Chapter 307: Chapter 307.Library
"I met her. She died saving my life." The elf felt her legs grow weak at Kailen’s words. Tears streamed down her cheeks as she almost fell. She thought she would have been able to handle the news of her sister’s death, but thinking it was a possibility and actually experiencing it were two entirely different situations. It felt like someone had twisted a knife through her innards.
She denied Kailen’s words. "No, you are messing with me."
Kailen ignored her words, then continued, "We met accidently at a site heavily guarded by Dwarves. Didn’t even spend a long time together. I was severely injured, almost about to die when a patrolling soldier almost came across us. Instead of letting the fellow target us both, she approached the bastard and used herself as a distraction for me to escape. The bastard killed her with a blow to the head."
She started crying in an overwhelming manner at the words of Kailen, half truth mixed with some lies. The machinery lifeform male counterpart nodded towards Kailen in thanks as he dragged his elf friend, crying and screaming, away.
Kailen sighed deeply. The scene that had just occurred before him reminded him dearly of his own loss — the loss of his parents. "I need to survive." Determination flashed through his eyes.
He assumed a meditative posture for as long as he could think of, restoring his universe energy reserves and his spiritual power. Very soon, he felt completely well and restored. Kailen opened his eyes. Nothing had happened — no new enemies to fight, except the fact that the powerhouses were still duking it out in the skies.
Was this calm to remain until the reinforcements arrived and they were transported out of the city? Would the city not be blown up by the time the reinforcements arrived? "Seriously, I hate this. It’s as if the early arrival of the reinforcements determines whether I live or die."
He sighed, and as if the Dwarves wanted to make mockery of him, several booms resounded in their environs in the span of a few moments. Screams reverberated through the area. Boom! Boom! Boom!
"Shit. Just had to jinx this, huh." Kailen cursed, activating his protective rune and his vines. The vines enveloped his figure like clothes, fitting him like some sort of armor. In addition to the protective rune, he’d stand a higher chance of surviving this, right?
A beam of red light flashed in his eyes, incinerating the ground a few breaths away from him into nothing, leaving only a gaping meter-wide hole before him. He was currently just a step from falling into a deep pit. Someone who had looked above, where the attack came from, gulped, "Shit. They want to use a spaceship to get rid of us all in one go." He cursed in realization from what the fellow said.
This was not the time to throw tantrums. He needed to survive. Kailen scanned his surroundings; he didn’t find any way of surviving this. To be honest, he could only hope he’d be lucky enough to survive this. First of all, the speed of the sonic beams targeting them were just too fast for the current him to even dodge if they managed to land on him. Also, with the way the sonic booms were randomly scattered throughout the area, trying to move around would only increase the risk of getting killed.
So staying put where he was and praying he wasn’t killed was the only way out for him. "Am I just supposed to wait for my death? Seriously?"
The moment he said these words, the ground beneath him cracked. Kailen fell into the pit, descending into its depths.
****
Kailen woke up in a very dark place. However, thanks to being an awakener, he could see just fine. He looked beneath him: a cold metallic floor. He looked above; there was nothing, only darkness and debris covering him. "Seems like when I fell, the ground above me caved in alongside me."
Kailen felt the ground beneath him was cold and metallic. He grimaced, activating his vine affinity. The vines lashed towards various directions, managing to push the rocks and debris around him out of the way, which helped to make his movements less restrained. He activated his protective runes just in case of anything to protect himself.
Kailen moved towards a half-opened door. He didn’t hesitate to enter the room. The moment he entered the room, he saw that he had entered some sort of library. The whole place looked like some sort of library from an earth setting. The library simply didn’t look futuristic. There were several rows and columns of books and shelves sprawled for as long as the eyes could see.
Kailen mused, "What is this place? Seriously, what is wrong with me? This place is clearly some sort of library. It’s not like I have anywhere to go; let’s try and check this place out. Perhaps I could find something that could help me out of this situation."
Fortunately, he had sustained fewer injuries from the fall. This made moving less difficult for him. He moved into the library. He didn’t even bother to ask himself why a library like this was located somewhere like this — underground of the city — and had hard copy books, something that didn’t reflect the futuristic style of most interstellar settings. He didn’t bother to know who the library belonged to. All he cared about right now was if there was any information in this weird library that could help him out of this situation.
Kailen started reading through the books in the library. Each one he came across was a rank 0 rune book, discussing various runes and how to combine rune alphabets to create them. "This is really gonna come in handy."
Naturally, Kailen struggled with understanding some concepts because he was a beginner when it came to runesmithery, having come to acknowledge the field only recently. However, his high comprehension capabilities came into play, helping him at the same time to understand certain things he read in some books. He knew very well that had it been Nyk, the fellow would be struggling. However, Kailen had inhabited the body.
Inasmuch as he was limited by Nyk’s inadequate spiritual power and poor universe energy reserves, Kailen was not limited in the area of grasping rune theories, as his mind was at play here, not Nyk’s mind.
How to inscribe rank 0 rune artifacts...
Understanding rank 0 illusion runes...
Runes, the natural language of the universe.
Kailen didn’t know how long he had spent here. He was completely engrossed in the studies.
Kailen read through most of the books in the rank 0 runesmith books section. As for the rank 1 and above section, he didn’t even bother himself with visiting that section. First of all, he was working against time, trying to arm himself as much as possible with rune knowledge before he left this place. Secondly, he was a rank 0 runesmith who had just begun learning runes recently. Why would he waste his time trying to learn things a rank above his rune level? That would be simply overestimating himself and wasting his own time.
He had enough spiritual power for delving into rank 0 runes, so why would he waste his time on rank 1 and above runes when he knew very well that he could not master them? Also, Kailen had managed to find a space ring with a large number of rank 1 universe energy recovery elixirs in one of the shelves of the library. He didn’t have to worry anymore about running out of universe energy when he used his affinity .
Kailen also anticipated that there was a possibility that if he survived this simulation, the knowledge he had obtained from the multitudes of rank 0 rune books would still be in his memory. After all, he had not forgotten anything from his first simulation.
He found an empty space, then started practicing a few of the rune concepts he had grasped. He stopped and rested enough to recover his spiritual power from time to time, then went over others. He was happy that they were implementable. He decided it was time to leave this place and, hopefully, survive whatever hell awaited on the surface. This time, he wouldn’t be so powerless. Well, he’d still be powerless but... at least he had hope of surviving.
A/N:Lurkers, I can see you hiding 👀 ... prove me wrong by leaving a random word in the comments!😂