Chapter 833: Library gets even noisier.
[Wait a minute, Anton gave our lord’s cousins permission to peruse the library?,] Nepherage asked.
[Why?,] Screamira reiterated.
[That’s…odd…,] Frosttusk added in a slow tone of voice, having cooled down after running hot for several hours.
[It is, and honestly, I don’t know why either,] Hurricroak replied. [As far as I can tell, it’s probably a play to get the Zhen Clan more and more intertwined with us and the Library. Bedfellows and what not.]
[That…makes no sense, shouldn’t that be the director’s call?,] Razorstella pointed out.
[I mean we can’t ask him because of the droning snoring noise ripping through our ears, but still.]
[If it helps, our lord ain’t looking too hot about the idea either…but it also looks as if he doesn’t want to mess with their memories and is just rolling with it…hmmm.]
[Really? I’m fairly certain we can still knock them out,] Lacerage pointed out.
[The shark boy is still envenomed, we could start with him,] Archanidame reminded everyone.
[Maybe…man, it’s weird having these talks with the maestro actively unable to listen…]
[Yeah…,] Nepherage agreed. [Well, speaking for our lord, why hasn’t Spring Brawler piped up yet?]
[Oh, he’s busy being used as a tour guide for our lord’s mother.]
[…why?]
[To quote her,] Spring Brawler finally interjected, [She wanted first crack in extracting information out of those idiots who broke their dicks.]
[…]*6.
[Please help me, she scares me.]
[Nope!]
[Nuh uh!]
[You know, I just had a brilliant idea on how to make sure milord’s shark-like cousin doesn’t get left out, so…]
[You all suck!]
________________________________________
“Well guys, I guess it had to happen sooner rather than later…welcome to the Library of Nowhere!”
“Whoa…”
“Holy shit…”
“Library my ass, this place is…huge!”
It didn’t take too long for Zhen Liu and Harriet to lead the Zhen Clan scions to the main foyer of the [Library Nowhere]. Technically, it was that big circular chamber they had first arrived into when they got sucked into that giant broken warp tunnel.
Regardless, now that Zhen Yue, Zhen Hai, Zhen Xing, Zhen Tai, Zhen Guo and Zhen Feng were allowed into the library proper, the place had become significantly more welcoming and a whole lot grander in their eyes.
From top to bottom and all around them, the Zhen Clan scions could see nothing but shelf after shelf of heavy books that seemed to be gathered from every corner of Valresta and point in time.
Interspersed among these countless shelves were glass cases that carried relics, trophies and artifacts from who knows when and gods know where.
Needless to say, the Zhen Clan scions couldn’t help but think that the crazy murder maze full of dangerous aether beasts was nothing more than a passing nightmare.
“How many shelves are there?,” Zhen Feng asked while staring down a hallway of shelves that seemed to go on forever into a dark eternity. In that eternity, he could see the books beginning to move and rearrange themselves at their leisure. In fact, he swore he saw one of those books suddenly turn and wink towards him.
“How high do these shelves even go?,” Zhen Tai asked while staring up towards the ceiling, his eyes following the heavily decorated pillars that seemed to be covered from top to bottom in carvings depicting angels, demons and monsters of all sorts of shapes and sizes heading towards a singular point at the top. These carvings were so intricate and detailed that, Zhen Tai swore that they looked as if they could come to life at any moment.
“Wait a minute,” Zhen Xing suddenly said as he stopped himself from getting enraptured with all that he had seen. “Zhen Liu…is this where you get all the aether arts your puppets use when in battle?”
“That…uh…”
Evidently, without Logos and Pathos feeding him information, Zhen Liu was kind of flying by the seat of his pants.
Zhen Liu was about to give a half-assed, definitely made-up answer, but luckily for him, he still had back-up.
“Well, to help answer your questions in backwards order,” Harriet interjected, while winking at Zhen Liu, “this place is indeed home to the aether arts Xiao Liu uses for his puppets, in fact you guys have free reign to borrow any aether arts and books you guys fancy, these shelves can reach all the way into heavens and beyond even them, and as for the number, I believe they said, to quote those poetic gits again, as many shelves as there are grains of sand in the desert.”
