Chapter 14 - Truth

While my brother and I were walking towards the kingdom, the Infinity Book started to explain things to me. Its voice was filled with worry as it said, [Master, in a while you would not be able to talk to me. I will return to my slumber, so I must explain most of the important things now.] I listened carefully to make sure I don’t miss any details.

[I am not the Infinity Book that the ‘Overseer of the Universe’ created. I merely copied its appearance and functions so that I could hide my presence. Essentially, I’m a ‘Cosmic Artifact’ that was born out of the purest form of mana. My function is to be a personal assistant to my user and to provide as much knowledge as possible that the user needs. Technically, all the knowledge in the Infinite Library are also at my disposal.] Its functions were similar to the Infinity Book that I have been talking to, but it feels like there’s a huge difference.

[My original form is not this book that you see right now. I was only forced to this form to avoid being discovered and I hid within the Gate of Wisdom.] There seems to be a very big plot that will unveil pretty soon, but I didn’t focus on that right now as the next words of the book were truly heartbreaking.

[Master… I won’t be able to talk to you again after this… My soul is close to vanish into nothingness… I’m sorry that our first meeting had to be this quick…] I felt very sorrowful… If its soul disappeared, that would mean the book will disappear and I wouldn’t have access to the knowledge stored within the Infinite Library.

“Is there anything I could do?” I asked it in my head and decided to do anything in my power to restore its soul. [You would do that for me?] The book said. “Of course I will! You are a very important asset to me! If I were to give up on you, I would be the biggest fool in the Universe!”

[Hahaha… Out of all my previous masters, you are the only one that offered me a hand…] I didn’t chit-chat for long, I knew that this is a very serious situation. “Tell me what I need to do.” My resolve was ready and I didn’t care if it would take years to accomplish. [For now, you should collect as much monster cores as you can. I would be able to absorb their life-force and it could theoretically extend my lifespan for a few more years if I’m in Auto-pilot Mode and a few months at most when I’m awakened.]

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“Alright, you should go back to this ‘Auto-pilot Mode’ for now. My graduation is already about to come, afterwards, I’ll start hunting for monsters and make sure to let you absorb their life-force, but… How am I going to do that exactly?” I was pretty puzzled to be frank. [This gemstone in the front cover is the container of my soul. All you need to do is place a monster core near it and it would absorb it pretty quickly.]

[Master, I’m sincerely sorry, but I will to go back to sleep now… Farewell for now master.] After the book said that, it went completely silent. Lucan and his brother continued to head back to their house and the other soldiers were returning to their headquarters.

As Lucan and his brother entered their house, they saw that their parent’s faces were filled with worry. “Lucan! Where have you been?! We were so worried!” Lucan’s parents said in unison. However, before Lucan could answer, Linton rushed and embraced both of his parents and started to cry. “Mother! Father!” Linton kept shouting and sobbing as he hugged his parents tightly.

Lucan and his brother began to explain to their parents of the things that happened to the both of them. Also, Lucan apologized for not telling his parents that he left the house to go after his brother. “So you’re telling us that you had a feeling that Linton might be in trouble so you went after him?” his father asked. “How did you know the exact place that your brother was at?” His mother gave out a follow-up question without letting Lucan reply.

“Well… First of all, it has been days since elder brother Linton came back from being dispatched. So, I got worried and went to the Berklia’s Army and asked where Linton was.” I said to ease the suspicions of my parents.

“But still… It doesn’t mean that you should go out of the house without telling us where you are headed!” My mother said to me. “Yes, I know. I’m sorry. I’ll make sure to tell you where I’m going if I was to leave the house urgently.”

“It’s good that we have come to an agreement. The both of you should fix yourselves and get ready for bed.” My mother said to the both us as were getting scolded.

After tidying up, I was about to go to bed, but my brother was standing near my door with a face of someone wanting to tell something. “Little brother… Thank you! Thank you so much for saving me!” My elder brother bowed and tears started to fall from his eyes once more. “It’s fine. Family should look out for each other. Just make sure to keep getting stronger because I don’t know if I’ll be able to save you if you get into trouble again.

So far, everything else continued in the usual way for the next few weeks. Lucan trained himself every day and increased the amount of the exercises he did. In school, he was bullied and insulted, but he kept silent for the sake that he might kill his bullies accidentally. Before he knew it, there were only a 2 weeks left before his graduation and he would finally be able to study blacksmithing and start hunting for different monsters.

~ End ~