It was a good thing that Luna slept longer than usual this time, as Laura wanted to do a lot of sightseeing inside the city, and not just shopping. They had a lot of unique and historical architecture that the Dragon hadn't seen before, from multiple cultures and even other places, including the Celestial Realm, which Evangeline helpfully identified.
The moment they entered the Library, Luna was already rushing towards them, barely slowing to wave at the archers as she passed them.
Luna took Laura and Moana into a side study room to talk, while an exhausted Evangeline came to see how Cain was doing.
"You know, even though Seraphim don't sleep, I don't think I have ever felt this exhausted before. I wonder if the Companion bond granted some sort of hidden bonus to mental fortitude?" The Seraphim complained, flopping down on top of Cain and letting her wings hang down over the side of the chair.
"You have had it hard for sure. But at least everyone is back in the Communal link now, so they have an outlet for questions." Cain tried consoling her.
"True, but it also meant that my twin has had ample opportunity to mock my luck, and the fact that I have had to wear clothes this entire time."
Cain took a moment to try to locate the other Evangeline, finding that she had been lounging in a lower level of the Blood Sands Castle underground with the Spider Queen and a few other free spirits. They had blocked the entrances to the areas that they were using so that nobody could bother them or tell them to get dressed, playing cards and having the kitchen staff transfer food into the Guild Bank so that they didn't have to get dressed and go up to eat.
No wonder this Evangeline was in a bad mood.
"I have made decent progress on the Rune Crafting portion of my preparations, enough that I have reached the level that the Librarian determined was essential before I reached the Spirit Awakening, so I'm going to switch topics now. Would you like to join me?" Cain asked.
"Sure, what's up next?" Evangeline asked, not getting out of his lap.
"Next up on the list is an introduction to Negotiating with Human Cultivators. That sounds like your specialty since you're so good with public relations." Cain informed her, taking out the book that the Librarian had left on the topic.
The world on the other side of the portal was supposed to be in a higher plane than this one, and almost entirely inhabited by Humans, with a few other sentient species hiding among the population. The Librarian said that he would have to pretend to be human, as if it was some impossible task, despite the fact that he literally used to be one.
That thought made all the Companions and Watchers in Cain's mind burst into laughter, and Evangeline laugh out loud.
"Have you not checked your own thought processes? Even if you used to be human, you forgot how to be one a long time ago, and Human Cultivators only respect strength. If you go to their world, you are going to have to learn to do things their way, at least until you finish whatever quest or task you need to do to get back home afterward. Or open a portal so we can come to visit, either one is fine.
"I'm not that inhuman in my thinking am I? I don't really feel like my thought processes have changed that much." Cain informed her, making everyone laugh again, including the Smith that he was merged with.
"You sent Mythic Demons to hunt down an enemy General, and then when you found out it was just a figurehead you sent her to the Bunny God temple for a massage." Evangeline pointed out.
"Extenuating Circumstances." Cain objected.
"You literally wear a Mythic Demon as an article of clothing." Evangeline continued, then corrected herself.
"More properly, you alternate between Mythic Demons to use as fashion accessories."
"But they like it." Cain laughed, seeing where she was going with this.
There was no objection from the demons themselves, he was right, they did like it, but that didn't change the fact that it wasn't really a thing that Humans do.
"You took over a Continent and started a Cult by accident," Vala added fuel to the fire.
"I claim no responsibility for that. The cult formed itself." That wasn't really even an objection at this point, and the former Companions knew that they had him.
"Finally, of all the things that a human has never done, you got another human pregnant with twin Tentacle Monsters." Nemu finished the accusations with a burst of humor.
"True, I can't say that any human has ever done that. Perhaps I really should put some effort into learning this guidebook on how to properly interact with humans from Cultivation Sects, whatever those are.
Oh, there's a bit about ones from Mage Guilds, Clergy Temples, and non-enhanced civilians as well. I think I should be good at dealing with at least one of those groups already." Cain encouraged himself, looking at the daunting thickness of the manual.
Most of the information in the dealing with Cultivators section was common sense things that Cain objected to on moral grounds.
"If you meet a Sect Master on your own cultivation level, you should bow before him and greet him with reverence... Who wrote this drivel? I mean, maybe don't attack him first, but grovel just because he has a few friends somewhere? I can call a thousand friends in a second." Cain muttered, making Evangeline sigh.
"You don't know that. We don't even know if that world has mana, which is why you're preparing for any eventuality so that you can come back safely and not get murdered by a random stranger or hunted down by the Human Gods when you cause a disturbance." Evangeline reminded him.
"Has anyone other than Laura ever told you that you're no fun?" Cain teased, making her laugh.
"No, just you and her. Everyone else thinks that I'm a lot of fun." Evangeline told him proudly, then mentally shushed Vala, who still took every opportunity to taunt the Seraphim. It was an innate instinct for the Demon, and Evangeline returned the favor, though they had long since become good friends.
"Alright, I think I have the part on Human Cultivators down. Now, on to the bit about Mage Clans." Cain sighed.
Downstairs, Luna and the girls were deep in discussion about the actual randomness of the Random generation function of the System.
Luna, Kone, Jin, and Jessica were all waiting on Cain to do whatever he needed to do to finish his part of the quest so that they could get their rewards, which were supposed to be randomized.
It was accepted at this point that "Random" meant whatever the Laughing God found the most entertaining, but beyond that, the pattern behind the creation of random rewards eluded them.
Surely a God wouldn't personally involve themselves in every single random creation, it would be too time-consuming, but there didn't seem to be a pattern to the bias that they could exploit to try to influence it into giving them the reward that they truly wanted, not the one that seemed the most or least likely to appear.
Just trying to decipher the pattern seemed to influence the pattern, and willpower had a randomly positive or negative reaction. If you really, really wanted something, you would either get something very close to it, or the exact opposite, but rarely something entirely unrelated, unless you had overlooked a factor.
"I still think that it was a drinking game. When the Laughing God created the random item generator, he was almost certainly drunk, that's why it's so strange. Like a drunkard, it gets randomly argumentative, fighting with what you want it to give you. But sometimes it just goes with the flow to see what is next." Kone suggested, having more experience than the others with the whimsy of the Random Generator.
"Well, we can make it an experiment then, you can all focus on an outcome that you really want, and see what the odds are that it happens. It's not often that a bunch of people have a random reward coming to them after all." Laura suggested.
"Not bad. Though the other Gods might interfere in this one, it's still worth a shot." Jin agreed.
Not long after, the girls went to bed, while Cain and Evangeline finished the etiquette and human interaction portions of the Librarian's random readings.
That left only one small section for him to complete, the combat styles guides. Fortunately, they were Skill books that he could copy, but couldn't use directly, so he just had to break out the desk and make a load of books to gain enough knowledge to recognize the major Human Martial Arts and fighting styles, so that he didn't come across as suspiciously ignorant if he should be approached by human warriors in the other world.
The Librarian seemed to have thought of everything, but she had overlooked one single important fact. Despite having all the knowledge in the world, Cain's life was still governed by Murphy's Law, which states that anything that can go wrong will go wrong, as well as the whims of the Laughing God, which can make almost any outcome possible.
With those two forces interacting, and Cain doing his best to pretend to be human and not an Ancient Watcher From Beyond and Flesh Crafter, there were endless possibilities for things to go horribly, magnificently off track in what should be a simple journey to acclimatize to his new surroundings and then get in contact with the other Ancients.
