I had expected Sun Jiao to be much better as a result of my experiences, but then again, if he was anywhere close to the level of other Liberomancers I was used to working with, he wouldn't have been in this predicament in the first place.

But there was a bigger problem than that.

"Alright, two things," I said. "First of all, you need to really work on your penmanship - or brushmanship - or whatever you guys call it. Secondly, this is not really going to work out."

"What? Why?"

"Because I can't read or write in the language you know," I said. It hadn't occurred to me before, but it should've been the first thing that came to mind. "I can't train you in writing, and any grimoires I know you won't be able to copy. Conversely, any that you would be able to copy would be those that I can't write."

"Wait - Teacher, are you telling me you can't write in this language?" Sun Jiao asked, genuinely surprised.

"That's correct - I can't," I said. I then frowned. "Come to think of it, shouldn't you have realized that fact much before now?" I pointed at my face. "I'm clearly not from this country, so why did you think that I could read or write its language?"

"People kept calling you a genius who had become a Master Liberomancer at a very young age," Sun Jiao said. "And they heaped all of this praise on you - so I thought that you might be able to write the same language…"

I pointed towards my mouth. "You must've noticed that my mouth is not moving in synchrony with my lips, correct? Didn't that tip you off that something was wrong?"

Sun Jiao squinted. "I… did, but didn't think much of it. I have seen something similar when speaking with lizardmen - ah!" He slapped his forehead, as if only now realizing what a dunce he was. "I see what you mean now. But you know, Teacher, I think this is quite irresponsible of you. After living for so long in this country, shouldn't you have learned at least one of its languages?"

"I don't want to be lectured on 'responsibility' by a literal thief," I said. "And for the record I haven't been in this country that long."

"Is-Is there anything else that can help me?" Sun Jiao asked, eagerness in his eyes. "Like some sort of pill you can make, or a concoction, or some sort of sacred treasure that would make my magic more powerful? Is there something other than Liberomancy I can train in to use magic? Is magic just limited to Liberomancy?"

"I'll answer your second question first," I told him. "There are basically four kinds of magic in this world that I know of up till now. First, there are the magical abilities of magical beasts. They are born with them, and these powers cannot be changed, nor can magical beasts learn new abilities; like the paralytic gazes of basilisks, or various beasts that can fly using magic. Technically, Liberomancers can use them by summoning such creatures. Secondly, there is 'natural magic' or 'wild magic', where you see phenomenon like the magic letting us speak to each other even though our languages are completely different. Natural magic cannot be controlled any more than we can control how the sun and the earth move around each other, and what causes it is unknown. Thirdly, there is the magic of the spirits, who are said to be able to use magic directly with their thoughts, though this kind I have never seen personally in my life. Fourthly and lastly, there is the magic of Liberomancers, which is constrained by grimoires. I don't know of any other magic system, so the short answer is: no, there is nothing else that you can train in."

What I was telling him was both common knowledge and extremely basic - though given what he had demonstrated up till now regarding his abilities I realized that I couldn't take anything for granted when it came to his knowledge.

Sun Jiao nodded. "And what about-"

"Sadly, there are no shortcuts when it comes to Liberomancy," I told him. "There is no pill, or oil, or treasure, that you can purchase that will make you better, other than a grimoire of course. Back when I had just started out on my own Liberomancy journey, I would occasionally see people on street corners offering to sell things like that - magical pills which I'm pretty sure were made of some kind of animal dung now that I think about it, or talismans that were made of cheap glass said to be able to 'concentrate my mana stores increasing its recovery rate' or something or the other." Looking back at that time, it was quite a miracle that I hadn't fallen prey to such scams at least once. "I was trained by the wife of a rather accomplished Liberomancer - and she had recounted to me how he had been swindled twice by such scams along his journey. It was thanks to her warnings that I never fell for these things - there are a lot of snake oil salesmen in this world who will sell you such objects - just know that in all of my experience, and those of other renowned Liberomancers, such a thing simply does not exist."

"…" Sun Jia looked extremely disappointed. Did he think that there were some rare herbs that could be mixed together to take you from Rank One to Rank Three instantly? I mean, I'm sure other people must've told him the same thing I was telling him right now - but it looked like he just hadn't completely believed them. "What is 'snake oil?'"

