I was grinning.
Not a polite smile. Not a restrained one.
A stupid, wide grin that made my face feel tight.
“How do I sign up?” I asked before I could stop myself.
Katherine turned to me, clearly amused. “Follow me.”
She didn’t tease me. Didn’t question my enthusiasm. She simply led the way, heels clicking softly against the polished floor as we exited the viewing room. The corridor outside was quieter, less crowded, its walls lined with softly glowing runes that pulsed like a slow heartbeat.
As we walked, I felt it, that familiar tug in my chest.
The same feeling I used to get back when I discovered a new game I knew I’d sink unhealthy amounts of time into. The difference now was that this wasn’t a game. I had just watched people nearly kill each other with divine beasts and reality-breaking magic.
And I wanted in.
We stopped in front of what looked like a kiosk terminal embedded into the wall. Its surface was made of translucent crystal, light flowing beneath it like liquid data. A circular indentation sat at the center, surrounded by floating glyphs that shifted when Katherine approached.
She tapped the screen with practiced ease. The kiosk responded immediately, projecting a three-dimensional interface filled with rotating icons, dome symbols, and scrolling text.
“There are six domes within the library,” Katherine began, her tone calm and instructional. “Each dome enforces a specific combat doctrine. The rules aren’t just restrictions, they’re meant to shape how bookkeepers grow.”
She gestured, and six holographic emblems aligned themselves in front of us.
“The Blue Dome,” she continued, highlighting a sapphire-colored symbol, “focuses on adaptability under constraints. One summoned creature per match, fixed at the start. Lose it, and you’re on your own.”
That explained Giselle’s match.
She moved on.
“The Green Dome emphasizes synchronization. You don’t fight with a summon, you fight as one. Full transformation. Your body, senses, instincts, everything is overwritten.”
I blinked. “You mean I’ll turn into my slime?”
Katherine nodded without hesitation. “Yes. Physically, mentally, and instinctually.”
“…That sounds horrifying,” I said slowly.
“And enlightening,” she added. “Many bookkeepers come out of it with a deeper understanding of themselves.”
I wasn’t sure I wanted that kind of understanding just yet.
She continued anyway.
“The Red Dome allows unrestricted combat, multiple summons, layered skills, no environmental safety nets. It’s where veterans go to test raw power.”
Figures.
“The Yellow Dome limits combat to recorded skills only, no weapons, no summons.”
“The White Dome simulates large-scale conflicts. Teams, objectives, civilian variables.”
“And the Black Dome…” She paused, then smiled faintly. “You’ll learn about that one later.”
That didn’t make me feel better.
“I think I’ll try the blue dome first,” I said after a moment.
It felt right. Structured. Controlled. If I was going to embarrass myself, I’d rather do it under rules I could understand.
Katherine nodded approvingly and tapped a few more commands into the kiosk. Lines of light traced across the screen, forming a confirmation seal that pulsed once before stabilizing.
“Single loadout match,” she said. “Given your current records, that’s the only viable option.”
“Fair,” I replied. I didn’t exactly have a warehouse of abilities to draw from.
She glanced at a floating timer that appeared beside my name. “Alright. Your match is scheduled for one week from now.”
“A week?” I repeated. That was… longer than I expected.
“You’re not the only one eager to test the domes,” Katherine said gently. “And this gives you time to prepare.”
“Prepare how?”
“Another dive,” she replied. “Just not a ruined world.”
I exhaled. “Figures.”
“What kind of world is it?” I asked.
“It’s a closed world,” Katherine explained. “Whatever you do, the world will resolve itself without external intervention. No long-term divergence. No lingering consequences.”
“So… a safe sandbox?”
“Safe is relative,” she said with a smile. “But yes, the system will ensure the world reaches a conclusion regardless of your actions.”
“Am I going in alone?” I asked, already suspecting the answer.
She nodded. “This will be a valuable experience for you.”
I didn’t argue. Honestly, part of me preferred it that way. No safety net. No relying on Giselle or Zoey to bail me out when things went wrong.
Before I could change my mind, another thought surfaced.
