Libraries, Arts and Runes (1)

Pace had brought Leon away from the field where the lecture was held to a park like area in the clan walls. Pace led Leon into the park and brought him near to a small man made lake in the park.

"What happened there, why were you so easily triggered?" Pace asked.

"Nothing really, just didn't like the elder." Leon didn't look Pace in the eyes. Rather he sat down near the edge of the lake and skipped a rock on the pond.

Pluck. Pluck. It then sunk.

"Leon, you haven't awakened your soul book so everyone thinking that you're trash isn't something I can stop. But I know you aren't trash and soon they'll see it too so don't get to worked up about it." Pace seemed to understand Leon's feelings.

"Thanks, Pace. I just wasn't right in the mind. I'll go back home for now."

"Just rest, this brother here would go through hell for you, no need to get to worked over things when you have me."

"Thanks again."

Pace messed Leon's hair and went back to deal with elder Raymond.

Waiting until Pace was far enough Leon got up and and patted the dust off his pants. His eyes lost their glimmer.

He threw a Rock, pluck, pluck, pluck... It skipped until it landed on the other side of the pond.

"Finally I can leave! This Pace, it looks like he's my 'brother'. No one else acted when I spoke, so I think he should be my only friend."

"From talking with him I can tell he actually does think of me as a younger brother or he's such a good actor that he can fool even my eyes."

"I didn't meet him in the first 5 years in this life, so I can't tell how are relationship grew to us becoming 'brothers'."

Leon thought it was rather strange, he didn't have any siblings and was always alone most of his life. He had a few friends but all of them eventually abandoned him or betrayed him in his past life. He wondered how his younger self made a friend.

"But because of him being junior head instead of Hans, Hans will be easier to deal with."

The Junior Head position was a prestigious position that only the most talented, strongest and popular voted person in the clan could get. They were always in the spotlight, being the leader of the young generation.

Hans, was the son of the Clan head, he had been elected as junior head in Leon's past life. He had grown jealous of Leon's talent and treatment from the Clan head, his father, which led to him eventually betraying the clan.

He was one of the reasons Leon's life grew to be so tragic, but Leon didn't want revenge, to him it was something that had happened long ago and killing him wouldn't help him. Hans was too weak to be even brought into the category. What he wanted was to use him to get in contact with the people he betrayed the Clan for.

Leon walked out of the park and started making his way to the clan libraries.

The Flamesmith clan had two libraries, one was the Library of Arts, containing Summoning Arts. These were the skills practiced by Summoners to make their beasts and themselves stronger.

Then their was the Library of Knowledge, this library contained all books from geography to the history of the continent. It had books explaining summoning and theories about the world.

*Libraries in this were a sign of status. The better the Library the better the Clan was. This was because the more books you had, the more arts you had. The more runes you had.

There were even majestic and heavenly libraries known as the 5 grand libraries. These libraries contained knowledge on all aspects, it said that if you were allowed a day in the Grand Library you would know more then all people on the planet combined.

There were then the 22 Great Libraries. These were all libraries of ancient races and clans. Each one contained at least one Heavenly Art. An art that went beyond the way of the mortal. They taught the way of a God.*

He arrived to a three story building- it was the Library of Arts. He walked through the door to enter the library and saw that there were few people inside reading.

The ground floor of the Library which he had just entered was ten meters tall. Leon felt tiny seeing the forest of tall shelves filled with books reaching the ceiling.

An elderly woman wearing pointed glasses sat behind a desk while reading a book. She stopped reading and saw Leon.

"Leon what are you doing here? aren't you suppose to be at the lecture?"

Leon looked at the lady and at first had no clue who she was. But as he stared at her more he remembered this was suppose to be the Aunt Reva his mother had briefly talked about.

Leon looked embarrassed, "I was thrown out for being disrespectful. So I came here to look around. Aunt Reva, can you tell me where the arts are?"

"You were thrown out?! Boy what did you do?"

"Elder Raymond angered me a little and so I ended up speaking out a bit too much."

"Oh, it was Raymond that was giving the lecture, I understand why you would be annoyed, just seeing his face is enough to ruin my day. Come I'll show you where the arts are."

Aunt Reva took off her pointed glasses and put them on the desk she then led Leon near the front to a small broken shelf with withered and dust covered books on it.

"Are these all the arts?"

Obviously they weren't, this place was called the Library of Arts! All the books in it were arts!

Leon knew this but at the moment he was acting his part as a naive child. He was also surprised by the condition and the amount of books. He hadn't visited this library before in his past life. Since, when he was young, all the arts he practiced were pre-chosen and given to him. So he never got a chance to see the Library.

