Chapter 48: Geopulse

During this time, every time Gao De went out to sell medicine, he would take a detour to wander around Hoggen City.

One reason was to become familiar with Hoggen City, while also clearing his mind and experiencing the atmosphere of this “other world.”

The other was to learn about local customs, prices, and other conditions, deepening his understanding of this world.

It was precisely this habit that made him notice an increasing number of people in the city who clearly were not native residents of Hoggen.

This made Gao De wary.

A sense of impending storm arose inexplicably in his heart.

In addition, there was an unexpected bonus Gao De had never anticipated.

In this world, books were a rare and expensive commodity.

Only in larger cities would there be dedicated libraries selling books.

In small towns, it was unthinkable—only nobles, scholars, and wealthy merchants possessed private collections of books.

This was due to the ruling class’s monopoly on knowledge in this world.

After learning this, Gao De had already given up hope of buying any books in Hoggen City.

Yet, while idly wandering, he discovered a small workshop in the commoner district selling books.

The owner of the workshop was Dariqi, formerly a monk at the Bremen Monastery.

Most monasteries maintained their own libraries for monks to study doctrine.

They also copied and sold their collected books to scholars or wealthy patrons who needed them.

Dariqi had been responsible for copying and producing books at the monastery.

Later, the monastery could no longer sustain operations due to exorbitant maintenance costs and depleted funding, and was forced to close.

The monks were each sent home.

When the monastery closed, the monks divided its belongings, taking whatever they could carry.

Dariqi, already elderly, could not compete for valuable items and could only pack up some of the monastery’s book collection and return to his birthplace, Hoggen City.

He was too old, his strength gone; he could not do physical labor, and even though he could read, his age meant no one wanted to hire him.

But one must eat.

The old monk decided to rent a small house in the commoner district and open a modest workshop.

There, he copied and produced books, selling them directly to customers, barely sustaining his old age.

The books the old monk sold were not particularly valuable, mostly religious texts.

These included religious ritual guides, church doctrine manuals, church history books, and even church literature such as hymns.

There were also a few scattered epic poems about heroes and historical events, plus a handful of chronicles, travelogues, and books on geography and culture.

There were no knowledge-based books or practical manuals at all.

Of course, even if there were, Gao De could not afford them.

In this world, any book involving knowledge was astronomically priced.

Traditional “miscellaneous” books, however, were much cheaper.

But “cheap” here was only relative.

Although the variety and quantity of books were minimal, they were exactly what Gao De needed.

He bought all four travelogues and geography/culture books, spending two gold coins.

The price was astonishing—in his past life, it was common to buy a kilogram of books for fifty yuan on “Cut One.”

Gao De winced at the cost but paid obediently, adhering to local customs.

Back at the herb garden with the four expensive books, Gao De immediately picked up “Geography of Bremen” and began learning about this world.

Here, he had to thank Master Seda.

Had he not been brought back to the herb garden and taken as an apprentice, how could a former beggar like Gao De have learned to read? After flipping through a few pages, his face showed utter surprise. “Not at all what I expected?”

The entire Bremen region lay in the western part of the Sien Duchy, its vastness far exceeding Gao De’s imagination.

Because the world’s overall landscape closely resembled medieval Europe, and because Hoggen City was indeed small, with productivity he deemed extremely low,

Gao De had unconsciously assumed the Sien Duchy was a small nation of only tens of thousands of square kilometers, at most one hundred thousand.

The fact that Bremen City—the largest city known to Hoggen’s people—was less than two hundred kilometers away further confirmed his assumption.

Yet the reality was that the Bremen region alone was already larger than the Sien Duchy he had imagined.

The entire Bremen region stretched over four hundred kilometers east to west and eight hundred kilometers north to south, covering more than three hundred thousand square kilometers—roughly the size of Guangdong and Fujian combined.

Within the Bremen region, there were nine major rivers.

Seven prominent mountain ranges.

Forests, swamps, and lakes were scattered everywhere.

And this was merely one western region of the Sien Duchy.

One could only imagine how vast the entire Sien Duchy must be.

“With such a massive territory, could this world’s technological level possibly manage it? Wouldn’t it be too far to control?”

Gao De’s mind instinctively raised this question, muttering: “This isn’t scientific!”

The next moment, he chuckled at himself, realizing he had again defaulted to fixed thinking.

Although this world’s technology was low—equivalent to medieval Europe—it possessed magic, a supernatural force.

Why is supernatural force called “supernatural” if not because it defies science? Shaking his head, Gao De turned the page and continued reading.

Despite its vast area, the Bremen region was remarkably desolate.

Centered on Bremen City, eight smaller cities—including Hoggen—formed a circular development zone of nearly ten thousand square kilometers.

The remaining three hundred thousand square kilometers were untouched wilderness, teeming with ferocious beasts and dangerous geopulse creatures.

Further down, Gao De finally found a little information about geopulse creatures.

Although he often heard the term “geopulse creature” and used it frequently, Gao De had little actual understanding of them.

Finding any information about geopulse creatures, he seized it like a treasure.

“After the convergence of planes, geopulses emerged frequently, their numbers increasing daily; geopulse creatures flooded out. Yet the Bremen region has not produced a new geopulse in two hundred years. King Jelos XII praised Bremen as a land blessed by fortune.”

The text contained only these few words about geopulse creatures before shifting to other geographical descriptions.

Yet even this brief sentence carried immense information.

“Plane convergence—does this mean this world has more than one plane? Or is ‘plane’ here different from my understanding?”

“Geopulses emerge frequently, geopulse creatures flood out”—this was easy to understand: geopulse creatures originate from geopulses, which are continuously generating, their numbers growing.

The number of geopulse creatures must increase accordingly.

Indeed, a world with supernatural forces was bound to be incredibly complex and strange, filled with countless secrets.

And the phrase “the Bremen region has not produced a new geopulse in two hundred years” did bring Gao De slight relief.

He had already witnessed the terror of geopulse creatures once at the herb garden.

He didn’t need to guess—geopulse emergence meant disaster for humans.

Once disaster struck, uncontrollable factors multiplied; how could a weak first-rank mage apprentice like him remain unaffected? Gao De did not want his current peaceful life shattered.

He was still young, his strength insufficient, yet his potential boundless.

Better to quietly “grow” for now, and wait until he became much stronger.

(End of chapter)