After my shock at finding an English book abated a bit, I quickly understood that the book probably wasn't really in English. More likely was, that a spell on it made the words turn legible to anybody who read it.

I could think of only a few reasons why anybody would go to that effort, but reading the short message on the first page of the book proved me wrong.

Book one of Halomiumani's books on elemental water magic. If you are reading this, you are of a humanoid race and may use this book's knowledge as you see fit. All I ask in return is that if anybody ever asks you who taught you, you mention my name.

A short ping made me curse. Nine left. But I wasn't going to stop now! I might have found exactly what I was looking for.

This was not a school or study book, or at least not one in the traditional sense that I knew.

Moving to page two, I saw two small rows of images depicting hand gestures. Below them stood more text, and I quickly read through it. It was an explanation of the different types of images used and what they corresponded with, in something called the Corlon Alphabet of Magical gestures. It also explained that gestures should be made in a single, quick, and fluid motion, then chained together immediately to the next.

Shelving the knowledge for later, I wondered who or what the Corlons were. Perhaps I could find a book about them later, but for now, I continued flipping through the book, hoping I wouldn't get another ping.

The first few pages explained how to go about learning the first spell, and I saw the requirements where a jar filled with water and a really nimble set of fingers. Then I came to the first spell page.

Water ball. A useless spell, only castable when close to a body of water. Will do a small amount of blunt damage if used with great force and may be used to douse small fires or make the ground slippery.

The only redeeming quality of the spell is the fact it uses most of the common hand gestures later needed for more complicated spells. If one combines the practice of this with Drizzle, one will end up learning almost ninety-one of the one hundred hand gestures that make up the basic level of Elemental Water magic. This is more than most other initial two spells.

Another ping, and I groaned. Quickly turning to the next page, I saw Drizzle at the top and closed the book before I could learn something I might not want.

Staring at the book, I summoned my status.

> 192/200: Knowledge

So, eight points left.

If I strained, I might be able to memorize the hand gestures for these two spells. Then, practicing them would allow me to become good with them. But that would almost guarantee going over two hundred.

What had Agga said again about what would happen if I went beyond my knowledge cap? Something about losing the knowledge I used least… But what knowledge was that? The knowledge I had before coming here, or what I learned while here? If it was the latter, I could live with that. I had learned a whole lot of useless things about cities, countries, and other things.

Trying to decide what I actually knew about the knowledge increases, I realized a few things.

From what I could tell, knowledge about people and who they were didn't count, nor did simple actions or things you could perform by yourself. What counted was knowledge you couldn't get yourself but had to be taught. So getting told about foreign countries increased it, as did learning skills. Until you reached a profession, and-

My mind froze, as did my hands. My profession! Could I find more books on woodcarving here? If I increased it, I would gain more knowledge points! Besides that, none of what I learned that had to do with the profession would count as knowledge but would be filed under the profession's set of knowledge.

Getting more and more enthusiastic, I put the water book back and almost ran to the start of the line of books with a branch with leaves on the spines. Grabbing the first book, I saw a similar message as the first.

Book one of Halomiumani's books on: Life - vegetation.

There was no ping this time, which made sense as I already knew about Halomiumani now. With a grin, I flipped past the introduction pages until I reached the first spell.

Sprout life. One of the most useful first spells of any of the magics I know, it can be used to rapidly grow a bulb into a flower or a nut into a sapling. Even later, many Magic users that are also herbalists will continue to see the use of this spell! One caveat is that, as with all life spells, using it to increase something's growth can be draining, especially on novices. Don't go beyond saplings the length of a hand lest you fall unconscious or worse.

If one combines the practice of this with Soften wood, one will end up learning eighty-two of the one hundred hand gestures that make up the basic level of vegetation magic. No single spell covers the remaining eighteen gestures. All spells in volume one will be needed to learn this.

Looking at the hand gestures, I saw there were seven. Intricate and difficult, but I might be able to learn them if I tried a little. Looking at the next page, I frowned.

