Chapter 15 The Way Of Fire

"Hi Vila," I said in a slightly louder voice than was strictly allowed in the library. She jumped a bit, which brought a smile to my face.

"Mike, don't talk so loud," she said in a quiet yet somehow firm tone. "I’m surprised to see you here so early."

"Yeah, I’m skipping training today. So I was wondering if you could help me find some books?"

She looked at me, surprised. "You need help finding books? Please, you know the location of most books better than my coworkers.” After a short pause she continued, “What is it you're looking for?"

"Yeah, I’m looking for books I don’t usually read. This time, I’m not looking for any biographies—specifically written by people about themselves." Her raised eyebrow made me explain further.

"Well, there are quite a lot of biographies of great adventurers, but they're always written by someone else. When I was younger, I enjoyed reading when people talked about themselves. It was more personal, and of course, those kinds of books usually were written with, let's say, creative liberties. It was a pastime I quite enjoyed, and I think I’ve been going at it a bit too hard."

"If you want entertainment, why don't you read books in the entertainment section? There are plenty of fantastical stories meant to draw you in, but what you're describing still sounds like studying. You’d do it badly and only get a little more entertainment out of it."

"I mean, you’re not wrong, but I’ve just never liked stories that are complete fantasy. Yeah… sorry to bother you like this, perhaps I should just go for something else?"

She immediately said, "No," stopping me from moving away by placing a hand on my arm. "I’m not going to judge you for enjoying what you enjoy, but the reason you’re not finding them is because they are not here. A lot of books are deemed unsuitable by the Adventurers Guild and by the local branches."

That was a bit unfortunate. "So should I go and look for another library? There should be some there, right?"

She shook her head. "There really aren't other libraries like this. The others focus on children and entertainment. You didn’t hear it from me, but perhaps you should take a look at some of the access forms you can request for the library. And don’t just look at the access level based on your rank."

She then shooed me away with one hand while getting back to work. That was truly interesting, so I went out to find some more information about library access. There were restricted sections—I had already looked into that. Mainly, it was based on your rank in the adventurers' guild. Technically, I didn’t have a rank yet, or what many were referring to as grey rank, but that wasn’t official.

If you could complete a standard green map, you would be a green-ranked adventurer. Not only would you get to go to more difficult worlds, but you would also gain access to better information—things that were restricted to me right now. Even here, there was a green section in the library that I could never get into, so I hadn’t bothered looking through the access forms properly. But now I saw that I had made a mistake.

Four hours later, I had not only uncovered the mistake I made with the library but also a few other things that weren’t important right now but would be in the future. Apparently, you could request access to sections of the library that weren’t fully verified, meaning the books there could contain wrong information.

The reason you needed to request access was so that you couldn’t later blame the guild for any incorrect information you read there. The problem was that if you got that access, you basically gave up any chance of blaming something going wrong on any information you read—even in the correct section of the library—as you were now considered tainted goods.

Keeping that in mind, I went to the adventurers' guild office with the correct paperwork already prepared. It took a bit longer to get approved, but eventually, it was. However, instead of heading straight to the library, it was time to go to a tavern.

It took me a while to find the right one—one that had what I needed and didn’t have a large adventurer population visiting it.

It took me about an hour to get there from the adventurers' guild at a fairly fast walk. It was far enough away that adventurers usually didn’t bother coming so far out, as there were plenty of establishments closer by. It was also a bit farther from the city walls, which always had a higher adventurer population.

This meant that city folk were here, which meant fewer fights and overall problems, but more specifically for my needs, I would not be making acquaintances and friends with adventurers who might ask me to join their party. This was my plan—to socialize a bit more without having too many strings attached.

The tavern was quite busy, and a lot of it was filled with workers getting a late lunch. I also ordered some food and a drink and purposely sat behind the bar counter. It might be a while before I made acquaintances with regulars, but…

My train of thought was interrupted when I saw half of the room filled with tables that were a bit different than the others. I was shocked when I noticed a group of people who had just finished eating move to one of those tables. The tables were a bit larger than normal and a bit lower down, not really meant for eating. Each of them then took out a pack of cards and started shuffling them.

All of them were obviously going to play cards, but they were not playing the original game meant for these cards; they were playing the seven-deck switch. Instantly, I remembered all of the times I played this game with my family. I was so consumed by this memory that I didn’t notice my food arriving.

"So, do you play?" came a voice from behind the bar counter, and I finally snapped out of whatever state I was in. I looked at the barman and smiled.

"Yeah, quite a bit. What's the rules here, and how can someone new play?"

"Yeah, we’re actually quite known for seven-deck, that’s why half our tables are for that game. While some play the original game, mostly we play the seven-deck for money. We have low stakes, so things don’t get out of hand. The games start at six and go on till we close. You can find a game or two every week, but during weekends we are packed."

"Thanks, I might actually join, although I won’t be able to tonight." He gave me a head nod and moved on to get another order.

I would’ve liked to ask a few more questions, but I actually didn’t want to admit to him that I didn’t have a playing deck. All in all, the food was good, the drink was fine, and luckily, they had options that didn't have much alcohol in them. Now, I have a chance to play a game that I enjoy, although playing for money is not optimal. But I knew how to play it well, so I shouldn’t have too much of a problem.

So instead of staying for the entire evening as I had planned before, I headed towards the marketplace that was more catered towards citizens than adventurers. It didn’t take me long to find a stall that was selling cards, but of course, they focused more on the original game.

The original game was played more by rich people, as the type of card you had actually mattered, while in the most popular gambling games, only the numbers on the cards counted.

The seller smiled when I approached, but that smile dimmed a bit when I immediately focused on their pre-packaged card packs. An entire section of the stall was taken up by different full decks. At the very bottom, there were seven decks that all had different colored backs. Those were for children, and I was most familiar with these cards.

"What would you be interested in?" the seller asked me.

I looked upwards to the other card packs. Those cards didn’t have different colored backs, as you could put some mana into them and they would create a unique back, so no one would mix up their cards.

"I would like a standard card pack, please."

"Yes, right away. We have the standard packs, with each one made up of cheap cards to keep the cost down. One pack is 4 gold. But would you be interested in our mystery packs? They are 5 gold but are made up of random cards, of course, having all four suits with different numbers and letters. In each pack, there is a chance for a 5-gold-piece card."

Looking a bit to the left there were other packs that had less cards and priced differently, they also seemed to be mystery ones. Seems like a nice way to make some extra coins. There were also a few others behind me already waiting, obviously wanting to buy some more cards.

"Fine, I’ll take the 5-gold one," I said while handing over 5 gold pieces, as I just wanted to get away from here before he tried to sell me more cards.

I didn’t head back to the tavern. Instead, I went back to my place and just practiced shuffling a bit. I wasn’t that aware of the prices of the different cards, but I did like the images on them. When I claimed the cards with my mana, the backs turned into a swirling storm of fire. It looked so beautiful, and I could easily get lost just looking at it.

Just in case, I went over what each card did, and to be honest, I had a bad pack for the original game. But for the seven-deck, it didn’t matter.

Tomorrow, I will go to the library, find the correct section, so I could start enjoying some entertainment every once in a while. Then, I would go into the tavern, I’m thinking during the weekdays so there would be fewer people. And of course, I will continue clearing maps gaining experience, both kinds and money.