Sam felt himself move. It wasn't like he noticed that he changed place from one world to another, but that he felt the bed under him change to become harder and the pillow under his head disappeared.
Sam opened his eyes and sat up. He looked around. He was in the same room, the one that they left in and the one that Sam came to when he was injured. There was the same rock and the same door.
Sam walked to the door and left the room. Outside the room, Sam could see the library. Hundreds of books on shelves. There were all separated by different categories. Other Warlords were walking around or reading. Other than clothes, they all look normal. Some had scars or were hurt, but it didn't stand out very much.
Sam walked towards the nearest set of books and started to look through them. The books were all similar. They had a gray cover and the title in white on the front and the side. There was little variation.
From the titles, Sam could make out that the books were all related to the bows. Some books were talking about the best way to make bows and others on how to use them. There was even a small section that was related to the history of bows on Earth.
Sam had used a bow once when he went to an archery range with his friends. He wasn't too excited about bows, so he decided to move on.
He wanted to find a book on Warlord and War Games. The woman hadn't been too clear when she was explaining to them how everything worked. As she suggested, Sam thought that he should know more, before he did anything major.
Sam looked around tiring to find what he was looking for. There was nothing that indicated what the books were about in a section. There was no board hanging from the ceiling that had the category of the books. If someone wanted to know something, they would have to go look around the library and at each section of books.
Sam wandered around for a while, looking at all of the books. He considered asking someone but chose not to. He didn't know the relationships between warlords from different worlds were and didn't want to start a fight.
It didn't take Sam that long, since all he had to do was to go to each shelf and read a few of the books' titles.
Most of the books on the shelf were useless to him. There were a lot of books on previous warlords and their world's power. It looked fairly interesting but Sam didn't really care about that for now. He could always find some free time later and come back.
Sam grabbed a book called, "The Ins and Outs of a Warlord" and another one called, "A General OverView On The War Games."
There were several copies of both of them, so Sam assumed that they were popular.
With the two books held in front of him, Sam looked for a place to sit. There were several desks in the center of the library with other Warlords sitting on them. Sam looked for a while but couldn't find an empty desk for him to sit.
Sam sighed. 'Why does everything have to be so hard?' he asked himself. He couldn't sit on the floor, his self-image wouldn't allow that. The only two other options were standing and talking to other people. Both were tiring, but it was better to have an awkward conversation for a few minutes than stand for an hour.
Sam looked at the tables again. This time instead of tiring to find a table that was empty, Sam looked at the people that were sitting at tables. The tables had four chairs, so every table that had four people were disqualified. Sam thought that it would be less work to talk to a person than talk to two or three, so everyone that had two or three at a table was gone as well.
There were still around half of the table still standing. Sam decided to trust his face reading skills and looked directly at people's faces. He studied each one for a few seconds, then moved on to the next one.
'Definitely not her,' thought Sam as he studied a woman's face as she was reading her book. Sam could clearly tell she was the last person that he should consider. Her arrogance was visible just the way she was sitting.
It was then that the women looked up. Her eyes connected to Sam's.
Sam didn't know what to do. Should he look away or should he keep looking at her? If he did look away where should he look? He certainly couldn't look towards the ground, which would mean that he was scared.
Unable to decide what to do, Sam continued to stare. The woman set the book in her hands down and stared at Sam with intensity.
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Several seconds passed and neither of them wanted to look away. An awkward glance had turned into a full-on staring contest. Neither of them moved a muscle.
After a full two minutes passed, it was the woman that had to blink first. Sam's eyes were starting to water and he couldn't have gone any longer as well. The woman looked away as she rubbed her eyes. When she cleared her eyes, she went back to her book, with clear annoyance on her face.
Sam had gotten a lot of confidence from his victory. A smile was forced onto his face as he watched her look away. He was definitely satisfied.
'What was I trying to do?' Sam asked himself. He thought back to what he was doing before the staring contest. 'Oh right, a seat.'
Sam decided to do something that he was probably going to regret. He started to walk towards the woman. She was sitting alone, so there was definitely no problem with space.
The thought process of Sam was that, since he won, he could get away with sitting at her desk. If she didn't agree, he could beat her again. Maybe. It was also easier to do this compared to asking something else.
