Adamant Blood

Mark walked in a column of light through the dark, with the Librarian at his side. Now that he was actually near the guy, and they had something of a unified vector with the Librarian walking forward and Mark walking with him, toward a goal, Mark felt out the guy a bit more. And he was probably not a 'guy'. He was absolutely an AI, or maybe a true Familiar that had been let loose with a purpose. He had that sort of feeling.

The Librarian said nothing, and Mark did not ask.

Through the dark, through the sea of monsters hidden in the black, they walked, and it was a weird sort of walk. Down a row, left and then right. Mark could see all the way back to where they had come; the Librarian's desk. He could even see the gloomy spiral staircase upward. But everything else was black and scrabbling. Scratching. Crawling.

It felt like they were walking between close walls though; a thin hallway.

Mark still felt pretty safe, even with the Librarian's talk of being a lot older and more menacing than he seemed. Perhaps Mark was safe, and that is why he felt safe. So far, the Vault might be creepy and if there were walls or hallways out there, Mark could not see them. But the dark felt comfortable—

Slowly, the dark changed. It was no longer filled with monsters, but instead with a gloomy hallway, centered around a door.

The Librarian took Mark to the door, and said, "This is your personal vault, filled with the tools and trinkets that your master has left you for your studies. No others may come here. Your familiar is not allowed here without your personal presence. Now that I have brought you here, you can find your way here yourself, and you do not need my guidance. But, if you do need my guidance, or if you somehow get lost in the gloom, just yell for me, or die a little bit, and I will be here to assist."

Die a little bit?

Okaaaay…

The Librarian continued, "You can do whatever you want with the materials inside, including taking them out and selling them, burning them, never coming back here again, etcetera. But your master will have a record of your activities in this room. You will likely have personal instructions for you waiting inside, or perhaps you have already received those instructions. This is a standard thing I say, but there are lots of situations that are unaccounted for in the usual course of events. Please do what you think is best for your situation. If you are needed for kaiju defense events, then I will be zipping you out of here as soon as possible, if that is amenable to you?"

Mark bowed a little. "It is amenable. Thank you."

The Librarian bowed until his masked head was close to the ground, saying, "Good day, Mister Careed. May you ever walk in the light of mana."

And then the Librarian flowed backward, his garments turning to shadows and gloom, to vanish into the dark at the edge of the space. Mark watched the black for a bit longer, imagining it more like an unlit hallway beyond the immediate circle of light, which had glommed to the door…

And that was enough of that.

Mark turned to 'his vault'. The door was a plain wooden door. The hallway was wooden-floored and red-wallpapered. The door handle was a simple bronze curl of metal. Mark touched the handle, grabbed it, and then he pressed the latch, and the door opened.

The room was a minor library with a big, comfortable chair and a nice couch. There was a knit blanket on the couch and a few throw pillows, and the floor was carpet. A small desk was to the side, along with some pieces of paper and a cup full of pens and pencils. The room had nice lighting, but it also had floor lamps that could be angled around to light up a book you were reading, either on the couch or on the chair. It was… comfortable. It even had an extra stack of blankets over there. No food, or drink.

The shelves of books were organized by subject and direction of learning, according to a little sign on the desk, and numbers on the shelves.

Mark glanced at book names and saw an organization to it all, almost instantly.

The first entire shelf was full of language books. 1 out of 7 shelves! Just languages!

The first book in a section was the beginners book and the next ones were intermediary, and then the books were probably specialized beyond that, because Mark couldn't understand what the covers said at all. Mark moved toward the next shelves but he couldn't even begin to read those yet.

They had covers with various letters, runes, shapes, and, like…

"What do you call these? It was that place with the pyramids, I think?"

"Those are not Egyptian hieroglyphs. They look like something similar. I do not have access to external sources right now."

Mark paused. "You're cut off? Shit. I'm cut off, too… It's only the start of July, right? What day is it, anyway?"

