Seconds stretched into minutes. Minutes into hours. Hours into eternity. My mind knew it hadn’t been more than ten minutes—my Gloss was feeding me the precise Continental Standard Time the entire time—but my body, my nerves, they told a different story. Time warped in the darkness of the hole, stretching and snapping back in a relentless cycle of pain and anticipation.

  The Gloss had finished a full damage report on my ankle. A sedimentary rock shard had lodged itself between the cartilage supporting my right foot, tearing through tissue like a cruelly placed wedge. My body was a map of pain—scrapes, cuts, bruises painting my skin in shades of misery. Two broken ribs added to the tally, each breath reminding me of their jagged protest. But the worst wound wasn’t physical. The waiting was far worse. The mental anguish of being trapped, powerless, surrounded by the suffocating weight of earth and fear.

  My messages were all set to text-only—precautionary. No sound could escape. No unnecessary noise to give away my hiding spot. The responses came in, their sterile letters carrying the weight of my lifeline.

  V: Status?

  5939: Alive. Sending damage and location report.

  Cordelia: No major vital damage, but your healing limit is going to be pushed way past normal strain. You’ll be bedridden for weeks.

  V: Rather be crying about the pain than be dead.

  5939: Yeah. Me too. What are the odds of me being found here? Refusing to run the probability on the Gloss Matrix.

  Cordelia: Good news? Your death probability just dropped to 12%. Bad news? We can’t get to you. Ten is leading the Abbess away.

  5939: Then why the hell can’t you get me out of here?

  V: Because we’re dealing with a ton of small fry. You have to reach the end point at Foxtrot Indigo.

  Shit. Fuck. Keep things together, Alex. Not everything is hopeless. Ten was drawing the Abbess away, which meant I had an opening. Small steps. One at a time.

  First, the wound.

  I sucked in a breath, gritting my teeth before biting down on my sleeve. The moment my teeth sank into the fabric, my robe rippled, as if sensing my intent, and the torn fabric simply… restored itself. Not helpful right now. But at least I could use it as a temporary gag for what I was about to do.

  With one quick, sharp movement, I yanked the stone shard from my ankle.

  White-hot agony exploded through my leg. My body seized, my vision darkening at the edges as pain pulsed through every nerve like wildfire. I forced myself to stay conscious, to breathe through it, to focus on wrapping the wound. My fingers shook, clumsy with pain, but I tightened the makeshift bandage as best as I could.

  Then, as if to mock me, a cascade of Demeterra Decrees flooded my vision.

  [Skill, Pain Tolerance, has increased from Level 2 to Level 3.]

  [Skill, Pain Tolerance, has increased from Level 3 to Level 4...]

  [Skill, Pain Tolerance, has increased from Level 7 to Level 8.]

  [You have acquired the Skill, Acrobatics, Level 1.]

  [Skill, Acrobatics, has increased from level 1 to Level 2.]

  [You have acquired the Skill, First Aid, Level 1.]

  Oh, NOW you kick in. Holy hell. Could’ve used you earlier.

  Did these notifications only ever show up after I’d already suffered? Was there some rule that skill advancements couldn’t trigger in the heat of the moment? Every time, it seemed like they only arrived after the danger had passed, like some kind of cruel joke.

  I tested my foot by putting pressure against the wall—bad idea. The second I put weight on it, white-hot agony lanced up my leg, nearly sending me flat on my back. Nope. Just… no. My leg wasn’t going to move. Not properly. Not soon.

  I forced myself to push past the pain long enough to send a message to the team on my Gloss, detailing my condition. The responses were instant.

  Cordelia: Tsk.

  V: [Sent Image: Him frowning, arms crossed.]

  Thanks, guys. Real supportive.

  I exhaled slowly, trying to steady myself, but everything was spinning. My limbs felt like lead, my eyelids heavier than they should be. I was so tired. Exhausted. The kind of exhaustion that clawed at the edges of my mind, threatening to drag me under.

  My head throbbed in a way that wasn’t just pain—it was wrong. I shook it off, blinking hard, forcing myself to stay present. That was when my Gloss delivered another unwelcome alert.

  [WARNING: Concussion risk detected. Fight off sleep immediately.]

  Well. That was not what I wanted to hear.

