Chương 7: Borrowing Books

Nero handed the thirty copper pennies to Miya with a flushed face, took the receipt she gave, and went towards the library. It was across the street. He sucked in the fresh, morning air outside before it got populated by the pedestrians' back and forth and the dust that would bring. Crossing the street, he noticed an increase in traffic already. Some people were already in their robes and pants, heading off towards the north. In the north specifically, there was a newspaper factory.

So these guys were very likely employees there. Though, there also resided a whole lot of other factories towards the north of the seventh district. The salaries in those factories were decent too, like five copper pennies daily. And since multiple people of a family worked there, they were rather wealthy. Also, these guys, the factory workers, weren't included in the slum rats category. They were more educated in general too.

As he drew closer to the library, the guardsman outside straightened up, giving him a particularly rough glare.

"Go somewhere else," the guardsman gestured him away…

"Hey, I'm no beggar, why the hell are you shooing me?" He yelled, which made the guard frown, "then what are you?" Nero looked over himself, in the same dirty, tattered clothing and pants, with stitches all over. Yeah, I look like a beggar. He sighed, and brought out his adventurer's ID and the receipt Miya had given him. And handed them both to the guardsman. Whose frown only deepened at reading them. But thankfully, the guy didn't create more trouble and stepped away.

Nero entered the library as is; inside, not a single soul was in sight except a black-haired boy behind the counter. He looked to be his own age. He went over to him, and seeing Nero approaching, the boy stood up.

"You the librarian?" Nero asked. The boy should be, except he didn't exactly meet his imagination of a librarian—he lacked the age, the glasses, and the kind of strictness that he'd come to expect with the term. The guy was more along the lines of a handsome boy who was just "fiddling" with books.

"Yes?" The boy replied, his greyish green eyes scanning him over.

"You need something?" Nero didn't reply, and instead slid over the receipt alongside his ID. The librarian picked up the ID first, read it, and then hovered it over a small crystal sphere he used to hold papers in place. The crystal gave a warm green glow, which he assumed was the signal that assured his ID's authenticity. Although the boy hadn't given him any glances that implied he was looking down on him, Nero could see his eyes still visibly widen at the green light.

"So, you're a Copper-ranked adventurer, with a dormant core, and you're here to borrow the beginner's guide to adventuring?"

"About right," Nero replied, not bothering to elaborate any further.

"Hmm, that's a very basic book though—you sure you don't want the intermediate or advanced guides instead? They're much more useful and contain tons of interesting stuff." That grabbed Nero's interest.

"What do they contain? I'm mainly borrowing the beginner's guide to learn the common knowledge that all adventurers have."

"Hmm, makes sense. But the advanced and intermediate guides cover various basic martial techniques—they teach the basics of herb identification and gathering, the attack patterns of common monsters, and even how to absorb and refine the energy of monster cores to awaken one's dormant core." The boy sat back in his chair.

"Frankly speaking, even though they cost 150–300 coppers to borrow, they're well worth it." Okay, now this guy was speaking like both a book enthusiast and a rich prick. A hundred and fifty to three hundred copper? He could buy a whole new set of equipment with that kind of money! The guy stared at him for a second.

"I know what you're thinking," he said with an almost exasperated expression.

"All adventurers are the same." He shook his head.

"Knowledge is power, you know. Either way, if you're not interested, you can find the beginner's guide around the third aisle's last row." He said it almost dismissively. Nero reconsidered his words. The stuff he'd listed regarding the books wasn't bad—in fact, he understood the value of that information. He was out here buying a beginner's guide with his first income, for fuck's sake. But the extra knowledge would be an added advantage.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation. He didn't need advantages when he already lacked the basic essentials, like decent clothes, swords, and armor.

"Well, thanks for the information about the books. Maybe I'll consider getting them later." He said this while walking away from the counter and towards the aisles.

"Wait," the guy called. He turned.

"My name's Sunny—what's yours?"

"It's Nero," he replied. Sunny nodded at that before sitting back down. What was that about, Nero wondered. …. The scent of varnished wood and paper filled Nero's nostrils as he drifted deeper among the aisles of books, scrolls, and maps. The third aisle Sunny had mentioned was huge. The building itself, Nero noticed as he looked up, was huge too. Its ceiling was cone-shaped, decorated with all kinds of ornaments hanging overhead.

