The Northwindshire of the Solar Empire was located in the far northeast corner.
Far from the prosperity of the Suncoast Region and close to the frigid cold of the Frostmere Highlands.
Poverty and cold—these were among the few words used to describe this place.
If not for the connection known as Wingate Gorge, it would appear on the map almost as an enclave.
The radiance of the Lord of Dawn shone down on the lush mountains and forests, dispelling all the cold, and helped a disheveled, delicate-looking youth leaning against a tree recover from the shock of transmigration.
Ronan Reed
"This is my name."
The young man struggled to his feet, looking down at his chest. The once luxurious clothing had a tear, and there was a corresponding wound on his back, damp and confirmed by touch.
It was the mark left by a rapier thrust through his chest and back by an assassin.
With his pale hand resting on the tree, the youth from Blue Star gradually accepted all the memories now flooding his mind.
"This is my name."
In this fantastical world of Spirits, sorcerers, and magic, Ronan Reed accepted everything with determination.
He had transmigrated, becoming Ronan Reed, the young baron who had been assassinated on the way to his own fief.
Shaking his head, Ronan felt his limbs trembling—clearly, he had lost too much blood earlier.
And just nearby, a pair of hungry eyes had already set their sights on him.
"No way... I just transmigrated and I'm going to die already?"
Ronan felt he might be the unluckiest transmigrator ever, especially since he had just sensed the existence of his "golden finger"—his cheat.
I transmigrated, I even got a cheat... and now I'm about to die?
What could be more hopeless than having hope within reach, only to lose it?
Fortunately, a voice calling from deep in the forest rekindled that hope in him.
"Young Master Ronan!"
"Young Master Ronan!!"
"Bernard, I'm here."
Ronan looked toward the sound and saw an elderly man with graying, disheveled hair rushing over with eight blood-stained trainee knights in a panic.
They were his steward and his knight escorts.
Seeing that Ronan was unharmed, the old man visibly breathed a sigh of relief.
"Young Master Ronan, thank the heavens you're safe."
"If anything had happened to you, even dying a hundred times wouldn't have atoned for our failure," Bernard said, reaching out to examine Ronan for injuries.
"I'm fine, Bernard."
Ronan pushed aside the old steward's rough hand, not taking offense—after all, this man had taken care of him for most of his life.
"By the way, what happened to those bandits you encountered?" Ronan asked.
At that, not only did Bernard's face fill with anger, but the eight trainee knights nearby shifted from shame to fury.
"Those refugees disguised as bandits—they dared ambush a baron!"
Knight Captain Darren gnashed his teeth, as if trying to cover up his own failure that led to Ronan being separated from the group.
Ronan remained silent. It seemed the so-called bandits—made up of refugees—were just a front to mask the true assassin.
A noble dying to a professional assassin was no trivial matter in the Solar Empire, because that would mean certain Imperial factions had begun acting recklessly in the political arena.
Moreover, the reason he was in this remote and freezing province was itself a product of political scheming.
"No matter, I didn't die, did I?"
"Let's go. We need to reach Frostholm Barony by noon."
Ronan, still only fourteen and weakened from blood loss, had to be carried on a knight's back.
Trekking through the unpaved mountain forest, he resisted the urge to sleep, too afraid of not waking up again.
He was busy organizing the memories and awareness suddenly added to his mind—over ten years' worth.
All those flashy spells and knightly combat arts filled him with wonder.
This world had gods. And 130 years ago, many of those gods faced their twilight in a cross-dimensional war.
The War of the Gods lasted thirty years. Many deities either perished or fell into slumber.
But the disasters it brought extended far beyond that. On the Tempest Continent—called the "main world" by some gods—two-thirds of the land was plunged into an eternal winter.
Since then, the frigid north was known as the Northern Frontier by those in the south.
Snow and ice covered the entire Northern Frontier. In the deepest parts of the glaciers, there were even crystals of eternal ice that never melt.
It became uninhabitable for humans. The survivors fled south.
The Solar Empire, once obscure in the south, instantly became the dominant power on Tempest Continent, expanding significantly in the decades that followed.
Northwindshire, where Ronan now was, had been conquered just over a decade ago by Duke Morgans, one of the Empire's four grand dukes, leading his tens-of-thousands-strong Nightmare Cavalry.
Yet today, the province was no longer under Duke Morgans' control—clearly, more political foul play.
Northwindshire, far from the warm, bustling Suncoast Region, was the Empire's territory closest to the Northern Frontier.
And since various Imperial factions had interfered with Duke Morgans' efforts, the area was now a complete mess.
The so-called "bandits" who attacked Ronan were likely just common folk turned desperate by endless oppression from their lords and occasional raids from others.
Such was Northwindshire—so much of a burden that Aurelia, the Imperial capital, was even considering abandoning it entirely. Every year, it cost the Solar Empire millions in gold coins.
And Ronan was heading to his fief, the Frostholm Barony, which lay at the very northern edge of the entire Northwindshire.
The province may have been an exclave of the Solar Empire, but Frostholm Barony lay even farther—an outlying fragment of an already distant land.
Once they passed the swamps and forests constantly harassed by raiders, they would arrive.
It was his domain—untouched by others, but hardly a good thing.
If it had any value at all, someone would've claimed it already. The only reason it remained unclaimed was that it offered nothing—not even a silver coin's worth.
Too far from the Suncoast Region, too close to the frozen north.
That alone would be enough trouble. But the assassination attempt made it clear that his problems weren't limited to the northern cold—they also came from within the Solar Empire itself.
Every noble title in the Solar Empire was highly coveted, and Ronan's baronship was the product of high-level political strife.
Ronan Reed—one of many children of Count Reed, and perhaps the most overlooked.
Many of his relatives were far more capable, all dreaming of a noble title, even if it was just a frontier knight.
So the fact that Ronan was granted a barony spoke volumes.
And yet...
"Three months ago, Count Reed led his 30,000-strong Flame Dragon Cavalry deep into the heart of the orc territories, traveling 1,200 miles.
He killed the High Priest of the Mammoth Orcs on a snow-covered mountain and destroyed over a hundred orc clans."
"Over 300,000 orcs were enslaved and are currently being transported back to the Solar Empire."
"Gold revenue in the tens of millions—that's just what's publicly known. Rumor has it that Count Reed even obtained a fragment of divine power hidden among the Mammoth Orcs."
"Within the Solar Empire, the Reed family is maneuvering to have Count Reed named the fifth grand duke."
"Thus, even before he returned, a silent political battle had already begun."
"There's only so much pie to go around. No one—especially not the royal family or the four existing dukes—wanted to share it with a fifth."
"The result? A nobody like Ronan Reed was granted a barony—in Northwindshire, no less."
"In the end, a single barony was used to offset the count's glorious campaign against the orcs."
From just these few memories, Ronan could already sense the perilous, cutthroat nature of Aurelia, the Solar Empire's capital thousands of miles away.
"If it had been just the old Ronan, he'd have died on the road to his fief."
"If I were just a regular transmigrator, facing a world this rigid and hierarchical, I wouldn't stand a chance."
"But I have a cheat."
At this thought, Ronan's nerves relaxed a bit.
With a thought, a translucent screen the size of a palm appeared before him:
[Spirituality: 9]