On and on, endlessly wandering through the shelves. Oz’s eyes blurred. It’s been so long since I set off. Can I ever return? Am I lost for the rest of my life? Am I going to be found centuries from now, no more than a skeleton amidst the stacks?

The large desk appeared around the corner of the shelves at last. Oz fell to his knees in relief. “I’m back! I made it!”

Sitting on the desk, Sid rumbled deep in her throat with nondescript disapproval.

Oz pointed at her. “Hey, you abandoned me. You don’t get to disapprove.”

Sid meowed at him. A large green moth fluttered by. Instantly distracted, she turned, pupils growing large, and leaped after it.

Sighing, Oz wandered over to the desk. He plopped a new stack of books down, gave Sid a quick pet under the chin, and nodded. “I didn’t find food or water, but do you know what I found?”

Sid meowed.

“Books!” Oz grinned.

She tilted her head.

“Don’t give me that. Books are the most important things in life,” Oz declared boldly.

Sid tipped her head the opposite way.

Oz sighed. “Okay, so I couldn’t find any food or water. I know it doesn’t fix anything, but it makes me feel better, and we have to keep morale up, right?”

Picking her way over the contents of the desk, Sid stood up on her hind legs and put a paw on his arm.

“I know, I know. I’ll just skim the books real quick, then head back out, okay?”

Sid sat back down and trilled, tucking her tail around her paws.

“That sounds like a yes to me.”

Oz glanced at the books on the desk. I’m not sure that’s enough. Let’s grab a couple more. Quickly, he left the main hall, selected a random group of books, and brought them back to the desk. Spreading them on the clean part of the floor, he sat opposite them and rolled up his sleeves.

I’ve got so many basic manuals that I’m drowning in them. Most of them cover the same basics: sit down, meditate until you sense qi, then continue to meditate to absorb qi, but each one has small quirks, and all the manuals insist that once you begin learning one, you can’t divert from it to learn a different manual. I could choose one, no, find the best, and start learning magic from that manual alone, but somehow, I feel like that’s the wrong answer.

Madame Saoirse gathered all these books here for a reason. With her blood, sweat, and tears, she compiled this library. She could be a weird book klepto, but I don’t think that’s right, either. It’s not as if she went down to the corner store and bought these books. She borrowed, begged, and stole them from all the various sects, clans, and schools. The other mages want these books so bad, they descended like vultures the second she… what was the word? Ascended.

No. Madam Saoirse didn’t do that for fun. She did that for a reason.

His brows furrowed. He opened the basic manuals, flipping them all to their first page. There’s a certain similarity to these volumes. As I was walking the halls, I skimmed through a few, and there’s something similar about them. They’re mostly about breathing, yes, and absorbing qi, but more than that, there’s a beat to the techniques. Some kind of fundamental rule.

“You’ve finally realized it. And thus, you’ve met the very first requirement to cultivate the Universal Theory of Magic.”

Oz startled, jumping to his feet. He whirled, his black robes flying.

Atop the desk, the crystal ball glowed. A projection of a woman floated above it, somewhat translucent, the same bluish tone as the crystal ball itself. She wore her dark hair back in a stern bun. Slender glasses perched atop her nose, a chain dangling from the stems to vanish around her neck. Perfectly-sculpted brows arched at him, and she put one hand idly on her cheek, giving him the barest of approving looks, barely a single note above disapproval.

Beneath the projection, Sid rolled around on her back, clawing at the streams of light that formed the figure. She batted the crystal ball with her paw stretched wide, sending it rolling in its mount.

Unaffected by the ball’s rotation, the projection smiled down at Oz. “Ossian Vestal. You shall be my final disciple. My final disciple… and the only one to receive the true form of my technique, the Universal Theory of Magic.”

“Oh. Uh, thanks,” Oz said, rubbing the back of his head. Did my thoughts trigger it? Damn. Magic is powerful.

“I wasn’t sure you’d ever realize it. I certainly hope you’re still young enough to make it to the next stage and extend your lifespan for the time required to cultivate this technique,” she murmured, half to herself.

