Chapter 7
The Weight of Knowledge
Another month slipped by quietly after Sister Jean placed those books beside my bed.
Time no longer felt stagnant. It no longer dragged its feet as it once had during my earliest days in the tribe, when every sunrise mocked my helplessness. Now, each passing day carried weight. Progress—slow, stubborn, and unforgiving—was unmistakable. It etched itself into my bones, my breath, my thoughts.
Through countless hours of reading, listening, and observing, the suffocating ignorance that once clung to me had finally begun to loosen its grip. I could not yet claim mastery, nor even confidence, but I understood the basics of this world now—its structure, its dangers, and the invisible laws that governed survival.
More importantly, my body was changing.
The bones in my legs—once brittle,
unresponsive, and alien to me—had begun to bear weight again. The sensation was unsettling. It felt as though my body itself was cautiously testing reality, uncertain whether it was allowed to exist properly once more.
When I focused mana into my lower limbs, there was resistance, stiffness, and then—faint warmth.
Life.
The muscles, long dormant, trembled under the strain. Circulation was returning slowly, painfully, as mana nourished flesh that had been starved for far too long. Every attempt left me drenched in sweat, my teeth clenched against pain that was both physical and deeply psychological.
One afternoon, Elder Martha examined me carefully. Her fingers pressed gently along my legs, testing bone alignment, muscle response, and the flow of mana beneath my skin. Her movements were calm, practiced, and reassuring.
"If nothing goes wrong," she said at last, her voice thoughtful, "you should be able to stand on your own in about three months."
Three months.
The words echoed in my mind long after she had finished speaking.
I lay there, staring at the ceiling, unable to suppress the tremor in my chest. Standing. Walking. Feeling the ground beneath my feet without fear of collapse. I had almost forgotten what it felt like to look at the world from my own height—to move forward without dragging myself through sheer will.
That night, sleep refused to come.
Instead, I reorganized the books stacked neatly in the corner of my room. As I shifted them one by one, wiping dust from their covers, a particular volume caught my attention.
It had no title.
It was the third untitled book among those Sister Jean had given me, but unlike the others, this one radiated age. The pages were neither paper nor parchment. They felt…
different.
I lifted it carefully and ran my fingers along a page.
Hide.
Refined hide.
The craftsmanship was astonishing.
Compared to Earth's paper, it was slightly thicker—but among hides, it was impossibly thin. Each page was no thicker than several folded sheets of paper, smooth and resilient, yet warm to the touch. Though the book contained barely fifty pages, it felt as thick and dense as a full novel from Earth.
Curiosity gnawed at me.
When Sister Jean entered later that evening, I held it up carefully.
"Sister," I asked, choosing my words with care, "what material is this book made from?"
She glanced at it casually, as if I had asked about the weather. "Elastic Cow hide."
I blinked. "Elastic… cow?"
"A Tier Three beast," she replied calmly.
"About three meters tall. only seen in prairie regions. Not aggressive—but extremely hard to catch."
That single sentence explained everything.
Books, in this world, were not merely tools of learning.
They were luxuries.
The realization hit me with unexpected force.
When I hesitantly asked about the total cost of all the books she had given me, her response nearly stopped my heart.
"Each one costs around three to five low-grade mana crystals," she said casually.
"Altogether? Maybe three medium-grade crystals."
She said it as though she were talking about spare change.
Jane, who happened to be nearby, added with a shrug, "Some books sell cheaply because no one understands their contents, or the knowledge inside is considered basic. People sell them fast just to break even."
I stared at her, speechless.
In this tribe, three low-grade mana crystals were a person's monthly living allowance. One medium-grade crystal was worth a hundred low-grade ones. Three medium-grade crystals could feed an entire hundred people for a month.
"Hiss…" I muttered faintly. "It really must be wonderful to be rich."
Sister Jean snorted. "You talk too much."
But I understood.
This wasn't casual generosity.
This was an investment.
And the weight of it settled heavily on my chest.
Through those books, I also came to understand mana crystals—the true currency of power in this world.
Mana crystals formed in regions where mana gathered densely over time, eventually solidifying into veins buried deep beneath the earth. These veins were mined, fought over, bled dry, and defended with lives.
Not all veins were equal.
Decade-old mana veins contained roughly twenty-five thousand medium-grade mana crystals.
Century-old veins were worth hundreds of millions.
Millennial-old veins—true treasures spoken of in whispers—contained tens, even hundreds of billions of medium-grade mana crystals.
Entire civilizations could rise or fall over such wealth.
On the Sacred Island alone, there were only three century-old veins and roughly fifty decade-old veins. They were nowhere near enough to support the entire population of the basin.
That scarcity forced humanity outward.
Into the Chaotic Mountains.
Into the Chaotic Sea.
And because of this imbalance, the control and allocation of mana veins became deeply entwined with power competitions between tribes.
Knowledge, once again, tasted bitter.
That was why the books mattered.
They were not mere collections of words. They were shields against ignorance—against a world that devoured the unprepared without remorse.
Medicine.
Healing.
Potion crafting.
Forging.
enhancement manuals.
Geography.
History.
Economics.
Survival strategies.
Out of the seventy books Sister Jean had gathered for me, only forty bore proper titles.
The rest were miscellaneous—journals, diaries, fragmented research, half-finished manuscripts.
And among them…
That old, untitled book.
Holding it felt different.
Heavier.
As I turned the first page, my breath caught.
A meticulously drawn human body filled the hide—muscles layered beneath skin, organs rendered with chilling accuracy, veins traced with terrifying precision. It rivaled the best anatomical textbooks from Earth.
Page after page followed.
More detail.
Too much detail.
This was not knowledge born from theory.
This was knowledge carved from lives.
A chill crept up my spine. Even on Earth, modern medicine carried dark shadows in its history—but here, such darkness felt closer. More recent. Less buried.
"Are you familiar with this book?" I asked quietly.
Sister Jean took it from my hands and flipped through the pages. Her expression stiffened almost immediately.
"Oh," she said softly. "This one."
She closed it carefully.
"Hundreds of years ago," she began, "there was a black shaman. He kidnapped people—children, adults, the elderly. No one was spared."
I remained silent, my chest tightening.
"One day, he abducted the heir of a Large Tribe," she continued. "That tribe nearly went insane. Notices were posted across all trading cities—offering one million medium-grade mana crystals for information."
My breath caught.
"They traced him to a cave deep within the Chaotic Mountains. With assistance from Forge City and the lord of that region, he was captured."
She met my eyes directly.
"He was a banished practitioner. He used human bodies as materials to study enhancement. One of the greatest taboos in existence. If such a crime is confirmed, not only the individual—but their entire tribe—is exterminated."
Her voice was calm.
Too calm.
"People like that really exist?" I asked quietly.
She shrugged. "Power drives people mad."
I nodded—but inwardly, my thoughts screamed.
So this is the kind of world this is.
A world where curiosity could justify massacre.
Where ambition erased morality.
Where knowledge could be both salvation and damnation.
And where someone like me—a foreign existence—would be dissected without hesitation if my origins were discovered.
I closed the book slowly, my hands steady despite the storm inside me.
And I carved one truth deep into my heart.
No matter what happens—
No matter how strong I become—
I must never let anyone learn where I truly came from.