WIEDERGEBURT Act V: Chapter 37

Our group split up early the next morning. Fay went to the Alchemist Association, Siv and Lin were staying home to look after Raul, and I was traveling with Kari to the Spiritualist Research Sect’s branch office.

Even though it was fairly early, Midgard was still busy. The air was warm as thousands of people walked down the streets, as vendors hawked their wares, and food stalls cooked a variety of breakfast foods. Kari and I had already eaten, so even though some of the scents were pretty tantalizing, we resisted the urge to buy anything.

“Do you really think the Spiritual Research Sect’s library will have anything on higher level concepts?” asked Kari as we walked arm in arm down the road.

“I don’t know.” Giving Kari and aggrieved smile as I spoke, I tried not to think about what it would mean if they didn’t have the knowledge I sought. “But if anyone would have information on higher level concepts, it would be the Spiritual Research Sect.”

The Spiritual Research Sect had dedicated their lives to the study of Spiritualism. Their knowledge was what led to them becoming a member of the Six Great Sects. They were not a powerful sect, but they were considered one of the most prominent because of the knowledge they possessed.

The massive tower belonging to the Spiritual Research Sect loomed overhead, casting shadows on Kari and I as we walked through the front doors. The lobby was practically empty. There were only a few people wandering inside of the massive atrium that greeted us.

We walked toward what could be considered the front desk. Our feet tapped against polished marble. The atrium had a feeling of austerity about it, like this was a sacred and hallowed place that should not be disturbed. It was so different from the hustle and bustle I was used to that it made me uncomfortable.

“Excuse me,” Kari said for us. “My name is Kari Astralia, and this is my husband, Eryk Veiger. We’re here because Morrigan Arsland has given us permission to visit the Spiritual Research Library.”

As she spoke, Kari summoned a letter of recommendation from her storage ring and placed it on the counter. The young man, who had been staring at Kari in a daze, snapped out of it upon hearing her words. He took the letter from the table, broke the seal, and began reading, eyes scrolling from left to right.

“It looks like this really is from Lady Morrigan,” the man said. “H-hold on just one moment. I’ll get someone to bring you to the Warp Gate.”

The man stood up and left the front table, traveling through a doorway off to the side. There were only a few doors located in this atrium. It looked like many of them led into hallways of some sort, but I think the one he used led to the lift that would take him to the other floors.

Left to our own devices, the two of us quietly conversed as we waited. When I said there was no one else present, I really meant it. I saw a few people wander in and out of the halls. All of them were dressed in dark robes that traveled down to their ankles, carrying scrolls and tomes. They appeared very scholarly.

The man who had left soon came back. He wasn’t alone. Standing beside him was none other than Morrigan Arsland.

Morrigan Arsland was a pale-faced woman with a pointed chin, dark eyes, and a willowy figure. Her skin was so pale it looked nearly translucent. It seemed unhealthy in a way, like she remained cooped up inside all day and never got any sun. I suppose she was pretty in a way, but it was a severe kind of beauty.

When she saw us, her eyes glimmered like dark stars.

“You two have finally come,” she said, striding forward. “I had been expecting you much earlier than this.”

“We’ve been really busy, so we haven’t had the time to make this trip,” I said.

“So it seems. I’ve heard about some of your exploits.” At this, her eyes drifted to Kari at my side. “At the very least, I have heard about what your wives have been doing.” Kari did not say anything, but the smile on her face was enough. Morrigan shook her head. “Come. I will escort you to our library.”

The Spiritualism Research Sect’s famous Library was not located in their tower in Midgard but in their main headquarters located in a city called Wissen. It was known as the City of Scholars. Kari and I had never been there in our past lives, but we had heard of it.

Morrigan led us to the lift and took us up several floors. I had no idea how many. The floor we arrived on featured one hallway that led to a massive room with the Warp Gate.

It had been awhile since I’d seen the Warp Gates made in the Northern Plains. It looked like a donut-shaped object embedded into the ground, or a curved archway. Glowing silver Runes covered every centimeter of its surface. While it was currently deactivated, Morrigan went up to a pedestal, inserted a key, and twisted it once. The moment she did, bright lights flickered on the Warp Gate.

Watching the swirling mass of dark energy condense inside of the torus was always an interesting sight. The energy gathered, condensed, creating streams of strange light that didn’t hurt but caused the hair on my arms and scalp to prickle. I wasn’t the only one who found watching the Warp Gates fascinating. Kari also looked at it with unrestrained desire. I knew she wanted to study Warp Gates so she could learn how to build one herself.

“Come,” Morrigan said once the gateway between this Warp Gate and the one in Wissen had stabilized.

