Chapter 3 - Soulirius Codex
The wall that the Mindeater was scratching split and opened like two massive gates.
Liesel was hesitant to enter another unknown layer. She had not sustained any injury from her encounter with the Mindeater, for which she was fortunate. At the same time, she had no mental strength to move at all.
If only she had woken up in her bed, as if it were just a nightmare? But this was real. The Mindeater's blood smelled like boiling medicines. She walked over its corpse, as if to tell herself that she had won.
The door fully opened, large enough to put even the Grand Senatorium of the capital to shame, and may host the Ancient Giants without any trouble.
It was a narrow passage in its design, even if it was built so vast that she felt like an ant venturing into a castle. The darkness around her was tangible, which would've bothered her, but that emotion had been thoroughly destroyed by the Mindeater.
"You did it!" The spirit manifested in front of Liesel, surrounded by a puff of white clouds. "That was amazing… Are you okay?"
"Was it your idea to put me there?" Liesel asked.
The spirit whipped her wings, scooting away from Liesel, as she waved her hand. "Whoa, whoa, whoa. You got it all wrong. I am like… just here. Better to be safe in this place than out there in your world. I've got no say in anything here. Well, I tried to have the bastard custodian end it quickly, but he wanted to test you."
"The Custodian... Who is he?" Liesel asked. She didn't think she was angry at anyone in particular. That could largely be attributed to her powerlessness. She was walking in a world beyond her comprehension. To feel angry at someone who could trap a Mindeater, create a Shade Dungeon, what good would it do for her?
"Well, I am here to guide you to him. He's decayingly old, you see," the spirit said, "and so he needs a successor for the Qirahth. You might be good for the job, he thinks, even if you are a very feeble creature at the moment. He might be able to fix you."
"Am I still under the dreams of the Mindeater?" Liesel whispered under her breath. She didn't feel that way. But that thought allowed her to let the simmering curiosity die there.
"You are not. I saw you kill it, which was strange. How did you do it? I mean, you are very weak."
"Once a Mindeater manifests inside the memory, it has little control over it. It is the sole chance that is given to its prey to win. There is always only one," Liesel replied.
"Why do you know that, Liesel?" Auram asked. "You are too weak to have ever considered facing something like that. I have lived a hundred times your lifespan, probably, but even I didn't know that about five minutes ago."
Liesel shrugged without an answer. She had once imagined herself in those white, radiant gowns that the Radiant Guardiants, ones responsible for hunting down the Mindeaters, wore. So she had taken the precursor course for it. It allowed you to experience a small taste of what a Mindeater was like.
"Not interested?" Auram frowned. "That makes me even more curious. C'mon, tell me."
"Knowledge has little to do with strength."
"Oh, you're gonna eat those words," the spirit grinned proudly. She zipped forward. "Knowledge has a lot to do with strength, trust me. Hurry up!"
Unlike the spirit, Liesel lacked the willpower to make any active effort. She dragged her feet on the dusty, slate grey stones like a drunk woman, about to fall flat on the ground.
It would take another five minutes of walking before they arrived at another door.
"If you are wondering why it's taking so long, just know that the Custodian decided this is how you must come to the Qirahth. Otherwise, you'd not appreciate it. He could've connected the door directly to his chamber if he wanted."
Even in these plain walls, the air of something ancient and greater than the Laks Empire breathed down her neck. It could only exist at the same time as the Empire itself because it was not part of the Hallowed Realms. She didn't mind being forced to appreciate the grandeur a little longer, an imaginary civilization that was truly civilized. It would last this fleeting moment. Once she met the Custodian, she'd either be left thinking, "Oh, they were just like the Empire," or that they were worse than the Empire. Experiences inside the dungeon gave her little to settle on either.
The heavy stone doors shook the ground beneath her feet as they slid to the side. Cold air hissed at her face again.
