The misty smoke swirled, turning into a vast, starry sky. Two marble white moons lit the night. Looking down gave way to a luscious green yard surrounded by large red elder trees. When I looked around, there was a large mansion made from materials I didn’t recognize. The building stood stretching five stories tall with flat pale blue walls not made of stone. The design styles must have changed with new technologies. Only merchants had similar buildings but were never this tall. They could only achieve at best two stories, never five.

Excitingly, this just meant that there was so much to learn and write about. Hopefully, they had a book that contained what I needed. The leafy smell of autumn floated into my nose. It had been so long since I had smelt genuine air. I leaned my head back, taking in a deep breath and just looking at the moons and stars.

I exhaled the other from my lungs, breathing a sigh of relief that the world hadn’t ceased to exist. This only made me wonder what stopped visitors from coming to the library. The force of the library ran through my body, like our mana intertwined. Making it feel like I had never left. Something felt off, though, like I was forgetting some sort of issue.

“Hey you there!” an armored guard yelled at me as they came around the corner of the building. The problem was I couldn’t recognize the words they were using. It was then I realized I was probably on someone’s property. The guard was wearing green, leathery looking armor, covering them from head to toe. He came charging at me, putting his wrist up to his arm and speaking into it. I couldn’t make it out at this distance. That didn’t matter though because I couldn’t understand the language yet.

The guard dropped their arm to their side and pulled out some sort of device with a long metal barrel that had an orange gem at its end. The guard changed from a charge to a slow approach, like an animal on the hunt. 

-Thump - Thump-

My heart beat hard and squeezed as the guard approached. I could see the shape of their face through the mask they wore. It displayed a face full of anger. I took a step backwards, put a hand to my chest as my heart thumped louder. I tried to take deep breaths, but as the guard approached, anxiety filled me. I put my free hand up to show them I meant no harm with no weapons in my hands. The guard just raised their unknown weapon to his face, seeming to take aim at me. They didn’t say a word as they approached, but a moment later they stopped, their weapon aimed at me. Most likely ready to fire if I made a wrong move.

Breathing deeply, I focused on one breath after the other, calming myself down. Figuring out their language was my next priority. The knowledge lay in the memory palace I had created. The book I needed would be sitting on a shelf in the culture section. There had been a patron who taught me how to make a memory palace, allowing me to organize my intelligence better. I had modeled it after the library. That made it easier to find what I had already read since I had wandered the library’s halls for so long. This led me to call it my memory library or memobrary for short. “Gafners Super Memory Enhancements” had made it so I could keep limitless information in my memobrary.

Breathing slowly, focusing my mana on my heart, I slowed its rhythm down magically to a resting rate. “Mildred’s Magical Self Physician” came in handy for self care. Having calmed down, my arms dropped to my sides.

Splitting up my attention, I went to my mental library. I started running through its aisles, going to the cultures section, then to the languages sub section. Even though the library auto translated everything, it was good to know the root languages for casting incantations. Looking through the titles, I was getting close to the book I needed.

I wanted to communicate with this guard so that I could explain myself and learn more about this area. Hopefully, he would lower his weapon once we started talking.

There was the beating and shuffling of footsteps coming from behind the mansion. Several more guards rounded the corner, weapons drawn. They had thicker armor on and one stood taller than the rest of them. He had a different insignia than the others and from what I had read some people made the most fearsome looking, the leader.

I couldn’t decide if I should run away and cast a rogue hiding spell. More guards had put me on edge again. My heart started beating faster, making it hard to split my attention. This made it harder to get the book I needed. I found the book I needed and did a small dance in my mind.

The guards surrounded me in a circular formation, weapons aimed at me. Daring me to do something stupid.

My protection spells were up. Maybe magic had progressed to a point where they could penetrate my barrier. I guessed they were using some sort of gem based technology. That was odd because if I was correct, only those with no magic would use pre-powered gems. With gems, you could carve the spell you needed with runes. This lets you cast it on command later after. I didn’t think guards with no magic would defend such a massive estate.

The guards stared at me, looking towards one another. I could see the sweat making dark spots on their masks. Looks of anger, fear, and confusion were dancing on their faces. I knew they were anxious. The feeling was mutual.

I sensed a strong mana presence approaching. I began looking towards the mansion, trying to locate the source. A figure leapt out of a large open window, landing on the ground gracefully, like an enormous cat. Her face was visible, and she was grinning, dressed in all black armor, looking like a panther on the prowl.

She seemed to be nearly my age based on her facial structure, but it was remarkably different from mine. There were people from many regions across the world that visited the library, but still it looks like humans have changed. Her face was a lot more square and rigid. Seeing someone my age soothed my emotions.

She bolted towards us with immense speed. Bright red gems glowed in her boots, boosting her speed. She shouted something at the soldiers as she got close.

The guards quivered a little, startled. The gems at the tip of their weapons glowed a bright orange as a light bolted out at me. Quickly I covered my face, reacting to the attack. A torrent of flames erupted all around me, causing my heart to race, but the flames never touched me. The flames merely blocked my vision as they encapsulated my barrier. The beating within my chest subsided without me forcing it to. I felt a rush of relief come over me, realizing that these weapons couldn’t break my barrier.

Quickly, I focused on my memobrary, the book I needed in my possession. Flipping open “Language is Key: Spells for Common Languages”, I found two powerful spells in the book’s foreword. One spell for auto universal language comprehension within a limited area and speech version as well. I would have to keep pouring mana into these spells in order to communicate with the surrounding people. At least until I could get a hold of a few books so I could parse their language and understand it. The mana from the library felt pretty unending. It would probably relieve some of the stress it would cause if I used it.

The surrounding flames dissipated, my vision returning to me in full. A look of bewilderment strewn across the guards’ faces. The look quickly shifted to fear as they figured out that they couldn’t harm me. Now that I could communicate with them, I had to make it so we could have a chat in peace, no weapons around.

I remembered an earth shattering spell I would use to change the arena and get rid of any messy creations. Since gems were from the earth domain, it would hopefully work. I raised my left hand into the air, reciting the incantation in my head. Flapping my wrist down, the spell completed. The gems in the weapons surrounding me glowed brightly, then shattered into a sparkling mist. Their flecks falling gently to the ground. If they tried to pull out other weapons, I would just break those, too.

The girl in black reacted first, shouting at the guards surrounding me. I hadn’t had time to cast the spells I looked up. So I began the incantation for the first. This one seemed like it would take a few moments to start, like it was doing some sort of area analysis for it to work.

The large guard that seemed in charge shouted back at the girl in black, arguing with her. Her face contorted into a pure rage as she turned her head to look at the guard. My mom had given me a similar look when I accidentally messed with her wheat cereal she was eating. She began screaming, spitting venomous words at the large guard, their shoulders slumping in fear, becoming smaller than the girl in black.

Once she took a breath, the guards immediately dropped their weapons and paced backwards. The large guard turned and took off at a full sprint. They had activated gems similar to what the girl had. They were probably about to get demoted, at least.

The lady in black turned back to me and smiled at me. I got the feeling that even though she was still a little annoyed, she had let off some steam. She seemed to be more reasonable than the other guards. She was probably their commander and had rushed over immediately after that first guard said something into his wrist. That thing must have been some sort of communication device. I would have just used a spell.

The auto universal language comprehension spell had finally finished casting. Now we would have a friendly conversation, I hoped.