Last Gun Alchemist

Once all the books Ezra wanted had been gathered and packed together, he and Lucy carried them toward the bookstore counter.

The bookseller standing behind it carefully checked the books one after another before entering their prices into the transaction system. It took him a short while to finish because Ezra hadn’t exactly bought a small number of books.

There was Gill Kane’s Philosophy on General Alchemy, which Professor Kane had instructed them to purchase, several books connected to Ezra’s optional courses, especially Alchemy Circle Conversion, and finally the metallurgy books he had picked out for Lucy.

Once everything had been calculated, the final amount appeared on the transaction device.

The bookseller looked at it before turning the device around.

"Your payment is eighty thousand Gold Coins."

He pushed the transaction device across the counter toward Ezra after setting the payment amount.

"..."

Ezra looked down at the number.

80,000 Gold Coins.

His face remained as expressionless as ever, but a thought quietly passed through his mind.

This is why just any student can’t attend the Royal Academy, huh?

Even buying books could drain a person’s finances.

For Ezra, eighty thousand Gold Coins wasn’t enough to cause him any real financial trouble, especially with his current wealth, but that didn’t suddenly make the amount small.

For a non-noble ordinary family, this wasn’t the kind of money they could casually spend on books.

Even some noble families would probably think carefully before allowing their children to repeatedly make purchases like this.

Ezra reached into his space bag and took out his finance card.

He placed it against the transaction device.

The crystal body of the device immediately began glowing blue, and a holographic image of a thumbprint materialized several inches above its surface.

Ezra placed his thumb against the indicated section.

Beep.

The device scanned his thumb.

The holographic image disappeared and was replaced by a check mark.

A second later, the crystal body changed from blue to green.

The transaction had been successful.

"Thank you for your purchase."

The bookseller began arranging the packed books for them.

Once their business in the bookstore was finished, Ezra and Lucy finally left and crossed toward the building they had actually come all this way to visit.

The Royal Academy’s Central Library.

The difference became clear almost immediately after they entered.

The Central Library was vast.

It was easily more than twice the size of the library located within the First-Year Academy Center, and even that comparison didn’t fully show how large the place felt once Ezra and Lucy stood inside.

Rows upon rows of bookshelves stretched across the floor.

Some shelves were so tall that students needed the provided steps to comfortably reach the upper sections, while others had been built directly into the walls.

In fact, almost every large wall Ezra could see had bookshelves covering a considerable part of its surface.

Books filled them.

Thick books.

Thin books.

Old volumes protected behind glass.

Modern printed copies.

Research records.

Historical studies.

Alchemy texts.

And those were only the sections visible from the entrance floor.

The library had more levels above them.

Students sat throughout the reading areas, some alone and others gathered in small study groups. Unlike the noisy halls and clubhouses Ezra had passed through during the week, the atmosphere here remained controlled.

After Ezra and Lucy signed in with their ID cards, they entered the main reading section.

Ezra looked toward the upper floors.

"I’ll be going upstairs."

He spoke plainly before turning toward Lucy.

"Okay."

Lucy nodded.

She looked around before pointing toward one of the reading areas.

"Then I’ll just find a novel to read and relax over there."

Ezra followed the direction of her finger with his eyes.

"Alright."

Lucy smiled.

Once they had settled that, Ezra turned and headed toward the upper floor.

He already knew what he was searching for.

Books concerning Essence.

The materials Professor Nine had recommended through President Luke yesterday had stayed in Ezra’s thoughts, especially after everything Professor Kent, Professor Paulina and Professor Donald had already told them about understanding Essence before trying to deeply understand the different forms of Converted Essence throughout the world as well as their own Cognis.

Ezra climbed the stairs.

Unlike many of the books sold openly throughout Britannia, books dealing deeply with Essence belonged to an entirely different scale.

It wasn’t that purchasing them was illegal.

Anyone with the proper money and access could technically buy one.

The problem was the price.

Buying even a single serious book on Essence could push a Low-Ember noble toward bankruptcy.

And there also weren’t many copies available for sale.

Which wasn’t done as an accident.

The number of volumes released publicly was deliberately limited, which naturally increased their value even further.

Because of that, libraries capable of maintaining large collections on Essence weren’t common.

Only places like;

The Royal Academy.

The Royal Palace.

And the estates belonging to powerful Duke Houses could maintain collections of their own.

But outside institutions and families of that level, finding a large collection of proper Essence research wasn’t easy.

That was why Ezra had come here.