“Before I dive,” I said, “can you tell me more about record blueprints?”
Katherine paused, then nodded. “Of course.”
She dismissed the dome interface and brought up a different menu. “Place your book on the screen.”
I summoned it without hesitation. The familiar weight settled into my hands as the purple cover shimmered faintly. When I placed it into the indentation, the kiosk responded instantly, runes flaring to life as if recognizing an old authority.
Light rose from the book.
A silhouette formed above it.
Tall. Broad-shouldered. One horn.
Even reduced to a projection, Izanus’s presence was unmistakable.
The hologram stabilized, text appearing beside it in stark, uncompromising letters.
Demon Lord of Calamity
Blueprint Progress: 0 / 6
Below it, six entries materialized.
- Danger Sense – Threat Detection
- Momentum Stockpile – Energy Enhancement
- Dark Tendril – Dark Magic
- Toxic Gas – Poison Magic
- Demonic Strength – Physical Enhancement
- Demon Lord’s Authority – Authority-Type Ability
“This,” Katherine said, “is the blueprint.”
I leaned closer, eyes scanning every line.
“In order to recreate this record,” she continued, “you must gather equivalent foundations for each listed component. Once all six are fulfilled, the blueprint will complete itself.”
“So I need to go back to that world?” I asked.
Katherine shook her head. “No. That would defeat the purpose. You can obtain similar records from other worlds.”
“Similar how?”
“As long as the function and core principle match,” she explained, “the system will accept it as valid material. It doesn’t have to be identical. Just compatible.”
I straightened, a slow smile creeping back onto my face. “That doesn’t sound that hard.”
Katherine laughed softly. Not mockingly. Almost fondly.
“I wonder how long it’ll take before you take those words back,” she said.
I didn’t respond.
But as I stared at Izanus’s silhouette, at the impossible weight of what that blueprint represented, I felt it again.
That pull.
That hunger.
If this was what waited at the end of six records…
Then maybe, just maybe...
The Library wasn’t done changing me yet.
The void greeted me again.
It was the same familiar nothingness, endless, weightless, silent, but this time it didn’t linger. There was no drawn-out suspension, no sense of being examined or sorted through by unseen systems. The transition was almost impatient.
Within seconds, the darkness peeled away.
Light rushed in, along with sound, heat, and the dense presence of a living world.
I found myself standing on the edge of a rooftop.
Wind brushed past my face, carrying the mingled scents of oil, metal, and street food. Below me, a city sprawled outward in every direction, layered streets packed with people, vehicles humming with energy, and towering structures reinforced with glowing veins of color that pulsed faintly like exposed circuitry.
I took a step back from the ledge and exhaled slowly.
“So this is it,” I muttered.
Even without diving into the narrative, I could already tell this world ran on a very different set of rules.
Spectrum Energy.
That knowledge didn’t come from memory or exposition, it was simply there, embedded in my understanding the moment I arrived. Like the world itself was explaining its fundamentals to me whether I wanted it to or not.
Spectrum Energy was a universal power source, generated internally and expressed externally through color. Everyone who mattered in this world used it. Everyone who survived, too.
There were three foundational colors.
Red manifested as raw discharge, focused beams, blasts, and cutting lines of energy. Crude, destructive, and devastating in open combat.
Yellow functioned as enhancement. It flooded the body, reinforcing muscle fibers, bone density, reflexes. Users of yellow moved faster, hit harder, and endured punishment that would turn normal people into red stains on the pavement.
Blue created constructs. Simple shapes at first, barriers, platforms, blunt tools, but in the hands of a skilled user, blue could become precise, flexible, and terrifyingly efficient.
Then came the mixtures.
Purple, the fusion of red and blue, allowed for refined constructs capable of controlled discharge. Guns made of energy. Cannons. Floating turrets that fired with mechanical precision.
Orange, born from red and yellow, was volatility incarnate. The body became a living weapon, every movement carried explosive force. Punches detonated on impact. Kicks shattered the ground.
Green, the blend of blue and yellow, produced solidity. Armor, shields, weapons, real weight, real resistance. The more energy poured into them, the stronger they became.
And then there was Black.
