While Lark treaded forward, both curious and reluctant to figure out what this new thing was, Gushi popped out from behind Sphinx, unnoticed. The slime grappled onto Sphinx’s back and then leaned over his shoulder, observing with a perfect degree of stillness until Sphinx moved his head against it. “Oh, Lark’s right, you do feel like a water pillow.”

Unseen to the naked eye, a little blob of sweat trickled like a tear under Gushi’s antenna.

Inches away from the spire, a furious flutter grew from Lark’s stomach to his chest. The strange formation had just opened from the ground up like a mechanism one would unlock in a game once they entered an unexplored map. But he couldn’t shake off the feeling that someone was watching them.

It wasn’t as tall as he first thought, only reaching slightly above his waistline. As he took his time looking over the blue conical tower, light shone from sparkling geodes embedded on the sides. Could they be mana-stones? He marveled at their iconic crystalline shapes.

Behind him, Sphinx said, “They say blue is the natural state of pure mana crystals. The blue-er they are, the higher the purity or so I’ve seen in books.”

Lark turned around and saw Sphinx dutifully dusting a desk lined into the wall.

“Well, go on Inheritor,” he urged.

As usual, Sphinx was no help, but rather to bother him with more questions, Lark re-examined the formation. It’s not like there were any instructions nor any impressions of handprints telling him what to touch. Though, there was something on top of the spire… or rather inside it.

The top half of the mound dipped into a bowl. Geometric shapes and patterns decorated the inner sides, which were in a shade of a darker blue. A glass sphere nestled in a swirl of fine, powdered gray sand on the bottom. Should he pick it up?

This time he asked Sphinx for help.

Sphinx peeked from behind a giant, standing sextant in another corner of the room. The device pointed outside to the giant hole in the wall. “Huh? Oh, that—you haven’t finished yet?” There was a degree of nagging in his voice and a hint of ‘don’t make me come over there.’

Exasperated, Lark asked once more, “What do I do with it?”

“What else do you do with a ball? Pick it up, then put it down - just be gentle with it, there’s only one void crystal like it in the world.”

“Oh, so mister-know-it-all says you’re a void crystal,” Lark murmured to himself and rolled his palm over the shiny ball. Contrary to his expectations, the glass wasn’t at all cold to the touch. In fact, it felt rather comfortable, inviting even. He held it up, eye-level, bewitched by what was occurring inside: Thin filaments of lightning rapped the dome of the sphere, a layer of ice sliced the mid-line, and below them was a spinning inferno.

Then he shook it, trying to see if it was a snow-globe. Nothing changed, but the tips of his fingers felt some slight zaps. Sphinx swooped in next to him. “Stop that, you’re not a kid.” He grabbed Lark’s wrist, and together they settled it back inside the pit, where eddies of the gray sand began to circle it. The void crystal remained still compared to the action surrounding it. One circular motion became three rings. To Lark, the movements were as enchanting as watching a river ebb and flow.

In the eye of the dancing gray storms, shiny rocks unearthed from the gravelly sand.

“Aren’t those mana crystals?” Lark asked Sphinx.

All four of them peered inside. Nympha squeaked first, nearly giving Lark a heart attack. “Almost forgot you were here…umm…how was your nap, Master Nympha?”

Miffed, Nympha ignored him and directed her gaze at the three newly formed crystals sitting at the bottom of the chamber. “As I thought, little one, you’ve grown up a bit in a short time.”

When the dust settled, each one of them grabbed a piece. On the outside, they all had the same color, a crystal clear blue, but they had very different shapes and textures: one was smooth and disk-shaped, another a perfect marble-sphere, and the last had jagged edges like rock-candy.

Nympha explained first. “Mana crystals given by the Void Crystal are a bit different from ones you’d find produced by nature or refined at smithies. These—she cradled the disk one in her paws—define potential. And while they contain some energy, there’s no true arcane energy stored in them. So, I’ve seen humans turn them into pendants, seals, and other scultpive pieces.”

“I think you could add this one into a wand or a weapon…or maybe it’s a bit too small for that,” Sphinx added, looking at the spheroid crystal like it was some sorta sad pebble.

Lark very much liked the one he held in his palm. It oddly reminded him of the meteorites Sky collected in his room, which were often rough around the edges and banged up obviously from hurtling through space and into the ground. Sky used to say it gave them ‘character’ to their magnetic personalities. This charming character he picked up also turned out to be the biggest out of the three.

After rotating it a bit more, he let out a small gasp. Encased inside the transparent blue, a spark of ember ignited in the center. It was barely there, but he could see it trapped inside, burning softly.

“This is very peculiar,” Nympha finally pointed out to Sphinx. “What kind of testing crystals are these? Celestians tested at birth tend to produce crystals of varied color such as red for fire affinities or green for wind, or even odd colors like pink and silver if there’s an uncommon affinity.”

She held up the crystal as a steering wheel with both paws. “It’s small, but there are floating slabs of white and snow-capped mountains in here.”

