Chapter 24: A King's Ambition
Slowly, a pair of eyes opened. Vivid fuchsia irises emerged from beneath heavy eyelids.
"Huh...?" Albion pushed himself upright and glanced around. "Where am I...?"
Fragments of memory surfaced.
"Oh right... the library."
As his thoughts cleared, he rose to his feet. Rows upon rows of towering bookshelves stretched throughout the chamber, their countless volumes disappearing into the gloomy distance. The sight confirmed it immediately.
And if this was the Phantom Lord library…
"It seems I made it back." A smile tugged at the corner of his lips.
He had tried not to think about it while trapped within the Inner World, but the possibility of never returning had genuinely frightened him. Now, the lingering unease that had settled in his heart completely vanished.
It was then that he began to walk forward, only to stop short as a strange sensation hit him.
"Huh?" His brow furrowed. "My body feels light. Really light." At first, he thought it was just his imagination.
Looking up, his gaze landed upon one of the bookshelves towering several feet above him.
Without thinking, Albion bent his knees and coiled his muscles. The moment his feet left the ground, his eyes widened.
He soared upward.
Higher. Far higher than he had ever jumped before.
Landing perfectly upon the top bookshelf, he broke into a mad dash along its length. His feet flew across the wooden surface, a blur of motion in the quiet chamber.
He moves at speeds greater than an average human. It doesn't take him long before he arrives at the very end of the bookshelf.
He skidded to a halt. "I could be wrong, but," Albion looked down at his hands, "I think I'm faster now."
A grin spread across his face. The next second, he launched himself forward again.
Going into another run, he jumped from bookshelf to bookshelf, running and leaping all across the massive chamber of the library.
As he performed these feats, he couldn't help but grin
"I'm not sure what changed while I was asleep…" He sprang from one shelf to the next. "But right now…"
Another leap.
Another landing.
'Right now… I feel free!' A laugh escaped his lips. "Heh…"
"Heh... heh..."
"Hahaha...!"
The sound echoed throughout the silent library. It carried a sharp, manic edge—leaving it entirely unclear whether he found something genuinely funny, or if he was losing his mind.
Freed from the shackles of his past… his power grew.
He had been liberated from everything.
Just then, a familiar scent drifted into Albion's nose. It had such an effect on the boy that he immediately stopped laughing.
"Huh?"
The smell carried traces of dust, broken stone, and churned earth. The scent of destruction.
"What a nasty smell..." He inhaled again, his brow furrowing. "But it's one I recognize."
Albion turned toward the library's exit. The scent was drifting in from somewhere beyond the corridor outside.
"You're fighting someone, aren't you, Gajeel?"
"The question is: who are you fighting? Maybe the adults in the guild hall?"
The moment the words left his mouth, a second, entirely different scent hit him.
The sharp, metallic tang of blood.
Albion's eyes narrowed as he recalled his own past battles with Gajeel. "I don't think there's anybody in Phantom Lord capable of making you bleed," he muttered to the empty room. "I bet you're loving it. You probably have that stupid smirk on your face right now."
The mental image faded from his mind.
"I wonder who's playing with you."
He began walking toward the source of the disturbance, his pace deliberate.
"No... that wasn't quite right." A wicked smirk spread over his face, one that twisted with a cocktail of dark emotions. "Don't have all the fun without me, Gajeel. Save some for me."
Even though he didn't stop to ponder it, Albion's senses had drastically sharpened. It wasn't just a scent anymore; his entire body could feel a strange, heavy pressure radiating from a specific direction.
This crushing weight was the magical aura of the iron wizard, Gajeel.
He took another step forward, completely locked onto the sensation—until he walked directly into something.
"Hm?" Blinking, Albion looked up.
He found himself standing within the heart of the library.
The towering shelves curved inward from every direction like silent guardians protecting something sacred.
And at the center of it all floated a single object.
A black glass sphere hovered motionlessly above a circular stone pedestal.
