Chapter 63 - 63. Library
"Well I think it was weird and I am sticking to it." Art refused to change his mind on the test that coach Winters had pulled on them in the combat course.
The three were ready to switch gears and jump in to their philosophy class. Art had even finished his homework on time to hand in. "Why is the door locked?' Art pushed with all his weight but the door didn't budge at all.
"Look up and read the sign." Jane shook her head at Art trying to push the door with all his might.
"Oh...We are having class in the library today…" He looked away a bit sheepish. Asher and Jane just shook their headed and continued walking towards the school library.
There used to be a fairly decent sized library from what Asher could remember. Bit now he could recall that there were many more shelves and a second floor to the library. As the three stepped through the doorway Asher was hit by the full effect.
The sights of towers shelved double the size of what he had previously remembered was enough to silence anything he would have said. The rows of tables and computers was enough to call this a first class place to study. Even a sniff of the air brought the calming smell of ink on pages.
The shelves were sorted by genre like a normal library would, however here there were genres that solely focused on super powers and the development of evolutionary sciences. These were all undiscovered treasured to Asher who had never read any in this world or his previous. They held unknown potential that brought an idea to him.
"Hey, why aren't we reading that section on discovered super powers?" He pointed to one of the largest shelves. Some books having multiple volumes for every notable holder of such super power. "If we ever need to know about a power we can just look it up on the internet. The books are more or less copied exactly." Art shrugged not seeing the point of reading something he could just look up online if he wanted. However Jane looked like she was seriously thinking on it.
"We would need a lot of time to read all of those. Like Art said, It would be more efficient to look them up using our phones." She could not fault the logic that it would save the time to use one of the most advanced tools humanity had created.
"Fine, I would say phones work the best but what if we didn't have access to phones? We could have everything we needed to know about an opponent's super power already in our heads. We wouldn't have to buy time to look stuff up too."
Asher was on a roll thinking on the possibilities of learning ever single possible power and it's drawbacks. "I think that sounds like an essay question. What would you do if the internet suddenly disappeared? How would you function without it? What knowledge would we gain and lose?" The voice of Mr. Richards came out of nowhere behind them.
Jane jumped back and fell in to a fighting stance just off of muscle memory. Art just stumbled forward while Asher was the only one still standing still just turning his head to their philosophy teacher. "Sorry about that, I have been waiting for students to come in and giving them their assignments. I prefer the question you posed though. I will let you three write on what the world may be like if the internet completely disappeared over night. Now go find some books, they are all you would have." Mr. Richards laughed a little then walked away pondering the way of the world without the advancement of the internet.
"Sooo I guess we have a journal entry to write?" Asher spotted an empty table and made a straight path for it. Art pitifully pulled out his notebook not wanting to start in on a another assignment.
"If we can finish this fast we will basically have a study hall. We can work on any homework we want." Jane drew this conclusion which sounded like a great idea to Asher.
"Then get your butt writing Art, we have an entire bookshelf of super powers to study." Without even a second of pause Asher was furiously writing.
"It's your goal to torture me with more and more work, is't it…" Arts whining went ignored by the other two while they both dove in to their work. They had the goal to finish early and nothing was going to stop them.
Some time later Asher had already finished his journal entry page and was browsing through the nearest shelf on super powers. Jane had moved on to the rest of the week's math homework, every problem was answered in a matter of seconds.
Art was busy procrastinating with only three fourths of his journal entry done. He leaned back in his chair looking at what Asher was doing behind him. "How many of those are you going to look through today?"
"As many as possible. Do you know how many powers could be related to luck? Or even to curses, jinxes, fortune, probability manipulation, they never end. I even found one that is written about controlling specific metals. I would tell you where it is but you still have work to do."
Hearing that Asher had found something Art tried to jump up and search for the book himself. Sadly his precarious balancing act was making this impossible. With a loss of breath and a silent face of terror, Art fell back and rolled across the floor with a resounding thud.
Every student in the library turned towards them and looked at the glorious sight of Art on the ground with his chair somehow on top of him. "Dude, you're supposed to be silent in the library so you don't interrupt others while they work…" Asher reprimanded Art with a smug smile on his face while offering a hand to help him up.