Past the door, it was a very large library. Everything was built with slate-gray stones. Floating lanterns filled with spirit dust lit the halls. The scrolls hung from the ceiling were the first instrument she saw. They were empty to her eyes, but the mist around them might have played a role in hiding the letters on them. Aisles of books came next, large tomes, bigger than Liesel herself, filling the shelves. And then there were stone tablets, and a hundred other methods of writing. From the runes drawn on the underside of a sphere to translucent liquids that might turn into words under special conditions.
A series of staircases led her to the Custodian's office. It was a small door beside the main door, which was odd at first glance, then she realized he was a Custodian of this realm, not the Master.
The Custodian was a small creature, barely above five feet. Its body was hunched, covered in a gray garb. Its eyes, however, almost brought out the most mortal core of her being, which wanted to kneel. There was a hierarchy of strength, and it was easy to tell where you stood. The golden rings inside the eyes spoke of that hierarchy. No, even the Grand Marshal of the Imperial Army should not have seven rings inside his eyes.
Of course, he can trap the Mindeater inside the dungeon. Even that thing had only one ring in its eyes. Compared to the decaying corpses of an Ascendant before her, the mind eater was nothing more than an insect.
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"You are sufficient enough to stand in the Library," the Custodian uttered. "Unworthy to be our successor still. You have performed aptly, if slightly beneath our expectations. We grow old, and our time diminishes. As such, we must settle our hope on you. Do not disappoint us."
He waved his hand and threw a book at her.
Liesel caught it out of instinct. "What?"
"Once you have formed a Materiality Core, we will converse again. The Soulirius Codex shall guide you."
"What are—" before she could finish her words, everything around her turned black. The ground beneath her feet vanished. She was falling.
And then, she landed on the cold, hard floor. She was lightheaded. And exhaustion tempted her to go to sleep. She gathered herself up immediately. It was cold. Air brushed past her cheek.
"He expects you to form the Materiality Core in a year," Auram said, appearing in front of Liesel's face again.
"Can you not teleport in my face?" Liesel complained. "I'd not want to accidentally slap you aside."
She looked around her. She was on the roof of an abandoned temple. It was in ruins, actually. Covered in moss and vines.
To the east, the sky distorted, and the world seemed to collapse in a weirdly indecipherable way. It was the edge of the realm, perhaps a Necropolis, where the veins of dead gods breed mindless demons—demonic monsters—into the world. So it would be three other directions that she'd need to look for a way out. At the very least, she was at the edge of the ruin, half a step into the forest. She was glad that the Custodian had that much kindness. The deserted ruins would definitely have a few demons meandering around, especially one close to a Necropolis.
"I'll try," Auram floated at an appropriate distance, "He wanted me to tell you that. Just so you know, I am not his pet."
"He was in a hurry to throw me out."
"Yeah. Well, he's stingy like that. Sometimes, he even throws me out of the Library when I go to sleep, but I can teleport right back, so he has no choice but to scowl like a lizard," Auram proudly proclaimed.
Liesel had little knowledge about the Spirit's magic to discard or accept her words at face value. They were not recognized as an Ascendant species in the first place, and neither were they ever considered dangerous for students to learn about them.
"Why?" she asked.
"Uh, I think he's going insane. Like the real deal insane. He's old, eccentric, and like, really, really stubborn. If I have to guess why he threw you out, I'd say he wants you to think about the Library and him for a while until you get another audience. And that way, he'd have weight behind his words. After all, he's so desperate, he cut out like ten floors of dungeon, and they were all extremely dangerous, designed to kill almost any ascendants in the world."
"Well, you certainly are destroying any ounce of interest I might have in him." Liesel exhaled. At least, she was back outside, but there was no looming Castle of the High Council around her. Everything was flat forest, and some hills in the distance. "If the Mindeater is part of things that must be defeated, then opening a random entrance in the capital does little? Why not seek out strong Radiant Guardians and Ascendants of those ranks?"
"I don't know. I am just there. He might have his reasons."
Liesel nodded. She considered going into the forest, but she didn't want to move.
"Well. Why don't you read the book he gave you? It's night, and you are already too exhausted to walk around in the demon-infested forest," Auram said.
