Magic noises!

  A few seconds later, I open the door, getting teleported right after. But before doing that I did do some preventive measures as I still do not want Miss Pink Orb to get out of my sight nor to be hurt. The first one is to simply surround us with my magic or in other words, a magic barrier. Two reasons for this, the first one is protection of course, in the case that we get blasted the moment we teleported to the place that this teleport will surprise us with. There is nothing telling me or assuring me that there are no enemies in that place however, the opposite can also be said. But it’s always better to be safe than sorry. The second reason for the barrier is that she will be surrounded by my magic, and as anyone can understand, it’s going to allow me to be able to easily sense where she is even if she’s quite far from me. Not only that, I can also easily teleport to her because of that. Now, you can say that with Magic Sense I would be able to sense her and that would be a correct affirmation if it wasn’t for a small problem. Her natural magic output. It’s quite low to the point I doubt I could sense her if she was further than 250 meters and since I still have no clue where we are going to be teleported, there is a good chance we can get separated, and that separation can be further than those 250 meters. The other preventive measure that I did was to simply “grab” her. Not so much grab as that would be a little rude but instead, I simply rested my hand on top of the orb. Having physical contact with “her” will allow me to either be teleported with her as there is a good chance that the teleport might mistake us as a single entity rather than one. Either way, if everything goes wrong, I always have the Spirit Magic Stone, well, she in this case. As long as she has it physically, I will always find her at the end although it will take a little longer. Enough of my usual yapping, with both of us ready to go, I open the door and we are instantly teleported away as expected.

  However, I can’t say that I was expecting to be teleported to a place like this…

  “Is this a library?”

  “It seems so...”

  Where are my manners? The first thing I should’ve asked is if she is fine but since she quickly answered my question, I will guess that she's indeed fine and nothing happened to her. Although, this should show how much of a shock it was for me as I completely lost “control” of myself as the words were forced out of my brain through my mouth, and without me even realizing that I was doing it, only noticing once she answered me back. This is a sight to be seen but not in the same way as from the outside for example. Either way, what Miss Pink Orb said before about this area being something akin to a school seems to actually be correct as this does remind me of a library from a school. However, this is not a normal school we are talking about but one that only those from nobility and royalty would attend or more so be able to attend. This place is grand, huge and “majestic” although… the majestic adjective I have to put in quotes.

  This is only a shell of a majestic library. Only the ruins of such are present and of course, the chaotic nature that led to this unfortunate set of events.

  “How old do you think this library is?”

  “I have no clue… It seems that some sort of tornado went through this library, with a rampant mood to destroy it. Creating this chaos that we are seeing.”

  Oh wow, she sure sounds a little too profound right now, don’t you think? Although I did pick up something rather weird in her tone of voice. She was rather calm, her timber always the same and the same can be said about the speed however… She seemed a little sad? I-I don’t know, I really can describe what I’m getting from her as I can’t see her face and to be honest, I only got this from her because she’s holding the Spirit Magic Stone as otherwise, I wouldn’t be able to notice at all. Argh, I might be overthinking it again but, maybe she’s familiar with this place? Since this universe is deeply connected to Kiana and since she knows her, there is a good chance that she might be familiar with this library. Though, now that I’m thinking about this, I wasn’t expecting for the stone to be able to pick up on emotions in this manner. Almost as if it was telling me exactly how she’s feeling…

  “Then, as the passing of time does its thing, what’s left of it is just the consequences of such, eroding whatever was able to survive said frenzy. But even though we see the dust particles dancing around, the majority of it has settled down on every piece of furniture and objects. All of this means that this has been here for a long time.”

  It’s exactly as I said although, why was I this profound? If this was recent then, we wouldn’t be seeing this simple phenomenon as even if it got destroyed yesterday, there wouldn’t be nowhere near enough time for dust to be gathered in this library. This place hasn’t been touched in ages showing to us that this is older than a few months as by the sheer dust present here it makes me believe so. And yet, for some reason I’m having trouble believing it. I mean, until this point everything has been neatly taken care of, just use the outside as an example. All the flora present is perfectly taken care of, the ground tiles are clean, the grass itself is also cut low and close to being perfectly levelled, the water that the fountain was sending upwards a meter or so, even with all of that pressure you could see its crystallinity while the calm water is as clear as you can imagine it to be, allowing us to even see the base of the fountain. I won’t even go to the lobby nor the house I was in as these also follow the same care if not even more to be honest. Yes, this is the only place where it seems to have been deserted for a long period of time.

  “If we compare it to the outside, it does seem quite weird.”

  Well, it seems I was not the only one that noticed the disparity between these areas. But, even if we tried to come up with some sort of reason for why this is the case, I think we will only be wasting time and the reason for it is that this is in a different area than the previous one. I mean, what’s the point of having a teleport magic circle right at the door? While here there might be something that will help us progress further, that does not mean it needs to be in the same area. If what I said about the device and the stones is correct then, we just need to collect the stone that is “here” and take it back to the device. Nothing hard to do, the hardest part is to find where it might be.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  “Maybe that’s the problem? We got teleported the moment I opened the door, what’s to say that we are in the same area as before? I do think that we are in a disconnected area altogether.”

  “I didn’t think of that... If that is the case then, do you think we can find what we are looking for?”

