He appeared once more in the poorhouse, feeling phantom aches and pains disappear from his body as it was reset to the state that he once enjoyed a few days ago, without his ruined hands, bruised organs and a hundred other error messages flooding in from his broken body. He walked to closest wall and slumped down as he did an inspection of his body. The previous clothes that he had obtained from his brief stint as a police officer, were there, but nearly all of the armor pieces had fallen off leaving it unrecognizable His mana felt a slight bit looser and more free-flowing and an experimental attempt later, he could confirm that he could use his mana defensively. At least to the extent that he wouldn't blow a hand off. It was a manifold improvement over the him of a few subjective days ago.

  "Hali brother, that's some impressive teleportation magic," a familiar voice spoke up and he turned to see a familiar Nevadie, now conspicuously not torn to pieces.

  "Yeah, It's a specialty of mine," Banks said, not moving from his position on the ground. "You practice any magic, Nevadie?"

  "Well I can throw a mean fireball," the Nevadie said chuckling. "Nah, I used to be big into wind magic. Dreamed of soaring the skies in my previous life, but never quite learnt how to do it, before kicking the bucket. This life I just want to eat, sleep and travel the world."

  Banks just nodded. Magic tended to follow a use it or lose it rule. Not casting spells for a whole life wrecked your abilities, even if you had the technical knowledge it wouldn't help you actually cast the spells. If your mana core completely froze over it generally required external assistance in order to get it moving again. The greater the core beforehand, the harder it was to recover. Technically he was similar in that he had long abandoned the practice of his own magic, instead travelling both the past and future in a manner that some would describe as hedonistic.

  "Still I think that teleportation magic is nearly as good as flight," the Nevadie admitted. "I won't ask you if you can teach me, but I will ask you where you learnt it."

  "Can't say," Banks admitted. There was no satisfactory answer that he could give to that question and the Nevadie seemed to accept that answer. For a moment silence fell between the two of them, as he gave very little leads to continue the conversation.

  "So what are you in Pragnosis for?" the Nevadie asked,

  "Just fell off the donkey cart," Banks said. "Do you know if there is a library in this city, by the way?"

  "Think there is one in the better parts of the town," the Nevadie said. "If you head to where the rich folk are you could probably find some sign showing you to the way."

  "Sounds good," Banks stated, starting to pick himself up before he thought better of it and decided to relax for a few moments more. "I'm going to check that out." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a bottle of pills before chugging one down. "Know anyplace that somebody could earn some good money?" he asked.

  "In the mines, maybe," the Nevadie said. "They're always looking for somebody to work there. You could also be a freelance mercenary. Do you have any skills?"

  "A few," he admitted. Unfortunately he just needed money now, and a paycheck at the end of the month wouldn't help when the city wouldn't even last five days. "Do you think you need to pay to get inside the library?"

  "Generally not," the Nevadie said. "Libraries are public services. They might kick you out if they think that you're messing around or damaging the books, or eating in the library."

  "I don't have enough money to eat right now," Banks admitted, patting his stomach. He used to be able to just subsist off of mana, but years of easy living made him not dare to try. If he could barely defend his body with mana, an application so basic it was barely acknowledged as magic. He would like to say that he would probably blow out his stomach trying, but odds were that his control was so poor that he wouldn't even get that close in the attempt. "What's the time by the way?"

  "It's still half past the first hour," the Nevadie said. "Got a meeting."

  "I've got no meeting whatsoever," Banks said as he leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes. He started to snooze, before he changed his mind and lazily started playing with his mana, trying to extend the mana defense to his hands, then his feet, then his arms, before he released it as he reached his limit before trying again. It was sort of soothing, like going back to something you once did every day, realize how bad you are at it, then experience the rapid improvement for a skill that you had already once paid for in the long hours spent originally learning the skill. After about five minutes the Nevadie left, and nobody else came to bother him. He listened as the remaining people of poor means shuffled about getting ready for the day, his unconventional entrance, already overshadowed by the simple need to work in order to live another day, whether that was by begging or taking a menial job or even stealing.

  After about an hour he too rose from his position... is what he would have liked to have said. In all honesty he found himself trapped in the dreaded cycle of just five more minutes. The fact that he was messing around with his mana defense didn't help as his brain kept arguing that he was being productive. That this level of training was helpful and he definitely wasn't procrastinating and wasting his day. Sighing inwardly, he stood up eyeing the now empty house before shaking the dust off of his body and stretching out the kinks of his body. He grimaced as he realized that mana practice didn't come without cost and it felt like some of his muscles were strained, especially the ones in his back and abdomen.

  "That's going to be super unpleasant," he mused as he hobbled out of the building and onto the busy streets. The air was still heavy, the guards increased, a lingering feeling of danger in the air, that every citizen of the city could feel, but was then shoved down as they went on with their day; maybe occasionally snapping out in anger a bit more frequent then usual. He wondered about their reaction if they knew that their beloved emperor was resting beneath their city. Would they attempt to dive down, walk straight into the jaws of the Stunted. The average guard was a walking meal to the Stunted but surely there must be some experienced warriors.

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  He stepped out of the way as a squad of guards ran past and he wondered briefly what happened to his badge in the future. Had some unexpected Stunted been deputized. A short laugh broke from his lips at the absurdity of that future, before he quieted down as some people gave him strange looks. Shaking off those strange looks he strolled down the street, heading towards the more prosperous part of town. Casually examining every signpost and looking for a sign that the library was around. He didn't really want to talk to anybody, he just didn't feel like he had the energy to do so.

