William holds no interest in seminars for now, since they are for experienced people on any topic. Deciding to open the next door, the same source of amazement from the first floor is here. Although smaller and much sparsely spaced, rows of shelves with many books are stationed everywhere.
Unlike down on the first floor, each wide, and far bookshelves has a note above the ceiling with topics that are within the books below.
Ellie has no need to say so since she looks at William, who has already figured it out.
William looks at the rows, and many notes under a lot of them. There are dozens of them. And since the place is still huge, perhaps a 100 of such bookshelves is not a small estimate in his opinion.
“Oh, botany? I will look at this one.” William points to a distant bookshelf. Ellie follows.
There is a smaller amount of people here, with all of them being around William’s age or lower. It makes sense since the kids here are here for their future and their families who are paying for their education.
This one is one of the more expensive options for raising a kid, but the effects are obvious since the quality of the learning materials is one of a kind.
Grabbing random books, William looks inside and turns pages every so often.
Depictions of flowers, fauna, and thousands upon thousands of picture flows under his eyes. Each page has at least 3 to 5 pictures with the usage of the fauna, facts, descriptions, and usefulness about them below their respective picture.
“This is just a regular botany book. Not something useful to glance to it for 10 minutes.” Ellie argues beside his head.
“It is 10 minutes of looking at the regular botany book which I've never looked at in my whole life. Is it not impressive in itself? I find it so.” William smartly says.
And truth to be told, Ellie could not find one bit of fault in his logic. William spends the next whole hour looking through this bookshelf. Ellie waits impatiently beside a table and scrolls through some random books she finds interesting.
“I would rather pick something in the Culture section… huh…” she sight.
William, after another while, puts the book about the plantations and fields back into the bookshelves. This one is the most interesting of the bunch since he is not the newest to things that are highly detailed inside. Everything that he learned in the past made it quite clear and he improved after reading this book.
It made a whole new ordeal within his mind, to figure much more topics to broaden his lacking horizons.
Walking to Ellie, he says. “Sorry to make you wait, how about visiting the 3rd floor?”
“Oh, already? I thought you would spend the whole day here and waste my time.” She lazily says as she stretches her hands and head at the same time.
“I got too into the reading.”
“No. That is good. You have to figure out as… AHHH! I forgot!!” she suddenly shouts out loud, and forces half the people in this open section of the second floor to lead a questionable look at her.
William backs off in fright since she surprised him much more than he is willing to admit.
“W-what is that? Don’t surprise me so sudden…“ he mumbles in embarrassment.
“I… I… You are a Walker! It completely blew over my head.” Ellie says while feeling a little worse about herself.
“What does it even matter?” William shakes his head while understanding nothing about her sudden outburst.
“Matter? A walker is a walker. A person with great standing and work in The Federation, while a young walker, is nothing different. Do you understand nothing of this?” Ellie looks at William, who is getting headaches from dealing with the constant cluelessness that he knows he has.
“So? Why won’t you broaden my horizons then? That, or I will go to the 5th or 6th floor where I am sure are plenty of materials to get a better picture of the world of Walkers. I’ve never had a chance to experience such knowledge before,” he speaks with no shred of humility, or even loftiness.
“You… I never thought young Walkers have rough times on the Outside…” Ellie mutters in unwillingness. It seems to her that this mistake is on her part, while the world of Walkers is not something she dares to touch very often. Every day only slightly is usually enough.
“I think you don’t know a lot about the Outside if you spent all your life here. Why do you think Outside is called that? It is the Federation that is the core of humanity.” William explains the rule he knows for most of his life.
“That may be true, but I know still a lot! Can I request something from you?”
“What?”
“Can you show me your Emblem?” Ellie slaps both palms together to form a pleading expression.
“Sure.” William casually uncovers his sleeve and shows her his forearm, which has a crimson Emblem embodied within his forearm.
“Wow, so pretty. What a mesmerizing, colorful red. That is rare to see in the world. It is almost like blood, but it flows, like a living thing.” Ellie in awe, says, as she observes her request.
“Well, I am alive. That is about it.” William pulls his sleeve back and covers his Emblem after 10 or so seconds of her intense stare.
“Eh… Alright, I will teach you. How about it? Since you are an upcoming walker, you must have not only the basic knowledge of the Federation but general ways to act beyond the Federation. I know a lot about them, even though I am not a Walker myself. Do you know why is that so?” Ellie importantly asks, while her embarrassment already fades away as if it never happened.
