Chương 102: (100) 2.53. One Small Step for Man

Despite all the questions Vin had for the capillan, they didn't spend too much longer chatting with Forpurt after hearing what he knew about the library. The setting sun was all the reminder Vin needed that time was steadily passing, and who knew just how much longer Alka's subconscious would be able to hang in there.

Vin had tried to see if the Forpurt had a map or something similar that he could borrow to get a better sense of the surrounding fragments, but it turned out the man navigated exclusively via his own Mental Map passive. After turning down their request to join them in search of the library, Forpurt had welcomed them to swing by his home fragment whenever they got the chance to compare notes and Mental Maps of the surrounding area.

Apparently unlike Vin, Forpurt actually enjoyed spending time back in his hometown, and he did his best to return every few days. And so it was that Vin had waved goodbye to the first fellow wanderer he'd met on this world, turning his focus back on their current task. The last fragment they had to cross to reach the floating library was fairly… normal. Similar to the Earthers' fragment, the land was a mix of gentle meadows and scattered forests.

The only real difference he could make out was that the grass seemed a bit taller and the trees thicker, and of course the fact that he could make out what looked like a legitimate town off near the center of the fragment, complete with farmers working in outlying fields. From this distance Vin couldn't tell what race they were, but they at least looked fairly human. Though their movements did look oddly… jerky, for whatever reason.

As much as it physically pained him, Vin steered their group away from the town, giving it a wide berth as they ran past. He didn't trust himself to stay focused with a potentially new race of people and culture to discover, and he promised himself he'd come back at some point once all this was settled. They did spot a few small groups of people out and about as they ran that Vin could only assume were small hunting parties.

The fact that the distant figures gave them cheerful waves from afar when they were spotted made it seem like the fragment was a fairly safe one filled with friendly people. Even if they did seem to stay clear of Vin and his friends, always heading in the opposite direction after they finished waving. The sun had nearly set by the time they made it to the edge of the peaceful fragment, but there was still plenty of light left for them to make out the goal that they'd been running toward for the past hour.

Vin stood at the edge of the meadow fragment, staring slack-jawed at the impossible sight before them. The next fragment was the first one that made Vin truly feel like he was in a fantasy world. The terrain was jagged and rough, as though someone had set off a series of explosions all across the land that had churned up the vegetation and left nothing but scattered rocks and giant craters behind. Vin would have wondered what had happened to all the missing chunks of earth, if it weren't obvious at a glance.

They had gone up. Drifting slowly but steadily across the sky were hundreds if not thousands of tiny islands. Most of them didn't look like they were more than a couple of feet wide, but a few were far larger, easily big enough to support an entire house or two. Vin even thought he could make out the remains of a few small buildings scattered among some of the larger floating pieces, but from this distance it was hard to be sure.

"How is this even possible?" He asked, watching in awe as the islands drifted overhead, occasionally thumping into one another and adjusting their course.

"I… I don't know," Shia admitted, just as awe struck as he was by the incredible sight.

"The only things I could think of resulting in something like this would be either some grand scale ritual, or multiple incredibly high tier spells clashing with one another and causing some sort of permanent change to the ambient mana."

"Even I gotta admit, it's pretty crazy," Scule said, his grip tightening around a chunk of Vin's hair as he stared upwards, as if afraid he'd suddenly get sucked up into the sky as well.

"However, as insane as this is, I still don't see anything resembling a library."

"Forpurt said it was closer to the center, just like most fragments," Vin said, pulling himself together as he checked the sun's position in the sky.

"We don't have a lot of sunlight left, so let's try and make it there before dark. I know Forpurt said this fragment seemed pretty devoid of monsters, but let's not take our chances. With our luck, there's some unique monster living on this fragment that's only interested in eating humans, elves, and petians." A small squeak sounded from his pocket, and Scule rolled his eyes.

"Well good for you Reginald, I suppose you can tell our stories if that happens." Seeing as everyone was in agreement with the plan to head toward the center, Vin stepped over the invisible border, and a few things happened in quick succession. First, he felt a familiar buzzing from the System, and he pulled up his latest messages to find an expected, but still welcome notification. Running increased to lvl 13! 1, 300 exp gained. Level up! Magical Explorer lvl 26!

+3 Attribute Points The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. +1 Skill Point Fifth ring fragment discovered! 2, 500 exp gained. And second, distracting him slightly from his recent level up, was the immediate sense of his stomach being flipped upside down.

"Ugh," he grunted, rubbing his stomach as Shia crossed the border beside him, frowning as she was struck with the same sensation.

"That's definitely less than fun."

"Still better than that death fragment," Scule muttered, a hand on his own gut.

"You doing okay in there Reginald?" An uncomfortable squeak was all the confirmation Vin needed to hear that the rat was also experiencing the same unpleasant sensation as the rest of them.

"Some sort of… strange gravity magic," Shia said, tasting the air with a curious look.

