Kerfuffle in the Library

'What the hell is he doing?' Guy exclaimed as he tried to divert his attention from the irritating noise.

The sound continued for a minute and then stopped. But then immediately after, it resumed. It sounded as if someone was aggressively turning the pages of a book.

'Who even reads like that?' Guy asked himself sarcastically.

The noise attracted the attention of Mai, who was sitting across from Guy, and she irritatedly stood up and walked towards the source.

Guy had an inkling of what was going to happen. He had read way too many novels, and this scenario looked like a layup right into a slam-dunk. He was up for some entertainment so he stealthily moved towards a seat closer to the show. All he was missing was some popcorn.

"What are you doing?" A feminine voice spoke up first. This caused the aggressive turning to stop.

"Reading," a nonchalant masculine voice responded.

'Wow, what an asshole. Does it count as reading if you swipe through pages after a cursory glance?' Guy ran his commentary.

"What's with the mountain of books? Are you going to read all of them?"

"Yes," Jo replied.

Guy really wanted to punch his face after hearing the way he spoke. 'This dude really knows how to push people's buttons.'

The girl responded with the formulaic "hmph!" and stomped out. Guy figured this girl wouldn't let Jo go that easily. After all, it's the integrity of one's face we're talking about here.

Guy returned to reading his book while trying really hard to tune out the horrendous noise of aggressive page-turning. After a while, he got used to it and it turned into white noise.

Compared to the rate at which Jo was consuming books, Guy was a lot slower. One thing Guy didn't understand was the reason for Jo's urgency. There was at least a year left till the next apprentice tournament. And given that he only had one student there shouldn't have been a need for Jo to hoard all the books in the library.

Sure he had an almost cheat-like ability to perfectly copy books by just scanning through the pages. But that meant that he had an advantage!

Shrugging off the absurdity of the current situation, Guy returned the book he was currently reading and picked up the next one.

As he moved across the rows of shelves, he saw Jo coming out from one row and entering the next. Guy watched enviously as Jo continued his usual shenanigans.

The library itself wasn't as big as those back on Earth. The books here were specialised and were primarily on magecraft. So there were sections for cultivation methods, basics of beast taming, alchemy (the medicinal kind not the one where they turn metal into gold), spell-casting, and some primers on enchanting and smithing.

Every time Guy found an interesting proposition for Markus, he would take down some notes for future reference. Since Guy had only recently entered this world, he was still a little green when it came to casting spells and cultivating in general. Guy wanted to shore up his basics so that he could practice by himself later on and gain some experience.

While laying in bed last night, Guy tried to cultivate by following the method the old body used. It was called 'Way of the Burning Fist,' and it was a martial-arts centric cultivation style, which happened to be the most common type in this world. As its name suggested, the method enhanced the user's affinity with the fire element and naturally infused the user's mana with burning properties.

As he read through it, Guy couldn't help but facepalm. It was filled with lines that reminded him of those bogus motivational books. The first chapter was full of drivel asking the reader to imagine 'You're a great big burgeoning flame. A bright orange light that burns everything in its path. You consume everything indiscriminately. You are fire! Be the Fire!'

Guy nearly tossed the book in the trash. Unfortunately, he couldn't delete books from the RoK. Guy tried to console himself by saying that the original body chose this because it looked easy to learn. But after looking through a few others, Guy really wanted to quit being a mage.

The worst offenders were the styles that catered to a singular element. They almost always contained similar mantras asking the reader to 'be a sturdy tree', or 'be flowing water', or 'be lightning'. Guy could empathise with Markus after reading those books. What the hell does 'be lightning' even mean? It was such an abstract statement that offered nothing in terms of insight.

There were other cultivation books in the RoK and the academy's library. Some were more profound, asking the reader to consider ideas and thoughts similar to those in philosophical discussions from his old world. For instance, one style asked the reader to 'consider the need for material possessions.' That particular style encouraged the reader to pursue complete dissociation from the world and to achieve a state free of earthly restraints. As a person borne from a capitalistic family, separating himself from his material possessions was asking for death.