  Eventually his efforts were rewarded as the signs foretold a place known only as the Pragnosis Central Library. The signposts got more and more insistent as he travelled further until a palatial building with a large staircase and columns decked out in a sort of pseudo-Golden Empire style, that seemed to be a scourge throughout history.

  "This feels like the sort of stairs you would do a musical number on," he mused to himself, humming something that will be popular in a thousand years. The library was full of treasures and he had so many things to do. He had to research large-scale rituals, browse through the symbols of unknown gods, find some non-god related way to get rid of ghosts and catch up on some reading. Honestly all the other things could wait. He just wanted to go and find a desk, find a nice novel and read until the library locked up and then come back the following day and continue reading. Let the competent people in the city solve their crisis. He believed in the potential for humans to overcome this minor setback.

  Still lying to himself, he walked into the library and just took a few moments watching in satisfaction at the smell of paper and the sight of rows and rows of shelves. Smiling he walked over to the librarian who was engaged in their own reading.

  "Can I help you," the librarian, a tall thin man with a pencil moustache said as he put down a book on 'The Most Dangerous Edible Fish'.

  "Sorry, I'm new in this town and I was wondering where the fiction section is," he said without the slightest look of shame.

  "New, eh," the man said giving him a look up and down. "You can't take books out of the library without a card, and we don't give cards to newcomers."

  "Completely understandable," he said nodding.

  "Fiction is second floor," he said. Just go to the back and up one of the spiral staircases. Library closes just before the ninth hour. Stay to late and we toss you out. If you damage the books we toss you out."

  "Thanks, man," Banks said as he strolled towards the back, passing by books on animals, architecture, history and sciences. The books were relatively haphazard, the decimal system had not been invented, by this time and so he spent a few brief moments just flipping through interesting looking books before placing them back. His casual stroll brought him past a couple of fellow book enthusiasts who gratefully adhered to the rules of the library and didn't speak to him until he came to two spiral staircases on either side of a seating area. He gave a casual look spotting a young glasses girl who was apparently here with his father and a large bald man in a striped jersey that was reading a book on recipe's of the 11th century. Wordlessly he ascended the spiral staircase and sighed as he saw a collection of what he imagined the period appropriate bean bags would be. A brief ten seconds and he was able to find a charming book about a young man and a dog and a journey of adventure and he found himself engrossed in the tale of growing up, self-discovery and exploration.

  Four hours later it hit midday and he felt a brief pang of hunger before he ignored it. Worst comes to the worst he would just kill himself and reset the loop, but right now he wasn't even one percent of the way to starvation. That horrifying feeling of gleefully scarfing down grass, bark, pinecones, anything just to fill your stomach in the vain hope of reducing the pain by one millimeter was not one that he would ever tolerate again. Still there was no reason that he couldn't take a walk around at least, maybe there would be something interesting in the non-fiction section as well. Maybe, in this place before the internet the non-fiction section may still have a use.

  He stretched out his limbs and giving them a brief once over with his mana for defense, before trying and failing the full body exercise one more time. He practically slid down the ladder, before frowning as he saw that young glasses girl and the older man engaging in a 'discussion', that was more than a few decibels to high. Frowning, he strode up to them, ignoring his normal instincts to avoid unnecessary conversation.

  "Would you keep it the fuck down," he whispered harshly as he approached disrupting their conversation. "This is a fucking library."

  "How dare you yell at the young mistress of the Mondue family," the man who was looking more like a butler yelled. "If you have a death wish then I will indulge you." His mana flared revealing a level beyond any of the normal guards of the city, maybe even higher than one of the Golden Guard. It was a naked attempt to intimidate him, but instead it just made his temper flare, his normally placid temper having been repeatedly provoked over the last few subjective days.

  "If you are so eager to jump to death, then I will let you die, quietly," he emphasized his own mana flaring, his effective level much lower than the butler. Without a weapon it would be hard, almost as hard as fighting a Perfectly Possessed Corpse. He raised his fists, gathering mana...

  "Albert enough," the young woman said. "This is a library after all and we are being rude." After a few moment's the force of the man withdrew. "I apologize," the young woman said, lowering his head a fraction. "We are all just very on edge at this moment."

  "Apology accepted," he said after a while. He still wasn't happy, but pushing further would just make him the asshole. He turned away, leaving his back open as if daring the man to sucker punch it, a breach of trust that would immediately be undone and result in a further fight, but it seemed as if this situation was well and truly defused.

  "Can you wait a moment," the young woman said and he paused, counting to three, slowly pushing down the anger letting it diffuse within his body.

  "What do you want?" he asked turning his head, his voice level, his emotions back to normal.

  "Have you ever heard of somebody vomiting orange and black fluid," the young woman said, with a sense of unhidden desperation. Those were some weird colors. Orange didn't really speak to a natural case of food poisoning. There were only two possible things that it could be to his knowledge.

  "Tell me have they eaten an uncooked tiger recently?" he asked picking the most likely option first.

  "An uncooked tiger," the young woman repeated. "No she...they are vegetarian. We don't even have any tigers in this part of the continent."

  "Oh, then is the discharge freezing cold?" he asked casually, raising an eyebrow as a look of shock, then excitement seemed to come over the woman.

  "Yes, it is," she said. "Do you know what it is?"

  "Something impossible," he said, shaking his head as he tried thinking, through the circumstances, the environment. Something wasn't adding up, which meant somebody had something very fucky in this city.

  "Please tell me, sir," the woman said her voice somewhat more respectful. "The Mondue family can reward you for your help." He held out for a moment before he sighed inwardly. Curse his soft heart.

  "Buy me lunch and I'll help you," he said, cursing the reduction in his leisure time, even as he reveled in the possibility of a good hot meal.