Although I am now a prince, but in order to survive...BL

Chapter 25

The magic tower. Jay had heard from his sister's mouth before, some information about her. But hearing is one thing, but seeing ... when an endless long staircase and many doors appeared before Jay's eyes, he immediately forgot what he was thinking about a couple of minutes ago and stared at one of the walls of the tower with a burning gaze. Or rather, on one of the stones of which it consisted.Money! Gold!These were all his thoughts at the moment. And all why? The space inside and, however, turned out to be larger than the outside. The sister didn't lie to him about it at all. It means that the material used in the construction of the magic tower was really unusual. An ordinary stone is unlikely to make the space narrow in one place and expand in another. Not only was the property wrong, but it also became too fragile when casting a spell. And by the way, when the construction was completed, it had to be used to stabilize and conceal mana. So that in the future, when there were no distortions with the space inside, and a magical beast roaming in the neighborhood did not smell the bubbling flow of magic and did not come running to capture the area (they liked to sleep in places where manna is available). And such animals, besides spirits and magicians, existed in this world as far as Jay knows. However, unlike these two, they could not directly use magic, only digest some things in order to reward them with different magical properties. But this process was also not fast. It took at least one year for the same magic stone to be obtained by the beast named as the "stone eater".In addition, there was one more difference than these animals stood out – their small number. In the end, the conditions for an ordinary beast to become magical were harsh. This is not to mention surviving after being born with the qualifications of a magical beast. Usually adult animals tried to find such cubs and eat them in order to become stronger or heal internal wounds. In turn, this led to a deadly fight between the beast's parents and the attackers. That's how the number was reduced, and not vice versa replenished.It is quite possible that nature itself conceived this from the very beginning, as she saw a threat in such creatures. Yet they are many times physically stronger than magicians, not to mention spirits, and more bloodthirsty than them. Well, or the developers themselves, who last of all added magical beasts to the world, planning to release add-ons in the future. Most likely, it was. In any case, Jay didn't know a lot of information about this, since his sister mostly liked to talk about game characters and locations where interesting scenes took place. Otherwise, why do you think he began to look at the stone like that, and not poisoned himself in the first place to look for the habitat of a magical beast? If you get a magic thing and sell it, you'll get rich! It will definitely be possible to forget about the unstable financial condition for ten years and how earlier in your past life not to think about tomorrow and do what you really want. The world is new, and there are so many unknown and interesting things in it! To recover on a trip and study everything – that's the thing.But if only there was money... you need, of course, weapons, magic scrolls, things for a hike, hire people who know this or that area well. Currently, Jay couldn't afford it, nor could he find a magical beast. He didn't know where at least one of them lived. But Jay wasn't upset about that. At least, unlike many people, he at least knows about the existence of such creatures in the world (most of them have not even heard of them). So there is a chance to meet him one day. Someday he will definitely find it, but for now it's better to stop looking at the magic stone. Now, no matter how much Jay wanted to commit theft, deep down he knew he couldn't do it. After all, if at least one piece of stone is removed from the wall, everything inside will collapse and it will definitely be noticed immediately and they will start looking for the culprit. And to spoil relations with magicians... Jay was not in a situation where he could afford it. He still needed money from them, as well as magic scrolls.Meanwhile, seeing no one, Jay's neighbor wanted to ask him where to go next. Jay, as he believed, was not here for the first time, so he should know where everything was. He turned around and noticed a painful expression on his face. Naturally, he could not leave it like that.- Why do you have such a face? Did you have time to eat a fly on the way?- What do you know! It's all money! – Jay took one last look at the wall of the magic tower, and feeling his heart bleed (His financial well-being! His carefree life! Well, why didn't the dream come true, as it immediately disappeared, not even a minute had passed?) from the cruel reality, I decided to focus on why they actually came here. – We were called for help. So why are you standing there? Let's go. Where are we going there by the way? Ask someone.- From whom? – Jay's neighbor nodded somewhere to the side.