Chapter 432: The Weight of Cosmic Knowledge (2)
There were no titles on the covers of those dark volumes, and the information inside wouldn’t appear until he opened them and flipped through their pages one by one.
Which meant he had no choice but to go through them all if he wanted to find what he was looking for.
But no matter how many books he opened, every single one spoke of the same subject.
After hours upon hours of nonstop reading, Frey finally slammed a book shut and shouted in frustration:
"What’s with all this damned teleportation and space manipulation?!"
Even after spending so much time searching...
It was always the same subject, over and over again.
Frey tried changing floors, hoping to escape it, but no matter where he went, he found himself facing the same thing.
On the first floor...
The tenth floor...
The fiftieth floor...
The knowledge about teleportation kept showing up wherever he went, almost as if someone was deliberately toying with him.
Sure, teleportation was a powerful ability—but for Frey, who was searching for a way to save his friend, it was nothing more than a waste of precious time.
Forced to learn and memorize all this information...
Frey suddenly remembered the vision he once saw of Nameless back in Londor.
Back then, he clearly witnessed how teleportation and space manipulation were the very first things Nameless sought to master in his life.
All for the sake of escaping his planet during the demon invasion.
The teleportation ability belonged to the mysterious Law of Space, and Nameless had managed to create a powerful technique in that complex field all on his own.
Now, wearing the mask of that enigmatic man, Frey found himself wondering as he flipped through yet another book:
"Am I really going to be forced to relive everything that man experienced in his lifetime... in order?"
If that was true, then it was nothing short of a nightmare for Frey.
And so, the hours passed, one after another.
Frey couldn’t remember the last time he had consumed this much information in a single sitting. Eventually, it felt like his head was about to explode.
Even though his mind automatically absorbed every bit of knowledge that crossed his eyes, he had barely scratched the surface of this ocean of information.
The answer he was searching for drifted further and further from his reach.
And realizing the bitter truth of his own naivety...
Frey crashed headfirst into harsh reality once again.
After all, how could he possibly replicate that man’s knowledge so easily?
It was simply impossible .. even if he spent his entire life flipping through those books.
That knowledge had taken Nameless an unimaginably long time to gather.
Nameless was immortal, unaffected by the passage of time, which meant the years he devoted to learning were limitless.
Unlike Frey, a mere human, who now had no more than twenty days at best to meet the deadline.
All he needed was a single piece of information ... one answer capable of saving his friend.
But that answer was lost within this endless sea of books.
It was like searching for a needle in a haystack.
Frey continued to stumble through that world in vain, endlessly learning about teleportation .. a subject he had no interest in whatsoever.
...
...
...
When Frey finally moved again in the real world, the darkness of the sky had long faded, replaced by the light of the distant midday sun.
But it was already the third day.
As Frey opened his eyes, tearing the mask from his face...
Dark circles had formed beneath his eyes, and exhaustion racked his body as though he’d been fighting for days without rest.
As his senses slowly adjusted to reality...
The first thing his eyes saw were the dark buildings of the sect, and the figures of Angry and the Engineer.
Which only fueled the anger swelling within his chest.
"So, you’ve discovered the truth," the Engineer said coldly.
"So you knew all along."
Frey forced himself to stand, struggling against the mental exhaustion as he stepped toward the Engineer.
"How the hell am I supposed to find the answer I’m looking for in all that filth?!"
The worst part was that he was forced to learn in the order the library dictated, not in the order he wanted.
The Engineer simply shook his head, shining a light on Frey’s ignorance.
"I told you .. the knowledge you seek is there. But finding it... that’s entirely up to you."
Hearing this, Frey realized the Engineer had known this would happen from the very start.
"You could’ve just told me that from the beginning, damn you! How am I supposed to find what I need when all I ever get from that place is teleportation and spatial manipulation nonsense?!"
It was completely absurd. Despite spending several days inside...
The only thing he came away with was knowledge of teleportation.
"You’ll have to learn how to reach what you want by yourself. That imaginary world you saw was merely something your mind created to make the search easier. Whether you succeed or fail is entirely on you."
Frey already understood what the Engineer meant.
The library wasn’t real ... it was an imaginary space within his mind, like a storage file containing all the knowledge he had yet to absorb.
But even knowing all that, he still couldn’t find the answer.
Annoyed by the entire ordeal, Frey stood back up.
"How the hell did that bastard pull it off again?"
He muttered bitterly, before a violet light engulfed his body, wrapping him in a strange stellar aura.
Then, in the blink of an eye...
Frey vanished completely before the stunned gaze of the Engineer, whose eyes widened in shock, unable to process what he had just witnessed.
Frey’s presence had disappeared entirely.
And at that very moment...
They both felt him reappear behind them, causing the Engineer and Angry to spin around instantly.
At the same time, a deafening crash erupted behind them as Frey collided with the wall of one of the dark buildings.
Amidst the rubble and dust, Frey slowly got up, clutching his head.
"Damn it... I messed up the destination coordinates..."
Though he looked frustrated by what had just happened...
It didn’t erase the shock on the blue-eyed man’s face.
"There’s no doubt about it..."
He spoke without thinking.
Even though it was far weaker ... so weak it wasn’t even worth comparing...
That was still Nameless’s spatial manipulation.
’In just a few days... he’s already managed to grasp an ability like that?’
His progress was ridiculously fast .. beyond anything the Engineer had anticipated.
But Frey didn’t care about any of that.
After experiencing it firsthand, he quickly lost interest and placed the mask back on his face.
"I don’t have much time left..."
Every second that passed was precious—irreplaceable for Frey, who had a goal he was determined to reach, no matter the cost.
Ignoring the crushing exhaustion, he dove back into that imaginary world once more.
And there he was again, standing within the mysterious library.
He had already read countless books, and yet countless more remained, waiting for him.
Fully aware of this, Frey resumed his endless search, roaming back and forth, trying to grasp the ancient knowledge that had long been lost to the ages.
At that moment...
Frey had no idea that his every move was being watched by those unseen eyes.
Eyes that observed him from one of the upper floors of the endless library...
Every motion, every step Frey took .. none of it escaped that distant gaze.
From behind the slits of a dark mask, he simply watched in silence, while Frey remained completely unaware of his presence.
Though both of them gazed upon the world through the same cold openings of that mask...
What they saw was vastly different.
For Frey, the future was still clouded in uncertainty, filled with countless unanswered questions as he continued to stumble in the darkness below .. running blindly down a tunnel lit by nothing but a faint, fragile thread of hope.
Always trying to reach the other side, just as he always had.