "lost the golden light of Grace from their eyes."
The earliest Tarnished had been warriors who followed Godfrey into battle. They were rewarded after the founding of the kingdom, then later expelled from the Lands Between and stripped of Grace.
However, that first group of Tarnished had mostly died or been wounded and was nearly extinct. In the broader sense, "Tarnished" now usually referred to the descendants of those warriors, or to others who had lost Grace.
Of course, there was another type of Tarnished that was especially unique.
They were beings who had never received the Erdtree's favor from the start and did not belong to the Erdtree's system.
So in a sense, Morien counted as a kind of Tarnished as well.
"Mm... I suppose... I am." Morien nodded and answered the man's question, his voice appearing directly in the other man's mind.
He had already recognized who the man before him was.
Waste Stone Thops.
A sorcerer whom Raya Lucaria Academy had deemed "untalented."
Upon hearing Morien's voice, Thops's eyes lit up. He did not even care why Morien's voice had appeared directly in his mind.
He asked in a somewhat humble tone.
"Since you're a Tarnished, could you... spare me some Runes?"
"They say appearances can be deceiving. I once studied at the Academy of Raya Lucaria, where I learned Glintstone Sorcery."
"As long as you can spare me 10 Runes, I will teach you Glintstone Sorcery."
Runes were apparently this world's currency.
And they were probably a currency that would never depreciate.
Because they were both currency and energy. They came from the Grace contained within the residents of the Lands Between and were a form of energy.
They could exist within the body as energy, or materialize into golden, coin-like objects.
Morien listened to his request and nodded slightly.
He did not mind giving this sorcerer some Runes. Although he knew that the sorceries Thops could teach at this point were mostly mediocre, learning any sorcery at all would be an unexpected bonus.
But he had no Runes right now...
At that thought, he suddenly remembered something. The words of refusal that had nearly left his mouth turned around and went unsaid.
The best way to obtain Runes was to kill other living beings.
Even the monsters he had killed earlier contained Runes within them.
That meant...
"Wait a moment." He raised a hand, signaling Thops to wait.
Then he calmed himself and sensed the changes in his body.
Aside from the increase in potential brought by the Black Flash, his body had indeed undergone considerable changes.
He could feel a golden energy within himself.
This energy seemed innately capable of being "quantified" and "materialized." With only a little focus, even an outsider like him who knew nothing could easily sense exactly how much of it there was.
There were 3,800 Runes in total.
They had come from the monsters he killed beneath the cliff.
The two unarmed ones had each given him 500 Runes, the two holding bells had each given him 800, and the one riding a horse and its mount had given him 1,000 and 200 respectively.
That made 3,800 Runes in total.
Morien lowered his head and looked at the man before him.
In the game, learning a basic sorcery normally cost around 1,000 to 3,000 Runes.
Morien was not sure whether the exchange rate in reality matched the game, but at the very least, even the "cheapest" monster he had killed had been worth at least 200 Runes.
With a smile on his face, Morien gathered golden light in his palm, condensing it into a golden, coin-like object.
"Mr. Thops, I would like to learn sorcery from you." He handed the Runes to the man before him.
"Oh, oh, thank you. Thank you so much."
"You're such a good person."
Getting handed a good-person card by a middle-aged man was truly sad.
Thops gratefully accepted the Runes, then suddenly froze.
People of the Lands Between were born able to sense the "weight" of Runes.
The moment the Rune coin reached his hand, he immediately judged its value.
Thops immediately found himself in a difficult position.
"One thousand Runes... I'm sorry, I can't make change."
As he spoke, he tried to return the Runes in his hand to Morien.
But Morien raised a hand and waved it.
"Wait," Morien said. "Besides sorcery, I also want to buy a staff."
"And as you can see, I am a Tarnished from elsewhere. I have neither shelter nor food in the Lands Between, so I may need to stay with you for a few days."
Morien activated Lonely Monster's ability.
In Thops's eyes, the sense of familiarity around Morien nearly became tangible, washing over him head-on.
This sorcerer, who was still only third-rate, could not resist for even a second.
His gaze immediately softened. After hesitating for a few seconds, he accepted the full 1,000 Runes.
"Right, you cannot use sorcery in the Lands Between without a staff." He nodded. "I still have several spare Academy Glintstone Staffs, though they are models used by Apprentices. I hope you will not mind."
Morien waved his hand indifferently.
"What's there to mind? How could a student use something better than a teacher?"
That made Thops smile.
Then he began to introduce himself.
"My name is Thops. I was once a student of the Primeval Current at Raya Lucaria Academy."
As he spoke, he took three books from beneath his Sorcerer Robe and handed them to Morien with a hint of apology.
"These are the only three sorceries I have that are worth showing. They are Glintstone Pebble, Glintstone Arc, and Starlight."
"Glintstone Pebble can fire magical stone shards forward, sending them flying at enemies like sharp stones being thrown.
"Glintstone Arc can unleash a wide, horizontally spreading arc of magic, similar to the sword energy used by warriors."
"The last is Starlight. It creates small floating lights that illuminate the surroundings. It is... a fairly decent illumination sorcery."
"I'm terribly sorry. You kindly gave me Runes, yet I can only teach you these unimpressive sorceries..."