The rhythmic swaying of the wagon was entirely new to me.
In the void, there had been no such thing as movement — no distance, no displacement, only existence. But here, every creak of the wooden wheels and every jolt against the desert rocks was a small, insistent reminder that I was now bound by the laws of matter. That I had weight. That I occupied space.
Somewhere along the road, my eyelids grew heavy without my permission.
I felt my awareness beginning to drain — slowly, steadily — into what they called sleep. It was a strange thing to surrender to: a conscious being willingly releasing itself into nothing. The experience that followed was an unsettling mixture of rest and pain, coexisting in a way I had no framework to understand.
The darkness returned.
But it was different this time.
From within that emptiness, a blinding white light erupted — and at its very center sat a point of absolute black. Not a shadow. Not a marking. A void. A point of total singularity that pulled at everything around it, that made my entire existence tremble just from proximity. The vision lasted only moments before it snapped shut, like a cosmic eye deciding it had seen enough.
I woke with a sharp jolt, breathing hard in a way that felt foreign to this body.
Strange words were still leaving my throat — syllables from a language I had no memory of learning, dissolving into the wagon's air before I could hold onto them.
Joey glanced back at me from the driver's seat, concern tightening his expression. "What were you saying, Niko? Did you have a nightmare? You were muttering things — nothing I could understand."
I steadied my voice before I spoke. "Just a bad dream, I think. My memory is fragmented right now — it doesn't seem to tolerate quiet well."
Nelson Kayal, seated to my left, responded in that soft, slightly melancholy way of his. "Don't worry about it. Nightmares are the price of surviving in this world. We faced a real one out there in the desert just a short while ago, and we're still here to talk about it. Some people come back from their nightmares. Others don't. Life here is… fragile."
Bahti Zain let out a loud, deliberate laugh and threw up his hands. "What is wrong with you, Nelson? Stop being such a miserable poet. This is a time to celebrate! We're alive because of Niko — we should be drinking and laughing, not composing our own eulogies."
Shozu Rin nodded. "He's right. The shock is behind us now. What matters is that we're still breathing. Death doesn't knock before it enters — so live your life properly before it shows up at your door."
Nelson looked at his companions, then at me, and offered a faint smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. "I apologize, Niko. I suppose after you walk out of something like that, the smallness of your own existence hits you all at once. It's a difficult feeling to shake."
Something unexpected happened then.
I laughed.
Not warmly — it was a short, almost grave sound. But genuine.
"Don't apologize," I said. "Everything you just said is the absolute truth, and that's precisely why I find it worth smiling at. Not because you're suffering, but because you have the honesty to say what most people won't. It's a good thing — knowing the real terms of this existence." I looked at each of them in turn. "I mean that. You faced death out there and didn't flinch from it. That's worth more than you know."
The wagon fell quiet for a moment — thoughtful rather than uncomfortable.
I broke it myself. "Is that...?"
I didn't need to finish the question.
Joey straightened in his seat, something like pride in his posture. "Yes. That's Arcadia."
The Great Kingdom of Arcadia
Even from a distance, the city looked like a piece of light that had fallen from the sky and decided to stay.
The buildings were adorned with gold and silver that caught the sun at angles that seemed almost deliberate, casting the whole skyline in a warm, luminous haze. This was not merely a city — it was an economic and cultural center, a convergence point for different peoples. Humans and jinn and half-bloods moved through its streets together, woven into a single, functioning civilization.
Arcadia was said to be second only to the Jinn Kingdom in sheer beauty. And yet both remained subordinate, in stature if not geography, to the Celestial Star Kingdom — the true seat of power, ruled by the Supreme Sovereign Azrael.
Nelson raised a hand toward the approaching walls. "Prepare yourself, Niko. You're about to reach what you're looking for. The finest libraries on the continent are in this city. The most prestigious universities. Arcadia is the seat of knowledge — more great leaders and warriors have emerged from within those walls than anywhere else."
I allowed myself a small smile. "Understood. Thank you — all of you. I think this is exactly what I need."
Shozu cut in before the gates came into full view, his tone careful. "There's something we need to handle first. Your appearance... it signals danger. The soldiers at the gate may refuse you entry outright."
"I'm aware," I said. "Nelson — may I borrow your hand for a moment?"
He extended it, uncertain. "Of course, but what are you—"
He stopped mid-sentence.
His eyes went wide. No one spoke.
The grey of my skin — the deep, shadowed tone threaded through with red — shifted. Smoothed. Within moments, my appearance was entirely unremarkable. Human. Ordinary.
"Don't be alarmed," I said into their silence. "It's simply a property of my body. I can alter my pigmentation and outer biology to blend with my environment. I discovered it somewhere along the road while riding with you."
Joey stared at me for a long moment, then exhaled. "You are genuinely incredible, Niko." He turned back to the reins. "Leave the entry permit to me."
The gate guard stepped forward with practiced authority. "Halt. Identification and entry documents."
Joey presented the papers without hesitation. "Exploratory military unit, returning from a southern assignment."
The guard examined them, then shifted his gaze to me. "And this fifth person?"
"My apologies — this is Niko. We found him lost in the desert during our mission. He helped us neutralize a Sand Lizard that would have killed us. Former reconnaissance soldier, separated from his unit. I vouch for him personally."
