Chapter 19 - The Library

  Before Sol could depart from the lake towards the other areas of interest, a green-haired demon broke through its surface from below, audibly cursing the ice-cold nature of the water. With quick and hurried strokes, she made for the nearest lakeside—right towards Nyx.

  Had she been training underwater? How could someone even hold their breath for such a long duration? Had he missed her fall into the water during his cultivation just now? No, even then it would have taken a few minutes for him to have missed it entirely.

  Curious, Sol stepped towards the spot of her arrival and offered his fellow sect trainee a hand. As she reached the grass, she glanced upward at him with a raised eyebrow that had been cut apart by a nasty scar reaching all the way into her green scalp. Her yellow eyes, green hair, and bright red skin created an intense contrast.

  “Do I look like I need help?” she asked incredulously, her dislike of cold water seemingly far weaker than her sense of pride, as she undercut her refusal to take his hand with a casual demeanor while treading water in front of him.

  She reminded Sol of Rax’Rathos—a confidence clearly underpinned by an intense desire to prove herself and a fire in her eyes that matched that ambition.

  As Nyx wanted to step back to give her space, she reached upward, grabbed his hand, and put her feet against the grass. Then she flexed her muscles and leaned backward to drag him into the water.

  Sol attempted to resist her, but she had the superior leverage and angle. As he was thrown overhead into the cold lake and flew farther than he had anticipated, he immediately understood the reason for the power difference. This girl had already ascended past the Skin Tempering stage.

  When he broke through the lake’s surface again, the girl had already brought forth a small portable campfire from her robes that quickly ignited. Her sect robes seemed to be made from Xilif fibers, which tended to dry fast due to their water-repellent qualities.

  “You are one of the new arrivals?” she asked without looking at him.

  “You broke into Muscle Tempering recently?” Sol asked casually, before breathing in deeply to stay afloat in the lake without having to swim or tread water. The reclined view into the sky allowed for a different perspective on the hundreds of obstacles that spun their net above the body of water.

  The girl had taken a meditating position next to the flames, seemingly absorbing the heat through her cultivation. She pursed her lips and eyed Sol with a frown. “I do not like you. You are vexing.” She shook her head in mock annoyance before sighing. “Yin cultivators. Oh man.”

  Sol adjusted his position and brought himself to the lakeside in two casual strokes before resting his arms on the grass with his head placed on top. “What do you mean by that?”

  “Is it not obvious?” The girl rolled her eyes. “You are swimming in ice-cold water without a care in the world. Clearly, you are doing well with Yin Qi.”

  The white pendant his sister had given him rested against his chest, keeping him in a cozy temperature range. “I guess. How did you break through?”

  “I’m not telling you that,” she huffed. “I don’t even know you.”

  “What were you doing underwater? Training?” Sol continued unabated. Something about her irritated expression made him want to tease her. At the same time, his heart rate accelerated. Would she snap? Maybe he should give her a compliment to avoid that? His mind raced to supply him with one, but they all sounded weird. If he told her that he liked her eyes, she would surely take it as an insult.

  “Ah, right. So you are one of the new arrivals.” She waved her hand dismissively at him. “Just dive down. You seem to enjoy the cold; might as well enter that way.”

  When Sol refused to move from his position and kept staring at her, she raised an eyebrow at him.

  “I like your eyes,” he blurted out, his voice breaking halfway through, and he felt his blood rush to his face. The weird look on her face added to his embarrassment, and before he really knew what he was doing, he had stammered a barely audible “thanks” and let himself sink below the surface of the lake.

  He hadn’t even taken a deep breath but immediately pushed himself away from the lakeside, the diving lessons of his father still clear in his mind.

  Demons were natural swimmers, but their bodies fooled them when it came to the amount of breath they had available underwater. Demonic bodies naturally “refined” and stored the invigorating parts of air over time, resulting in the ability to last quite a while without breathing—very helpful underwater. His own record had only been a few minutes, but his father claimed this ability would only grow with age and cultivation.

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  Sol let himself sink rapidly and soon found himself in the darkness of the lake. The light hardly reached down here, yet the body of water seemed endless. Peeking up, his blurred underwater vision hardly showed the surface anymore. He must be down ten, fifteen meters already.

  Had the girl messed with him after all?

  Not wasting any time, Nyx pushed lower and lower with rapid strokes, the water pressure increasing slowly but surely. That was not the worst part of the all-encompassing darkness.

  He could have sworn something had just touched his leg, and there were faint sounds to be heard. His mind immediately conjured up all manner of sea creatures, and he decided that he would stop advancing and return to the surface.

  Just as he made the first stroke upward, a faint purple light appeared in the distance, illuminating three giant tentacles.

