Instead, this school had proved itself to be rotten to the core, even more so than Dragon Academy, his enemies happy to employ increasingly outrageous and unfair tactics to assure that he would forever be a stunted shadow of what he was truly capable of.
To the point that not one but two headmasters had been corrupted by greed, power, and hate, and three libraries utterly denied him, this lifetime alone.
Until now.
Now, when he was determined to play the game by his own rules alone.
Now, when he was finally done with asking.
Now, when he would use guile, trickery, and sharpened steel to achieve his ends, happily cutting down any foe who got in his way.
And his reward for being such a ruthless bastard? An incalculable treasure trove of wealth and knowledge. Enough glorious cultivation manuals resting upon polished metal bookshelves to make up for a dozen lifetimes’ worth of bitter struggles and fruitless quests for knowledge that had been forever placed just out of his reach.
He laughed then, his bitter chuckle turning to a howling roar as he glared up at the heavens, shaking his fist.
“I got you, fuckers! I did it! I outfoxed your damned tools and destroyed the Silvers they left behind! Your own cursed cards mean I will never be forced to pay for my crimes, even as you wash the glory of countless virtuous lives lived away from my soul for all time! Well, to hell with all of you bastards and hypocrites. The library is mine, and none of your pawns will get through that gate! They won’t even know what’s wrong. Not until I’ve stripped this place clean of all knowledge, all lore, and claimed every last tome!”
Fist still raised high, Alex flashed Xun Hu a fierce smile. “Let’s say we rob these assholes for all they’re worth!”
The grand chamber rang with Xun Hu’s throaty chuckle. “Gladly, hero. Just please don’t look at me like that with your fist raised quite so high.”
Alex had the grace to flush. “Yeah, I…”
She shook her head. “Don’t say anything. Not when there are countless tomes that could net us a massive fortune to plunder!” She frowned. “What about storage devices?”
Alex furrowed his brow, concentrating for long moments before slumping over, taking ragged breaths.
His partner’s gaze became one of startled alarm. “Alex? Alex, are you alright? Please don’t collapse now. My life sort of depends upon you being functional and getting us out of here.”
Summon Portal skill check: Success! You have summoned four complex gates linking Library to World Seed. One hundred and twenty Qi Points spent.
“Look at the floor beside the bookshelves, Xun Hu," said a smiling Alex the moment he caught his breath, as his Qi Pool began to refill.
Frowning, she did so, and her eyes widened in stunned wonder. “Alex…what?”
“Four massive slits several feet wide, each angled such that you can toss the tomes from at least four bookshelves within each one. And they’ll all tumble right into one of the empty chamber rooms of my palace, where my seneschal has just informed me that of course the servants can keep track of all the tomes we throw in, maintaining the very order they were kept in in this library, should we wish it. They’ll also serve as duplicates within my own endlessly growing library.”
The kitsune blinked in amazement. “Really.”
Alex nodded. “But first, I have to touch every book and tome and manual and scroll and copper tablet in here, so that they’re all imprinted neatly into my library as well. Then we can throw all the tomes in and leave this massive chamber bare of anything but our enemies’ blood and tears.”
Xun Hu chuckled. “Sounds like a plan to me, hero.”
She frowned again, inspecting the centermost chamber, around which the massive hallway curved. “You know that through that door is where the true prizes of this school lay, and perhaps a princess in trouble as well.”
Alex’s gaze hardened, and he gave an angry shake of his head. “Of course I know that. And if you think I’m going to risk my neck, after all I’ve been through, to come to the rescue of yet more friends and nobles in trouble? Well, you’re absolutely right.”
He flashed a fierce smile. “But not until I clear out every last bloody tome in here. Because you know, somehow you just absolutely know that Long Wang, or Zheng Yi, or General Shalu, or some other asshole I never met will have linked some massive deadly curse that will cause all the tomes to disappear, vaporize, or become utterly unusable to me the moment I step forward into the next arc of the damned story of my life, and those assholes will be laughing with glee in the heavens as their latest victim is sobbing in my arms, telling me why it is absolutely forbidden that I do anything but raise my noble head high and leave this city, stripped utterly naked of all wealth, or everyone in existence will instantly die or turn to fucking chickens, or some other absolute bollocks reason necessitating the immediate surrendering of my prizes to my enemies yet again."
His voice became a roar as he glared at the heavens.
“Well, I’m not having it! We are stripping this place abso-fucking-lutely clean! Then we can play hero all day long. And if any sobbing princess needs a self-sacrificing hero, I’ll say ‘sure,’ push her through a gate, and she can live her life free of all the twisted schemes plaguing this place, a whole world away!”
His tirade abruptly stopped as he caught the surprised gaze of the girl he really shouldn’t have been shouting at, having the grace to lower his head. “I’m sorry, Xun Hu. I…”
“What you are is absolutely right. So quit wasting time shouting at the heavens, and I’ll start tossing in the books!” She furrowed her brow. “Are you sure they aren’t…”
“Trapped?” Alex grinned mischievously. “Ninety percent sure. And as for the last ten percent…”
Artificer skill check made!