"Just great. Can you go back to the Qirahth and ask him to send me back to my home?"
"Uh… I think he must have a reason. And I am not going back. We had a deal, and he broke it."
"What kind of deal?"
"You are better off thinking you are going to die if you make a single mistake," Auram said. "He only cares about his successor. We had a deal that he'd stop the Mindeater after thirty seconds, and then he refused."
"Successor to what?" Liesel asked. "What makes the library so precious?"
"Something important, I guess," Auram shrugged, shifting away slightly. "I don't understand it really, but he wants to preserve the Qirahth. And right now, he alone sustains the realm. Once he dies, the entire library would collapse."
Liesel bobbed her head, slowly shifting her attention to the book. The Custodian was unlike any creature she had heard of. At the same time, if he could help her, she wouldn't mind accepting his help. She could understand the basic premise of their deal for now. He was desperate for a successor, and she wanted to be more than she was.
He's not bound to mortal morality. He couldn't care less if I die, or the hundreds of others.
Liesel reminded herself as she picked up the tome. There was a high likelihood that it would ask her to do something dangerous, and she should be cognizant of that fact. The cover felt like it was made of stone. There was a rune carved on it that she couldn't read.
[Translate Soulirius Codex into Argish?]
The Archive asked. The Archive window was white, unlike the blue of the System.
Liesel nodded. It was the first instance of the Archive communicating with her. After all, the Archive was responsible for the macro management of the world, unlike the individualistic focus of the System.
The ink on the pages twisted and stretched from the unknown symbols to the arches and strokes she could understand.
Soulirius Codex: Nebulous Phase
Authored by The Librarian
Liesel held back a scoff at the absurdity of the title. Regardless, she switched the page. As she went through the book, her eyes grew heavier. She was not interested in the theory. After all, she had once learned most of the things talked about in this book, even if that had not been as well explained as this book did. What purpose did it serve?
The Soul Reconstruction
Liesel's sleep vanished as soon as she went down the passage. Among the list of necessities, which ranged from the poorly constructed cultivation method, to overdrawn and damaged in the Sol veins, the one that stood out to her was the damage caused by exposure to the ashdust.
She flipped through the pages quickly until she arrived at the solution to her ailment. It was divided into two forms, one that was for the matured soul form, and one that never formed. The latter was harder to fix as it didn't just require purifying the ashdust, but also starting the growth of the stunted Soul-Form. It would require sealing the Ash-dust clogging her soul into a tiny section, which was easy so long as she had access to the materials. It would require some expensive things, but none of those should be illegal, so she would've started working on it right now if she were not in the middle of nowhere.
After that, she'd need to start working on a Soul Growth Potion. It would be a little harder, but she could do it. Once those two things were done, she could form a Materiality Core.
There was a step of destroying the ashdust that would still be trapped in her soul, but it would have to wait for the future. Still, this was the third step of fixing her soul.
"Did you find an answer?" Auram asked.
Liesel nodded. She had completely forgotten about the spirit. "Yeah. It will be hard… I need to alchemize an Enlightenment Potion."
"Then, why do you look sad?"
"I am not sad… but it is not going to be easy, especially in the middle of nowhere."
"What do you need?"
"A Soulheart..." Liesel glanced at the Necropolis, "And a Soulheart can always be found there."
"Right." Auram nodded. "What's a Wraith Shaman?"
Liesel had whispered it under her breath while reading the book. There were other materials too, but the wraith demon was going to be the hardest to find.
"A demon that performs rituals for its gods, that god's blood resides in its heart," Liesel uttered. "Its blood can purify the ashdust afflicting my soul. That's for the far future, after forming the Materiality Core."
Was this why the Custodian threw her here? Regardless, the Wraith Shaman was the long-term goal. For now, she'd need to find a town and then draw the sealing spell as drawn in the book. She glanced at the Necropolis, the arrogance of killing a Mindeater tempted her to try and find it now.
Don't be stupid. I am barely stronger than a normal human.