“The Archive terminals have the ability to recognize when someone understands the specific dangers that come from mental overload and those that acquired noosphere navigation abilities. That is achieved through a universal memetic agent calculated to be located at spiritual coordinates of 17,7 knowledge; 4 sharing; 88,8 information; Knowing and understanding these coordinates gives access to…”

  My eyes opened wide as Siege smacked my head with such force that my forehead hit the ground. I let out a groan of pain; my ears rang.

  “What did I tell you about reading while meditating?” With an annoyingly upbeat voice, the bald freak chuckled. “If you want to get strong, you need to get in touch with your inner self. Read outside of my course, whelp.”

  I took a deep breath, flaring starpower, it numbed the pain. “Did you have to punch me so hard? What if I got brain damage?”

  “I’d heal you then, no problem.” He grabbed my cloak and lifted me to my feet. Then gently, he smacked my head again, only instead of pain, there was relief. “Since you can’t focus, I’ll get someone to help you, or would you like to get to the tribulation altar?”

  I rubbed my head, trying to get rid of the anger. “Oh really, well, maybe I’ll go to the altar!”

  Siege nodded thoughtfully and raised his hand, saying, “Denied! Gretchen, get the boy in the mood.”

  “The fuck you mean in the mood?”

  “See for yourself.” He turned towards Gretchen, who looked at me like I was a piece of dung.

  “Are you misusing the professor’s magnanimity again? I will rip your tongue out of your mouth and feed it to you!” Suddenly, she coughed up ghostly fluid. Her expression immediately shifted to one of worry. “I’m so sorry for saying that, I’m trying my best, but it’s just not-”

  “Gretchen!” Siege clapped his hands. “Help the boy with meditation. Don’t hold back.”

  “A-are you sure? It might be too dangerous.”

  “Can you stop excluding me? I don’t need to be hypnotized for meditation! I can do it on my own.”

  The two exchanged glances. Suddenly, Gretchen’s scales darkened, and her face lost all emotion. “You, ungrateful fool. Enjoy my help.” Rapidly, Gretchen started making forms with astonishing speed. Recognizing the general trend of dangerous things happening, I reeled back.

  “No, you don’t!” Siege shot a black spark at me, and my body froze. I couldn’t move.

  I wished to scream, to call out this abuse, but there was nothing I could do. Only breathe and calm down. Even starpower refused to respond to me, stilled by whatever Siege did.

  “Just relax already. Nobody is going to hurt you permanently.”

  It wasn’t reassuring in the slightest, but I knew this wouldn’t end until I got the meditation just right. I closed my eyes, trying my best not to think about anything… I was failing.

  Suddenly, something cracked in my mind, and the floodgates were open. A floodgate like a source of knowledge – the Archive. I wanted to have all that knowledge, specifically the knowledge that the school restricts. A way to fight dragons. Restrictions that could be lifted if I read through the user manual.

  But I needed to get to the Archive first; there had to be something about it in it, it had everything. Everything, like the information about Earth. I missed Earth, my old home, my parents, my dog. I wanted to see them again.

  That would be a mistake – lingering on the past is a massive mistake, and I promised not to make mistakes. But that was impossible – not making mistakes is an unreachable standard, and setting such goals would only bring disappointment.

  I didn’t set an impossible goal, however. It was set for me by the monster, and I had to reach it no matter what. Matter… Why would it matter? Because I love magic and becoming strong is entwined with the essence of magic here.

  Strong. Just like the strongest magic - mind control, like the one Siege used. Mind control was wrong, but so was this entire school. And I wanted to use it. Was it that wrong? No.

  My eyes snapped open. I inhaled the air. Two hours passed. Somehow. Energy surged in my body, and I felt different.

  Your SE has increased by 1. From 27 to 28

  Your Affinity has shifted! Onyx -1%; Ruby +1%;

  “Why did this give me SE, but not getting my hand cut off? This is bullshit!”

  “There is no such thing as bullshit.” Siege’s grating voice resounded through the room. “No, seriously, I have no idea what that word means. The translator doesn’t work on it – hah!” I heard Louize sigh in the corner.

  “Ya know, I divined it – that’s some dung made by a grazing animal. The one that eats dirt!” All of Ocoz’s three eyes opened wide.

  Siege nodded sagely at her comment. “As expected, you are referencing the Ballad of Three Stomachs. The writings of the flowed are truly profound. Source knows it.”

  Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.

  “Are you making fun of me or something? Because I don’t care.” I sighed. The banter was getting on my nerves. “Am I free to go now?”

  “Are you?” Siege chuckled.

  “That’s your decision, nincompoop!”

  “That’s another untranslatable word! Ocoz, you owe me a core.” Siege snapped his fingers.

  “Wait a second, prof,” Ocoz smirked.

  “I see how it is, you’re fucking with me. I’ll just get out of your hair now. See you tomorrow.”

  Ocoz giggled. “We don’t have hair! I win! You owe me a crash course, prof!”

  “That’s my student!”

  The banter continued, and I couldn’t handle it anymore. Standing up, I left the chaotic room. How Ivaldie, Mousei, Gretchen, and Louize could meditate under these conditions was a mystery to me.

  But the way to slaying the dragon wasn’t a mystery anymore. The Archive Manual revealed the truth to me.

