The reply I got from the core kept bugging me. On one hand, Mahya and Al insisted the core wasn’t sentient, and even Lis mentioned it once. On the other hand, something about the way it responded stuck with me. At first, I worried about what it might’ve seen, heard, or learned. We didn’t do anything strange or kinky in the house, but the idea of some hidden entity watching us didn’t sit well. After mulling it over, that worry gave way to curiosity. What could I create or discover if I worked with the core instead of just giving it orders? Could it act like a computer of some kind?

And then there was the bigger question: was its strange reaction caused by its sheer size and the steady stream of clean dungeon mana we kept feeding it? Maybe it had evolved and progressed beyond the usual limits. The more I thought about it, the more convinced I became that this wasn’t a one-off. Someone, somewhere, had to have seen a core like this before. Mine was already close to fifty centimeters across—that wasn’t small. Chances are, others had pushed this far before. They simply didn’t advertise it.

Assholes.

I went looking for a library. After all, this was a Magitech world; they had to have some record or information about cores.

I left at noon, and the sun beat down on me as I crossed one arched bridge after another, weaving between stone streets that shimmered faintly with water flowing beside them. Market stalls spilled color and noise into the air, and I stopped more than once to ask for directions. The instructions I received from passersby were clear, polite, and even patient. My assumptions were the issue.

The city, or at least the rich area on both sides of the river, had majestic architecture with domes and waterfalls. White marble walls gleamed under sunlight, trimmed with gold and colorful metal on the domes. Water ran down the sides of buildings into narrow channels that curved around every courtyard. Everything about the place screamed opulence. So I assumed that an important place like the library would look the same. I kept walking past it again and again, eyes scanning for a domed architectural marvel.

What finally saved me from another hour of wandering was pure chance. The seventh or maybe eighth person I stopped, a middle-aged man in a pristine white robe, smiled and motioned for me to follow. “I’m heading there. Come.”

He didn’t wait for a reply, just turned around and walked off with the sort of pace that dared you to keep up or get lost again. I followed.

We stopped in front of a building that looked... well, tired. A square block of dark, almost black old stone, with tiny windows set too high to peek into and no decoration whatsoever. No domes, water, or anything else. Just a heavy set of doors made from wood, carved with nothing but faint horizontal lines. It looked like the poor cousin of all the buildings standing beside it—squat, old, and out of place. A storage depot, maybe. Or a prison. Not the kind of place you'd expect to house knowledge in a city obsessed with beauty.

I stared at it, then looked around again to make sure I wasn’t being pranked. But my guide had already stepped inside without a glance back.

The minute I walked in, I froze. I felt a Traveler.

The entryway was a silent, empty foyer with a stone floor, stone walls, and, for variety, a stone ceiling. There was no desk, furniture, or even a rug to soften the sound of my steps. Just cold surfaces and the faint scent of old dust and dry stone. Three doors stood in the space. One was directly opposite the entrance, and one was set into each of the side walls, left and right. The Traveler was behind the door opposite the entrance.

I paused, eyes on that plain, heavy door, listening inward. But there was nothing. No flare of warning. No danger prickling the back of my neck. But also no nudge from my Luck. Nothing whispered that this was about to be a fortuitous encounter. Just silence.

Shrugging to myself, I walked across the foyer, drawn by the feeling. I hadn’t even reached the door before it opened.

The Traveler stepped out, eyes locking with mine. We both stopped, sizing each other up with the same curious interest. He was old. Very old. Considering our longevity with the Vitality trait, the man had to be at least a thousand years old. He didn’t look a thousand, more like a well-weathered hundred fifty by Earth standards, with a hunched back, a liver-spotted scalp sparsely rimmed with wispy white hair, and a face so wrinkled it looked like old parchment left out in the rain. His eyes, the little I could see of them between the wrinkles, almost didn’t glow. Just a faint shimmer marked him as a Traveler, subtle enough to be mistaken for a trick of the light. He also had only five fingers, not six like the people here. Okay, a transplant then.

I bowed. “My name is John Rue. I’m—”

He raised a hand, cutting me off mid-sentence with a sharp look and said telepathically, “Not here. Follow me.”

