With a resounding crash, the shelf slammed down on top of Winal. But unlike previous attempts, he could actually feel the weight of it crushing him. The pain of being slowly crushed to death, bit by bit, squeezing him like a tube of toothpaste. Not a nice feeling at all. In fact, it sucked. Big time. Tons of rubble piled up around him, burying him under several tons of pressure. All of that pressure on his tiny, little, squishy slime body wasn't great for his well-being either. Good thing he didn't have any bones to be crushed, but he still needed to escape quickly.

Winal wriggled and writhed, twisting his body with all of his strength, desperately trying to worm his way out. Gritting his teeth, he shoved himself forward, his slimy body rubbing against the cold stone. The rough texture scraping against his jelly-like body sent jolts of discomfort running down his nerves. Slowly but surely, even as the sharp corners of the books pressed into him, forcing him to adjust his path with every agonizing slide, he pushed forward. With a final shove, Winal tumbled out from beneath the fallen bookshelf, gasping for air.

It was a miracle that he didn't die right then and there. Benefit of being a slime he supposed—they were squishy. However, his elation died a quick death when a giant looming shadow fell across his small body. Dread gnawed at his soul, terror clawed at his mind. He knew what this meant. It could only mean one thing. The weight of knowledge was about to press down onto him again.

Turning his attention upward, his worst fears were confirmed. Towering high above him loomed an enormous set of bookshelves, casting their shadows over him like some kind of symbolic metaphor for society's obsession with literature and erudite pursuits. These bookshelves were made out of massive slabs of grey rock, standing upright and supporting hundreds upon thousands of heavy stone tomes. Winal wanted to gulp at the sight in front of him, but instead, a high-pitched shriek escaped his mouth.

As the bookshelves began their descent, Winal started practicing for the 100m sprint. Screaming, he ran backward away from the incoming avalanche of shelves and books. To be honest, he just had to run either to the left or right to avoid the avalanche, but he ran backward for some reason.

Tremors shook the ground behind him as stone structure after stone structure toppled, spreading destruction in its wake. The noise was deafening, echoing through the golden void, reverberating in his ears, growing louder and louder with each passing second. Dust flew into the air, swirling around him as he fled the collapsing shelves. Even with all the carnage and devastation raging around him, Winal didn't dare to look back. If he did, it might cost him precious time and ultimately lead to his demise. He refused to die. Not in this god-forsaken library. Not today. Now should probably be a good time to revert back to his Fire Soldier Ant form.

A bookshelf slammed into the ground, nearly squashing the fleeing slime. Blinding white light erupted from him, engulfing the room as he Devolved back into a Dark Slime, then proceeded to Evolve into a Fire Soldier Ant. Within moments, his armored flaming chitin shell sprung to life, protecting his soft inner tissues from the environment.

The moment his exoskeleton materialized, a deafening boom split the air. Winal instinctively raised his newly formed legs as a massive chunk of stone book came crashing down, smashing into him with incredible force. For a split second, his world turned grey, before it immediately returned to the golden brilliance of the room. The stone book disintegrated upon contact and now Winal was truly safe from harm—unless he decided to hurt himself for some stupid reason.

Winal looked up at the enormous bookshelf mountains, each one threatening to squish him like the pest he was. Too bad they couldn't. Winal did his best to smirk at the situation, which was actually surprisingly difficult when you have the facial structure of an ant. With confidence boosted by his newly discovered invincibility, he strode forth without a hint of hesitation. The falling debris bounced off of his carapace and burned into ash, while his legs easily carved their way through the endless piles of rubble.

Plowing through the mountain of books, Winal gave the situation a bit more thought. Was it really his fault that he didn't get the answer to the riddle sooner? Who in their right mind would think that burning stone would be the solution. It was stone for crying out loud! Now that he felt a bit better given how dumb the riddle was, Winal scampered forward toward the progenitor of his suffering and embarrassment—mostly embarrassment.

The stone book continued to launch attack after attack at Winal. Stone pages, stone ink pots that exploded into stone quills, and stone bookshelves laced with innumerous numbers of stone books. Each one attempted to smash into Winal, but they all faced the same fate—burning into nothingness.

With four legs bringing him closer to his target, his front two legs were stretched high in the air as he accepted his imminent victory. More and more debris crashed into him, but they simply dealt zero damage. What a pathetic attempt by the stone book. At least put some effort into taking him down. All that talk about knowledge, but looks like it wasn't smart enough to come up with a way to defeat Winal.

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Finally, he reached the book and with both his front legs grabbed hold of it. It resisted, wriggling as much as a book made out of solid stone could physically manage. But with the help of the fire engulfing his body, the book crumbled to ash within moments. Now that the book had been destroyed, did that mean he won? No more challenges?

