After reading through the book for several hours, Caleric had gained a sufficiently high level of understanding of manalogy. With that, he also found himself having learned some of the primordial and ancient world history, from the theory of the creation of the world and life to the understanding of the different aeons.
Even after several hours, the book was barely complete. The majority of the book consisted of the current spell index, which contained 99 spells. Each spell was described in detail. The book was truly the best for anyone who wanted to learn spell-based manalogy.
Caleric did not bother reading all 99 spells. First, it would have taken him way too long, and second, there was no need for him to know all the spells.
From the book and his memories, Caleric understood that the people who could manipulate manacules and harness their powers were called wielders. There were seven levels of wielding, with mono-wielders being the first and the weakest, and septa-wielders being the strongest because of their ability to wield all the spells.
The wielding level of an individual was based on the body's mana force, which would gradually increase from birth until the individual reached the age of eighteen. The lowest level of wielding was unlocked when the body's mana force reached Point Zero, or the absolute start, which was accepted by convention.
Caleric was born with his mana force at Point Zero; however, over the years, his mana force increased so slowly that he never advanced. Yesterday, even after turning eighteen, he was still a mono-wielder. This meant that he could only use spells that utilized one manacule at a time—that is, a total of only seven spells.
This made Caleric very disappointed. He had previously assumed that he would get some cheat skill after transmigrating to another world, but after learning that he was stuck at the weakest wielding level, he realized that the cheat skill concept was only fantasy and that real-life transmigrations do not work that way.
While reading the book, Caleric also realized that there were certain gaps in his memories. Since the book was written by him, he should have had all the recorded information, but some of it was missing, and there were facts he could not recall.
Side effect of transmigration... Caleric thought.
After several hours of reading, Caleric finally decided to stop. He closed the book titled Manalogy and placed it where he had retrieved it from. Then, he glanced at the wall clock that hung above the door to the room. It was almost eleven in the morning. He had spent a long time reading the book.
Original Caleric would have used this time to perfect his understanding of manalogy or work on some new groundbreaking project. But he could not do any of that.
It was then that he found a lot of free time on his hands. There was nothing for him to do. From the moment he had transmigrated into this world, he had always had his hands full of tasks.
Caleric decided to use this little free time to go outside and explore his surroundings. After all, he still wanted to go back to his own world. For that, he would have to take the initiative to learn more about how he had transmigrated in the first place.
Although Caleric had no lead on where to start, he thought exploring and getting familiar with this new world was a good starting point. Even though he already knew the world thanks to his memories, experiencing it firsthand would be better.
He got up and changed into a pair of new clothes: a white shirt, brown trousers, and a long dark tailcoat. It was not formal wear; the clothes were very loose, as if he were wearing a size or two larger than his own.
He then went downstairs and told the maid, who was busy doing chores, that he was heading outside. After that, he went to the door. Although he had been outside while returning from the Gnalet mansion, it had been rather quiet because it was early morning.
As soon as he stepped outside, he was met with the cheerful atmosphere of the neighborhood, just as in his memories.
Several people were talking to each other, the streets were bustling with crowds, and children were running around, all while the sun shone radiantly high up in the sky. The neighborhood had many shops of all different kinds. There were grocery stores, clothing shops, general stores, and much more.
Street vendors were trying to sell their wares on the sides. The main road was not very wide but sufficient for two arcavels to pass by simultaneously. Even with arcavels being common, horse-driven carriages were not extinct, and one could see at least one or two every few minutes.
The most common mode of transport on the roads was still bicycles. The invention of bicycles in this world had happened long ago. They were cheap, making them easily affordable. Caleric found it surprising that the bicycle design was identical to the ones found on Earth.
However, this was not the general case everywhere, such an atmosphere was rather unique to Upper Street. Virelia had four Upper Streets, one in each direction. All of them led to the center of the city and the heart of Virelia, where the Clover Cathedral stood.
If one decided to walk down any of the Upper Streets, they would see the hustling, bustling crowd slowly dwindle and the atmosphere turn gloomy the farther they were from the center of the city. The roads eventually broke into small streets and lanes, which later branched into alleys of slums.
Caleric and Cally's house was on the Western Upper Street. It was not directly on the Upper Street but rather in the neighborhood around it.
Caleric decided to walk up the Upper Street to the city center, the heart of Virelia. It was the biggest shopping district in the entire Northern Continent—if anything existed, one could possibly find it there.
As Caleric walked, he could clearly see the crowd growing. After a while, he finally saw the end of the road, which was not really the end but the start of the largest shopping district in the entire world. The road, which could previously accommodate only two arcavels at once, had now expanded to allow four arcavels to pass simultaneously. Two large arcavels could easily pass through side by side.
If he were to continue walking, it would take him a little more than an hour to reach the heart of the city, so, as any sane person would, Caleric decided to get an arcavel. Luckily for him, there were many vacant arcavels around, with their drivers waiting for any opportunity to get a passenger.
He walked up to one of the public arcavels parked nearby.
"How much to the city center?"
"6 Obel."
"That is too much. 5 Obel."
"We have a fixed price, sir. Nobody will take you to the city center for 5 Obel."
Caleric had no other option but to comply. He did not have enough energy to walk for a few more minutes to cut the cost.
Caleric got inside the vehicle, which was powered by manacules. He soon found out that there was not much difference between arcavels and cars. Arcavels were like vintage cars.
The driver got inside, and the vehicle started moving. Unlike cars, it made absolutely no sound; in fact, even the sound of movement was suppressed, making it completely quiet if the windows were rolled shut.
Caleric looked outside and saw rows of buildings passing by one after another. There were roads between the gaps in the rows of buildings. All the roads led to the main road on which they were traveling.
According to his memories, there were four such main roads that led to the central plaza. In about twenty minutes, they finally reached the end of the road. Caleric got out of the arcavel, handed the man six 1-Obel notes, and walked away.
In front of him stood a large, empty open ground full of nothing but grass. On the sides, he could see the innermost ring of buildings. Ahead of him was the massive central plaza, so vast that one could not even see the other end.
In the center of the open ground stood the large and magnificent marvel of mankind, bigger than any structure Caleric had ever seen—the Clover Cathedral.
It was truly difficult to imagine how big all of this was, and when Caleric saw it in front of him, he realized that going out was a good choice. The Clover Cathedral, the eighth largest cathedral in the entire world, standing at a massive 20,000 sq meters—equal to the size of almost three football fields—was in front of him, yet it was dwarfed by the massive open land all around it; the central plaza.
The central plaza itself was 1–2 sq km in area. It was so big that it would take about 20 minutes to walk from one end to the other.
But none of this was even nearly as impressive as the one thing that Virelia was known for. The largest shopping district in the entire world, established around the cathedral, was as big as a city in itself—a large city dedicated to commerce and trade. The shopping district's expanse was about 100 sq km!