Soften wood: another useful spell and a favorite of many woodcarvers and artisans. As the name implies, it will soften the wood by a single Corlon Hardness of Matter levels, hereafter referred to as Chom levels.

What the hell was up with these Corlons? Were they some type of ancient civilization that discord or uncovered how magic worked? Shaking my head, I had no idea what it meant, but it could only be useful if the wood was softer. Besides, it was directly related to my profession!

Totally forgetting that I had been planning to leave, I sat down at the nearest table and began to look at the six hand gestures that made up the second spell. Five minutes and six pings later, I sat staring at the book in stunned silence. I had memorized all of the hand gestures, just like that. No annoying studying, trying to make up ways to memorize them as with words or anything else I had ever needed to learn. I looked at them until I understood what I had to do, a ping came, and bam, the knowledge was engraved in my mind.

Placing my other hands on the wooden table, I slowly made the hand movements, cursing as I did. Although I knew them and how my fingers should be, making the gestures was a wholly different matter.

An hour later, I had cramps in my hand, and my fingers were killing me. I still hadn't even managed to make the first of the hand gestures.

A loud ping made me glad I had something else to do, and I summoned my status. It took me a moment to realize what I saw, but then my eyes widened. My learning rate had increased to four!

With happiness at its increase came the memory of what Agga had told me what seemed like ages ago now. The best magician she knew of needed four days to learn a single new spell, and he had a learning rate of seven. With a groan, I remembered that people below five never bothered learning magic because it took too long.

Thinking for a second, I was pretty sure she had been talking about true spells and not some low-level training spell, like the one I was learning now. But I did wonder about one thing. Why had I been able to learn the spell so quickly? Somehow the way she said it made me think it should have been more difficult.

Stretching my fingers, I looked at the book. I could feel the knowledge of the gestures in my mind, and after a moment, I put the book back. It was time to leave. I wasn't even going to attempt taking it. With the magic in this place, it might get me killed!

Taking a last look at the massive library, I sighed. If only I had unlimited knowledge, then I could have stayed here and learned whatever I wanted.

I climbed back up the first stair I had come from. In front of me was the wide corridor that led into the immense maze that was the library. I was hungry, thirsty, and sleepy, and worried about how I was going to find my way back. If only there was some sort of map.

I almost slapped myself, turning around and examining the large room with the tables again. Far to the right stood an enormous wooden board against the wall. I hadn't noticed it before due to the oval bookcase's massive presence and the fact that it was pretty far away.

Turning back, I jogged down the stairs and towards the wooden board. The closer I got, the more obvious it was that it was exactly what I had hoped—a map. The only problem was, where the hell was I going? A massive marker in the middle of a mazelike, multilevel library showed where I was, and thousands of exits showed up all around the edges.

"Well, that's just great," I muttered. My voice echoed hollowly in the massive room as I tried to orient myself. I found a marker for the map, and the massive dot in the middle was probably the main library column. After a few minutes of deducing things, I narrowed the exits down to a handful. The thing was, that based on the scope of the map, if I picked the wrong one, I wouldn't find the same path I walked into.

"So… eenie meenie," I said as I pointed at the five entrances. My finger ended at the second from the bottom of the five I had chosen. With a sigh and a shrug, I memorized the path through the maze as best as I could. It mostly involved taking a left and a right in succession for exactly two hundred and eleven times. Followed by two right and then all straight. What could possibly go wrong?

Many hours later, I trudged onward, feeling miserable. I was almost there but wasn't sure I'd actually counted properly in the end and started second-guessing myself. Taking another left, I knew if I had counted well, I needed to do two rights, and then I'd see a door. The shelves didn't look familiar, but neither did they look unfamiliar.

Turning another right, I saw a massive double door at the end of the corridor of books. It resembled what I remembered coming inside, and feeling hopeful I pushed one open. The door seemed held back by something, and pushing a bit harder, I felt whatever was on the other side slide away. The door swung open, and I sucked in my breath.