He moved through the upper floor, reading the small signboards positioned at the beginning of each section until one finally caught his attention.

ESSENCE & COGNIS

Ezra stopped.

"This one."

He entered the aisle.

His black eyes moved across the book spines.

He first searched for the books President Luke had displayed yesterday on Professor Nine’s recommendation, taking them out one after another.

Once he found those, Ezra didn’t immediately leave.

Other titles caught his attention.

He pulled those out as well.

By the time he finished, several books were resting in his arms.

Ezra carried them toward a quiet reading section away from most of the other students, placed the books on the table, pulled out a chair, and sat down.

Then he began.

Time passed without Ezra paying much attention to it.

The Central Library remained quiet around him.

Pages occasionally flipped from nearby tables.

A distant door opened and closed.

Footsteps passed between the shelves whenever students returned books or searched for something new.

Sometimes a chair shifted lightly against the floor.

Beyond those sounds, the most constant noise came from the cooling devices installed around every floor.

Cold air flowed gently from them, keeping the massive library at a controlled temperature.

Ezra didn’t have any problem with the cold.

Since before breakfast that morning, he had already taken his heat-stimulating pills, so the temperature barely distracted him.

His attention remained on the book.

Minutes became hours.

And the more Ezra read...

The more his understanding changed.

One of the first things he realized was how shallow the information he had previously found on the Skynet actually was.

It wasn’t necessarily wrong.

It simply wasn’t broad enough.

Compared to the book currently resting beneath Ezra’s hands, the information he had studied on the Skynet felt like someone had given him the beginning of an explanation and stopped before reaching the important parts.

Ezra turned another page.

The first book he had chosen focused on Essence itself.

Its definition.

Its existence.

Its nature.

And as both Professor Donald and the information Ezra had found on the Skynet had already taught him...

Essence was the energy of existence.

It couldn’t be seen.

It couldn’t be felt.

Nor could it be directly perceived.

Yet it existed.

Ezra continued reading.

Research conducted throughout different periods had shown that Essence wasn’t limited to humans, animals, monsters, or other living beings.

Essence existed within everything.

Living things.

Non-living things.

Everything that existed possessed Essence.

Ezra already understood that part.

So, he continued.

Page after page passed beneath his fingers until his eyes finally reached a section that caused his reading speed to slow.

His gaze became more focused.

At the top of the page were several words.

The Nature of Essence.

Ezra adjusted his posture slightly.

This was different.

According to the research recorded within the book, Essence, despite being known generally as the energy of existence, could actually be classified into two forms.

Ezra’s black eyes moved toward the next line.

Life Essence.

Then the second.

Death Essence.

"..."

Ezra stopped.

His eyes remained on those words.

Life Essence and Death Essence.

He read them again.

Something immediately clicked inside his mind, but Ezra didn’t allow himself to jump to a conclusion.

Instead, he reached toward the pile of books beside him.

There was another book he had taken from the Essence & Cognis section.

His fingers moved across the covers until he found it.

He pulled the book free.

The Relation of Essence to Cognis.

Ezra placed it beside the first book.

His eyes moved between them.

Life Essence and Death Essence again.

Then another pair of words surfaced in his mind.

Create and Destroy.

Ezra’s fingers stopped against the page.

Create...

Destroy...

Those two words echoed again inside his head.

Just looking at the two forms of Essence made him feel as though a part of Cognis he had always understood only through practice was beginning to gain a clearer shape.

Life and Death.

Create and Destroy.

There was a relationship there.

Ezra was becoming certain of it.

However, he needed to understand the two forms first.

He returned to the first book.

Life Essence and Death Essence were described almost like water and fire.

Opposing forms.

Their natures were so different that harmonizing them should have been impossible.

Yet...

Ezra’s eyes narrowed slightly.

Cognis...

He pushed the thought aside for the moment and continued reading.

The book moved beyond the basic differences between Life and Death Essence and began discussing the philosophies surrounding them, along with assumptions and factual research concerning how different nations and kingdoms had discovered their own forms of Converted Essence.

Ezra’s reading slowed again.

This was information he hadn’t found in proper detail on the Skynet.

Throughout history, different civilizations had discovered different methods of converting Essence.

But those methods didn’t all follow the same pattern.

Different nations had developed their Converted Essence according to these two different forms.

Life.

Or Death.

And depending on the form their Converted Essence followed, the resulting energy gained certain attributes while also inheriting certain restrictions.

