Chapter 4: The Second Life

It was night, but this night was not calm, a fire ravaged a town while the inhabitants burned to death. Screams and the smell of burned meat and ashes filled the air into a sickening environment. It was at this moment that our favorite not-so-lazy-anymore soul awakened again startled and confused.

The first thing he did was to check his mental palace, he did this because he was afraid that he would not be able to bring it with him as he was only a parasite-like soul and a mental palace was located in the mind, and one could have thought that the mind resided on the brain not the soul. He was happy to find that his mental palace was intact and functioning perfectly, now perhaps he would think of it as a soul memory palace.

Going out of his thoughts, he found himself attached to a baby that was being hold by a kid with red-brownish hair. This child had several serious burns on him, but still hold the baby on his arms while crying, after a while, perhaps it seemed like an eternity for the kid, a middle-aged man arrived near the kids and looked at them and specially at the kid who refused to let go of the baby despite his serious burns.

He seemed to have come to a decision after some struggle and started a short chant that nether the kid nor our favorite not-so-lazy-anymore soul could understand, but a golden blinding light appeared and entered the kid's body which started to heal at visible rate while making him unconscious. This confused our not-so-lazy-anymore soul and filled him with excitement after realizing that he has come to a world with magic, then after a short moment he remembered that he was only an observer and it was highly probable that his new host would experience a life similar to that of his previous host, after all this was a punishment. He took refuge on his soul memory palace to cry his grievances while his new host had fallen into a deep sleep, perhaps by the magic of the middle-aged man?

As time pa.s.sed our not-so-lazy-anymore soul found that this was the world of Fate Stay Night, and the kid who had carried him during the fire was the main character Emiya. This made him confused as he was close to the main story character and had hope for a better experience on this life, but also made him suspicious that thing would not be as easy as he hoped.

Unsurprisingly, life was not as good as he hoped. At age 5 his host was found to be asthmatic with barely any room for extenuating activities and much to his dismay, he was also found unable to practice the most simple magics that his brother was trying to learn. however his curiosity allowed him to learn how some basic magic spells worked and our not-so-lazy-anymore soul managed to add this basic spells to his soul memory palace. Those spells where the same ones that Emiya would be using during the story arc, reinforment type magic, a.n.a.lysis type magic and proyection type magic.

Although our not-so-lazy-anymore soul was quite happy to try this spells as a form of visualization exercise he found that this was not possible at all, as he did not have contact with the world and could not use mana he failed to understand how this spells worked, so he ended up sulking and feeling aggrieved. Once again he cursed whoever it was who put him through this cruel punishment, another fantastic world with infinite possibilities and he may not be able to even be a spectator. How could an asthmatic kid would manage to follow his elder brother to the battle of Sacred Grail? Would he even be able to get a glimpse of the beautiful Rider servant? How was it that his punishment had to be cruel?!

During the next five years life was uneventful for his sickly host, except for a period of sadness and depression over the death of their adoptive father and a slow but quiet school life, which was kind of torture for our not-so-lazy-anymore soul and forced him to take refuge on his soul memory palace practicing his visualization exercises with the swordmans.h.i.+p he learned on this previous life to avoid the despair he was feeling, but he could not help to keep reviewing his memory of Fate Stay Night only to sigh with frustration and sadness every time the beautiful Raider servant made an appearance and cursing again against the one who sentenced him to this cruel punishment, causing a certain judge of the afterlife who was on a dark office to smile with glee whenever he felt the curses of our favorite not-so-lazy-anymore soul.

As fate should have it, nothing last forever and our not-so-lazy-anymore soul found himself released from his punishment one night when his sickly host went to look for his brother who was late, surely doing work for others at school for been too nice and not been able to say "no". His end came in the form of a spear that pierced his hearth from behind without warning and then again everything became dark, not fast enough to prevent our not-so-lazy-anymore soul to release a sigh on how he was not even allowed to see anything of the Holy Grail battle... not even a little glimpse of the beautiful Rider servant! How could fate be so cruel?!

Chapter 5: New Life

In a quiet morning a slightly chilly weather spreaded on an island, this was a special day, well only perhaps to our well-known now-eager-slightly-lazy soul. He finally awaken for the third time since his punishment began and he felt pain, he felt his body responding to it and heard his own crying. He was crying with happiness as he has a body of his own again and the cries sounded human, he was full of hope... this time things will go different! he was still lazy, but he was motivated or perhaps just afraid of receiving punishment again...

