Chapter 41: Mentor
Archie’s Tent
Later that night, after returning from the stone ravine, Theo immediately stormed toward Archie’s tent, a place he had deliberately avoided for the past several weeks.
Because inside that tent was the one thing he desperately needed right now.
Archie’s sand table.
Theo was now sitting on the rug, frantically scribbling numbers into the sand with his finger.
“Shit… shit, they were actually right,” Theo muttered in disbelief. “At level 1 it needed 1000 EXP… then 2000… now it’s fucking 4000?!”
Across from him, Archie sat cross-legged with his arms folded, staring at Theo and the equations covering the sand table.
“I truly thought you vere coming here because you finally remembered some useful formula,” Archie muttered dryly.
“Not now, Archie,” Theo snapped while continuing to scribble numbers at full speed.
Archie simply let him continue, a rare courtesy coming from him. Mostly because Theo was doing math.
Several long minutes passed with nothing but frantic scratching sounds across the sand table.
Then Theo finally finished calculating the future EXP requirements.
At level 20, he would need 524,288,000 EXP for the next level.
At level 30, he would need 536,870,912,000 EXP.
At level 50, he would need at least two more sand tables just to fit the whole damn number.
Theo immediately collapsed face-first onto the rug. Motionless, and dead inside.
Archie stared at him flatly.
“You haven’t vinished that exponent,” Archie commented.
“I don’t care,” Theo groaned into the rug with a muffled voice. “I give up. I don’t wanna know anymore. I’m in hell. This world is hell.”
“I vas also supposed to be in hell before you dragged me here,” Archie replied with a shrug. “So can I use my sand table again now?”
“Yeah…” Theo answered weakly without lifting his face.
Archie then pulled the sand table back toward himself, wiped away Theo’s calculations, and calmly resumed drawing his design schematics on the surface.
For the next several minutes, the tent went quiet again.
Archie kept calculating with complete focus while Theo remained sprawled face-down on the rug like an abandoned corpse.
“Today was supposed to be a joyous day,” Theo began miserably. “I leveled up. I unlocked someone called Solon to summon… and then my own system immediately started bullying me again.”
“I don’t want to know,” Archie replied flatly, still scribbling on the sand table.
A brief silence followed.
“I thought my system was only messing with me in the beginning,” Theo started talking again from the floor. “You know, the usual early-game suffering before things become easier and I turn into some overpowered monster but nooo—”
“I said I don’t want to know,” Archie repeated without even looking up.
“—my system just keeps finding new ways to screw me over,” Theo continued rambling anyway. “I mean seriously, 524,288,000 EXP at level 20?!”
“You are not going to stop, aren’t you,” Archie muttered while continuing his calculations.
“What kind of insane number is that?” Theo complained. “Delilah once said an average human generates around 10,000 EXP through their entire lifetime, then how many people do I even need if I only siphon 0.25% of their EXP at level 20?”
“20,971,520 people,” Archie answered instantly.
That finally made Theo stop talking. He slowly lifted his face from the rug and stared at Archie.
“…And at level 30?” Theo asked carefully.
“21,474,836,480.” Archie answered without even pause his scribbling.
Theo immediately sat upright.
His eyes locked onto Archie with newfound realization, he had just discovered a living calculator.
“…Level 50?” Theo asked cautiously.
Archie only needed around three seconds.
“22,517,998,136,852,480.”
Theo’s face immediately collapsed again.
“See?!” Theo groaned while grabbing his hair. “Twenty-two quadrillion people. How the hell does that even make sense? Back on Earth my country only had 342 million people, and the entire planet only had around 8 billion. I’m fucked.”
“Vhy are you fucked?” Archie replied calmly. “Now you know ze numbers you need to reach.”
“Yes. Numbers that make absolutely no sense.”
“Boy, on my time, even 342 million people in one country vould sound absurd,” Archie said flatly. “Syracuse only had around 300,000 people. Yet apparently, with enough progress, ridiculous things stop sounding ridiculous.”
Theo went quiet.
“Math is exact,” Archie continued calmly. “Predicting ze future is not.”
He kept drawing on the sand table.
“Besides…” Archie added, “have you actually checked every variable on your system?”
Theo stayed quiet for a moment before finally reopening his status window.
For the next minute, the tent fell silent again.
Archie remained focused on his calculations while Theo kept staring at the floating blue screen before him. Then his eyes suddenly stopped on something he had ignored this entire time.
----------------------------------------
[ CONTROLLED TERRITORY ]
Numbers : 9
Populations : 1351
Stability : Fractured Balance
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“Stability… Fractured Balance…” Theo muttered.
Slowly, realization began creeping into his head.
