Chapter 226: Training?

"I’ll train." Jacob spoke definitively; his words exuded nothing but assurance in the fact that he was going to use whatever time he had before the first battle to get stronger.

He didn’t walk long with Uga beside him before he found a tranquil space where he could train. Jacob’s training would not consist of all the extravagant things that he had seen from some of the other fighters. He would merely sit and revisit the Library of Life to find out if there was anything in there about the Tower of Sun, and if there was, how he could clear it.

Maybe he could even speak to someone who had cleared the tower before. He had a certain name in mind. Link Pistonn, the one that the System had revealed to him earlier, before he decided to embark on this journey.

Uga said nothing else. He would only alert Jacob when it was time for the battle to begin. Whatever Jacob decided to do before that time would be known to him and him alone. He could train however he wanted.

Jacob sat in a lotus position on the floor. The Library of Life did not require his full consciousness to be submerged within it; rather, it required only a part of it, which meant that Jacob could keep his body sitting in this position while his consciousness browsed the endless shelves of timeless knowledge.

...

It wasn’t long before the boy had drifted back into the pocket dimension. The tall, shimmering building stood elegantly before him, but he ignored the beauty of the Library’s exterior, as he had grown used to it already.

He walked inside and did not even hesitate for one second.

"Tower of Sun!" he called out.

Endless shelves and books of all sizes and shapes began warping distinctly around him, as though the building itself were searching for an answer to the words he had just spoken.

He had realized early on that, despite having visited all the floors of the Library, it did not matter what floor he was on when he gave a command. Whatever he needed would appear before him in the blink of an eye.

Just as Jacob had spoken those words, a small book materialized before him, seemingly containing all the information there was to know about the Tower of Sun.

The pages seemed to glow under the illumination that washed over the halls. The book had nothing written on the front, back, or side. He only assumed that this was due to the fact that the Tower didn’t have much content outside its purpose.

But as he flipped it open, he soon discovered that the pages were blank. Each and every page possessed no form of ink or writing, just blank paper from top to bottom. Jacob sighed upon learning this. He had hoped to find some sort of information about the Tower that would help him succeed, but there was none. He closed the book briefly and decided to return it.

But a thought flashed through his mind. He remembered the rule that the Library had shown him the first time he visited it.

He could change the course of history by writing in any book, or erasing something from any book, three times a week. It gave him a somewhat crazy idea.

If he could write about his victory in the Book of the Tower of Sun, then maybe it could work in the same way prophecy did. He did not particularly know, or care, if it would be cheating to do so.

With a thought, a pen materialized within his grasp. He opened the book and began to write:

"Jacob Ironfell climbs to the 100th floor and emerges victorious in the Tower of Sun."

He clicked his pen somewhat triumphantly and smiled at the pages as he thought about how exactly this "prophecy" would unfold. Surely, if this was possible, then he needed to do nothing else and just wait for the battle to commence.

But his mini celebration was cut short immediately as the words he had written on the page suddenly began to vanish, letter by letter.

His faint smile quickly turned into a frown as he watched the words fade away from the page. He knew it was too good to be true. Anything that presented itself as that easy was never as it seemed. Jacob sighed and closed the book.

Based on the vast plethora of books he had studied for months on end in here, there was no martial art technique that he was not extremely well acquainted with. Coupled with his skill, he was certain not to miss, at least on the first few floors.

He thought briefly about how interesting it would be to meet people with unique skills and powers. Whenever he was in the Library of Life, it seemed as though his and were utterly redundant, and it worried him slightly.

He also relished the idea of not knowing. Not knowing what was going to happen excited him a little as he moved slowly through the aisles of the Library.

The name kept ringing in his head, the name of the only man who had completed the tower floors in a record time of 21 days.

Link Pistonn.

The name sounded odd as Jacob heard it, but it also sounded as though it belonged to a very powerful person, one whom Jacob longed to meet. If he could finish the Tower in 21 days, then he surely was very powerful.

Who knows, maybe I can even steal his skill.

The young man mused mischievously, but that was all that was left to do. Jacob knew that the Library must have the consciousness of Link Pistonn, the man who had cleared the Tower the fastest in history, here somewhere. And he was determined to at least speak to the man before he returned.

The only luck he possessed was that time was nonexistent in the Library, so he could spend years there preparing, with time not moving even a nanosecond outside the dimensional construct.

With nothing left to do, Jacob decided to speak to the man.

"Link Pistonn."