The Primordial Record

Andar looked at the walls for a moment, they returned to their previous state without any sign of tampering, then a knock on the door made him turn towards it, the door opened and a man came through it, he was tall and from his disposition, Andar knew he was most likely a Mage.

"Andar Erikson?" The man queried.

Andar stood up straighter, he found that he could not help it, which was strange, "That's me."

The man walked to the center of the room and brought out a six-inch wand, he waved it in the air and a portal was open.

From the portal, a wooden door appeared with the face of a baby on it. It was the same type of door that was used previously in the Central Transportation Bureau, and his interest was piqued. Was this series of doors a living creature or a manufactured puppet?

"Go through the portal and meet the Steward of the Black Tower Archmage Khasos."

Andar mouth fell open, "The Steward of the Black Tower?"

"Please go through. As a warning, the realm you are about to enter is a strange one, guide your mind and stay focused, or else you will be lost. Treasure this opportunity to meet an Archmage of the Black Tower, Andar."

Andar bowed and cupped his fist, "Thank you for your advice, sir."

The man nodded dismissively and gestured for him to proceed.

Andar walked to the grinning door which opened itself without any prompting, he took a deep breath and walked in.

The world shifted with no inclination, and he saw himself inside a library. A piece of soft music that sounded like a piano was playing in the background, and with the spectacular lighting in the library made by dozens of glowing crystals that were floating in the air, it gave the library a sense of ambiance that was incredibly soothing.

Andar felt he could read without any internal distractions in such a place for years. Nevertheless, knowing he was about to meet a powerful Archmage, Andar comported himself and looked around.

The library was expansive and he saw he was on the first floor, which spread out with multiple connecting shelves for hundreds of feet, a series of circular staircases led upwards for dozens of floors until his eyesight could not penetrate further, but he was sure the library went further upwards, it gave it a weird sense of endlessness.

He waited for a short while and after he did not see anyone, Andar could not help himself and went toward the shelf. If he was in such a strange library, it would be a shame not to check out what sort of books could be found here, even if he could not understand them.

He had received the passive language skill from his main body, and he had never really had any opportunity to make this skill shine.

When he came closer to the shelf, he saw that every book seemed to be subtly distorted and it was impossible for him to read the titles on their spine, attempting to collect one book so he could examine it, he was stopped by a blue shield made of light that appeared in midair.

On the shield were countless broken Scripts in their hundreds that furiously rotated around with no visible rhythm, he immediately noted that even though their movements seemed to be chaotic, there was no conflict among the moving pieces, each of them seemed to be able to narrowly escape colliding with their neighbor.

Each individual Script was not bigger than an inch, but they shone with a bright glow that made them seem four times larger.

Andar recognized the Scripts as Higher-Order Scripts that had been broken into pieces but were still functioning as a sort of shielding and bewildering formation.

Andar was only familiar with Rank 0 Scripts, and he did not recognize any of these broken Scripts here, but he could not shake the feeling that there was a pattern in the random movements of the Scripts.

He focused and everything else went away, his worries faded into silence and he devoted himself to following the endless chaotic patterns of the Scripts. The lights from it were enchanting and drew his attention.

He noticed that when he touched the blue light shield, he could actually feel the Scripts and he could easily manipulate it using his fingers, but when he let go, it resumed its chaotic movement.

After a while of observing the movements of the Scripts, his frustration began to grow, there was a pattern at the edge of his consciousness, and every time he wanted to grab it, another broken Script took its place and scattered his attention.

If he wanted to understand he would need to be able to follow the path of each of the Scripts.

Andar carelessly activated the talent he awakened during the Trials, disregarding the fact that his body was devoid of Aether and his condition was severely weakened, he would risk damaging his body for a chance to understand this pattern.

The Triangular-shaped dirt began to break apart and soon scattered, swirling around as if it were a tornado, and Andar felt his mind begin to separate into a million pieces.

At the same time, his skin began to turn gray as if he was suffering from months of malnutrition and he visibly began to lose weight as parts of his black hair turned white, his silver eyes began to develop spots of gray as if it was about to turn into stone.

With a gasp, he stopped the mental technique and shuddered in pain before looking up in excitement, his discomfort forgotten, bringing his hand to touch a particular broken Script with happiness in his heart, this was the central piece.

He began dragging it around until he touched another broken script and it stuck fast before merging with it.

The broken Script shined brightly and it became bigger, and still holding on to the Script he moved it until he merged with another one.

There must be a thousand broken Higher Order Scripts here and Andar's speed increased as he became familiar with manipulating the Script.