Behemoth [Primordial Titan Cultivation/LitRPG]

Unburdened by the knowledge that his people had managed well in his absence, Cyril decided to spend the remainder of the day locked in study.

He rented out a personal room on the second floor for his experiments. After the fortune he had expended on his breakthrough and the promise of improving some of the Library's spirits, he was able to rent the location for a pittance.

The room was one of the first that had been restored through his tribe's efforts. Cyril had personally materialized the grand table and chairs. Others had seen fit to provide plush cushions and heavy furs draped across the furniture. A spiritual flame danced within the central hearth, emitting a cozy heat tinged with enlightenment.

Cyril sat on a cushion in the lotus position. Across from him hovered Librarian Djinn-Three. Its arms were extended outwards as if in supplication, and the pages of its book-head flipped back and forth in a constant shuffle. Superimposed over its figure were countless shifting runes of blue-green qi.

For the past thirty minutes, Cyril had merely observed, like a painter admiring the landscape he sought to capture.

The runes were the language of the djinn's spirit, revealing the entirety of its being. Or, at least, its mind. He couldn't imagine exposing himself in such a way--if such a thing were even possible--but no sense of propriety held Djinn-Three back.

Not that Cyril understood what he was looking at. But the longer he observed, he became more certain that there were patterns, rhythms, a universal syntax that controlled the chaos. It was no different from listening to someone speak a foreign language. Incomprehensible, but not random.

It also reminded him of channeling qi into a technique. Cantrips in particular. They were the optimal expression of energy for an intended purpose. Flicker created a basic flame; subtle fluctuations to its rhythm reliably altered certain aspects of that flame--shape, size, intensity. A true master of a technique could transcend the normal limitations, the same way a genius musician could pluck out a simple melody capable of stirring the listener's soul.

So far, Cyril had relied on overloading his techniques with brute force. His vast reserves let him get away with being inefficient. He endeavored to correct this lacking aspect of his. The first step was comprehension. Learn what each permutation was, how it worked, then develop the fine control to execute them perfectly.

Satisfied he had extracted all of the possible insight from observing the runes, Cyril finally circulated Translate. Knowledge qi trickled through his channels, slow and deliberate, all of his focus narrowed in on the intricate minutiae behind the technique.

The blue-green runes Librarian Djinn-Three projected twisted into familiar words, blurring and overlapping and melding together into a garbled mess.

Distribute information and--
Respond--
Five steps northwest
Myrrh and garnets together
Function of memorystone is intended for
Shadows of dappled leaves on rosy cheeks, oh love

These snippets and directives appeared to constitute the entirety of the djinn's being. For a moment, Cyril felt a sense of irreality: the realization that all existence was a set of laws and directives expressing themselves in some material form. But, he realized, existence itself wasn't so simple. Just because he was able to see the externalized expression of the djinn's soul didn't mean he had glimpsed the true, singular nature of reality.

All that Cyril knew was filtered through his mind, his senses. Other consciousnesses understood the world differently. Some entities could not see or smell, but they perceived reality in a way he could not begin to imagine. An Ascended Tree interacted with the world in a much different way than he did; any insights it was capable of conceptualizing would be understood through the lens of its own soul.

For Cyril, this meant that he could understand the world through words. Part of his soul was attuned to the Dominion of Knowledge, and this colored his perception. Librarian Djinn-Three was an entity of the same affinity, allowing some mutual overlap in their method of interacting with reality. He doubted a Poison djinn would have made a viable subject in its place.

Finally, Cyril felt prepared to engage in a little hands-on experimentation. He stood up from the cushion and, to his surprise, felt as if he was moving through water. It took a moment to understand what had happened. While he had been lost in thought, the time distortion boon had taken effect without him even realizing. Now that his concentration was broken, the effect was subsiding.

Cyril wiggled his fingers, maintaining them at the same speed. To his perception, they accelerated despite him exerting no more effort. It took several seconds for their movement to align with his senses. Interesting. He wondered how much time had actually passed--over half an hour in his mind, and how much in reality?

One thing at a time. Those details weren't relevant to his current task.

With a thought, Cyril materialized a tablet of mundane clay onto the table. Next came a darksteel stylus, investing a portion of his overflowing core into its construction.

From memory, he quickly carved a cluster of the djinn's runes onto the tablet. Nothing happened. Then, carefully, Cyril summoned a wisp of Knowledge qi from his core and directed it into the engravings.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Cracks spiderwebbed throughout the tablet. A moment later, it disintegrated into particulates. Cyril waved the cloud of dust away.

"Interesting," he coughed.

Djinn-Three lowered its arms. The flickering runes shimmered out of existence. Its pages came to a halt, and the spirit responded: What is the purpose of this?

Instead of answering, Cyril materialized a tablet out of E-grade steel and repeated the experiment. It lasted a fraction of a second longer before shattering into a flurry of shrapnel. The fragments slid off his skin like a swarm of gnats.

Cyril frowned and shook a few metal shards out of his tunic sleeve.

