Sitting by the pond at the center of the library, Dyon immediately began pouring through the books Libro helped him get. Although Dyon’s memory was never photographic, he was still proud of it. If he, at any point, understood a topic, it would be unlikely that he would forget it. But, this was taken to an all new level with the speed reading technique.
By using the Sapientia family’s technique, Dyon was able to understand the will of the books he wanted to read without even opening the cover. This essentially led to an even deeper understanding than he could have gained by normal methods. As such, the things he learned were engraved into his brain. As long as he put them to practice, he would never lose this knowledge.
If he could gain a cultivation method, his capacity to use the technique would increase. He may even be able to speed read multiple high-level books at a time.
Dyon was in awe of the knowledge he was gaining. Array Alchemy allowed a myriad of things, from setting up protection and slaughter arrays to grafting together simple plants to form more complex ones. Even just one aspect led to infinite possibilities. For example, scientifically speaking, grafting meant using special means to splice the DNA of various plants together to form a new plant sharing the properties of the grafted DNA, or even creating all new properties not shared by any of the plants used to create it. By using the martial world’s methods, the new plant would even be available immediately without the growth wait time.
‘No wonder why no one wants to join this faction. The complexity is without bounds. Theoretically, there’s an infinite amount of knowledge to gain, which means any regular student would never feel like they made any real progress.’
But this only made Dyon smile. Dyon estimated that in just 2 days, he’d have the common plant knowledge equivalent to that of the top array alchemy expert of Focus Academy.
There was something that made Dyon even more excited, though. He technically might not need to read the books on the highest levels of the library. If he used his knowledge of plant biology in combination with his knowledge of the function of the common plants, he may be able to guess the results of grafting certain plants in certain ratios with high accuracy.
‘This must be hard to do for other Array Alchemists because they don’t have the human world knowledge that I have.’
This thought gave Dyon a new level of understanding.
‘Delia didn’t not recognize the storage bands I have on because her world doesn’t have the means to make them. She didn’t recognize them because her world has other means to create the same effects, so they don’t need commoner storage bands.’
One of the basic books of the martial world that Dyon read about gave an overview of the storage devices in the martial world. While human devices utilized preservation and miniaturization technology, the martial world used special gems that consolidated infinitesimally small amounts of dimension and time will to recreate the same effects. Dyon accessed the objects he stored through a screen, while Mayumi could pull out his bow and arrow just by touching the gem and using his will.
This was an important epiphany for Dyon for many reasons. For one, this steeled his resolve to not underestimate those of the martial world. They weren’t technologically inferior, they just had no need to advance in fields that they could use their own theories to replace. Secondly, this meant Dyon might be able to gain an advantage if he combined his commoner education with their knowledge. Him not necessarily needing to read higher level theory books on plants might just be the first instance of this.
Before Dyon even noticed, 2 days had passed by before he finished speed reading the hundreds of books on common plants. This was when Dyon noticed a problem with his speed reading method.
‘I have all of this knowledge, but it isn’t organized. It’s almost like if I want to recall something, I have to close my eyes and “re-read” the hundreds of volumes I just went through to find the answer. This isn’t good. The knowledge I’ve gained is useless like this.’
Frustrated, Dyon carried the books back to the wooden desk in sets of ten.
‘What a waste of 2 days. I’m tired as all hell and I smell horrible.’
Dyon had long since taken off his previously unbuttoned dress shirt and switched his rolled-up jeans for a pair of grey sweats, but he still felt uncomfortable.
Dyon looked up as the monitor flickered, “you seem tired,” Libro pinched his nose, “I can almost smell you from here. Go rest. I’ll let you take the books on array theory with you.”
Dyon flicked his wrist, too tired to answer. He created a new folder called ‘array theory’, and slotted the other set of hundreds of books into his storage bands.
“What an interesting device. Doesn’t seem very efficient though,” Libro snickered.
“Yea, yea, yea. I’m sure you know what problems I’m having; do you have a solution?”
“In terms of your need for rest and showers, those won’t be resolved until you reach a higher cultivation level. Your brain’s capacity is still too weak to go without rest. In terms of the speed reading technique, I’m sure a genius like you will figure it out,” Libro smiled deviously.
‘I can’t just give him all the answers, this is my family’s secret technique after all. If I wasn’t crystal glasses level, I’d be afraid of being killed for even thinking of giving him this technique. My only saving grace is that I didn’t give him the full technique.’
Dyon sighed, “fine, I guess. Thank for your help, this would probably have been a lot harder without you”.
Libro was a bit surprised by Dyon’s sincere thanks, but he took it in stride as he watched Dyon sluggishly head towards his dorm room.
**
On the top floor of the center pillar, the family heads met in a spacious office.
