Kai’s eyes slowly opened, his blurry vision becoming clearer as he stood up. His heart skipped a beat upon seeing the familiar room again after such a long time. Everything remained as he left it, almost as if time didn’t pass. He slowly walked through the bookshelves, tracing his fingers along the covers as he quickly read the titles. They left so many books behind, I wonder if I’ll ever have the time to read all of them…

A light sigh escaped his lips as he picked up a book related to history. Flipping through its pages, he noticed a great deal of them were damaged, although not unreadable. I wonder where they even got all of these from, most of them looked like they’d been picked up from a broken-down library. Oh well, as long as they’re helpful…

He picked up a few more related books and walked toward the table. The chair creaked under his weight, and he began reading the books. Silence accompanied his endeavor, as the quiet void outside enveloped the room in a tranquil atmosphere.

Sighing, he laid forward and immersed himself in the books, carefully reading every word as the sound of flipping pages filled his brain. After finishing one book he picked up another, and another before re-reading them. The notion of time had completely vanished for him, and he didn’t care about anything other than gathering information. With each book he put down, a little bit more information about the continent revealed itself to him.

Information about the prominent figures of humanity, elves, and even the dwarves. More details about the different races and even some forbidden zones he took note to avoid. Even if he didn’t find what he was looking for, his desire to learn more about this world pushed him to memorize the contents of each book, though he wasn’t sure how much of it he’d lose. I was never good at studying anyway… if I retain ten percent of all this I’d be lucky He chuckled to himself as he started reading another book.

It had an old, brown cover, the title of which has long since been lost to time, as even the front page referring to it had been torn apart. Its yellow pages were covered in dirt and soot, with holes gaping through some of them. A dark, crimson splatter dirtied its back, some of it spilling onto the pages. There were signs of burning all over it, almost as if someone wanted to get rid of it but couldn’t do so in time. As he flipped through it, his pupils widened as a small piece of paper flew out from within, landing gracefully on the table. Putting the book aside, he grabbed the mysterious document, fiddling with it and eventually undoing it, revealing a large map of the entire continent.

Drawn onto it were a few, thick and uneven lines, starting from the Vampire Kingdom and ending somewhere between a forest and the Kingdom of Aravia. Based on Kai’s knowledge, that spot has been taken over by a mysterious force, however, he didn’t know the exact details of what it was.

This seems to be a map… like from one of those old pirate movies. He chuckled lightly as he pondered over it, feeling quite intrigued. I wonder what it could lead to, by the looks of things my parents didn’t explore it yet… either they didn’t get the chance to or simply refused to do so. If it’s the latter, does that mean that whatever is hidden in that area was stronger than them? The thought alone made him shiver.

Although he didn’t understand how strong his parents were, he had a pretty good idea just from seeing them fight with all they had. His chest tightened as a flash of that horrifying moment appeared in his mind, which he quickly dispelled and distracted himself with the book, putting away the map. I’ll grab it with me, though I’m not sure about ever going there…

With that idea in mind, he started reading the old book. At first, it seemed ordinary, safe for the messy handwriting. It began like most other history books, presenting the continents and their inhabitants, and then focusing on a race, usually humans, and explaining their history before moving on to the next. In all the other books he’d read, vampires were always last to be talked about, and never in a good light.

Under those circumstances, Kai was naturally shocked after he saw that this book, broken and burnt as it may be, with missing pages and holes in the middle of the chapters, first spoke about the vampires. However, the most baffling part was the way they were described, and how the author had even introduced them. Kai took a step back and inhaled deeply, re-reading the paragraph to make sure he wasn’t seeing things.

<>

Kai’s mind reeled in shock as he read the first few paragraphs over and over again, barely able to believe what he was reading. Krepiskin? Is that what our race’s actual name is? And, another God? What is this man talking about? Isn’t Lumiera the only one? Well, at least for this universe. Besides that, I don’t even understand what he is talking about in the second half, was this man a prominent figure? This… maybe he has the answers I need?

His gut told him as much, at least, so he kept on reading, however as he continued, he noticed that it became increasingly difficult to read. Whether it was because of the ugly handwriting, the crimson marks, the burns or holes, or because of a language barrier, as there were words so old he wasn’t sure they even existed in the current vocabulary anymore.