She walked through the Warp Gate, ripples appearing along the nebula of energy as if it was a lake that had been disturbed, then disappeared. Kari and I didn’t hesitate. We walked through the Warp Gate and emerged out the other side. The entire experience was over in an instant.

The room on the other side was nearly identical to the one we had just left. Morrigan was already walking toward the exit, so we didn’t have time to study the room as we followed her out.

We emerged into a hallway that was much busier than the one inside of the tower, with numerous people in robes traveling down it. There were men and women. Most of them had their heads buried in a scroll or book, but there were also a few who had formed groups and were discussing something. Nobody paid attention to us. These people were scholars who existed solely for the sake of studying Spiritualism. Even something like a great beauty could not entice them away from their research. Even Morrigan was ignored, and she was their leader.

“Our library is located in another part of Wissen,” Morrigan said to us as we walked down a set of stairs and entered another hallway. “Since you do not originate from the Northern Plains, I doubt you know this, but Wissen is more than just the city where my sect is stationed out of. The city itself is our based of operations. Everyone who lives here is a member of my sect.”

“Even the shop owners?” asked Kari.

“Yes. Even them.” As Morrigan nodded, we traveled into an entrance hall that was unadorned with any decoration, then exited through a large set of double doors. Light rained down on us as we stepped outside, and Morrigan continued talking. “The shop owners are usually the spouse of someone who belongs to our sect, if not a member themselves. Because of the nature of our sect, we do not generally allow other sects to enter our city. We are making a special exception for you two in light of your contributions to the Northern Plain’s safety.”

“We appreciate that,” Kari said.

“Thank you,” I added.

“You are welcome,” Morrigan said with a slow nod.

While I had heard Wissen being called the City of Scholars, I didn’t know what that meant until now. Everywhere I looked as we walked through the street seemed to have something dedicated to the study of Spiritualism. There were bookstores that sold copies of books solely related to Spiritualism, a bakery that sold Rune cakes (they were literally cakes with Runes written on them using frosting), and all the buildings were similarly decorated with fully functioning Runes.

“Are those Runes gathering energy from the sun?” asked Kari as she pointed at the Rune Arrays written all over the buildings.

“They are indeed.” Morrigan looked pleased that Kari could tell what these Runes did without her having to explain them. “Because many of us stay up well into the night, we created these Rune Arrays to create light when the sun went down. The solar energy is stored up during the day, then released during the light.”

“So… basically, this is so you can keep researching no matter the time of day?” I asked.

“More or less.”

The Spiritual Research Library was located in a space far removed from everything else. It was a four-story building, but while it seemed rather squat compared to some of the other buildings I had seen, it was also much wider and longer. The architecture was also more impressive. Colonnades lined the outside. Most of the library was surrounded by a garden, which I only realized after looking at it for several seconds was actually built to look like a massive Rune Array. I didn’t think it was functional. At the same time, I could not help but be shocked. Whoever heard of turning plants into a Rune Array?

We stepped into the building, and I found myself gazing stupidly at the space that opened before us. The interior of the library was massive, well and truly gigantic. It looked like it stretched on for kilometers in every direction. Shelves five or six times larger than me filled much of the space. Three balconies meandered along the entirety of the interior, held up by aesthetically appealing columns.

Perhaps because this was a library located in the middle of a city for scholars, there were over several thousand people present. Most of them were sitting at long tables located in the center of the library. All of them had their noses buried in a book. They didn’t look up for anything.

“This place is huge,” Kari muttered.

“How are we going to find books on higher level concepts here?” I asked myself.

While I had not expected anyone to answer me, Morrigan went against my expectations. “If there is a book on these higher level concepts you spoke of, then it is likely in the Restriction Section. That is where all the books that have been classified as dangerous are placed. As the leader of the Spiritualism Research Sect, I am the only one who has access to it.”

It sounded like we were being given access to this Restricted Section, which caused me and Kari to share a startled glance. Morrigan didn’t appear to be paying attention. She began walking through the library, leading us toward the very back. We wandered through a series of bookshelves before Morrigan took a sharp turn, traveled through a small space between two bookshelves, and arrived in front of a door.

The door was unassuming, but I guess that was the point. Had I been some random person wandering by, I probably wouldn’t have given this door a second glance. Morrigan walked up to it and pulled out a key. While it looked like a normal key, I noticed the Runes glowing on the surface before she stuck it inside the lock. The door lit up with more Runes. Morrigan kept the key inside of the door as she pushed it open and bade us to follow her.

