Lucius's eighth birthday was a special one as it didn't unlock any major rooms but instead unlocked the second stage of the Arena and School of Generality, the Training Tower and the Library. The Training Tower had an unknown number of floors and each floor was a different scenario, the first floor was a fight against 10 people in a green plain, the second floor was a battle against a tier 1 flame bear and so on. The Training Tower was there to train him in real combat and although he wouldn't ever actually die he would get injured and feel all the pain, only if he did take life threatening damage would he be ejected out of the tower. This was important to help Lucius get a sense for the varieties of battle and how he could use things outside his own strength to win a battle, such as the environment or if the way the people were coordinated could be exploited or not. On his first day Lucius had reached the fifth floor before becoming too tired to continue. He noticed that the difficulty increased as he went up, he found the fifth floor in particular difficult as it wasn't a straight up battle but a mission were he had to break into a 4 story building and take out all 25 people in the building. He had actually failed the first 2 attempts he did as in the first one he went in guns blazing and got shut down pretty quickly from a full 25 man assault. The second time he took a more stealthy approach but he still alarmed the last 10 people on the 4th floor and got swarmed. On the third attempt though he began to utilise all of his equipment as he took out the first 2 guards at the entrance with his bow before moving in stealthily with his daggers and throwing equipment up to the fourth floor where he used the bow again to take out 3 people before switching to the spear as they came within range, taking out another 4 and then ending the last three with close quarters combat with a sword. He didn't care much for the blood or screams as he knew they weren't real people so it didn't actually matter if they died.
Once he arrived at the Library he entered without hesitation, expecting either his mother to appear or no one to be there at all, after all he didn't need someone to guide him through a library. However, to his surprise there was someone there but it was neither his father nor his mother. It was a small elephant. It was pure white and there weren't actually as many wrinkles on it as there should be, Lucius could tell that this was a young elephant which confused him as he didn't expect someone so young to be able to create a soul aspect. He walked up and noticed that they were actually asleep so he tried to wake them up by calling out excuse me. Only after a while of that did he decide to shake them awake. He touched them and was surprised by how soft and smooth they were. He was astonished by how lifelike they were as he had never felt like this from his parents, the elephant radiated an aura of life and tranquillity he had never seen before. Then a young girls voice spoke out abruptly.
"Uwah, who the heck are you?"
"That's my question!"
Lucius was flabbergasted at her rudeness. He had only ever interacted with his parents and had never actually met anyone his age before so he didn't know what to say.
"I'm Delilah Aurora, daughter of Melissa Aurora. Who are you, boy?"
"I'm Lucius Basil, son of Orion and Acacia Basil. What are you doing here in the Garden?"
"Oh I see, you're Lucius. I'm here in the Garden because our parents went to war so they threw us in here before leaving. My mother and yours are best friends. Actually I can't move between any of the rooms in the Garden without the owners permission so I've been stuck in this Library since I was 2. I've been waiting for you to arrive so I can finally leave this place."
"Wow that's a lot to take in there. So your 10 right and you were dropped in here with me since you were 2 because our parents went to fight a war. Then are you meant to be training alongside me? How did you even get in the Library in the first place, you have to be 8 to get in here right?"
"That's easy, the age restrictions only apply to you Lucius while anyone else can enter any room they like as long as they have the owners permission. Your parents left the restrictions to train you along a schedule they made and I'm sure you have seen the benefits of following the order they have put the rooms in for you. Back then when your mother left I had wandered into the Library so when she left and ownership was transferred to you and the age protocols were put in place I was left stuck here."
"How do you even know all of this if your only 10? And also what did you eat in here for so long? "
"That's because I'm a Divine Earth Elephant. We Divine Elephants spend 30 years in the womb so our minds are developed enough to retain most information once we are born and since I was 2 back then my mother was able to explain everything to me back then before coming in here. I'm here to train with you and one day help our parents too. Also the food is also delivered here by the feeding bots as they can move through the Garden as they like. Anyway I guess I should say welcome to the Library, my little heaven. Hehehe I've actually read everything up to the 5th floor already since I had 8 years to spend here."
"The fifth floor huh. I'll have to start from the beginning and go up right, mother would probably not let me just ask you. What are the books about anyway?"
"The books in here are about everything. There's history, battle tactics, customs of the clans but most importantly there are techniques. Battle techniques, movement techniques, weapon techniques, mind techniques and formation techniques. You're probably supposed to learn all the techniques on the first floor to increase your knowledge of qi circulation and battle. You should read your fill until you have to leave and then I'll come with you and we can go eat something that doesn't come from a stupid feeding bot."
"Hahaha I'll make you something to eat myself, I can read later. What do you want to eat?"
"I'm Vegetarian so anything with vegetables or fruit is fine."
"Hmmm, okay. I'll cook you some stir-fry with rice."
"Sounds nice."
They left together and Lucius cooked up some food to eat. They sat down and Delilah began using her snout to shovel food into her mouth like she had been starving for 8 years.