Oz pursed his lips. “I wasn’t that stupid… was I?” Ossian figured out blood magic, so he must have had some level of competency. Then again, he only used blood magic, as far as I’m aware, and according to everyone, he couldn’t sense qi. Maybe blood magic doesn’t require being able to sense qi, and using it is totally different from using ordinary magic. I simply don’t know.

Waving her hand, the projection of the woman—wait, that’s Madame Saoirse, from the register—continued. “I theorized that there is a single truth behind all magical techniques. A single truth that all techniques seek, yet never reach. My goal is to achieve that single truth.”

“Right, makes sense,” Oz said, nodding.

“Ossian, follow in my footsteps. Realize the truth of this world. Read every tome in this library, and uncover the single truth behind it all.”

“Every tome?” Oz muttered, looking up, up, up, at the seemingly infinite heights of the library, each level laden with uncountable volumes.

“Your first goal is to read every volume on the first floor and synthesize the universal breathing technique from their secrets. I permit you to learn an inferior technique to protect yourself, but do not step onto the first stage before discovering the universal breathing technique. I entrust this task to you, knowing that you are capable. Don’t let me down.” Flicking her fingers dismissively, the projection vanished.

He nodded to himself. Read all the books on the first floor. Easy. No problem. Slowly, he turned. Shelves stretched out above and below him, wandering in every direction. Hundreds of thousands of tomes, if not more.

Oz took a deep breath. Yeah. Easy.

As much as I want to learn magic, I’m going to need to find that food supply, and fast. No way I’m learning how to absorb qi to the point of inedia in one day, if I have to read all the books in this whole damn library to get there.

“Sid, you wouldn’t happen to know where the people food is, would you?” he asked, peering over at the calico.

Sid stretched out over the desk, letting her head dangle off its edge. She looked at him and trilled, stretching her arms out to invite him to pet her creamy soft belly.

“I’m not falling for that trap,” Oz muttered. Grabbing up his magical manuals, he carried them in one arm as he walked, casually cracking open the top one. He read as he went, used to walking and reading.

Ever so slowly, he mapped out the library, sketching the map in the leaves of one of the manuals. A few steps from Sid’s door, a narrow steel ladder stood out amidst the sliding wood ladders. He peered up it. Although the ceiling closed in overhead, it gapped around the ladder, giving him a narrow hatch to the second floor. That goes up to the second floor, like the spiral staircases in the main lobby.

The second floor, huh? He looked up at the ladder. His eyes shone. Let’s go take a look! It’ll only take a moment.

I wonder what kind of books are up there? More breathing techniques? Gods, I hope not.

Latching onto the ladder, he stepped onto the first rung.

Almost immediately, he began to breathe heavily. Confused, Oz paused on the ladder, leaning against the rungs. He looked down. I’ve climbed two rungs. Why am I out of breath? He reached up for the third rung and hauled himself up.

Weight bore down on his body. His arms weighed a hundred pounds, his legs, a thousand. His head fell backward. Latching onto the ladder, he threw himself forward and barely kept from falling backward, head slamming down onto his chest. Brows furrowing, he reached up for the next rung.

His hand trembled. The air pressed down on him, dense as sand. Pushing his hand up with all his strength, he forced his way through the heavy air and smacked his hand down on the rung. It feels like one of those gravity things, the centrifuge rides at a theme park, where they spin you so fast that your body presses up against the wall and they can drop the floor out from under you. But nothing’s spinning. It’s just heavy. Dense.

Taking a deep breath, he pushed with all his might and crawled up onto the fourth rung. Gravity bore down on him. His arms and legs trembled. His back and stomach ached. He reached up for the fifth.

His hand pressed against a near-solid wall. Oz put his whole body into the push, lunging with all his might. His hand moved a centimeter upward, then dropped, plunging straight down to his side.

His other arm gave out. His legs went weak. Oz fell backward, tumbling back to the floor. He hit hard, all the air leaving his lungs. Stunned, he laid on his back and stared up at the second floor above.

Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

Oookay. I think that’s a no for now. There’s some kind of spell, or magic, or something that’s keeping me from the second floor.

No… not a spell. I don’t think that was intentional magic. It was weight. Pressure. Pushing me down. As if the density of the magic up there was so great that I simply couldn’t push through. He narrowed his eyes at the ladder.

I’ll climb you one day. Just wait!

A chirp. A cream-colored chin blocked out his vision. Sid looked down at him, her water-droplet eyes blue as the sky outside her door. She purred, then climbed onto his stomach and settled in, curling up to nap.

“Hey! I’m not a cat bed,” Oz complained. He sat up, dislodging Sid.

She skittered off, chirping in protest.

Oz shook his head at her. As much as I’d love to lie around with the cat and doze off, reading, I need to figure out my food situation first. He cast another glance upward and snorted. Wouldn’t it be a cruel joke if the food was stored on the second floor?

Realistically, it shouldn’t be. At a guess, you need more magic to counteract the heavy magic up there and proceed to the second floor. If that’s true, then the second floor is for people who can already subsist on qi alone, and there’s no need to keep food up there.

He leaned his head back, looking up at the dusty tomes on the second level of the stacks. His eyes traced the fingertip tracks in the dust where disciples had once searched the less popular tomes for the manual they needed. Was this library once a bustling place, full of disciples? What happened to everyone else? Roan said something about Master Saoirse running him off. Was that special case for Roan, or did she push everyone away? If the second, then why keep Ossian around? Ossian, who couldn’t even step up to the starting plate of learning magic. Ossian, who couldn’t sense qi.

Turning the opposite direction, he frowned at the floor for a few beats.

Sid crept back, sneaking up behind him. Out of his sight, she raised a paw, stretching it toward his lap to take the first step toward total lap domination.

Clicking his tongue, Oz jumped to his feet. “No point sitting here all day. There’s nothing I can do about it. If I figure it out, I’ll figure it out.”

Yowling in surprise, Sid leaped away.

Oz looked back, startled. “When did you get here?”

Sid met his eyes and meowed.

“Right. Well. My apologies.” Picking up his books, Oz walked on, carrying on where he’d been in his volume. Back to reading about breathing.

It’s not the driest material I’ve ever read. At the end of the day, it’s still magic. Nothing at all like reading the calculus textbook. Calculus won’t help me fly.

Except in a spacecraft, maybe. But where am I going to find a spacecraft?

Walking on, he kept mapping the library. Eventually, he came to a door. Lifting his foot, he nudged it open, revealing a narrow hallway lined with doors.

“Your reward for opening the door is… more doors!” Oz muttered to himself. He pushed open the first of the hallway’s doors.

A simple room with a bed, a side table, and a small rug appeared as the door creaked wide. Checking the door opposite, Oz found much the same, though the sheets were made messily and rather than a rug, a reed mat covered the floor.

Sid darted ahead of him and raked her claws over the reed mat, happily sharpening them on the knitted reed.

“Sid, come on,” Oz complained, shaking his head at the cat.

Sid ignored him, continuing to scratch at the mat.

“Whatever. Not my mat.” Oz shrugged and turned away.

Back in the hall, Oz opened his book and added to the map, sketching the double doors and adding the word Dormitory over the top of them.

Madame Saoirse had many, many disciples. Based on the state of these rooms, she only ran them off recently. The floors are clean of dust, and some of them still have personal items inside. The disciples left in a rush.

Everyone except Ossian. Ossian, the useless one.

Why?

Most of the rooms laid empty. At the very end of the hall, he pushed open a door to find a room still fully populated. The sheets laid in a messy bundle, the blanket spooled half on the floor, and clothes hung in the closet. Lifting a pair of leggings and checking them against his legs, Oz nodded. This is my room.

Moving quickly, he threw off his bloodied leggings and tunic and replaced them with a fresh pair. The undershirt beneath his tunic remained mostly clean, so he left it. I don’t really know how to do laundry in this other world yet, so let’s not be too hasty when it comes to changing clothes. The bloodied stuff has to go, but the rest of it… well. It’ll be fine.

