I climbed the last set of steps of the Grand Library, heaving like a horse as sweat crawled down my back.
"Maybe the grand library just meant the grand number of steps."
When I finally reached the entrance, there was no door, just two rune-etched pillars erected at the entrance; between them was a thin veil of faint light stretched taut like a soap bubble. It rippled as I approached. The band on my wrist pulsed, and the veil shivered in response.
"Right."
I stepped forward, and my skin met the veil. Something akin to cold water slammed into my face, though it wasn't water at all. The membrane itself behaved like liquid silk, viscously wrapping itself around me. It pressed close with unnatural warmth, then gradually released its hold as I was drawn through to the other side.
"Ugh." I rustled my hair as the mucus-like silk separated from my head; it didn't quite leave behind a residue, yet my fingers still reeked of a faint herbaceous aroma, and the skin on my fingertips had a more matte, rubbery texture.
I stumbled forwards wiping my hands on my trousers. The library's interior was opulent. A thick, fine carpet was laid over its marbled stone floors, and a dark, dense wood served as the major theme, with hints of faint silver and gold adornments that brought the place to life.
My footsteps muffled, and I walked till I saw a curved mahogany desk that sat near the entrance, tucked beneath a hanging chandelier of pale blue crystal.
Behind it was a weary and dainty man with long auburn hair. When he spotted me, his face lit up with an erratic excitement, rejuvenating his very soul. He shot up and put on a bright smile that curved his eyes to crescents.
"First year?" he said, savouring the words.
"Good morning," I replied, instinctively lowering my voice.
"Ah, good morning. Yes, welcome." He leaned forward, eyes flicking to my band. "You are permitted entry. Excellent. You are the third first-year student to enter today."
I blinked. "Third?"
"Mm." He lifted a finger and pointed, as if he'd been waiting for this moment.
To the far left, across a wide reading space, a young woman sat alone at a long table. Her posture was straight, shoulders relaxed, blonde hair tied back with surgical neatness. A book lay open in front of her, and she read with the kind of focus that erased the world around her.
Then the librarian pointed above toward the first-floor.
A boy stood, fiddling with a few books in his hands. He carefully studied their binding, eerily brushing his fingers across the leather covers and picking at the stitches in their seams.
'What is he even doing?'
The librarian's hand finally returned to me. "It is quite nice," he said, warmth threading through his voice. "Some students wait weeks before they find their way here. You came on your first day."
"Ah." I replied with a small nod and interjected, "I'm looking for books on basic mana. Magic fundamentals."
He hummed, "Good. Excellent choice for starting."
The librarian turned and crossed behind the desk, gliding to a wall of shelves that looked more decorative than functional. He touched the spine of a single book, then pulled it free.
A faint ripple shivered through the air.
Somewhere above, one of the metal eyes drifted closer.
The librarian didn't look up. He didn't need to.
He glanced at a small index card tucked inside the book's cover, then back at me. "Fifth floor. Tenth bookshelf. Section marked basic theory."
"Thank you. Uh?" My eyes wandered across his figure, then to the desk in front, but I couldn't locate a name tag anywhere.
'Do they even use name tags here?'
"Delkira." He smiled.
I nodded and turned to leave, but he immediately cleared his throat.
"But first," he said, the warmth in his voice crystallising into something sharper, "rules."
The change in his tone was immediate. The kind of tone that didn't invite negotiation.
"This is your first time," he continued, "so this will be your one warning. No magic tools are allowed within the Grand Library. None. No artefacts, no enchanted devices, no casting implements."
I nodded slowly.
He kept going. "No magic on the texts. No spells that aim to copy, translate, preserve, trace, imprint, duplicate, or alter. Do not test your magic on the shelves. Do not 'gently' try anything because you think you are clever."
His eyes stayed friendly, but the words didn't.
"The only way you may interact with the books here," he finished, "is by reading them."
My shoulders straightened, "Understood," I said. "Um, can I take some notes?"
The librarian watched me for a second longer, then the tension dissolved as if a switch had been flipped. He smiled again, shorter this time.
"No. Enjoy your time here", he waved and shooed me away.
"Not even notes? What an odd guy. Then again, haven't really met a normal librarian." I shrugged, turned toward the stairwell and started climbing.
The Grand Library was built like an atrium. I could only guess that each floor above was dedicated to its own branch of knowledge. As I looked up, an immediate mental count told me that there were twenty floors.
'The scale alone is quite impressive.'
Each floor I ascended had a different environment to it.
The first floor reeked of dust and leather, old bindings and older ink. The second held more light, with tall windows that bled grey daylight into endless rows of shelving. The third was quieter still, tables emptier, the air thinner. By the fifth floor, the building had devoured the outside world entirely, as if I'd entered a new dimension.
Bookshelves towered like canyon walls. Narrow aisles cut between them, lined so tightly that the shelves looked stitched together by paper and thread.
"Tenth bookshelf," I muttered
The bookshelves quivered with faint magic, separating gently to accommodate my presence.
"That's...quite convenient." My brows raised in surprise. A magical library that could expand and shift in its space at will was definitely not what I'd expected.
'Definitely better than the libraries in my old life.'
I leaned closer, and my fingers hovered over the books as I scanned their titles. Insight triggered.
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Basic Mana Theory.
