Lark extended a hand over the dusky gem and curled his fingers around it, only to find it slowly deform from where his fingers sank in. Bewildered, he pulled back. “That-that’s suppose to happen, right?”

“Exactly.” After Pisces assured Lark he didn’t do anything wrong, the pearl crumbled into several misshapen stones. They rotated on their own while Pisces studied them with complete focus.

Lark caught a few words the bird mumbled with each passing turn. Steady hands. Handicraft. Skill passover rate…75%.

When the stones stopped moving into different formations, they assembled back together into a sphere. Not a single piece out of place. Finished with the reading Pisces announced to Lark, “I will be recommending three books to your current level with a 90% chance or higher of obtaining attunement.”

“Attunement? Is that a skill?”

Pisces let out a long ‘ah’ and Nympha shook her head. “I can see why you think your guide is useless.”

While Pisces let his ‘goddess’ explain to Lark what attunement was, he went over to where Sphinx was, flapping in his face till they went off together in search of the texts.

“Little one, attunement is basically understanding and mastering the principle behind a skill. From what I gather, Pisces says these books have a high chance of teaching you the basics and obtaining attunement. But ultimately, it’s up to how far your talents will go.”

Lark rubbed his chin. “I sorta get it. Attunement is just being on the same wavelength with a concept. Being like one with all. Something like that.” Then he wore a smug face with his eyes closed.

“Based on your earlier performance, he could be choosing a book about sharpshooting, or particular crafting skill.”

Lark finger-gunned random objects, while pursing his lips. Nympha’s gaze drooped, clearly worried.

He turned to where he thought Pisces and Sphinx might be looking. To be honest, what he wanted the most instead of learning another skill would be an encyclopedic explanation of the world if that was feasible. There was too many things he didn’t know about the world of magic.

The slime patted his nose. Only Gushi seemed to understand him. He peeled the slime off his shoulder and nuzzled his face against the slime’s plasma coat. “Such a good pet, caring for me.”

This time Nympha let out a sigh and by the time Pisces returned, Gushi looked squished out. They walked over to the desk Sphinx had cleaned. The three books of varying lengths laid out. Coincidentally, their covers synchronized with starter elements: red, blue, and green. Unfortunately, there wasn’t a yellow-covered book in hiding. The only yellow thing in plain sight was the gleam in Pisces’ gaze. He stared down Lark with the utmost serious expression a ghostly bird could muster.

“I will n’ow explain them. Starting from the left, we have: A Study of Volcanic Ruins Part One, Volume One of an Ice Practitioner’s Guide to the Frost Mountain, and Volume Two of Study of Hands.”

A part of Lark’s face fell. Sphinx laughed.

Pisces partly perturbed, leered at Sphinx to shut up.

Obviously, he had something else in mind when Pisces said these books were going to help him learn attunement with his skills or more specifically, he thought they’d be more like skill books acquired in games. Clearly, he had some real reading to do.

Recalling that he could only take one back with him, Lark leaned in closer to examine each book. Gushi followed his actions, jumping onto the desk to take a closer look as well.

“Do you have an immediate preference?” Pisces asked.

“Not particularly, but I am wondering why there’s a volume two here.” He pointed at the green book. It had the thinnest spine of the bunch and Lark had an inkling it mostly contained pictures judging from the square pictograph on the cover, which was of a hand with two fingers pointed up.

“The Professor never got around to collecting volume one, so it remains missing to our collection. But since you asked about this book first, I shall explain why I’ve brought this one.”

Pisces flipped to a random page. Outlined on graph paper was a shaded-in drawing of a pair of hands crossed in front of each other. “Tell me what do you notice from this page?”

Oh no, a pop quiz. Knowing he shouldn’t answer with the first thought that crossed his mind, Lark took a few more seconds for himself to assess the picture. There were no scripts to be found in the margins to describe in concrete details what they were looking at, but the hands were drawn and shaded in with such detail, they looked very realistic.

“The artist used a female model to draw. You can tell because of how slender the fingers are. Their nails are also manicured to show that there’s no dirt under them. Plus, guy arms tend to be hairier or bulkier, but up to the elbow here, there’s no trace of hair and the muscle looks rather soft and the lines become delicate, or less shaded in. I cannot say why the hands would be drawn crossed over like that, but it could be an imitation of someone carrying something over their chest.” Lark stopped himself there as Pisces hopped over to him.

“My, if you weren’t the inheritor, you probably would’ve made a fine art historian from using so many words.” Chuckling, Pisces closed the book and moved onto the next one.

Too embarrassed to ask if he said something wrong, Pisces already began to go through the middle book. This time the book had no cover picture, but the sides pattered with seams of dotted blue triangles.

“Consolidating, pacing, melting…there’s a lot of properties of ice you can learn from this book.”

And he hopped to the last book. “Likewise, this book will suggest different properties of fire, both magical and non’.”

“Uh-huh.” Lark cupped his chin. One of his eyebrows raised higher than the other. To be honest, he wanted to learn fire magic as soon as possible after watching Mishka’s Blaze. His belief that it was powerful power was reaffirmed after Silvina’s Firesword style. So, his eyes lingered over the red book longer than the rest and his left hand reached over until Gushi tapped on the hand modeling book. An extension of its slime appendage repeatedly poked the side of the book as if enraptured. A wave of its bubble antenna in front of Lark’s face couldn’t make it more obvious that the precious slime wanted its owner to choose this book.

“Is it really that interesting to you, Gushi? You don’t even have hands.” Sphinx muttered hiding a smirk.