A dark and ruined corridor, filled with spiderwebs and innumerable red glowing eyes lay before me. A black, haired spider, the size of a basketball, jumped towards the door, and I slammed it shut in its face. For a few seconds, scratching and thudding came from the other side, and then it stopped.

Shit, that was definitely another door. And from the looks of it, it was in an entirely different spot.

The feeling I was somewhere outside of Flowhearts temple, perhaps not even on the same planet anymore, was reinforced. My stomach rumbled as I looked at the door, and I licked my parched lips. I had no time to waste. If every exit was as far from the center, and if I could find them all, it would take me over half a day to reach the next. I had drunk a lot while under the shower, but if my biological clock was right, that was at least twelve hours ago. I needed to find water within a day or two, or I would die of dehydration.

With a bad feeling, I turned and began finding my way back.

--

Over half a day later, hungry, thirsty, and tired to the point of dizziness, I stood infront of another door. I had memorized two paths this time, one to the second door, then the shorter path from that door to the third.

The second door hadn't opened no matter how hard I pushed, and as I looked at the third door, I shivered. This might be my last chance. I carefully pushed against the door and felt it move. It wasn't blocked, or at least it didn't look that way.

Pushing it further open, I stared into the dark, dusty corridor I had come from when I entered the library. A single line of footprints moved towards me, and the two torches still hung on the walls. Feeling a wave of relief, I jumped through and slammed the door behind me. Without waiting, I rushed away from the horrid door and quickly found more familiar corridors.

Following them, constantly taking the left path, I finally ended up at a hall lined with doors. From the closest, I heard a murmur, and without waiting, I knocked.

"Yes?" a surprised query came from inside.

"It's Est, Eliandra's friend. I was lost-"

The door almost slammed open into my face, and a female paladin with only her leg armor on and a white tunic looked at me wide-eyed.

"Where the hell have you been? Eliandra's been completely ballistic since you just up and disappeared!"

I shrugged. Inside the room, I saw a bowl of water, and my stomach growled. I almost shoved the paladin aside but barely managed to restrain myself.

"I was lost, found a double door to some massive library, went inside, got lost again, and wandered it for days until I finally found the exit!" I spouted quickly before pointing at the bowl of water.

"Please, I am parched. Can I have some water?"

The knight gaped at me, a look of fear crossing her face. I barely noticed and licked my lips. She turned and poured me a cup of water from a carafe on a table. Almost snatching the cup from her, I downed it in a single gulp and held it out for more.

I ended up finishing all of her water and would have drunk more if I could.

"Come with me. Eliandra will want to know what happened. Hopefully, this will make her stop tormenting all of us during training…"

The knight marched ahead of me through the hallways until we got to familiar territory. Soon I recognized the corridor that held Eliandra's room.

She knocked on it, but there was no reply. Taking a look at me, she swallowed and knocked again.

"Eliandra? We have found Est, "she said in a raised voice.

I frowned. How had she found me? I had found her. Before I could even worry about that, running came from inside the room, and the door slammed open. Eliandra stood in the opening, a look of relief and anger on her face.

"Where have you been!?" She almost screamed. I was about to answer her when she jumped forward and embraced me, squeezing so strongly I felt my back crack. I didn't complain, though the look of pain in her eyes told me she had probably not had a good time the last few days.

"If you let me go and give me something to eat, I'll explain, "I said.

She held me by the shoulders and pushed me away, staring into my eyes. After a second, she scanned my apparel, and then she pulled me inside. Turning to the knight, she nodded.

"Thank you, Melanira. Could you have the cooks bring some food to my room?"

The knight nodded, her eyes sparkling as she looked at me before turning and almost running away. What had she gotten into her mind?

Eliandra pushed me into the room and towards the table.

"Explain!" She said, glaring at me.

Taking a deep breath, I hoped the food would be here soon. Then I explained what had happened since she left me in the room with the shower.