A perfect convergence of red, yellow, and blue.
Black Spectrum Energy had no fixed shape.
It became whatever the user desired, a blade, a blast, wings, claws, an overwhelming strike that ignored conventional limitations. It was power given form by will alone.
Finally, there was White.
White didn’t interact with the other colors at all.
It existed for only two purposes.
Summoning.
And capturing.
The people of this world used white energy to fight against monsters known as Frades, creatures that emerged from unknown origins and could only be harmed by Spectrum Energy. Conventional weapons were useless. Bullets passed through them. Explosives barely slowed them down.
Without Spectrum Energy, you didn’t fight Frades.
You died.
I stood there, absorbing all of this, and felt a sinking weight settle in my chest.
Because despite knowing all that...
Stolen story; please report.
Despite standing in a world where power literally colored the air...
The body I had been given didn’t know how to use Spectrum Energy.
No training. No latent ability surfacing on instinct. No hidden potential awakening under pressure.
Nothing.
I flexed my fingers and stared at my palms, half-expecting something to happen.
It didn’t.
“…Damn,” I muttered.
I began pacing across the rooftop, boots scraping against concrete reinforced with faint green lines of energy. The city below continued on as if nothing had changed, people laughing, arguing, shouting warnings as streaks of colored light flashed between buildings in the distance.
“I’m not even involved in the story,” I said under my breath.
There was no pull toward a main character. No sense of narrative gravity. I wasn’t standing at the beginning of a hero’s journey or the midpoint of some grand conflict.
I was just… here.
“Is it because this is a closed world?” I wondered aloud.
Closed worlds resolved themselves no matter what I did. They didn’t need me. The system wasn’t expecting me to intervene, to change fate, or to overturn a doomed timeline.
So instead, it dropped me into the margins.
A bystander.
An observer.
Someone who existed just far enough away from the plot to avoid breaking it.
That realization sat poorly with me.
I stopped pacing and looked out over the city again, searching for any sign that I mattered here.
That was when it happened.
An explosion bloomed in the distance.
A column of red and orange light erupted between two skyscrapers, followed by the shockwave that rolled across the rooftops. Alarms screamed. People scattered below like startled insects.
Moments later, a massive silhouette leapt into the air, something too large and wrong to be human, its body fractured with jagged lines of white energy.
A Frade.
I felt it then.
Not power.
Not destiny.
But curiosity.
I tightened my grip on the edge of the rooftop and let out a slow breath.
“Well,” I said quietly, eyes locked on the chaos unfolding below, “I might as well see how this story goes.”
Whether I belonged in it or not.
The Frade lumbered into full view as it cleared the smoke.
Up close, it was even more grotesque than it had seemed from a distance. Its head was a smooth, featureless mass, no eyes, no mouth, no indication of where it perceived the world. Just a blunt, armored dome that reflected the city lights like dull stone. Its torso was massive, built like a gorilla’s, but warped and asymmetrical, with thick cords of muscle layered beneath cracked, charcoal-colored skin.
Its arms were the worst part.
They were far too long for its body, jagged along the edges as if chunks had been torn out and never healed properly. When it moved, those arms dragged for a split second before snapping forward with terrifying speed, carrying all of its bulk and momentum behind them.
I watched as it seized a parked car with one hand and threw it.
Not tossed, launched.
The vehicle spun end over end, smashing through the side of a building before detonating in a burst of flame and glass. Screams echoed from below as civilians fled in every direction.
The Frade didn’t roar.
It didn’t need to.
Its presence alone was violence.
“That thing’s insane…” I muttered under my breath.
Below, the defense force of this world had already mobilized.
The Spectrum Defense Agency-SDA.
Their response was fast, coordinated, and brutally efficient. Armored vehicles formed barricades at key intersections while squads of agents moved in with practiced precision. Their combat gear was standardized, dark, reinforced suits threaded with faint Spectrum channels, but each agent’s energy flared a different color as they engaged.
Red users took elevated positions, firing focused beams that carved glowing lines across the Frade’s hide. The blasts staggered it, burning chunks of flesh away, but didn’t slow it nearly enough.
