Chapter 56: Experience Cannot Be Taught
The King’s Arena released them into the early evening.
Once outside, Arthur checked the notification.
To see a new title.
[Great Leader]
[Given to a leader that led his party to safety and changed the minds of the doubters.]
[Passive Effect: The words spoken by Arthur will have a ten percent chance of convincing those who hear it’s the truth.]
Arthur stared. "...A leader?" He smiled quietly. "I guess..." He looked toward Vedas. "...We’re doing something right."
He then wrapped an arm around Sun. "I’m a good leader, aren’t I?"
"Ugh, don’t let it get to your head." Sun says lightly.
"I won’t be. Beside I’m sure you already gain the title Great Leader before, right?"
"Uh..." Sun looks away, making Arthur sighed.
And then he patted him on the shoulder. "Don’t worry, one day you too will gain the title... Should I make you the leader for the future rounds–"
"I’m good, I don’t need that." Sun shivers before walking faster.
"But the title brings some good effects!"
"No title does that!"
They were three minutes into the walk when Arthur went quiet in the way that meant he was thinking about something specific rather than everything in general.
"I don’t think we were slow because we were weak," he said.
Everyone looked over.
"We didn’t know what to do. When the water started rising, when the ceiling started coming down. We could move and we could fight, but we couldn’t predict any of it." He paused. "We’d never seen it before."
Athena nodded. "I only stayed calm during the collapse because I knew it was a simulation. If those ruins had been real and the ceiling had been coming down in the same way, I would have needed significantly longer to calculate the safest exit." She adjusted her glasses. "That time would have cost someone something."
Nobody needed her to finish that sentence.
...
Sun stopped walking.
Everyone else stopped a step later and looked at him.
He was scratching Kong’s ear in the absent way he scratched Kong’s ear when he was working something out. Kong sat very still, aware that the process should not be interrupted.
"We don’t need more strength," Sun said.
Everyone waited.
"We need experience." He pointed back in the direction they had come from, which was roughly the direction of the Evolution Archive. "We have access to thousands of disasters that other people survived. They’re sitting in crystals on shelves."
Silence.
Arthur’s expression changed in stages.
"If we experience those—" he started.
"We’ve already been through them," Sun said. "Without actually dying in the process."
Athena had stopped moving entirely. "He’s right," she said, with the tone she used when something had arrived that she was annoyed she hadn’t thought of first.
Arthur was already smiling. "So we’re basically allowed to experience hundreds of expeditions without the part where anyone gets hurt."
"That’s the idea," Sun said.
Arthur laughed. "I love it! Let’s do it."
Athena looked toward the towering shelves visible through the Archive entrance. "...Then let’s not waste our reward."
Moments later...
The elevator doors closed behind them. The elevator in the Evolution Archive that they had not noticed before became relevant when Athena explained it.
Level One held evolution memories, species records, expedition accounts from successful journeys. Level Two, she explained while pressing the crystal control, held what was considered advanced material.
The doors opened and the difference was immediate.
The light on Level One had been warm, the crystals emitting colors that moved and caught each other in pleasant combinations.
Level Two’s crystals were dark gray, deep blue, some with surfaces that rippled as though something inside them was pressing outward at irregular intervals.
One crystal was frozen around its outside edges despite the room being the same temperature as the floor below.
Another was burning at its surface, a controlled and constant burn, without any visible source.
Arthur moved closer to a shelf and looked at the crystals there. "...They’re reacting," he said.
"They’re stronger memories," Athena said. "The experiences inside them are more intense. The crystals respond accordingly."
Arthur continued walking between the shelves.
One crystal was surrounded by tiny cracks in the floor beneath it, as though whatever memory it carried still weighed too much.Another constantly released tiny drops of water that vanished before touching the ground.
He slowly looked around the floor. None of the crystals were simply storing memories.
They were reacting to them.
Arthur smiled. "This place somehow became even more interesting."
...
The same librarian who managed Level One was at the desk near the elevator. She smiled when she saw them.
"Congratulations," she said. "Most first-years don’t reach Level Two."
Arthur grinned. "We’re special."