So he made his resolution at that moment, he was still lazy. Yes, it is hard to change something that is branded on your very soul, but this time he would work hard to be able to enjoy life. Hopefully, he was born again in one of those fantastic worlds, he may not be one of the main characters, surely not the son of fate. But this time he would get the best out of what he had and perhaps he might even get lucky and get himself a beautiful wife, yes... that was very important. Although at this moment, our now-eager- slightly-lazy soul, who didn't have a name yet, did not know if he was a boy, but he was hopeful. After that heavy punishment life could not be that cruel, right?

Well now he had a another problem, he could hear people talking but he could not understand what they were saying. Perhaps he was now completely free from that unknown and cruel ent.i.ty who had sent him to the "laziness correction program of the karmic cycle", he did not know if he was happy or resentful but he seemed to be free at last.

Now, he was just a baby and he could not muster any energy to move his arms or open his eyes, he could only cry to express his excitement and finally sleep took over him.

The next day he finally was able to have a look at his mother, she was beautiful young woman with dark waist-long hair, but perhaps the most attractive feature was her red colored eyes. This gave him hope, there was a chance that he really was at one of those fantasy worlds. Her voice was gentle and had a almost musical quality that calmed him and could not help but smile happily every time she sang to him.

His father, or the one he a.s.sumed to be his father, was a tall young man with short blond hair and the same red coloured eyes. He had a gentle yet prideful smile while looking at him.

Yet these impressions took most of his energy and sleep overtook him before he knew anything else.

Being a baby was a strange experience, he was lazy but not shameless... having to depend on others for everything was an embarra.s.sing situation, he did not have memories of the life that send him to his current situation, but he has being conscious for the almost 40 years of his last two lives combined.

He a.s.sumed his own name was Vlad, because his mother always mentioned that word every time she came to him. He liked the name, more specifically he liked having a name. Yes he would no longer be refered as the now-eager-slightly-lazy soul anymore, he could take pride in that and more importantly after 40 years or so... he finally have someone who knew he existed!

After a couple of weeks Vlad decided that it was time to start working a little. There was not much he could do except cry, so he wanted to see what effect his visualization exercises would have on the baby him. But to his surprise, it took a lot of effort just to enter his soul memory palace, when he finally managed to do so and barely check that everything was alright he was immediately exhausted and sleeping before knowing anything else.

He found that his soul was a normal baby soul, and it was difficult to even access his soul memory palace. That was not problem thou, he would train by entering a couple of minutes every day and enjoy the rest of the day lazing as baby should... yes, it was not because he was a lazy soul, a baby should be lazy, right?

After a six months he was finally able to stay for a few minutes within his soul memory palace and practice his visualization exercises, he felt very proud of this. Due to his lazy efforts, efforts non the least, his soul was growing stronger and his understanding and learning ability improved. Although he was not able to make coherent words, well not even descent sounds, he was able to understand a few words.

He learned that his mother's name was Thalia and that his father was Regias. He was able to learn that because people has visited them on these few months to congratulate them for the new family member, some of this people had dark, purple, blond and even silver hair, all with caucasian features and then again, all of them had red-colored eyes. This intrigued him to no end, in what world was he reincarnated? Was it a world that he have read about? Curiosity was getting the best of him, but he could not even say "Mama" much less have a conversation to satisfy his curiosity. Perhaps his greatest gain during this time was learning that he was a boy, he had no memory of ever been this happy...

Chapter 6: 5 Years

After 5 years, Vlad had obtained of some amazing achievements, like his first word when he was 1.5 years old and his first step when he was 2 years old. He was not lazy, no! It's just that he could not help to spend time on his soul memory palace trying to find if he had any information on this new world. It may not had helped that he kept watching every anime and every novel from beginning to end before moving to next one... still, feeling a little guilty, he make a point to practice the sword as visualization exercise for 10 minutes every day.

Perhaps it was because he had obtained his freedom, but he was starting to forget his last 3 lives. But that was not very important, as he had recorded the important things on his soul memory palace and he could review what he needed without much trouble, he felt like he had a little victory over that cruel ent.i.ty that he could not remember... And the feeling of watching his favorite shows as if it was the first time was exciting.

After finally mastering some control on his language skills at age 3.5 he found that his mother worked as a clerk at the local library and that she had great love for books. It was not difficult to get her help into learning reading and writing. Still he only had access to children books, and he did feel a little shame to find that he enjoyed spending time on them... it was necessary to master his reading skills before asking for more educational or practical books, yes! That was the reason...