Yellow users surged forward next, bodies glowing as they reinforced themselves. They struck its legs, slammed into its joints, and physically redirected its movements, sacrificing safety for control.
Blue users followed close behind, erecting barriers and platforms, walls of translucent energy that redirected debris and kept the monster from charging straight through the streets.
At the center of it all stood the commander.
A broad-shouldered man with graying hair and a stance that didn’t waver even as shockwaves rippled through the ground.
Green Spectrum energy wrapped around him, forming a massive shield on one arm and a heavy hammer in the other. The constructs were dense, solid, layered with reinforcement.
Commander Gregor Hartman.
He slammed his shield into the Frade’s forearm as it swung, stopping the blow inches from flattening an entire squad. The impact cracked the pavement beneath his feet, but he didn’t budge.
Agents rallied behind him.
They were doing well, too well, given the circumstances.
But even with all that coordination, the Frade kept pushing forward.
It adapted.
Each time it swung its arms, it adjusted its stance, leaning into the motion, letting its weight carry through the strike. The more resistance it met, the more force it generated. Every missed attack still shattered buildings. Every blocked blow sent tremors through the battlefield.
“Are all Frades this powerful?” I muttered.
“No,” a voice answered from beside me.
I turned slightly and found myself standing next to a young man with bright orange hair and eyes that practically sparkled as he watched the fight unfold. He leaned forward eagerly, hands clenched, completely absorbed by the chaos below.
“This one’s stronger than the common types,” he said. “You can tell by how stable its core is.”
I blinked. “Core?”
“The way it moves,” he continued, undeterred. “See how it swings its arms instead of punching? That means it’s an enhancer-type Frade. It’s using momentum and mass instead of precision. Every attack builds on the last.”
His analysis was sharp. Too sharp for a bystander.
Recognition clicked into place as the information surfaced in my mind.
Luis Tyrel.
The protagonist of this world.
A gifted young man with absurd potential, capable of wielding all three base Spectrum colors. The kind of talent that reshaped the future of the SDA.
But right now?
He was still just watching.
This was the beginning of his story.
“Commander Gregor’s an amazing frontline,” Luis muttered, brow furrowing, “but this Frade’s a bad matchup for him. It’s too heavy. Too persistent.”
As if responding to his words, the Frade suddenly planted both arms into the ground and pushed.
The street buckled.
A shockwave ripped outward, shattering blue barriers and sending yellow users flying. Gregor slid backward, boots carving trenches into the asphalt as his shield cracked with a sharp, ringing sound.
The crowd gasped.
Then-
A shadow passed over us.
I barely had time to look up before a spear of black energy screamed down from the sky and slammed into the Frade’s shoulder. The impact detonated in a violent explosion, sending fragments of dark energy spiraling outward like shrapnel.
The Frade staggered for the first time.
The crowd erupted into cheers.
A figure descended from above, landing between the civilians and the monster with effortless grace.
He was tall, broad-shouldered, dressed in a sleek black combat suit reinforced with white Spectrum lines. A white trench coat fluttered behind him as he straightened, his presence alone shifting the mood of the battlefield.
“That’s-!” Luis’s eyes widened. “That’s General Lucas!”
One of the four Black Spectrum users in the entire sector.
Lucas raised a single hand.
The air around him distorted as black energy condensed, forming a dozen spears that hovered in perfect formation behind his back. With a flick of his wrist, they launched forward.
Each spear struck with surgical precision.
They pierced the Frade’s limbs, detonating one after another in controlled bursts. Not wild explosions, measured, devastating impacts that tore away muscle and destabilized its stance.
The Frade reeled, slamming its fists into the ground in fury.
Lucas didn’t flinch.
Black energy surged around him, reshaping itself into massive wings that snapped open as the Frade lunged. He lifted off just as its arms smashed together where he had stood, pulverizing the street.
“Beautiful control,” Luis whispered, awestruck.
Lucas descended again, black energy flowing into a massive blade as he swung. The strike carved straight through the Frade’s torso, splitting it open in a cascade of dark light.
For a moment, the monster froze.