As if the world was answering him, the vision in his eyes began to blur. A buzzing sound filled his head as flashes of blinding light blinded him. Before he knew it, everything faded to black, then back to that same golden hue.

"Congratulations on passing the trial. You may now access the second level," a voice echoed in his head.

And yet, in front of him was the stone book, once again placed atop a stone pedestal. This must be some kind of trick! He wasn't going to fall for something as trivial as this, not again. If he could destroy that stone book, once then he could do it again. Winal crawled forward grabbing the statue, with his two front legs. That was odd, why didn't the book turn to dust? It was made out of stone and he was drenched in flames after all. It should have been an instant win for him. If that didn't work he just had to up his game.

The flames on his mandibles grew larger as mana left his Core, fueling them. The instant the words 'Fire Bite' left his mouth, he lunged forward snapping his mandibles shut around the edges of the book. It was like biting into... well, a rock. He tried to grind his jaws together, hoping to crack the surface of the cover, but his mandibles may as well have been grinding against diamond. After a few minutes of pointless chomping, Winal released his bite and stared up at the stone book. What in blazes was going on? He had better get to the rock bottom of this.

When Winal turned around, he came face to face with two very familiar monsters, Gus and Flintlock. While Gus was preoccupied with another muffin, Flintlock was looking at him with a dumbfounded look on his face. If anyone wondered why, it was mostly because he found a dumb person—but in Winal's defense, he was too much of a genius for their feeble minds to comprehend.

"What in tarnation are you doing there, pardner?" asked Flintlock.

"I..." Winal turned around to look at the stone statue, thoughts raging through his mind like a wildfire. "I was hungry."

"If you're hungry, you can have this," said Gus, offering his blueberry muffin.

"Thanks." Winal grabbed the sweet treat from Gus's paws, inspecting the fruit-laced confection.

"So what took you so long, Mr. Valedictorian-to-be?" asked Flintlock. "Me and Gus here've been waiting for you for ages."

Whoops. Was he really that incompetent? No, that can't be the case. It must've been a fluke or something. They probably got lucky. There was only one way to find out. Probe them.

"First you tell me how you beat that stone book thing,' said Winal.

"Well, it told me some gosh darn riddle and I figured it out pretty quick. The answer was firepower, so I started blasting. Ole Gus here just ate the darn book."

"I see, I see."

Well, that was embarrassing. How could the future Valedictorian be outdone by a gun-wielding monkey and a monster that was more stomach than brains? There was only one solution to his predicament.

"Surprise attack!" Winal shouted as he lobbed the blueberry muffin at Flintlock.

The musketeer drew his firearm and shot the flying snack, leaving behind nothing but powdered sugar and crumbs. When Flintlock turned back toward the culprit, he was already gone.

Winal the Fire Soldier Ant had hightailed it out of there. There was no way he was going to admit that he struggled so much during the trial. Okay, technically he could've lied, but that was dishonest. Plus this also serves as throwing a prank at them. Was it a lame prank? Absolutely? Was it still classified as a prank? Definitely. So, technically he did fulfill his promise.

The second floor of the library looked almost the same as the first floor. Rows of wooden shelving held row after row of thick tomes, stretching high up towards the ceiling. Dense clouds of dust hung in the air, particles floating through shafts of sunlight spilling from narrow windows along the walls. A peaceful silence hung in the air, broken only by the occasional creak of floorboards. That was until Winal made his appearance.

He scampered into the second floor, weaving in between the numerous rows of bookcases, trying to find a suitable hiding spot. Flintlock was hot on his behind, he could feel it—or maybe that was just the flames on his butt talking. Either way, he needed to find a place to hide. Hiding inside the bookshelves was too obvious, and him going on top of them would be like lighting a signal fire. There was only one way left—hiding in plain sight.

Lights and shouts filled the library as Winal Devolved back to a Dark Slime and back up into a Yin-Yang slime. Now he was Winal no longer, and he was back to Alwin. From there he shouted once more just to summon his Spirit Hands. Inconsideration aside, this was a life-or-death moment for him. It was the life-or-death moment of his stellar reputation.

Flintlock and Gus were right around the corner, he could feel it—this time it wasn't the flames playing tricks on him with another false positive. That was when he instructed the Spirit Hands to grab the closest book. Now time to open the book and blend in with his surroundings.

Alwin didn't even know what he was reading, but who cared about that. Okay, Uchronia might care but she wasn't here right now, so Alwin didn't care. The moment the book opened, his consciousness was transported into that familiar white void with the book's avatar greeting him on the other side. Great, he had to fight more books again today.

"I am the avatar of the 'Spirit Bomb' book. Prove your worth. Defeat me, and you shall earn the right to learn the ways of the Spirit Bomb," the voice came from the book.

Bomb? Maybe this book was good after all.