During this time, he also found that his father was a proud member of something called "The Central Knights". That ringed a bell on his mind, but he could not put a finger on where he had heard that name.

Now that he had reached the great realm of a 5-year-old, he was able to explore his house when his parents were at work. It was a small villa with 2 bedrooms, a small library, a small training room and the usual facilities as kitchen, bathroom and cleaning room. He found that there was not electricity (they mostly depended on candles for light), but they have access to running water and drains. The goals of his exploration raids were the library and the training room, the library was not very difficult to enter but he could not find a way into the training room... perhaps there were weapons in there and his access was prevented, as one would expect from his caring parents.

On the library he found many books, but most of them were novels... not that he was disappointed by that, he was actually excited thinking that he may add new volumes to his collection. But he needed to focus on the practical books to learn more about this world.

He found a few books that picked his interest, like "A Brief History of Lukedonia" and what looked like a couple of family manuals (hand written notes), "Mind Induction and Hypnosis" and "Basic Sword Art". He felt that he was close to unveil the secrets of this new world! but he could not remember why these books felt like they should be familiar to him. He spent a few moments recording this 3 books into his soul memory palace for future calm reading and to avoid the trouble of being found by his parents doing forbidden activities for a great 5-year-old like himself.

Now, he was very excited to find that he did not need to read the book in order to add a record to his soul memory palace. All he had to do was to imagine each page as a picture and added together to form a whole volume. He had no idea of what the book was about and he did not gain any knowledge by doing this, but he was able to read the image of the page in his soul memory palace as he would if he was holding the physical book from the library. It will take time to read the books later, but he was very excited by this unexpected skill... who would have thought that his first ever achievement after he started that terrible punishment, that he could hardly remember anymore, would be this useful. Yes, being lazy was nice and comfy but doing some hard work from time to time could be very useful, right?

Now, he was not sure if he would be sent to school any time soon. He had not seen any other child during this 5 years, it was confusing... all adults seemed happy to see him and they were kind and patient to him, why don't they have children if the like them so much? He perhaps should put more of his time to read "A Brief history of Lukedonia" instead of watching his beloved shows...

Another thing that confused him was that he seamed to be living on a Middle Age culture, in terms of technology at least, but there was no garbage, bad smells, sickness or beggars like he expected from the shows he had watched with similar time settings. It was official, he needs to read that boring book... those Harry Potter books would have to wait for a while, life was cruel for a 5-year-old... Vlad could not help but sigh.

Chapter 7: Lukedonia

For the next 3 months, Vlad spent most of his free time perusing the history book and finally get himself a good idea of the world were he was living...

There were 3 main races on this world: humans, werewolves and n.o.bles.

Humans were no different for what his animes and novels portrayed as a normal human, so he had no much surprise in that regard, but he confirmed that they were still living in a medieval time much more akin to what he has expected for his time reading novels, much like "Game of Thrones" but without the fantasy setting. This history book was written by a n.o.ble, so it depicted humans as a race that hungers for power and that would do anything to get it, even sacrificing their own kin.

Werewolves were very different from what he had expected, they were divided in the warrior cla.s.s and normal werewolves. This normal werewolves were indeed more powerful that a human and they had a longer life, but a 2-3 well trained human team could kill them without much trouble or even danger. The warriors of the werewolf clan were powerful ent.i.ties that were at the top of the world in terms of combat prowess, masters of close combat with high healing qualities comparable to that of "wolverine" and the most powerful of them could even reach a "deathpool" level (yes, there were a few movies on his soul memory palace... most of them of superheroes and fantasy).

The n.o.bles, were divided into "purebloods" and normal n.o.bles. Normal n.o.bles were similar to humans with very long lives and without blood energy before something called "the come of age ceremony". Purebloods were akin to the warriors of the werewolf clan, they have innate talent for blood energy and mind influence techniques, wich allowed them to train on this arts before the "come of age ceremony". Among the purebloods, the family leaders were the true backbone of the n.o.bles, they have "soul weapons" created by the blood and soul of their ancestors and pa.s.sed by to their heirs making every new generation of family leaders to have more potential and power that their predecessors.

He was aware now that he was normal n.o.ble, he was quite happy to be honest. He would have a very long life in an "utopia", and he might become strong after reaching adulthood.

He also understood more about the country on wich he lived, Lukedonia was a monarchic country ruled by the Lord of n.o.bles, a powerful ent.i.ty who has reached the realm of "blood field", the protector of all n.o.bles and an emba.s.sador of sorts for the peace among races.