Without waiting for a response, he turned and marched off, his boots thudding against the stone floor with more energy than expected from someone his age. He led me through a maze of narrow corridors, each one more poorly lit and more dusty than the last. We passed shelves stacked with scrolls, mana lanterns that flickered like they hadn’t been refueled in years, and a table piled so high with books it looked on the verge of collapse.

Eventually, he pushed open a crooked door and stepped into a cluttered office that smelled of old ink and burned tea. Knick-knacks, cracked mugs, scattered papers, and a dying plant crammed the room. He waved toward a battered, overstuffed armchair that looked like it was about to give up the ghost. One leg was shorter than the others, and the cushion sagged in the middle.

“Sit,” he grunted, flopping down into a creaky chair behind the desk. The thing groaned in protest. He shuffled a few papers aside without looking at them, then jabbed a finger vaguely in my direction. “No need to do the whole introduction thing. I don’t care. What do you want?”

I blinked. His tone was so grouchy it actually threw me off. I shifted my weight, glanced at the chair again, then took a cautious step forward and sat, lowering myself slowly onto the edge of the armchair. The cushion sank under me with a quiet puff of air and dust. I kept my back straight and my feet flat, ready to stand again if needed.

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

“Umm… to visit the library?”

He looked up, lifting his head with obvious reluctance. His eyebrows rose as he stared at me. “Are you asking me?”

I hesitated. “No?”

He tilted his head and studied me like I was a strange stain on his desk. “You sure?”

“…Maybe?” I fidgeted, unsure whether I should keep talking or get up and leave.

He narrowed his eyes. His jaw shifted slightly, as if he was grinding his teeth. “Are you an idiot?”

I swallowed and gave a quick shake of my head. “Umm, no?”

“Yes. Yes, you are. Understood.” He leaned back, his chair creaking under the shift, and waved me off with a short, irritated motion. “Go away. Don’t bother me.”

I half rose, then froze. My hand hovered above the armrest. My mouth opened, then closed again. I didn’t know if I should explain myself or just back out of the room quietly. I looked around, hoping for some clue that this was normal.

He glanced up again, scowling. “You’re still here?”

“Yes?” My voice came out too soft.

“What do you want?”

“Nothing?” I rubbed the back of my neck, eyes darting between him and the cluttered desk, unsure what I’d done wrong or how to fix it.

He shook his head, pulled a sheet of paper from his desk, and started reading without another word. I lingered in the office for another minute, standing awkwardly in place, confused and unsure whether I was supposed to wait or speak again. I wanted to ask him about cores, but he was so grouchy and radiated so much impatience that even thinking about it made me feel like I was imposing. Eventually, I let out a quiet sigh, gave up, and walked out.

It took me five minutes to realize that the grouch probably built the library, or at least was responsible for its content.

How?

Because the whole thing was arranged to confuse you entirely.

The first shelf I checked had scrolls about agriculture, children’s books with faded covers, and a thick manual on mana-based propulsion systems wedged sideways between them. The manual initially excited me, but when I opened it, I found that half the pages were torn out and the text was so faded it was barely readable.

The next bookcase had nothing but dictionaries in a wide range of languages. By their sheer number and the variety of materials they were made of, I was sure they weren’t all from this world. No way one world, no matter how big, could have more than five hundred languages or hundreds of types of paper or covers. Just no. Between the dictionaries, I found some other books and paid the mana to learn the languages, hoping for something good. I was surely disappointed. There was a cookbook titled One-Pot Rituals for Busy Mages, and next to it, a book carved entirely out of thin wooden sheets, cover and all. The title, How to Recognize Witches and Protect Your Soul, was etched into the warped cover, and the pages inside were spongy with rot, sticking together like wet bark.

Old, crusted mugs were tucked between the books, as if they were part of the collection. One of them had something green and fuzzy growing inside. Another shelf had a pile of loose papers bound together with a shoelace, sitting on top of a glass jar filled with buttons, a single sock, and what might have been a stuffed animal. I wasn't sure, and didn’t want to touch it.