Then its body collapsed inward, dissolving into unstable Spectrum residue before evaporating completely.
Silence followed.
Then cheers.
I stood there, watching the aftermath, the smoke, the exhausted agents, the civilians slowly emerging from hiding, and felt something shift inside me.
This world might clear itself.
I might not matter to its story.
But standing here, watching power clash and potential awaken.
I understood one thing clearly.
This wasn’t just a world to observe.
It was a world worth learning to survive in.
Katherine stood in silence before the viewing console, her hands folded neatly behind her back as the familiar ripple of space swallowed Jayden’s figure. The portal collapsed in on itself with a soft hum, leaving behind nothing but faint motes of light drifting through the air.
Another dive had begun.
The chamber she was in was far removed from the chaotic viewing halls most bookkeepers frequented. This was a private observation room, quiet, dimly lit, and layered with invisible safeguards. Only a handful of people in the library even knew it existed, and fewer still were allowed to use it.
On the central screen, Jayden’s vitals stabilized as the story world finished anchoring him into its narrative framework.
Katherine exhaled slowly.
She had chosen this world carefully.
Not because it was safe, there was no such thing as a truly safe story world, but because it sat at a precise intersection of compatibility and possibility. The Spectrum world was volatile, dangerous, and unpredictable, but its power system overlapped just enough with the foundations of Izanus’s blueprint to make it useful.
Momentum-based enhancement.
Construct manifestation.
Authority through overwhelming presence.
The similarities were there, barely.
But “barely” was often the difference between progress and complete failure.
Even with guidance, even with luck, completing a blueprint was no small feat. Most bookkeepers never even attempted one above Gold rank. The risks escalated exponentially with each tier, and Grandine-ranked entities existed in a realm that bordered on myth.
Power at that level was not simply gathered.
It had to be understood, replicated, and contained.
Katherine’s eyes softened as she watched Jayden pace along a rooftop, clearly out of place in the new world.
He had no starting advantage here.
No hidden lineage.
No tailored role.
No narrative protection.
Just himself, and the records he had already earned.
“That’s intentional,” she murmured quietly.
The library did not reward arrogance. It rewarded persistence, adaptability, and the willingness to learn from near-fatal mistakes. Jayden had survived his first ruined world not because he was flawless, but because he kept moving forward even when the odds made no sense.
That alone set him apart from most newcomers.
Still… Grandine rank was a different beast entirely.
Katherine turned slightly, glancing at the holographic projection of the Demon Lord of Calamity blueprint hovering nearby. The silhouette flickered, incomplete, fragmented into its component requirements.
Six foundations.
Each one, by itself, was already a nightmare to acquire.
Together?
A long-term commitment bordering on obsession.
“Even with my help,” she said softly, more to herself than anyone else, “this won’t be simple.”
She had seen countless promising bookkeepers burn out, crushed under expectations, devoured by greed, or lost to worlds that didn’t care how talented they were. Ambition alone wasn’t enough. Drive without restraint often ended in tragedy.
Jayden didn’t strike her as reckless.
But neither was he content with stagnation.
That was what intrigued her.
Her gaze returned to the screen, watching as an explosion bloomed in the distance of the Spectrum city and Jayden’s attention snapped toward it. Curiosity, concern, calculation, all flickered across his expression in quick succession.
He was already engaging.
Already thinking.
A small smile tugged at Katherine’s lips.
“I wonder,” she said quietly, eyes sharp with interest, “just how far that drive of yours goes.”
The library thrived on stories.
And Jayden Brise was becoming one worth watching.
My home in this world was a cramped apartment tucked between two aging concrete buildings, the kind of place that felt more like a temporary shelter than somewhere meant to be lived in. The walls were bare, the furniture minimal to the point of neglect, a narrow bed, a folding table, a chair with one uneven leg. The air carried a faint metallic scent, likely from the industrial district nearby.
I didn’t mind.
I wasn’t planning on staying long enough to grow attached.
Standing by the window, I looked out over the city as streams of traffic flowed beneath glowing billboards advertising Spectrum gear, training academies, and SDA recruitment drives. This world revolved around power, efficiency, and preparedness. If you couldn’t fight, you didn’t matter.
