“Alright.”
Kamus nodded, sensing his sincerity, but then asked, “Do you have a way to loosen this bottleneck enough for to advance?”
“Yes, but I’ll need three petals of white frozen lotus flowers, and one drop of an Exalted-level Chaos Beast’s blood. Any Tier will do.”
Sokram felt safe to expose this because of the concoction spells he learned from Hannah, and because among the books he recently received, there was an almanac of dicinal plants.
Even if it was a stretch, Sokram could justify it as a genius idea or a glimpse of inspiration.
Especially since such dicines, although undiscovered on his planet, were quite common in the galaxy.
But Kamus was a two-thousand-year-old wolf, and not easily fooled.
Yet, rembering certain rumors about Sokram finding an inheritance, added to Leona's insistence, he decided to trust his Grand-Disciple.
“I know where to get the lotuses, as for the monster blood, I have that too. I’ll be back in four to five days. Don’t tell your grandma I left you unsupervised, hm?”
Kamus stood up and pointed at Lymus, “Until then, help my disciple convert his Core instead.”
“Sure, but are you sure you don’t want to co along? The lotuses are difficult to collect without spoiling them.” But Sokram already knew Kamus's answer.
“Kid, do I look like a whelp to you? I may not know how to do that, but my wife is a great alchemist too; she may not be as good as the Duchess, but she’s not far off either.”
Kamus proudly bragged about his wife whenever he had the chance.
Kasine was just as he said: Norwinter's best alchemist.
Her naturally enhanced sense of sll, even sharper than most wolves', helped her find the rarest ingredients and create the rarest potions.
“Then I can rest assured and focus on aiding my sword uncle.”
Sokram nodded politely at Lymus, who was still struggling to regulate his emotions after the beating he received, but seeing Sokram’s attitude was back to being polite, he got even more irked. As he felt that, for Sokram, winning against him wasn’t worth bragging about.
Kamus quickly left, not wanting to lose any more ti.
Lymus excused himself, admitting he wasn’t in a good ntal state where he could cultivate.
Sokram, seeing that he had so free ti, asked Leona to show him the way to the Arch-Mage’s Tower.
The Arch-Mage’s Tower was the highest in the palace, with a total of fifteen floors up and ten floors down.
From what Sokram heard from the twins in his past tiline, each floor housed a myriad of shelves filled with books and research material on various subjects related to Magi.
Arriving at the colossal double doors, Sokram felt a sudden chill.
Two hulking figures, crafted from what appeared to be raw Adamantium, lood on either side.
Their unmoving figures created the illusion that they were re statues.
Yet, the silent, formidable power radiating from them made their true nature clear; they were golems.
The fact that not a single speck of dust clung to their polished surfaces showed they were intelligent enough to maintain and repair themselves, hinting at a greater level of artificial intelligence or a powerful auto-repair enchantnt.
Leona looked at Sokram with a complicated gaze, “I can’t go further than this; only those with a token can enter it without the Arch-Mage being there.”
“So the token is just like Sahvus said, I can enter whenever I want? Well, I got to thank him for the vote of confidence.”
Sokram felt slightly touched, but Leona threw a cold-water bucket on it.
“Don’t get full of yourself, kiddo. Grandfather Savus is the most pragmatic person I know; he doesn’t trust people, he trusts results. So you should know this is an investnt from the Armfrost in you, but they will co to collect.”
Realizing how bad that sounded, she quickly added a clarification. “It’s not out of malice, it’s just how they are. Besides, the token will give you access to the library, practice, and study rooms on every floor except the top and bottom floors.”
“I see… Well, that is natural; mages are not very good at sharing knowledge. They know how valuable it can be.”
Sokram smiled and thanked his master.
But as he was about to head to the room, he heard Loena mumbling to herself, “But aren’t you a mage too? Why do you always share so much with and the others?”
“Because I love you, Master,” Sokram replied without a glance back.
Had he turned, he would have seen Leona's cheeks flushed crimson, her lips parting in a silent gasp as she pressed a hand to her chest, a mixture of shock and utter delight warring in her eyes.
When Sokram reached three ters from the door, the Golems reacted and spoke with a voice that could only be described as tallic and rocky, “Only those with the token can enter.”
A tallic, rocky voice bood from both golems in unison, as if a single, unseen being spoke from two separate mouths, and it wasn’t an illusion spell.
Without missing a beat, knowing the golems could easily squash him even before he could conjure his lightning, Sokram summoned the token Sahvus had given him.
As soon as he showed the token, the golems bowed to him, “Honorable Guest, Welco!” and the double doors opened for him.
The mont Sokram stepped across the threshold, the air rippled like disturbed water.
