The Keepers were an ancient and almost primordial group. They were said to have been established by one of the first sons of man, though no one knew what his name was. Nonetheless, their sole purpose in life had been to find and store information, all information. Anything from news to history to laws and daos could be found within these books.

These shelves contained countless knowledge of lost worlds. People and societies, beasts and insects, life and legacies. It was said that everything that could be recorded would eventually find its way here. The Resting Place of All Knowledge, The Unedning Library, The Eternal Tome. That’s where I was.

But learning from this place came at a cost, as all things did, and I was about to pay mine.

I walked, following silently into the room.

The wizard was already across from me when I entered.

“In this room, it is impossible to lie,” he said. “If you try to lie, you’ll find that you can’t. The same goes for me. Do you understand?”

“Yes."

“Good. I will represent The Keepers and you the other party, we shall ask each other questions until a deal is agreed upon. After which, the information you have given will be weighed and an honest value shall be given. If you seek knowledge in return then know that I can not reveal the identities of any certain individuals but group names can be given depending on your intentions. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” I replied.

I tried to add the Honored Master honorific at the end of it but realized that I couldn’t. This room was compelling me to speak the truth, and the truth was that I didn't think of this man as an Honored Master. All feigned respect fell from my face and all attempts at cordialness fell from me. By the Dao, even my body language began to fall apart. My controlled face morphed into a half-smile as I looked around the room.

The wizard nodded without a moment’s hesitation

“We shall use simple Lynorian for the language. Let’s begin.”

The wizard spoke first.

“What knowledge do you offer?” he asked.

“The status of Array King Dane,” I replied. “Do you have any information on raising something with a Primordial’s blood and the Dao of Peace?”

“We do, though the process can differ depending on the thickness of the blood itself. Do you have a being who contains Primordial blood?” The wizard responded.

“Yes. It was charged to me by Sun Wukong.”

At that statement, the man smiled.

“I see, so that’s why you’re so brazen.”

I nodded.

Telling someone that I had the child of a Primordial would be a death sentence for most, but some sects had built themselves up for their honor and honesty and The Keepers of the Eternal Tome were one of them. But even then it’d be stupid to trust them, but now that I had Wukong's blessing, I knew that the chances of them fucking me over were almost nonexistent.

The Keepers and Wukong had an important relationship and they would be absolutely insane to mess with that balance. When you dealt with that much knowledge, you’d make many enemies. Without Wukong, they would crumble within the hour.

“Truly, that monkey irritates me so,” the wizard sighed. “But we all do as we must.”

“How accurate is your information on Array King Dane?” He asked.

“As accurate as anything can be.”

The man furrowed his brow.

“Would you be willing to elaborate on the child of a Primordial?”

“I’ve already said quite a lot.”

“I suppose you have,” the wizard said with a light nod. “Very well, then how did Dane die?”

A look of surprise came onto my face.

“Array Kings tend to be the reclusive type. Information about them only comes to notice when one has been killed or overtaken by another arraymaster, meaning either Dane is dead, or you’re here to claim his spot, or quite possibly, both. However, I should warn you though, the title of Array King is one given on merit and not conquest.”

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Within a breath, my mind ran through the implications. I knew there were other Array Kings before Dane, and I knew that the title would be passed down after him, but the idea that this was so… predictable, didn’t sit right with me.

“Did Dane ever come here to claim the title?"

I knew the answer, but I asked anyway.

"No. Dane was given the title merely by the observed merit of his work. One of of members ran into his work and deemed him worthy of the name.”

There was a moment of silence as I thought some more.

“His death seemed to be an accident,” I said.

The wizard nodded.

“Ah yes, Arraycasting on the soul then. Quite common for Array Kings, they master whatever they can of their quaint little craft and eventually mess around with it where they shouldn’t.”

That statement surprised me even more.

“This has happened before?” I asked, unable to hide my surprise.

The wizard nodded with an unaffected look.

“Array Masters are an obsessive sort, and Array Kings all the more so. It’s a useless dying art, but it is enchanting, at least for beings below the fifteenth rank. The problem is the ego. Often Array Kings think that they can do it all, dedicating themselves to pointless projects or attempting to edit their own souls in their vanity. They’re idiots in the end, geniuses in their respective fields, but idiots nonetheless.”

I smiled at the offense. I think the man meant to irritate some response from me, one of anger or insult. And since we were in a dealing room, I couldn’t hide my reaction from him. But that wasn’t the case.

