358 Two Birds with One Stone
There was still another day and a half until his battle with General Aleen was due to take place, but Sylas still chose to return to the System City—though apparently not before he ran into Gregory. Still, although the man gave him a look and the militiamen all glared in unison, Sylas only swept them a glance before vanishing into the distance.
…
Entry into the System City was as easy as usual, and it wasn't long before Sylas found where the library was. When he returned, he nodded.
'As expected…'
The library was enormous. It had three floors above ground and six more below. On the surface, it looked like any normal library, formed of aged brick and mortar and carrying a scholarly feel. But the sheer number of books was simply mind-numbing.
Each of the floors had five-meter-tall ceilings, and there were hardly any seating arrangements at all, as they used up most of the space to stack more bookshelves. From floor to ceiling, there were walls upon walls of books, and several rolling ladders of various heights to accommodate them all. He knew that completing his quest wouldn't be so easy.
'There's definitely an organization system of some sort. I will learn it first.'
He walked to one of the few help desks and began asking questions. But after leaving, there was more confusion on his face than before.
This wasn't Earth, so there was no digital database to use. In the Veridian University library, for example, if Sylas wanted to find a book, he would just look it up on one of the many database monitors. Then, right at his fingertips, he would have several potential names, summaries, and even the exact location of the books based on a numerical system.
But here, things didn't work that way. He had thought they might rely on the system, but it was more complex than that.
They used a Rune system. The library was separated into Rune Sections, which were further divided into Foundation Sections and even further into Stroke Sections.
In higher-class libraries, the section a book was in would be decided by its creator. That was because higher-class knowledge would almost always elicit a reaction from the laws of a world and form its own Runes.
But… this knowledge, or at least most of it, wasn't classified so highly. That ironically made everything several times more difficult. That was because rather than being assigned by something as fundamental as the laws they described, the standard of this library was somewhat arbitrarily decided by the librarian.
Sometimes this would work out well, but it could also go very wrong… especially if there were several librarians or the head librarian was replaced.
The short of it was that even the librarians wouldn't have read every book here. That meant that Sylas had to wade through a tide of clickbait titles, scholarly hack jobs, and the incompetence of the librarians themselves.
The majority of the library was actually arranged in alphabetical order, which was mind-numbingly stupid. The sheer number of books in the 'T' section because of a book starting its title with "The" was enough to make a man weep.
'It isn't completely hopeless… The bottom three levels are only available to nobles for a reason. You even need to be a Duke or General to get liberal access to the bottom floor. That means that there's at least some separation of quality. But that might be a worse thing for me.'
Sylas took a breath and stood in a random location. He needed a better way to sort through all of these books to find the information on lost civilizations that he needed.
"I guess the only way to do this… is to just start."
Sylas' visualization quickly covered a full 30-meter radius. As large as the library was, this was still enough to cover most of it with the exception of the bottom-most floors.
'Difficult…'
Sylas frowned.
While he was able to cover a 30-meter radius, for a full 60 meters in total if it was measured from end to end, his Wisdom was still too low to grasp everything within that radius. He often found himself bouncing from one location to another.
It was similar to eyesight in that way. There was a focus and then there was the periphery. Most of Sylas' visualization fell into the periphery, and he had to turn his intention toward it in order to grasp the detail of what he was seeing.
When analyzing Runes, the details were the most important, so it was hard to get away with just a vague understanding.
By comparison, in battle, the moment something odd moved he would be able to grasp it.
'No, I have to take a different approach… maybe?'
Sylas had never tried before, but he forced himself to shrink down his visualization.
Surprisingly, it was extremely easy. At first, it took a bit of focus, but then he could move it freely.
He continued to shrink it until he could get a focused image of every little thing in that region.
'Hm. Six meters or so seems to be the spot. But that puts a lot of strain on my mind, and I can barely hold out for a few minutes. But, if I shrink it again to five meters, I can last probably a half hour. At four meters, two or so hours shouldn't be an issue at all.'
After some thought, Sylas settled on five meters.
The formula of a sphere came to mind, and he realized that every meter he lost was actually quite a large volume by comparison. Although he could last longer if he went even shorter, it wasn't worth it.
Plus, this would be a good opportunity to raise the Mastery of <Maddened Enlightenment>. He would kill two birds with one stone.
Sylas didn't end up finding what he needed in a day and a half, but he moved through the library like a madman, imprinting the organization structure to the point he likely knew it better than even the librarian himself.
When he returned, he would be able to find what he needed within half a week.
With that thought, he rested, preparing for his match.