Finally managing to dissuade another impassioned lecture from a certain Young Master Wen, An Fei retreated into the Sanctum at the breadth of night.
The young girl immediately yawned as she felt the warm, soothing rays of golden light massaging her skin, but forcefully resisted the urge to curl down onto the crystalline floor and drift off to sleep.
She deeply wished to rest – that was certainly true, but the words of both the mysterious young girl who shared her appearance as well as the scarlet dragon continued to resound within her mind.
“The forty-seventh Archive of Time, third aisle, and the fifth book from the third shelf down?”
An Fei murmured to herself in a passive and troubled mood, her gaze flickering across the multitude of shimmering beads of light drifting along the massive throne hall of the realm of sky-blue crystal. The young girl briefly massaged her temples with her fingertips as she tried to think.
When she had come to a decision, An Fei stepped towards the crystalline throne, her steps uneven and scattered with a myriad of emotions.
She staggered towards the familiar seat, and her hands slapped onto the armrest with as much force that she could muster.
“Open!”
The Sanctum hissed in acknowledgement, and a brief tremble raced through the young girl’s fingertips to nestle gently against her heart. The crystalline throne burst into a multitude of gentle and vibrant colors, and the atmosphere gradually warmed from the activity.
Before her increasingly drowsy and hazed sense of mind, An Fei observed the surface plates of the armrest detach and sink into the depths of the throne… but nothing returned.
The elevating platforms installed into the armrests were empty, lacking either of the two books that An Fei had stored.
The unnamed black leather book as well as the <Eternal Sanctum> were gone, their traces nowhere to be found.
“Ah…”
She had expected such a circumstance to occur, especially after the mysterious young girl had summoned the two books back in the odd world of monochrome scarlet.
The moment the two books had appeared within that figure’s hands, An Fei had the sinking premonition that they were taken directly from the Sanctum.
However, it still grievously hurt to realize that the two tomes that she had come to appreciate and rely upon, had disappeared for an indefinite period of time.
“…what do I do now?”
It most was certainly difficult for An Fei to breathe for a brief while. At the least, the dull, throbbing sense of pain failed to diminish or disappear regardless of her efforts.
She didn’t wish to think about it, so An Fei chose to retreat from the matter. Keeping her movements as calm and collected as she possibly could, the young girl directly entered the second corridor, her figure flashing into the infinitely expansive Archives of Time.
She wished to see what exactly lay within the forty-seventh floor, for that appellation to mention it specifically with an overpowering gaze of pity.
But there was still a problem to be addressed.
“How do I get up there? Don’t tell me I have to toggle this elevating platform exactly forty-seven times?”
An Fei dragged her fingertips across the smooth crystalline surface of the wall, standing directly at the center of the elevating platform intrinsic to the Archives of Time. The young girl took a deep breath, and slapped her palm against the small inscribed circle on the wall.
The elevating platform activated at the slightest touch, and she found herself standing at the first Archive in less than a tenth of a second. Heaving a light sigh, An Fei reached out to touch the platform again.
In this fashion, she soon climbed past the fifth Archive, but was soon finding herself to be incredibly impatient, her mind cluttered from excessive thoughts.
“…how did I always manage to palm this circle precisely seventeen times back then –“
“ –don’t tell me, you don’t know how to operate this as well?”
A melancholic voice abruptly rang besides An Fei’s ear, nearly causing her to stumble out of the elevating platform and bruising her head against the hard but smooth crystalline floor.
As the young girl hugged her ankle with tears brimming in her eyes, she heard the dragon’s disappointed voice brushing against the base of her ear.
“You designed this system back then, but you can’t use it now – just how did it come to this,” the scarlet dragon muttered to itself.
“Even if Compendium has fallen asleep, the Archives should still be fully operational. Why are you manually using the platform?”
“I don’t know how to! Besides, how are you even here!?”
The young girl protested, her fingers aptly massaging the surging pain from the muscles of her leg. Just as she were about to speak, the heavenly dragon sighed three times in quick succession.
“Enough, stop embarrassing yourself. Even if Compendium is asleep, you should still be able to utilize the index to navigate via the elevating platform. Please tell me you at the least, know what an index is?”
“I-I know what an index is, do you really think I’m that muddleheaded?”
An Fei snorted in response. Placing her palm against the inscribed circle for the eighth time, the young girl murmured an indistinguishable word at the lowest volume she could muster.
Peng!
“W-w-woah!”
The speed of the elevating platform suddenly increased by at least threefold, and directly tossed itself towards the forty-seventh Archive.
No sooner had the number left An Fei’s lips, that the young girl found herself staring at a large, metallic engraving of the number forty-seven.
The nausea that welled within her body had to be quelled by a barrage of spiritual essence from the Sanctum, and the young girl stepped onto the platform with an expectant heart.
“This is rather different,” An Fei’s lips curved into a delicate smile.
“At the least, there isn’t an ocean’s worth of books present.”
The forty-seventh Archive of Time was different compared to the other platforms that An Fei had managed to visit. The primary difference was that the number of books present was of a much smaller quantity, and the furniture and decorations at the center were rather intricate and luxurious.
The Archives that she had visited before all contained tens – no, hundreds of thousands of books, each emitting a different colored light and sensation when approached.
The forty-seventh archive, on the other hand, contained only a meagre quantity of books and manuals – hardly enough to fill any more than three bookshelves.
The supposedly empty bookshelves, on the other hand, had been replaced by a strip of toiled and cultivated garden hosting a multitude of plants, herbs, and fruit. The arrangement of the garden completely defied logic, as well as the fruits themselves.
Long grapevines snaked around the trunks of citrus trees, the luscious grapes emitting a faint savory, mellow and somewhat sweet fragrance.
Not to mention, the fruits hanging from the branches of a tree were fantastic and impossible, for An Fei could spot lychees amongst apples, lemons on the same branch of pears, oranges in the same cluster as dragonfruit…
“…what kind of monster of a tree is that?”
You made that back then to sate your desire of eating every fruit in the world from a single tree, why are you even acting confused now…
The words spilled from the young girl’s mouth, prompting the spectating dragon to raise its claw and slap itself on the forehead. Firmly remembering the sight in her mind, An Fei rushed off towards the solitary set of bookshelves.
“Third aisle, fifth book from the third shelf down…”
The manual that she found was rather extravagant.
The edges of each page was coated with a thin layer of gold, and the ink was of a dashing violet.
The penmanship was intricate and fine, and the handwriting was rather professional – easy to read, whilst appearing elegant at the same time. The cover sported murals of Immortals flying through the clouds, and each strand of color had been neatly embroidered onto a leather base.
“The <Assembly of a Soul> by someone named Duke Cowen?”
The language was still that of the common language utilized within the Realm. Over the course of the past year, An Fei had gradually become accustomed to the written language that wasn’t so different from that of modern Simplified Chinese Script.
Alas…
“Why was there a Western author? Rather, did the Realm only have a single written language?”
The dragon made no inclination to reply to such baseless question, and instead returned its focus at trimming its whiskers. The young girl gingerly tapped the cover of the book, and took a deep breath.
With a pair of trembling hands, An Fei pried the cover open, and her jaw dropped at the next second.
“What is a soul?”
