Navigating through the pathways leading to the restricted area of the library was tricky, even with a map. It seemed that the section had been placed in a particularly hard to reach area, as there was no short path to get to it. After finally reaching where the map had marked the section, I was greatly disappointed to find absolutely nothing there.
Out of curiosity, I started pulling on random books. Maybe the exit was hidden behind some James Bond style secret lever. After about two minutes of pulling books, I got impatient and used a combination of mana and aura control to knock every single book within 50 meters of me off of their shelves. It had been costly, but its not like my mana had anything else to be used on right now.
None of the books had revealed a secret exit, much to my dismay. Sometimes, a guy just wanted the thrill of finding a hidden entrance without having it pointed out. Taking a deep breath, I closed my eyes and began to focus on the area surrounding me. My aura brushed against every surface, looking for even the smallest imperfection in the ground around me. My eyes flew open when it finally caught something. Under one of the nearby bookshelves there was a hole in the ground.
After several uses of mana blast, the pesky shelf was out of the way. I stared down into the hole that had been revealed. Despite its size, my aura still had some trouble spotting it. I guess being perfectly aware of what was around me wasn’t something I could expect any time in the near future.
The hole was only a little wider than the width of my shoulders, and I shuddered even just thinking about going down there. I had never been a big fan of tight spaces. Spelunking was a hobby that I simply never understood the appeal of. The though of forcing myself through a small hole that I might get stuck in just made every inch of my skin crawl. That wasn’t even mentioning people who do cave diving. It was the same thing, but with the risk of drowning. No thank you.
After taking a few minutes to steady my nerves and convince myself that I wouldn’t get stuck, I convinced myself to jump into the hole. The only way I had been able to do it was by promising myself that should I somehow get wedged in a small crevice, I would dump my entire mana pool into the largest blast of mana I could manage to free myself.
A bright light appears on the tip of my finger, courtesy of my mana conversion skill. An often forgotten skill in the heat of battle, but an extremely useful utility spell.
The light from the hole’s entrance disappears as the tunnel takes a slight curve and my shoulder slides against the cave wall. I have to hold my breath to keep it from quickening too much, but after just a few more seconds of falling I can see a light source below me.
I quickly reequip my cloak of flight, storing away my new robe. My momentum slows, and soon comes to a stop as I now find myself in the middle of a much smaller library. It is very dimly lit, the only light in the room coming from my finger and the subtle blue glow coming off of some of the books. My attention was momentarily pulled away from the mysterious tomes around me as a notification appeared in front of me, one I really had not been expecting to see.
Floor 35 Subfloor: Forbidden Knowledge
“Well that is interesting.” I say, noting the distinct lack of a ‘instanced’ tag on the floor. It also didn’t show a ‘boss’ tag, but maybe there were just no tags at all since it was a subfloor.
It was pretty obvious what it meant by subfloor. It was an area separate from the main floor. The difference between this place and the main floor was that I didn’t actually have to come here at all. Hell, anybody sneaking past the head scholar wouldn’t even know this place existed.
I close the notification and start walking around the much smaller library. I pull a few of the books from the shelves and read their titles. It’s nothing I recognize, but I doubted I would be finding a copy of “Moby Dick” anywhere here. Instead, the shelves were filled with classics such as “Materialistic Ritualism” and “Catalysts for Alchemy, Third Edition”.
After skimming through the shelves, I decided to take a look at the three larger tomes that had their own pedestals in the room. I could feel mana coming from each of them. I checked out the weaker of the three first. On its cover were the words “Advanced Ritualism”. I was about to reach for it when I felt the mana in the room react to my motion.
I instantly threw up a shield of mana around myself, expecting traps to try and protect the books. Instead, a notification popped up.
If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.
You may choose one tome, and the others shall vanish. Choose wisely, for a book is not to be judged by its cover.
I dropped my shield, once more looking at the books. If I could only chose one, then that meant that this was probably a pretty important decision. I read the covers of the two other books, seeing that one was titled “Spatial Theory” while the other was called “Tower of Legends”.
