Chapter 253 - 253
When Darius woke up, the escorts from yesternight had already left. He stretched lightly and surveyed the cleaned room, which no longer showed any signs of debauchery.
The young man idly reminisced about them. It couldn't be helped, he had finally gotten his first taste of non-human intercourse. After this, Darius might not be able to feel the same way about human women.
Gunner, who had slept soundly after venting his 5-year abstinence from the sweets of lust after monstrously ravaging his chosen escort, was herded out of bed. The half-giant yawned and didn't even bother to bathe.
Darius chuckled and cast Cleanse on himself and Gunner, removing all dirt and muck from their skins and gathering it into a pungent ball. He then flicked his fingers and the ball flew into the bathroom, falling down the drain.
This had been their go-to method to save time during the 5 years of preparation. Although Darius had still occasionally enjoyed a normal bath, he had otherwise wisely used his time outside of transmuting items by training and learning various things.
Darius exited his room to see that Xela was also doing the same. When she saw the duo, she smiled and came over. After sharing some greetings, Darius led the group downstairs to enjoy breakfast.
His group ate heartily, with Darius and Xela consuming one portion each while Gunner had gorged down on everything the menu had to offer.
Still, apart from idle glances of surprise wondering where he kept all that food, no one paid them any extra attention. Gunner seemed to enjoy this lack of attention. He might not have particularly cared, but it hadn't felt good to have everyone staring at him while he had eaten back in Fallon.
Not counting the breakfasts that had been included in their stay, Darius paid the difference, before the groups headed out.
He then turned to his two Branded Servants and spoke gently. "Today, I plan to head somewhere special in order to fulfill a personal goal. Since I will be in a public place, I will be safe, so both of you are free to enjoy the city however you like.."
Gunner pondered what to do with his free time. "Fine, I think I'll head to the colosseum. I've heard they have public arena fights there, so I can flex my muscles while earning more money for you, Master!"
Xela scratched her head. "I think it's best if I go raise my level now. I heard that there are free public dungeons in this city, especially in this sector. Instead of registering to the Adventurer's Guild, I can just pay a fee and go in as many times as I want."
Darius nodded. "Good. Here, both of you take some Dius. Gunner, with this you should easily be able to compete should there be a registration. Xela, this should allow you to run a dungeon as many times as you need."
Darius handed each of them 500 Dius. Additionally, he gave Xela a lot of items he had transmuted, which should prove useful for a dungeon run. Among them were magical scrolls and unique consumables that could be used to escape or deal damage.
This was to supplement her fighting power. Though she may have two great weapons in the form of the bow and arrow, as well as her natal archery skill, Darius also handed her an Archery skillbook.
Xela gratefully learned it on the spot. Then, without further ado, the group split up. Gunner headed to the arena which was located in this very sector, while Xela headed to one of the dungeons.
It couldn't be helped, Waukeen's sector dealt with all things business, but at least most of her services were open for the public without much hassle.
For many other sectors, you either had to be a resident or a worshiper to make use of various things, so they were more like mini countries of their own that had poor tourism value.
Luckily, Darius wasn't going far. He also only needed to head one sector one, to the one managed by Krona, the God of Knowledge.
Unlike most conservative Gods, Krona was far more open, though not as much as Waukeen.
However, the reason why this sector was so heavily populated with visitors was because it held the greatest repository of knowledge in the entire known world!
The Great Library of Krona!
This was the landmark that all scholars, mages, and intellectuals worshiped. They all hoped to pay a visit here just once and read up on some of the hidden knowledge stored away.
However, despite Krona being open-minded, he was not just giving out his accumulated knowledge for free. Not to mention that his followers needed some way to curb the number of visitors, otherwise the library would be overcrowded every day with sweaty nerds.
As such, the Great Library adopted an exchange of knowledge scheme! One needed to provide information new to the library to earn reading credits that determined how long an individual was allowed to stay inside.
Darius only knew this much, so he would learn the rest when he reached there. Of course, if people needed to bring new knowledge, then very few would be able to use the library which defeated the purpose of founding it.
So of course, one could also use hard cash to buy reading credits, but heh.
Even Darius' 800,000 Dius was barely enough to last him one week of time. With the profits from the auction, he hoped that it would be enough to extend his reading time to about a month.
By the time he got back, the worker robots should have laid down an elementary settlement and the first batch of settlers should have arrived.
As for the large migrations involving Shank's people and the many ex-nobles of Andrato, that would take more than a few months to cross 10,000 km even if they hurried day and night.
However, after acquiring the Space Stone, Darius only needed to research the methods with which to engrave a permanent teleportation array before he could optimize travel to his budding territory when it was time to open to the public.
Soon enough, Darius arrived before the majestic Great Library of Krona, and his neck was craned to a sharp angle in order to just see the top of the establishment.