“Wait… does that mean it can change?” Theo frowned at the screen. “And if it changes… will it affect something?”
“For every ruler, stability affects everything,” Archie answered calmly.
Theo looked toward Archie who still hadn’t lifted his head from the sand table. He continued scribbling formulas with complete focus.
“And you definitely vont get any stability anytime soon unless you fix that salt and salary disaster of yours,” Archie added casually.
Theo stared at Archie.
“You noticed?” Theo asked. “I thought you said it wasn’t your business.”
“Of course I noticed,” Archie scoffed. “Vhy the hell do you think I’m designing a lever press right now?”
He gestured toward the drawings scattered across the sand table and the leather sheets beside him.
Half-finished schematics covered them. A mechanical pressing device, something designed to compress loose salt crystals into solid blocks.
“Otherwise your people vill keep carrying salt around like idiots and spilling half of it everywhere,” Archie muttered.
Theo stared at the design for a moment. And somehow, for the first time, he saw Archie a little differently. Not just as an insane engineer obsessed with equations, the old man actually paid attention to what was happening around him.
“And of course it’s still not my business,” Archie continued. “Those are economy and law problems. Yes, there is math in it, but math alone cannot solve them. Human feelings are involved.”
He calmly continued drawing.
“That’s vhy it should be someone else’s job, not mine. A civilization cannot function if everything depends on one person.”
Then Archie finally added
“Solon should be the perfect person to handle it.”
Theo looked surprised.
“You know Solon?” he asked.
“You dumb boy, of course I know him,” Archie scoffed. “Your school must have taught you too if you said they teach you Greece history, you probably just forgot.”
Archie finally stopped scribbling for a second.
“Solon was one of the Seven Sages of Greece,” he said. “The man who saved Athens from tearing itself apart in civil war.”
“How did he do that?” Theo asked immediately.
“…Vhy should I tell you that?!” Archie snapped irritably and went back to scribbling. “Go summon him and ask him yourself!”
“Sheesh, alright, alright,” Theo muttered. “I was just trying to have a proper extended friendly conversation with you.”
Archie ignored him completely and resumed scribbling on the sand table.
Theo let out a small sigh.
“Still… this talk actually calmed me down a bit,” Theo admitted sincerely. “You were right. The future isn’t an exact thing.”
He glanced again at his status window.
“I’ll start by figuring out this stability thing first. I owe you one.”
“Then pay me now by shutting up and getting out of my tent,” Archie replied dryly. “You are distracting me vith your constant whining.”
“Ugh, alright, chill out, you grumpy old man.”
Theo finally pushed himself off the rug and stood up. He walked toward the tent entrance before stopping midway.
“…Thank you, Archie,” Theo said before leaving the tent.
For a brief second, the corner of Archie’s lips curled slightly upward.
“Hmph,” Archie scoffed quietly to himself. “That boy really reminds me of you, Dositheus.”
“Who is Dositheus?” David’s voice suddenly came from the tent entrance.
Archie didn’t even bother turning his head.
David was standing there carrying a small sack of milk liquor over his shoulder while cold night air drifted in behind him.
“My best friend’s pupil,” Archie replied while continuing to scribble on the sand table. “After my friend died, I somehow ended up thinking of the boy as my own.”
“Ah… yeah,” David said with a faint grin as he stepped inside. “Can’t say I blame ya. I kinda get the same feelin’ with the boss too.”
He casually started rummaging through Archie’s horribly messy tent without permission, and Archie didn’t complain at all. Apparently this had happened enough times to become normal.
“He reminds me of one of my sons, Solomon,” David continued while digging through piles of junk. “Reckon that’s probably why we both enjoy watchin’ boss Theo grow.”
After a while, David finally found what he was looking for. One mug hidden under the bed, another tossed carelessly near the corner of the tent.
“How long vere you standing outside?” Archie asked.
“Long enough my ass almost froze off out there,” David replied casually. “Still though… gotta admit, I’m surprised you actually had friends. Let alone a best friend.”
“Hmph.”
David cleaned both mugs with a cloth, poured milk liquor into them, then handed one to Archie before sitting down near the hearth.
“Of course I had friends, boy,” Archie replied dryly while taking the mug. “Otherwise, vhy would I let you come here almost every night?”
“Now hold on, I told ya plenty of times already,” David said with an amused grin while sipping his liquor. “I may be stuck lookin’ like a little halfling kid, but I was about your age when I kicked the bucket back on Earth.”
And so, just like many nights before this one, the two ancient men quietly drank together beside the hearth.
No grand conversation, no arguments.
Just two ancient men from Earth, sitting comfortably in a fantasy world while sharing liquor and each other’s company.