- Well, there's no one here, so everyone is sitting in the rooms. You can ask there. – Seeing no one, Jay did not lose his head and headed for the stairs.- You can, but ... - the boy followed Jay, but for some reason stopped at the stairs and did not go further.- What, but?- I think I'll wait here. I won't go for nothing.Jay of course knew that his neighbor sometimes likes to be lazy, but not to the same extent. Is he really too lazy to climb the stairs? What the hell kind of environment did he have at home in the past? Maybe this boy is of noble blood? The son of a duke there or a baron? For the first time since they met, Jay wondered what kind of status his neighbor had? Once he was near the first room, he was still thinking about it. Finding no one there and going to the next room, Jay stopped guessing and already tried to figure out if it was possible to benefit from this? But at this moment, not knowing why, he remembered his own status. He's the king's son, but what does he get out of it? Back pain, calluses on the hands and a daily headache about how to live tomorrow.- But of noble blood. Jay said sourly, knocking on the next room and trying to find someone there, leaving the "grandiose" plans for his neighbor far behind.In the end, what difference does it make which family he is from. He is not going to return to it "yet" and who knows when this "yet" will happen. Maybe a month or a year later. In any case, Jay can't sit and wait for this. He has a lot of things to do right now where labor is required. Right now, not sometime in the future.The room was empty. Third. Fourth. Empty again. Jay stopped, not wanting to waste any more time going around, and listened. What if he hears voices and understands where to go right away? There was silence all around. Not a single sound anywhere. He pondered what could be the reasons for the disappearance of people and, discarding unnecessary options, came to only one conclusion – they could get into an empty space for some absurdity. It was something like a secret room, only a mirror image. Usually, the one who created it used it as a hiding place to hide valuable things. And these usually cost money. So?"Then I'm the lucky one. – A smile appeared on Jay's face when he imagined what valuable treasures he could find and, not wanting to wait any longer when he could get rich, rushed to search the cache.But after two floors of the tower, I realized that I could not leave here on enthusiasm alone. All the rooms that he searched, or rather, tried to search, were completely empty. No things, no furniture, no books. If you raise your head up and calculate how many more extra rooms you need to inspect ... Jay will have to rest more than a dozen times. Yet he is a child who has short legs and a little-trained body. And if so, it can take a lot of time. And although Jay knew that no one would notice his disappearance from the outside, since time inside the "hiding place" is frozen. Even if you spend a day or even a week in it, you will still return exactly at the moment when you just entered it. But Jay, there was no way he wanted to stay here for so long and waste his energy on such a thing!This is then not a search for wealth can be considered his actions, but the work of a hotel employee. After all, this person usually goes and checks if all the numbers are in order. And from the outside, that's exactly what it would look like, Jay was absolutely sure of it. But at least the employee gets paid, and he? If the search fails, he will remain with empty pockets. And naturally, the boy could not agree with this turn of events, so he thought, why not start from the top floor of the inspection, the one that belongs to the main magician? His sister told him that it was there that the main character, and now his older brother, wandered by chance and found something there. Of course, it is impossible to exclude the chance that this happened not in the cache, but outside it (in the tower itself, in the present tense). But to be honest, Jay couldn't remember such details anymore. My sister sometimes liked to "imagine" so much when she started talking about her new game that Jay had to pretend that he was listening to her attentively, as at the same time he was thinking about something completely different. At that time, Jay was not very interested in such stories, but he had to support his sister's hobbies as an older brother. However, why at that time? If Jay had a chance to go back in time, he would have done it anyway. Because it would not have been possible to remember all the details of the game anyway. And it's not because there were too many of them. By the way, Jay has a great memory, he can memorize the whole chemistry textbook if he wants. It was just that the information contained too much praise for the heroes of the game.- Did you know that the second hero hates eating onions?Do you know when I passed today's arch...- Brother! He... he turns out to be a spy of the neighboring kingdom! This seventh hero never ceases to amaze me.