The Family Leaders, served the Lord directly and were responsible for the governance and protection of Lukedonia. The book contained an introduction and description of the main traits of the pureblood families, but Vlad did not pay too much attention to this, he was already satisfied and happy with this new life that he would enjoy, of course he would have to work moderately to have a good life.

Who knows? Perhaps it was not that he was lazy... he may not had found an activity that could motivate him to work hard... yes! that was it, he would look for it calmly and training his visualization techniques was enough for the moment.

After all he was still a kid, he was not allowed to the library much less to the training room and now he was sure that there was no schools in Lukedonia, as n.o.bles had long lives they did not have many descendants, he might be the only one in Lukedonia who was below 30 years of age.

A sence of satisfaction and achievement sparked within his soul as he went back to bury himself in that blissful world of anime and novels... it was time to find who opened the chamber of secrets! He was rather exited!

For the following 10 years, Vlad immersed himself in enjoying his collection on his soul memory palace until 3 things that could not be ignored occurred:

First, he has not growing any older at all, he still looked like a 5 years-old child... this was distressing. Vlad was no longer a pure child as he had memorized his entire collection of anime coming to love a few trends like echi and harem, but there would be decades until he could resemble something close to a teen and could possibly enjoy things like that in real life, this was depressing. (A/N: Please consider that these are the ramblings of a 5 year-old child, his soul develops maturity akin to that of his body development and he is failing to even accept the fact that there is no one with an age similar to him to be included in his possible-imaginary harem or echi situations).

Second, his beloved collection has been reviewed at least 2 times and he was getting a little bored. Yes, all those animes, books and the few comics he had at his disposal were already memorized and this was distressing as well, he was still not allowed to freely explore the family library, much less the public library were his mother worked.

And third and most important of all, he finally found a comic strip called "n.o.blesse" on his soul memory palace. He had ignored it before because it was not completed, for some reason he did not read the whole work on that blessed life where anime marked the era. He found that the art was fantastic, the story itself was interesting but extremely depressing. Except for the comedy at the beginning of the story, the rest of it was distressing and his records ended by the time the "Union" invaded the werewolf territory.

He did not know what would happened after that, but he was scared... at some point Lukedonia will be invaded by pureblood traidors and warriors of the werewolf clan. Many people would die, especially the Central Knights! His father was a member of the Central Knights! He had wanted to join the Central Knights and have a slow happy life, but now his plans needed to change. He did not even know at which point of the story he was! it should certainly be before the plot started, but how much time does he had? Now he had a sence of urgency... and that was new, it was scary.

Chapter 8: Swords

After this wakeup call and new-found determination, Vlad made a mental summary of the things he knew and what he tought were his advantages...

What he tought that he needed to first consider his family background. He was the son of Regias and Thalia Du Lac, they have chosen "Du Lac" as their family name because they had traveled to France a 150 years ago for their honeymoon and they spent a few weeks living on a small village near a beautiful lake. He tough that their family name had a cool sound to it, but it was clear that they lacked suport from the pureblood families. Although his parents did not like to approach this topic, he tough that they might be distantly related to one of the pureblood traitors.

Second, he could start training the sword. He had practiced his visualization exercises close to an hour every day for 15 years and getting a couple of wooden toy swords would not be too difficult.

He could also start reviewing the family notes on mental control and hypnosis. He believed that his visualization exercises had an effect to strengthen his soul and perhaps this could be a good way to find out as this techniques may not depend on the use of blood energy.

He would have to wait for at least 5 to 10 years before he was allowed to explore the libraries available to him and start learning useful and practical things. But perhaps the most important thing to do before his 50 year-old birthday would be to sneak on the forbidden grounds to look for anything useful that Frankenstein may had left behind, perhaps a diary. If he was lucky this may provide a guide on the topics he need to study for the future. Perhaps he would be able to find a way to "purify" his blood and he was full of curiosity towards the "Dark Spear", it was a scary weapon and he was not brave enough to wield it... much less to create one, but it may help him find some inspiration as it was the closest thing to a soul weapon.

Regarding the blood energy that would awaken later on, he figured it will be weak and it may take hundreds of years to prove useful at all. He has some hopes thou, perhaps those spells he had recorded on his soul memory palace would be useful as reference... (A/N: From his short time on Fate Stay Night). He needed to find more information on magic, he was sure that magic should exist in this world. Although humanity had and would continue to develop the path of technology.

After mumbling his way through all this ideas, he found that it was still early ran towards his parents that were enjoying tea while reading on the library.