The milky chandeliers alone must have weighed three hundred to five hundred pounds each. The light they emanated wasn't especially bright—just bright enough to allow for reading, while keeping the atmosphere at an almost melancholic degree. Yes, Nero had come here to get that book. But it wasn't every day that he got to enter a place like this. He moved from shelf to shelf, flipping through maps of dungeons, bigger dungeons, and even more ancient dungeons.

"Is there no map of our district? It's all dungeons," he said sardonically. From behind him, he heard footsteps. Turning around, he found Sunny staring down at him.

"Need something?" Nero asked, standing up from the floor and placing the map in his hand back on the shelf.

"You want a district map?" he asked, walking away and towards another shelf full of them. Nero followed.

"Yeah," he replied.

"For any particular reason?"

"Not really, I was just curious, is all." Sunny hummed, but didn't reply. After reaching the shelf, he rummaged through and rearranged a few scrolls before picking out the one with slightly older paper.

"This is the one," he said, holding it out. Nero took it.

"Didn't expect a slum-born guy like you to be so scholarly." Nero looked up from the scroll.

"Didn't expect a nepo baby like you to be so helpful," he said with a smirk. Sunny didn't show much reaction to that, and only shrugged.

"You guys have any other retorts besides that one? Frankly, it's getting old," he said while walking back to the desk.

"You're an odd one, you know that?" Nero said to Sunny's back.

"Says the odd one," he replied, without turning around. Nero shrugged too, and opened the map. It showed a small castle surrounded by twelve rings—the innermost rings being the smallest, with the outer rings growing increasingly larger. Beyond the twelve rings, there was nothing but foggy terrain hidden in mist.

"These are the twelve rings of the City of Silver, didn't expect to see this…" Nero opened more of the scrolls until parts of them fell to the floor. There, he finally found the map of the seventh district. Each circle held seven districts, with the seventh district of the seventh circle marked by a copper symbol that felt oddly familiar. Wait, isn't that the adventurers' badge? He squinted at it, trying to recall the badge he'd seen on one of the many adventurers that morning.

Nors, he remembered, wore a copper circular badge with a single sword carved on it. And interestingly, their whole district was stamped with a one-sworded copper badge. It wasn't only the seventh district marked this way—districts seven through five all bore a one-sworded copper badge, a pattern that broke at district four, which bore a double-sworded copper badge instead. That pattern repeated until the first district that was stamped with a three sworded copper badge instead.

He saw a similar pattern with the other circles too. Circles one through eight repeated this pattern, except the first district of the eighth circle, which was stamped with a four-sworded copper badge. From there onward, districts nine through twelve bore no stamps or markings at all. He brought the map over to Sunny, the librarian, and laid it on the table. Sunny stood up and looked at it with an almost bored expression.

"Can you tell me what these stamps are?" he asked. Sunny, at least, seemed eager to help, and Nero was nothing if not equally eager to take that help where he could get it.

"You see, these stamps basically symbolize the core stages of the people living within these districts." He pointed his pale finger at the seventh district.

"This mark implies that the seventh district, on average, holds and produces mostly initial-stage copper core cultivators."

"Why's that? Why only copper core?" he asked, with several more questions already brewing.

"Well, resource scarcity is one reason, but people in these slums rarely possess any real talent to level up beyond the initial copper stage. Beyond that, hardly anyone here even has an awakened core—it's just a smattering that do." Nero nodded at that as he folded the scroll back up.

"Thanks a lot for helping out, buddy." He winked at Sunny—it would be beneficial to have a relationship with someone so rich and knowledgeable.

"You're daring," Sunny said, with that same expressionless face.

"But I do like daring people." Nero feigned a smile.

"Haha, you talk like one of those core holders." He turned to leave.

"Because I am one." Nero's head snapped back.

"Really?"

"At the intermediate level," Sunny said, almost in passing, before sitting back down. Nero stood frozen there for a minute before slowly making his way back to the aisle that held the beginner's guide. He picked up the book and took it to a table to read. It wasn't very thick—he figured he'd be able to finish it in one sitting. If I don't die before that… Seriously, what had possessed him to talk to a nepo baby the way he had? They were known for having highly cultivated cores.

This guy, Sunny, could've easily snapped him in two after the first snide remark, or the moment he'd addressed him so casually.

"It's just his vibe," he muttered under his breath.

"He approached me so casually, helped, and talked, that it made me let my guard down completely…" Nero shook his head, trying to shake off the thought. I just hope he really does like daring people, and won't come after me on my way out. Inhaling a deep breath of fresh air, Nero refocused on the book in front of him. There was a lot to read. He flipped through the pages for measure.

"Exactly a hundred pages' worth of adventurers common sense."