In the second month of Andar's stay in the Body Farm, he finally gained access to the Ancient Library.
This was a very significant achievement because the Ancient Library was only available to official Mages, and then it was only rewarded to the best among Mages, you could pay to get in, but that cost ran into the hundreds of Origin Shards, an unreasonable figure for most budding Mages to come up with.
Andar had been slowly burning through the hundred Origin Shards given to him by his master as he began gathering all the tools and knowledge he needed for his studies, and in addition to the other surprising ways he was getting money, he barely had 150 Origin Shards.
Andar was a Level 3 Acolyte and he had been able to make it here to this Library, and the story of how he achieved this was both remarkable and hilarious.
When Andar emerged from his retreat inside the Endless Vault and entered the Body Farm, he quickly reunited with Mira and the rest of the Limit Breakers, who by now had created a union titled… you guessed it, Limit Breakers!!!
With three exclamation marks behind their title, Andar did not bother asking why they did that, but Mira suggested that it was the number of times Andar chanted their slogan while inside the floating castle.
Since the Limit Breakers were the most populous group in this set of Acolytes and possessed some of the best Meditation Art, they quickly became a force to be reckoned with inside the Body Farm, with Andar and Mira as their leader.
The Limit Breakers soon dominated every Acolyte inside the Body Farm, gathering most of the Acolytes into their numbers, and only small random factions could stand against them due to the intervention of their teachers who did not want a monopolistic environment, for that would give Andar and Mira too much power.
Inside the Body Farm, there was a maximum amount of three years where every Acolyte was supposed to reach at least Level 3 Acolyte else the amounts of Aether inside the Body Farm would destroy any Acolyte beneath that level.
Perhaps it was because of the presence of Andar, this monster of an Acolyte in their midst but every single Acolyte had broken to the first level and strived hard for the second level, and for the first time in seven thousand years, no single Acolyte died due to Aether corruption.
The Level 3 Acolyte had ten years to break through to become an official Mage else they would be thrown out of the Body Farm, their path to become a Mage of the Black Tower forever cut off.
So the Body Farm was an area where everyone had a time limit hanging over their heads and that reduced the conflict from having tens of thousands of young men and women with supernatural powers staying in a single location for an extended period of time, as everyone knew that their most important assignment was to become a Mage, everything else was secondary.
Yet this did not eliminate all conflict, but Mages were generally a group of people who acted more like scholars and the environment of the Body Farm was one of sturdy and growth, as brief glimpses of the wonders of a Mage's life were shown to the aspiring Acolyte.
They all knew without becoming a Mage, their entire existence was worthless, and like an errant breeze they would disappear into the annals of history, no one would remember them, only a Mage was worthy of having their name remembered.
This was what every Acolyte believed.
They were all busy with classes that were not necessarily compulsory but only a fool would disregard the chance to learn valuable knowledge from the Body Farm.
Everyone here knew that knowledge was precious and the chance to be given such massive amounts of important knowledge was priceless even though they had paid for it using their talents and perseverance when they acquired their Meditation Arts, none would think they were special, except for Andar of course.
He was known to all as the Number One under Heaven. A title which was given to him that had caused no small share of grief and disturbances to his calm life.
Everywhere he passed, people looked at him, not as if he was human, but something else. Andar was almost like an idea of perfection, everything that a Mage could become, and those looks burdened him for a little while, before he disregarded them.
He had no pride, he was just a random experiment by his Main Body, and everything he had was brought to him by luck, he needed to prove to himself that he deserved this luck.
Andar stood before the doors of the Ancient Library, a massive construct of steel and stone that moved silently aside revealing the insides as he recited the passphrase, "Eulxhu Thyak." This was the Mages Language that was suspiciously similar to Medan, which means, "Reveal Truths."
As Andar stepped through the door he stopped and looked at what was before him in awe. Endless shelves of books were floating in the air, some shelves were as small as a desk holding only a dozen books while some were as large as a mountain holding thousands of books or one large solid tome.
There were clouds in the distance and with Andar's Sight he could not see the end of this library. This place was famed to contain all the knowledge in the universe and Andar could see the truth in that statement.
The wispy figure of a woman suddenly penetrated his body, turned and looked at the shocked expression on his face, smirked, and floated away to a passing shelf.
Andar organized his thoughts and took a step forward, his body began rising into the air. He knew the figure of that woman could be here in the Black Tower or somewhere on the other side of the universe.
The Ancient Library could be assessed by all Great Towers simultaneously, and even though Andar thought his body had passed through the gate, the truth was that it was his Spirit that entered this place, and his body was standing outside the gate.
The chance to enter the Ancient Library was precious and there were no time limits to be inside, except for the condition that you must have a powerful enough Spirit.
The longer you could endure inside this place, the more benefits that could be gained.