"Dad, I need your help!" he said while smiling and making every effort to make his best puppy eyes. He though it was a succesful attempt as both stopped their quiet reading to look at him while smiling. "And what is it that you need Vlad". Smiling with sparkling eyes, Vlad continued "Dad, I want to be a powerful member of the Central Nights and explore the garden on the back of the house". Then he added distressed, "but I have no weapons. I am not willing to stop my great aventure for the glory of the Central Knights" Then with a hopeful expression and sparkling eyes, he added "so Dad, can you help me?". At this point both Thalia and Regias were sure that their kid was playing and he wanted toys, so he added playfuly. "Now, we can not have that... what kind of weapons does our brave knight need?".

Vlad, jumping with excitement, said. "Dad, I want two short swords! Please help me". Regias smiled and went with his son to make 2 short wooden swords. It took him nearly 2 hours while the kid jumped around with excitement. They were a pair of beautiful twin swords, perfect for a child. Vlad was very happy doing goofy movements with his new toys, he was truly delighted.

After completing his half-acting half-sincere endeveours, he went to play on the garden. He actually forgot his determination to become stronger, he was now a proud member of the Central Knights exploring the dangerous and unknown terrains of the back garden, fighting evil werewolves and scary humans...

Chapter 9: Training and Education

After playing himself to exhaustion, Vlad felt a little guilty for forgetting his important training, but it was a little too late on the day and nothing could be done by now. At dinner time, he asked his mother if he would be allowed to enter the library, but her answer was that he should enjoy his freedom now and that his education will begin after his 20 year-old birthday, at that time he would be missing his playing time.

So for the next 5 years, Vlad spent his time exploring the garden for the glory of the Central Knights and enjoying the care of his parents. Still he made a point to dedicate time to his training, 1 hour of sword play and half an hour of visualization exercises after that. This was important because he had practiced the sword on his soul memory palace for 15 years, but practicing the same moves in the garden proved to be quite different. It took him nearly 2 years to just master the basic moves and 3 more years to engrave them into his instincts.

He found that he needed to practice every day because even if his body was growing very slowly, he needed to adapt to the changes and even if he felt that he was not very talented on the ways of the sword, practice makes master. He recognized that the sword art he was practicing may have been obtained from a world similar to the fantastic anime called "One Piece", but he also knew that he may not be able to reach the realm of cutting steel even he practiced for 200 years. Perhaps the essence of the world was not compatible to the sword realms mentioned on One Piece, or his talent has lacking, but he was inclined to believe the first possibility and decided to merge the basic sword art from his family notes. He hoped to get the best of the two arts to create his own sword art.

He also dedicated half an hour, before sleeping, to practice mind control and hypnosis as described by the family notes. He had some progress and once he managed to enchant a crow for a couple of seconds, but he had too many questions and the answers would have to wait till his father to consider him old enough to practice this art.

Finally, his 20 year-old birthday arrived and he still looked like a child, perhaps 6 years-old? By this time he had a notable improvement in coordination, agility and flexibility due to his sword training. He also noticed that his memorizing and processing abilities improved drastically, he a.s.sumed that this was the effect of his visualization exercises and felt that he was on the right path. Though he have not been able to figure out in what year he lived as there were not newspapers around and he was afraid to ask questions that may him look suspicious, but he figured he would find out soon as his education begins.

He though his mother would be the one to teach him, but this activity was bestowed upon an old kind looking woman named Andromeda, they would met every day at the family library. She had gray hair and looked like a patient grandmother.

The first time they met, he was quite surprised, "Du Lac Alexandre Vlad, I will be responsible to help you learn literature, mathematics and etiquette. You may address me as lady Andromeda". Now Vlad, was surprised because he did not know he had a second name and the order in what his names were mentioned was confusing... he tought he may had put too much effort in training and neglected common sense, he would have to fix that or people will think that he may be r.e.t.a.r.ded, and how was he supposed to get a beautiful wife if that were to happen?

After a short moment, Vlad regained his senses and said while smiling "Well met lady Andromeda, I'm looking forward to your teachings". In this way, another 6 hours of his day were taked from his patrolling as a proud member of the Central Knights, life was difficult the 20 year-old him.

Thanks to his early training he could memorize everything quickly and did not feel bored on the lessons, lady Andromeda was very happy with this smart child. Although she mas rather surprised, during etiquette cla.s.s, when Vlad asked in dismay why people could only have 1 wife and looked as if his dreams were being destroyed at that moment. She took it as child non-sence and explain to him the ways of society and the importance of family values.