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"Ah, it's just an expression from where I come from," I told him. "We call them that because…" I trailed off, as I had forgotten why they were called snake oil salesmen in the first place. I'm sure I must have been told at one point, but couldn't remember. Instinctively, I reached for my phone to look it up - but, remembered that even if it wasn't dead, I couldn't just look up things I wanted to know as conveniently as I could back on Earth. That had been something I had taken for granted back on Earth, and I promised myself that if I ever managed to get back, I would never make that mistake again. Even now, after over a year of being in this world, the reflex of 'just look it up on your phone' remained. "Well, anyway, it's just an idiom for people who sell useless remedies and the like. Like 'cure all' medicines that can do wonders but have no side effects, or stuff that's supposed to make your manhood bigger. We had a lot of those kinds of scams back where I came from too."

"...from the way Teacher was talking, it seems that Teacher knows about that last example from experience."

"S-Shut up! It's just an example that I was giving because that was the most common example I could think of…"

"Ah, I thought that there would be something like that or a dark magic ritual that might help me out," Sun Jiao said. "Seeing the elite Liberomancers, I thought there was some secret to it that they might be hiding! But if someone like you is saying there isn't, I guess it just doesn't exist."

"Well, there is technically a shortcut," I told him. "Just be born to a family of powerful Liberomancers - then they will not only train you to read and write at a young age, when it's easier to learn, but also spend time to pass on their grimoires to you. Here's some sage advice a Rank Three Liberomancer once gave me: 'Don't be poor.'"

"Teacher! How can you say that with a straight face?"

"I'm not joking," I told him. "Once, I was talking to a group of other Rank Three Liberomancers and I was bringing up the idea that; to make things slightly more fair for the Rank Two and Rank One Liberomancers. They simply told me that such people needed to work harder to reach their level - and that once they became Rank Three Liberomancers they too, could enjoy such benefits. When I tried to explain that some people did not have access to the advantages their backgrounds and resources provided for them, one of them - completely unironically mind you - said, 'They should have chosen where they were born better - why should we suffer for their lack of luck?'"

Sun Jiao chuckled, despite himself, at what I had said.

"What I mean to say is," I said, "when I think of the strongest Liberomancers I know, nearly all of them had some strong backing of some sort."

Just take Zeke and Drake for example - even with my knowledge from back on Earth both of them were still further along their journeys of Liberomancy than I was. They were almost done filling out their Rank Three slots, while I had barely started doing mine.

I actually found it amazing how dynasties of powerful Liberomancers hadn't popped up - well, they kind of did, but not in the way that you'd expect with them becoming more and more powerful with time until they ruled huge swathes of Libraria. They were far smaller and less powerful than I'd have thought they would be.

That could be chalked up to two things- just because someone was brilliant didn't meant that their kids would be as well. Case in point - the king, though definitely not an idiot- far from it as a matter of fact, had not been able to create a new Rank Four grimoire. Neither had anyone recently in his family.

Even back on Earth, it was said that family wealth only usually lasted three generations.

And two, family assets can only go so far if people had multiple children - which was very common in this world. Take the simplest example of a family having just two children. This meant that not only were family properties divided in two, but their parent's time was also split in half as they had to potentially make grimoires for both of them. And given how much of a time-consuming process that was, especially at the higher Ranks, such a thing might not be possible. There was a reason that Lance had encouraged competition between his two sons, because he only had time to make one extra Rank Four grimoire.

Lance might have had good intentions, but I could tell that the relationship between Drake and Zeke was still somewhat strained because of this. Their father had encouraged this rivalry as he thought it would push the two of them to do better, and in a way it had. Drake definitely tried much harder because he knew that he was constantly being examined under a microscope and compared to his far more successful older brother - and he had told me himself that he wouldn't have accomplished a good number of things he otherwise would have had this scrutiny not existed.

It wasn't like Drake was dumb or anything along those lines, but he was far closer to average or below average, while Zeke on the other hand had outstanding talent. Drake definitely tried harder than he otherwise would have had he not had a rival.

However, this pressure to succeed had eventually turned out to be too much for Drake, which had caused him to lash out the way he had back in the tournament when he had lost rather humiliatingly; being unable to win a single round at the time. This ironically had damaged his reputation far more than losing would have I also didn't think that Lance had anticipated that this would inadvertently create the amount of bitterness that had once been there within Drake's heart- which had largely mellowed out by now, but I could easily have seen Lance's decisions leading the two of them to become sworn enemies if things had gone badly at some point.

For families that had more than two children, I could definitely see things turning even more sour.

Master Jiah Pei had been someone who had greatly exceeded expectations in that he had gone far beyond what anyone in his family had done before him, but even he had gotten a head start compared to many people.

Hei Nan had risen to his position almost entirely on his own - so he was really the only Liberomancer I knew who could be said to be a self-made man. But, the reason that even now, that I found his story to be remarkable was because it was so uncommon.

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