  That’s undoubtedly the current problem we are having and facing. Will we find what we are looking for here? Even though there is a good chance that this library might be disconnected from the outside? I have no clue but, if we stand still nothing will happen that’s for sure. This library, as I said, seems to be for the huge side as we have another floor on top of us. While I don’t claim to know exactly how big it is, from my earlier usage of Magic Sense, it really seems to be quite huge, especially compared to normal libraries. To our left we have the receptionist area, the place where there would be the librarians working. Just like my earlier statement, this place is in “ruins” and in a chaotic state. Part of it is destroyed, papers are all over the floor and furniture, some are simply destroyed, other torn apart and so on, while the few books that are present suffer similar fate if not worse as they have “more” to be destroyed. Then to our right, there is a wall that stretches forward a few meters, just enough to be the exact length as the receptionist area. Past that, to both of our sides the library continues however, I cannot tell for how long. If we keep going forward, we will reach a rather long and large set of stairs, ones that go up for roughly 3 meters, ending in a “platform”. Said platform is connected to the wall that is in front of us, one that is close to 50 meters from us. On both sides there is another set of stairs although these ones are shorter, going up “only” 2 meters. All of these stairs of course, are only a shell of what they once might have been, they have carpet on them, one that is coloured in red, a strong one at that and with what seems to be a few stripes of yellow on the sides? I’m not sure as the majority of these carpets are torn and destroyed, making it quite hard for me to tell exactly what it is. Although there are no massive holes or holes throughout the stairs, we can somewhat comfortably reach the upper floor, a floor that I have no clue how big it is. It might be the same size as this one, might be shorter or larger, I really have no clue. Yep, there is barely any magic in here that’s why I’m having troubles laying out this place with Magic Sense.

  “Well, standing here won’t get us anywhere so, let’s get moving.”

  And so, with an imaginary nodding of agreement from Miss Pink Orb we get our feet moving towards the unknown future. Well, at least I do that as in her case, she simply floats towards it but always by my side.

  “Hmm, where should we look first?”

  And we immediately stop after a few short seconds as I have no clue where to begin. Great!

  “We are looking for something that can power up the device, right? How about we try to look for anything that has magic on it?”

  That’s not a bad idea at all, a logical idea based on the current scenario and reality of our situation in hand. However, the problem that I have with this is the fact that-

  “I did use Magic Sense early and while there is magic here, not only is it scattered erratically throughout the library, the quantities are not that high at all. I have no clue if they are magic residues, magic from objects or from the area itself.”

  Yep, that’s one massive problem to have and another massive limitation to the skill Magic Sense. Using the skill Magical Eyes might help out but, only in my immediate surroundings as anything past my “vision” I’m not going to be able to get any type of information from it. Not only that, if my “vision” is obstructed by something, even if there is something behind it, I will be simply staring at nothing, ignorant of the treasure that is right behind said obstacle. Magical Eyes do not give you the ability to see through concrete “reality”, anything with a physical body in other terms. If it was smoke for example, that would be a different story as said smoke is a gas rather than a physical object. It’s much easier to see through a gas and even liquid than a physical body. But even with these limitations, it’s better than nothing, if we combine with Magic Sense, we might actually find something. It might just take a while to do so.

  “There is also a chance that whatever we are looking for, it’s “hiding” from us.”

  That thought only crossed my mind in this instance however, I never anticipated how it would affect her. I already can tell just how destructive what I said was to her as I briefly felt a sensation of disappointment coming from her. Ah man, that was not my intention but, I cannot simply deny reality. The stone might be hidden by two ways, the first one is the most basic as it might not have magic at all therefore, being hidden to my skills. Now, I’ve already said something contradictory as what we are looking for is a potential stone with magic, not one without it. Hear me out, what if it’s disactivated? What if it only reacts once it’s either close to the device or on it? Since we are lacking information on it, we really cannot be sure if what I said is true or not. The other way is that it's hidden by an external factor such as a magic spell. If it’s the latter I think we can find it as there will be a magic circle hiding it and in that case with Magical Eyes, I will be able to physically see it. Magic Sense will allow me to sense it but there’s a decent chance that the magic might be so minimal that I won’t be able to pick up. In a sense the skill Magical Eyes is more advanced than Magic Sense but the range factor is one massive drawback of it.

  “Then what are we supposed to do? I don’t know how we can find it if that is the case…”

  She really is defeated by this setback, isn’t she? We can’t have that now, can we? As the Hero it’s also my job to give hope to those who are next to me, even if said hope is nothing more than a pathetic lie to try to hide the current cruel reality. Ahem, no need to be this depressive but, I do have to cheer her up. We haven’t lost yet, not even close, it’s just a simple wall that we have to climb, that’s it.

  “As long as there is a will, there is a way. I have Magic Sense and Magical Eyes in my arsenal, by using these two I’m confident that we will find something. Although that might take a while.”

  No lie came out from my mouth, not only that, the confident tone of voice, the determined look on my blue eyes and with a rather soft smile on my face, I said all of this, affirmed to her to be more correct and hopefully, gave her a little light to hold on to. A light that shines brightly but also one that is warm to the touch, giving a cosy sensation because of it. I will definitely find whatever we are looking for, even if it takes me a couple hours or days even. Though I do hope that it does not take that long as I’m concerned with the Kiana situation however, there is always a way to prevent this from happening, right? Work hard and never stop doing so, even if you are tired, keep going forward.

  “Come on, let’s go, we have a long way to go.”

  “Ye-yes!”

  That’s more how I like it!