The librarian looked at him with the evaluation she applied to statements she was checking for accuracy. "Yes," she said. She looked toward Athena. "...You as well."
Athena blinked. "...Thank you."
Arthur expected to see another floor filled with evolution records. But the further they walked in, the heavier the atmosphere became.
Some crystals pulsed.
Others remained completely still.
Even the students already studying here moved more quietly.
Almost respectfully.
The section signs were different from Level One.
Not "Evolution Records" or "Ancient Species Documentation." These read: NATURAL DISASTERS. FAILED EXPEDITIONS. MASS BEAST STAMPEDES. CAVE COLLAPSES. FLOOD EVENTS. AVALANCHE RECORDS. POISON FOREST ENCOUNTERS.
Arthur read through them.
"You can study disasters," he said.
"This," Athena said, "is why Pathfinder Beast Tamers survive at a rate that other academies don’t achieve."
The librarian had appeared beside the nearest shelf. She gestured toward several crystals, each labeled with title and source.
THE COLLAPSE OF THE SEVENTH MINING CITY. MEMORY SOURCE: STONE BURROW MOLE.
THE FLOOD BENEATH IRON CANYON. MEMORY SOURCE: RIVER DRAKE.
EXPEDITION 431 — LOST IN POISON MIST. MEMORY SOURCE: MIST FOX.
WHEN THE FOREST BEGAN MOVING. MEMORY SOURCE: EMERALD TREE MONKEY.
Arthur looked at the labels for a moment. "We survive disasters through someone else’s instincts," he said.
Arthur smiled. "So that’s why Pathfinder Beast Tamers survive."
The librarian nodded.
"They’ve already failed." She paused. "Just not in real life."
The librarian nodded. "The strongest Beast Tamers have already experienced disaster. The difficulty is that disasters do not offer practice runs." She smiled. "Unless you are here."
Arthur looked at the shelf.
"So the first time a real cave collapses around you," he said slowly, "it won’t actually be your first time."
"It won’t," she said.
Arthur turned back to the rest of the floor.
"So that’s what Round Two was doing," he said. "It wasn’t testing us. It was showing us the gap."
The librarian said nothing but he kept going.
Arthur looked at the labels.
Stone Burrow Mole.
River Drake.
Mist Fox.
"...They’re all beasts." The librarian smiled. "Every disaster... is remembered by someone."
"You’re pretty sharp."
He grinned and said. "This just makes this place even more amazing!"
Without giving the woman a chance to speak, he quickly rushed further down the shelves, reading the titles.
Then he stopped.
One crystal sat apart from the others. Completely black, no internal light visible, no source material listed beneath it, no title on the label. Just an empty card.
Arthur reached toward it.
The librarian appeared at his elbow with a speed that suggested she had been watching.
"No," she said.
Arthur lowered his hand.
He looked at the crystal for a moment longer.
"Definitely coming back," he said.
The librarian did not confirm or deny this as a reasonable plan.
Arthur walks away for about five steps before pausing and looking back. For a brief moment, he thought he felt loneliness coming from it.
Not his own but the crystal’s.
But he wasn’t even experiencing it. "...Why does it feel lonely?"
Then he shakes his head and continues walking. But then he was dragged back to the ground by Mithra. Then Sun began talking about what they should be doing.
Sun’s suggestion was practical: choose different disasters, experience them separately, then share what each person had learned.
Athena nodded before he finished the sentence.
"Then we collectively understand more situations than any of us could individually," she said.
"We’re building our own expedition manual," Arthur said.
"Exactly," Sun said.
Arthur smiled. "Honestly, it pounds more like we’re stealing the experience."
Athena adjusted her glasses. "...Borrowing."
Arthur nodded. "Academic borrowing."
He moved toward WHEN THE FOREST BEGAN MOVING without fully deciding to, which was usually how his decisions went. Athena went to the Cave Collapse section with the focused step of someone who had already identified which information gap she most needed to fill.
Mithra stood in front of the Mass Beast Stampede section for a few seconds before taking one of the crystals with the confidence of someone who had thought about this exact choice on the elevator up.
