Tarthocas : Chronicles of the Transmigrating Scribe

When Ling Xuan came back to his senses, he was surrounded by bookshelves neatly arranged on the walls around him. He was standing at the center of the cave-like room. The floor was wooden in texture, and the dim light emanated from the bulbs.

'Is this some kind of library? Did I transmigrate again?' Ling Xuan wondered. He looked at himself only to notice that he was still wearing the robes from before. He looked through his memories. There was nothing in them that could explain this.

As he looked around, he noticed a computer on a table not far away from him. Ling Xuan walked towards it. When he got close to the table, he saw that there was a book laid open on it. Unlike the books on the shelves, this one was plain and ordinary. Ling Xuan read what was on the open pages.

To his surprise, it talked about his current situation. About how a chosen person would be able to access a mysterious library in their dreams. Ling Xuan checked the cover of the book. It read "Guidelines to the Library". He skimmed through the contents.

According to the book, the library was an ancient artifact that chooses its owner. The books in the library represent the memories of the user. Each book details everything that had happened within the perception sphere of the user. The information would be more detailed than what the user himself had perceived at the time of the incident.

There were two ways to use the books. One was to directly read them. This would be a tiring endeavor as the books are filled with every detail that had happened. The other, more direct way was to drip your blood onto the books. This would upload the information in the book into the brain of the user. This, however, could only be used a limited number of times as the total imaginary blood available was very low, only allowing up to 10 uses per day.

Then there was the computer. It was the kind that you could get in the late 90s. Its beige plastic casing, once vibrant, now bore the marks of age – yellowed and scuffed. A bulky CRT monitor perched atop the tower, its screen flickering occasionally. Inside, colorful cables and circuitry adorned the motherboard, while a Pentium II processor whispered tales of its former power. A clunky keyboard with worn-out letters and a mouse with a discolored rubber ball completed the scene, surrounded by scattered floppy disks and faded CD-ROMs.

Ling Xuan sat in front of the table, moved some stuff out of the way, and switched on the computer. It slowly booted up. On the screen, there was nothing but a search bar. Ling Xuan typed in "martial arts" and pressed enter.

A green progress bar appeared slowly, and it filled in the space. When the bar became full, the computer showed 2 options.

[View native world's Martial Arts]

[View current world's Martial Arts]

"Hmm, by the native world, does it mean my original world? If it is indeed the case, then can I use its martial arts? No, that's wrong, my world's martial arts are not very powerful, and who knows whether they will do any good in a World like this" With this reasoning, Carto chose the second option.

After clicking the second option, the green progress bar appeared again and started filling up. After 2 minutes as according to Carto's inner clock, a new page opened up. On the page were all the martial techniques he had seen and even some he didn't know about!

"Hmm, the reason for me not knowing some of them should be due to 2 reasons, one is that this computer records everything so it may have recorded them while his attention was somewhere else and the other reason is that these techniques are the techniques that the original Ling Xuan once saw and the computer pulled the information about them from his memories". Concluded Ling Xuan.

While he was checking the techniques, Carto suddenly noticed a small question mark icon.

"What is this?" Carto thought and then clicked it, and as he predicted, another page opened with the green progress bar opening up.

"These progress bars will soon make me want to punch this computer" remarked Carto inwardly as he slowly became annoyed.

Finally, the page opened, and it showed an entire documentation of the technique and the thing was that there were even pictures meant to show certain movements! "This is awesome!" Cried Carto inwardly.

After looking at the details, he chose to go back and explore the other features of this computer.

While searching, he found another button that was to the right side of the martial arts page.

"Hmm, what does this do?" Carto thought and hovered the cursor over the icon to show the information.

[View Understanding of Technique?]

"Wait so this allows me to check my progress in understanding techniques. Hmm, this is quite good! This will allow me to check my affinity with types of martial arts that will by proxy help me find arts that I am proficient in!" Remarked Carto, excited about this newly discovered feature.

Carto clicked it, and he was met with the green progress bar once again like meeting that one annoying friend that wastes too much precious time.

When the page opened, it had a new look that had the appearance of a sheet that documented sales reports.

Carto noticed that a help box popped out that wrote

[Review the classification system for better understanding?]

