Chapter 20: The Layered Destruction And The House Of Knowledge.
"Gotta do better than that!" Kael yelled, using the same method that Keri used.
For the past who-knows-how-long they have been throwing planets and other celestial objects at each other.
"Oh yeah? Watch out!" Hriu yelled back in response. At the moment, he was right next to the event horizon of a black hole at the center of a galaxy. Blinded by the joy of throwing marbles, or planets from a normal human's perspective, at his friends, he tried to grab the black hole without even looking at the non-existent surface.
Normally, near such massive objects, Keri would appear almost completely stopped in time. To an outside observer bound by time, of course, but not to Kael and Keri. Instead, to Kael and Keri, who, along with with Hriu himself, are not restricted by such a puny thing as time, Hriu appeared to be moving completely fine.
His hand went through the apparent surface of the black hole. Hriu, unaware of his avatar's hand being sucked into the black hole, moved his arm, as if trying to launch the black hole at Kael. However, after noticing the black hole didn't move, and that his hand wasn't there, he looked confused at the black hole.
"The hell?" Hriu asked himself. From the edge of the galaxy, and playfully fighting along the way, Kael and Keri made their way to Hriu.
Not even a second later, they appeared next to their friend, who already regenerated his hand, "I know that one too. Humans called it the black hole." Kael said, watching the glowing accretion disk move below his feet.
"Care to explain?" Keri asked.
"A black hole is a region of spacetime that has such gravity that not even light can escape it. What you see is not an actual, tangible object. Instead, it's a region from which light didn't get out. If you get really close to it and look to your side, you would see the back of your head." Kael explained, paraphrasing what he learned from the humans when he was undercover interacting with humans.
"Ooohh, that's something. Do you know how they happen?" Keri asked.
"They happen when a star above a certain mass reaches the end of it's lifetime and collapses in on itself." Kael said before quickly adding, "You guys wanna explore the inside?"
"Yeah." "I'm all for it." Simultaneously said Keri and Hriu respectively.
They then flew into the black hole. From an outside perspective of an observer bound by time, they appeared to stop moving the moment they 'touched' the event horizon. To them, however, it looked as if nothing was wrong and they entered with no time delay. They made their avatars stronger and more durable to survive entry. Kael also explained spaghettification to the two, so they also accounted for the tidal forces that would rip their avatars apart if they didn't.
"Where are we?" Keri asked.
"We're inside the first layer, called the ergosphere. Deeper in is the outer horizon." Kael explained.
"Do they serve any purpose?" Hriu asked.
"The black holes in general or the layers?" Kael asked.
"Both." Hriu said.
"Black holes themselves don't serve any real purpose. They just emerge as a consequence of the laws of physics in this universe. The layers exist because the black hole rotates." Kael answered as they quickly approached the outer horizon.
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"To the library, maybe? We'll learn a lot, I think." Alex suggested.
"Then we have to turn right at the second intersection. It'll be the third building on the left." Elara responded, already walking, Alex following next to her.
As they passed a store, "Now that I take a closer look at the memories of what you've read, it's pretty interesting. Who knew a guy like you would read 'Hero x Villain, Enemies To Lovers' stories." Elara's words broke the silence.
"Silence was such a beautiful thing, and now it's a thing of the past." Alex said.
"Ey, drama queen, you're gonna answer or nah?" Elara asked.
"Don't act like you don't like them yourself." Alex responded.
"I do, that's true. Also, you should've died a bit later. The most recent one you were reading wasn't finished yet before you died, and I was really invested in it." Elara said.
"You're saying it like I planned my death." Alex replied.
"Anyway, we're here." Elara said as they stopped in front of the library.
The entrance double door was made out of wood. The building itself was fairly tall, taller than the buildings in its area. Windows fitted with slightly gray but transparent glass panes. The building had an invisible Xen Anti-Magic Barrier around it, preventing anyone from using magic inside.
Anti-Magic Barriers work by deteriorating and weakening the effect of Xen, which is why almost no monsters or demihumans ever enter the library. Their internal Xen, which is essential to their survival, is also subject to these barriers. Depending on the severity of the Anti-Magic properties of the barrier, Xen's effects could be almost completely removed, or minimally effected. This particular library's Anti-Magic Barrier weakened Xen's effects to 2%, making any magic used inside be 2% of what the caster intended it to be.
They quietly entered the building, the librarian glancing at them. The floor had a carpet laid out leading to a spiral staircase. The stairs lead upstairs, where books were actually stored. The ground floor had the librarian's desk in the corner, and a couple of tables where people could read the books.
"You think they have some spells or something written down? Incantations or chants to activate magic spells, or something?" Alex quietly asked as they went upstairs.
"No chants or incantations are needed to use magic. Incantations and chants are used only if you're very confident that you have the time to do it, and/or that your opponent or enemy can't react to it." Elara answered.
"Huh? Really? That's lame." Alex said.
"Think about it, if you were in a fight and you screamed 'Fireball' or 'Ignis Infernum' before actually throwing it, then your opponent has more time to react to it and prepare for it. They could potentially use magic to create a wall out of hardened earth, or just a general barrier out of Xen. Then you just wasted your time and did absolutely no damage to your enemy." Elara said.
"That…" Alex paused, processing what Elara said, "makes sense, I guess."
They wondered between the bookshelves, eventually arriving at the by far largest section, the 'Magic' section. It was rarely visited by normal civilians, as Xen was inherently difficult to manipulate and control for humans.
"But then what is in these books?" Alex asked, grabbing a random book. The one he picked up was titled 'Advanced Water Elemental Magic'.
"Maybe not that one." He said, putting it back on the shelf and grabbing another one from the bookshelf behind him. This one titled 'Basic Earth Elemental Magic'.
He opened the book on the first page, the table of contents. Each section was titled by the name of the spell it explains. He flipped the pages to the first chapter, titled 'Murus Obex'.
A small drawing in the top left corner of the page showed how the effect should look like, depicting a small wall of hardened earth near the caster. Next to the drawing was a detailed explanation on how to correctly cast this spell.
Alex showed Elara the page and pointed to the drawing, "Look, you think you could do that?" He asked.
"Yeah, that's pretty easy, for me at least." Elara answered, "I actually used Earth Magic earlier." She added.
Alex looked at Elara confused, "Huh?" When?"
"When I created the manga. Earth Magic is more like material magic, it allows you to manipulate or straight up create materials. I used it to create paper, then I used Fire Magic with precision to make blackened marks on the paper with fire, effectively 'drawing' on it. To create the colored cover page I created pigments, and using Water Magic I drew the cover myself. After all that, I created glue and glued all the pages together. I also created a barrier coating the surface of each piece of paper to make sure it doesn't tear or anything." Elara explained.
"Alright, I guess." Alex said.
"That was an unenthusiastic response to my words." Elara said.
"So, we have books explaining magic, are you going to read any of them, or do we go somewhere else?" Alex asked, completely ignoring Elara's complains.
"I already read all the basic-level books, I think that should be enough for now. That's more than the average person, anyway." Elara answered.
"You sure?" Alex asked.
"I can't be bothered." Elara said bluntly.
"If you say so." Alex said, "So, any other book you want to read?" He asked.
"Maybe the 'Royal Dynasty Of Gheru' section? We'll learn something about your ancestors." Elara replied, already walking to that section without waiting for Alex's response. Alex, having his decision already made for him, followed Elara to the other side of the library.