One day later, Conrad sat alone in his room, the curtains drawn, the glow of his laptop lighting his face.
He had been searching for hours, scrolling through archives, antique auction listings, and fragmented historical records.
Most of it was useless.
Until he saw it.
The image loaded slowly, line by line.
Conrad leaned forward without realizing it.
A black staff.
Its design was simple, almost plain. Smooth and dark, without gemstones or decorations.
At the top, carved cleanly into the material, were two symbols: a single "K," and above it, an infinity symbol,
Conrad felt his breath slow.
"…That's it," he whispered.
He stared at the image for a long time.
There was no aura visible through the screen, no obvious grandeur, yet something about it felt right.
"This is the one," he said quietly. "This is the staff I want."
He immediately began collecting everything he could find.
The page he'd found it on was buried deep within an academic forum discussing ancient Kakin artifacts.
Most commenters dismissed it as ceremonial or symbolic.
A few suggested it was a prop from folklore.
One comment stood out, dismissed by others as nonsense:
The Staff of Germanis has never been confirmed destroyed and is said to be treasured in the Kakin Empire.
That was enough.
Conrad cross-referenced the image with older texts, scanned translations of pre-imperial Kakin records, and obscure museum catalogs. Piece by piece, a story formed.
The staff belonged to Germanis, as the name suggested.
A historical figure from the Kakin Empire
Germanis was recorded as the chief advisor to the First King of Kakin, long before the empire became what it is today.
Official history described him as a philosopher, strategist, and "mystic."
Later retellings exaggerated his role, turning him into a near-mythical figure, someone who predicted disasters and "spoke with forces unseen."
Most historians labeled those stories as legends.
Conrad did not.
"Magical abilities," he murmured, reading one passage again.
He leaned back in his chair and smiled faintly.
"In this world, that only means one thing."
Nen.
Conrad knew that the First King of the Kakin was the one who had created three artifacts and the one who was responsible for the Succession Battle Tradition and the nen contracts binding the tradition itself.
If First King is not a Nen user, it may mean that his advisor Germanis is the one who taught him and helped him to form a Nen ability to make it great enough to keep Kakin alive and prosper.
He also knew that it is ordinary for people to consider the tale of Kakin and Germanis to be just a legend and fairytale.
He remembered Wing's words clearly.
Geniuses. Prodigies. Monsters of history.
So many of them were never aware of what they truly were.
They used Nen instinctively, unconsciously, shaping reality without understanding the system behind it.
Neon Nostrade, with her ability to predict the future, and Komugi, with her unparalleled talent in Gungi, were the people who could be considered Nen geniuses.
Germanis fits that pattern perfectly too.
"I still think that Germanis was a master from those times..."
An advisor with impossible foresight.
A staff that appeared in every depiction of him, never changing shape, never explained.
"This wasn't a symbol," Conrad said softly.
A tool most likely...
He scrolled further.
Some records suggested the staff vanished after Germanis's death.
Others claimed it was sealed within royal vaults.
A few fringe theories stated it was removed from the capital entirely.
One detail appeared again and again:
The staff was never passed down.
It was taken.
Conrad closed his laptop slowly.
"I need to go to Kakin," he said.
If the Staff of Germanis still existed, it would be tied to Kakin's royal history, buried beneath layers of secrecy.
That alone made it the perfect condition.
Difficult to reach.
Everything he wanted.
He stood and looked out the window.
"Everyone else sees a legend," he murmured. "A fairy tale."
And if Germanis truly had been that kind of genius, someone who shaped the world without understanding the rules, then his staff wasn't just an artifact.
It was a legacy.
Conrad exhaled slowly.
"If I can claim it, then my path as a mage truly begins. I shall be the "Nen Sage" of this world..."
Kakin was no ordinary destination.
It was dangerous.
Which meant one thing.
"The more dangerous it is to get the staff, the more power I will get from it."
"As long as it does not threaten my life directly, I will do everything to get this staff."
"If I cannot get it, so be it."
"I wait for it to get more powerful, and then I go get it."
"Still, I do need to go to Kakin to start researching and try to gather information."
Conrad smiled to himself and then nodded.
"Suddenly, I feel like a hunter..."