After six hours spent poring over the mana tome, Ethan's mind felt like it had been wrung out and hung to dry in a windstorm. Even the act of blinking started to feel like a conscious decision, and the shimmering words on the pages had begun to blur into one another. He was super tired.
Reluctantly, he closed the book and exhaled. "I'll be back," he muttered to it. Then, he walked back to the librarian and returned the book. He was about to head out of the library when he suddenly thought of something and asked the librarian.
"Do you have a map of this academy?"
"Of course", the woman responded with a sly smile. She took out a scroll from under the counter and handed it to him. "That would be 100 gold coins."
Ethan froze mid-reach, his fingers hovering just above the scroll like it was rigged to explode. "You're charging for a map?" he asked, voice dry with disbelief.
