Morning filtered through the crystal lattice of Aurion’s Grand Library, scattering light across towering shelves and hovering books.
Lucien was still there.
The table before him looked like a battlefield of books. The volus he had read stacked neatly and others are open for reference.
Right now, he was reading two books at once. His eyes shifting between them in perfect rhythm.
His Parallel Thoughts skill allowed it. Combined with Photographic mory, he absorbed information like breathing.
Ever since his transformation into Lootwell, the Wolf Beastman, Lucien’s temperant had sharpened. He had beco more instinctive, direct, and efficient... yet his intellect remained intact.
Beast instinct and human intelligence had rged into sothing focused and predatory... but unnervingly calm.
As more scholars entered the library, whispers began to rise. Mortals and powerhouses alike glanced at the lone, wolfish figure drowning in texts.
"A Beastman? Reading runes?"
"He’s pretending. Probably just showing off."
"Ha! Beastn can’t even spell their nas backward."
Lucien ignored them. Their opinions were re noise to him. Completely irrelevant.
Then suddenly... the noise stopped.
The air itself seed to hold its breath.
A faint fragrance drifted through the hall. It was floral yet otherworldly, like spring carried on the wind.
Everyone turned.
A woman entered through the grand doors of the library. She was graceful and radiant. Her long hair shimred with living petals. They were not ornants but blooms growing from her very being. Each step she took left faint motes of light in the air.
A Floran.
The Floran Race were half-flora beings. To them, beauty was a byproduct of power. The strength of life itself channeled through form and fragrance.
But this one... was special.
She stopped mid-track and touched her pendant. She looked ahead as though sensing sothing unseen.
And then... her eyes turned toward the Wolf Beastman surrounded by his fortress of books.
"The book I ca here for was already taken?"
The girl frowned... then walked toward Lucien.
When the woman left the crowd, the others finally breathed again. Then... they broke into hushed whispers.
"Is that—?"
"Don’t say her na aloud!"
"The last person who did got banned from the market for a month!"
"Then that Beastman’s either blessed or dood."
Lucien didn’t look up until the scent reached him. It was far too strong for his heightened Beastman senses.
His nose twitched and it made him grimaced.
When the Floran woman stopped before him, silence fell over the entire library.
Lucien lifted his head lazily, eting her gaze. She leaned forward slightly, smiling. The kind of smile that had ruined n and built empires.
He snorted, turned a page, and continued reading.
The entire hall froze.
"...Did he just—"
"Oh, this is going to end badly."
"Rest in peace, brave wolf."
The Floran’s smile didn’t waver but her fragrance shifted. The sweet scent turned sharp, like honey laced with venom. That could only an one thing. Her mood had changed.
Only those with heightened senses noticed the change.
Lucien calmly covered his nose.
Gasps erupted once more.
The woman chuckled softly. She then asked Lucien with her lodic voice, "Don’t you know who I am?"
Lucien looked up again with his flat eyes. "Do I need to?"
Silence reigned once again.
Then a muffled "pfft" echoed. Soone... had failed to hold in a laugh.
The Floran’s eyes flicked toward the offender. A faint green light pulsed from her irises. The laughing scholar scread, collapsing to his knees as a spectral flower sigil branded itself on his forehead.
A spiritual mark. The man had been tagged.
Instant terror rippled through the hall.
The others comforted the offender, though their words dripped with sarcasm.
"Good luck, brother."
"He’s done for."
"Hey now, even mortals have more restraint than you."
Eirene, for that was her na, turned back to Lucien. Her amusent hadn’t faded.
Only now did she notice what he was actually doing. The beastman in front of her was reading two books simultaneously.
His focus was surgical. His aura was steady. His mind was split yet in perfect control.
Her interest flared. The man before her wasn’t pretending. He was doing the impossible as naturally as breathing.
Her eyes lit up, seeing an opportunity she couldn’t pass by.
She extended a hand gracefully. "Brother Beastman, allow to introduce myself. I am Eirene, master of the largest rchant consortium in the Western Continent."
Her tone softened. It was now businesslike and inviting.
"I’ve been searching for soone who can multitask with precision and read runes at such speed. If you’re seeking work, I could pay you more wealth than you could spend in a lifeti."
