On his way to the library, Alec saw other students out and about. The second, third, and fourth years didn't care about him, probably because he wasn't the only first-year inspecting and getting used to the Academy. It probably wasn't a bad idea to get a lay of the land, but Alec didn't want to waste precious time.
He had to learn as much as possible as quickly as possible.
Right now, the things he knew about the world he was in could be counted on one hand. If he wanted to fit in at the Academy, he had to at least know a little about the Vongrad Kingdom.
At the top of the list of information he needed was a small village he could call home. It wasn't like he could say Earth when people asked him where he was from.
And while the Academy didn't seem like the strictest place, it was the Vongrad Kingdom's Royal Academy. It was intrinsically linked to the Kingdom's affairs. They had to be keeping an eye out for spies and the like.
A kid with strange habits and who can't say where he's from is bound to catch a few looks.
'I'll probably draw suspicion regardless of what I do if someone's watching me closely. But I should at least try not to grab too much attention. Being the center of attention in one of my brother's books… Yeah, no thanks.'
It didn't take long for Alec to arrive at the library. Like Nicholas had said, it was in the central building, which was the tallest and biggest one on campus. Part of it was lecture halls, auditoriums, and the cafeteria.
Alec couldn't tell without inspecting the entire building, but at least half of it was the library. It was a massive place with a double-door entrance, which seemed to have students entering and exiting regularly.
Alec stood before the entrance and looked up at the shelves and floors of books that seemed to want to reach the sky.
"Excuse me, are you a first-year?" The young woman at the desk called out to him with a slight frown.
"Yes." Alec was in a slight daze when she called out, so he was slow to respond, but she didn't seem to mind. It was an understandable reaction.
"I can see that you want to enter, but I'm sorry. It will take a couple of days to process all the paperwork for all the newly entered first-years. Until then—" Sarah stopped and looked at the note in front of her. There were a few names on it. One was underlined in red.
"What's your name?" She asked instead of continuing with her previous line of thought.
Alec's head slanted at the sudden turn.
"Alec." But he still answered.
Sarah nodded.
"You can enter and read whichever book catches your fancy, but you will have to wait those days before you can borrow anything if that's alright."
"That's more than alright, thank you. But can I ask why I'm allowed in?" He hadn't missed the way she looked at something on her desk. It made him curious. He couldn't even begin to guess. Was it because he was one of the mage students?
Sarah shrugged helplessly.
"The Head Librarian told me to let you and a few others in if they came."
"Why?" Alec frowned. He hadn't met the Head Librarian.
Sarah raised her hands in resignation.
"Three-dimensional magic is easier than figuring out what goes on in that guy's head."
"Alright…Thanks." Alec officially stepped into the library for the first time. The smell of books filled his nose. It was nostalgic. He closed his eyes and enjoyed it for a moment before looking at the clerk again. It was only now that he realized how beautiful she was.
Before this, he had only thought about the fact that her hair was green. He couldn't tell if it was dyed or natural.
She looked older than both him and Nicholas, but she was still wearing a uniform, which should make her a third or fourth year.
"Where do I find books on the Kingdom?"
Sarah pointed in a direction. While watching Alec walk away, she couldn't help but think about him. He hadn't stared at her longer than necessary. He hadn't looked for a chance to strike a conversation.
But more importantly, it was his first day at the Vongrad Kingdom's Royal Academy, famous for its library and the countless rare and precious tomes on magic it contained. It was clear as day that Alec was built like a mage. He was not signing up for the Warrior division with arms like that.
Anyone with even the slightest interest in magic would drool at a chance to even get a peek at the covers of the library's magic book collection.
Alec's first inquiry was on the Kingdom. Rather than suspicious, it was just plain odd. But after he turned a corner, he left her mind, and she continued reading her book.
Sarah wasn't completely right about Alec. He wasn't uninterested in magic. He just didn't even know where to start since he knew so little about it. He also prioritized common knowledge so that he could fit in and understand the world around him.
The book he was in was called 'A Tale of Blood and Kings' after all. He was in a kingdom. Odds were, the 'blood' part would take place in a kingdom.
If he had been the one who wrote the world, he could have skipped straight to learning magic. Unfortunately, he wasn't the author, so he was stuck learning the world-building instead.
But it wasn't all bad. He could try out his [Reader] as much as he wanted. More specifically, he could figure out one of its functions.
With [Reader], he could reread anything he had read. He wasn't sure how it worked at first, but after simply trying, he managed to pull up a holographic window of everything he had read so far, even things as small and in passing as the names on the backs of the books in Nicholas' bookcase or the 'W' embroidered on the library clerk's collar. He could even retrieve a replication of the Aether sensitivity testing slab, but that one he quickly wished away before it drained his Skill Energy and gave him a headache.
But it confirmed something.
[Reader] let him reread any text-based material he had laid eyes on, even if he hadn't fully read or remembered it.
'Okay, this might be a little overpowered.'
He could skim entire books, put them back on the shelves, and then peruse them later in his leisure.
'Okay, maybe not that overpowered.'
He still had to read everything the second time if he wanted the knowledge. He just didn't have to use a physical copy.