Chapter 62 An Unfair Competition

The door behind Xavier and Eulene closed, and disappeared.

The new sight caused Eulene to gasp.

The hall was the biggest room she had witnessed yet in the gallery. It was so big that it did not make any sense for it to fit into the exterior she had seen.

The floor was plain marble. The surface reflected hundreds of lit chandeliers hanging from above. But these items were only the background, compared to the hundreds of tall shelves lining across the entire hall.

Each of these shelves were filled with hundreds of books—big and small, worn out and new. The woody and inky smell of books permeated through the air.

Even Eulene had been in libraries before. Her sect had one of the largest collections of martial art techniques and cultivation techniques in her entire world. Still, it fell short of the grand storage of books she was in.

"?" Eulene curbed her astonishment and asked Xavier.

"Let's find out." Xavier stepped forward to the closest shelf and picked a random book.

Nothing happened. Nevertheless, he opened the book and skimmed through it—constantly flipping the book until he reached the final page. Finally, he closed the book.

Suddenly, a question appeared in his mind.

'What is the 67th word on the 103rd page of the book?'

It was not any voice, or visible words that manifested in his mind. It was akin to that random thought one would unnecessarily get while lazing around.

Xavier, out of curiosity, opened the book again. However, there were no words. All the paragraphs, sentences, words, letters disappeared. It was blank, devoid of a single drop of ink. Only the cover page remained like before.

But Xavier was not disgruntled.

"Helios," he voiced out.

No sooner had he said the word than the now wordless book on his hand lit up brightly before breaking up into hundreds of small butterflies and scattering everywhere.

The red smile on his mask grew.

He turned to Eulene. "We just have to memorise all the books in this room."

Eulene opened her mouth wide agape behind her silver mask. She scanned the hall again. The room appeared bigger than before, the number of shelves—higher, and the height of shelves—taller.

Just to make sure, she detected a very small book—not more than 10 pages long—and skimmed through it. Sure enough, a question appeared in her mind after she closed the book.

'What is the 12th word in the 7th page of the book?'

"Way," she subconsciously answered.

The bastard was right!

She had believed that just like the prior tests, she would breeze through everything and kill that son of a bitch that was hiding underneath the gallery.

But the test in this hall—it was a real challenge. It was nothing impossible. Her memory was unparalleled, capable of memorising anything after one look. But here was the problem, she had to take a look. And even skimming through all the pages of those thousands of books needed hours, if not days of reading sessions.

Flutter.

The flight of butterflies woke her up from her stupor. She just noticed two books brightening up and disintegrating into butterflies at once from Xavier's hand.

Xavier did not waste any time and took the next two books in both of his hands. He jerked the books, causing only the front covers to open and close.

"Academy. Mind," Xavier muttered out two words. And once again, the books turned into butterflies and disappeared.

The bastard cleared two books in one go, without even reading them? What cheats were he using?

She stepped forward to ask him herself, but suddenly—she got the answer. She remembered what he had once said before.

He had memorised thousands of books before—to every page and word of the book.

He was just using his prior knowledge to answer the questions! That crazy bastard!

In a second, Xavier cleared two other books. At this pace, the whole library could be cleared in less than an hour!

Eulene cracked her knuckles, fingers and neck. She could not just sit still when the crazed bastard was working that her, her who wouldn't let her.

She took another book from her side of the shelf and began to skim through, after 10 seconds of flipping through pages while focusing everything on the letters, she cleared another book.

After another 10 seconds, she took cleared another book. She turned to Xavier. He had cleaned half the shelf!

No! She was too far behind. She began to contemplate. There must be some way to increase her reading speed.

An idea struck her mind. She took another book. Instead of flipping through the pages, she seeped in her spiritual sense through the openings. A scan of the book appeared in her mind. After opening and closing the book cover, the question appeared in her mind which she answered after checking out the mental scan in her picture.

She was able to reduce the whole process to two seconds. It took a bit of her mental energy, but it was worth it.

However, she was not done experimenting. Next, she did the same trick twice with two books on her hands. She succeeded. Two seconds for two books!

But it was still not enough. The bastard was capable of clearing two books in less than a second, and apparently, he was getting faster and faster every second as he got into the zone.

Eulene needed to step up the game. She did not mind losing to Xavier since he had the unfair advantage, but she could not let the difference be too high.

Fortunately, Eulene had discovered something. The books in the shelves were arranged by category. The books she just read belonged to that of architecture—a field completely new to her.

It was not going to cut it.

Eulene took in a deep breath and spread her spiritual sense throughout the room. The hall might be big, but it was still in her range.

And in a second, she discovered the area that stored the books of the subject she excelled at.

A smile appeared behind her silver mask as she flashed to that zone.

The zone of Philosophy.