The first slivers of dawn painted the sky in muted greys and rose as Arin woke. His muscles, though not overtly sore, carried a deep-seated weariness from the previous night's training. The faint echoes of mana-drain pulsed in his limbs, a reminder of the raw power he'd commanded just hours ago. He was satisfied; Silent Steps and Mind Map were real, tangible. But they were just the beginning, mere whispers of the arsenal he needed to forge.
The clock on the wall reminded him of the relentless march of time. Twenty-seven days remained of his self-imposed thirty. He couldn't afford a moment's pause. His mind was already pulling him back to the Grand Archive, to the labyrinthine halls of knowledge he had only begun to explore. He rose, performed a few simple mana-circulation exercises, and quickly dressed. The quiet dorm room, still holding the peaceful breaths of sleeping students, felt like a temporary haven he had to leave.
He bypassed the bustling common areas of the academy, opting for the serene pathways that cut through manicured gardens. The morning dew glistened on the leaves, and the air was crisp, carrying the faint, earthy scent of damp soil. Yet, beneath it all, Arin's newly attuned senses picked up the omnipresent thrum of mana, the city's lifeblood, flowing with intricate patterns his Mind Vault instinctively began to categorize and understand. His head still buzzed with residual information from yesterday, but the hunger for more dwarfed any fatigue.
Soon, the towering, obsidian façade of the Grand Archive loomed before him, its runic etchings glowing faintly in the strengthening sunlight. He pushed through the ancient oak doors, which groaned open in welcome, and stepped into the cathedral of intellect. Today, he would delve deeper, venturing beyond the introductory bestiaries. Today, he would challenge his assumptions of reality itself.
Section B shattered Arin's assumptions of reality—quite literally, in one case, where a misaligned projection caused a floating island to plummet onto a simulated version of his study table, dissolving in a shower of light.
The study of otherworlds was not for the faint of heart. For Arin, whose very essence was a blend of two realities, these texts resonated with a chilling intimacy.
Otherworlds weren't just distant lands tucked behind mystical portals. They were separate realities with their own laws, sometimes logical, sometimes utterly deranged. One realm rotated through all four seasons every twelve hours. Arin watched a recording: an explorer basking in spring sunshine at breakfast, shivering in autumn chill by lunch, fleeing a blizzard at dinner, and trying not to sweat through his sleeping roll in a summer night.
Another realm hosted floating islands where gravity pulled sideways. The visual alone gave Arin a mild headache, but his Mind Vault was already dissecting the spatial mana anomalies that allowed such physics. "You'd fall sideways off the map if you weren't anchored by mana thread?" he muttered. "Sure. Why not. Perfectly normal."
Books were only half the madness. The rest came from explorer logs, half of which read like the scribblings of caffeine-addled philosophers. One B-rank explorer wrote: "Remember: if the air smells like burning lavender and your left arm goes numb, leave. That's the realm trying to invert your nervous system."
Cheerful stuff.
Arin memorized the signs of realm instability: swirling air with no wind source, reflective puddles in dry soil, whispers that only repeated what you were already thinking. He copied stabilization chants, tongue-twisting verses meant to anchor one's soul and sanity. He even tried one aloud.
The moment he intoned the words, a sharp tingle shot up his nose, and he felt a strange sense of detachment. He instinctively knew he'd stumbled upon something potent, but also potentially problematic.
He studied dimensional maps drawn by explorers who'd gone in, seen too much, and returned just sane enough to sketch terrain from memory. Safe zones were marked in green. Collapse zones in red. Purple meant "in theory this area exists, but no one's come back to confirm."
On day three, he stumbled across a journal simply titled: 'If You Meet Yourself, Run.' He decided to read that one twice.
Section C was fragrant, vibrant… and incredibly dangerous. The moment Arin stepped into the alchemy and herbology wing, his senses were assaulted. The air hummed with a thousand distinct botanical mana signatures and the sharp, sometimes acrid, scents of countless herbs. For a fleeting second, his Mind Vault threatened to buckle under the raw input, a cascade of overwhelming data, before his internal librarian kicked in, instantly categorizing, cross-referencing, and indexing every detail into comprehensible knowledge.
The wing looked like a greenhouse had exploded and been rearranged by an artist with a fondness for chaos. Glass canisters floated in place, rotating gently above rune-inscribed pedestals. Each plant was frozen mid-growth, preserved by time magic and labelled in perfect calligraphy.
He met a curious herb early on: Whisper root, known for soothing nerves and easing mana flow. Harmless when boiled. Toxic when eaten raw. Next to it? Wraith moss. Identical in colour. Same leaf pattern. Smelled like mint. Except it caused hallucinations of screaming shadows. Arin stared at the two for an hour before whispering, "Nature's trolling us."
He spent his mornings identifying properties, cross-referencing effects with known potions, and carefully memorizing combinations. Emberbuds, which could ignite if crushed incorrectly. Frostlace, which slowed bleeding but froze your skin if applied too liberally. Starvine, which, according to a note, "heals you, then whispers your deepest insecurities for a full hour."
