Supreme Magus novel Chapter 431

Lith spent his morning visiting the small bookshops located in the city’s middle rim. Othre was divided into three areas. The outer rim, where Lith resided, was the biggest and the poorest one.

It was where the commoners lived and the warehouses were located. Unless one possessed many dimensional items, moving huge loads of merchandise required wagons and draft animals.

The former generated intense traffic that made it almost impossible to walk during the busiest hours of the day despite the large roads and sidewalks. The latter naturally produced a pungent smell that would make even a stable boy puke his guts out.

The houses were one or two stories high, made of stone or wood based on the owner’s income. There was not a single empty space between them. Warehouses were easily recognizable by their huge size and double doors to allow carriages to easily get in and out at all times.

The closest a warehouse was to the city gates, the more expensive it was, whereas for housings the opposite was true. The smell was a big deterrent, that was why Lith’s hotel was located in a small street were carriages couldn’t pass, away from the warehouses.

The middle rim was occupied by merchants’ shops, craftsmen’s and artists’ workshops. Only the middle class could afford a house there. They were all at least two stories high, each with a private garden.

The middle rim’s streets were too narrow for carriages, only stagecoaches were small enough to pass. Small parks were present every few blocks, to give some space for the children to play and a place for the travelers to rest in the shade of trees during the hottest hours of the day.

The inner rim was where the rich, the nobles, and the mages resided. There weren’t houses as much as mansions. Unlike Belius, the taller a building, the richer was the household.

Lith avoided big shops because they had the necessary staff to go through all their merchandise. They were bound to identify real books about magic and sell them to the Association that held the monopoly of the mystical knowledge.

Small shops, instead, would buy more books than they could handle. With a bit of luck, one could find a precious tome cataloged as a diary or even in the bargain bin. Many mages mixed research and personal life in their writings, others used such convoluted technical jargon that a layman would easily mistake it for gibberish.

It was the reason why unless those books had some drawings, no one would give them a second look. Lith could only once again curse at the city arrays when his communication amulet interrupted his fruitless research.

Normally, he would store a book in Soluspedia and search its contents in an instant before deciding if it was worth buying or not. The dimensional magic lock forced him to actually read them one by one in what he considered a colossal waste of time.

The first call came from the army. Kamila notified Lith that the Commander had agreed with the Association’s terms and ordered him to talk with their representative.

The second one was from Mage Dorian Felhorn, who gave him an appointment at the local branch of the Mage Association, located in the inner rim. The building consisted of a three stories small castle built with reddish stones.

Each of its four corners was occupied by a small tower surmounted with a blue mana crystal.

A middle aged clerk led Lith in an office located on the ground floor. The room’s walls were covered by bookshelves, the only source of lighting was a magical chandelier hung in the middle of the ceiling.

Dorian welcomed Lith and invited him to sit on one of the armchairs in front of his black mahogany desk.

To Lith Dorian said: "First of all, know that you are currently relieved from your role in the army until the end of the conversation. I’m not speaking with the Ranger, but with the Great Mage."