As soon as the fire starts, Arthur focuses himself.
In an instant, his consciousness leaves his body, being swallowed by the green light in his mind once more.
He opens his eyes again, being greeted by the little room in the center of the library. Everything still exactly as it was before he left.
It seemed like every time he reentered the library, he would be sent back to the last place he was in before leaving. He couldn't be sure yet, but it seemed reasonable to assume so. Regardless, he would confirm it after repeating the leaf experiment a few times.
"So now I wait for 21 minutes," he says, as he starts counting the seconds in his mind.
Quite the long waiting period. Spending such a long time counting every second would be a painfully boring endeavor.
He thought of killing time by skimming through those three books that were placed on the table, but he decided against it. He didn't want to get lost in his reading and mess up his timing, ruining his experiment.
But still, counting up to 1260 didn't seem like the most appealing of prospects.
He surveys the room.
Looking around, he found a solution to his conundrum. In one of the shelves, there was an hourglass. One of its sides was filled with white smooth sand, while the other was empty.
With this, he could leave counting the time to the hourglass and spend his time doing something more useful such as reading some of the books.
However, there was still an issue. He remembered from Lao's memories the way some books worked. Sometimes, when you opened one of these books, your consciousness would be taken away from you as you enter a profound state of meditation or enlightenment and learn the contents of said book.
These situations usually lasted for a long time, sometimes taking multiple hours or even whole days. If that were to happen right now, this experiment would be a failure. The leaf would turn to ash, and the embers would die out.
So he decided it would be more beneficial to remain prudent. He would have all the time in the world to read those books later.
And so, he motioned to the hourglass. He carefully picked it up, with a cool feeling entering his fingertips upon contact.
As soon as he touched the hourglass some information entered his brain.
'This hourglass takes 20 minutes to transfer the sand from side to the other'
This was quite convenient indeed. After all, the hourglass itself would not be very useful if he didn't know how much time it was supposed to measure.
With this information, he could now use it without any problems and avoid having to count every second in his mind up to 21 minutes.
Up to now, he had counted roughly 40 seconds since entering the library. So, he would count 20 seconds more and then set the hourglass down, allowing it to do the rest of the work.
'1, 2, 3, ... , 17, 18, 19, 20'
Once his counting hit 20, he set the hourglass down on the table.
'Okay, now I just have to wait.'
He pulls the chair back and sits down. His hands come together in a pyramid shape as he closely observes the grains of sand slowly falling down.
'A while later'
As the sand left in the upper container becomes scarce, Arthur readies himself, prepared to leave the library at a moment's notice.
As soon as the last grain hits the bottom, he immediately thinks of wanting to leave.
Everything goes black all of a sudden.
Arthur opens his eyes again after a while, feeling a bit dizzy. It seemed like he still was not used to these travels into and out of the library.
As soon as his eyes focus ahead, he's immediately greeted by a small flame, small and feeble, looking as if it would die at any moment. The leaf that fueled it lay there, mostly carbonized at this point.
'Ok, now if this flame dies out in the next 16 seconds, I'll consider this experiment a success. If I had to guess, looking at how frail the flame is, I would say it will definitely go out within that timeframe.'
Arthur begins counting seconds in his mind once again.
'1, 2, 3, 4'
When he reaches the 5th second in his mind, the flame can no longer maintain itself and dissipates into nothingness. The only thing left behind were the black remnants of the leaf, now devoid of any life.
'It seems like the first experiment was a success.'
This might be cause for celebration; however, Arthur's face remained serious.
He was still not completely convinced. To rid himself of any lingering doubts he might still harbor, he would repeat this experiment with the remaining leaves he had gathered.
'If they all reach similar results, I'll consider this matter solved, at least for now.'
And so, he got to work.
He grabbed another leaf and gently placed it on top of the embers.
(A few moments later)
Another fire seemed to have just died out in Arthur's cave. Right in front of the fireplace, Arthur still sat there, with a serious expression on his face. His body hadn't moved an inch from its original position.
'Some slight variations in the times happened. But that was to be expected due to how filled with inaccuracies this method is. Overall, all the results ended within the margin of error I had set up previously. So from now on, I will assume this 10 times delay between the real world and the library is accurate.'
He contemplates further.
'Of course, I'm still not completely sure about it. Later on, when I get access to more accurate tools, I will calculate exactly the difference in times between the real world and the library. Relying on inaccurate numbers can end up coming back to bite me.'
Indeed, a miscalculation of even a few measly seconds can be lethal in the right circumstances.
And this was not the only unanswered question Arthur had regarding the library. There were other technicalities that he had yet to completely understand.
For instance, what exactly happened to his body while he was inside the library? Was he asleep or unconscious? What if someone woke him up? Would he be removed from the library and be sent back into his body? Or would his body simply not react at all? Did his body have some sort of agency while he was at the library or did it act simply like a broken marionette?
What if he used the library in the middle of a conversation to recall something? Would he just fall face first into the table? And what if he spent years inside the library? Would his body simply die on the outside?
All of this needed to be thoroughly explored. This library did indeed look like an incredible tool. However, the most incredible of tools can be a death sentence in the wrong hands. Like an amateur playing around with a blade. One wrong move could create some serious problems.