Oz sat on the bed, taking in the room as Ossian would have seen it just that morning. He listened to the silence, the nothing all around him. Closing his eyes, he opened them and pretended he’d woken up moments ago. To silence. To a dorm room with no personality. To the weight of the entire library bearing down on his shoulders.

Tension built in his chest. His heart raced. His hands clenched on his thighs. Everything. Everything depends on me. I’m the last one. The only one. The least deserving disciple, who inherited all my Master’s problems.

Sid chirped. She jumped up and slunk into his lap, settling in. Turning her big blue eyes toward him, she purred, low and deep, and flicked her tail against his leg.

Oz laughed. He petted the cat and breathed out, releasing his held breath. Yeah. I get it. I understand why Ossian wanted out. If I were in his shoes, perhaps I would have wanted the same.

He shook his head. “But he grew up in a world with magic. I got tossed into one after longing for it my whole life. Even if I have to fight every magus in the world, I’d still choose having magic over not having it.”

He patted Sid, letting the cat leap off his lap before he stood. “Up and at ‘em. I still need food. And I’ve got lots of books to read.”

BOOM!

The ground shook. Oz stumbled, grabbing onto the wall for support. Books clattered to the ground in the library, the sound echoing down the hall into his room. Sid yowled in fear and ran off, high-tailing it out of his room.

What the hell? That wasn’t an earthquake. Earthquakes don’t explode.

Looking left and right, he tore down the hallway back toward the entrance. He quickly consulted his map, then surged through the library, leaping books as he went. All around him, the books jumped back onto their shelves, neatly tucking themselves back into place. He ducked as a volume thicker than his palm hurtled past his head, destined for a high shelf. “Careful, there!”

Convenient, though. It’d be a pain to put all hundred-thousand-some books back on the shelf.

He burst out into the main lobby and ran for the front door. Skidding to a halt, he checked over his shoulder, making sure he’d cleaned up all evidence of blood magic, then cracked the door and peered out.

A sea of mages in robes of all colors stood outside the library, all gathered around the foot of the stairs. At their head, a middle-aged man in the same yellow robes as Roan, a larger, gaudier sun pin at his throat, jabbed his finger at the tower, addressing the mages. Dark hair fell about his shoulders, flying back from the force of his speech.

“—comes down, we will hammer it daily! Those books belong to us! She stole our secret techniques, passed down for centuries! Now that she has ascended—”

Yep, don’t need to hear any more of that. I got the message. Oz went to close the door.

The man whipped around. He and Oz made eye contact. The man’s eyes widened. A moment later, a slow, vicious smile spread across his face.

Oz grimaced. Shit.

“At last. There he is. Ossian Vestal! Madame Saoirse’s final disciple!” the man shouted, pointing at Oz.

Should I just back away? I think I’ll just back away. Oz continued closing the doors, more slowly now, as subtly as one could close double doors to a grand entrance.

“Ossian! Hand over the keys to the Grand Magus Saoirse’s library now, or face complete and total eradication!” the man called.

The crowd cheered.

Emboldened, the man continued. “You do not deserve to benefit from her ill-gotten gains. Give up. You will never be a mage, let alone a magus. Even if you wanted to protect her library, you could not. Surrender now, and we will guarantee your life.”

“Oh?” Oz stepped forward, edging out between the doors.

“Yes. I’ll even take you in as a disciple of my sect. The undeserving you, who can’t even sense qi, will have a second chance at becoming a mage with the Sunheart Sect, the most powerful sect in the country. What do you say to that?”

Oz put a finger on his lip, gazing up at the sky as if considering it.

The crowd fell silent. Smiling, the man gestured warmly to him.

Looking down at the crowd, Oz smiled. “No.”

The man crossed his arms, cocking a brow. “No?”

Oz rolled his eyes. “Are you stupid?”

Gaping, the man froze for a moment, then pulled himself to his full height. “You dare ask me, Ceil Daggarty—”

Oz held up his hand. “No, wait. Do you think I’m stupid? You’d take me in as a disciple of your sect, in return for me turning over the library? In what world is that an even trade? All the knowledge Madame Saoirse compiled, knowledge even these sects don’t possess, in return for being an ordinary, pitiful disciple, lesser than that asshole Roan?

