I laughed. A deep, rolling laugh that echoed through the empty halls, sending ripples through the ink-black void around me. The boy had actually managed it. Fully managed it, even.

  I leaned back, resting against one of the ever-shifting bookshelves of the Halls, my fingers idly tapping against the armrest of my chair. The very fabric of this realm pulsed with amusement, mirroring my own satisfaction. Sure, I pulled some strings—placed him in a pocket where there were only cravens, the lowest of the low, scavengers rather than true predators. But still, he handled it… perfectly.

  Well. Not perfectly.

  His Arte’s refinement? Sloppy. Messy. Untested. Unfocused bursts of raw potential with no understanding of form, no discipline. Who in the hells decides to throw hundreds of books in a cyclone of paper? The sheer inefficiency of it made me want to claw at my own face. It wasn’t strategy; it was desperation—flailing, instinctive survival at its rawest. And yet…

  I grinned, sharp and wicked. It worked.

  The boy was a riot. The way he skittered like a frightened rabbit, eyes darting to every shadow, body wound so tight he might snap in half. All of that… in the tutorial area. The damn tutorial.

  I let out another chuckle, shaking my head.

  I had fully expected him to fail. To crumble. To run himself ragged until he collapsed from sheer terror. I expected him to freeze. Instead, he adapted. The moment the craven came into view, I saw something click in his mind. He understood what had to be done. He fought back. And for that, I would give credit where credit was due.

  That beast was a D-rank. A D-rank 1-1 against an untested 1-1 with no experience whatsoever. That encounter carried a fatality rate of thirty-three percent.

  And yet, he survived.

  I tapped my fingers against my knee, contemplating. No, it wasn’t just survival. He conquered. Clumsy, inefficient, reckless—but still, he had won. He left with more than his life. He took from the Halls. And the Halls… well, they don’t forget.

  That was the truly interesting part.

  The first night is meant to teach a simple lesson: You do not belong here.

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  It’s meant to instill fear. To force them to learn their place. Even those who awaken within the Halls are supposed to struggle for weeks before they manage to take anything back with them.

  And yet, this boy did.

  A Spirit Beast egg.

  His first night, and he came back with something alive.

  My grin widened, fangs glinting in the dim, shifting light of the library. The weight of the revelation sank into my bones, curling at the edges of my mind like the smoke of an ink-drenched candle.

  Now, this… this was going to be fun.

  I stood, stretching my arms as the bookshelves around me shifted, rearranging themselves in an ever-evolving maze of knowledge. Whispers of ink and parchment danced at the edges of my perception, hushed murmurs of records past and future. The archives were talking. They had noticed.

  I trailed my fingers along the spines of the books, feeling the resonance of countless souls echoing within their pages. These tomes, these records, were not mere collections of words. They were alive—stories that demanded to be heard, to be remembered, to be understood.

  And one of those stories… had changed.

  Alexander Duarte.

  The boy who stole from the Halls.

  A book fluttered free from the shelves, pages ruffling as if caught in a phantom breeze. It landed neatly in my waiting hand, the cover shifting between shapes, colors, possibilities. His story was still unwritten, and yet, the ink was already setting in, bleeding into the pages like veins beneath pale skin.

  His Soul Realm? Unremarkable. His Arte? Potential, nothing more. His skill? Laughable.

  And yet, the Halls had taken notice.

  That alone sent a thrill of excitement coursing through me.

  Oh, what fun this is going to be.

  I turned the book over in my hands, smirking as the shifting title finally settled.

  "The Paper Walker."

  Poetic.

  Fitting.

  With a flick of my wrist, the book vanished into the folds of my coat, absorbed back into the archives. I didn’t need to read further. I had seen enough.

  The boy wasn’t just lucky. No, luck alone would not have allowed him to take something back. He had managed to leave his mark upon the Halls—however faint, however fragile. That was the true difference between him and the countless other poor souls who stumbled into the archive’s embrace.

  And I?

  I wanted to see how far he could go.

  Would he break? Would he bend? Would he grow? Would he thrive?

  I let out a breath, exhaling ink into the air, watching as it twisted and curled into shifting words before dissipating into nothing.

  The next night would be worse.

  It always was.

  And I couldn’t wait to watch.