Genius Mage in a Cultivation World

Layn's group continued to run through the grassy desert for roughly four hours before taking their first stop. While every last one of the warriors could easily go for twice if not thrice as long without needing any rest, it would be plain out stupid to push them to their limits even before a possible clash with Slavian forces. 

"No matter how much I look at it, this place is just awe-inspiring," Layn muttered softly, not directing his words to anyone in particular. 

"Is that so?" Antion asked, losing his momentum and coming to a full stop right beside the archmage. "What is so great about an endless stretch of nothing but high grass?" he asked, throwing a curious look at their surroundings. 

'Maybe there is something I didn't notice before?' he thought, trying hard to find every last detail that he could previously omit. 'Or is this just some enlighted speech of someone on another level?' he asked himself, moving his eyes back at the camp's unofficial leader. 

"Can't you see how high this grass is growing?" Layn asked, pointing his hand in a random direction. 

"Yeah?" Ation looked right past Layn's arm, only to notice more of the same. No matter where exactly the archmage was pointing at, there was only grass there! "What about it?" he asked, curious about the possible solution to what he was missing. 

"It's a sign that this land is fertile," Layn said as a small smile surfaced on his face. For a moment, his expression took a turn for a dreamy one, as if he imagined all this vast land covered not in grass but farmlands and people busy working around them. 

"And what?" Antion asked, his eyes opened as wide as he was surprised by that statement. "It's not like there is a lack of fertile lands anywhere around the world, is there?" he said, looking at Layn as if he suddenly came from the stars. 

"Only for the time being," Layn replied, his smile breaking into a sour one. "You see, right now, this world's civilization is at its bottom," Layn said. Yet, what he didn't expect, was that this sentence would attract quite a lot of attention from the people around him. He was simply too focused on his inner vision to notice it. 

"People are centered around several cities. There are hardly any villages to come around when you travel through the lands. In reality, humans have yet to fully conquer the lands they live on," Layn said, pointing out several aspects of the world that he realized just a few days after his jump through time. 

"Isn't it how it always was and how it always will be?" Antion asked, puzzled by the way Layn attempted to tackle the topic. "The world is simply too vast for people to fully control it. What's more, in order to fully conquer it, we would need to kill every last magical beast that roams it," he added before shaking his shoulders. "If we were to do that, there would be no more magic stones to go around. Only by letting those beasts breed on their own, we can ensure a relatively stable supply of the energy for cultivation and magic alike," he said. 

'I guess he already acknowledged that magic and cultivation are two distinctive things,' Layn thought, stealing a glance of the man's face. 

"That's both true and false at the same time," Layn said, sitting down and stretching his legs forward. While running for only a few hours barely made him break a sweat, he had no other choice but to take vigilant care of his muscles if he wanted to keep himself in perfect shape. "Right now, you should be already aware that using magic stones just to suck them dry out of energy is super wasteful. But try to project this thought even further," Layn suggested, putting a wide smile on his lips. "Try to think what would happen if all the remaining magical beasts were to be hunted. What would happen if all the magical stones obtained from them would be used in the way we are using them right now," he said, closing his eyes as he laid his back against the cold grass of the steppe. 

"Everyone would have an abundance of mana, making it relatively worthless," Antion replied without hesitation, proving that his wits were pretty quick. 

'Right, he wouldn't get such a high position back at the military camp if he was stupid,' Layn thought, squinting his eyes as he relaxed a bit. "That's right," he said, confirming Antion's guess. "If that were to happen, the focus on mana would change from how much of it one can have to how well they are capable of using it," he said, smiling to his own thoughts. 

'Or so it will happen back in my times,' Layn thought, keeping that single sentence to himself. 

While there was a group of people that knew his origin, a group that Irea recently joined, the majority of the people from the camp have yet to learn about where, or rather, when Layn, Markus, and Al came from. 

"While that vision is great, I don't think it will ever happen," Antion lowered his head and bit on his lips. "The Star Emperor and his supporters would never allow for such a world to come. They stand to lose way too much if that were to happen," the former prefect of the warcamp stated, shaking his head to emphasize how impossible such a reality would be.

"The thing is," Layn said, closing his eyes once again, "I'm not going to ask about his opinion." 

For a moment, the discussion died off. Layn simply laid down on the ground, using the short time of the break to regenerate the energy he expended to run for the past four hours. 

"Wait a moment," Antion finally caught up on the meaning hidden behind the archmage's words. "Are you going to say that you are going to make that vision come true?"

"For our and future generations," Layn opened his eyes, "I will."