With Akane waiting outside and Kai being granted permission to stay in the library, Kai watched the librarian go back to writing. She didn’t even spare him a second glance as she ignored his presence.

He stood there awkwardly for a few seconds before he lightly coughed, covering his mouth.

Hand frozen, she shot him a harsh glare. “What?” She spit out.

Looking uncomfortable, Kai asked, “I was wondering if there were any books on gravity or involving gravity magic?”

Scowling she returned to her previous task, tracing over words inside the ancient tome with her pen. The faded words became more prominent once again. Without looking up she responded, “Second floor, section G, third floor, section E.”

“Thank you,” he said. Walking as quietly as possible he inched away from the scariest person he had met since his mother. He was a little confused. She had been rude to him and yet he found himself very attracted to her. He hoped it was just teenage hormones acting up because she was beautiful and not a new inclination.

Even with three floors to the large library, there wasn’t much open space. Four tables spread out across each floor with the rest of the space filled with bookcase stacks all packed with tomes and books of different sizes and colors. Navigating his way to the second floor, Kai found section G easily enough. The only problem was the row of books went on for a dozen meters and was stacked ten books high on each side. With thousands of options, Kai began his tireless search by checking each title one by one with no other clues to narrow down his search.

Twenty minutes later he finally came across a book with gravity in its title. “The Science of Gravity,” which was written by an author he had never heard of. Grabbing the book, he noticed it was thin and very old. The cover of the book had also been worn down through time and mishandling. Proceeding through the rest of the row, he found nothing else that hinted at having to do with gravity by the title. Giving up on the second floor, he moved to the third.

The third floor was an exact copy of the second. Despite searching for almost half an hour, Kai could not find the book on gravity magic to his frustration. Clearly, it is not a well-known or popular subject of interest or study in the Ashbourne Academy. Kai knew for certain there would be many books and teachers available on Titan Prime regarding gravity magic, giving him another reason to win first place in the tournament and hope this father would deliver his promise of either finding some funds or a sponsor.

Lucian and he had already been in the fourth realm over 1200 years ago. If the man was still alive, Kai couldn’t even imagine what kind of power he had attained by now. The prospect seemed daunting, impossible even. But if Kai wanted a chance, he needed access to the best.

Sitting down Kai leafed began reading through, The Science of Gravity. The short book begins by discussing the history and discovery of gravity by Sir Isaac Newton. After some boring biography about Newton, he found out that apparently, Robert Hooke had discovered gravity before Newton and had even accused him of plagiarizing his work. It was also noted that 1000 years before that astronomer Brahmagupta-II had been the first to discover the law of gravity, but it was barely mentioned. The book primarily talked about Newton and his discovery of gravity and his laws.

Kai didn’t want to be rude, but it was boring material. He wanted to know the secrets of gravity and not some Earth scientists who all claimed to discover it.

Here we go. Information on gravity.

Gravity is a fundamental force of the known universe. It is the force by which an object or energy with mass attracts other objects towards its center. Mass is the quantity of matter in an object. It is what gives everything weight on a planet.

I already know this…

The gravitational force is dependent on mass and distance. The larger the mass, the stronger the attraction of gravity is. Whereas, the further two objects are from each other, the weaker the pull of gravity becomes.

Newton’s law of universal gravitation states that every particle with mass attracts every other particle with mass in the universe with a gravitational force proportional to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them.

The rest of the book discussed formulas and equations used by physicists for calculating the force of gravity, among other things. All the information from the book was knowledge taken from Earth. Kai was certain there was a difference between Earth and Eris. After all, Earth only had one moon orbiting around it, but Eris has dozens of other planets orbiting. Each pulling on the other. They were also closer than the moon had been to Earth as well. The Myriad of Worlds was truly mysterious when it came to gravitational forces.

Continuing scouring through the books for more information, Kai heard snoring next to him. Startled, he looked to his left and saw Akane, the sneaky little fox sleeping on the chair next to him. In his shock, he shot up, flinging the chair back until it crashed to the ground, breaking the silence throughout the entire library. Wincing at the sudden loud sound in the quiet library Kai looked on in horror and fear at the mischievous fox. He thought she understood to wait for him to finish. The only thing he could think of was that he was going to die, and not a monster or beast, but to the beautiful librarian when she found out.