- The last hero is so pathetic. Can you imagine...But no matter how his ears drooped from this - it was his sister. He couldn't help but listen to her and refer to business. That's how he was brought up, that was his family. They lived in harmony and tried to maintain friendly relations with each other. After all, a family is something more than one blood, and Jay understood this very well a long time ago. Still, society is not harmonious and there are a lot of evil people living in it, who sometimes like to cause trouble. In a sense, that's why Jay did not perceive the new parents in any way and did not expect anything from the next of kin who would meet in the future. But this will be discussed another time.Aiming for the top floor, Jay did not linger and immediately headed for it. It wasn't so easy to climb, by the way. The boy had to stop and rest several times. It's the same if, according to Jay's past world, the location of the main magician's plot is estimated, then the twenty-fifth floor will turn out. No one in their right mind will want to overcome such a height on their own two feet, it's not for nothing that smart people have come up with an elevator for such cases. They always climb on it. But unfortunately, such a device has not been observed anywhere here, which can be considered simply madness, according to Jay! Here, there were not as many people in the tower as there were floors. Why the hell was there any extra money to build? Why show such generosity? Why can't we do with five or at least ten? Twenty-five, is that some kind of special number?- I would have met this builder! I would have him...! – Having reached the twentieth floor, Jay lay down exhausted on one of the steps and, breathing heavily, scolded the creator of the tower. – Does he even know... this is bullying of children.- And how long do you plan to stay here for? – At some point, Jay's neighbor showed up, tired of waiting downstairs.Jay turned his head and saw that he was in a better condition than he was (he was practically not sweating, he was breathing evenly and did not even sit down from fatigue), he only got even more angry. This boy... why does he look like that? Where is his tired and haggard look? They are about the same age. How can he have such a trained body already? It's not fair! First strength, now endurance...! Why did he get such a body?! He hid an envious look and turned away, not intending to answer the question he had just asked. He needed to restore his strength quickly in order to get to the top of the tower as soon as possible. He wasn't going to waste it on unnecessary words.But, alas, Jay's neighbor was not someone who could read other people's thoughts. When he got no answer, he asked the question again, only this time a different one. Unaware of how painful it can be for Jay.- It's just a few steps. Don't you have the strength anymore? Are you really that weak? Hm..."Can't you see that he looks like a dying horse right now? Then why are you asking such a stupid question?" Jay felt that this guy clearly wanted to laugh at him, but unfortunately he had no proof. However, he also did not have the strength to hit him and avenge the ridicule.Therefore, he decided to act wisely and write down this offense for the future, when he trains his body enough. Then we'll see who will laugh at whom! In the meantime, Jay pretended to be deaf and after a little more rest, continued on his way to the last floor. His neighbor stood for a while, either still waiting for Jay's reaction to his words, or feeling lazy again, and began to catch up with him when he had already overcome two floors. Then he stopped again. I waited. He moved forward. Jay of course knew that he was being followed, but it made him neither cold nor hot. In a word, it doesn't matter. At least, until they finally reached the top floor, and the boy suddenly suspected his neighbor that he, like him, was here for treasure. Otherwise, why did he say that he would not follow him at first, and then he himself broke his word?Worrying about being robbed (was there anything to rob at all?) Jay went into a second wind and ran into the only room on the floor where the stairs led. And he began to inspect that cursorily, ready at any moment to grab what his eye liked.Table, chair, scrolls. None of this was worth a lot of money. Jay shifted his gaze. A pen with special ink, which magicians usually use to seal spells in scrolls, thus making them magical and then send them for sale to people without a gift. The thing is necessary, but only for magicians. So it has no special value. After all, as Jay found out, magicians like to bargain no worse than him. And if the thing is not rare, they can take everything away for a song. And they probably have a whole bunch of such pens with ink. What's the point of taking it then? Jay looked the other way. A cabinet with a couple of threadbare books whose titles on the cover were written in something similar to Jay Latin (one of the relatives was a historian and studied it, so Jay had an idea about it). Although it would be more correct in this world to call it the language of magicians. They usually studied it and kept all their notes on