[Tags: Mana Theory, Mana Control] [Difficulty: Low]
-
'Found it'
I pulled it free and tucked it under my arm while I looked around. Eventually, a different book caught my eye.
-
Quizhou's Memoirs.
[Tags: Spellwork, Spell Crafting, Spell Modification, Spell Sense, Magical Innovation, Visualisation Techniques, Spell Architecture, Mana Flow Theory, Intent Shaping, Visualization Techniques, Mental Frameworks, Spell Construction, Emotional Spellcasting, Practical Casting, Spell Innovation, Creative Casting, Magical Memoirs, Caster Chronicles, Learning Mistakes, Spell Failures, Growth Through Practice, Experimental Magic, Spell Reinvention, Master-Level Theory, Precision Casting, Personal Style Magic]
[Difficulty: Very High]
-
"The hell?"
Plain title. Almost boring. The kind you'd overlook if you were rushing. But the tags caught my eye.
'There's like, twenty of them.' My eyes narrowed, and I picked it out.
The book itself was pretty slim, maybe a hundred pages at most, and only had a simple brown leather cover as a binding; if anything, I was surprised the author had managed to fit all that content in just this.
"The difficulty rating is quite high." I flipped the book over, but the back had no markings either.
'Should I take a peek?'
I pondered, but eventually gave in to my curiosity.
"Probably won't understand shit, but who cares."
I flipped it open and read. The first few pages were neither theory nor magic. Just life.
Quizhou was a mage writing about the first time he tried to shape his mana. About the way his fingers trembled every time he exerted himself, and his mind turned hazy. About the metallic taste that flooded his mouth when he exhausted his magical reserves. About the shame he'd felt of failing in front of someone who pretended not to notice.
'If I hadn't used [Insight] on it, I'd probably stop reading right here.'
But I knew there was more to this book. More than what had met my eyes. And I was slowly getting the picture. Quizhou would describe the spells he used in detail. Not just the effect of it, but the feeling. The mental image he used, the textures he imagined brushing against his skin. The way it changed when he imagined it differently. How the same "spell" could become something else entirely if he thought of it as a spear instead of a stick, as a wall instead of a veil.
I held my breath, unable to look away from the words I'd read.
"Crazy. He was definitely crazy."
Whoever this person was, they had essentially mapped the inside of their own head as they experimented with magic. Every thought, sensation, reaction, and emotion was documented well, each with its own cause and impacts.
'It's not attention to detail, more like an obsessive desire to control.'
I flipped ahead, slower now, careful. Each section was like that. The origins of a technique. The physical cost. The emotional shift. The mental picture that held it together. The note in the margin read like a warning to his future self.
I shut the book gently and tucked it under my arm beside Basic Mana Theory. I shook my head, as if to clear it, then I reached for a third title and flipped it open.
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Practical Applications of Mana
[Tags: Mana Control] [Difficulty: Medium]
-
'Not really difficult in its content. But in a sense that it demanded a new way of thinking.' My fingers trailed off to the next page as I summarised my findings.
Mana as pressure. As flow. As intent given shape. As a medium that could be controlled and manipulated to a very fine degree, but required extreme finesse, rigorous effort, and sometimes even talent, much like one's own body.
"So its something like a muscle?"
I had been quite nervous to learn how magic actually worked in this world. But, inferring from the texts I had just read, it could definitely be trained, and was highly dependent on one's own interpretation of it.
I sat at an empty table in a quiet corner, stacked the books side by side neatly, then opened them all together.
If I was going to do this, I was going to do it properly.
The book on the practical applications seemed dull. But it felt more so, on purpose. The text heavily focused on a few repetitive exercises that all relied on the same basic principle.
"Movement."
'Crumple paper without touching it.'
'Push a pebble across a table.'
'Pull it back.'
'Hold an object in the air, then two objects at once. Then three. Then five.'
It also described the mental images that might be used. The shape of a hook, the tension of a taut rope, the fluidity of a gust of wind.
The second concept the texts talked about was failure and repetition.
"So a lot of trial and error till I get it right. This magic thing doesn't seem all that different from baking."
I shuddered in thought. I had probably spent more time trying to figure out the precise ratio of flour to water in a goddamn loaf than trying to understand this.
'The basics are simple. If the image changes, the way you use mana changes.'
My thoughts circled back to Quizhou's words.
A spell wasn't a button you pressed. It was an image in your mind that was translated to reality through your intent.
'So magic isn't about some weird formulas or magic circles that I used to see in the games. Instead, it's about visualisation.'
But that raised questions. How much does intent matter versus technique? Can someone with perfect visualisation but poor mana control still succeed? Or does raw power trump mental precision?
"Quizhou mentioned emotional shifts affecting spells. That suggests magic responds to the caster's state of mind, not just their conscious intent. Which means..."
I paused, thoughts hovering till the moment an idea sparked and everything came together.
"Which means every spell is personal. Unique. Two people casting the same "magic" might be doing completely different things internally."
"But first, I'd need to understand the very basics."
I lowered my gaze to the page that dictated basic mana exercises and pulled out a pen I had pocketed from my bag.
'Can't take notes, but at least I can use it to test things out.' I rolled the pen to the far end of the table and took a deep breath.
"Here goes nothing."