Reminiscent of the ceremony hall, the room was filled with somber light. A fire place raged off to the right, flickering soft embers that lit the dark room. Drapes of maroon covered the large windows, resonating with the dark wood floor. A large desk partially hid Patia-Neva’s figure as he faced away from the other family heads and towards the covered windows.
The other family heads sat on black couches surrounding the fire place, letting silence reign the room.
Kami was the first to speak, fury coating his words, “I won’t let this stand. My boy still hasn’t recovered. Disregarding the pain he’s been in, the expense of the medicine needed to ensure these wounds would have no impact on his future is astronomical.”
“Don’t act rashly Kami. If your boy hadn’t tried to kill the commoner, he would have never suffered,” Patia-Neva’s voice was understanding but firm. He couldn’t allow Kami’s hate to fester.
“I don’t care. Since when has the Kami family ever needed permission to kill? He’ll pay for this humiliation”.
Duco spoke, “don’t forget why he gained the quota to perform in the first place Kami. The boy may be mediocre here, but he is of great value to the commoners. If they learn of him being killed, and especially so soon after coming to us, it will start a war.”
“Duco is right, we have other issues to deal with. Warring with the commoners is not something we can afford, and it seems like the boy knows this. Plus, considering the dangerous missions Focus Academy’s students undergo from the 4th grade onwards, he might just die naturally,” Bai spoke out in agreement.
Sapientia’s light laughter filled the room in hopes of cutting through the tension, “from what I can garner, this boy might not continue to be mediocre for long,” he said in reply to Duco’s comment, “I see that our resident Librarian has already taken a liking to him.”
“What?!”
Kami’s anger spiked. The importance of the library to this school couldn’t be understated. If Dyon somehow managed to get Libro to his side as a mentor or friend, his progress would be much faster.
“Not to worry Kami, Libro wouldn’t break the rules of the academy… Although, it seems that Patia-Neva’s daughter gave the boy access to the first 600 levels for a few hours,” Delia’s father stiffened at these words.
Kami sighed in relief. No one could do anything with just a few hours, even with access to 600 levels.
“Eh, I wouldn’t be too relieved if I were you. It seems like one of the techniques he learned was my clan’s speed reading technique.”
“Learned? Don’t play with us Sapientia. You just said he only had a few hours, what do you mean learned. And such a high level technique at that?” Storm said, breaking his silence.
Sapientia sighed, “It seems he has quite some affinity for my clan’s techniques.”
Kami’s fists tightened.
In reality, it seemed odd for experts of their stature to be so concerned with a boy. Their surprise had been minimized when they remembered their background check on Dyon. When it came to how powerful his music will was, it was explained away by considering how long he had played the piano for; so, his feats were less impressive than they seemed to be. But, they felt he might become a threat in the future. The worst part was that they didn’t have the time or means to deal with him now. And plus, aside from the looming threat of war with the commoners, it was taboo for the older generation to mingle in the affairs of the younger.
Patia-Neva’s voice rang out, “the larger school alliances are putting too much pressure on us. We may have many promising geniuses in this generation, but past years have only had maybe two or three. If we want this school to survive, and thereby secure the future of our families, we shouldn’t be ostracizing geniuses. The boy is intelligent. It wouldn’t be difficult for him to find out that there would be other schools willing to recruit him. We are lucky that he fell within our Focus district. I suggest we move away from a plan to stifle him ourselves. The students of this school will be more than enough to do that. That way, if he succeeds despite that, we have a genius. If he fails, then we’d have gotten rid of a problem. We have other matters to attend to, such as preparing our families’ geniuses for the Alliance Ranking Tournament and…”
Although Patia-Neva didn’t speak the last parts of his thoughts, the other family heads knew fully well what he was referring to.
Aside from this, the truth was that the family heads only directly acted against Dyon because it was the easiest and most direct way. If he was embarrassed into leaving without them having to lift a finger, it would have been their best-case scenario. They had no way of guessing he’d have met Delia to give him access to the library, or even that he’d be able to learn what he learned in such a short time.
Kami swallowed his anger, choosing to believe his son would get his own revenge.
As the pressure in the room subsided, the family heads nodded in resolve. It wasn’t worth it to act themselves. They knew that Dyon would be slowed by his own lack of resources. In fact, he might not even be able to afford a decent cultivation technique since the one demonstrated in the coming classes would be the most basic and crude version possible.
And even in the case that he did persevere through all of this and become a great expert, if he joined one of their families, it could just be used to bolster their power.
In addition, they had already had Sapientia perform a mind wiping. Only the chosen, Libro and the family heads knew of what took place in the ceremony hall. This way, no teachers would bend over backwards to raise Dyon as their disciple, the family heads could avoid embarrassment, and the chosen would have the motivation to remain far ahead of him.
Even the family heads didn’t know what calamities lay ahead of them. All they knew was that power trumps everything. And right now, they didn’t have enough of it.