Vlad felt betrayed, his beloved animes had lied to him... there would not be a harem for him in this life, he was starting to believed that cute girls with cat ears may not exist! He tought, if there are werewolves out there, there should also be a tribe of cat people, right?

He was like a soulless puppet when he went for dinner that night, his parents were worried but he was afraid to tell them of his now denied fantasies. So to avoid the heavy mood he said that he had tough that while learning literature he would get to enjoy reading books with pictures, but all he was allowed to read were thick books with nothing but small letters. "Mother, the books on the library where you work are like that as well?" this caused them to laugh at the antics of their child and forget their worries. Vlad clearly forgot about his fears been considered r.e.t.a.r.ded by others...

Chapter 10: The Library

Time pa.s.s quickly, even for those who humans might think were immortals. Vlad have spent another 5 years learning with lady Andromeda and finally got the opportunity to copy every single book on the family library. Perhaps this was the reason that he has enjoyed this last 5 years as his collection of novels increased just enough to keep him busy. They were not as impressive as the anime or novels on his main collection, but they were entertaining and, and unknown to him, provided a clear picture of the life and society of Lukedonia.

He did not forget his training and even manage to keep it despite having new reading material. Having no other choise his time as proud member of the Central Nights was drastically shortened, but for the glory of the Central Nights he still keep his exploration duties and was happy to report to his old kind neighbors that their gardens were free of werewolves and greedy humans. This old folks smiled and rewarded him hot chocolate from time to time.

A teary lady Andromeda informed him that he had completed his basic education and that he would had to start the next stage of his studies. The custom was that every child would choose materials to study and he will be provided with training and guidance by tutor, there was a point of freedom on it and he liked it a lot. Now he would be allowed to explore the library and even receive training from his father on the sword and the art of mental control and hypnosis on wich he had so many questions.

On the sword, his father was happy to comply... but he would only teach him once a week and after a few months they would have mock battles. This will prove to be extremely useful as Vlad's battle experience was non-existant, his soul memory palace could not help him in this regard. But he had the feeling that after having experience several mock battles he may be able to add a battle simulation to his visualization exercises. On the topic of mental control and hypnosis, his father though that it was too early for him and this training was put on hold for a few years.

Now, he was very excited to explore the library, but he resisted his curiosity and started to plan what topics he need to focus. Finding how long he had before the plot started was his main urgency, so he will look for history of the outside-world and Lukedonia. He did not know if he would be lucky enough to find Frankenstein' notes, but he would need biology, anatomy, chemistry and alchemy to at least understand his work, but before that he would have to make research in runes to find his way into the "forbiden land" pa.s.s the restrictions.

At this point he was rather resigned that his harem was nearly impossible, but having a look at psychology and anthropology will not hurt, at least as long as he did not explain to anyone on why he was reading such subjects...

Well, after loosing himself on his delusions, Vlad determined that he would focus on history and anatomy as his main public topics. His immediate private research would be runes, leaving chemistry, biology and alchemy for future study and his relaxing lectures would be psychology and anthropology along with a novel from time to time, yes his harem-dreams were important but he still needed some distractions along with his explorations for the sake of the glory of the central Central Knights.

He had decided, but instead of informing his parents, he could not help to run to the library to satisfy his curiosity. The library was much bigger than he had imagined, the building itself was similar to a gothic church but there were almost no rooms inside, most of the s.p.a.ce was full bookcases which contained leather books, paper books and even some scrolls. It was a trouve of trea.s.sure and he was fascinated. There was a solemn atmosphere in the place...

He was intercepted by a library clerk almost immediately and forced to come out of his fantasy. Trying to look and sound older and responsible, Vlad addressed the old man. "Good morning sir, my name is Du Lac Alexandre Vlad and I will be starting my studies soon. I could not help to come and have a view of the place as I have wanted to visit for years". The old man smiled and looked at him with curiosity, "Yes, we were informed that a young one will be coming to study one of these days. However, before you can start exploring the library, you need to learn the rules and the ways to treat the books and the scrolls. Come with me, this may take a few hours, but since you seem to be eager to start reading, we might as well go over with it, should we?

Thus, our young explorer was captured and forced to learn how to take care of books and scrolls for an entire day. He understood that there will be people looking after him for a time until they were satisfied and certain that he would not damage anything in there. So his private studies would have to wait for a while. He was also informed that his tutor would be this very old man who introduced himself as Bernard, it did not matter which topics he chooses as it was just beginning his self-education and it would not be much trouble to help him.