“Damnit Akane, you’re going to get me kicked out, banned, or killed. Is that what you want? Your food source dead?” Kai whispered. He closed his eyes in pain at the headache forming due to the stress Akane was giving him at this moment. Kai was panicking, he knew the librarian would ban him if he had committed one more unholy transgression.

A clearing of the throat startled him from his thoughts. Turning around he saw the same librarian had appeared behind him without making any noise. Gods, I really need to get a detection ability. This is getting ridiculous. Kai opened his mouth to speak, but he found himself unable to say anything. He saw the irritated eyes of the librarian. “I can explain,” Kai declared.

“Explain away. Please tell me why you are making unnecessary noise in my library?” Her hands were on her hips, glaring at Kai with a fierceness, akin to hatred and loathing.

“Noise?” Turning he looked at the chair next to him, now empty as if it remained so the entire time.

That little...

“Oh. I am sorry miss. I became excited when I read something in the book. I didn’t mean to knock down the chair.” Discreetly looking for Akane, he turned around and picked up the chair setting it upright. There was no fox to be seen, either she had vanished out of sight or Kai was hallucinating. He wasn’t sure what was worse.

“See that you remain quiet next time, or I will suspend you from entering until a time when you learn to follow the rules.” With one last glare, the librarian turned and began walking to the stairs. The library was once again completely quiet.

Gulping, Kai decided it was time to leave. Putting the book back in its place on the second floor, Kai walked to the exit. Akane had not reappeared, but Kai was certain if he wasn’t hallucinating, she could take care of herself.

Walking through the doors, the sun had begun setting in the distance. He had lost track of time inside the library. The sounds of people talking, clangs from weapons, and everyday life filled his ears as he stepped outside.

Starting down the path, he heard a single yap. Shocked, Kai jumped to the side, his hand going towards his nonexistent sword handle. Akane sat next to where he just stood, snickering at his reaction. A bunch of different emotions such as shock, anger, and confusion passed through Kai all in one second as he looked upon the tiny naughty fox. A single idea came to him that could explain everything that had happened.

Picking up the fox underneath her front leg-pits, her head sat only a few inches away. He looked into her eyes, unable to discern anything. “Can you teleport? Have you been fucking with me this entire time?”

The only response he received was a single yap and a head tilted, implying nothing.

“And why don’t you weigh more? I’ve seen the way you eat.”

Another head tilt, this time the other way.

Kai dropped his head until his forehead was flush with Akane’s forehead. “I wave the flag of surrender Akane, I need you to chill. You’re going to get me in serious trouble. I was trying to be discreet here at the Academy,” Kai pleaded with the small fox. He knew she understood him. “Please go easy on me.”

With a roll of her eyes, Akane vanished from Kai’s grasp, reappearing on the ground in front of his eyes instantaneously. With a single yap, she turned and began marching down the path to the cafeteria with a little perk in her step.

Kai stood in unquestioned shock, staring at the troublemaker walking away. “Are you fucking serious...”

“Kai, Ashley,” Sven called out signaling them to approach the combat ring.

Sitting on the grass, Kai reached out and grabbed the wooden sword to his right. The feel of the wood and grain and become a familiar thing over the last few weeks. No longer were the students allowed to bring their own weapons to his melee training class. Only wooden weapons provided by the academy would be permitted in combat between students unless they were participating in an official duel or the end of the year tournament.

The crunch of grass turned into soft thumps as his boots met the dirt of the combat ring. Kai felt tense, his entire body was stiff with anticipation and dread. Over the last couple of weeks, Sven had begun teaching Kai a new form. It was basically a new set of moves commonly taught to sword-wielding trainees in the Ashbourne Kingdom. It was called “Flow like Ash” and was basically a mobile style of sword fighting that relied on graceful footwork. Kai wasn’t so sure about it being useful for the kind of fighting he would be doing under his gravity magic, but it was the kata taught to all students at the academy initially.

