"I just thought that…I don’t know… you always seem to just DO things, so swiping a bunch of priceless scrolls and such was kind of up your alley." Flinching at me, raising my voice incredulously, Xilia scooted closer toward the window, causing me to frown deeply.
"The hell do you take me for? A petty criminal, che, the only conceivable way I raid the library of old texts was if they held actual monetary value, WHICH THEY DON’T, and as such cant be exchanged for Ark-Coins."
"AH HA! So you DID think about swiping them!"
"…we aren’t stealing them, and no one can know we were even there. Do you honestly think that a bunch of old parchment detailing potential enemies and foes wouldn’t be heavily guarded by Returners who are high up on the governmental food chain? Use your head a little bit, girl." Rolling my eyes and shaking my head, I focused back on the road and sped up a bit, bypassing the speed limit by a full 50 mph.
Driving at 120 mph was nothing short of a walk for someone with my reaction times, and even if a cop tried pulling us over, all I needed to do was make eye contact with them and POOF no more tail.
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Updat𝒆d fr𝒐m freewebnσvel.cøm.
The rest of the drive was fairly calm; mind you, I was speeding like a bat out of hell, so we got there significantly ahead of schedule and before the sun was remotely close to peaking over the horizon.
At 4:52 am, I pulled off the highway into an abandoned warehouse lot, stored Baby in my inventory, and progressed on foot during the remaining part of our trip under cover of Xilia’s stealth skill.
Although things were going incredibly smoothly, I didn’t let that make me complacent, and even once we finally entered the restricted section of the library, which reeked of dust, mold, and a scent I couldn’t quite place other than simply calling it musk, I stayed on high alert.
And it was good that I had because no sooner than we stepped foot beyond the barricaded and chained bars containing the sacred and old documents did I stop Xilia from moving forward.
Pointing at the ground, I silently drew her attention to several small organisms crawling around the floor.
’What the hell are those? Rats?’ She asked with her foot still raised in the air mid-step.
’Golems, minor sentries to be exact, as I had predicted, this place is guarded by more than just a few locked doors and barred cells.’ Expanding my perception, I encompassed the entire restricted area and noticed there were well over a hundred of these finger-sized objects roaming around the floor in unpredictable intervals.
To the unknowing, these Golems appeared nothing more than small rodents, the size of a hamster or gerbil, but if you looked carefully, it wasn’t hard to tell they weren’t living creatures; no, they were formed out of a mixture of several earth minerals, like clay, diamond, and sapphire, and no two golems were the same, which indicated either the person controlling them was adept at making more or had a skill which randomly generated the golems using a set amount of resources.
Either way, it meant that Xilia was going to be practically useless to me during this operation.
’Listen, you stay here. Your stealth skill may mask your presence, sounds, and particle signature but not the objects you move. I have a feeling that these golems are specifically keeping tabs on the articles on the shelves, meaning if one moves or disappears, they will investigate and report back to the one controlling them.’
’Ok, but what about you? If we can’t pick up and read the scrolls or tomes, how are you supposed to get the information you want?’ Placing her arm on me for support, Xilia slowly brought her leg back down and took a step back so that she was pressed against the steel bars.
’I’ve still got a few tricks up my sleeve,’ glancing down at her hand grasping my shoulder, I turned my eyes away and glanced out over the many rows of bookshelves.
’If you say so…I guess…I’ll just watch the golems then….and you walked away….sigh.’ Not caring for what she would say, I had already stalked my way forward and moved 30 feet away from her.
Some quick observations and previous knowledge of how Harvard arranged their information were enough to guide me to the approximate location of what I was looking for. Within 5 minutes, I stood before a bookshelf filled with dusty scrolls of parchment from the 1200 BC Baltic Region.
If you haven’t realized it by now, there is one multifaceted technique in my bag of tricks. I have used it since the day I woke up, and after 18 years, it’s been strengthened to an extent that even surpassed what I had achieved in the Origin Timeline.
My Perception Ability.
From a basic sixth sense to a radar-like echo/particle location, my perception became one of my most valuable assets in life, and the fact that I was relying on it now was no surprise.
’It’s written in a mixture of charcoal ink and blood…’ Scanning the entire shelf, from top to bottom, I was swiftly able to decipher what utensils were used to scratch the runes and symbols onto what I assumed to be sheepskin parchment.
’Now to focus on only the symbols,’ taking a step back and narrowly avoiding stepping on a golem as it zipped by, I started examining the scrolls one by one, locking onto the blood and ink mixture and, in turn, revealing in my perception the actual writings on the scrolls.
Don’t get me wrong; I could by no means take the time to try and decode and decipher the texts on the fly; right now, I was basically acting as a photocopier, jotting down every single rune or symbol that was stored in the tightly bound scrolls one after another.
The reading part would take time because not only would I need to translate everything, but since they were all jumbled up and rolled together, I would have to make mental renderings of each scroll and flatten the writings out before even having something legible.