The room on the other side didn’t have much lighting. A few monster core lamps sat against the walls, and there was a smaller lamp sitting on a table in the very center of the room. Small was the first word that came to mind as I gazed at the space. I doubted this room could fit more than maybe a dozen people.

There was only a single bookshelf in this room, and it wasn’t even full. I counted thirty books in total.

“This is the Restricted Section,” Morrigan told us. “Those books you see there are about concepts and theories that my predecessor decided were too dangerous to let others see. You may feel free to look through them.”

“And you think they contain information about higher level concepts?” I asked.

Morrigan didn’t say anything for a moment. Her expression became complex, like she was debating with herself, but then she sighed.

“It is possible. The reason these books were marked as dangerous is because the person who wrote most of them went insane. I’ve read these books once myself, but I couldn’t make anything out of them. However, they do talk about time, space, dimensions, and other ideas that I’ve never heard of before. The problem is making sense of them. Anyway, feel free to remain here for as long as you went. When you wish to leave, just do so. The door locks automatically from the inside. If you want to come back here, you will need me to unlock the door for you.”

Morrigan didn’t say anything else after and soon left, closing the door behind her.

Kari and I stared at each other, then looked at the books on the shelves.

“I guess we should get started,” Kari said.

I nodded in agreement, and the two of us went over to the bookshelf.

***

It wasn’t until I began reading the books that I realized what Morrigan meant when she said the concepts inside were difficult to understand. None of the writing made sense. It was like the writer had been a madman.

“Spacetime is any mathematical model that fuses three dimension of space and one dimension of time into a single four-dimensional continuum. When you throw a ball into the air, it arcs back to the ground because the earth distorts the spacetime around it, so that the paths of the ball and the ground intersect again. Many people think of this phenomenon as gravity, but gravity is not a force that propagates through space but a feature of spacetime itself. By understanding the theory behind gravity and combining it with Spiritual Power, I believe it will become possible to touch the laws of spacetime, which will allow me to ascend to a higher level of Spiritualism than anyone else has ever reached before.”

I read a section in the book out loud, my face distorting. I knew what gravity was, of course, since it was something that everyone was taught about. I’d learned about it from a book at the Nadine Library. But what this book proposed was something completely different than gravity. It also used some words I didn’t know like “continuum.” Just what the heck was that anyway?

I continued to read.

“There are already several examples of how spacetime can be distorted. These examples do not involve the gravity example I used previously. What I’m talking about are the Warp Gates. Many people think the Warp Gates are devices that allow someone to instantly travel from one location to another, but what if that isn’t true? I believe what the Warp Gates do isn’t transport people from one place to another, but bring two places together by distorting the space between them. It would be like someone taking a sheet of parchment, drawing two circles, and then folding the parchment so both circles were touching.”

The more I read, the more confused I became. I just couldn’t understand the ideas this book was proposing.

With a sigh, I lifted my head and looked at the woman sitting next to me. Kari also had her nose buried in a book, and just like me, she looked equally confused.

“Any luck?” I asked.

Kari sighed, set the book down, and shook her head. “Not really. This book proposes that we live in a three-dimensional space, but that the universe is composed of multiple dimensions. It says here that it’s possible to manipulate dimensions by gaining a higher understanding of dimensional theories and concepts, but then it goes on to talk about how to manipulate the world using a mathematical space defined by a specific set of coordinates… to be honest, I think whoever wrote this had lost their mind years ago. I can’t understand any of it.”

I sighed and leaned back in my chair as I stared at the book before me but didn’t read it. There were a lot of ideas, theories, and concepts proposed in the book, but it felt like whoever had written this was mixing dozens of ideas together. It was like their mind had fragmented, unable to focus on any one concept. Unfortunately, this meant all the theories written in the books were impossible to understand.

We had only spent a few hours in this small room reading, but I was already beginning to feel claustrophobic. Standing up from the chair, I put the theory discussing spacetime back on the shelf and grabbed another book. Like all the books here, this one had no title on the spin or cover. It was just a simple tome bound in leather. I came back to the table, set the book on top of it, and flipped open to the first page.

There was no index in this book. It went straight into a discussion on something called thermodynamics.

