Chapter 3.17 - White - No Space Left

As much as we wanted to appreciate the designs of the door and the architecture of what's on the other side of the door, we really had to get going fast. Time was off the essence but then again, we were in a timeless space. Why bother doing this fast, right? In any case, it looks like the lock took almost a whole lot of my Infinitum just to unlock. Thank goodness I've been training for the past few months. If it weren't for that, I would totally die just because I had a small Infinitum capacity. I think I should try to increase it later on. When I have the time that is. And space, I need the right space as well.

"Let's go." Mei called us to move in.

It was like a whole different world. Behind the door lies a place where everything was pitch black. It was basically almost like The Dimensional Bag realm where everything was white but here it was all black. In a few seconds, rows of bookshelf started to materialise all around us. As we were about to grab on one of the book, we suddenly heard a weird crackling and squiggly noise.

"What the heck was that?" asked Airi.

"Darn it." Mei bit her lips, "Bookworms."

"Bookworms? But there's only you and White, here. What do you mean?" Airi asked again.

"Not that bookworm." Mei begins to explain, "Literal bookworms. Its not a myth you know. These guys are a bunch of different insects that eats up papers and even leather book. Insects like the paperlouse or booklouse, cloth moth, brown house moth, and even a larval of a bunch of different beetles such as the larder beetle, the black carpet, the death watch and also the furniture beetle."

Airi was surprised, "Okay, that's a lot of species you just said...Let's hope it is not a hassle."

"Unfortunately for that..." Mei thought otherwise, "They come in a bunch. Things will get a little icky if you hate insects."

"Can I go now? I think I should leave now." Airi begins to make his escape.

"You're not going anywhere, Airi." Zone grabbed his shoulder. "We still need to find Mei's book."

"But I hate insects! Let me go!" Airi selflessly waddles around.

Things were heating up for Airi but then Zone whispered to him, "You ain't afraid of no insects, there are just stepping stones toward beating your rival, Rider."

With the help of Zone's amazing lying ability, he convinced Airi to believe that the insects were not to be afraid of. A few seconds later, hundreds upon hundreds of insects appear from the darkness and began to make their way towards us.

"Stop them!" ordered Mei.

Months of practice, I was already ready for this very moment to use my time stopping ability to make this situation a lot easier. As I reached my hand to the sky, I let out my power and stopped time around us. That's what I thought would happen. But in reality, nothing happened at all.

"White. This is a timeless space. Time manipulation won't work. Unless you have the ability to create such a space where time exist then your magic will be useless in this world." explained Mei.

I felt like an idiot and placed my hand all over my face, "I SHOULD HAVE KNOWN THIS EARLIER, DARN IT!"

The bugs continued to make their way towards us until Haz steps in and pulled out two Infinibots from his pocket and threw it to the ground. The two Infinibots transformed into a flamethrower turret and began blasting the bugs with fire. Meanwhile, Airi closes the gap by forcing the flying ones to the ground with his gravitational magic.

"While you guys fight those things, I'll be looking for Mei's book." said Zone as he started to look at the book one by one.

Mei unleashed a bunch of fireball into the air. The fireball then started to rain down like a meteor shower, burning a lot of the insects. Haz continued to throw and transform another two other Infinibots into a flamethrower turret. With four flamethrower turret put into the right position, Haz created a firewall that was able to hold on to these bugs. No computer pun was intended.

"I can't seem to find the book, Mei!" shouted Zone as he continues to search.

""Hold on! Let me think." Mei begins to concentrate and said, "Find the glowing one. I highlighted it for you."

Zone looks around and finally saw the book, "There!" Zone jumped and grabbed the book.

I asked Mei, "When are they stopping?"

"They won't!" replied Mei, "We have to get out of here fast. This always happens every time I open a new door."

Zone reached us and said, "I got the book."

"Run for it!" shouted Mei.

Mei opened up The Dimensional Bag gate and we immediately jumped into it. Mei closes the gate back the instance everyone got out of that realm in time. Thankfully, the bug didn't manage to pass through that. We looked at the sky and notice that the moon was about to reach the sky. It looks like it was almost midnight. We haven't moved a lot of time. But that's when we were wrong.

"Check your phone calendar. Make sure to update it." said Mei.

"It's been 9 days already!" Zone was surprised.

"9th of July already?" Airi was taken aback, "We didn't even stayed that long right?"

Mei explained to us, "This happens when the first person who stepped outside perceives when we will be in the real world. Who was first again?"

"Me?" I said that in a very clumsy way.

"Why the 9th of July, White?" asked Lore.

"I don't know...I guess it just comes to my mind. Especially when its almost midnight."

"You're always the night owl aren't you?" Zone laughs it off. "In any case, we got the book. Let's see what we got.

Space Manipulation

The ability to manipulate the surrounding area and everything and anything between it is called Space Manipulation. It is an ancient magic that only a few wizards were able to learn it. It is actually the type of magic where you can't really simply learn it through means of reading a tome. In fact, most of those spellbooks or tomes about Space Manipulation only gives out a portion of the full ability itself. The full potential of Space Manipulation can only be achieved if they happen to inherit the same blood of a certain family.

The family wasn't known much thanks to their expertise in secrecy. The only clue about this family is that they are either related to a very strong dragon known as The White Dragon. The White Dragon was not even the dragon's real name. But that was the only data we got. Another information about this family was that they are from a lineage filled with chaotic events surrounding them. It is as if a large cyclone just appeared out of nowhere. A really dangerous cyclone. A cyclone.

And that was what written about Space Manipulation. It looks like we didn't get much information about the ability other than the fact that we can't even get the full potential of the ability.

"Is this a first to you, Mei? An ability that can't be learned through means of reading?" asked Lore as he scratches his head.

"This was certainly not a first. I've seen some other ancient magic where you can't simply learn. The only conclusion I can figure out was that it was simply too ancient. Unlike other spells that I have learned, most of them aren't really ancient. They are just forbidden and forgotten by the modern days as they deemed that those ability were useless."

"Is it useless?" Haz wondered.

"Most of what I learned aren't really useless. But some of them are indeed. But they are most certainly either forbidden or forgotten for that reason."

"But still..." I sat down feeling disappointed, "All that for nothing in the end."

Mei looked at me and touched my shoulder, "It's alright, White. We did our best. We can try again later."

"We really don't have much time. We've been late for 6 months already."

"I know that. But things just won't always go to where we want."

"Is that how you say if you ever considered that those inside might be dead?!" I suddenly raised my voice to her.

Zone tried to calm me down, "Jeez, White. Can't you calm down a bit?"

"Calm down?" My emotion were everywhere, "I've been calm down for the past few months and I can't take it anymore. Even you guys started to gave up halfway through. But I kept on finding a way. But in the end...it doesn't even matter..."

Mei was worried, "White..."

I feel like something was starting to appear from my eyes. I bet I started to tear up or something. Useless as always. Even with such an ability like controlling the time, I'm still useless to my team. I can't even help them retrieve the book just now. I will forever be useless...

In a few seconds, the clock on my watch was about to reach midnight. Once it reaches the 12, it signifies a brand new day. But it wasn't just the 10th of July. It was the day where I was awakened to this world 16 years ago. It was the day where I...was born...

This...was when I fully awakened...

TO BE CONTINUED