Aunt Reva could see Leon's disappointment.

"These aren't all the arts, but these are the only arts people who haven't awakened a soul book can read. I'm sorry Leon, this looks so pitiful because barely anyone comes here to read these arts."

Seeing the disappointment increase on the face of the young and weak body Aunt Reva felt her heart soften. His mother and him were so pitiful. She could not understand why the heavens would do such injustice to them.

"Did you know that arts are commonly broken into 5 ranks?"

"No." Leon answered, he wasn't lying since he knew they were broken into 10 ranks. Hearing that people that there were only 5 ranks made him nostalgic.

"They are broken into, <Tier 0>, <Tier 1>, <Tier 2>, <Tier 3> and <Tier 4> arts. The strongest is <Tier 4> while the weakest is <Tier 0>. All <Tier 4> arts are kept by the Clan head, <Tier 3>, <Tier 2> and <Tier 1> are in this library. While all <Tier 0> arts the Flamesmith has are the books on this shelf. All the other <Tier 0> arts have been donated away to the public library."

"Right, I remember now! Wait... Aunt Reva you said 'commonly broken into 5 ranks' does that mean there is a higher rank art? I've heard about <Tier 5> Arts as well, are they real?"

Aunt Reva nodded, "<Tier 5> arts do exist. <Tier 5> arts are the legendary arts that are even kept in the highest security in even the strongest clans."

"You know the inferno Clan, the Clan of that elder Raymond, they have a Tier 5 art called <Blazing Inferno Art>. I was lucky enough to see it be used."

She paused and saw the excitement in Leon's eyes, his were glimmering as he silently urged her to talk about her experience. Aunt Reva smiled and started recounting the tale.

"A giant beast, bigger then the size of this building called <Berserker Flame Mammoth> had red enraged eyes as it charged at the inferno clan using its <Berserk Bulldoze>." Aunt Reva explained with passion.

"The inferno Clan Head summoned his beast, <Blazing Hell Hound>. The two headed hound barely two meters tall, had looked at the gigantic beast about to stomp at. It's mouths opened, the <Blazing inferno art> activated and sent two twisting inferno flames at the <Berserker Flame Mammoth>. The Dragon like flames swallowed the Mammoth whole, setting it alight with flames reaching the heavens. The Mammoth's highly fire resistant body charred and melting. It was defeated in a single move!"

"Wow..." Leon said with an expression of awe.

He then snapped out of his fake trans and nodded, "Amazing! <Tier 5> arts are so strong! Aunt Reva I'll start looking for a <Tier 0> art, thank you!"

"If you don't understand anything in the books you can ask me." Aunt Reva said, then walked back to her desk.

Leon turned back to the dusty shelf and picked up a random book. He then started flipping through it.

"So the <Tier 5> art <Fiery Cloud Art> is still a secret, only the Clan head and the High elders should know about its existence. If things go as they did in my past life, it should be stolen in a few days. I'll get it then." Leon nodded. He shut the book and picked up another one.

"I need to look for an art that I can cultivate to make my body stronger. At the moment I barely have any elemental energy so I'll need to cultivate a <Tier 0> art for now." Leon continued to flip through the books on the shelf.

When Aunt Reva had said that mortals or rather people that haven't become Summoners can only cultivate <Tier 0> arts she wasn't wrong. It was just that without a soul book it was hard to absorb elemental energy and have control over it. So other then <Tier 0> arts that were very simple and didn't require much elemental energy, mortals couldn't cultivate anything else.

However it was different for Leon, as a 600 hundred year old monster who had cultivated all his life energy manipulation was ingrained into his bones. Although he wouldn't be able to cultivate all arts above <Tier 0>, he could cultivate the arts that he had cultivated in his previous life.

Leon put the last book on the shelf back then looked at all the other shelves, although he couldn't borrow them he could still look at them.

He made his way there and looked for anything useful. Just as he was about to pick a book someone grabbed his shoulder and pulled him back.

"Leon what are you doing here? Why would someone like you come here?"

Leon looked at the person, someone he didn't know the identity of from his past life. He was his age and around the same cultivation level as Eos a summoning Scholar.

Leon used slaughter aura to loosen his hand on his shoulder and walked away, completely ignoring them.

"Hey answer me!" He grabbed Leon again this time harder.

Leon shook the hand off again and faced him, "Uhmm, who are you? Am I suppose to know you?"

"Hey do you want me to beat you up. I let you go last time because of Pace, do you think you would still be able to act arrogantly in front of me. I'll be waiting outside."

"Sure see you outside." Leon then continued to look through the library.