Rather, his words struck me as true. I was an idiot. Dane had heavily edited his soul, changing it to an inhuman degree, his lack of expected mastery in any individual Daos or Laws was evidence of that. Dane, for all his strengths, was almost non-human. Dane had continuously forged the emotion out of his soul, pushing it towards the nature of an insect and ripping away at his emotions bit by bit.

It wasn’t an uncommon thing to do amongst obsessive Array Masters, and apparently, Dane’s story wasn’t uncommon at all.

“In addition to the information I’ve already given, I’m willing to add Array King Dane’s lifelong work and discoveries.”

The wizard’s eyebrow rose in interest.

“And in return?”

“All the information you have on Array Casting, along with the information I’ve already requested.”

The man nodded with a frown.

“Not much of a fair trade, is it?” He asked me.

I shrugged. I had provided an immense amount of information, both directly and indirectly. While the child’s existence was a single piece of information, it would be looked into and verified through other means. Those other means would most likely be Wukong. But there was a chance that Wukong would have told them himself, maybe not right away but eventually, and that was why I had told them.

And this information wasn’t something they’d sell without consulting Wukong himself. Meaning I’d given them information they couldn’t make gains on and information they would have gotten regardless.

I’d hassled them.

“Is that all then?” The man asked.

I nodded. I couldn’t even force myself to give him a verbal reply in this place. I suppose a verbal reply would be an act of deception, an extra layer of feigned respect that wasn’t there.

“Alright then, thus concluded. Offer up your information and the Tome will give what you seek.”

I nodded and held up a jade piece that was full of all the information I’d promised. I hadn’t originally planned to give this much but Wukong had changed all that. If he knew about the child then so would they, eventually. Another aspect that I was unsure about was Array King Dane’s life work.

It had been quite some time since he had passed, and if I didn’t consider myself a separate enough entity from him, then this room might have called that out as a lie. But I wasn’t Dane, and that was an important truth I had to keep in mind, and while Dane’s work would be cataloged and submitted in this place, my work, my array casting remained unknown.

The jade piece turned to dust before me and in its place was a book, marked with the emblem of the Keepers of the Eternal Tome.

“A book?” I asked with curiosity.

“Yes,” the man replied. “It’s a Keeper’s book, it allows you to store and catalog all of your knowledge in one place. It’s only accessible by you and by fellow Keepers of the Tome.”

I looked down at the bible-sized thing. It had a small dull jade embedded in its center cover and it was bound in a dull brown leather.

“Why?” I asked.

“Numerous reasons,” the man said with a light shrug. “You could have underpaid for your information, many do so in hopes of being gifted with a Keeper’s book. But your request was vague enough that the Tome could have given you as much knowledge as it needed to until it considered the matter complete. We have billions of array related knowledge in this place, and it’s unlikely that it gave all of that information and still fell short of its due.”

I looked at the Wizard quizically.

“Then… why?”

The wizard smiled and stroked his chin.

“My name is Sir Dorsin the Wise. What is your name?”

Oh, I see. He wanted a trade.

I looked at him for a moment in annoyance. I’m sure he must have noticed but he still kept smiling at me with his hands together.

“Bill,” I mutter.

“Bill?” He replied.

“Bill,” I answered.

“No titles or monikers, just Bill?”

“Sometimes it’s Mister Bill. Now why the book?”

For the first time since I’d met him, Sir Dorsin the Wise looked irritated.

“It allows you to trade knowledge with the Tome from anywhere in the multiverse. The Tome must sense that you know more than you said and gave you a path to trade directly with it in the future.”

I looked down at the book.

“I didn’t know it could do that.”

“Direct access to the Tome outside of Lynoria is limited to our disciples and sect members, but the Tome does as it pleases and occasionally, the books are given out to outsiders.”

I studied the book, again wondering why it was in my hands. I had told them about the child, and the sect would most likely worm the details out of Wukong. They were allies after all, but aside from that, I didn’t hold anything that this place might want.

“I find it strange as well,” Sir Dorsin the Wise said. “But the Tome knows what it does.”

I nodded.

I kept thinking about the book on the way out, all the way until I was out of Lynoria itself.

The exit crew ended up being a bunch of stone monkies wearing monk-like robes who helped me escape the realm unnoticed. Their main purpose was to make sure I wasn’t followed and to escort me to the Void.

I finally gave up some time on my way back to Ah-Marin. I couldn’t figure out why I’d gotten this book, but I’d try and make the most of it.