“To be honest, I’m not entirely sure,” Sphinx said.

Nympha blinked twice and went back to gazing at the disk—her attitude suggesting: You? Honest? Please.

Strangely pouting to himself, Sphinx dropped his hands to his sides after giving Lark the marble crystal.

“The Void Crystal setup you have here is different from the ones appraisers use in Celestia,” Nympha continued. “It’s not usually orb-shaped, and the sand here is also devoid of color.”

She looked at Lark to explain further. “Typically, appraisers from the royal capital carry a large apparatus to different towns and villages. I’ve never seen one up close, but they’re designed so that a child can be placed inside an open box.”

Lark pictured a coffin and shuddered. Nympha seemed to notice this and squeaked. “Nothing bad happens to the child. Anyways, the Void Crystal is held inside a pendulum, which the appraiser handles and guides over the child’s head and chest.”

“It is said that spirit and mana forces can be measured by a Void Crystal, which was given by the gods and the child must make contact with the crystal so that it will absorb their energy. The appraiser will then place the crystal in a bowl of gem dust.” She looked down at the basin. “I cannot say for sure if this is gem-dust, but the sand they used had every color in nature: garnet-red, sapphire-blue, emerald-green, rose-pink, black-pearls…well, you understand.”

Lark nodded and Nympha went on.

“When the appraiser buries the pendulum under the sand, magic stones are produced in the appropriate colors which coordinate the child’s affinities as we’ve seen. The size of these stones is also said to be a measure of their mana pool at birth.”

“So, how would their spiritual power be measured?” Lark asked.

“That is secretly observed by the appraiser, who usually has a background in fortune-telling or astrology or both. Then they reveal their findings to the family, the town’s guild, and then finally report back to the royal family. However, the only exception to this would be the star children.”

“Children with astral properties such as dark, light, and spatial are taken immediately to the closest royal capital and they stay there until adulthood.”

Lark’s head tilted to the side. Why did this sound so familiar?

Sphinx nudged him. “The notes left behind in the flash drive mentioned this too before.”

Oh, that’s right. The one-in-a-million cases.

“Not that a person with three affinities like yourself would be ignored, however, star children are placed on a different kind of pedestal,” Nympha said then focused back on Sphinx. “I digress. The matter at hand here is what exactly are these?” She shook the disk at Sphinx.

“Well, what can I say? Pantheon is bound to do things a bit differently.”

Nympha’s head jerked slightly as if realizing where she was for the first time. Sphinx offered her a smile.

As the seconds ticked by, her jaw dropped. The information finally sinking in. Sphinx rushed in with another explanation. “The Upper-lands is only limited to this space I’m afraid—this is where the Librarian did his research.”

“The Librarian?” questioned Lark. It was his turn to ask questions as Nympha seemed out of order.

“How do I say this?” Sphinx slow-turned his head to look around them. “He’s the creator of SIM, in other words, your daddy.”

Lark’s eyes narrowed at Sphinx’s attempt to joke. “He’s an Immortal too then. You haven’t exactly told me how SIM ended up on Earth or my grandfather's lab.”

“That is something you will have to ask him, not me.” Sphinx offered another one of his smiles before turning away, done with the conversation apparently.

Nyphma jumped onto Lark's hand to drop off the crystal disk. “I’ll go talk to him,” she said before scurrying over his shoulder to chase after Sphinx.

Now, all three of the mana-crystals sat on the base of his palm. “Let’s see, Wangshi said I had the power trinity—if I were to guess, he meant: fire, ice, and lightning.”

All three natures reflected in his gaze. Truly, at that moment, he felt powerful. Then Gushi’s antenna bopped the back of his head. “Gushi? When did you get there?”

Happy to be finally noticed, Gushi reclaimed his spot on Lark’s shoulder. The slime fidgeted and poked the side of his cheek. “What’s up buddy?” He put away the mana-crystals inside his pocket.

Gushi bounced off his shoulder and onto the rim of the basin. Slowly, an orb squeezed out of its body. Lark’s eyes widened as he lowered his back, making sure the other two didn’t notice. “Gushi! When did you pick that up?”

Its antenna swung to the left, imitating Lark’s head tilt.

“Alright, never mind. Go on. Put it back quickly before Sphinx sees.”

Gushi gave the best shrug a slime could do and knocked the orb down the rim much to Lark’s horror. The void crystal looped around once until it magically rolled back into the exact center and before Lark could breathe again, the gray sand rose.

His exhale knocked into the back of his throat. It didn’t just work on humans, the void crystal could sense the potential of magical beasts too.

Emerging from the gray pit, a singular shard formed with a pen-sized diameter that reached about half-his pinky. He scooped up the shard for Gushi and together they examined the piece. Diamond-speared and prismatic, this crystal had a more formulaic appearance to usual fantasy-designed pendants. Unlike the outer layer of blue on Lark’s crystals, Gushi’s had a bluish-silver coating and inside there were bright camera-like flashes.

What could that mean?