<>

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

<<▯▯▯▯▯▯ is in a bad mood again. He woke up and slaughtered the ▯▯▯▯ of dw▯▯▯ I painstakingly raised. He must have failed to contact God once again. Ever since that day, He has not shown up again, but His appearance before us created faith and unity like never before.>>

<>

The more Kai read, the more he realized that this book wasn’t ordinary… Just like it stated, it was the diary of a prominent figure from ages past. A religious fanatic huh… Yet I can’t even read the name of this religion or who their God was. It seems like any record for that name, regardless of where in the book it was located, has been destroyed. This can’t be a coincidence! Someone destroyed this religion! Coming to that conclusion, Kai took a break to rearrange his thoughts. He had not expected such a shocking and blasphemous book to be located in the library. After all, he had already met Lumiera, so he knew the truth, but he felt intrigued by this fake God. If Mom and Dad left this here, that must mean they want me to learn more about it… maybe they even marked the map for me. I’m sure they… they planned to take me there themselves one day…

He wiped the tear threatening to form in the corner of his eye and stood up, stuffing the map and the rest of the books within his spatial ring, before taking a deep breath. “Time to get out of here…” His body turned into a blur right as he said that, and completely disappeared in a bright flash of light as he returned to the real world.

…

His eyes opened lazily as if he had just awoken from a very long nap. A quiet chatter landed in his ears, followed by a hot, slimy sensation on his face. Startled awake, he jumped on his bed with widened eyes, only to find that Aina, Elizabeth, and Onyx watched over him.

“What’s going on?” He asked as he yawned and stretched.

“You tell us. Onyx yelled like a maniac for five minutes until we came to check what the commotion was all about.”

Kai turned to the Obborik and asked with a slight smile. “Are you part husky too?”

“Husky?” Elizabeth repeated, “Stop with your jokes and tell us what happened.”

“Nothing, I just went inside the necklace for a bit.”

“Necklace? Ah!” Aina exclaimed as she moved a bit closer. “That’s right, you can access it now, can’t you? What did you find?”

“Well, nothing much. Just books, and books, and then more books. I think my parent’s favorite child was this library.” He quipped with a light chuckle, not revealing the entire story. Not that he wanted to hide anything more from them, but such controversial information was hard to explain to begin with. “I spent a bit of time reading about the continent and picked up some books I haven’t finished yet, nothing much.”

“Fascinating…” Aina murmured, still unable to believe what kind of magic Ray had developed. “This is unheard of, such a large storage device, and it looks like there's a lot of space left to fill as well.”

“Hmm… Now that you mention it, there seems to be a lot of land inside of there.” Kai added, feeding Aina’s information-hungry mind even more. “But the cost to enter and get things out, even in a storage ring is… huge. It’s like it knows exactly what I took out and I had to pay the price.”

He remarked after inspecting his mana core, and let out a sigh after seeing how little mana he had left. “I need to start training more seriously from now on, at this rate this won’t do.”

“You’re right,” Elizabeth said, finally able to insert herself into the conversation. “But remember that your situation is special, so you should take your time understanding how everything works.”

Kai nodded, bringing a hand to his chin as he contemplated. “I can’t seem to think of any solution though, I’m stuck at just using both techniques together… It’s way too inefficient but I don’t understand them enough, they’re more magic than the spells I’m casting. In retrospect, I should have looked for some books related to that instead of history…” He sighed and leaned against the bedframe, placing a pillow in between.

“That’s alright, we have time to figure it out. Oh, now that I think of it we may have one book about magical techniques… For something so important, weirdly, they weren’t researched more thoroughly.” Aina stood up and got ready to leave, however she halted in her footsteps as Elizabeth’s lips parted.

“If you don’t know much about techniques, then how did you modify the one Elena gave you?”

The room fell silent, so quiet that you could hear a pin drop. “That’s a great question, actually, how did you?” Aina added, feeling quite intrigued.

Kai’s vision ran all around the place, trying to remember what exactly he had done six years ago with the technique. “I… I just felt like it didn’t feel right, that it wasn’t complete. I’m not sure why but it’s like the solution popped into my head, I was too excited and focused to question it, but now that you mention it… It’s weird, to say the least.”

Aina walked toward the door and turned to Kai as she left, her voice lingering inside the room. “Well, let’s not fret over it then, and let’s just focus on how you can start understanding them. Truth be told I don’t know either.”

Elizabeth sighed and chuckled. “That woman… she always gets like this when it comes to innovation, I don’t know if you’ve noticed.”

“I have…” Kai scratched the back of his head, remembering how Aina acted when they first made a breakthrough with the pill, and during said process. Well, it’s good she’s lively, though you’d almost forget she’s the boss around here with all the free time she has…

Elly squinted as she looked at him, seemingly reading his thoughts. Scoffing, she ruffled Kai’s hair, and then Onyx’s and left as well, leaving the two alone.

Kai inhaled deeply and pulled out the books he took out, not including the diary and the map. He figured it was already too late to train with Euphridia, so he decided to study some more before going to sleep.

Alright… let’s try to recall the information first, and then I’ll pick up on what I forgot.