20 The Actual Weird Book

The next day. Aser had gotten over the embarrassment from the weird book, and was hoping Julia had as well. The sun was peeking through the clouds as the morning dew scattered around the field. The slight wintry breeze made him hug his coat tighter around him.

Aser wanted to walk around the grounds for a bit instead of staying cooped inside. It was only two more weeks for school to start, and he needed to buy the books he needed for class. Even though he read so many of them in the library, the school would still require you to bring your own to lessons. Perhaps they would allow a student to borrow the texts from the library for a while, but they would eventually have to get their own copies.

He remembered Julia telling him about this bookstore close to the school grounds that had a lot of interesting materials as well as the ones they needed for class. Since he hadn't really explored the city by himself, Aser decided to check the store to see if he could find anything of interest.

Heading out of the large white-gold gates, the boy walked south until he neared a street lined with different stores. The merchants in Shelfield Coast City got most of their materials through imports, while the exports consisted of aquatic goods such as fish and clams as well as dark iron from the underground mines. Due to the island's proximity to the Western Continent, the city had a thriving navy and merchant economy.

Aser kept walking until he saw a small shop with the sign "Sam's Curious Literature". The building seemed to meld with the others in the area, and seemed well taken care of. The windows gave a view to the insides of the shop, filled with shelves and popular books on display. There were a few people in there already, and it seemed to be relatively prosperous.

Stepping inside, the air around him turned much warmer, allowing him to loosen the tight coat. Glancing around the place, Aser decided to explore a bit. There were a few bookshelves in the front of the store filled with tomes of various different titles and subjects, as well as a resting area for anyone that wanted to peruse them before buying. He noticed there was a young man sitting behind the counter absorbed in playing with a small metal instrument. If he remembered right, it was called a harmonica, a favorite among the sailors and natives of the city.

Aser noticed there was a small pile of older and shabbier books near the back of the store as well. Finding nothing too interesting among the bookshelf, he decided to check out the pile. Flipping through them, he saw that most of these were either torn or worn out. At the moment he thought there was nothing much interesting, he saw a small black book about the size of his palm. It didn't have any titles, and the cover seemed to be made from shark leather.

Most leather used were processed or cow leather, or even papyrus bound, but shark leather was very uncommon for books of this size. Shark leather was known to be very durable but also highly expensive, and most would use it for precious tomes or scrolls for binding. Finding one that was used as a cover seemed very rare to Aser.

Flipping through the little book, he saw that the pages were empty. Deciding to return it, he put it down and was about to go over to the counter to get his school books. Recently, Aser had also gotten into the habit of activating Mind's Eye before speaking to someone to get better at reading their emotions, as suggested by Ashes, so he enabled the skill. Briefly glancing back to the pile, Aser noticed that there was a slight surge of Essence Particles from the black book. Curious, he picked it back up and was surprised to see there were words there now.

The language it was written in seemed very weird to him. It was in a form of symbolic association, with lines and circles. Grabbing the book, he headed to the counter to get the others and left the store. The boy behind the counter seemed curious as to why Aser wanted to buy a blank book, but still charged him only 10 Copper Notes for it.

…

Back at the Academy's Library, Aser arranged his study materials in one of the bookshelves in the study room, and sat down to inspect the black book. He noticed that there was a symbol on the front of the book as well.

"Ashes, can you understand what language this is?"

[It seems to be similar to the Baltish text from the Setting Sun Islands, but more ancient.]

"Can you see if you can read the Essence History and translate it?"

[Sure. Translation in progress.]

Aser left the translation to Ashes while he sat down and started to cultivate before lunch. These days he preferred to cultivate before lunch, as Julia was usually around afterwards so it wasn't acceptable for him to just leave his guest alone while he cultivated. After 5 hours, Aser woke up with a notification from Ashes.

[Aser, I was able to decipher some of the words, but I've figured out the title of the book. It's a single word, and from my understanding after translation, it means "Starlight"]

"Starlight? That seems special."

In fact, Aser was confused as to why he was the only able to see the essence particles from the book. He was sure that there were plenty of other people that can detect essence particles, maybe not as clearly as him, but they would still be able to detect them from this book.

"Could it be due to my inherited blessing?!", he thought excitedly! Ever since he unlocked his system and saw his passives, he had wondered what the blessing was for and why it was related to stars. He never felt any particular connection to the night sky. Sure, he liked looking at it, but no other feelings. Realizing that he could maybe find a way to improve his blessing, Aser excitedly asked to translate the rest of the text to him.