"Wednesday, July 7th, 2049."

"Ah, a few days got away from me. We're still a week out for the Gate Day on the 15th. I doubt another random kaiju like the Ether Turtle would happen again…" Mark kept looking at books, saying, "We're fine."

"95% true, according to current-known issues."

Mark nodded.

… He had absolutely no idea what the fuck these books past the first shelf were, besides heavily organized. None of them were in alphabetical order at all… or maybe they were? But the alphabets were not English or any of the other languages Mark knew. Which was probably why the first bookshelf was full of language books.

All of the shelves were full of books, though, and many of them looked to be in sets, with bindings that were all the same and with numbers 1 through 2 and 3, or sometimes all the way up to 16 for a series of books on the 7th shelf. Some books were larger than others—

"Ah!" Mark spotted a bigger book on the bottom of shelf #3, the middle shelf. It had pictures on the front. Mark picked it up and felt a thrill. Sure, he couldn't read it at all, but it was a big, thick book, full of pictures of metalworking, and the metal they were working on was solid black. Mark giggled, "Adamaaaaantium~"

… He had no idea what was happening in the book at all, but he saw magical diagrams, metallurgy slices, crystal deformation, and adamantium next to other metals… And that one had to be adamantium and mithril. There was a whole section on that… Dammit. Mark saw information he wanted to know, but he didn't know how to read it at all.

But at least the book was only on shelf #3?

Mark put the book away, back where he had found it, and said, "I need to learn languages, it appears." He glanced at the 7 bookshelves full of stuff, and he wondered how much would be good, or useless. Most of it was probably not on adamantium forging, or anything like that. Most of it had to be on magery? Right? "And I don't need magery that much… Maybe."

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

Quark said, "Sir. There is a folded piece of paper on the desk, in addition to the bigger sign."

Mark turned— "Ah!" He picked it up.

'Dear Mark. Start at the first shelf, top row, then go all the way down to the bottom of shelf 1 before starting on the next shelf. Continue in this manner. Do not skip. Learn the languages well. The languages matter the most. They're magical languages so you can't speak them, but you can craft them. Some are more useful than others. If you cannot understand what you're reading, go to a previous book. This is a tailored series of instruction for you, and understanding everything here will clear you as an unskilled mage. Actual artificing will come later, possibly starting on shelf 3. I expect you to use Quark to copy many of the books, but you are not allowed to take them out of Mage Society, or reproduce them outside of Mage Society, except as a visual overlay from Quark, and only for yourself. Talk to you in a few months. I expect you to know the languages and for us to have fluent conversations in all of them. ~Walaria.'

Mark set the paper down and turned back toward the shelves.

"I guess I'm learning how to read… whatever the fuck this one is?" Mark picked out the first book on the first shelf. It was covered in English and shapes. "Ah. The… The Shapes? Really?" Mark read a little, then frowned as he said, " 'The Shapes and You, A Basic Guide to Sigaldry."

Volume 1 of 8.

Estimated Time to Basic Comprehension for volume 1: 3-12 months. Full course between 2 and 5 years.

Mark grabbed all 8 volumes. "We're learning 'sigaldry' in a week, maximum. But you, my dear friend, will be learning it right now. And then you can teach me!"

Quark stood on the table, in miniature and in Mark's vision, and then he swished and he was wearing a professor's set of robes, saying, "Language Professor Quark reporting for duty."

Mark grinned as he sat down at the desk and opened the first book, saying, "Finally gonna give you something to actually slow down those processors."

"Highly doubtful, sir, but we can certainly try."

Mark chuckled as he opened the first page. "Let's see what we're working with…"

The English was easy enough to understand, and there was a normal sort of warning in the front, in big letters. Almost all magic-adjacent books had that sort of warning, though. This one was a little different.

This book has magical secrets and knowledge contained herein. If you are not Awakened, to read this book is to Awaken, and perhaps in a bad way. A Knack is the most you might hope to attain through this book, and all books close to this subject matter. YOU ARE WARNED.