  The Gloss wasn’t omnipotent—it could scan the exterior of my body, making the best guesses possible, but it wasn’t like the system the Prince had. It wasn’t tied into my nervous system. It couldn’t diagnose me with absolute certainty. But the fact that it even flagged concussion risk meant that things were bad.

  I clenched my fists, forcing myself to focus. Stay awake. Stay alert. Just a little longer. If I let myself slip, I wasn’t sure I’d wake up.

  I focused inward—not on the broken solar system that usually defined my inner world. No. Something else.

  A book. A quill. A coin. An arrow. A small, contained pocket of reality all its own.

  I reached out, my fingers brushing against them. I wasn’t thinking—I was answering. The book sprawled open, spilling forth a world of black and white. A world I had never seen before.

  It was a study. A grand one. The architecture was intricate, the craftsmanship meticulous. Bookshelves lined the walls in perfect symmetry, stretching infinitely into an ink-stained horizon. The only things in the room that held color were myself, my belongings, and two books sitting untouched on a shelf.

  I smiled. Bitterly.

  I knew them, even though I had never seen them before. One was The Archimedes Principle. The second? The Great Game.

  Both mine. Both waiting for me.

  Tomorrow. That would be tomorrow’s issue. Today? Survival.

  Then, as if the world itself shifted, a third thing gained color.

  A person. No. A presence.

  And he was beautiful.

  His beauty was not the soft kind, nor the rugged kind—it was the kind that defied description, that felt sculpted by divinity itself. He was pride given form, grace incarnate. Regality personified. His features were sharp yet effortless, his demeanor poised yet uncaring..

  Golden skin, shimmering with flakes of opal. Hair like aged copper, kissed with a red patina. Two black, spiraling ram horns crowned his head.

  For a moment, I thought he was a statue.

  Then, he moved.

  His arm lazily lifted, fingers running through his hair as he let out a slow, drawn-out yawn.

  His voice was smooth—as if words were too much effort, drawn from a place of perpetual exhaustion.

  “Alexander, right…?”

  He tilted his head, cracking an eye open just enough to regard me.

  “My name is Morres. The original Bibliokinetic.”

  A pause. A lazy flick of his wrist.

  “Little Demeterra asked me to stop by… since you were… unwell?”

  “Umm… what are…?” I started, but the words felt clumsy, my thoughts too tangled to form something coherent. I was baffled.

  As far as I knew, I was inside my own spirit—the one thing that no one, no one, should be able to interfere with. It was mine. My domain. My space.

  Yet here he was.

  I took a breath, steadying myself.

  “Excuse me, Morres, you said? Why are you here?”

  Morres sighed, stretching his arms in a slow, almost exaggerated motion, like a cat waking from a long nap. His golden skin shimmered as he moved, catching the light of this strange study in a way that felt almost ethereal.

  If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

  He waved a hand—lazily.

  “You are slow,” he muttered, rubbing one of his horns absentmindedly. “Demeterra said you were sharp, but I’m not seeing it.”

  I clenched my jaw. “Answer the question.”

  “Fine, fine.” He rolled his shoulders, seemingly unbothered by my demand. “I’m here because you’re fumbling in the dark, and our dear Dominus Demeterra doesn’t want her newest Bibliokinetic to… what was the phrase she used?”

  He snapped his fingers, as if recalling something from a half-forgotten dream.

  “Ah. Yes. ‘Die stupidly in a ditch.’”

  I blinked.

  “What?”

  He grinned. “Yeah, she was very clear about that part. Said you had potential, but you were ‘acting like a wild dog thrown into a library’ and ‘grasping at power without a handbook.’”

  I felt heat rise in my face. “That’s—”

  “Accurate?” Morres interrupted smoothly, his grin widening. “She thought so too.”

  I scowled, but he didn’t stop.

  “See, kid, you’re playing with something big.” He gestured around us, to the boundless library, the shelves that stretched into eternity. “Bibliokinesis isn’t just ‘book magic’—it’s narrative power. It’s written reality. You’re touching on something that can shape stories themselves—which means you need to understand the rules.”

  Rules?

  I straightened, crossing my arms.

  “What rules?”

  Morres gave me an almost pitying look. “You really are new at this.”