Sam reached the desk and pulled back a chair to sit on. The woman didn't react to Sam and continued reading. Sam looked at the book that she was reading. It was titled, "The 18 Best Ways to Torcher A Warlord In Origin." Sam felt his confidence start to waiver. He slowly sat down on the chair, careful not to make any noise.
He debated running away. The door for the special rock was across the library. As long as she was faster, she could definitely catch up with him.
Sam shook his head to clear his thoughts. He couldn't get hurt in Origin. No, that was not true. He couldn't get permanent injuries in Origin. He could definitely feel pain.
Sam slowly set the books that he brought on the desk. He picked up the book on Warlords and started to read. He was having trouble concentrating at first, but eventually, he zoned the women out. The book wasn't too long, with eighty pages, but it contained a lot of information. Sam had to reread several paragraphs because the information was condensed.
After about three hours, Sam finally finished the book. He looked up and saw the same woman still reading the same book. He had been engrossed in the book and didn't notice how much time had passed. There was no difference between now and when Sam came in, but Sam could tell a few hours had passed. Several people that were sitting at the tables were replaced by different people.
Sam stretched his hands and yawned. It was time for him to go back to his world. He didn't get any time to read the book on the War Games but he could come back another time. Sam also felt that he needed to absorb the new information.
Sam got up from the chair and walked back to the shelf where he found the books. He put them back to where they were and walked back to the door. He opened the door and walked inside. He learned a lot more about the stone in his reading, its history, the different locations of the rocks, and how it worked.
The book mentioned a power that was only present in the Origin. The book called it Divinity. Divinity is the energy that made everything possible. Without it, Warlords wouldn't exist. When a Warlord is in Origin, their bodies were made with Divinity. The bodies of Divinity and a Warlord's actual body are completely different.
When a Warlord first enters Origin, their bodies are permanently set with Divinity. The only way that they would change is if a Warlord's actual body is hurt in their world. The real bodies and bodies of Divinity are linked. Whatever happens to the real bodies also happens to bodies of Divinity, but that is only one way. Bodies of Divinity can't change real bodies.
All the rocks did was to take the bodies of divinity and change them back into their real bodies. Real bodies can't exist in Origin and so they are forced out. The only place that they could go to is the Warlord's world.
Thinking about all of this, Sam put his hand on the rock.
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"What is it?" asked the guard. The sun had come out and the day had started a few hours ago, but his employer was sleeping. The guard wouldn't let the man in and wake up his employer without a good reason.
The guard was standing in front of the main entrance of a house. The house was large, large enough to be the second-largest house in Carthage. The large windows of the house were all filled with different pieces of colored glass. They depicted images, filled with scenes of battlefields and courts. Everything about the house showed off how wealthy the owner was.
The guard stood in front of two large doors. In front of him, stood a short and thin person. He looked tired and out of breath. He even had trouble standing and he had to lean on a wall to keep himself from falling down.
"The mission... It was a failure..." The man was gasping for air as he talked. "No one came to the other villages."
The guard didn't know the details of the mission all he knew about it was that it was important. His employer would definitely want to know about it even if he had to be woken up for it.
The guard nodded his head and knocked on the large doors. "It's me. Open up" said the guard. The doors opened slowly and two other guards were standing next to the doors. "Stay here," said the guard towards the other guards and the man on the outside. He was in charge of all of the other guards so he could order them and they would have to follow.
The guard entered the house and went to the main bedroom. He nodded his head towards the other guards that were guarding it and they nodded back. He knocked his hand on the door and waited for a reply. There was no response. Knowing that knocking anymore would be useless, the guard opened the door and stepped in.
In the middle of the room was a large and grand bed. On it, a man was sleeping on it. He looked to be in his lower twenties.
The guard went to his employer's side and shook his shoulder. After a good shanking, the man was finally awake. "What do you want? Can't you see I'm sleeping?" the man asked with slurred words.
"There's a man with information about the mission. The one with the bandit from the Black Nation" said the guard.
The man's sleepiness was instantly gone. He got up and walked towards the door. He was still in his nightwear, but he didn't care about that. "Bring him in." This time the man's voice was a lot clearer.