Ezra rested his elbow lightly against the table as he read.

According to the book, Converted Essence based upon Life Essence couldn’t ignite through destruction or death.

That restriction alone carried many consequences.

For example, a Life-based Converted Essence couldn’t rely on concepts that required drawing power from death or destructive sources.

Like drawing energy from a dead life source wouldn’t work.

Using curses as the ignition foundation wouldn’t work either.

The nature of the Essence simply wouldn’t support it.

Ezra’s eyes moved farther down.

Death Essence was the opposite.

A Converted Essence based primarily upon Death Essence couldn’t ignite through creation or birth.

That meant concepts built around creation wouldn’t function naturally through it.

Materialization.

Imagination-based creation.

And other similar concepts connected to producing or giving form to something through creation couldn’t work if that Converted Essence was mainly based on Death.

Ezra stopped reading again.

His fingers slowly tapped against the edge of the page.

Life can’t ignite through death or destruction.

As well as Death can’t ignite through creation or birth.

The more he thought about it, the more certain fantasy concepts from his previous life’s world began appearing inside his head.

Comics.

Novels.

Fantasy stories.

Things he had once considered useful to some extent but still didn’t focus to much on learning much about them in his Book of Memories.

Does that mean...

Ezra leaned slightly closer to the book.

...if necromancy actually exists in this world, which I’m sure it does. Would be based on Death Essence?

He thought about the idea.

Necromancy, at least from what his previous-self read from fantasy stories, normally involved the dead.

Corpses.

Spirits.

Sometimes controlling the remaining life of something that had already died.

If something like that truly existed here...

Then Death Essence would explain why they can interact with the dead’s life.

Ezra’s eyes sharpened.

And if that’s the case, then the opposite concept should be...

His thoughts stopped.

Something on the page caught his attention.

It was an example.

The writer had listed a Converted Essence belonging to one of the powerful nations of the Central Continent.

Ezra read the nation’s name first.

Holy Empire of Rome.

Then his eyes lowered.

Their Converted Essence was known as...

Divinity.

Ezra straightened slightly.

His black eyes continued moving across the words written by the book’s author.

Unlike some of the earlier sections, this part wasn’t presented only as distant research.

It contained an account from personal experience.

Ezra read carefully.

The writer had been present during the Second War between the Britannians and the Servients.

And during that war...

Soldiers from the Holy Empire of Rome had appeared.

Ezra continued reading.

According to the writer, he had been fortunate enough to personally witness one of Rome’s stronger soldiers displaying Divinity.

At first, confusion had spread among some of the Britannian forces.

The appearance and power of the Roman soldiers had caused many to mistake them for Scholar Angels who had descended from the Scholar Realm.

But the writer hadn’t completely accepted that explanation.

He had noticed something else.

Something within their power.

Ezra’s gaze stopped on the final part of the passage.

The richness of Life Essence contained within their Divinity.

"..."

Ezra remained silent.

His finger rested against the page.

Divinity.

A Converted Essence heavily connected to Life Essence.

His thoughts immediately returned to the earlier restrictions.

Life-based Converted Essence couldn’t ignite through death or destruction.

Instead, its nature leaned toward the opposite side.

Life.

Creation.

And Birth.

Ezra’s eyes slowly moved back toward the second book sitting beside him.

The Relation of Essence to Cognis.

Then he looked back toward the two words he had been thinking about ever since discovering the two forms.

Create.

Destroy.

Cognis could do both.

That simple fact suddenly felt much more important than it had several minutes ago.

Alchemy could create.

Alchemy could destroy.

The same Cognis that allowed an Alchemist to construct something through an Alchemy Circle could also be used for destruction.

And if Life Essence and Death Essence opposed each other so strongly that harmonizing them should have been impossible...

Ezra’s black eyes narrowed.

Then what exactly is Cognis?

He didn’t rush toward an answer.

There wasn’t enough information yet.

And making assumptions before understanding the foundation would only lead him toward the wrong conclusion.

So, Ezra pulled the first book closer.

He turned the page.

Then continued reading.

The quiet Central Library remained unchanged around him.

Pages flipped.

Footsteps moved between distant shelves.

Cold air continued flowing softly from the cooling devices.

Downstairs, Lucy was probably still reading whatever novel she had picked.

But Ezra had already stopped paying attention to how much time was passing.

His attention had become completely buried in the books before him.

Because for the first time since he began learning about Essence...

He felt like he was finally starting to understand just how strange Cognis truly was.

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