  I straightened, folding my arms as I stared at Morres. “Alright, then tell me—what are these ‘rules’?”

  He smirked, tapping the spine of the book again, and this time, the letters didn’t just bleed from the page—they twisted, spiraling into the air like living ink, forming intricate patterns before fading.

  “There are three rules for Bibliokinetics in Demeterra’s domain,” Morres said, his voice slow, measured.

  He raised a single finger.

  “One: You must abide by your Arte’s type.” His golden eyes locked onto mine, unblinking. “A Shaper Shapes. A Creator Creates. A Manifester doesn’t create but wills things into being.”

  My breath caught. That meant…

  Morres grinned. “Yeah, you’re not some book mage, kid. You’re a Manifester. That means you don’t write stories. You don’t just pull from them. You force them into existence.”

  I clenched my fists. That explained why my Arte felt so different from other magic users. Why my connection to books wasn’t just about reading or learning—it was rewriting reality itself.

  Morres lifted a second finger.

  “Two: Taking from the narrative always has a consequence.” He let the words hang, watching them sink in.

  “Not from Demeterra,” he continued, voice darkening. “She doesn’t care about what you steal. She won’t punish you. But the print in question? The books themselves?”

  I shivered as the shadows around us deepened, as if the very library was listening.

  “They remember,” Morres murmured. “Every word you rip from them, every power you take—it will cost you something. Maybe it’s a skill. A memory. Maybe something worse.”

  I thought of the Sugared Maw cube. The price it demanded. The taste of flesh in my mouth when I used it. I had already paid for something, hadn’t I?

  Morres exhaled, then raised a third and final finger.

  “And the last rule.” His expression sobered, all traces of amusement gone. “Three: You MUST ascend to your Dominus state by your 98th birthday.”

  I froze.

  “What?”

  “No exceptions,” Morres said flatly. “If you don’t, you don’t just die.” He leaned forward, golden skin shimmering as his voice dropped to a whisper.

  “You are unwritten.”

  A chill ran through me. “Unwritten?”

  Morres nodded. “A Bibliokinetic who fails to ascend doesn’t get an afterlife. Doesn’t get reborn. Doesn’t even fade into history.” He tapped the book in his lap. “Their story erases itself.”

  I swallowed hard, my mind racing.

  This was more than power. This was a path with a countdown.

  Morres closed the book in his hands with a deliberate thud, the weight of his words settling into my chest like an iron weight. His golden eyes, gleaming like polished opal, locked onto mine, unblinking.

  “There’s a fourth rule,” he repeated, his voice slow, patient, but carrying an edge that made my skin crawl. “One you’re already breaking.”

  I stiffened, my breath caught in my throat. A rule I was breaking? I was inside my own spirit. How could that even be possible?

  “But this isn’t a Demeterra rule,” Morres continued, tilting his head slightly. “This is a reality rule—one that you should understand.”

  My fingers curled into my palms. I could feel the tension in my body, coiled like a spring.

  “Violating another Bibliokinetic’s library is a crime.”

  My entire body went cold.

  Danatallion’s Halls.

  The cursed books. The inescapable tomes. The nightmares lurking in ink and parchment.

  Morres sighed, tapping a finger against the book’s cover. “Danatallion was the fifty-third Dominus to ascend as a true Bibliokinetic. You know what that means, don’t you?”

  I swallowed hard. Fifty-third. That number alone sent a chill down my spine.

  “All the tales you keep diving into?” His eyes narrowed. “The grimoires you violate?”

  His next words came like a hammer to my skull.

  “They are his nightmares.”

  The room tilted. I wasn’t breathing.

  I thought I had been navigating an ancient, abandoned domain, a relic of something long past. But I wasn’t just stealing from books—I was stealing from a Dominus’s personal hell.

  Morres studied me, gauging my reaction. My mind was reeling, trying to process what this meant.

  He leaned forward, voice softer but no less sharp. “You need to make a choice, Alexander.”

  I barely managed to force out a whisper. “A choice?”

  Morres gave me a faint, knowing smile.

  “Find a way to stop going there…” he paused, letting the weight of his next words settle,

  “…or find a way to go there even more often.”

  My mouth went dry.

