As Livia walked off from Margaret in a rush, she was already reading, despite walking at a pace someone else might comfortably jog. It was all about the angle, if you positioned your text correctly you could use your peripheral to avoid any upcoming obstacles, without skipping a word as your eyes roamed the page.
This was a skill Livia had been perfecting since her early teens when she was walking around with 700-page books, by this point even the largest smartphone was child’s play.
Three more clicks, and a password was entered, then the newest chapter was downloaded. Livia considered going home for a minute, but when she looked around she could feel the library’s ambience drawing her in, and so she decided to settle in one of the corners that had some privacy.
Livia ended up reading for a couple of hours and became completely engrossed. Even the occasional session of banging from Margaret’s hammer only served to heighten the tension of the battles and culminations of plot taking place.
The actual story she was reading was about a world where humanity had suffered multiple concurrent disasters at home, forcing us all to escape into space.
Lost and desperate for a plan, humanity made the decision to aim for the closest wormhole, which they had been studying for decades, and ended up in a strange new sector of space which was unrecognizable.
The planet they eventually came upon resembled Earth to an uncanny degree, despite the landmasses being different. The surface consisted of one giant continent surrounded by smaller Europe-sized ones dotting the oceans, with the planet as a whole being about fifty percent bigger than Earth.
Humanity stood in awe at the sight. They called it Ross.
Upon entering the atmosphere was when they first noticed something wrong. Their instruments met strange interference and visible energies assailed humanity's combined armada, but despite thinking they were ready for anything, no tools seemed capable of measuring anything more than the resulting effects of this strange new phenomena, and things only got worse as they crash-landed.
Humanity quickly learned how this new planet had several different sapient races, all used to vying for domination and having even minor conflicts over local resources lead to brutal warfare.
But humanity had made quite the entrance, and the threat of these strangers, wielding higher-level technology and speaking strange alien tongues; as it turns out this was enough to unite the natives, and they quickly proceeded to hunt the humans with persistence bordering on the fanatical.
The militaristic nations of Earth resisted with every weapon, shredding armies and poisoning the land, in the end they put up a very decent fight, at least if you asked the natives.
None of it was not enough to ensure survival. In fact, it was all in vain when faced with this worlds' strange warriors and magics. No two races were alike in how they wielded their power.
But a few smaller parts of humanity decided early on they should take a different route for survival in this strange new place, despite having only a few short years to figure things out.
They were the quickest to realize how little of what they knew still held true in this strange new place; That insecurity had them feeling that the best bet was to abandon pride and either hide in the deepest places, or work hard to blend in up above.
They gave up all their more advanced technology, which was hardly working correctly anyway, and started to rely instead on mechanics and what could be saved of their hydraulics, all of which had been robbed of its more advanced functions; while they all slowly learned more and more about Ross.
The natives eventually found them, but by then they were found to be acceptable, and despite humanity lacking the vast majority of its past tech and knowledge, they struggled and hung on bravely. Just barely.
That was until the invention of humanity's own System, just a single millenia before the place where that story Livia was reading started taking place. In her eyes this had all been background to the true story. But those ancient days were no less important for that, this much they knew, despite the fractured knowledge which survived to the enigmatic author’s time.
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One day a leader of the remaining shard of humanity, one who had been at the forefront of engaging with the natives and learning of their ways, but who was also entrusted with the deepest remaining secrets of humanity, found a way to create something new.
That person built a legacy that would later enable her beloved race to finally stand toe to toe with the denizens of this strange and brutal planet. The result was Humanity gaining Classes, and levels that allowed them to compete on fair terms with all the others.
And while it took a few generations to work out the kinks, Humanity eventually entered a golden age and took centerstage on this mainland where they had first landed in such desperate straits.
But all that success came at a cost. The Humans lost something of what made them unique along the way. The process was gradual, in fact it took centuries. But they eventually integrated too heavily, and became more and more like the rest of the planet’s natives, warlike and reliant on the abilities provided by the System of their ancestors.
When the golden age had ended, and more and more knowledge was lost over the centuries, it eventually came to be that the geopolitics once again turned against Humanity, they once more found themselves on the brink of extinction, holding on to their final stronghold of Dormata and their ancestral lands of the Doc Forrest region where all the remaining Human Tribes stood united, but losing hope with each new, greedy paw reaching in for a piece of what belongs to them.
Livia was beyond engaged as she read the finale, her whole imagination being busy with picturing every implication to the future of that world with which she had become so familiar.
The whole thing had been a bloody struggle across the series, to say the least, and the final hope seemed to hinge on a time traveler; one that they meant to send back to change something, the details were fuzzy still; which was why the reveal in this finale was such a big deal, it being what Livia had all her bets on.
She had been reading the story for over a year now, despite her impressive pace. Even when you reached the end, there were scenes to revisit, characters to scrutinize and theories you needed to develop and argue over on forums. Needless to say she knew her lore in and out by this point.
The finale ended with one of Humanity's final scions wielding an item that amounted to the sum of our species' efforts and gaining a completely new kind of Class-upgrade, labeled a [Temporal Magi].
By using this new artifact, which was able to grant the enigmatic Class, the protagonist was able to reach far into the past in order to warn humanity; using a vital text to connect to their targets, one that would hopefully end up showing enough of her beloved race the errors of their ways; and allow them to build the kind of strength that could survive the coming calamities.
Despite the bloodshed it all ended on a note of hope. Just the way Livia liked it.
Once she finished reading and sighed with contentment, her whole body relaxed fully after being engaged and on edge for hours. What a story.
It had been a long time since she had ended up being this enraptured with a new fantasy world and with the added bonus of actually getting to conclude with a satisfying and hopeful ending.
Livia stretched herself and got up to wake her legs back up.
Margaret spotted her up and about, and called out again: “Oh, Livia, you’re still here. Would you mind just running up and putting the hammer back in my purse? My husband will get upset with me again, if I should happen to forget it down here later, apparently it’s quite expensive.”
Livia still had her smile of contentment and a hundred different thoughts and theories running through her head. “Of course, give it here and I’ll be right back,”
Livia turned back around and went past the corner and up the steps again, and that’s when the air unexpectedly surged around her at the top of the stairs, with enough force to almost make her topple over, and things suddenly turned dark.