  Then panic set in. His body froze, and he was unable to move, so he remained as still as possible before finally mustering up the mental strength to swim upwards with patient strokes.

  Two more tentacles appeared before him. Lights all around him made it clear that it was already too late. He had been found, and whatever this creature was, it was aware of him.

  Quickly, Sol found himself screaming and paddling upwards in a struggle void of all logic, before being pushed down by a large tentacle, the likes of which he had eaten just a day ago in the sect town.

  A brief push and pull later, the tentacle shoved him lower and lower toward an underwater bubble, where Sol broke through the water and rolled over the smooth stone floor.

  He barely scrambled to his feet to get his bearings when the light disappeared again, leaving him in darkness. His heart pounded in his chest so hard that he could hear each individual beat. The fierce girl had definitely messed with him; even if the creature was friendly, sending him into its depths without knowledge was quite evil.

  Sol waited a bit for his eyes to adjust from being opened underwater in darkness to the dim light of this stone tunnel. Faint, thin lines of light were worked into the stone. Barely visible, they guided the way.

  His wet steps echoed oddly against the barriers that kept the water around him from collapsing on top of him until he stepped on an array that instantly dried his clothes and body, serving as a sort of doormat. The faint lines ahead increased in brightness, revealing a stairway leading down into the rock that seemed to encompass the lake.

  Sol had to remind himself that all of this was still inside the sect building that hovered far above the Lake of Reflections. Whoever had built and established this was a master of their craft. Maybe he should take lessons in array building. The possibilities seemed endless.

  The stairway was steep at first and then slowly smoothed out until it revealed a large stone door, stylized as hundreds of book spines arranged chaotically and stacked into each other in various ways. Horizontally, vertically, and as a wild pile, the door seemed to exclaim its contents: knowledge.

  Before Sol could even touch the stone, the door swung open, revealing a cozy fireplace surrounded by thousands of books, stacked on shelves, piles, and desks. Wooden stairs led up and down, and hallways seemed to stretch the library onward in all directions, each glance revealing rows and rows of books.

  “Welcome to the Skin Tempering Section of the Verdant Reflection Sect’s Library,” a young man chirped from behind a book-laden desk next to the underwater entrance. “The entrance hall is this way.” He lazily pointed toward a hallway opposite him while continuing to read a book titled Movement Techniques & Yin Qi Interactions.

  “Thank you,” Nyx mumbled passively, taking in the vast knowledge around him. The section he found himself in seemed to be the ground floor. Peering over the wooden railings revealed a vast reading or study area below, with desks and comfortable-looking chairs, wall-to-wall stuffed full of books.

  The memory of the tentacles in the underwater darkness still fresh in his mind, Sol collapsed onto the chair next to the cozy fireplace and grabbed the first book near him to calm down a bit.

  It was a simple brown booklet, some sixty pages long. The cover read: Military Procurement in the Ardent Region - World 107-ED.

  Shrugging, Sol opened the book to a random page.

  “Military standardization has proven to be a major contributing factor for the campaign’s success going forward. As discussed in the previous chapters, the alliance structures have proven vital in establishing a continuous flow of steel. It remains policy, at the time of my summoning contract at the end of two years, that steel is taxed significantly when used for any purpose beyond standard-issue weaponry.

  The cultural influences remain. Nobility has viewed swords as a weapon of significance and elegance, regardless of their usefulness in military campaigns. The existence of ‘Soul Knights,’ as mentioned in Chapter One, has further exacerbated the issue. Their prowess has led to a glorification that remains at odds with battlefield realities. Even if they were theoretically the superior weapon, higher costs would reduce the overall effectiveness of armies.

  It is through this reality that my final project was born under this summoning contract. Disinformation campaigns and propaganda under a network of merchant spies bore little fruit; however, the distribution of battlefield glory through songs led to some viral outcomes. To this day, taverns of conquered regions tell tales of the glorious Soul Knight and his magical sword that cost the invaders thousands of lives.

  Now young nobility on the verge of ascension in at least two duchies have been inspired to raise elite forces in heavy metal armor and sword. Even if their efforts produce six knights in ascension, the resulting imbalance in their army’s equipment will be nullified by our standard-issue equipment. The spear remains the most effective weapon, even in scenarios without cavalry, such as this world. A solid formation of pikes, with a shield-bearing frontline that specializes in simple blunt weaponry, has outperformed sword-wielding armies at least three to two—often performing four to one.

  In regards to ranged weaponry, I am somewhat at a loss. The establishment of the bow has been slow, and the lack of knowledge on my part hinders progress. Theoretical frameworks may carry this knowledge forward and establish—”

  Sol closed the book when he heard a familiar voice in the distance.