“Do you sense something special about this one, bud?” Lark leaned in and Gushi tapped his nose. Smiling, Lark turned to the odd bird and made his decision. “I’m going to take this one.”

“You sure then?” Pisces presented the loosely bound book. “Although, you can always come back to exchange it for another, at your current spiritual level, your access to this library is about once per month.”

“I’m not really sure I get it, but it has something to do with SIM’s powers, right?” He turned to Sphinx, who gave a half-hearted shrug.

“As long as you understand,” Pisces continued and proceed to kick away the other two books once the green book was placed in Lark’s hands. “For the remaining am’ount of time we have left is there anything else you’d like to know?”

A wave of shock came over Lark as he realized Pisces was actually quite a reasonable fellow compared to the guide he’s been stuck with. In this moment of hesitation, his once in a lifetime opportunity was swooped by the purple furball.

“Where are we?”

“We are in a section of the Memory Palace before the Librarian’s research center was destroyed. Relatively, we’re… if my memory serves me co’rrectly, in the southern region kno’wn for its warm waters and clear skies.”

“You don’t have a name? Or any other information about this place?”

“No, I’ve never been ou’tside.”

“What do you know about the Centifire plague or the whereabouts of Goddess Celestia?”

“Unfortunately, the inheritor is not strong enough to receive this privileged information.” He gestured to the purple glowing partitions. Nympha’s ears gave a small twitch and she turned to Lark, who immediately shrank back under her stare.

“Simply put, it’s too early for him know,” Nympha said in resignation. “I understand.”

“I’d say at his current gro’wth rate…in about ten years, he can unlo’ck the seco’n part o’ the library.”

Lark’s entire body stiffened. Sphinx laughed in his ear. “You have to think long-term, inheritor. It’s a long game.”

In that one statement, Lark felt he had aged, looking for a path beyond what he could see.

“Better ask what’s on your mind fast, your body is beginning to fade.”

Lark flipped over his hand. Both his clothes and shape of his arm were see-through. It was like that time when Sphinx sent him back with the knowledge of how to make Wangshi’s healing potion.

“Already?”

“The library swallo’s up more energy than SIM to maintain, but we’ll always be in this point o’ time and place.” Pisces looked ready to take a snooze with his beady eyes drooping halfway closed.

“W-wait, how do I come back here? And ten years…I don’t even know where I’ll be then.”

“Every thirty days, you can access the library through SIM. It’ll show up in the menu bar. As for where you’ll be in ten years…” Pisces folded his wing over half his face. “I don’t kno’ because I’m not all-kno’wing .”

Lark shook his head; eyes to the floor. “That not what I meant.”

“I know.” The bird puffed up his feathery chest, taking in a deep breath. “We’ll cross that bridge when we get there. Your short term go’als may end up further than you can imagine.”

With that final response, the wonderful bell struck in Lark’s mind, and he vanished alongside the slime and mouse.

The bird released a chirpy yawn and hopped off the table, making a beeline towards his cage only to collide into Sphinx’s chest.

“Don’t go to sleep yet, Pisces—what’s the deal with the ball?”

“S’o not even your prideful appraisal abilities can see through this one?” Pisces flew around him to sit on a twisted tree branch.

“I’m not totally omniscient either,” Sphinx lips contorted into a nasty grin. “Oh wise Pisces, please do tell how the Void Crystal broke.”

Pisces faced forty-five degrees away while ruffling his feathery coat. “The slime’s abilities are unnatural. SIM’s data collection said it’s from ZZZ, but it doesn’t show its affinity baseline. You’ve spent more time with the inheritor, don’t you have an inkling why?”

Sphinx crossed his arms, thinking momentarily before another smile sprouted and he said, “Oh-hoh. You mean to say, this could be a unique slime.”

“I’m not saying exactly that, but as for the Void Crystal, it’ll be repaired slo’wly as long as it absorbs the sand for a while so no need to be so emotional.”

“Is that all? I’m going back to sleep.”

“Wait,” Sphinx said smiling. “I wanted you to know that the gift for the inheritor was the closest to a cosmic symphony I’ve heard.”

“Liar.” Pisces turned his face forty-five degrees again. “Be sure you can protect the master this time.” As soon as he said that he hurriedly hopped away into his cage, closing his eyes peacefully.

Sphinx scoffed. No one trusted him. What a surprise.

Lark should be close to waking up, he thought to himself, yet he couldn’t bring himself to leave. For the longest time, he didn’t turn away from the wooden desk. It might as well have been covered in dust again. How much time had passed since he studied here? Hundreds? Thousands of years? Less than a decade perhaps, since Pisces still acted energetically.

A small part of him felt he owed an explanation to the familiar, but if he or Pisces said anymore—about the Centifire plague, surely their wills would crumble just like this wonderful place. Ten years from now, he will witness the inheritor overturn fate.

And someday, he’d return here.

Light from the magic lanterns gleamed green tones over his lone figure. He saw the books on the floor and placed them back onto the table. He too, then hopped onto the desk before the thick black walls and pallid blue floors weaved together and the hidden instruments in the room, which the Librarian spent so much time and money collecting, dimmed in his view; the face of his previous master replaced by the inheritor.

Truly, Lark’s actions managed to stun him once again. Yet, no matter how many times he had to reset, each simulation only further affirmed his belief that Lark would only grow stronger with each experience and sacrifice. He had to trust his ward.

“Rest well Pisces,” he said while closing his eyes. This was enough - for now.