“The three laws of thermodynamics define physical quantities (temperature, energy, and entropy) that characterize thermodynamic systems at thermal equilibrium. The laws describe how these quantities behave under various circumstances, and preclude the possibility of certain phenomena (such as perpetual motion). The three laws of thermodynamics are: First law of thermodynamics: When energy passes, as work, as heat, or with matter, into or out of a system, the system's internal energy changes in accord with the law of conservation of energy. Equivalently, perpetual motion machines of the first kind (machines that produce work with no energy input) are impossible. Second law of thermodynamics: In a natural thermodynamic process, the sum of the entropies of the interacting thermodynamic systems increases. Third law of thermodynamics: The entropy of a system approaches a constant value as the temperature approaches absolute zero. With the exception of non-crystalline solids (glasses) the entropy of a system at absolute zero is typically close to zero. In addition, there is conventionally added a “zeroth law,” which defines thermal equilibrium: Zeroth law of thermodynamics: If two systems are each in thermal equilibrium with a third system, they are in thermal equilibrium with each other. This law helps define the concept of temperature.”

I mulled over the writing inside of this book, which appeared to be discussing concepts of heat, which I guess would relate to… fire? Could this perhaps be a higher level concept related to the fire element? I was only going off what I could understand. Heat was a subject closely related to fire, but I didn’t understand how fire could relate to these laws. Perhaps that was because I didn’t understand what thermodynamics were to begin with.

Tugging on my bangs, I flipped over a few more pages to see if there was anything inside that I could make sense of, but all of it had the same kind of incomprehensible concepts. Maybe someone smarter than me could figure this out. However, even my wife didn’t seem capable of making any sense of these writings.

“These theories seem more like the ramblings of a madman,” Kari said at last, closing the book she had been flipping through. She leaned back in her chair, raised her arms, and stretched them above her head. Since she was wearing breast bindings, her chest was compressed, but it still pushed against her blue and white blouse.

“Maybe these concepts are just too advanced to understand without having a basic idea of the general theory,” I suggested.

“Maybe…” Kari didn’t look convinced.

Because neither of us could understand anything written in these books, we decided not to remain inside and instead left the Restricted Section. Just like Morrigan had said, the door locked after we left, so we’d need to see her again if we wanted to get back inside.

Our stomachs rumbled simultaneously the moment we left that library. Kari and I looked at each other, then smiled.

“I guess we’ve been working too hard without taking a break,” Kari said. “Why don’t we get something to eat?”

“That’s a good idea,” I agreed.

There were a number of places to eat. The restaurant we chose called itself The Spiritual Chef. It was a restaurant owned and operated by Spiritualists who used their research into Spiritual Techniques to create unique dishes that looked more like thought-provoking works of art than food. Not only did they cook using Spiritualism, but they made a show of it as well.

Kari and I were awed by our chef, who rhythmically moved his hands around a spear of boiling water that was hovering in the air. He was cooking some kind of meat inside of the water. It looked like beef. We couldn’t feel the temperature rising despite being so close, but from the way the surface bubbled, I could tell it was fairly hot.

“Are you using your control over water to change the temperature?” I asked the man as he added several spices into his water sphere.

“That is right, young man,” the chef said. “While a lot of people think water Spiritualism can only manipulate water into changing shape, launching attacks, or healing wounds, the truth is there’s so much more that can be done with this element. Of course, being able to manipulate the temperature like this requires knowledge of other elements like fire or wind. However, it doesn’t require someone to use those elements. They just need to understand how heat works.”

“Heat…” I muttered under my breath.

“Adam?” asked Kari.

“It’s nothing.” I shook my head. “I was just thinking about how ‘heat’ seems like a concept related to fire, but it’s really not. Fire emits heat, but so does steam. Steam is just water that has evaporated. Water is heated and transforms from a liquid into a gas. There are two types of steam: dry steam and wet steam. Dry steam is when all of the water is in a gaseous state. It's transparent, so you can’t see it. Wet steam is when a portion of the water has condensed to form tiny droplets. This is the white fog you see in the baths and at hot springs. You can create steam by vibrating water molecules to heat them up, though using fire is easier.”

“It sounds as complicated as one of those higher level concepts,” Kari muttered. “Is this the kind of knowledge you gain after reaching the Fourth State of Spiritualism?”

“That’s right,” I said. “In order to reach the Fourth State of Spiritualism, your understanding of the element you have an affinity for must undergo a qualitative transformation. It’s not enough to merely understand that water makes you wet when you get splashed with it. You have to understand what water is at its most basic level. It’s the same with fire, wind, earth, lightning, light, and darkness. If you can’t understand it completely, then you can’t enter the Fourth State of Spiritualism.”

As I spoke with Kari about the Fourth State of Spiritualism and understanding the elements, I thought about those books we had been reading. They proposed many ideas and concepts that I didn’t understand. However, I felt certain they were more than just the ramblings of a madman. Perhaps the researcher had made discoveries into these concepts that even he had trouble putting into words. I didn’t know if that was really the case, but I hoped I would eventually learn something if I kept working at it. I needed to become stronger than I was now.