“Because you are a curious girl who likes to learn stuff?” William guesses.
“T-that is not wrong… But the more reasonable thing to say is because I am a general manager and welcomer of the Library. One has to know a lot about everything. Walkers are the most likely people to visit the Library, so talking to them, and making sure to understand them is the best course of action what I’ve learned.”
“Man… she sure is chatty. Like Dann... but.. never mind.” William laments within his mind. He already knows where this will go. She will not shut up about it for the next 30 minutes of self-importance and things to tell to someone who she views as ignorant.
“For example, the reason you, a refugee from some camp from the Canada borders around the proximity of the USA, is being transported to the federation for the examination is rather simple. It has to do with the proximity of the Federation, which has its hands on the whole American continent and is the closest power to the very beginning of the Dark Age in the south. All potential Walkers are either in the Federation upon their discovery, or sent to smaller institutions across Canada and secret sectors in the USA.”
William furrows his brows upon hearing details he not expected. “There are institutions on the Outside, like the Federation…” He thoughts, but does not voice his concerns.
Ellie keeps talking.
“While the sources of the Walkers are their Emblems, they have to have a good affinity and abilities with a great mind. The Federation is the best place to bring them in for an examination, and at the same time, raise them in ranks in their own forces. That is the most efficient way that the Federation does. Why do you think so?”
“ Because it is THE Federation. It only makes sense, because they are powerful. You talk so fast that I am barely comprehending what you are trying to say, but please continue.” William rather sits down on a chair on the other table and faces Ellie, who is already prepared for another long monologue.
This goes on for an hour.
To William's excitement of coming here, he rather prefers to learn a thing at his own pace, but this is not bad as well. At least she seems like a nice and adjusted girl, unlike any teacher he has ever met.
“… and that is the premise of Walker’s choices and organizations. Everything has its orders. Be it the military sectors from Germany, England, China, or Japanese what are still holding their own forces in the world what is still surviving out there against the Dark.” Ellie ends her who-knows which monologue. Her throat is already stung with pain, but her mind is still fine. Some water would help her a lot, but she has not taken one for herself.
Unexpectedly, she had already spent almost half a day with William.
William takes everything with a grain of salt to his brain. While most of the things she said sound complicated, when branched to lighter sentences, he learns a lot from her way of teaching.
“That is very interesting indeed. I guess my choices will include a lot of organization with each military department?”
“That is correct. I have seen the Examination only once, where I learned about them. It is… interesting, but nothing that I want to see again. It is their world, a world against the Dark. I am afraid of that…”
“That is at least some normal response from you.” William chuckles.
“Well, excuse me. I am just a city girl who grew up in safety…”
“I am not judging you. If you have ended with this talk, can we go towards the 3rd floor? You already spent a long time with all this talk about Walkers and organizations, or whatnot,” William says and gets up from the chair.
“Sure. Sure. I talked about it because it is precisely the most important thing that someone like you needs to learn.”
“Yet, you never said anything about Emblem Academy.” William says, while glancing at Ellie.
“Emblem Academy? Are you curious about it?” Ellie asks in open glistering excitement.
“Why would I not be? It is quite famous on the Outside. Surprisingly famous, in fact.”
“More than the military of the Federation?”
“I don’t know… I definitely heard about the Academy much sooner than Federation.”
Ellie falls into a storm of thoughts, and in a few moments says. “I will keep this topic for tomorrow. How about calling it a day on the 3rd floor and getting home afterward?” Ellie suggests.
She has a plan to revisit some documents, so she would talk with William with facts and logic. Emblem Academy is a tough topic.. which doesn't have a lot of information in the library. Only a bit on the 5th floor, and on the 6th one as well, which has certain secrets and topics only Walkers would know.
William agrees and moves towards the 3rd floor in the same way as this one. Backing from the seminar hallway, right back to the gallery of the walls.
There, other stairs are a further distance away on each side of the previous stairs that lead to the 3rd floor. Walking up, a brand new sight enters his view. An open door within each staircase opens to a similar space as the Technological section on the 1st floor.
Clear and wide, with few closed rooms on the way back.
“Fascination isn’t it?”
“What is this floor? Cultural…”
“It is something from old age, I think. There used to be a lot of fun activities that people used to do for passing time. See that?” Elle says and walks further to the front and points to rows of computers and wide screens that flicker with light.