The boy motioned for Lixin to follow him, and together they slipped away from the watchful eye of the librarian. As they walked down the winding corridors of books, the boy's vibrant personality bubbled up. 

"Don't mind Mrs. Mayflower," he confided in a hushed voice. "Although she seems standoffish, she's actually a really kind person."

Lixin smiled and nodded, noticing how the shelves loomed over them like silent guardians.

"You must know her well," Lixin observed.

"I do. I've been coming here since I was a child. She was the one that inspired me to work here. If it wasn't for..." The NPC's face dropped as he trailed off, his expression guarded as if he'd almost let something slip.

Suspicion tightened in Lixin's chest. He strongly felt that something tragic had happened to the librarian, changing her from someone warm and friendly to this cold, detached figure.

As they wandered deeper into the stacks, Lixin wondered if there might be a quest hidden here. If there was, he wasn't going to actively seek it yet. He still had research to do, and who knew how long that would take?

The sound of rummaging through the shelves suddenly interrupted his thoughts. Looking up he saw that the boy had already moved ahead and was checking out different books. Lixin smiled and followed him.

"Hmm, now where is that book?" The NPC muttered to himself as he frantically searched the nearby shelves, barely noticing Lixin's presence. After a few minutes, the boy sighed before turning to him, "I can't seem to find it. Let me sit you somewhere while I go and ask Mrs. Mayflower if she knows where it is."

The boy showed him to a comfy purple polka-dotted armchair by a window. Once he was seated, the boy darted away between the shelves.

Lixin made himself comfortable as he chuckled at the speedy boy. Seeing as it might take some time until the book was located he decided that he might as well distribute his stat points while he waited. He didn't have anything else to do anyway.

"Open Status!" Lixin whispered.

Once the transparent screen appeared he clicked on his character profile.

Name: Fortuitous Fish Race: Koi

Title: N/A

Level: 3 Exp: 180/500 (+600 after level 10) Skill Points: 5 ←-- (+5 each Lvl)

HP: 120/120 MP: 120/120 SP: 120/120 ←- (+10 each Lvl)

Char: 6 Str: 5 Int: 8 Dex: 5 Mental: 6

Fullness: 74%

Special:

Luck: 10

Coins: 0 Gold 0 Silver 300 Bronze

For some unknown reason, which he knew very well, his eyes automatically checked his fullness bar. When he saw that it was in a normal range he turned his attention to his stats.

After his last battle, he realized he didn't need to enhance his strength at present because it wasn't required for his skill set. He understood, however, that INT and DEX would be quite useful for him. With that information, he decided to give each of them two points and rotate the last point between Mental and Charisma. 

He would do this until he reached level ten. After that he would start adding points to his HP and MP.  Lixin decided to leave Luck alone until he found those quests that give extra attribute points. 

Name: Fortuitous Fish Race: Koi

Title: N/A

Level: 3 Exp: 180/500 (+600 after level 10) Skill Points: 5 ←-- (+5 each Lvl)

HP: 120/120 MP: 120/120 SP: 120/120 ←- (+10 each Lvl)

Char: 6 Str: 5 Int: 10 Dex: 7 Mental: 7

Fullness: 74%

Special:

Luck: 10

Coins: 0 Gold 0 Silver 300 Bronze

Lixin exited the status panel, satisfied with his amended stats. While he was here, he considered reviewing his skills to understand how to level them. He discovered from his forum research that, in addition to accumulating experience by using them, each skill set has a leveling trigger.

Trigger meaning an item that will help them advance to the next level. It is typically animal cores that can be dropped from certain types of monsters. Which are usually the mobs that used magic as their attack.

Just as he was about to click on his Herba tab, he heard footsteps approaching him and quickly exited the screen. Seconds later the library worker returned holding a large purple book.

The boy greeted the other by saying, "I finally found it! I had to get help from Mrs. Mayflower. For some reason, it was at the back of the library in a pile of dusty books."

"Maybe someone was reading it and forgot to bring it back."

"That sounds plausible," the boy said thoughtfully. "But I wonder why Mrs. Mayflower didn't put them away. She knew the exact place where they were."

Lixin just shrugged as he took the book from the lad and said, "Maybe she thought whoever left them would return one day."

The boy's eyes glinted with sudden realization and that guarded look appeared once again. "You could be right. Well, I'll leave you to your reading."

"Thanks for getting the book for me," he said.

"It was no problem," the NPC replied before scrambling off again.

~

Opening the book, Lixin found the table of contents and started looking for the chapter he needed. Luckily the information about the Huánghé Realm and the Kakodaimōns were only ten chapters apart.

Deciding to start with the Kakodaimōns he skimmed through the pages until he found the chapter. The only thing there was a paragraph and a rough sketch, so it hardly qualified as one.

The sketch depicted strange-looking beings with elongated white bodies and deformed heads that have three eyes in the center. Each eye was hollow and almost void-like. There was a black substance under each eye that dripped down their faces.

It also had six hands, three of which had claws and the other three with long sharp nails. It also had two rows of magenta orbs around its waist. As Lixin looked at them felt a strange connection with them. However he could only speculate about the why. 

Underneath the picture, the paragraph reads, "...there isn’t much known about these creatures. Some say they were once agents of death for the Diis Aliis but that has yet to be proven. Others say they are from a different dimension and want to conquer every world. Most people don't believe they are real. There were few reported sightings but those who claimed to have seen them had usually been traumatized by their experiences and were unable to talk about them."

After rereading the text he realized that besides the mention of the Diis Aliis, nothing else stood out. He already knew they weren't good news so besides reaffirming his belief, he didn't get much out of the paragraph. At least he learned what they looked like.

However, just in case there was something he missed he decided to take a picture of the page. Opening up his game functions tab he clicked on camera and video. He pressed the camera function and the screen changed to camera mode.

It was similar to a smartphone camera. There were similar settings. He could then adjust the zoom to get a close-up of the page and the quality was wonderful. After framing the page just right he took a picture.

[Cora:][Picture has been saved to your photo folder in your Camera & Video tab!]

Closing out the camera screen he checked the tab and saw that a folder had appeared. He was glad that the pictures were so easy to find. While he looked at the tab he noticed something called easy camera mode.

Lixin clicked on it and saw that if he turned on easy camera mode he would only have to blink his left eye in order to activate the camera. Thinking it would be convenient he turned it on. This way it would be easier to keep notes.

With that thought in mind, he turned back to the table of contents to find which page the information for the Huánghé Realm was on. Once he found it he flipped to it.

~

Author Says:

Momocatt: What is going on in this library?

Lixin: I don’t know but I'm so curious.

Momocatt: Me too. This calls for some Roasted Fresh Broccoli with garlic, lemon, and Parmesan Cheese.

Lixin: That’s oddly specific. 

Momocatt: Well, broccoli helps with critical thinking, but I'm not eating it plain.

Lixin: I see.