Lynn's heart was shaken as if struck by thunder, so violently that he nearly cried aloud.
With great effort, he forced his surging emotions down.
Is this…
He soon discovered that so long as he took a book in hand, its contents were swiftly taken by this thing called the Memory Library. And more wondrous still, that within his sight, upon the inner edge of his vision, he could call upon these recorded tomes at will, even if he had never truly read them.
Lynn mastered himself. His face remained calm and unreadable as he moved from shelf to shelf, drawing book after book into the unseen archive.
Elementary Literacy.
Continental Common Language Teaching.
An Unspeakable Story with Succubus Lilith.
Basic Illustrated Guide to Herbs.
Ancient Language Dictionary.
Ogre's Delicious Recipes.
Outline of Knightly Training.
Heraldry of the Kingdom of Hest.
Anything he deemed of worth, he gathered without pause.
The shopkeeper and Skinny Monkey watched his strange behavior with puzzled expressions.
Had the boy gone mad?
What nonsense was he up to?
Lynn ignored them both, his hands gliding steadily across spine after spine, page after page. The shopkeeper, silver already hidden in his palm, dared not interfere and could only stare in helpless silence.
Only when evening shadows crept through the shop did the farce come to an end.
Clutching his newly purchased Elementary Literacy and Continental Common Language Teaching, Lynn returned to the gang with Skinny Monkey.
Back in the woodshed, he waited until his watcher stepped out to relieve himself. Then, no longer able to restrain himself, Lynn summoned the light screen.
There, laid out with perfect clarity, were all the books he had "read," carefully categorized and preserved.
Below them lay a single word:
Analysis
Plainly, it was yet another function of this strange blessing.
Lynn tested it at once, selecting Continental Common Language of the Kingdom of Hest.
A bar of light appeared.
[Basic Analysis in progress: Continental Common Language of the Kingdom of Hest… 0.7%]
It could analyze the written tongue of this world. It could break it down, piece by piece, and grant understanding.
The difficulty of learning fell away at once. No longer would he need to struggle through each book by blind repetition.
True, it wasn't exactly a system. It granted no strength of arms, quests, nor experience points to level up.
Yet it was enough to make him a scholar.
A man of knowledge.
When his first wave of excitement faded, a quiet sense of loss crept in.
Fine, he admitted silently. It's not a world beater… but better than nothing.
Thus consoling himself, Lynn began to "browse" the books within his mind, slowly forming an image of the world.
By day, he played his role well, the shrewd and merciless Abacus Snake, accomplice to tyranny. He watched without expression as the Blood Hand Gang used the cruel systems he devised to collect debts, listened to the wails of the ruined, and hardened his heart like iron.
The road of the strong, he told himself, was paved with corpses and bone.
By night, he trained like a man possessed, pushing his frail body in the shadows of the woodshed while devouring knowledge through the panel.
Under the twin paths of reading and Analysis, his growth was astonishing.
From the Outline of Knightly Training, he learned that strength demanded vast resources and systematic instruction.
Such training came by two paths.
One could swear service to a noble, beginning as a knight squire, binding one's life with oath and blood in exchange for breathing techniques and martial skills.
Or one could enter a Knight Academy, receiving formal instruction.
But academies demanded coin. Mountains of it.
The saying "poor in letters, rich in arms" was no idle proverb, especially in paths that tempered flesh and bone.
Serving a noble as a thug, how was that different from his life now?
The academy became his chosen road.
His goal sharpened with every passing day: amass wealth, learn relentlessly, train his body, and when the moment came, leave the Blood Hand Gang and enter a Knight Academy.
That night, Lynn closed the Regional Chronicles of the Kingdom of Hest and rubbed his temples.
Through days of fevered study and constant Analysis, the world before him was no longer blank.
The Kingdom of Hest was a middling realm in the northern lands, ruled by nobles. Knights wielded Life Energy and dominated the fields of war.
The strongest man in Black Marsh City was said to be a Great Knight.
More mysterious still were the Wizards.
They appeared and vanished like dragons of old. The books spoke of them only in reverent fragments, beings who bent the elements, peered into souls, and stretched the span of life itself.
They were such Apart from mortal kind. Dwelling upon the Wizard Continent.
Those few lines alone were enough to set Lynn's heart racing.
"Wizards…"
He whispered the word, hunger gleaming in his eyes.
Compared to knights, wizards stirred something deeper within him.
Yet how could one ever reach them?
Rumor spoke of a Wizard Academy that held a Recruitment Assembly every five years, open to those between ten and fifteen winters of age.
Lynn's body, thirteen or fourteen, by his reckoning, fit the measure.
But the last assembly had been held the year before.
The next would not come for four years.
By then, he would be too old.
For a time, he was lost in thought.
Very well, he decided at last. I will enter a Knight Academy first. Once I have seen more of the world, the path to wizards will reveal itself.
At that moment, raised voices broke the night outside, the voices of One-Eyed Wolf and Ghost Fox.
Lynn inevitably had dealings with the deputy.
Ghost Fox was a true smiling tiger, weak in strength, rich in schemes. He controlled the gang's illicit trades and had grown wealthy.
Lynn had offended him utterly on the first day.
Since then, their interactions had been cold and sharp, clashing whenever Lynn audited the books.
"Jack! For the sake of some nameless brat, you would move against me?!" Ghost Fox snapped.
"Move against you?" One-Eyed Wolf's voice rumbled like distant thunder. "I am cleaning house! Four hundred gold coins, plain as day! Do you think me blind, you bastard?!"
"It's slander! All of it! That whelp twisted the numbers!"
"I've bled for this gang for years, and you'd cast me aside? Ask the brothers if they agree!"
Voices rose in support. Ghost Fox had won many loyalties.
One-Eyed Wolf's gaze swept across them, heavy and dark, until one by one, heads lowered.
At last, he sighed.
"Go. And do not return."
He could not strike.
Too many years shared. Too many battles fought side by side. To force the issue now would tear the gang apart.
Ghost Fox gave a cold snort and departed with those willing to follow him, certain that one day he would return in triumph.
From the cracks of the woodshed, Lynn watched in silence.
This conflict had been inevitable.
Indeed, it had been lit by his own hand.
The carefully ordered ledgers were the spark that ignited One-Eyed Wolf's long-suppressed fury.
And the fire had finally been set loose.