At some point, I pulled a book labeled Volcanic Habitats: Field Studies and Self-Protection, only to trigger a loud creak as the shelf tilted sideways. I grabbed the edge with one hand and shoved the book back in with the other, but that only made things worse. The entire bookcase groaned and leaned even farther forward. I pulled out a metal rod I had salvaged from some trap dungeon, wedged it between the wall and the bookcase like a makeshift shower curtain rod, and left the area in a hurry. So far, my luck with libraries had been pretty damn shitty.

Back at the entrance foyer, I tried the other two doors. One opened into a large room with tables and benches, where people in the same white robes as the one who led me here sat around taking notes or maybe copying texts. Two steps in, one of them jumped up, grabbed my arm, and led me out without a word. The door closed behind me with a thud, and the lock clicked.

I stood in shock for a minute or two.

What the hell is going on here?

The last door opened onto a circular stairway that led down instead of up.

Turned out the library was five stories underground, each level older than the one above it. The difference showed in the stonework. The upper levels had neatly cut blocks and clean joins, but the deeper I went, the rougher it got. Cracks webbed across the walls, and the stones darkened with age.

The air grew colder with each flight of stairs. A damp, musty smell hung in the air, thick with mildew and the sharp tang of old ink and rotting parchment. By the third level, the last traces of natural light had vanished from the staircase. All five levels were pitch black. Without my light ball, I wouldn’t have been able to see a thing, let alone find my way.

At the very bottom, the floor had a thin layer of water seeping through the seams in the stone. It wasn’t flooded, just wet enough to ripple with every step, sending rings out from my boots. The water was cold and oddly clear, not the murky mess I would have expected down here.

But on the other hand … it didn’t have grouchy Travelers or mute whatevers …

I spent the next five days in the library, searching for information about cores. To my great disappointment, I didn’t find anything useful. During this time, I occasionally saw the white-robed people. One of them would come down, holding some kind of light implement or spell, look through the shelves, take or return a book, and leave. All of this happened without a word from them. Some gave me a nod before or after their forage for knowledge, but most of them ignored me. At least that. Every time one of them returned a book, I checked it to see what it was, and the selection was even stranger than the people working in this library. Most of the books were in the local language, but not all, and the subjects were “interesting.”

There was A Beginner’s Guide to Befriending Slimes, a thick manual titled One Thousand and One Uses for Dragon Teeth, and a slim booklet called A Gentleman’s Primer on Proper Necromantic Etiquette. Another volume, bound in cracked red leather, was Cooking with Cursed Fire: Recipes That May or May Not Kill You. A book with pages of beaten copper carried the title The Art of Singing to Mountains Until They Move, while a heavy tome carved from black stone announced itself as The Complete Tax Records of the Goblin King’s Third Cousin. This one I did check. Goblins and all that. The text was hypothetical and explained that if goblins had societies, they would surely have taxes, and it tried to predict what things goblins might consider taxable. After that, I stopped checking the returned books. My sanity was more important.

On two occasions, I crossed paths with the old Traveler. He harrumphed at me and kept going without so much as a glance back. Once, I followed after him with the intention of asking about cores, but the death glare he shot over his shoulder quickly killed the idea. His whole expression said he would rather eat nails than waste a single word on me. Even the way he shuffled off, muttering under his breath, gave the impression of a man who’d spent centuries perfecting the art of being left alone.

On day three, on the third floor—maybe that’s my lucky number—I came across a book about healing burned-out mana channels. The technique described was pretty much what I had done back in London with Mahya, just with a few shortcuts and suggestions for reducing pain. Not exactly groundbreaking. I didn’t learn anything completely new, but at least the five days I spent in that cellar of horrors weren’t a total waste.

During that time, Al disappeared somewhere. Mahya and I figured he had found a new temporary guy, but he didn’t say anything. Mahya still went to the guild every day, and Rue had to stay home. The library wasn’t a place for him.

All in all, it was a quiet stretch. It didn’t feel particularly adventurous, but it didn’t feel like a waste of time either. The only sour spot was my rotten luck with libraries. With a sigh, I hoped it would improve in some other world.