The guard held my gaze for several seconds — the kind of look designed to find cracks in a story. Then he stepped aside. "Proceed. Report directly to the public records hall for registration."
We passed through.
Everyone exhaled at roughly the same moment.
I parted from the others at the first open square, exchanging promises that they would help if I ever had need. Then I was alone — standing in the middle of a living, breathing city that was entirely unknown to me.
I needed the library. Somewhere in my focus, I had forgotten to ask them where it was.
I moved through the streets slowly, trying to take in the colors and smells and sounds without being overwhelmed by them. Near a fountain, I spotted someone standing alone and approached.
"Excuse me. I'd like to ask where the library is."
The figure turned on me sharply. "An idiot, are you?! I'm a girl. Do I look like a man to you? The men in this city, I swear—"
I stepped back. Her ears were long and tapered, her face unusually sharp and clear. A different race — jinn, perhaps, or half-blood.
"I apologize," I said, keeping my voice even. "I'm Niko. I'm unfamiliar with this city. Could you direct me to the library?"
The sharpness in her expression eased somewhat. "I'm Aithel Melina. Come with me — I'm heading toward the Academy anyway."
As we walked, she began to laugh softly. "You really aren't from here, are you, Niko? Why do you speak to me like I'm male? And why is your phrasing so formal? You sound like a walking ancient manuscript."
"I'm not sure what you mean," I said honestly. "How am I supposed to address you?"
Melina explained — with a patience that seemed more amused than charitable — the distinctions of gendered speech, and why my current manner of speaking made me sound like I had been sealed in a vault for several centuries. By the time she finished, a towering building had come into view, carrying the faint, familiar smell of aged paper.
"The Royal Library," she announced. "Go in and take what you need — just respect the rules. Silence, and return everything to its place." She paused at the entrance. "I hope we run into each other again. Goodbye, Niko."
Inside, I disappeared into another world entirely.
I began with Natural Biology. Then Human Evolution. The hours passed in what felt like minutes, until the librarian — Witlock Charles, a stout man with ink-stained fingers and an expressive scowl — announced closing time at the top of his lungs.
Three weeks passed.
Intensive, consuming weeks.
The library became my second home. Charles became the closest thing I had to a friend.
"Back again, you book-obsessed creature?" he would say each morning, already reaching for a fresh stack.
"Knowledge doesn't run out, Charles. Your library is an inexhaustible treasure."
By the end of the third week, I had read one thousand and fifty-one books.
My mind — which operated with a kind of mechanical precision I was only beginning to understand — had absorbed all of it. I now knew that I was on a planet called Earth. I understood human anatomy, history, social structure, and language in their many forms. But what occupied my thoughts most was what I had learned about mana, and the ranking system that governed power in this world.
In the week that followed, with Charles's help navigating the administrative process, I secured registration at the most prestigious university in Arcadia.
"Remember something," Charles told me on my last day in the library, leaning against the counter with his arms crossed. "Knowledge in a university is different from knowledge in books. Books tell you the shape of things. University makes you test them. But this place" — he gestured at the shelves surrounding us — "will always be here for you."
I thanked him and left.
At the university gates, a familiar voice cut through the crowd with no concern for subtlety whatsoever.
"Niko! Is that actually you?!"
Melina.
I turned and offered a dry look. "The vocal range on you is something else."
She fell into step beside me, equal parts delighted and disbelieving as I explained — that yes, I had enrolled, and yes, I had read over a thousand books in three weeks. She stared at me the way people stare at something they can't quite categorize.
"A thousand and fifty-one books in three weeks," she repeated. "You are genuinely a strange creature, Niko."
We were walking through the white marble corridors when a student came barreling around a corner and knocked into us, barely pausing. "Watch where you're going, idiot. Move."
I let him pass without a word.
What a peculiar thing arrogance is, I thought. The way it takes up space in people.
The bell rang, and I found the room for my first class: Magical Sciences and Self-Mastery.
Professor Suzuna Hikari stood at the front of the hall — composed, precise — and began working through the categories of magic and the hierarchy of power. She explained elemental affinities: water, fire, wind, lightning, and their relationship to human practitioners. Then she outlined the broader world system — the Elemental tier, the Obscure tier, the Dark tier — and the ranks that ran through each.
When she reached the rank of the Great Void, I raised my hand.
"Yes — the new student. Remind me of your name?"
"Nico Sigmund. I have a question about the Great Void rank. Why does it carry that name? And why has no one ever reached it?"
She smiled, with the ease of someone who finds genuine pleasure in a good question.
"The name comes from a cosmic phenomenon. There are regions in the galaxy that contain no stars, no planets — only absolute darkness that consumes everything around it. Astronomers called them voids. As for why no one has reached that rank — it remains theoretical. The most powerful sovereign alive today has achieved Star rank. The Great Void would require a magnitude of power that transcends what the human mind can currently conceptualize."
I settled back in my chair.
My mind was already drawing the lines — between her words and the emptiness I had come from, between the name of that rank and whatever I carried inside this body. Something was aligning, quietly and without announcement.
The Great Void wasn't simply a name.
It was a description.
And it was mine.
[End of Chapter 2]