It's been two months since my sisters had begun practising magic, it was fun to watch at first, but I quickly grew bored of seeing my sister do push-ups and lift weights and moved on to more important matters.
I didn't waste these two months though, I never stopped my daily visits to papa's study, and as time went by I was able to read all the books in papa's study, leaving him amazed at my capacity for knowledge.
It actually wasn't that hard for me to finish all the books in his study, now that my mind was back to one hundred percent, it was not difficult to memorise all the books it contained since there was not much useful knowledge to ponder on. Most of it was just history and fairy tales anyway. So, it was now time to move on to bigger things.
I was once again seated on my father's shoulders moving down the beautifully decorated halls of our family mansion, lined with intricate wood carvings and beautiful family portraits. It was no doubt, a noble family's place of residence.
After I informed papa of my completion of his study, he decided it was time to introduce me to the family library. I wasn't very interested at first, but once he told me that the family library had books on magic, I was bought, sold and paid for at that moment.
I had never been to this library, neither had I even heard of it, but apparently, it had been in the family for an incredibly long time. Before that, it belonged to another noble house and another before that. I was shivering at the potential ancient knowledge that I could get my hands on.
We had been walking in the halls for about two minutes before we came into a windowless foyer that, if I had to measure was about half a football field in length and breadth, there was a golden orb attached to the ceiling that illuminated the room, and the walls were not wooden like the living areas of the mansion; instead, they were made of shiny marble while the floors were covered in a metal plating that resembled gold in colour but was not as reflective.
On another side of the foyer was a set of massive, stone double doors that looked to be no less than ten feet high from where I stood, they were covered in glowing symbols and carving depicting great battles. At the centre of this door was a carving of a giant eye that seemed to be watching over all of this with cold indifference.
We came to a stop in front of this massive door, and the eye that was staring at us lit up suddenly, and a majestic but emotionless voice filled the hall.
" you have returned once again, have you decided to use your entry pass." The eye said to us
"No, I have decided to pass it to my son." Father said, removing me from his shoulders and placing me down on the floor while giving me a gentle pat of encouragement on the back to step forward.
"Hmmm, are you sure?" the eye asked, rotating itself in the socket in the wall until its gaze fell on me, watching me with cold, glowing irises.
"Yes." Papa replied, without hesitation.
This seemed to have been a much more serious affair than I thought it was.
"Okay then, have him place his hand on the orb" it replied, as an opaque orb that glowed blue detached from the door and came to hover in front of me.
I turned, inquisitively to my father, a little uncomfortable with this situation.
"it's okay, just put your hand on it." Papa said in a comforting voice.
I stepped forward and cautiously put my hand on the orb. The light it was emitting intensified until it vanished in a single radiant flash.
I felt a burning sensation on my palm, and I turned my hand around just in time to see the remnants of the blue glow on my palm before it slowly faded away to reveal the symbol of an eye on my hand.
"you have now received authorisation to access the database." The indifferent voice of the eye rang out in my mind.
The jarring noise of stone scraping against stone rang out in the hall as the door, and the eye on it split down the middle to reveal a dark interior with no identifiable details at all just pitch black.
Now I was freaking out.
"Papa? Are you sure this is safe?" I asked more than a little scared of the darkness on the other side of the door.
"your ancestors have been entering this door for generations, and everyone came out fine son. You will be fine" papa said confidently.
"Okay then" I replied and began to slowly trudge my way into the darkness ahead of me.
One I stepped into the darkness I was, hit with another flash of light, and when I could finally see again, I looked around and was surprised to find myself in an all-white room.
It was such a flawless white that if not for the torches on the wall showing me the limits of the room, I would assume I was in a boundless white plane.
"Welcome to the hall of knowledge bestowed to the house of Tellus by the Eye." A disembodied and androgynous voice rang out in the room.
"This hall of knowledge has a few features that are put in place to help with your learning experience; would you like a tutorial."
"yes." I responded.
"The hall is padded with an adaptive interior, built to shape itself to suit all your comfort needs. It also serves as a display apparatus for all information that the user would like to access." it replied.
"Okay, can I have a chair." I said, and barely a second later the floor began to liquefy, and a simple white coloured stool emerged from the floor
"Can I adjust the colour?" I asked.
"yes" it replied.
After playing around with the design feature for a while, I settled on a bean bag and took a seat.
"show me all the knowledge you have on magic." I asked.
My field of vision was subsumed by floating holograms, depicting different books and scrolls with their titles emblazoned in capital letters hanging over them. I was immediately frozen in place, not knowing what to choose from the long list of options.
"Hey... Umm, what's your name" I asked after floundering for a few moments.
"I was designated no. 365438299731A-12X by my creator" it replied.
"wow! That's long. Who is your creator?" I asked out of curiosity.
"User access is not sufficient to access this knowledge." It replied
Well, I should have expected that.
"Okay, then I will just call you iris. Are you okay with that?" I asked, naming it after the eye on the entrance.
"New designation accepted until the user is no more available this hall of knowledge will be known as iris." Iris replied to me.
"okay iris, I'm having trouble choosing; any suggestions? Nothing too complicated, the basics are fine" I asked
"Scanning database for suitable knowledge on magic. I have chosen a few books that might fit the user's criteria" iris replied.
A list of five books appeared in my field of vision, and amongst them, one immediately caught my eye.
[THE BASICS OF MAGIC: MEDITATION, SOUL POWER AND SPELL MODELS BY Romanus Paul]
Let get started.