Adam felt something furry touching him and slowly opened his eyes. The young man saw that he was lying on a bed made with school desks, his body crudely bandaged with pieces of black robes stained with blood and some burned parts. It seemed someone had brought him to a classroom to help him.
Adam looked to the sides, trying to see what was touching him, but he couldn't see anything from his angle as the person helping him was beneath the desk. He felt very weak and couldn't hear anything through his ears. Surprisingly, his glasses were still intact and on his head, so the effect was still active.
Adam noticed that the room had tiny golden footprints that stood out amidst the sea of white footprints left by librarians. It seemed that the person helping him wasn't human. With surprise, Adam looked down under the desk and found a Sombrin struggling to bandage his legs with a piece of black robe.
The completely furry creature noticed Adam's gaze and knew the boy had awakened. Quickly, it took out a book from its white bag and threw it at the redhead's head.
Instinctively, Adam raised his arm and avoided the book hitting his head. But before he could do anything else, the Sombrin lifted one of the desk legs where Adam lay.
*Puff*... Adam fell to the floor, and without giving him time to react, the Sombrin ran and kicked him in the stomach.
*Ouch! *...Adam cried out, covering his belly with his hands. This time, it hurt quite a bit.
After kicking him, the Sombrin disappeared into thin air, leaving the young man clutching his pained stomach. Adam looked with surprise at the spot where the creature had vanished, not understanding why it had helped him, let alone why it seemed so eager to kick him.
The young hero tried to get up from the floor but realized it was challenging to maintain balance. It felt strange not being able to hear anything. However, Adam didn't panic because he believed he only needed to reach the cave to heal himself in the lake's water. The problem now was getting down 400 steps in this miserable state.
Carefully, Adam walked towards the magical (or cursed) book and picked it up to examine it:
Fortunately, the book looked fine and, at first glance, didn't seem very magical, but rather quite beautiful. Its cover was brown leather with a green metal plate on one of its covers, which said: "Ham and Cheese." It looked like a cookbook, but very well decorated.
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
Removing the annoying and poorly placed bandages, Adam prepared for his long journey to the cave. As he left the classroom, the young hero noticed the chaos in Hexagon 4: the main hallway bookshelves were destroyed. Some bookshelves were completely burned by fire, and others had all their shelves broken due to the force of the impact. However, some bookshelves in the main hallway remained intact. Adam assumed they were the magical or important ones, as they must have defended themselves against the flames.
Those who didn't escape the flames were the librarians: not all of them exploded due to the sonic blast, so there were still traces of the wounded everywhere, and charred corpses were not uncommon. Moreover, the few survivors were fighting among themselves for the magical books given by the Sombrins. However, no one attacked the furry creatures, and the Sombrins didn't let go of the magical books until they saw the person they should hand the book to was conscious.
But the fortunate ones who were well enough to awaken were immediately attacked with a kick from the Sombrin and then beaten to death by other greedy librarians.
Adam was stunned by the scene for a while. Then he took out his godfather, who he always kept in one of the pockets of his robe, designed especially for that purpose. Adam wanted to ask why the director had changed so radically, it couldn't be a mere whim.
His godfather replied: 'Did you get another promotion? The first one wasn't a coincidence, but this one is. You're lucky... Very lucky... Too lucky, don't you think?'
Adam stared at the message for a few minutes; it was quite short, but there was a part he felt he might be misinterpreting, so he asked, 'What do you mean the first promotion wasn't a coincidence?'
His godfather replied: 'Nothing is coincidental in this library, Adam.
Who will take my biography would be the impossible answer from the hermit, so he ensured my heir got an ascent and the magical book that comes with it.
I gave the hermit the solution to that riddle some time ago: The bookshelf in Hexagon 0 can only ask for the names of librarians who are currently on the ascension floor and were born on that floor.
You only have to study everyone born on that floor, minus one, and then make an agreement with the head of floors to control the entrance and exit of librarians to that specific floor. In this case, the only name the hermit didn't know was the boy with my biography.
But that doesn't matter; the answer you were looking for is karma. Your director wanted to ascend with bad karma. Why? I don't know. I don't know much about ascensions, and I didn't think it was useful to know about them: I never sought to ascend. Probably that's why I could find a way to beat the impossible answer, and the hermit couldn't.
And you want the opposite: good karma. So stop wasting time asking silly questions and start helping the wounded!
It doesn't matter if you're deaf and lucky enough to walk. These opportunities are rare, and you must take advantage of them! Later, when you're older and understand this world better, we'll need a good reserve of positive karma to neutralize several things...
If you find an easy and safe opportunity, try to steal a magical book from one of the injured! It's worth it, even if you have to kill them!'