[Yes] [No]

Carto clicked Yes, and a secondary window opened which showed the technique understanding classification.

1) Glimpse

2) Basic Understanding

3) Intermediate Understanding

4) Advanced Understanding

5) Profound Understanding

6)Absolute Mastery

Using the information gained, he then looked at the techniques that were present on the primary page.

[The Stranger's Technique = Glimpse]

[The Visceral Thunder Reinforcement = Glimpse]

[Jade Serpent Technique = Glimpse]:

[Crimson Barrage Pole = Intermediate Understanding]

The computer's ability was to look through all the memories in the library and give search results. The results could then be directly uploaded to the brain of the user. But Ling Xuan chose not to take any of this for now. As he knew there was a price to be paid for using the results in the computer. The guidelines didn't clearly mention it. But he didn't want to take the risk at this time.

Ling Xuan pondered. He got the Jade Serpent Technique from the assassin. The Visceral Thunder Reinforcement was the art of Thunder Law Sect. Yet the Stranger's Technique sounded weird.

"Since the information is taken from my memories since I do not know the name of the technique, the computer just assigned it a randomly generated name that corresponds to the technique" Concluded Carto.

"Damn my golden finger, although it does not grant me some type of Primordial Dual-Cultivation Body, it's still powerful! It's like that one white-haired guy with special eyes!" Remarked Carto as he became excited.

"With this, the chance to advance to Grand Master has risen!" Carto thought excitedly.

After thinking that he had viewed all of it, Carto went back to the main page and was about to close it when he saw a peculiarity in the page. It was an icon near the Search Bar and was gray as well, therefore camouflaging it.

Carto clicked the icon, and after another progress bar came and went, another page opened up. This page was the most bizarre as instead of looking like a search engine, it instead had 2 boxes where text could be inputted.

Carto was understandably confused by the page when he noticed a question mark icon on top of the page.

After clicking it, a black box appeared which had text written in it

[The Want Generator works by inputting Information of any kind into the upper box, the generator will then take up a certain amount of time during which it creates an answer that satisfies the want of the user, the generator gives multiple answers from which the user can choose any one that fits his need, this can only be used annually relative to time of the world the user resides currently in, this can be used to generate cultivation techniques, plans, item blueprints and more]

"Whoever said that the analyzer was the most powerful cheat I have, what an idiot! This is the real cheat right here! Hahaha, I am truly the MC!" Laughed Carto elated by this new finding.

Although Carto was tempted to use the Want Generator, he stayed his hand as he realized that currently he himself did not know what to generate, and generating a useless thing would be simply a waste of this privilege.

"It's best to use this during the Disciple Selection as I can record the techniques of other more talented prodigies and use that information to create my own Martial Technique" Carto resolved inwardly.

After thoroughly searching the entire page and computer up and down and not finding anything else, Carto logged off the computer. As it was an exact replica of a real computer, it was quite easy to do so.

After standing up from the chair and looking across to the Library, he decided that it was time to return to his physical form. Yet the problem was that he didn't know how to do that.

"Wait a second, should I've searched for it on the Computer? Well, it's too late to regret now, and no way am I going to sit in front of that progress bar slowly filling up! Nope, No way am I going to do that!" The mentally exhausted Carto was going to find the way by just the old-fashioned trial and error method.

"Bazongas!" "Log out!" And thus began Carto's Escape Attempts …

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"Pizza!"

"Power System!"

"Nevarine !"

Carto knew that much time might have passed if he were in his physical form, but here, there was no way to distinguish between a second and a year. Perhaps time didn't even exist; the laws of Recognized Reality did not apply here.

Carto was now just spouting random words. He had tried other methods such as running straight into the Void or Climbing up the bookshelves yet nothing worked.

Carto was adamant still about not using the computer. Now he hoped that by spouting random words he would be able to somehow escape and return.

And then it happened

Almost unnaturally a word came to his mind, something that would've never been expected.

"Let's see if this'll work!" Carto decided to try it.

"Avacaniya!"

Everything stopped for a moment.

Even the Library which was considered to be detached from the laws of 'RR' seemed it had become a part of it.

Then everything resumed.

and as for Carto? well he was not in the Library anymore.