A faint hum vibrated through the floor beneath his feet, and the walls seed to stretch and recede, subtly shifting the very dinsions of the space.
From the outside, the tower asured 400 square ters.
But inside, it stretched impossibly to three thousand; its floors each rose five ters high.
Sokram couldn’t clearly understand the magical principle behind it.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
It was clearly a spaceti spell, but there was sothing else he couldn’t quite place within its weave.
He didn’t dwell on it.
Still, he was impressed; casting a spell of this magnitude would have required at least ten Exalted-level mages.
Sokram's gaze swept across an impossible expanse.
Ninety-nine towering hallways stretched before him, each flanked by a hundred rows of bookshelves that seed to vanish into the distance.
Nine five-ter-long shelves, their dark, polished surfaces hinting at mahogany iron-bark, scraped against the ceiling in every passage, creating an overwhelming labyrinth of knowledge.
The lack of the sll of aging paper showed that every book was enchanted with preserving spells.
‘The Armfrosts truly know the value of knowledge, hm? Well, they are ntyr’s follower after all.’
Every hallway had nine bookshelves that were five ters in length.
Every bookshelf, seemingly made of mahogany iron bark, reached the ceiling.
On the entrance of every hallway was a tal plaque indicating the subject of the books found there.
Sokram saw that every shelf on the first floor shared a common word: introduction.
Since he was there to spend his ti productively, he went to the very first shelf, ‘Introduction to Elental Magic’, and started reading from there.
Sokram planned his attack on the library, beginning from the lowest shelves and working his way up.
The tos varied from eight hundred to five thousand pages each, which made Sokram very happy.
He read through half a shelf in less than half an hour.
Twenty-five books in total, yet what truly struck him was how these introductory tos were anything but beginner-friendly.
If soone who was starting to learn Magi were to read it, they would not be able to grasp these concepts, which now seed so simple, but weren’t at all.
Sokram continued to read, being careful not to lose his sense of ti, and spent six more hours there, managing to barely finish a single bookshelf.
But reading through it gave him enough material to revise so of his spells.
Feeling satisfied for now, Sokram left the tower, but sothing felt strange; the palace’s hallways should have been bustling with activity in the morning, but except for a few guards, there was no one there.
Looking through one of the hallway windows, he saw that it was still night.
Only then did the full realization dawn: the tower's spell also wove a temporal distortion.
This realization almost made Sokram jump in celebration because, as he analyzed the position of the moons, and with the subtle confirmation of the clock on the wall, only one hour had passed since he had entered, aning a ti dilation of almost seven for one.
One week inside the tower would be equal to one day outside.
Sokram didn’t lose any more ti and went back inside excitedly, as he still had seven more hours until sunrise.
But this ti, when Sokram entered, he saw sothing he was sure wasn’t there the first ti.
A gigantic clock, right in front of the door, was ticking the ti so slowly that Sokram knew for sure it was counting the ti from outside the tower.
Then he felt a hand on his right shoulder.
Sokram spun his body toward the person behind him and saw no one.
‘An illusion? No… a ntal curse!’
Realizing the trap, Sokram surged his energy, racing it through his body. As if the very space around him tore open, Camile materialized directly before him.
“No fun, you figured it out too fast…”
Camile pouted in mock sadness before a slow, approving smile spread across her face. “No wonder she’s so fond of you, you’re truly sothing else. That was one of my strongest ntal curses in the Reford level.”
Sokram, not knowing who she ant, raised a brow. “Cecille?”
“Hah, right, Cecille is fond of your talent too, but tell , you couldn’t see past it, right? I wanted to ss with you a little more, make a few books disappear like I did with the watch, but now it’s not fun anymore…”
Camile pouted, and Sokram couldn’t read her at all.
But then he thought, ‘Too? Who else would be interested in… Oh, shit! She’s talking about ntyr.’
“Well, yeah, I couldn’t see it past it; it was a good ntal curse. Sorry for ruining your fun, haha.”
Sokram smiled wryly, trying to keep his composure.
He hated dealing with ntyr’s fanatics; they were always very eccentric.
This was the main reason he had been avoiding coming here since he found out the Armfrosts’ connection to ntyr.
But now that he was there, he couldn’t let go of going through this library, so he would have to endure it for the ti being.
“It’s fine,” Camile smirked, her tone suddenly inquisitive.
“So why were you so stuck on reading the basics of elental magic?”
Such a simple question, and her eyes betrayed the Nether Energy locked behind them.
‘There it is,' Sokram thought, a familiar prickle of unease tracing his spine.
