Chapter 16 The Way Of Fire

The next morning came quite fast, but this time I did my morning training before I went to the library. While I wasn’t yet 100%, I think a few more days and then constantly being vigilant about not pushing too hard will fix me completely.

This library was quite a big one, but now I actually didn’t know where I needed to go. The green section was always something that called to me, but there wasn't any way to get access.

At least now I know that when I get to higher-ranked worlds, their libraries will have different kinds of access to different kinds of knowledge depending on quite a few factors. But in such a low-ranked world as this one, libraries were quite simple.

Yet, I was still curious about this section that I could now access because I was quite certain that this building wasn’t bigger on the inside.

"Hello there, I’m looking to access the unverified section. Could you please tell me where it is?"

The person behind the desk at this hour looked at me questioningly, but I showed her my token, which she scanned. She still had a scowl on her face, but after I looked at her a little bit longer, perhaps that was just her resting face, and the wrinkles that showed her age simply made it look like she was constantly scowling.

"Everything seems to be in order. Follow me. You can use the token next time to get in yourself. In this section, you are also required to bring back your own books and put them where you found them. Is that understood?" she told me while looking back at me while continuing to lead me.

It wasn’t long before we reached a completely ordinary door, except for the fact that you needed to show your token near the handle to unlock it. She allowed me to do it with my own token, and with a click, the door opened and we walked inside. Almost immediately, there was a staircase that led down, and I soon realized where this section was. It was underground.

This room was dim and there were a lot of unlit lanterns on the many shelves. There were also quite a few reading tables.

"You can use those lanterns but bring them back. I hope that I won’t have to tell you again. You seem like a good lad, but no funny business. Is that understood?" I gave her a nod, after which she left.

There were a few glow lights giving off a low light, but it was enough to see by. The way forward led to complete darkness, so I could understand why you needed the lanterns. I picked one up and realized that they didn’t have a way to light it. Before I went upstairs, I tried something—I concentrated and channeled my mana into my fingertip, making a small flame appear, which I used to light the lamp.

With this lamp, I headed between the bookcases that stretched from the floor to the ceiling. After I had walked for about five minutes, I came to the realization that this place was a maze and that the books were really badly organized. At least there seemed to be larger sections with relevant topics, so it should be at least a little bit easier.

After about an hour, I realized that this place was really good for training memorization and remembering pathways in very similar-looking corridors. When I found the stairs leading downwards and discovered another complete floor—and then another one—I realized that if I explored this enough, I might actually find a skeleton of a person who got lost here and never found their way out.

The atmosphere was quite dark, and I guess some would find it spooky, but I liked it. One thing was clear, I wasn’t going to find what I was looking for today. There also seemed to be some nooks with tables where you could set up to read, and I did see a few other lanterns, but I didn’t approach. It was almost like everyone who had a lantern purposely avoided others.

I had spent nearly the entire day here when I finally headed out and went to the tavern to play some cards and have some food, as I was starving. The next day, I found myself wanting to get back to clearing maps. So I headed to purchase another goblin map, and after that, I think I will do another trent map.

As I was walking back to my place—I still couldn’t call it home as it didn’t feel like it—I contemplated what to do. The trent map I was currently holding was quite damaged, and I didn’t think it would survive an activation. I also think that I have gotten all I can get from the goblin map. As I now know how to fight them, at least this lower version of them.

There were a few other options for standard maps, but I think a gremlin one would be a good choice. They are smaller than goblins, but also faster. This should be a nice test, and they should bring about the same amount of profit as the goblin one, perhaps a little bit more.

When I was in my room, I decided to read a little bit more. I had finally found the right section in the unverified area of the library, and it had been quite funny to read about people and how they liked to portray themselves. Many wrote about achieving things that adventurers double their level never could.

Unfortunately, you couldn’t bring those books out of the library. So the correct books were good enough to read right now as I was still working on understanding how to build a proper passive tree that would work for me.

