Banquet

The royal palace stood due north of City Hall Plaza, along the central axis. Its architectural style followed that of Frost City, and it was also called Medimous Palace. Peter's carriage stopped before the palace gates and was handed over to the gate attendants. The two entered on foot through a side entrance.

By the time they reached the main hall, the banquet's delicacies had already been laid out. Peter took Ace around to introduce him to the other scholars, then became so engrossed in conversation with a bearded scholar that he forgot everything else. Seeing that there was nothing for him to do, Ace decided to wander around.

Only a few people in the entire hall wore black robes. Everyone else wore white robes with red or purple sashes, and coupled with his young age, Ace stood out conspicuously.

He saw a young aristocrat with a hooked nose surrounded by several young citizens, chatting animatedly.

"Captain, the heroes are incredible! With one wave of his hand, our battalion commander made a fireball that huge and burned the barbarian strongman who'd killed so many of our men straight to ashes."

A short, baby-faced citizen spoke excitedly.

"That was a hero's Authority. If not for the battalion commander, how would you have gotten the chance to attend this feast as soldier representatives of the Third Legion? Be calm and proper. Don't make the battalion commander lose face."

The young aristocrat in the middle rebuked them in a low voice.

"Yes, yes, yes. Captain, when will you be able to use Authority? Let the brothers feast their eyes too." The baby-faced youth was not afraid of him at all and joked casually.

"You shameless rascal. Your captain may not know Authority, but I know quasi-Authority. I'm a descendant of Frost. Keep acting up, and I'll freeze you into a snowman."

The young aristocrat's right hand instantly turned crystalline, and a chill swept through the air.

The baby-faced youth immediately yielded, lowering his head and not daring to say another word.

They seemed to be soldiers who had distinguished themselves in the conquest of the barbarians. With the slave supply in the market so plentiful lately, Ace had also heard a little about the city-state's great victory.

He continued wandering, casually listening to everyone's conversations, and heard quite a bit of recent news about the city-state. During the joint invasion by the fishmen and barbarians, New King Tadeus Media had annihilated them all at Dunqiu.

Tener Fishing Port, which had recently sacrificed to the Child of the Ocean, received the sea's blessing. Vast quantities of sea fish fell from the sky every day for an entire week. The various states in the northern Salia Peninsula had been attacked by demons and suffered heavy losses.

Suddenly, the banquet's noisy chatter came to an abrupt halt. The Royal Guard had arrived. Peter beckoned to Ace, and Ace hurried over. Everyone arranged themselves in orderly ranks: the city-state's heroes stood in the front row, followed by the nobles, with everyone else at the back.

"His Majesty the King arrives! Pay your respects!"

The heroes bowed slightly, the nobles bent forward in bows, and everyone else bowed at a ninety-degree angle.

After a speech and words of thanks from the king, the event everyone had been eagerly awaiting began. The royal banquet's most popular activity: the exchange of wondrous items.

"Here, even an ordinary person may be able to trade for a wondrous item. So-called wondrous items are produced when heroes intentionally or unintentionally project their Authority onto objects. It might be a sword a hero often used, or it might be a flower. Apart from a rare few, such as descendants of the God of Craftsmen, who can freely create wondrous items, ordinary heroes cannot control their appearance either. Every single one is a miracle."

Peter spoke with animated excitement. Ace had never seen him like this before; his snow-white goatee bobbed up and down, revealing just how delighted its owner was.

"This is part of my collection. I traded it for by copying out an entire roomful of books for a hero. He liked my beautiful Flying Bird Script." Peter opened his left hand.

On Peter's left palm lay a small bronze mirror. Looking at it, Ace felt his mind instantly calm, as though his emotions had vanished, while his thoughts became more active at the same time.

"The Mirror of Calm Contemplation. Its former owner, a descendant of the God of Knowledge, was concentrating on a matter before the mirror. When he came back to himself, he found that the bronze mirror had become a wondrous item. It has the marvelous effect of calming one's emotions and sharpening one's thoughts. But don't stare at it for long. Once it takes effect, put it away immediately. If mortals look at it too long, their heads will feel as though they're splitting apart."

Peter swiftly tucked the bronze mirror away in his broad robes, afraid that Ace might clutch his head and cry out in pain. Yet Ace could not help thinking of when he had overused his mental power—his head had felt as though it were splitting apart then too. What was the connection between the two? When he had the chance, he would have to borrow Teacher Peter's mirror and experiment with it.

While the two spoke, a hero had already gone onstage and brought out a wondrous item.

"A sharp wooden sword. It can sever steel with ease."

With a casual swing, he cut a standard-issue shortsword in two. "I wish to exchange it for a wondrous item capable of providing protection, or anything else that interests me."

After that, the heroes went onstage one by one to introduce the wondrous items in their hands. With the king standing as guarantor, everyone felt at ease.

There were some wondrous items Ace wanted badly as well: the Pearl of Health, which granted immunity to most illnesses when worn, kept both body and spirit brimming with vigor, and could extend an ordinary person's lifespan if worn over the long term.

There were also arrows that never missed. They could be blocked, but they could never be dodged.

The many miraculous objects opened Ace's eyes, but he had nothing with which to trade. Not everyone had Teacher Peter's good fortune.

Throughout the entire banquet, Ace was merely a passerby. Yet after witnessing the city-state heroes' strength and the wondrousness of wondrous items, his resolve only hardened: he would shut himself away in Buku Town to build his own estate and lay the cornerstone for the extraordinary.

Slavery and private land ownership determined that the master stood at the very peak of the estate's pyramid. He could freely experiment with the technologies and ideas of his previous life on his estate. As long as he paid enough taxes, the estate was his independent kingdom.

As the banquet was nearing its end, the crown prince's attendant came to him and offered a word or two of encouragement. That was how great figures were. Unless one truly reached their level, even their appreciation came with a layer of distance between them.

On the way back, Peter told him, "By custom, the scholars who attended the banquet will gather tomorrow on the second floor of the public library. It is the city-state's tacitly acknowledged highest-level academic exchange. Everyone must speak on their own field of study. Go back and prepare a topic. You can talk about either the idea behind the dictionary or your views on medicine. This is your chance to integrate into the scholarly circle. If you succeed, it will provide enormous help for your experiments and the promotion of your ideas."

Ace returned home without going to sleep. What should he speak about tomorrow? The dictionary was out of the question. It was a reference book; there was nothing much worth explaining in detail. The ideas of New Medicine had not been tested, so they would be difficult to make convincing. Better to accumulate experience for a few years before making a move. But then what should he talk about?

After thinking carefully, Ace wrote down a newly coined word—"logic." It fused the meanings of thought and reason, and its most direct definition was rational thinking.

He intended to cast out bait, promote his ideas, and through the subtle influence of time, find those who agreed with him.

The road of studying the extraordinary would inevitably require a group of like-minded people. Only those who could cast aside preconceptions and wild conjecture, think rationally, and conduct research objectively and neutrally met his requirements—only they could explore the mysteries of the extraordinary alongside him.

At this stage, he needed to wear the skin of medical research, but that did not stop him from releasing his core ideas in advance. Having made up his mind, Ace spread out a sheet of parchment and began writing with a quill: "What Is Logic and Its Decisive Significance in Academic Research."

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