He raised Dark Qi-covered gloves. “It’s strange. I do sense an enchantment, a powerful one, over each and every one of these bookshelves. But it has absolutely nothing to do with the books they contain, strangely enough, so there’s no trap we have to worry about.”
He frowned, rubbing his head. “Or at least, nothing will happen if we remove these tomes. I’m almost certain of that. But just in case… I’m going to flick my hands across every last tome in every last bookshelf, so I’ll have duplicates, as well as instantly discharging any and all wards or traps—at least those on the surfaces of these tomes. And once I’ve made it across these sixteen shelves, I’m throwing them all in. Then I’ll close these gates and summon another four, and we’ll do it with another sixteen bookcases and so on, until we’ve cleared out this whole damned chamber!”
She nodded her head. “Sounds good to me, Alex.”
Pausing, she furrowed her brow, considering the portals. “Do you think we should invite your…”
“Gods, no! The minute anyone from the school finds out what we did, or worse, is a part of it firsthand, some damned flag will be raised, leading to strife and chaos in my own domain, unless I willingly put every book back where it belongs. In other words, in someone else’s hands besides my own. The hell with that! My seneschal is already taking steps to makes sure none of my ‘guests’ find this library until they’ve sworn themselves utterly to my cause, or they’ve gone back home.”
Xun Hu’s smile returned. “Sounds like you’ve got everything figured out, hero, except one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“You’re still talking. Not doing. You sure the gods aren’t laughing at you for continuing to dance to their tune?”
Alex froze at the thought, refusing to say another word, just bowing his head low in genuine respect to his friend before he raced forward, brushing his hand against every tome in every bookshelf. He was gratified to feel only a single malignant spark instantly dissipated by his gauntlet as his World Seed Library tab lit up with a brilliant stream of messages he tuned out, save for acknowledging as proof that he was finally playing this bittersweet game of life correctly as four empty bookshelves became sixt
een and then sixty-four. And in just a handful of hours, tapping into Eternal Fox regeneration, Vitality reserves, and his own fierce determination, he had both imprinted each and every last manual in the collection and cleared every last shelf, until what had once been perhaps one of the most coveted learning sanctums in a nation the size of planet Earth was now no more than hundreds of desolate bookshelves devoid of even a single tome.
He raised his fist, howling his triumph, having never felt such glory, such exultation, save when forging his Divine Bronze Cords.
“We did it, WiFu! We finally claimed a library of our own!”
Alex was almost giddy with exultation as he deliberately channeled the roiling storm of limitless potential wildly flowing through him, as if in acknowledgment of a quest that had taken lifetimes to complete, converting it all into the skills he most wanted to raise. His elation further increased to see a newly discovered skill level up yet another rank.
You have embraced the meta! Investing Potency to increase your ability to master the potency you would invest! Potency Mastery is now Rank 2! You many now recover an additional two Qi Points per second for the two minutes after achieving victory over your foe or making a kill, as your foe’s spiritual energy becomes your own!
An exhausted Xun Hu, making ravenous use of the rations Alex had offhandedly placed on the floor in case they got hungry, raised her diminutive fist in fellowship. “I can’t wait till the Red Prince finds out his priceless library is now just a bunch of bare shelves!”
“Except for the first floor and the books important enough to secure individually on the second floor of the actual library,” Alex noted. “Though I already claimed copies of about 90% of the first floor.”
Then his gaze turned to the massive vault-like affair that was the jade door, the true innermost sanctum of the school. “And of course… this.”
Xun Hu solemnly nodded. “Yeah, I’m going to level with you. There’s a part of me that says the best thing we can possibly do is just jump through the one gate you left open and leave this place without a second look back.”
Alex nodded absentmindedly in return. “You’re probably right.”
“But you’re not going to do that.”
Alex crossed his arms as he eyed the door. “From what our enemies revealed, my friend and the princess have been hiding in there, warding themselves from Sudong and the others, for days, perhaps weeks.” He frowned. “Perhaps since the night Cheng Lei and I met up in my pagoda, and I drew him a map of the servant’s tunnels, before forgetting the entire damned night until now, mostly, as if his cloak had been an artifact of Shadow and Spirit both, and our encounter felt no more real to me than dream.”
Xun Hu’s eyes widened. “Alex… even in the stories mother once told me, that would require a Gold-ranked artifact. At least!”
“It doesn’t change the fact that I should have been there for a girl needing me so desperately that she haunted my dreams for nights on end, before Cheng Lei took over for what I’m almost certain was my failing WiFu, no matter that it’s not like anyone saw fit to explain a goddamn thing to me.”
Alex sighed and shook his head. “Either way, what’s done is done. I was already too late. A few hours won’t make any difference now. But at least I stopped that damned bastard of a headmaster from forcing open the inner sanctum. Even if I was able to do nothing else to help, at least I did that much.”
Alex squeezed shut eyes that stung with what he refused to call tears, lowering his head from Xun Hu’s penetrating gaze.
“Alex?”
“Yes?”
“If you somehow think you’re a failure, after all you’ve done and endured, then you’re an idiot.”
Alex blinked, not quite sure how to respond.
