The door shut behind her with a thundering clang. She spun around, panic rising as she tried the handle, but it wouldn't budge. Her fists pounded against the smooth, unmoving surface, her shouts echoing in the silence. After a few futile attempts, she stepped back, her breathing uneven as she scanned the room she'd entered.
Before her stood an immense library, its scope so vast it defied comprehension. Towering shelves stretched infinitely upward, their tops hidden in an endless void. Floating shelves hovered in midair, their positions shifting gently like silent sentinels. In the center of the room stood a gleaming, bejeweled pedestal with a note neatly placed upon it.
Approaching cautiously, she read the note aloud:
"Learn then leave everything. This is your starting point."
She whispered the words again, tasting their cryptic weight. The air around her shimmered, and the room transformed. Crystals erupted from the walls, bathing the library in radiant, ethereal light. The cold, oppressive gloom vanished, replaced by the warm glow of knowledge. She took a hesitant step forward, the surreal beauty around her making her breath catch.
Rows upon rows of books stretched farther than her eyes could follow, the sheer volume of them overwhelming. The room was a colossal cube as if the dimensions of reality themselves had been bent and folded to house this impossible space.
It wasn't just a library. It was a monument.
In the far corner, she noticed a second pedestal, smaller and less adorned than the first. Upon it rested a simple cup, its surface unremarkable save for the viscous black liquid it contained. Even from a distance, she caught its contradictory scent: rancid and putrid one moment, intoxicatingly floral the next.
Compelled by curiosity, she approached. Her movements felt unbidden, as though her body acted without her mind's consent. The cup's contents called to her, their still surface glimmering faintly under the crystal light.
She hesitated.
Her hand trembled as she lifted the cup to her lips. The first sip was enough. Warmth blossomed within her chest, spreading rapidly to her limbs, filling a void she hadn't realized existed. She felt satiated, though not by any earthly sense of fullness. The taste was indescribable, yet as soon as she swallowed, she could no longer remember what it had been.
Setting the cup back down, she wiped her mouth and turned to the shelves. Something inside her whispered a command, 'Read,' so she began to read.
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The books were not written in English, but the symbols bore a haunting familiarity. Their structure teased at the edges of her understanding, and though the language felt alien, she found herself deciphering it with a growing ease. As she worked, fragments of the text began to slot into her mind like pieces of a forgotten puzzle.
Time had no meaning here. Hours? Days? She didn't know how long she read, but the words poured into her like water into a parched vessel. The knowledge they contained was immense, and maddening.
There were books on martial arts, books on swordplay, sex, biology, and medicine all contained in this library.
The most interesting category for her was martial arts. She would often read in these books that the pinnacle of a martial artist would be his superhuman strength or his swordplay.
She yearned for the feeling of power.
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After a long time in the library, maybe decades, everything was memorized and read. She knew every medicinal practice to offer, from acupuncture, and herbology even to modern surgical techniques. This accomplishment, although impressive for a person, bore no fruit. As there was nothing she could practice on. She could not practice martial arts, nor herbology, nor anything for that matter. She was completely limited to this space, to this prison.
Each time she slept, she felt a feeling of energy creep up on her mind, eventually subsiding when she awoke. This energy started becoming present in her every day. She started feeling something supernatural, an inhuman energy. This scared her, as change was coming….
And change did come.