38. READING

Climbing the flight of stairs after showing the guards his card, a big library unfolded in his vision. There were rows upon rows of shelves filled with books, while people sat inside some type of tubes, that had two chairs and a table.

From his position he could see that slots of those tubes were filled up, though there were still some empty ones. Once in a while he would see someone checking out books on the shelves.

Walking around, Noah pondered on what to read first, there were so many topics and things he would like to know about. Looking for the reception table, Noah found it.

"Good morning, how may I help you sir" the lady behind the reception said.

"Um, good morning. I am new here and I don't know where to find the books I am interested in", Noah replied scratching his head.

"There are tags at the end of each group shelves, to know what you are looking for," the lady replied, with a smile.

"Thank you.", Noah said also with a smile.

Walking back to the shelves, Noah looked for the said tags, and truly they were there. He found tags that said, 'Spell scrolls,' 'Plants,' 'History books' 'Magic'.

And some others, but the one that managed to catch his eye was the tag with history. Though he had heard some from Gerald, he was sure those weren't all.

And though he knew that whatever he found on this floor would be the most censored information available to only the grassroots of the country, he didn't care.

Browsing through the collection of books, Noah picked randomly, glancing around to see if there was any space left, Noah eventually found one.

Walking over and entering the tube through the door like opening, Noah found that immediately he entered the opening was sealed, and the tube lit up with a yellow radiance, and to Noah's surprise he found that he couldn't hear what was going on outside.

Although the place was quiet, some sounds from the queuing humans inevitably found it's way up the first floor, but now he couldn't hear a single thing.

Deciding to try something, Noah screamed, and found that his voice returned to his ear, as though there was a barrier that couldn't let it disperse.

"Is this even safe?,"Noah muttered to himself, "A person could get killed or attacked and no one would hear their screams for help," Noah added.

"Or maybe the formations are there for instances like that", he concluded.

Focusing on the green book on the table. Noah read it's title out loud, ' The Land War" 'by 'Lione Macarness'.

Rasing an eyebrow at the title, Noah proceeded to open it and begin reading.

"I remember it like it was yesterday, a fierce battle was about to occur on a vast plain that was at the centre before each nation's border with some hills around it."

"Three armies on three different sides of the plain, each not hiding their intent to fight."

"I remember asking one of the many soldiers, if he was scared, and the young man whose power was in tier 2, replied in the, 'I am. There are incredibly powerful people in each of the armies, and I am not sure If I will return home. So how wouldn't I be scared."

"His words struck me hard. This was what our younger generations were facing. It wasn't fair."

Noah could feel the mans mixed feelings of anger and sadness, needless to say he dived back into the book.

"The reason the three nation's were about to battle, was because of a land, or rather a small forest. That was found out that it could give rise to magical plants up to tier 5."

"Most people would not understand the importance, but I did, after all I was a tier 3. Such a plant when refined could probably make me advance to tier 5 or peak of tier 4."

Noah's mind spun at those lines, "Tier 5," he muttered, "That would be crazy", he added before he continued his reading.

"Suffocating aura's permeated the battlefield, as tension filled the air, this was the first battle, and we all knew it wouldn't be the last. After about an hour of suspenseful waiting, the leaders finally gave their words."

"Honestly I won't lie, the scene was magical, even for someone as old as me. Colourful attacks spread out on the battlefield, as the first battle began. I myself had gone up a hill, not too far from there, so I was able to witnesses the ironic beauty of the scene.

"But I knew the battle hadn't began until the powerful experts entered the fight."

Skipping the parts that talked about the numbers of each armies or the type of battle formations they used, Noah continued when he found an interesting line.

"Five from each side, each releasing power in the fourth tier, I was shocked by this sight, experts as strong as that were very valuable, but for them to be deployed in the first fight was stupid to me. Or perhaps the nation leaders wanted to end it in one battle"

"Then they began, immediately their attacks collided, I knew I wasn't safe in that area anymore, and to confirm my thoughts, the shockwaves released from thier powerful attacks reached my position, destabilizing the hill and bringing it down. Only the shock Waves"

"I managed to escape with just a few ribs broken, but that wasn't all, inevitably more shockwaves hit me, worsening my condition. I had to escape, and luckily I was able too".

Skipping all the parts about the writers pitiful struggle to remain alive, even though he was on the sidelines, Noah dived back in when he found an interesting paragraph

"To say the least, the battles were brutal. Thousands died, and eventually the Cusk Nation won due to our extremely seasoned experts. All for a land."

The book ended in that line, it turned out that the writer had witnessed almost all the battles that occurred within the five year war, between the three nation's.

Though he had skipped most of the book, Noah at least knew that their were multiple experts who were powerful, and plants that were valuable existed. "Exciting", He said inwardly.

Returning the book back to it's shelve.

Noah read more of those types of books, some Interesting while some basically garbage, but one thing that was common among those books was that during the portrayed struggle between the nation's, only the Cusk Nation won.

And this was very fishy, he knew that the ones that had the true stories ,or different outcome were in the upper floors.

Noah read other books from the shelves that interested him in record time. Due to his slow motion skill, he could read a book in twenty seconds.

He read books talking about magical plants, magical Beasts, some short scrolls about cultivation, and weapons.

But some were incomplete, mostly removed and taken to upper floors.

He also found some books about the geography of the world, and apparently the name of the his current planet was 'Cregar', and it's sun rose from the South rather than from the East in Earth.

He also read some other interesting things, but he had to be conservative of time, since he only had an hour.

Then when he was finally bored of reading books, he decided it was time to check out some spells, though he wouldn't find his element among them, he wanted to know how people learnt spells without the help of the system.