Luna walked away from the center of the massive room. Jin was entirely focused on the stone pedestal. She did not want to bother him. He was always calculating something in his head.
She felt completely out of place here. The room was huge. The black iron shelves towered over her, casting long, dark shadows on the floor. The air was cold. Thousands of books hummed with locked Aether.
She watched the other freshmen. Rich kids from the inner city walked past her in groups. They wore fine silk shirts under their standard black uniforms. They had expensive, glowing rings on their fingers. They looked at her cheap clothes and sneered. They whispered to each other and laughed.
Luna ignored them. She was used to being ignored. She was used to being mocked. She was a ledger keeper from a dirty outer-rim town. Her job was to observe the numbers and record the facts. The main fact was simple. She was weak.
She started looking at the metal plaques bolted to the shelves.
Room four was terrifying. Most of the legacies here were violent. They were designed for war. She walked past the fire section. The books there radiated a faint, dry heat. She walked past the blood and bone manipulation sections. She read a plaque about a legacy that turned human skin into jagged iron spikes to tear enemies apart.
She shivered. She rubbed her arms. She did not want to fight. She had seen enough violence at the bandit camp. She did not want to rip beasts apart with her bare hands. She just wanted to be safe. She wanted to create distance between herself and the monsters of this world.
She kept walking. She reached the very back of the room. The shelves here were dusty. The wealthy students did not come back here often. The lighting was poor.
A faint glimmer caught her eye. It was a single book sitting alone on the bottom shelf.
It had a smooth, solid silver cover. It looked clean and simple. There were no aggressive red runes carved into it. It did not hum with violent energy.
Luna knelt down on the cold stone floor. She read the small metal plaque bolted to the iron shelf beneath the book.
It read: Space Element Gene Legacy.
She read the short description carefully. The legacy was not built for brute physical strength. It did not give the user thick muscles or sharp claws. It did not let you breathe fire.
It had a very difficult requirement. It required the user to find a space-attribute beast core. That was the catch. Space beasts were incredibly rare. They were hard to hunt because they could teleport and fold reality to escape.
But if a user actually found one, they did not just eat the core like a wild animal. They had to refine it slowly. They had to carefully weave the spatial energy directly into their foundation. As the cultivator grew stronger, the space gene grew with them. It was a symbiotic relationship.
The plaque listed the core benefits. The ability to manipulate distance. The ability to create invisible storage pockets in thin air. And eventually, the power to bend physical space and fold reality itself.
Luna stared at the silver book.
Bending space meant she could run away instantly. It meant she could hide things where no one could ever find them. It meant no one could grab her by the hair if she didn't want them to. It was the perfect legacy for a girl who could not throw a punch to save her life.
She made her choice.
But she did not touch the silver book. She had stopped and read the large warning sign at the front of the room before she walked in. She knew the rules.
She reached down. She picked up the small, heavy silver plate sitting next to the plaque. She held it tightly against her chest.
Back in the dead center of the massive room, Jin finished reading the gold plate.
He understood the Devourer legacy completely. The rules were simple. The consequences were absolute. It was a death trap for ninety-nine percent of the people who tried it. If you consumed the wrong gene, your cells went to war and you exploded into meat paste.
But it was his only way forward. His Null Gene rejected standard cultivation. He needed a method that violently forced power into his system.
He did not hesitate. A decision was made. Now it was time to execute.
He raised his right hand. He reached toward the thick glass case sitting on the stone pedestal. He intended to use his Aether-band to scan the physical lock and open the case.
His pale fingers made contact with the cold glass.
The reaction was instantaneous.
A massive, ear-splitting siren exploded through the quiet archive. It was deafening. It sounded like a dying beast screaming inside a metal tunnel. The sheer volume vibrated in Jin's teeth.
Thick red Aether-light flashed rapidly across the high stone ceiling. The soft, glowing blue chains that wrapped around the thousands of other books instantly turned aggressive. The blue light shifted to deep crimson. The Aether chains spiked into jagged red thorns. The entire room went on immediate lockdown.
The wealthy freshmen browsing in the aisles panicked. They dropped to the floor. They covered their ears and curled into tight balls.
Jin did not drop. He locked his knees. He kept his back straight. He kept his face completely blank. His corporate mind registered the failure instantly. He had triggered a high-level security protocol. He did not panic. Panic did not turn off alarms.