“Ha! Good joke. I think I’ll take my chances in here.” Oz turned around, letting the door fall shut.

“Ossian! Don’t be a fool! You—” The door shut. The heavy wood muffled the man’s voice to noise.

Oz took a deep breath, putting his back to the door. There are the vultures. No—it’s more like flies. Flies, swarming to a fresh corpse.

Ossian didn’t summon me to this world for me to sell out to the first piece of trash who knocked on the door. Madame Saoirse didn’t entrust us with her inheritance for us to vacate this place and hand it over to the hyenas. I didn’t get transmigrated to another world to bow down to the first guy to demand I bend the knee. This is my opportunity. This is my fate, my karma. Giving up my chance to become someone incredible for momentary security, for a mere second of false peace? No. Never.

Besides, I’m not stupid enough to think that I’d be treated well. In fact, I doubt I’d keep my life long, if I stepped outside. Those flies are hungry. Once they’ve stripped the Madame’s legacy to the bones, they’ll turn to me. No matter how useless they think I am, there’s no way they’ll let me go. Worst case, I’ll get tortured to death for any tiny scrap of knowledge I might or might not possess. In a might-makes-right world like this, I, who can’t even access magic, have no rights.

No. In order to control my own destiny, in order to not end up someone else’s plaything, my only option is to press on. Learn magic. Become powerful. Take over Madame Saoirse’s library.

And then, maybe then… we can negotiate. But it will be on my terms, as equals. Not as kings hand down judgements to peasants. That man has no right to demand everything I own in return for nothing.

In my first life, I lived as a corporate drone. A code monkey. Work, read, sleep, repeat. Eighty hours was a good week. There was no time for anything but work. Even my precious reading hours happened in the gaps between, on the subway during my commute, as I brushed my teeth at night. I worked for someone else’s gain, on someone else’s hours, for someone else’s purpose. This time, I’ve been given the opportunity to live a free life for myself and no one else. I would be insane to turn it down.

Not to say that I’m turning away from negotiation entirely. In fact, I’m very open to earnest negotiation. But bringing a mob to my door? That’s not negotiation. That’s a hamfisted intimidation tactic, and I have no time for that.

“Still, I’ve got to figure out this barrier faster than I thought, if they’re hammering on it hard enough that I can feel it inside the library,” he muttered to himself.

BAM!

The library shook again. On instinct, he crouched. Books rained down all around him. Dust drifted from the heights of the tower, covering his black robes in whitish sheen.

Oz sighed. He brushed the dust off his shoulders. All around him, books leaped back on the shelves once more. Roan thought the barrier would break soon, but Madame Saoirse had faith in me, and in her barrier. Hell, she thought it might take years for me to stand at the starting line, let alone figure out her Universal Theory. I’m going to listen to Madame Saoirse right now, and pursue magic the way she prescribed. Between her and her excommunicated ex-disciple, I think Madame Saoirse had a better hand on how her barrier worked.

After all, Madame Saoirse ascended. I don’t fully know what that entails, but from the word alone, she ‘went up.’ Entered a higher plane of being, most likely. Everyone outside is still on this plane of being, alongside me. I’m going to go ahead and guess that Madame Saoirse’s barrier won’t crumple at the first volley of attacks. If ascension is akin to godhood, it could very well be that no mortals can break this barrier.

Not that I intend to trust blindly. I’ll keep looking for the barrier’s foundation. If I can figure out how it’s functioning and what fuels it, I might be able to keep it running for longer even without magic. For example, if all I need to do is toss magic crystals at it, even a completely ordinary person like myself can keep it powered up.

First, though, I need food. Just before I was rudely interrupted by those vultures outside, I found the dormitories. Surely food is close to the living quarters.

He set off into the library. With a chirp, Sid jumped down from the desk and followed him, stretching her limbs with each step until she was ready to jog after him.