I was now level 20 after clearing the last instance of the trent map, which meant that I could activate four passive nodes. They would certainly give me a boost, but even though I would not choose to use them as I was currently doing easy maps and didn’t want to make them even easier, that didn’t change the fact that I wasn’t certain what to pick.

Something just felt off about my plan of doing elite minions while also fighting myself. Was the problem that I should fully go with the elite minions? But I didn’t want to be weak. The other option was to disregard the elite minion plan, but having allies that were as resistant to fire as I was, was something I shouldn’t ignore.

The next day, I signed up and got a date to use a map four days from now. It was unfortunate that it was so long, but, well, I couldn’t do anything about that. I also had quite a good nest egg now, but this time I was thinking about buying more equipment or perhaps some skills.

I could also purchase the gem that would share my resistances with my elite minions, but I looked into it a little bit. It wasn't a gem that would be hard to get, as there were plenty around.

Before I headed to the library, I went and purchased a gremlin map. In the library, I spent a few hours reading, but then I decided I had studied enough and felt like I wasn’t getting any better with my passive tree planning. So, I headed underground, took two staircases after the first one, and finally reached the section with so many wonderful books.

Basically, all of them were written by the authors themselves about themselves. Some of them were journals, which were also interesting, so I just picked another book at random as I always did and started to read.

Immediately, I noticed that this one was a bit different. It was more in a journal format, which there were quite a few of here, but there were also cut-out pieces of paper from other books glued onto the pages.

On the glued-on pieces was writing that was a lot neater, so it was from a printed book. After a few pages, I recognized one passage. It was about how to deal with a certain type of land shark. There were crossed-out sections and explanations as to why they were crossed out. Apparently, this person didn’t think that everything written in the library above was correct.

What was even better was that there were actual explanations as to why he thought that, and best of all, these seemed to be based on practical experiences he had gotten while actually fighting these types of monsters.

I never actually thought that everything up above was something I should wholly trust, but it was interesting to see a different perspective. In some of the passages, this person even said that under normal circumstances—which he wasn’t in—the writing would have been correct.

As I continued reading, it became obvious that whoever this person was didn't journal that often because, quite soon, the grey and green monsters turned into blue ones and then to a rank even beyond that—to the red rank.

Red ranks were people who had reached past level 90. Why was this kind of book here? The only reason I could tell that this was for red rank was because of the monsters described here.

Yes, the passages talked about goblins and other weaker monsters at a glance, but they weren’t the goblins I was fighting. The goblins this person was fighting used skills and would be able to beat me with one finger—if they would even need that. Still, there was a question as to why and how this was here. I skipped more towards the end to find out the reason, and I finally did.

The person who wrote this journal seemed to be from this city. At some point, he seemed to have sent his family back here, sending the journal with them, as the last third of the book was once again about monsters of the grey rank—now written in a different handwriting.

Whoever this new person was, they obviously weren't as good at observations. Their notes were shallow compared to the first one. I spent the next seven hours memorizing basically the entire book. There was one passage that I felt changed my viewpoint, and I truly thanked whoever this person might have been, as there weren’t any names written anywhere.

‘In all my time adventuring, never have I met someone over level 100—someone who could regularly clear red maps—who used others to do their bidding. While I have seen such people grow incredibly fast, no matter who they were, they hit the red wall simply because they didn't invest in themselves. To truly break the red wall, you yourself must be the weapon—not your party members, not one singular skill, not one singular item, and most definitely not minions.’

That was the passage that changed everything. It just made so much sense to me. There were more explanations, and I was certain I was still going to use elite minions because apparently, stronger ones always gave you some sort of ability you couldn't easily get with skills. But everything else in that passage also made sense—relying on one thing, and that one thing not working or being taken from you, would mean failure.

I looked at the fire flickering in the lamp. There was a clear pathway to power I had, and that was fire. Not only was I immune to it, but my control over it was also a lot better than anyone else who hadn't specialized in fire magic by taking that node.

Once again, I would need to study, but my mind was already racing, making connections I hadn’t made before—about what to pick and what skills to use. This felt more right. It was time to head back up and start going over some more books.