  I wasn’t just an intruder. I wasn’t just some lost soul wandering Danatallion’s Halls.I was trespassing in his domain. A domain forged of his own nightmares. Morres tapped the book in his hands once more, as if to drive the point home.

  “You are both an invader in his grand domain and someone pursuing what every Bibliokinetic does.” His golden eyes gleamed in the dim light. “The next book.”

  A shudder ran down my spine. I was a Bibliokinetic. I was also a thief in a library of nightmares.

  Morres leaned back against the grand wooden desk in the study, his arms crossing as he observed me with a knowing gaze. He was entirely at ease here, a figure so regal yet effortless, like he belonged within the pages of a myth long forgotten.

  “My advice?” he began, voice smooth, deliberate. “Grow. Expand.”

  His fingers trailed across the spine of an unseen book on the shelf beside him. “This is your Danatallion’s Hall. Your library. Every book you’ve conquered will appear here. Every tale you have mastered, every story you have carved your name into.”

  I looked around, eyes drifting over the countless shelves, the endless tomes. It was vast, but… empty. Barren.

  Morres chuckled. “Ah, you see it now, don’t you? You think your Arte only allows you to acquire. That it’s about plucking items, skillcubes, weapons from the ink and bringing them into the real world.”

  His golden eyes gleamed in amusement.

  “You are wrong.”

  I stiffened.

  Morres pushed himself off the desk and took a step forward, his presence washing over me like a tidal wave. “You’ve seen that hell. Walked those cursed halls. Every book within Danatallion’s domain? Every story he has conquered? He has made his own. He has made them whole.”

  The weight of his words settled into my chest.

  Morres let out a soft, almost melodic chuckle. “Demeterra abhors our Arte,” he said, shaking his head. “She sees it as a violation. A violation of the past, a violation of creative expression.”

  I frowned. “Why?”

  His smile widened. It was breathtaking. His skin shimmered with opal iridescence, shifting colors under the dim study light. When he spoke again, I caught a glimpse of his teeth—perfect, brilliant, like diamonds carved from eternity itself.

  “Because our Arte is the one that rewrites what was.”

  He paused, letting the silence stretch, as if savoring the weight of his next words.

  “I believe our Arte is what it should be.”

  Morres tilted his head, his voice dropping into something soft. Almost reverent.

  “The truth.”

  Name: Alexander Julius Duarte

  Race: Half-blood. [Human/Almiraj]

  Age: 16

  Arte: Paper Manipulation

  Skillcubes:

  Soul Realm 1 Skill Cubes 4/9 1/5 Dimension, 2/2 Crystal 1/2 Nature

  Atlas’s Manifest

  Rarity: Uncommon Aspects: Nature, Water, Earth

  You are unimpeded by natural terrain. You gain bonus effects based on the terrain you attune to.

  The Millennium Halls

  Rarity: Unknown [Error.]

  Aspects: Dimension, Star, Growth

  You are able to open a doorway to any anchor spot by visiting the Millennium Halls. Doing so requires focus and meditation in a safe area. Mana expenditure is based on the number of people entering the doorway. You are able to place 1+1 [Almiraj Bonus Applied] anchors per Soul Realm.

  Gluttony of the Golden Hydra

  Rarity: Epic

  Aspects: Crystal, Hunger, Metal, Draconic, Growth

  You are able to consume treasure, wealth, and magical items. You gain effects based on the value and properties of the items consumed. You are required to consume at least your Soul Realm’s worth in waxing coppers per day or suffer from malnutrition.

  Rarity: Unique

  Aspects: Hunger, Crystal, Dark, Growth

  Effect:

  Whenever you or your allies defeat an enemy within your miasma, once per day you may consume a crystallized fragment of that enemy.

  You can conjure a pit in the ground of writhing mouths. The strength of the teeth in the mouths is based on the number of crystallized enemy fragments you have consumed, as well as your Soul Realm.

  Skills:

  Acrobatics [Level 2]

  Archery [Level 1]

  First Aide [Level 1]

  Machina Operation [Level 1]

  Multiversal Language [Level EX]

  Origami [Level 2]

  Pain Resistance [Level 8]

  Speed Reading [Level 1]

  Monster evolution is cool.

  What about a person EVOLVING into a monster?

  This is a slow burn. And that's by even this novel's standards. If you want another slow burn with steady progression, I'd read this.