The God of Jesters
Chapter 616 - 9.14.3 The mage journal.

Chapter 616: 9.14.3 The mage journal.

Everyone’s experience differed in the caves of wonderment different, some still didn’t understand why it was named as such, and who even named it if there were no survivors, while others, just focused on their goals which was looking for Malidi.

In their eyes, one of these worlds should hold the answer.

"Master, are we sure that the path we walk is correct?"Vance asked, looking at his master who was contemplating while surrounded by nothing but lush greenery. "We have jumped a total of four worlds, and we still don’t know if we are walking the right path?"

Those who came into the caves of wonderment were not weak. They were among the peak of humanity in both mind as well as body. None of them were fools and understood that there are certain rules that each forbidden zone follows, and as long as you can understand them, your chances of survival will be greater.

Don’t rush, don’t ignore, and don’t be curious were the three core rules that Vance specifically followed himself in such places. The slow and steady wins the game and this was Vance’s creed towards survival in such odd places. Which had helped him countless times.

While his Master, even being the one to teach Vance most of these core ideologies, Alabasta was far more reckless than Vance could have ever thought.

The madman had gone on and touched a new corpse the moment he entered the first world, which did not send him to a new world, but it did render half of Alabasta’s body ruined. It was only through sheer will and strength that he was able to fight off the influence that encroached on him then.

But it also earned him information on what he had to do next. "It’s good that you are thinking, but in this place, thinking gets you nowhere."

"Thinking can get us to our goal faster." Vance retorted, cutting away the grass in front of him to make way before continuing. "Trial and error might end up forcing us to go in circles... I have noticed a similar corpse as before, this is not a one-way path... whatever it is."

Not everyone had Jester’s insight, nor the generational knowledge of the dwarves that was supported by none other than their Guardian Dragon.

If anyone came here blind, it would be the Radiant Knights and those who went after Farhad. This was to be expected; unlike others, they didn’t even have the support of their own order, which left them a bit blind when walking in this bizarre place.

"Who said I am using trial and error when choosing the worlds?" Alabasta spoke, looking toward his disciple, who appeared a bit apprehensive. "Didn’t I find you instantly after the first world?"

"One lucky coincidence, nothing more and nothing less. And besides you failed to achieve the same with Remira in the subsequent worlds..." Vance was not one to take his master’s claims lying down, not when his master had failed to predict the worlds Remira would be in a total of three times in a row.

"The Disciple seems to have lost his respect for his teacher just because he looks young, don’t you?" Asked Alabasta in his youthful face, which made Vance a bit annoyed.

"Master, I don’t think this is the right time to make jokes. We need to move fast, this place, who knows how long we would be forced to be here?" Vance understood his Master very well and understood when he was not being serious.

"I don’t know how my disciple ended up turning such an uptight person." Alabasta looked at Vance with some pity. "And I am not joking.." Alabasta spoke while taking out a small book with a single symbol on it. "This is the result of years of tracking that accursed spirit for decades, methods I developed using multitudes of information that includes knowledge from all avenues."

"Take it and practice if you have time." He spoke handing Vance a small book that held the symbol of fate in their language. Which when opened showed moving letters and math equations that left Vance flabbergasted. "How much content is in this book?" Farhad from one look knew that this was a mage artifact, or a Mage Journal which is usually the private property of a mage to hide their greatest secrets and knowledge they don’t wish to forget.

But for a Knight to hold it and fill it with information? This was rare.

"Correct... It holds a library worth of content, half of which is focused on tracking, while the other half is supplementary knowledge required to use these techniques."

"All I see are numbers here... maths?" Vance looked a bit deeper, finding that some of the text appeared as problems he used to do in his youth. Never expected that his master would still be studying those things now.

"Although I had a talent for spiritualism, I didn’t develop on that avenue. So I had to supplement my weakness somehow." A knight neither has the spiritual power of a Mystic nor the power of a mage, making it far harder for them to implement divination techniques.

Which is why Alabasta developed a method to replace those things. "This tracking method uses your fate as a material to derive results in a simple binary form, though it requires a sharp brain to do all this calculation in real-time, which was not possible for me beforehand. Which is why I was always a step behind that spirit." There were a few mistakes from time to time, errors that are bound to happen due to the heavy requirement of the technique and the fact that the future is always undecided, small changes to the present might derail the whole trajectory of the future.

The fact that Alabasta succeeded in tracking Vance in the first world can be considered a miracle.

And Vance, hearing all the details, couldn’t help but marvel at it. "Master, this is a wonderful technique if it works... then if it goes into the hand of Magistars, their job would be so much easier," Vance spoke, opening it and finding the numbers a bit confusing, but he planned to study it in the future if possible and spread it to others.

Though at those words, Alabasta looked at his disciple and said. "No, just one person can know this technique and I chose you, no one else can study it." Warned Alabasta.

"Master, if this works, our work will be so easy..."

"I know the value of that book, and don’t think I don’t want to spread it among the Magisters, but I can’t... Only two will exist with this knowledge at a time. That’s the promise I was forced to make in return for the divinity techniques."

"A vow?" Vance wondered. A vow or contract of any kind would generally put binds on a person’s very existence, draining their potential and limiting their future prospects. Which is why not many chose to make such vows to willy-nilly. More so for people in higher realms.

Specifically someone like his Master. "Master... "

"It’s not a vow like you are thinking, It’s nothing more than a verbal promise that I intend to keep and hope you do the same," Alabasta explained before Vance thought something random.

These words hit Vance a bit hard, he understood that for his Master to value a verbal promise that he made in the past to such a level, one can understand the source of the divination books might not be so simple.

"Master, the person that gave you that book, they should be someone who learned on the subject, won’t they?" Vance wondered, giving his master a deep look.

Alabasta after some further contemplation spoke. "You should understand Vance, the price of looking into heaven’s secrets is never a good thing... the being that gave me these books had long left this world along with all their knowledge."

This information did leave Vance a bit mute for a bit, before he asked, "Then tell me, you should have gone to such a being for your own divinations, didn’t you?... What did you hear from them?" Vance was used to investigations, he could read between the lines and even come to certain conclusions on his own.

And it was easy to see that if his teacher had a connection to any prophet, then he should have learned some things about the future. Things that might be helpful.

"I did learn something... something that is not for you. Focus on the task at hand, I will keep calculating, and you will focus on solving the worlds that we come across."

"As you say, Master." Vance agreed without any struggle, but it didn’t mean he would forget about this topic. ’There is more to it.’

’Teacher’s obsession with Jester... is too strong.’ Vance seems to have come closer to the reason for his Teacher’s obsession. ’The future he learned of had him spook.’ As for what that future was, Vance didn’t know. But it won’t be long before he learns of it.

’This book, there should be some details that can direct me to the source.’