Sun looked through the shelves in the methodical way he looked through most things. He stopped at EXPEDITION SUPPLY FAILURE. He took the crystal.
Then everyone looked at Vedas.
Vedas had already moved to GOBLIN EXPEDITION RECORDS. He was holding a crystal.
Arthur laughed. "I knew it."
Vedas didn’t argue.
...
The experience of the Emerald Tree Monkey arrived differently from the evolution memories on Level One. Those had felt like watching something become something else. This felt like being in a body that knew something was wrong before knowing what it was.
The forest was quiet.
But he could feel tiny vibrations in the tree roots. He saw the leaves were trembling yet there was no sound of screaming or complaint. The monkey didn’t move and simply began glancing around.
It watched.
One insect suddenly stopped chirping. Several birds burst from the canopy all at once. The wind shifted. Tiny vibrations traveled through the roots beneath its feet.
The monkey immediately climbed higher. Every instinct told it the ground was no longer safe.
Only then...
The entire forest moved.
Arthur understood.
The disaster hadn’t begun when the trees started walking. It had begun several minutes earlier.
The signs always came first.
He came out of the crystal breathing in the uneven pattern of someone who had been somewhere.
"Never trust silence."
He sat with it for a moment.
"Not every disaster can be stopped," he said, to no one in particular. "Sometimes getting everyone out is the victory."
Arthur quietly looked around the room.
[Experience Successfully Inherited]
[Vedas]
[Level Increased]
10 → 11
He blinked before chuckling. "Keep it up, Vedas." And without thinking, he counted every exit. Then he put the crystal back and walked to the next shelf.
...
By the time the librarian indicated that the floor was closing for the evening, Arthur’s team had been through several experiences each. They gathered near the elevator in the slightly dazed way of people who had spent an extended time somewhere that had given them information their bodies were still integrating.
Sun watched Arthur for a few seconds.
"You’re doing it," Sun said.
Arthur looked at him. "Doing what?"
"You’ve checked every exit since you came out of the last crystal. The staircase. The window openings. Both hallways." Sun pointed at each location as he listed it. "You looked at the ceiling twice."
Arthur stopped.
He looked at the ceiling.
He had checked it twice.
"I actually did," Arthur said.
Everyone smiled.
The training had started before they left the building.
Arthur looked around. "What did everyone learn?"
"The ceiling moves before the walls collapse," Athena said immediately.
"Stampedes always have a direction," Mithra replied.
"If supplies disappear," Sun said, "people become the danger."
Vedas nodded. "Goblins learned from the strongest beasts."
Arthur smiled. "And forests become quiet before they become dangerous."
Nobody had experienced the same disaster.
Yet somehow...
Everyone had become a little harder to surprise.
Arthur looked around. "...We all learned something different."
Athena nodded. "Which means..."
Sun smiled. "...Together..."
Mithra finished with a grin. "...we know more than any one of us."
Nobody said anything.
Because they all realized the same thing.
The Evolution Archive wasn’t making stronger students. But a stronger team that will be able to tackle expeditions better and increase the chance of survival.
...
They were almost to the elevator when Arthur noticed the black crystal again, across the floor, sitting on its shelf.
It flashed once.
Not the burn of the fire crystal, not the ripple of the pressurized ones. A single pulse, dark enough to be visible only because it was darker than the surrounding dark.
Then it was still.
Nobody else was looking in that direction.
The librarian, who had been organizing something behind her desk, spoke without looking up.
"Some memories," she said, "are not yet meant to be experienced."
Arthur looked at the crystal for another moment.
"We’re definitely coming back," he said.
The elevator doors opened.
They left.
Behind them, on the second floor of the Evolution Archive, the black crystal sat in its place on the shelf and did not flash again.
Not yet.
Arthur enters the elevator and as the doors begin closing. He fell in thought at the thousand crystals lightly shining.
Each one was someone’s life.
Someone’s last decision.
Someone’s lesson.
Arthur quietly smiles. "...No wonder Beast Tamers never stop coming back."
Outside, evening settled over Pathfinder Academy.
Inside the Archive...
Thousands of forgotten lives waited patiently.
Ready to teach the next Beast Tamers.
Comments