Roughly the size of a bowling ball, its surface appeared smooth at first glance.
Yet beneath the dark glass, thin streams of light flowed like luminous veins, shifting endlessly across its surface in patterns that never repeated.
The glow pulsed softly.
Like distant stars trapped beneath layers of ink.
The pedestal beneath it resembled less a stand and more an altar.
Concentric circles had been carved into the stone around its base, each ring filled with ancient runes, indexing symbols, and geometric markings so precise they seemed almost unnatural.
The sphere drifted slowly as it hovered.
Turning with calm, deliberate movements.
Almost as if it were alive.
"The Lexis Orb." Albion immediately recognized it. "According to Gajeel, this thing can locate and retrieve any information that's already stored within the library."
His gaze wandered across the countless bookshelves surrounding him.
Books.
Thousands of them. Knowledge gathered over decades.
Maybe even centuries.
A thoughtful look appeared on his face.
"There's probably a mountain of information in here," he murmured, his thoughts drifting toward the dark void of everything he still didn't know.
His origins.
His dear "mother".
The laboratory where he was created.
His mysterious race.
Questions.
Questions without answers.
Until now.
Slowly, Albion's gaze returned to the floating sphere, a dark smile spreading across his face.
"And you're going to help me find those answers."
"...Eh?"
The moment his eyes met the polished surface of the Lexis Orb, Albion froze. Reflected in the sphere was a face he barely recognized.
"I never really cared for my looks," he muttered, leaning closer. "But did I always look like this…?"
Unlike before, his reflection possessed an almost otherworldly beauty—one that seamlessly blended youthful innocence with a sharp, unsettling depth.
His features were soft and delicate, carrying a natural cuteness that lingered in the mind long after looking away.
But his most striking feature was undoubtedly his eyes. They were a vivid fuchsia, a rare reddish-pink hue that stood out sharply against his fair, blemish-free skin.
Beneath their beauty lay an unnatural, quiet intensity.
Even his silky black hair had grown longer, falling naturally around his face and neck, brushing lightly against the nape of his neck.
It lacked any deliberate styling, framing his face in a way that only drew more attention toward those vivid fuchsia eyes.
Noticing something else in the reflection, his gaze drifted down to his hands.
Stamped across the backs of his fingers were bold, black tattooed letters that spelled: K I N G. The markings were simple, yet impossible to overlook against his youthful skin.
[Goals alone mean nothing, Albion. Without a path forward, goals are just wishes people use to comfort themselves.]
[So tell me. What exactly are you going to do to reach them?]
"Oh, you don't have to worry about that," Albion murmured, the memory of those earlier words echoing in his mind. A knowing smile graced his lips. "'Cuz I know exactly what I'm going to do."
Holding out both hands, a translucent keyboard shimmered into existence before him. His fingers blurred as he began to type.
In his mind, the fundamental rules of the world surfaced.
'Magical Items are objects that possess magical properties. Unlike spells, the magic is stored within the item itself rather than the person. Because of this, they can be used by anyone who wields them, regardless of whether they are a Mage or not.'
It was a basic, limiting understanding of magic items, but it was exactly the kind of foundational knowledge Albion intended to master.
The Lexis Orb was essentially a magical indexing and retrieval system. It didn't store or create knowledge, nor did it answer questions directly.
Instead, the orb read intent rather than mere language. If a scholar wanted information on fish species, a biology book would appear. If a chef asked for the same, a cookbook would manifest.
The exact same concept could produce entirely different results based on the user's serechs.
Stepping back, Albion let the keyboard dissolve into light.
High above, a heavy tome slid from its row on a massive bookshelf, levitated into the open air, and sailed gracefully downward before landing perfectly in Albion's waiting hands.
"I don't need a teacher," Albion said, looking down at the cover. "I can learn everything about this world, including magic, right here."
Dropping cross-legged onto the floor, he proceeded to flip open the book.
"I can learn anything and everything. Time to get reading."