it, most of which were collected in books.Since Jay's sister decided from the very beginning to share her successes in the game, naturally she did not forget to mention a few words to him that he was in general. So he didn't have to break his head, and when he saw the books right away, he had a guess in his heart who they might belong to and roughly determined their value. Somewhere not very little, but not very much. In the end, no one except magicians could read them, and those... let's just say, most preferred to write their own books than to read someone else's. And it wasn't just because of their pride (they're just as great! Only they alone have such a gift! How can I not get caught up here?), rather because nothing useful could usually be found in such books. Since almost all of them looked like personal diaries.Today I tried to create a new spell. I failed again. I'm going to borrow my grief!I ate my omelet and decided to eat some more omelet. I like him. I love scrambled eggs. Wow, I finally admitted it!I was wondering, how many more years can the magic tower stand? Can it collapse one day? Oh, that's an idea. I'm going to try to destroy it today.And so on, so on, so on they wrote. In a word, a lot of useless information. Therefore, Jay did not immediately decide to take the books. To begin with, their value should be checked, even if those average prices will be, it will suit him quite well, but not for nothing. But how to do it is another question. Jay knew neither Latin nor the language of magicians. Accordingly, he could not understand the text. In this case, he had to rely on luck and choose several books with the help of a short reader. He didn't empty the whole closet and honestly didn't even think about it. They were just books, not gold or precious stones. Four pieces are enough to leave completely disappointed. And this almost happened to Jay when he tried to look further for something to catch his eye on, but he never found anything. The wooden box that was lying under the table saved him from grief.As far as Jay knew, jewelry was usually hidden in such things. In any case, his family did this: his mother, and grandmothers, and sister, and cousins ... the boy immediately cheered up and, taking the box in his hands, tried to open it. Closed. Jay exerted more force. Beads of sweat rolled down his forehead, his hands tensed, but the lid of the box did not react in any way. He had a desire to break it, but Jay did not dare to take such a risk. If there were stones there, they could thus disappear. And the jewelry will be completely damaged.- It looks like you can't do without a key here. – Jay came to the only conclusion and soon began to examine the lock of the box carefully.That, as it turned out, turned out to be far from an unusual shape. The head of an animal unknown to Jay was represented and was not inserted and turned, as in door locks, but applied to the form. Jay, having figured it out, realized that finding such a key would be another task. Therefore, he decided to act rudely and tried to break the lock. Of course, he had no experience in such a case, but what the hell is not joking? And what if it turns out?- The box is made of a special kind of wood. Only a real key can open it. You're trying in vain. – Suddenly Jay's neighbor stopped his rash movements.Despite the fact that Jay did not feel much sympathy for his neighbor (and wanted to take revenge on him for all the good things for most of the acquaintance with him), but he also understood that, unlike him, he had lived in this world since birth and should have great knowledge. He believed his words and stopped. However, so that he did not consider himself too smart, he still asked the following question full of doubt in his voice."Are you sure about that?" – In the end, he could not allow himself to be laughed at again, but now because of his little knowledge. It's enough for him that someone always shows his physical strength. Tc... by the way, in his previous life he was also so strong! So no, he doesn't envy anyone a bit! Absolutely!- I have a lot of such boxes at home. Of course I can tell them apart.- Really? There was genuine surprise in Jay's voice, after which he grinned at someone else's lies. Why a lie? If the box has such a protective function, then it costs a fortune. Then doesn't it turn out that this guy must be incredibly rich? Accordingly, he should not have stayed with him for a long time and gone home for a long time. He doesn't have anything. He shouldn't have gotten used to living in such conditions. But here he is still. What kind of wealth can we talk about then?"How easily he knows how to hang noodles on his ears. And I hardly, really, did not believe that he was of noble origin. Ugh..." Jay put the box on the books and began to descend to the first floor, leaving the neighbor gnashing his teeth in anger. He just told the truth. Why didn't he believe him?"That beggar! One day I will reveal my status to him. Then we'll see who's going to laugh. To consider me a liar... impudence! Having uttered the threat, he did not linger and hurried down as well.