Guy wanted to delve deeper into what made a cultivation method, but the Sword of Damocles called the apprentice tournament hung over his neck!

Another observation Guy made was about spells. There were many kinds of spells recorded in the library. Essentially, they could be classified into three main categories: ritual-based, chanting-based, and circle-based.

Ritual-based magic generally required preparation. The effects of these magics were massive in scale and would require a lot of reagents and complicated inscriptions and chants. These magics were tier-less, only requiring a fixed amount of mana which in turn could be extracted from nature, or multiple mages all involved in the ritual. These rituals could be self-sustaining as long as the appropriate reagents were provided.

Chanting-based magic was the most common type. Its advantage was that the caster only had to remember the exact series of phrases and intonations corresponding to the magic they wanted to cast. The words were in a language called 'Ancient Tongue' which had very strict semantic laws, ensuring that its meaning could never be misunderstood. Because of that, the language was highly mana resonant. The only disadvantage of this type of magic was that the spell must meet the nature of the user's cultivation style. A mage practising earth-based styles couldn't chant fire-type magic, no matter how hard they tried.

The final type was circle-based magic. This type of magic was cultivation-neutral, which meant anyone could use it. The only disadvantage was that the caster had to memorise a convoluted diagram called formations. The diagram was usually enveloped by a circle, with the complexity of the designs inside it corresponding to the complexity of the magic itself. There were many familiar geometric shapes, however, he couldn't figure out their purpose. He would have to break it down and evaluate everything in detail to properly decode how this magic worked. He also found some text in Ancient Tongue inside some of the shapes.

The tiers of the last two types of magic depended on the amount of mana required. There was usually a range that determined where these spells ranked.

Guy straight-away crossed out ritual magics as an option since they were too complicated, expensive and time inefficient. He also cancelled chanting magic, as it would require a cultivation style to complement it. The only option left was the circle magics.

Guy then began keeping an eye out for some promising spells to try later on. But as he was doing so, he saw that Jo had finished his hoarding and was now leaving the library.

On his way out, Jo was stopped by Mai.

"Wait! Jo, I have a question. I saw that you were reading the book on mana-efficient alchemy, I have a doubt about one topic brought up by the author. Can you help me out?" Mai asked. Even though Guy couldn't see her face, her voice clearly carried a hint of condescension.

'Is this the legendary face-slapping?' Guy prepared himself.

Jo responded dismissively, "Sure ask away."

"It said in the book that 'siphoning raw mana into any mixture while aerating it was found to increase the efficiency of the infusion process.' I don't quite understand why."

Jo smirked and said, "I know what you're talking about, but you see the book had a typo in it. You don't aerate the mixture, and you don't siphon raw mana. You are actually supposed to circulate air-infused mana to the mixture. The information was corrected in the book's afterword which was later attached as an additional page. The reason for the method should be self-evident, so I won't go into the details."

Mai was taken aback. She ran to the shelf where the book was kept and quickly navigated to the final page.

Guy could swear he heard a palm hitting soft flesh, like an unceremonious slap on a tender face. Or was it just inside his head?

Mai returned the book and slowly walked back to where Jo originally was. On her way, she noticed Guy trying to muffle his laughter. Guy quickly coughed and put on a neutral expression. But when he looked in front of him he saw that he too had subconsciously built a fort out of books. Guy's eyes widened.

'Wait! Is it my turn? Girl ready your other cheek this daddy- wait where did she go?' When Guy looked up, Mai was nowhere to be seen.

As he swivelled his head he heard a feminine voice moving farther away from the library.

"Jo! Wait for me! I have some more things I want to discuss!"

Guy sighed, 'How does this even work? Why is she even attracted to him? Why do face-slappers get all the girls? Are these girls masochists? Mast please help!' He cried internally.

(…)