Finally, he responded. "I'm trying to figure out if I can reconstruct your head as a golem. Well, a very basic approximation, at least. I want it to be able to seem like a normal enough book, except when my sister comes across it. Then it needs to be capable of some sort of functional communication between the two of us. The first step is seeing the base requirement for an object to contain Knowledge qi without immediately exploding."

Librarian Djinn-Three remained still as a statue as it pondered Cyril's words. Quickly growing impatient, Cyril set to creating a series of increasingly durable tablets.

After ten minutes of waiting and five attempts, he created a darksteel tablet. Mystical sparks sputtered from the surface as he carved into it. Even with his refined physique, writing on such materials was demanding, grinding the bones of his fingertips. The runes came out blocky and child-like. Still, when he channeled Knowledge qi into it, the energy settled into their grooves and glowed faintly.

Cyril winced, bracing himself for the explosion. To his disappointment, the tablet maintained its physical integrity--but the qi fizzled and dispersed. Like a failed attempt at casting a Cantrip.

Finally, words scrawled along Librarian Djinn-Three's page. This is not an efficient route toward your goals. One does not learn a new language through attempting to read a philosophical treatise. Begin with the basics. All you are attempting to do is inscribe disparate strands of my mind. A few incomplete thoughts by themselves will not come together to form anything lasting. My mind is an interconnected system that makes sense only in relation to the whole.

Cyril bit his lip and twirled the stylus between his fingers, considering. "Your advice is sound and rational. However, as far as I have been able to find, this Library is not exactly a repository of information on golemancy. This leaves me only a few options. One of them is to begin from first principles. Gradually tread the path of mastery and understand each step and how they work together."

This is the best option.

Cyril shrugged. "But you're a spirit, not a cultivator. To serve as a proper Librarian, you have to recommend based on the taste of the patron, not your own."

Explain.

"What I'm trying to do is find some inspiration. A more reckless but potentially faster option for my specific goals. Through trial and error I want to discover what works and what's relevant, and the rest can be ignored."

How do you decide which paths to pursue?

Cyril shrugged. "Some parts will resonate with my soul, and that's what I'll choose to follow."

Librarian Djinn-Three's pages remained blank for a long time. Cyril looked around, shrugged, and swiped his finger over the surface of the darksteel tablet. The sloppy runes engraved into it filled in with new material, returning it to a blank slate.

He glanced up. Librarian Djinn-Three had finally responded.

I do not understand what you are talking about.

The glib admission made Cyril bark out a laugh. He folded his arms across his chest and tapped the stylus against his lips. "I guess it makes sense. Spirits by themselves must not be capable of epiphanies. You can learn new information, but you are incapable of having a breakthrough in the same way cultivators do. That's why a djinn can live thousands of years yet never become an ifrit through meditation."

Explain these 'epiphanies' to me, and the resonance of your soul. Use your Enlightenment.

An interesting challenge. Cyril thought back to his most recent breakthroughs--everything from advancing his Dominions to the satisfaction of some new theory forming in the back of his mind. How to explain that divine moment, when one connected with the cosmos themselves? He tried his best to distill the sensation into a thought, warm and bright and infectious, like a pretty laugh.

Once he had crystallized the idea as much as possible, he cast Enlightenment. Swirls of Knowledge qi drained away from his core, swirling and dancing up through his mental channels. It settled among the shimmering patches reinforcing the pathways. Cyril then focused on instilling his crystallized thought into the waiting energy.

They merged together.

Cyril almost immediately realized his mistake. Dread flared through his mind. A moment later, a storm of Knowledge qi flooded out from his core. The natural circulation of energy throughout his body was disrupted, thrown into chaos as excess qi backflowed through the entire network. His spirit strained, cracks forming at the narrowest junctions before sealing off a moment later.

He held together, barely. Agony throbbed between his ears as the Knowledge qi congregated within his mental channels. Like a singularity the crystallized Enlightenment absorbed the energy, devouring spirals of it, growing denser and brighter. It felt as if it had its own crushing, irresistible gravity. Strangely, this allowed Cyril to fight back, using his understanding of the Dominion to imagine a counter-spiral acting against the force.

Not enough to cut off the out-of-control technique. But enough to regain some of his wits, to gasp for breath. Gritting his teeth, Cyril directed all of his willpower toward reversing the rapid drain from his core. If this kept up for much longer, he would either implode or have his entire core drained, then implode.

It seemed he had turned himself into an experimental tablet.

Pain reached its crescendo. Then, slowly, it began to reverse. Made all the more agonizing because of the time distortion elongating the moment into minutes. But it allowed him to fight back against the rampaging internal forces, a battle on a hundred fronts. The whole time, his Self-Forming Paragon constitution adapted, gaining a resistance to such spiritual trauma.

Finally, once his core was reduced to a tenth of its full size, the technique ended. Premature, incomplete, but it ended, leaving behind a seed of crushing spiritual pressure within Cyril's head. Unsure what else to do, he spoke:

"Epiphany."

And the world flared white.