Black Onyx - Forgotten Magic - Chapter 330: Size Classification

The following days went by in a flash. The entire time Gerald only did five things, and it went something like this:

1. Eat!

2. Read!

3. Shit!

4. Sleep!

5. Repeat!

Sometimes in a different order.

He wanted to skip sleep, but that was the most important part of the equation, especially for brain health if he wanted to remember everything. If there was one thing he took seriously, it was the health of his brain.

Any damage to it was unacceptable! Having a sharp mind allowed him to break the shackles of the world, and was also the only thing nobody could take away from him. So he made great efforts to take care of it.

As Gerald was devouring books one after the other, he realized just how many gaps in the knowledge he actually had.

Fortunately, his theories about magic proved to be correct for the most part. There were some small mistakes in the assumptions he made, but those didn’t affect magic much, if at all, so there were no problems.

Everything worked as it should.

He also made many discoveries about metals and their interactions with Mana. It was an interesting topic, but he just skimmed through books in search of more important knowledge.

“Wait, what?” he murmured as a picture of a weapon popped out at him. He quickly summoned Toothpick and compared the two.

“Ooooh! So it’s a glaive!” he nearly slapped his forehead in realization. “I was calling it a spear this entire time, I’m so stupid!”

Well, glaive or spear, it didn’t really matter in the end. Toothpick was a great weapon either way. Or, it used to be… The beasts such as Ogres didn’t care for his blades one bit. Their skin was tough and hard, especially when enhanced with magic, and crude iron weapons did little to wound it.

But the library was full of surprises. He found more than a dozen books about what seemed to be martial arts. Full-body exercises and movements to strengthen the body and mold it into a living weapon.

It was good, but nothing too special. Gerald took a few books and made copies which he planned to give to Warren later. The man would benefit greatly from them.

There were also some instructions for fighting with weapons such as swords, spears, hammers, glaives, sickles… It contained a multitude of different battle styles and techniques that his teammates could make use of. He copied those also.

He also found an old map of Neloron. It was made of yellow parchment and full of scribbles, so it was difficult to read. It was clear that the boundaries between the Burronian Empire and the Kingdom of Myrtana changed many times over the long centuries.

As the two great powers of the Neloron continent, they had constant disagreements and skirmishes along the border. That was especially so near the Black Iron Fort. There were dozens of lines remaining, a clear sign of being drawn and then wiped off, leaving a blackish zone in the area.

Most likely the map was used to keep the current state of the Kingdom. Gerald made a rough copy of that one too, after cleaning it up in his mind, of course.

The whole continent resembled the profile of a human head if you squinted hard enough.

Both Myrtana and the Empire were on the bottom part of the upper half, with the mountain range to the north belonging to the Dwarves, and jungles and forests to the far west belonging to the Elves.

Myrtana had the sea both to the east and to the south, with a few islands sprinkled to the south-east. From what Gerald could decipher from the smudged map, the islands there are/used to be a volcano, and were now named Green Jade Islands due to their lush vegetation.

The weird part was the Emerald Sea that split the eastern side of the continent in half in an almost perfectly straight line. It was almost as if someone took the knife and cut a chunk out of it. It started near the Forbidden Zone, and stretched towards the east, becoming wider as it went.

The continental split was at least a thousand kilometers long, maybe more. Gerald wasn’t sure what ratio the map used, or even if it was accurate.

In any case, the Emerald Sea separated the deserts in the south from the lush forests and plains of the north where the Kingdom lay.

Gerald stored the map away with a satisfied nod. He now at least had something to orient himself with. Before that, he had to remember it all and calculate the direction every time he went somewhere unknown. Now he at least approximately knew where people lived.

“Much better!” he smiled.

It took a while, but he eventually found the one thing he was originally looking for. It was a book about wild beasts and monsters from the other world. Though they were now considered natives since they were roaming the land for thousands of years already and have become an important part of the ecosystem long ago.

“Oh,” his eyebrows jumped up in surprise, “Goblins can take on Elemental forms as well?” What a discovery! Though rare, Black Goblins, instead of evolving to a Goblin Shaman, could transform into a Fire Imp.

They were beings of incredible power with huge Mana reserves and fiery nature. They often lived underground or near or even inside active volcanos, since their entire bodies were made of molten rock-like substances and were constantly on fire.

“Wow…” Gerald gasped, touching the crude picture of the creature on the page. “An exotic lifeform… How peculiar!”

He also found out that both Ogres and Orcs could evolve into a Giant, the latter a much chunkier version than the former. The evolution was not instant like in some fantasy books, instead, it took time as the creature grew slowly over many years, even decades in some cases.

Usually, the Giants that attacked were those that slowly evolved on the continent, their size varying between ten and twenty meters. The last Giant attack that was recorded happened a few decades ago and had the monster measuring at about 17 meters. It wasn’t too hard to kill way back then.

However, the one that came a week ago was around 25 meters! The difference in both strength and defense was massive!

The power went up exponentially with body mass and size, so an increase in height by 50% meant at least a 100-200% increase in strength. Not to mention that it was way more difficult to damage due to tougher and thicker skin.

It was like comparing a child and an adult. They were worlds apart.

Class 4. That’s what he heard someone call the Giant. Gerald didn’t know what it meant at first, but at the moment he held a booklet explaining just that.

Apparently, the classification came from the previous era, where it actually made sense. Bigger beasts were, in most cases, stronger, and so the classification scale was made to quickly figure out how dangerous something was. Of course, there were exceptions, but for the most part, it was a good approximation.

Humans were Class 1 based on size. Anything smaller was considered Class 0, and if it wasn’t poisonous or venomous, it was considered harmless, or mildly annoying for the most part. Under those classifications fell dogs, wolves, any smaller farm animals, boars…

Class 2 were bears, horses/Warhorses, Wargs, Silverbacks…and other such beasts.

At Class 3, the beasts were already quite dangerous. Earth Dragon, Ogres, Minecrawler King, Brown Boar King, and the like fell under this category. Many were rightfully called Kings of their species, as that’s what they were.

Anyone trying to challenge their rule would be in for a rude awakening.