"Feels like the ambient mana itself was changed rather recently too, which is pretty uncommon according to my master."

"You don't say…" Crouching down, Vin leapt straight up, curious to see if the fragment had a noticeably lower gravity. Sadly, it didn't seem like he went much higher than normal, and he frowned as his thoughts of leaping across the crater-filled terrain like an astronaut were thoroughly dashed. He thought he felt at least a little lighter than normal, but it was hard to tell.

"Okay, gravity seems normal enough at least. Let's start making our way toward the center. Keep your eyes peeled for the library!" For the first time in quite a while, Vin found himself slowed down by the local terrain. The ground was so churned up and dotted with craters, that there simply wasn't any easy way of running straight through it. He had to keep stopping to climb over sudden walls of dirt, or make detours to run along the rim of larger craters.

It made travel slow going, and as the sun slowly faded away over the horizon and the light grew dim, he began growing worried they were going to be forced to make camp and wait until morning to continue their search. And seeing as they had only guesses as to how much longer Alka had left until her true death, that just wasn't an option for them right now. It wasn't until the final bit of sunlight fled, casting them into near total darkness that he heard Shia gasp.

"Look! Up there!" Following the elf's finger, Vin had to search for a moment before spotting what she'd seen. At first, he thought she was just pointing toward one of the stars in the sky, this one just a little bit brighter than the rest for whatever reason. But as he focused, he started, coming to the same realization Shia must have. That bright dot wasn't a star at all. It was slowly drifting across the night sky off in the distance, as though coming from one of the many islands.

"That's got to be it!" He said, changing course and carefully making his way toward the light. Travel was slowed down even further by the lack of sunlight, and Vin was forced to pull out his enchanted gemstone to give them enough light to continue moving. On top of the lack of light, the closer they got to the center of the fragment, the more gravity seemed to lessen, which slowed them down even further.

Instead of lowering their weight to the point they could skip and leap across craters, the gradually lessening gravity just made them continuously trip and stumble over the tough terrain as their steps began taking them farther than expected. It took them longer than Vin would have liked, but eventually, the small dot of light Shia had spotted up in the distance gradually transformed into something incredible.

High up in the sky, on an island that had to be nearly a quarter mile across, was a building lined with glowing lights. But this didn't look like any kind of library Vin had ever seen. No, it looked like a glowing, floating cathedral. Stretching at least five stories tall and with what looked like eight large towers jutting out of it, the library appeared to be built out of pure white marble.

He couldn't make out the images, but even from this distance he could tell that all of the windows were made from colorful stained glass, each one lit from within with a warm, bright light. Even if he couldn't make out many details from down on the ground, that didn't stop him from being blown away by the library's incredible appearance.

"That might be the most impressive building I've ever seen," he whispered, staring at the library hovering up over their heads and nearly falling into an unseen crater while they walked.

"It's definitely impressive… But it's also very high up," Shia frowned, tapping her chin as she walked.

"I'm not sure if I'll be able to get us up there after all."

"No sense in worrying until we get there," Scule shrugged, his eyes also hungrily locked onto the glowing building.

"For all we know the librarian will have some sort of magical elevator that goes down for people. I mean, why build a floating library if you didn't want people to come check out books?"

"I have a feeling it wasn't always floating," Shia muttered, her tongue once more flicking out of her mouth.

"…if it wasn't obvious based on how tricky walking has become, the gravity magic seems to be growing more and more concentrated the closer we get to the library. I don't know what that means, but I'm starting to suspect it's the cause of what happened here." Curious, Vin tried jumping again, shouting in surprise as he actually leapt nearly twice as high as he had on the edge of the fragment.

"Woah!" He laughed, flailing his arms and doing his best not to stumble as he landed on the unstable ground.

"Yeah, things are definitely getting weird."

"Please give me a warning before you do something like that," Scule begged, clutching a hand over his mouth as he struggled not to lose his lunch.

"Agne went through a lot of trouble to make a red themed lunch for The One That Paints In Red, and I'd rather not check and see if the food's still as red coming up as it was going down." With the giant glowing library as their focal point, it wasn't long before their group finally reached their target. Approximately two or three hundred feet below the library they needed to get into.

"Okay Shia, now would be an excellent time to try that plan of yours," Vin said, offering the elf a reassuring smile.

"Like I said, no promises," Shia said, reaching into her pouch and pulling out a seed Vin recognized in an instant. Taking a deep breath, Shia planted the seed in the ground and directed some dense nature mana into it. Within seconds, a small sapling grew out of the ground, quickly forming into a miniaturized version of Erik.

"Shia, it's good to see you again," tiny Erik said, smiling up at Shia before turning his warm gaze on the rest of them. Nodded respectfully toward Scule and Reginald, his eyes finally landed on Vin.

"And Vin, you as well. My, the three of you have really put some distance between yourselves and the Sacred Forest, haven't you? Though if you don't mind me asking, speaking of the three of you…"

"Where is Alka?"