“You risked your life to save a doomed kitsune girl you didn’t even know. You challenged an infernalist who had dragged hundreds of innocents into damnation, a monster who thought nothing of violating children and feeding upon their spirits for all time. You fought that bastard and tore his heart out. Tore his soul out. So he could never doom another soul again. Not ever.” Her frank expression softened into a strangely beautiful smile, despite teeth lost to the blows of sadists and savages. “You’re a hero, through and through, who risked his life to make sure his fellow students could escape this pit of hell. A man who already extended himself too far in helping people who wouldn’t have given him the time of day, otherwise.”
Delicate fingertips touched the warmth on his cheeks. “You’re a good man, Alex. No matter how dark you think you are.”
She turned to regard the massive vault of an inner door. “Even if you were to walk away right now, you’d still be a figure for the storybooks. Because if the Blue Prince and a certain princess really are in there, I think you already gave them the only reprieve they’ll need to escape. You know that, right?”
Alex snorted. “And I can just leave a gate leading to the outskirts of the city, and a note to escape while they can, and go myself, and I’m the hero twice over, right?”
She chuckled softly. “Exactly.”
“But just in case…”
Xun Hu flashed a bemused smile. “Just in case they actually need a Bronze tripping over their feet? Sure. Of course, if steeling all those tomes wasn’t enough, if you truly want to make this a score for the legends, then you’re going to have to open that door anyway.”
He grinned, straightening with a twinkle in his eye. “It’s so rare that being the perfect hero and criminal coincide so perfectly. And if that isn’t a message from my patron to do what needs doing? Then I don’t know what is.”
The pair exchanged nods before Alex turned to the massive jade door, studded with a number of tiles placed in slots Alex was almost positive that, if shifted correctly, would allow, say, an irate headmaster into the heart of his domain, even within a library shut off by an aspirant who had actually managed to obtain a jade talisman.
He frowned thoughtfully, Artificer and Qi Perception making it clear that there were fearsomely powerful wards embedded within the door and the entire massive domed central chamber, most especially along the external walls lined with the bookshelves Alex had stripped bare. As to how exactly to proceed… it was a puzzle, even with his skillset, and he suddenly felt certain that the headmaster still had a ways to go before he would have successfully opened the portal.
“Cheng Lei, can you hear me?” Alex hollered, just on the off-chance that his friend could.
Long moments passed.
“I don’t think he heard you.”
Alex sighed. “You’re probably right.”
The kitsune furrowed her brow. “It looked to me like the headmaster was trying to solve a puzzle of sorts.”
“He was.”
“What happens if we try to open the door without solving the puzzle?”
“I’m pretty sure we’d end up dying spectacularly,” Alex said with a cynical smile.
Xun Hu’s ears wilted. “Suddenly, I’m not so sure that whatever Gold tomes are in there are worth the trouble.”
“Oh, they are. I have no doubt about that.”
“Alright then, how do we get in?”
Alex frowned, inspecting the door, not even having to see the messages flashing across his mind’s eye to know that the Jade-level ward absolutely and utterly trumped his ability to pierce it. The blatant energies radiating from it were more a courtesy and a warning to those skilled enough to sense them than they were indicative of any crudeness within the design.
All of a sudden, he laughed aloud as it all clicked, realizing he’d had the solution all along.
Smiling, he proceeded toward the massive slab of jade crackling with warning energies.
“Alex?”
He paid no mind to his friend’s sharp cry, embracing the bittersweet gift he had been given by his patron. A talisman so weak that it was unable to resist a single challenge, no matter how perilous the stakes. An artifact so potent that he could force any match upon any res
ident of this academy, no matter how outrageous the wager.
Because it wasn’t jade at all. Nor was it gold, silver, or even bronze.
It was the divine talisman of WiFu himself. And though it would do nothing to prevent the conflict of challenge, no gate would be impervious to the Fox’s ability to slip right through.
The theory was easily proven when his near-translucent talisman momentarily flashed as brilliantly as the sun, slipping into the hidden slit in the very center of the door like a key. And how effortless it was for Alex to turn the lock, sensing that the perfectly cantilevered door, massive as it was, would now open effortlessly before him.
Before he froze stock still, ignoring Xun Hu’s excited cheer, realizing just how close to peril he truly was.
52
“Alex, you did it! I don’t know how, but you actually broke through! Now hurry up and…”
The urgency in Alex’s voice immediately cut her off.
“Get behind me, now! When I give the word, step back!”
It was all Alex could do to keep the door closed, sensing a sudden terrible pressure on the other side. Straining, he summoned the most basic of dimensional doors, struggling to focus and ignore the sudden sharp pain in his muscles as the pressure continued to build.
You have successfully summoned 2 Basic and 1 Complex Portals linked to your World Seed. 40 Qi spent!
“Jump back, now!”
Quickness check made!
In a single heartbeat, Alex had leapt back into the 3-sided pyramid that would permit Alex, Xun Hu, and limited light and sound through. And nothing else.
Before the door opened with a roar and the entire chamber filled with flame.
Xun Hu began to scream when Alex realized his mistake. His three-sided pyramid worked brilliantly for blocking the fearsome storm of energies now washing over them.
Silver Fox & The Western Hero: Warrior’s Path Page 77