Kai pushed open the creaking wooden door and stepped into the library.
It wasn't grand by any means. Just a modest building with air thick with the faint musk of old parchment.
Rows of shelves stretched before him, each crammed with thick tomes and thinner worn books.
Dust motes drifted lazily in the light filtering through the tall and narrow windows.
He scratched the back of his head. "Where do I even start…?"
For a moment he simply wandered between the shelves. His eyes scan spines with names written in the script of this world.
Thankfully, the system had already integrated the language into his mind, letting him read fluently as if he had been born here.
That saved him from hours of confusion.
Many of the books seemed to cover basic knowledge with titles like catalogues of magical beasts, geographies of distant lands and territories, collections of cultivation theories, and even manuals of local customs.
The organization was neat and deliberate, like the librarian wanted newcomers to learn the fundamentals first. Maybe it's for the children who want to learn the basics.
Kai was relieved. "At least I don't have to flip through every shelf aimlessly."
He then pulled down a few titles and skimmed their front pages to get the picture of their contents.
One book described beasts that could control lightning wandering around territory known as a Blue Cloud Meadow.
Another book in smaller volume detailed poisonous swamps said to devour careless cultivators whole by its mist alone.
Then he found a tome that explained how there are Qi veins that ran through the land like underground rivers.
Each book made the world feel vaster and stranger for him.
But then his eyes froze on one particular title.
"The Path of the Courier."
Kai's pulse quickened. "Courier…?"
The word felt too pointed and clear, as though it had been waiting for him.
Without hesitation, he pulled the book from the shelf and sat cross-legged on the floor.
The worn cover crackled as he opened it.
The first page was filled with bold words that seemed to shine faintly under the dim light.
"The Couriers are not mere messengers of this land. They are those chosen by fate to carry burdens across worlds, across dangerous territories, and sometimes… across dimensions."
Kai's hands tightened on the edges of the book. His heart hammered in his chest.
"Across dimensions… This is what I'm looking for."
He leaned closer, devouring every line.
The next page unfurled the truth in steady, deliberate script.
It said that The Couriers were chosen by fate, not through noble bloodlines or divine blessings, but by the sheer talent of their bodies.
They were humans born with the talent to cultivate Qi energy directly into their muscles, bones, and senses. They were able to weaving the natural energy into strength in their every step.
Unlike scholars or lords, The Couriers were forged for extraordinary endurance and speed. They are able to move across landscapes that would shatter ordinary men.
It was this talent that allowed them to cross the dangerous territories left behind by The Great Fractures which are rifts torn across the land ten thousand years ago, where twisted Qi corrupted the magical beasts, poisoned rivers, and broke mountains and forest into barren scars.
Kai's eyes narrowed. "The Great Fracture?"
He traced the words with his fingers but the answers he sought weren't here.
His gut told him he couldn't understand his own role as a Courier without first understanding this world's history.
With a reluctant breath, Kai closed the tome and placed it carefully on the wooden floor beside him.
Then he rose, brushing the dust from his hands, and wandered deeper into the rows of shelves again.
His gaze scanned it all until it stopped at a thick leather bound volume. Its spine have the title in faint golden letters.
"The Chronicle of Shattered Skies: A Complete History of Elryam."
Kai pulled it free, feeling the surprising weight of the book, and carried it back to the reading space.
Sitting down again, he openedas the cover amd staet to read.
Kai opened the thick book, the old leather groaning faintly.
The first pages introduced him not to kings or dynasties, but to calamity.
The words carried the weight of countless generations, copied and preserved from the records of ancient cultivators who had survived an event known only as the Great Fracture.
It was described as the most devastating disaster in the history of Elryam. It was an upheaval that tore through the sky, shattered the land, and drowned the world in chaos.
The book explained that the Great Fracture had not only scarred the surface like splitting mountains, swallowing entire empires, poisoning seas, and turning forests into wastelands, but had also rewritten the very laws of cultivation itself.
Before the Great Fracture, cultivators refined Qi in a way that seemed stable and limitless, stepping through realms that had been carefully charted for millennia.
After the Fracture, those paths collapsed.
Techniques that once brought enlightenment now only brought death or not even working at all.
Cultivation manuals turned useless because their principles became incompatible with the new kind of Qi that flooded the world.
Kai's throat tightened. He gulped hard.
"The foundation of an entire civilization changed in a single event?"
He didn't think such a thing was possible.
Yet the book continued without mercy.
It said that no one ever discovered the true cause.
Some claimed the heavens themselves split apart. The others said that immortals tampered with the balance of worlds.
Whatever the truth, the Fracture ended countless lives.
Beasts mutated into horrors that fed on corrupted Qi, rivers turned to poison, and the majority of cultivators—no matter how mighty—perished.
Entire sects, clans, and cities disappeared in a matter of days.
Only a handful survived, described in the text as "those favored by chance."
From those survivors, a few masters arose. By observing the fractured land and meditating on the unstable currents of Qi, they discovered a new framework—a fragile but workable realm system of cultivation adapted to the changed world and made them able to traversed through these world.
And then came the most crucial revelation.
The survivors soon realized the world itself was no longer whole. Travel between safe regions required crossing landscapes warped by the Fracture.
Territories infested with aberrant beasts, poisoned air, and twisted Qi storms beyond comprehension.
The only way for civilizations to endure was through movement.
Thus, the role of the Courier was born.
These cultivators have their bodies strengthened to endure poisonous lands and unnatural distances. They became the veins that carried lifeblood between shattered territories.
They delivered food, medicine, and, artifacts, andknowledge to scattered survivors, slowly reconnecting what had been broken.
The book made it clear that without these Couriers, Elryam would have died long ago, swallowed by the fractured.
Kai leaned closer. His heart pounding with each line.
"So that's why they exist. The Couriers are not just messengers but the ones who kept this world alive after that devastating events."
—