Camile’s smile, though sweet, couldn't quite mask the unnerving intensity in her eyes, a glint of sothing insatiable, a deep, gnawing hunger for hidden knowledge that seed to pulse from her very being.
‘That cursed insatiable curiosity they all share. I know they literally hunger for secrets, but for Nhiria’s sake, can’t they make it less obvious?’
Sokram nodded slowly, carefully choosing his following words. “I was just revising the basics, although I was well taught, I didn’t have this range of fundantal knowledge.”
As he spoke, he tried his best to conceal his discomfort with the madness behind her gaze as he explained.
“Oh, so you’re the type that wants to know everything about sothing before moving to the next thing, hm? I like your type.” Camile smiled sweetly; if not for the madness in her gaze, he might have thought her stunning.
Which she was, but his inability to ignore the scent of the Nether and the madness that ca with it prevented him from wanting to be closer.
“Yes, there’s no such thing as too much knowledge, just like gold.” Sokram nodded, trying to get used to her staring.
“Well, I’ll leave you to your studies, then. If you need anything, I’ll be on the seventh floor. I would offer you a tour, but I think it’s unnecessary, right? You want to read every book in this library, right?”
Camile’s smile would be creepy if it weren’t so beautiful, Sokram thought.
But breaking out of his daze, he nodded, “Yes, that’s the plan. Since your family is giving this opportunity, I’ll indulge as much as I can.”
“Be our guest, darling.” Camile shot him a flirty wink and turned, walking away.
Sokram, throughout his eons of existence in his previous tiline, could confirm one thing about won: the crazier they were, the wilder the experience beca.
Still, he couldn’t help but stare as she walked away, ‘Such a tempting sight, why ntyr always picks the stunning ones? Or every beautiful woman is sowhat crazy?’
“Don’t stare too much, you’re too young for such thoughts,” Camile's voice tickled his ears, but her tone wasn’t reprimanding; on the contrary, it was like she was welcoming him to feast his eyes on her form instead.
Yet her words finally gave him enough strength to look away, while thinking, ‘Damn!’
After this brief encounter, Sokram returned to his reading.
He allowed himself to lose the sense of ti and focus solely on the books, tos, and scrolls.
But from ti to ti, he glanced at the clock.
To prevent being fooled again, he periodically pushed his energy to its peak in case any illusion or curse had been cast on him.
But every ti he did that, he heard giggles from the floors above.
When sunrise arrived, Sokram didn’t know how much ti had passed inside; he felt like he had been reading for days.
But he wasn’t tired at all.
He only stopped when he heard that sa tallic and rocky voice that ca from the golems before, announcing, “The Arch-Mage Cecille has arrived.”
Then he realized how he had fallen into Camile’s trap.
Right after Cecille, there were two other announcents, one for Sienna and one for Cassandra.
That ant that earlier, when he had arrived, his arrival was announced the sa way, thus allowing Camile to trap him in one of her curses without him noticing.
Realizing it was ti to leave, he went to greet them, but once they saw him, they didn’t seem surprised.
“So, how do you like our humble library?” Cassandra teased him, flashing him a smile.
“Amazing, truly amazing! I learned so much more, and I’m still just revising the basics.”
Sokram smiled back and then thanked them, “Thank you for this.”
Sienna shook her head slowly, her lips twitching with amusent. “You earned it.”
It was only then that Sokram noticed: The number of energy circles surrounding her body had gone up by two since the last ti he’d seen her.
“Congratulations on your advancent, Grand Magus Sienna!” Sokram smiled praisingly.
“Well, thank you for the technique. But if you want to pass as a millenary Master, a better word choice when writing your techniques would be best.” Sienna teased.
“Haha, I was only eight…” Sokram paused, covering his mouth, while Cassandra and Cecille looked at him wide-eyed.
Sienna had a knowing smile on her lips, but then he quickly rushed his steps toward the door, “Oh, haha, well, it’s getting late, and my team is waiting for . I’ll be back later.”
Of course, Sokram didn’t let that slip; he did it on purpose, as he knew a lot about the followers of ntyr, and they took delight in things like these.
Secrets the one let slip, thoughts one reveals while drunk, bits of information that escaped accidentally, sated their maddening hunger for secret knowledge, albeit only temporarily.
This was the curse Nhiria cast on ntyr for all her misdeeds. A curse all her followers shared.
But it was also thanks to it that she managed to find the Light of Evolution in the eternal darkness of the Nether.
Thus, if Sokram did this from ti to ti, he wouldn’t have to deal with them surrounding him, preying on him, trying to get at least one secret from him, or as many as they could.
Instead, he would be the one baiting them, and, in the anti, he would feed his Soul Realm with as much knowledge as he could.
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