That suited me just fine.
I raised my phone and stared at the confirmation screen of my SDA application. Still pending. The process would take time, background checks, aptitude tests, evaluations, but that was inevitable. The Spectrum Defense Agency was the fastest, most reliable way to gain legitimate access to this world’s power system.
And more importantly...
To learn it properly.
At the moment, my build was incomplete.
I had a summoned creature.
I had support equipment.
But no dedicated weapon.
No innate ability tied to this world’s rules.
That imbalance was dangerous.
Learning to use Spectrum Energy wasn’t just about survival here, it was an investment. The system was flexible, modular, and scalable. Red, Yellow, Blue, and their countless combinations formed a framework that could adapt to nearly any combat scenario.
It was exactly the kind of power system that translated well into records.
Versatile.
Upgradeable.
Foundational.
A perfect stepping stone.
I summoned my book, the familiar weight of it grounding me as it materialized in my hands. The cover pulsed faintly, reacting to the ambient energy of the world. As I opened to the first page, something slid loose and fluttered outward.
A thin, translucent sheet, smaller than a normal page, yet dense with arcane script.
I froze.
Then carefully picked it up.
Note Page
A fragment of the Soul Book.
Allows a bookkeeper to record something without taking up space in the Soul Book’s record size.
The record must still be within the bookkeeper’s total record size.
Records stored in the note page cannot be used unless transferred into the Soul Book.
I exhaled slowly.
So that’s how it works.
Katherine had slipped this to me just before the dive, no fanfare, no explanation beyond “You’ll want this later.” At the time, I hadn’t fully understood its value.
Now?
This thing was priceless.
A staging ground.
A buffer.
A way to prepare materials without committing to them.
Exactly what I needed for a blueprint as absurd as the Demon Lord of Calamity.
Still… having the tool didn’t make the task any easier.
I leaned back against the table, my thoughts drifting to the fight I’d witnessed earlier, the Frade rampaging through the city, the SDA agents responding with practiced efficiency, and the overwhelming gap between ordinary users and elites.
I had tested my recording during the battle, carefully skimming the surface of abilities just to gauge feasibility.
The results hadn’t been encouraging.
Red Spectrum Energy Discharge
Rank: Bronze
Record Size: 50
Rating: 5
A basic technique. Straightforward. Efficient.
And already expensive.
Fifty record size for a low-tier discharge skill was steep, especially for something so foundational. It told me everything I needed to know about this world’s scaling.
Power here was earned.
Paid for in full.
Purple Spectrum War Hammer
Rank: Silver
Record Size: 125
Rating: 7
Commander Hartman’s signature technique.
Condensed construct integrity paired with refined discharge, brutal, reliable, and devastating at close range.
And completely out of reach.
As Silver 1, my total record size sat at 120.
Only 110 was free.
Even if I could scrape together the capacity, the rating wasn’t good enough to justify the cost. A blueprint demanded excellence, not convenience.
Then there was the outlier.
The thing that had made my instincts scream the moment I saw it.
Black Spectrum: Shadow Javelin
Rank: Emerald
Record Size: 250
Rating: 9
General Lucas.
One of four black Spectrum users in the sector.
That ability wasn’t just powerful, it was conceptually aligned. Momentum control, construct manifestation, energy discharge, authority through form.
It was close.
Too close.
And impossibly far away.
Even if I doubled my current capacity, it would still be out of reach. Emerald rank wasn’t something you brushed against by accident, it was a wall you slammed into after years of growth.
I closed the book, the note page still resting between my fingers.
A lesser man might have been discouraged.
I wasn’t.
I didn’t need to steal power that wasn’t mine yet.
I didn’t need shortcuts.
I would start at the bottom.
Learn Spectrum Energy from scratch.
Build my own interpretation of it.
Refine it until it was mine.
And when the time came, I’d have the materials I needed.
A slow smile crept across my face.
“I’ll grow my own way,” I murmured to the empty room.
Outside, sirens wailed in the distance, and somewhere in the city another Frade roared.
Perfect.