Of the three books, the one I felt most inclined to pick right away was spatial theory. It may help with learning more about how I could use my trait, and potentially give me insight into an entirely new branch of magic.
On the other hand, ignoring the title, it seemed to be the worst pick of the three. Each of the books had mana within them, and with my aura I could sense that the spatial theory tome had the weakest mana within it. The Tower of Legends tome had the strongest mana within it, which only made me more curious about what could be within. Using identify didn’t give me any information, so I couldn’t rely on that.
The notification did say not to judge a book by its cover. I guess if I ignored the titles of the books all together it would be an obvious choice. I mean, how much of a difference could one book really make?
Making my decision, I took the “Tower of Legends” tome off of its pedestal. The other two tomes disappeared along with their pedestals. Now that my choice had officially been made, I used identify on the book again and found that it was no longer blocked.
Tower of Legends (Special) (Soul bound)
This book contains some secrets behind the Tower of Nixtias. Within it holds the history of the tower, as well as a select few secrets of the floors within the tower. This tome will be immediately destroyed upon completion of the tutorial.
So, it was pretty much a guide book for the tower. That sounded like it could be very useful. I open it up and flip through a few pages. Within it I see a description of all of the floors I had visited so far. By the time I reached where floor 30 should have been in the pages, they became blank. Looks like there would be no easy scouting of the future floors for me.
The book also held several pages pertaining to some lore behind the tower and how all the floors were really linked, but I decided to just read that part later. In the middle of a room a staircase had appeared.
I was about to walk down the staircase when a thought occurs to me. Looking around, none of the other books in this mini library had disappeared. Some of them seemed pretty damn useful too. Maybe not as good as the other two tomes would have been, but definitely not worth leaving behind.
The books all disappear from their shelves as they are dragged into my aura, all stacked neatly within it. The shelves are now all completely empty, and I walked down the stairs feeling like I had just gained quite the repository of knowledge. Now I would just have to find some time to actually read them all.
----------------------------------------
For the week leading up to the next wave of people leaving the tutorial, everybody in the tower had been hard at work preparing. For some, it was preparations for after they left the tutorial. Deals were closed, debts repaid, and levels were gained. For others, it was a time to train and grow stronger, whether it be to stay in the tutorial longer or to simply progress further in the floors.
For a select few who did not want to run the risk of dying while trying to upgrade their titles, they schemed. It was of great concern to many that there would be another floor event that involved killing others for personal gain. Many planned to move to a higher floor to hopefully avoid the chaos, but many more were worried that the event wouldn’t just be limited to the first floor this time around.
Exactly 5 days before the C tiers were to be kicked out of the tutorial, a system notification was received by every single person in the tower. This notification threw off the plans of many who planned to stay, but for many it only renewed their vigor to train and grow stronger.
System Event: Humanity’s Greatest (Floor 10)
As of right now, 25% of the remaining tutorial participants, representing 5% of all those who entered the tutorial, have achieved the B-tier pioneer title, securing their stay in the tower for the next 35 days. In five days, the floors 6 through 10 will reopen to all those who have cleared them.
Shortly after the floors have opened, a tournament will begin where humanity’s greatest will fight to prove themselves the strongest. Excellent performance in this event will be greatly rewarded by the King himself.
This tournament is completely safe to participate in. Elimination from the tournament will result in being fully rejuvenated and revitalized by the system. Be warned, the bottom 10% of participants in this tournament will be ejected from the tutorial early.
Plans changed at the announcement of this event, and many people debated whether or not they even wanted to participate. Being ejected from the tutorial early would not be ideal, but if the rewards from this event were anything like they were for the last one, that risk would be one many would see as worth taking.
Just like that, the time for C tier’s to be kicked out of the tutorial came and went. There was no event encouraging people to kill one another like there had been last time. They had simply popped out of existence once their timers expired. Barely a few seconds later, floors six through ten opened up to everybody remaining within the tower.
People flooded into the chain floors, headed straight for where they knew the event would certainly be taking place. Hours passed as people signed up for the tournament and awaited its beginning. After a bit of waiting, a new system notification arrived, signaling to everybody that it was time for the tournament to begin.