The time had come to begin sparring with other students. Kai’s first match would be against the highest leveled student, Ashley. He knew there was no way he would win this spar. The stats and level differences were too far apart to make this anything but a slaughter. And even if magic was allowed, Kai was confident he would still get his ass kicked. The difference in realms was very significant in fights.

She stood relaxed, leaning against the wooden spear which was embedded in the ground as she stared at Kai’s approach. She had a smirk on her face. “Go easy on me,” Ashley said giving him a wink. Her light and easy smile showed she was enjoying his current dilemma.

“I think that’s my line,” Kai frowned. He didn’t know how to approach her. Not only was she faster and stronger, but she also outranged him. The skill she showed with her spear during class was also nothing to scoff at. She was likely better than Kai’s skill with a sword. For such an easy-going, teasing girl, she put a lot of effort into activities during class.

Enigma was the word Kai would use to describe her. She was always trying to be friendly with him, more so than any other student. Kai was under no illusion that he was someone special at the moment. Sure, he worked out often and was decent looking, but that didn’t explain her odd behavior towards him. If only the librarian was as interested in me as Ashley is.

He had a guess she wanted something from him, but he couldn’t even fathom what. She never asked him for anything, only kept trying to get closer. Maybe I should pretend to give in and see what she wants?... Nah. Not a good idea. I suck at subterfuge.

“How about we make a bet?” She put her finger to her chin, looking thoughtful. “If I win, how about... you take me on a date?” She asked.

Well, I’d say that solves the question of what she wants, he thought sarcastically.

Kai could feel killing intent radiating from the sidelines where the other students watched. Looking to the side he could see a frown on Nicolas’ face. The other members of group S looked livid.

“Why? Why are you playing these games, Ashley? What do you want?”

“Who’s to say I want anything? Perhaps... I just want to spend time with you. You're definitely my type.” She smiled sweetly, throwing a wink at Kai.

“No.”

“Fine. I was going to let you win, but now I think I’ll punish you a little.” She burst toward Kai without warning. Before Kai could properly react, the blunt wooden spearhead had impacted his stomach, sending him flying back onto the grass.

Instinctively, he grabbed his stomach as his lunch threatened to come up. If he hadn’t jumped back ever so slightly and softened the blow last second, he would be in even more pain. He saw Ashley standing in the same spot from where she had begun the fight. Not a single strand of hair was out of place, making her appear as if she hadn’t moved once.

“Do you know why instructor Sven put you and me in the first fight together?” Ashley said. “Even though it would be better off for each of us to fight someone closer to our level. I can assure you; it was not for my benefit.”

Grabbing the wooden sword off the ground, Kai shuffled closer to his starting position. “I don’t care. Let’s just fight.”

A flash of wood came too quickly once again. Instead of a straight shot, it swung from the side slamming into Kai’s wrist, forcing him to drop his sword. Sweat clung to his brow, as he held his wrist. The pain radiated, throbbing with every beat of his heart.

Reaching down he grabbed the sword with his left hand. He had learned to fight with his left but wasn’t as proficient as his primary hand.

Fake gasping, “Are you a masochist?” Ashley’s face mirrored one of shock, watching Kai grab the sword. “Do you like me punishing you?” She teased coyly.

“Enough. Next, Nicolas and Johnathan,” Sven yelled out, stopping the one-sided massacre. “Kai to me.”

Blowing him an air kiss, Ashley sauntered off to the other students. There was apprehension as she approached, every student taking a step back unconsciously.

Kai limped to the impassive-faced instructor Sven.

“She wasn’t lying. As harsh as that was, it was for your benefit. As passable as your sword skills are, it will not be enough to bridge the divide between you and the other students. You need to master your magic before the end-of-year tournament. Even your brother didn’t face such challenges during his time in the Academy. Without even counting the two abnormalities of Nicolas and Ashley, there are many other students that could win first place this year at the tournament. Oh, and try to get into the forging stage before the tournament or you won’t have any hope of winning.” Sven sagely lectured.