After bidding farewell to the elderly library administrator in the front hall.
Guided by the administrator, Ronald and his two companions arrived at the second floor of the library.
Standing before the vast repository, the first thing that caught their eye was the shelving system — the way the shelves were numbered had a distinct local flavor.
At the top of each shelf in the Carpen Library, a piece of paper was affixed.
On it, horizontal and vertical lines and circles were clearly drawn.
A single vertical line represented number one, two vertical lines represented number two; up to number five, a horizontal line replaced the number five; and similarly, when five horizontal lines accumulated, they were replaced by a circle, thus following a standard base-five numbering system.
Although this base system might be a bit inconvenient compared to the decimal system,