This book is a book of magery. If you are reading this book outside of a master and apprentice relationship, then you are committing a crime. Please turn this book in to the nearest mage office for a reward. If you decide to continue reading, then you are a fool.

"Bit different than normal, but normal enough."

Mark got through the first page well enough, and then he got to the next few pages, and what he saw were not shapes, but instead hand signs. Making squares with both hands, with the thumbs and forefingers making the square, and then moving on to hand signs with one hand or the other, and pointed outward for an exterior effect, or inward for an interior effect.

An S-shape was a turn of the thumb and forefinger, and a lot easier to do toward oneself as opposed to outwardly. But you could still do it outwardly, as long as you turned your forearm in a weird, kinda-hurtful way—

Mark suddenly realized, "This is mana shaping, but through fingers first?"

"It appears that way, sir."

"Can I… make the shapes with adamantium?"

"Undoubtedly, but also you should not, because that warning right there on that page was 'do not use your mana when making these symbols'."

Mark nodded, thinking… And then he said, "Okay. I'm gonna flip through pages, you're gonna record, and then we're going out into Mage Society to do some Understandings… They probably have regulations regarding that, though. So I'll ask around, first."

"I saw a shop that sold 'Comprehension Casting' earlier. Sir." Quark produced a holographic map of Mage Society in Mark's vision, on top of the table near the book. He highlighted a building just beyond the arcanaeum entrance, and then he brought up an image of the place, on the wall in front of Mark. It had a sign in the window. Quark read it off, " 'Don't study without a study aid!' It is likely akin to the language magic you had cast on you in the Grey Whale, on the way here."

Mark nodded. "Then that's where we're going after this."

Mark started turning the pages one at a time and letting Quark get some good looks at it—

"You can flip faster, sir,"

Mark flipped a bit faster.

Quark needed half a second for each page. The first book was 320 pages long, and all the rest were of similar size. With a few reshoots for the more complicated pages, and with Mark needing to physically handle the books, it took about 30 minutes for Quark to learn Sigaldry.

At the end of that Quark took a few minutes to collect himself.

Mark put away the books and poked through the rest of them—

"Sir," Quark said, coming back online. "Now that I have an understanding of what the shapes actually are, I am able to see what Isoko's Wind Shaper actually means, and your Protect, and with this I am able to discern a great deal of weirdness in your own Binding, to help with Mapping. This was the key to all of that, and yes, you absolutely have to go from the beginning to the end. Do not skip.

"I can summarize a few things that I believe will help you to have a basis for all of the rest.

"Sigaldry is the oldest known magical language of all, and it has no spoken words at all. It is entirely hand-based, with spells working off of chains of hand signals, mostly 1-hand, but you can get into ritual magic by using 2 hands, and when you get more people involved, you can get into 3 or more hands.

"People who have extra hands are able to do a lot more than people with two hands. Your adamantium can count as multiple hands. Do not do this yet, though.

"It is said that hands made humanity, just as much as humanity made hands, and the mana recognizes that most deeply. All human magic is based on hands. Those hands have been abstracted into symbols, and those symbols are never to be used outside of Mage Society, for to use those symbols is to cast magic.

"These days, the mana recognizes the symbols just as much as the hand signs, which is a common thread throughout all magic languages. Someone invents something and the mana learns it, and then it becomes a whole new language all of its own."

Quark finished.

Mark was enthralled.

Mark stood up, saying, "Let's go throw hands!"

Quark bowed and then his projection vanished in a swirl of imagery.

Mark left his personal vault behind, walking through the dark, and the light followed him away from the door. The door fell into darkness, vanishing even in the gloom, as Mark walked toward the Librarian at his desk, under the spotlight.

The Librarian bowed at Mark as he approached.

Mark walked by, cheering to the dark, "This is all so fucking amazing! This is how superheroes work!"

The Librarian chuckled and bowed deeper.