Theo pinned his eyes to the side of the path leading up to the sect's main area.
Still, while focused on his important task, he couldn't help but glance up to the otherworldly architecture of this place.
And now, armed with the memories of his last fate, Theo could appreciate the beauty of those buildings and their arrangement to an even deeper degree.
Those high spires, gardens serving for the streets, and huge, open plazas often taking on the role of public amenities. The slight, blueish glister that accompanied it all, lighting up the air with its own inner shine.
Every detail of the garrison-city ahead made clear its nature.
This was a sect. And for all the lofty splendor it radiated, it was still but the arm of the duke designated to do the dirty end of politics for him. Even with the patriarch's special status of a marquis and the sect's official classification as a borderland's march, this whole place was ultimately just a manpower site for the kingdom to supply its soldiers from.
Right now, thankfully, the kingdom was at peace. And with it, the sect's role turned to providing a few skilled fighters now and then, as opposed to the times of war when it would get fully mobilized. In times of war, it would turn into a glorified mercenary company for the duke to wield as he desired!
And if that ever were to happen, Theo, a royal, would find himself in the service of a duke, making his position extremely awkward.
He was there to keep the sect for the crown's sole and indiscriminate use!
That was the very worst part about the shackles, the invisible chains that held Theo hostage.
To be at the whims of others while unable to change his own fate, his own future.
'Rules be damned,' Theo's eyes darkened a little as he picked up another pebble that fitted his criteria. 'To break free, first, I need power, money, and influence. And who would've thought…'
A weird smile crept up to Theo's lips, twisting them in a bit villainous fashion.
He then raised his eyes up the path, to where the small cobblestone track met with the sect's main street of wide limits and flat-stone surface, making for a much comfier walk while depriving Theo of the chance to gather more stones fitting for what he had in mind.
No matter how powerful he could get and how easily he could achieve it, it all would matter absolutely nothing when forced to stand against the might of an entire faction of powerful landed nobles!
Even a cultivator in the realm of the strongest would falter when attacked by a hundred men. A mage would be no different, for all the distance and area of effect of a mage's spells would be countered by the snipers equipped with the most modern of weapons.
In other words, there was a limit to how much Theo could achieve with just raw power alone, even if his knowledge gave him the right to rub shoulders with the greatest of this continent.
'Now that I think about it,' Theo's thoughts changed as he picked up the pace on the better road at the cost of the now still stock of the stones he needed to gather.
'The only way for me never to have heard about this technique,' Theo gulped his saliva as the realization struck him, 'was if this place and my old place have never encountered the other.'
That alone was a massive challenge Theo didn't even dare to think about.
From how he felt deep at his core, he could tell he had two whole years to find a way back and return. But for this time to remain as short as he saw it right now, Theo had to make absolutely the most out of every single day that lay ahead of him.
Starting with the very first part of Theo's makeshift plan.
While still walking up the main street of the sect with his feet just sliding through the soft grass of the streets-turned-gardens, the stones Theo gathered had now poured from his pouch only to gather and orbit around his torso like a bunch of planets caught in a star's gravity well.
'Let's see,' Theo leaked a sliver of his mana through his mana-gate, using its potential and turning it physical as he brought one of the stones orbiting him to his eyes before engraving three, seemingly random lines upon its surface.
Then, he turned his attention to the next piece, and then another one.
With the nebula of flying stones, now mostly marked in a subdued fashion, Theo finally reached his goal.
Money, influence, and broadly defined power.
Those were the three things he needed to cast his chains off and regain control over his life.
Money to fund his ambitions, influence to remove all those who will stand in his path, and then the power, to bend the world to his own liking.
In a way, the explosion of personal power that came as a result of Theo's awakening was merely the tool to legitimize his sudden intensity and to force all his enemies into submission.
And now was the time for Theo to abuse the mana's potential to obtain all three of those things in one, fell swoop!
Which is why, after a long walk, he stood at the doorstep of the sect leader's mansion. The building that stood out even among the already magnificent vibe of the whole sect.
All of Theo's crystals sank back into his pouch, with one, weirdly shaped one resting at the pouch's very top.
This manor was a perfect seat of power for the marquis to flaunt his autonomy and independence while the bigger players merely ignored his antics, nowhere near bored enough to engage.
Theo's first battlefield of his new life. A battlefield he barely spared a thought to prepare before rushing head-first inside.