The air directly in front of the stone pedestal distorted. It folded inward with a sharp, violent crack.
An old man appeared out of thin air.
The man wore a simple, faded grey robe. His face was covered in deep, harsh wrinkles. His eyes were burning with raw, unfiltered anger.
The air around the old man was incredibly heavy. It was pure Nascent Soul pressure. It radiated off him in invisible waves. It pressed against Jin's chest like a physical wall of solid stone. Jin felt his breath catch in his throat. His Foundation Level 4 core trembled under the crushing weight. He forced himself to stand still.
The elder had used a high-level spatial movement technique. He had crossed the massive library in a fraction of a second to intercept a perceived theft.
"Boy," the elder snapped. His raspy voice cut right through the deafening wail of the siren. "Are you completely blind?"
Jin slowly pulled his hand back from the glass case. He dropped his arm to his side. He did not run. Running from a Nascent Soul expert was a massive waste of calories and guaranteed failure.
"The original text cannot be removed from the pedestal," the elder scolded harshly. He pointed a crooked, calloused finger at the thick glass. "You do not touch the display. You take the gold plate to the front reception desk. They will print a standard, registered copy for you. That is how a library works."
The elder crossed his arms over his grey robe. He glared down at Jin. He looked at Jin's cheap, standard-issue black uniform. He recognized a poor student immediately.
"Did you not read the massive warning?" the elder demanded. His tone was full of contempt. "It is carved in bright red letters right on the main gate of this room. It clearly states the physical books are heavily warded against theft."
Jin paused. He ran his memory back to the entrance.
He had walked straight through the stone archway into room four. He had been entirely focused on finding the target asset. He was scanning the layout of the shelves. He had completely ignored the administrative signage carved into the stone frame of the door.
It was a sloppy mistake. It was an amateur error. In his old life, ignoring a warning sign on a shipping container could cost millions of dollars in corporate fines. Here, it almost cost him his life. He had walked right into a lethal security trap because he failed to read the basic manual.
He mentally logged the error. He would absolutely not make it again.
Excuses were useless here. The elder did not care why he touched the glass. The elder only cared that the rules of the Archive were broken.
"I missed the sign," Jin stated flatly. He kept his voice perfectly steady. He did not apologize. He simply acknowledged the raw data of his failure. "I will take the plate."
The elder scoffed loudly. He looked disgusted by Jin's lack of respect.
"Outer-rim trash," the elder muttered under his breath. He waved his wrinkled hand through the air.
The deafening siren abruptly cut off. The sudden silence left a ringing echo in Jin's ears. The harsh red lights flashing across the ceiling faded back to a dim, cool blue. The jagged red thorns on the books turned back into smooth blue chains. The heavy lockdown pressure in the room slowly lifted.
The students in the aisles started picking themselves up off the floor. They whispered nervously and pointed at Jin.
"Take the plate," the elder ordered. "And follow me to the desk. If you touch anything else, I will throw you out of the Archive myself. You will hit the pavement hard."
Jin reached down. He picked up the heavy, gold-plated sign from the stone pedestal. He held it tightly in his right hand. The metal felt warm.
Jin turned away from the glass case. The elder started walking toward the entrance of room four. Jin followed him. His heavy boots made soft thuds on the stone floor.
He reached the large stone archway. Luna was standing just outside the threshold.
She held the small silver plate in both hands. She had read the warning sign before walking in. She knew better than to touch the locked books. She had just picked up the catalog plate and waited quietly by the door for him to finish his business.
Luna looked at the angry elder in the grey robe. Then she looked at Jin. She saw the heavy gold plate in his hand.
"I triggered the alarm," Jin said to her as he walked past. He did not explain further. It was a statement of fact.
Luna nodded quickly. She fell into step behind him. They did not speak.
They followed the elder across the main floor of the massive grey cube. The Archive was huge. The stone walls echoed with the footsteps of other students entering and leaving the different rooms.
They walked straight toward the long wooden reception desk near the heavy iron front doors. It was time to hand over their plates. It was time to claim their copies. The first crucial step of their cultivation was almost secured. Jin just needed the actual physical manual in his hands to begin the hostile takeover.