Puzzled, he half-turned towards Sphinx to reveal their little ruse when a small splitting crack could be heard. He really did not want to turn back around, but little, innocent Gushi tugged his shirt.

Lark puffed in his cheeks and peered down into the pit. “Oh… Gushi.”

The evidence looked though someone had taken a laser to cleave an orange in half and they fell skin-side; two perfect domes laid side by side. A clean-cut down the center concealed any rough play, but the we-are-so-in-trouble groan escaped him. What are we going to do, now? He looked at Gushi who looked back at him, and at the same time, they both sagged their shoulders.

“Sphinx?” he called over. “The Void thing broke… by itself.”

Sphinx who was touring Nympha around the star-gazing machine, cried out, “It did what?” The two rushed over, perplexed by the sudden splitting.

“Also, this is Gushi’s.” Lark mildly handed the blinking crystal over to them. Nympha swooped it up first. Her glowy-blue pupils squeezed shut as she attempted to study the phenomenon. She held it away from her body, giving it to Sphinx no less than a moment after she went temporarily blind. “Unusual. Could be that the slime has an affinity to light though.”

“That doesn’t seem right,” Sphinx muttered, smacking the pieces together as if they could be glued back.

“Do magical beasts get aptitude tests in Celestia?” asked Lark.

“Normally, no.” She cleaned her face with her paws, rubbing her teddy-bear ears back. “Beasts typically have a clear lineage because they don’t go out their way to cross-breed. In highly unusual cases though, beast tamers will identify their pets affinities if they show unusual skills. One noble house known for doing this are the Gullivans as sometimes their griffins will show affinities for metal, wind, or rarely lightning.”

“I’ve never heard of a Void Crystal breaking though,” she quietly added.

Meanwhile, Lark had propped Gushi back on top of his shoulder and the two looked over the now empty basin. “Hey, it’s empty!”

A loud ‘what’ screeched from both Sphinx’s and Nympha’s mouths. All their faces hovered over the basin. “How could the gem dust disappear too just like that?” Nympha said, her tail swung back and forth faster than a turbine. She sat on the rim with her paws faced forward and sniffed. “Is that…water?”

“You smell water?” Lark interrupted.

“No, though I probably could. You see there…” Her tail twirled down into the side of the basin, sliding down the geometric lines, then came up to smear something wet across Lark’s cheek.

“It’s starting to fill in.”

While waiting for the water to finish running its course, Sphinx interjected, “Well, something had to keep the plants alive here.”

Around the library, there were at least five different species of plants and trees. Some branches infused with the bookshelves and others held up lights like lamps. Only one was near the strange spire and it housed a small, empty birdcage. Whatever lived there must’ve lived a pretty nice life, seeing as its cage was clean and plated with gold and silver. The librarian must’ve cared dearly for it too because there was a large pillow in there (for a bird), which strangely was shaped just like Sphinx’s makeshift cloud chair. Since, coming here though, Lark had tried not to look at it too much because it reminded him that this place was ancient, and surely, the bird was long gone.

Or was it?

He squinted and the open cage door, finally feeling where the stares might’ve been coming from since they arrived. Feeling stronger with his familiar at his side, he said in a low whisper, “Nympha, is something over there?”

She shushed him, impatient to see what would happen next. “It’s done.”

Filled to the brim with very pure water, the geometric lines inside glowed and the light raining down from the chandeliers reflected off the surface and bounced towards the plants in the room. A miraculous light show, Lark would’ve said, if not for the two pair of yellow eyes staring at him from the cage.

He gulped, pretending to be focused on the dancing lights in the room. “H-hey, Nympha you know what’d be so funny?”

She barely listened to him, while nodding at the glyphs inside the basin. “If you’d go check out that cage over there, it’d be like a perfect fit for you.”

Nympha turned to him with a very crossed look on her face and he smiled weakly. “Is something bothering you, little one?”

Lark puckered his lips, nodding shamelessly and laser-focused onto the cage.

She sighed, taking a quick glance at the moving lights, and said, “Maybe it’s a temporary thing and the basin will return un-flood later.” Nympha relaxed and tugged on Lark’s finger. “Go with me.”

Grimacing immediately, his head shook no, but he was being pulled towards the cage anyways by an invisible force like a master guiding a pupil into a dark forbidden forest.

She stopped about halfway between the spire and the densely wooded tree. Long, broad trunks seeped into the wall, making cracks where it liked and in the center, a hole carved out like a willow tree sat the intimidating, empty birdcage. Sure, it was empty inside now, but there were two, yellow beady eyes perched above the cage’s jeweled bauble staring them down.

“Sphinx!” A growl lingered after calling his name. “Who is this?”

The self-claimed guide and protector was back dusting the desk, which faced the other side of them. “Huh? Oh him—Pisces—He’s the Librarian’s spirit familiar.”

The strange flutter in Lark’s stomach returned, when the two keen, circular eyes thinned into crescents. A wisp of silver outlined the creature’s feathered body. “Wel’comes to the Professor’s library.”