At her words, the crowd murmured. To be offered a position by Eirene of the Floran Race was a life-changing event. Even Ascendants would bow to her influence.
And her being respectful to Lucien and calling him brother? That ant sothing. It confird that he wasn’t simply acting. Eirene was famous for sensing opportunity at every doorstep. She couldn’t be wrong.
But then...
Lucien lifted his eyes from the book, eting her stare. The pressure between them thickened. Predator and queen, sizing each other up.
With Eirene continuously disturbing him, irritation stirred. Even with Parallel Thoughts, reading two books while talking was draining.
His aura stirred. Eirene’s breath caught for half a second. She was in the 1st Stage of the Ascendant Realm, yet she was affected by the aura of soone rely in the Transcendent Realm.
She looked at Lucien with added intrigue. Her eyes turned predatory.
Just then, Lucien’s calm voice broke the tension.
"How about I pay you to not disturb ?"
Once again, silence reigned. The entire library turned to stone.
A few choked on their breath at his bluntness.
Even Eirene froze. Her lips parted in disbelief.
And then... chaos.
"By the stars—did he just—"
"He just called Eirene a disturbance!?"
"That wolf has a death wish!"
From the back, the man she’d marked earlier stood shakily and laughed loud enough to echo through the shelves.
"Good job, Beastman brother! If I’m dying anyway, at least let die laughing! HAHAHA!"
Eirene blinked once, then twice. Then... the corner of her mouth began twitching between offense and amusent.
Lucien, unfazed, opened his inventory and tossed her a handful of peculiar artifacts. They were the unidentified items he and Marie had taken from the Nephralis and Varkhaal’s storage rings.
"These," he said simply, "are useless to . My instinct tells you’ll find a use for them."
Lucien didn’t do this casually.
He had already used his Divine Sense and saw through her color. Her aura was pure. She was also willful and strong-willed.
He knew her race from the Mural World. The Floran Race were beings who were honest but also playful and the one standing before him was no different.
To deal with them, one must be honest as well. After all, the Floran Race could detect lies. Their fragrance wasn’t just for show; it was a major part of their power.
He also felt a strange connection between the artifacts and the lady before him. His Beastman instinct told him there was a relation... one that went deeper than re coincidence.
And indeed... Seeing the artifacts, Eirene’s eyes widened. Her composure slipped for the first ti.
She caught one of the items. A black crystal etched with shifting sigils and she instantly recognized traces of sealed laws inside.
"How could you have—" she began... but stopped herself. She recognized what he’d given her... or rather, a fragnt of it.
She stored them away carefully in her ring. When she looked up again, Lucien was already reading another book, completely ignoring her.
Her gaze fell on the cover.
"A Study on the Law of Stillness: The Eternal Who Vanished."
’That’s the book I ca here for... The Eternal of Stillness...’
Her pupils constricted slightly.
"Brother," she said quietly, regaining her grace, "let’s et again later. The items you gave ... I’ll make sure to reimburse you at a later date. There are... matters I must attend to."
Lucien didn’t even glance her way. "Do as you like."
And that was the end of it.
At least, for now.
Eirene left the library. Her steps were silent and deliberate. To outsiders, she appeared unbothered. But inside, her mind raced.
Of course, she didn’t forget to collect the offender from earlier. Vines wrapped around the man’s body and mouth, dragging him silently outside.
Once beyond the library’s doors, Eirene paused beneath the sunlight filtering through the crystalline do. Her fingers brushed the pendant at her neck. It’s actually a relic bound to her spirit. She activated the ability she’d gained from it.
’Equivalent Exchange.’
A faint glow emanated from the pendant, forming a spectral scale of balance in the air before her. It was sothing only she could see.
Two golden pans hovered: one representing her total wealth and power, the other... Lucien.
The scales tipped instantly. The pan holding Lucien’s value sank hard, almost violently.
Then, for the first ti in her life, the relic spoke back.
"Your current assets are insufficient to asure his worth."
Eirene froze.
That had never happened.
"I own fleets, vaults, artifacts beyond count... and yet—"
She looked back toward the library, her voice a low whisper.
"...he outweighs them all?"
The scales vanished. A smile, slow and dangerous, curved her lips.
"I found you," she murmured. Her eyes glinted like dawnlight through dew.
Then she turned and walked away with purpose.
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