  “By design, it is impossible to limit the knowledge which can be accessed through the Archive. Splinter terminals will not be able to connect without leaving ways of lifting restrictions for everyone, for example…”

  Anarchists made the Archive. It was impossible to restrict; it could be used by anyone, it could be built by anyone, any node contained all the knowledge of every other one, connected by technology that ignored light speed.

  Standing in front of the spire, surrounded by dragon-women learning about whatever their hearts desired, wonder surged through me. In a sense, this spiraling monolith was the descendant of the internet.

  Lord Rame made sure to restrict the Archive as much as possible, but even someone at the peak of power couldn’t break the inherent free nature of the Archive.

  My hands shook. I breathed in the electrifying air around the massive expanse. The Archive extended from the bottom to the top of the station, and the terminals connected to it had all the keys to unlock more.

  Scraping my hand on the metallic jagged surface, covered with draconic imagery, I took a deep breath. Then I thrust my hand into the hole of the terminal. It melded with the glove of my VITA, sending light shocks across my body.

  Thank you for using Local Archive

  Access level: 1

  Books learned 5/5; Rest Left: 2 days 5 hours 11 minutes;

  Access denied.

  I felt the connection break, the metal slowly tried retracting, but I knew better. Before it could, I whispered, “I request the next level of access.” The metal shook and vibrated. It was so simple; all that was needed was to ask.

  Certification confirmed.

  Access level: 2

  Mindscape interface cannot be accessed for 2 days, 5 hours, 10 minutes.

  Estimated information limit: 1 million words.

  Just like before, countless books appeared in my awareness. And this time I could choose any amount I liked. I only needed two.

  Chosen Books: 2

  - Archive User Manual vol. 2

  - Archive User Manual vol. 3

  Prepare for integration!

  I felt the electricity course through my VITA. Slowly, the pages appeared in my mind – crystal clear. There were 849 pages total, but I wasn’t going to let that hold me back. Preapproved techniques will not get me far enough. I needed more. I needed the real deal.

  “Eject me.” With a word, the metal receded back, letting my hand free. Sweet knowledge flowed through my head, and I couldn’t have been happier. The endless chatter didn’t even seem that grating now.

  I picked a nice corner, devoid of all dragons, and solidified myself a chair. After reaching adept, it felt so natural to use that form. Slumping into it, I twitched my eyebrows and my jaw, subtly shaping the strengthening flows in the right direction. Catalytic acceleration, combined with strengthening, gave me the time I so desperately needed. The first page materialized in front of me as I closed my eyes.

  The preamble spoke with unabated grandeur, “Knowledge must belong to everyone – poor and rich, strong and weak. The Archive was made to preserve everything. It was made to be impossible to burn or to destroy. It is eternal.”

  Laser-focused, I began my reading journey. It was far beyond anything that I expected. Not only did it include the ways to access the Archive, how to search for any sort of information, but it even detailed how to upload yourself there… Frightening and exciting.

  A technique on how to summon your own Archive was present, too – far too complicated for me to replicate, but it could be done. Just another thing to do in the future.

  It was a manifesto for freedom of information. I nearly cried once when the creator of the archive spoke of their heritage, of them sacrificing their soul to imprint the eternal image of the Archive within the meta-physical realm. I truly cried at the cold voice of the author saying that the creator of the archive was their love.

  It was such a subtle thing, but it seemed that every sentence was filled with eternal dedication to freedom. And I could see that those weren’t just words; it was a declaration against book-burnings, against tyranny, against lies. When I finished the second volume, my breathing was uneven and my heart drummed with admiration.

  I never even imagined that it was possible to put a story of the struggle within the cold instructions to freedom. The subtext was so intertwined with the ways that it was impossible to separate. It was an art at the level of magic.

  Gripping my chest, I looked at the start of the third volume… And I couldn’t whimper a word. That wasn’t a manual, nor was it an instruction. It was a code, sequenced into a shape of a language, an algorithm of the inner workings of the Archive.

  The author made a language suited specifically for a translator; not only was there a technique to create a translator. But there weren’t any emotions here, only pure information. As if the third volume was made by a machine whose only purpose was to include as much as possible within.

  I read a paragraph once. It spoke of how the starpower weave of the Archive connected to the noosphere. I re-read it, and the information appeared differently. Now it spoke of how the noosphere was impossible to separate from the metaphysical realm. I read it again. It elaborated that the noosphere was a realm of information created by brains.

  I haven’t felt anything like that before. The paragraphs were whole chapters in themselves, structured in such a way that simply reading them would grant perfect understanding of the inner workings. It was a self-referencing code of infinite complexity and ease.

  My head spun, I smelled rust, staring at the spire going to heaven. I was wrong… Tears fell from my eyes. I was so wrong. They were never techno-barbarians. They were geniuses above everything Earth has ever seen, and their ideas altered reality forever.

  If there were a place I could learn about Earth, it would be here. I understood the pride of archivarii who boasted about their certification. The creators of the Archive simply rewrote reality to suit their ideals. That was the true expression of magic.

  I skimmed through the book again, immersing myself in the disturbing language, letting it shape my own thinking. It was so weird to have thoughts at that new level. To think about four things at once.

  I stood up, wiping the sweat from my brow and massaging my temples. “Thank you,” I whispered towards the spire – the brilliant culmination of thought. Finally, it was time to use the Archive.