“I knew it!”
“Pass the heavens…huh.”
“As there are grains of sand in the desert…man, I’d go nuts trying to read all that too!”
“That’s impossible, isn’t it?,” Zhen Yue asked. “There isn’t anything pass the heavens…is there?”
“Well, Miss Moon, you should probably throw that kind of thinking out the window and into a furnace,” Harriet teased with a smile. “There many things that can’t be explained with conventional wisdom. Well, I suppose it’s more accurate to say, publicly available information. You’d be surprised what sort of things get censored and hidden by those who wield power like a club.”
“Huh…”
“Huh indeed.”
…
“Thanks for the save, Hurricroak.”
“Anytime, maestro.”
…
“Well…I don’t know about the rest of you,” Zhen Guo began to say as he began to separate himself from the rest of his cousins, “but if this library is as endless as it looks, I want to see it what kind of crazy aether arts are hiding away in their shelves. Hell, a part of me feels bad that Zhen Hai is too paralyzed to take a look for himself.”
“Way ahead of you, you pompous peacock!”
“Huh?”
“How the hell?”
“Is…is that a wheelchair?”
On a floor higher above the Zhen Clan scions and Harriet, Zhen Hai had suddenly appeared out of nowhere while pushing himself in a wheelchair with a rather strange design to it. Granted, it was only strange looking to everyone except Zhen Liu and Harriet(Hurricroak), since it appeared Zhen Hai was pushing himself around on a wheelchair commonly found from a certain blue planet.
“Zhen Hai?!,” Zhen Yue exclaimed in shock. “When did you-?”
“About ten minutes ago, I could move my arms and not much else,” Zhen Hai said with joy. “Neytri gave me the whole rundown about how this place works, so I’m going aether art hunting until the rest of my body denumbs itself. Later suckers!”
“Hey, wait!”
Before anyone could stop him, Zhen Hai proceeded to empower his arms with aether and sent himself flying towards a direction that his instincts told him was a good place to visit.
“That crazy shark!”
“Come on guys, let’s -”
“Wait, wait, wait!,” Harriet shouted while making large hand gestures. “Before y’all got galavanting in the Library’s halls, please take these with you.”
“Huh?”
“Take what?”
“These.”
From seemingly out of nowhere, Harriet produced several metallic silver cards and handed them to each of the scions, excluding Zhen Liu.
The scions were a bit confused as to what they were looking at exactly, especially since the cards didn’t seem to have any written text on them, until Harriet decided to elucidate the group.
“What you’re holding is a library card for this place. It will allow you to bypass most restrictions and let you borrow any book you can feasibly carry.”
“Really?!”
“Just like that?”
“What’s the catch?”
“No real big catches…well, except two,” Harriet answered while holding up two fingers.
“First, all books got a timer placed on them that prevents them from being outside of the library for a certain period of time. Once that limit is reached, the books will automatically disappear from whatever nook or cranny you shoved it in and teleport back to the library. You can also return the books early if you’re done with them.”
“That…makes a lot of sense, actually,” Zhen Yue commented.”What’s the second catch?”
“Second catch is super easy to understand: there are several ultra powerful, ultra dangerous aether arts floating around the library that have minds of their own…don’t touch them.”
“Uh…okay?”
“Wait a minute, aren’t those kind of things usually kept locked up in a forbidden area or under a protective seal or something along those lines?,” Zhen Tai pointed out.
“You’d think, but most of the library’s catalog consists of books, scrolls and secrets that would cause entire empires to collapse in ruin if they were released, so…this entire place is technically one big forbidden zone.”
“What the fuck?”
The moment Harriet(Hurricroak) mentioned that little bit of information, the enthusiasm of the Zhen Clan scions noticeably dampened…but not enough to deter them for splitting off in random directions of each other.
“So stay away from any aether arts that seem particularly dangerous? Got it?”
“How the hell is this place divided?”
“I think it’s by element, so I’m heading this way!”
“Wait for me, we have similar affinities!”
…
‘Have…have there seriously been super powered aether arts floating around here that I wasn’t made aware of? This whole time?’
[I don’t know, I kinda made it up.]
‘Bruh.’