The brewing stations were a trial in themselves. Simulated cauldrons allowed hands-on practice—safe from actual explosions, though the embarrassment was very real.
On day four, he accidentally triggered a chain reaction while attempting a basic mana-recovery salve. The potion hissed, glowed, then popped in his face with a puff of purple smoke. The simulation flashed red, displaying a message that instantly formed in Arin's mind: "You have created: Mist of Mediocrity. Effect: Mildly embarrassing scent. Duration: Six hours." He reeked like lavender and regret until the evening.
But he got better. By the end of the week, he brewed his first stable mana potion: a soft, azure liquid that pulsed faintly in its vial. He held it up, proud as a new parent. A wave of quiet triumph washed over him. The potion pulsed with a steady light, and a precise internal appraisal immediately formed in his mind:
✦ [Basic Mana Restoration Potion] created.
✦ Efficiency: 61%
✦ Taste: Slightly bitter with a hint of rosemary.
Not bad for someone who mistook sneeze pepper for glow-root two days ago.
Section D was where things got loud, hot, and oddly musical. The metallurgy and weapon crafting hall vibrated with the rhythmic pounding of phantom hammers. Golems shaped like blacksmiths moved silently through ethereal forges, demonstrating techniques in loops. Holographic sparks danced in the air like fireflies, and the air itself shimmered with residual heat and mana from simulated forging. Again, Arin's enhanced senses processed the cacophony of sound, heat, and mana signatures with startling clarity, allowing his Mind Vault to categorize the unique vibrations of each simulated forge and the nuanced mana flow of different crafting techniques.
This was where metal met mana.
Arin started with the basics. He ran his fingers along raw samples—cool, weighty, and charged. Aetherium hummed under his touch, vibrating gently. "Feels like a purring cat," he muttered, his Mind Vault already pulling up theoretical schematics for mana conduits that resembled its crystalline structure. Voidstone was the opposite—silent, eerie, and cold enough to sting. It ate magic. Literally. A small rune near it fizzled and died. "Note to self," he mumbled, "do not drop this in the bath."
He learned that Blood Iron was used for weapons that fed on their wielder's blood. Risky, but powerful. And Spectraglass—light as a feather, but bent light itself, making it ideal for stealth-based gear.
In the weapon design lab, simulations let him sketch and assemble loadouts. He tried creating a collapsible sword that could split into two daggers. The first prototype fell apart when he swung it. "Right," he said, wiping oil off his cheek. "Don't put the release rune next to the stability rune. Noted."
By week's end, he had three viable blueprints. A quarterstaff with impact-reversal glyphs. A curved dagger that could coat itself with potion residue. And a modular bow whose arrows changed element based on ambient mana. He didn't have the resources to make them. Yet. But knowledge? He had plenty.
Section E was… different. No clanking hammers. No explosive herbs. No diagrams of spatial madness. Here, everything was quiet. Serene.
The Skill craft section felt more like a meditation chamber than a library. Lanterns drifted lazily through the air, shedding pale blue light. The books here whispered. Literally. He picked up one and it recited its contents in a gentle, musical tone. To Arin's hyper-aware Mind Vault, it was like a choir of subtle voices, each transmitting perfect information directly to his core understanding.
"Neat," he said. "Saves me the effort of moving my eyes."
The texts here were abstract. Skills weren't just instructions. They were philosophies. Ideas. Echoes of instinct.
A book titled The Art of Movement detailed how a basic skill like [Dash] could become [Phase Step]—a momentary shift in mass that allowed movement through solid matter, if you tuned your mana flow right.
Another tome, Shield of the Soul, broke down defensive abilities. [Guard] could become [Reflective Pulse], which bounced force back at the attacker with increased intensity.
And some... were insane.
One scroll described a high-tier skill called [Existential Detachment]. Effect? Temporarily removed the user from reality. Downside? You didn't exist for the duration. So you couldn't act, be seen, or influence anything. "Useful... for avoiding awkward conversations?" Arin joked.
He began sketching his own loadout. Skills he'd need as a solo operative. Stealth. Perception. Adaptability. High mobility. Controlled burst damage. Passive resistance traits.
He imagined a skill that let him adapt to temperature extremes, then survive poison, then adjust to mana-pressure spikes in hostile worlds. He grinned. He knew the sheer mental fortitude and mana capacity such a skill would demand, pushing him to the absolute limits of his development. It would be a monumental undertaking, but the knowledge for its conception now resided within him.
It would be his first S or S+-rank attempt.
By the end of his twenty-first day, Arin found himself in a quiet side chamber, bathed in pale sapphire light. His satchel was stuffed with notes, sketches, and borrowed memory stones. His eyes burned from the constant intake, and a persistent thrum of over-caffeination echoed in his skull, yet the hunger for knowledge only grew. He was exhausted, but more alive and potent than ever.
He took a breath. Focused. "Craft," he said softly, calling upon the internal power that pulsed within him. "Let's make something new."