Step by step, I walked closer towards the last place where I saw the intruder, instantly switching from scanning the surrounding with my own eyes to nothing else but my energy vision. 

Even though it wasn"t my first nor second time of using it, no matter how many times the change to my vision happened, I felt as if the entire world suddenly started making a real sense, contrary to what I could derive with my own eyes.

In an instant, the entire library lit up in a plethora of colours. Not only allowing me to instantly locate the s.h.i.+vering body of the rat that I was looking for but also realise that some o the scrolls spread out randomly across the entire central hall had a s.h.i.+ne on their own!

Rather than divulging my focus to this discovery, I moved to the direction opposite to where surviving continental folk was hiding. If I were to approach the rat directly, even if I could prevent him or her from causing a lot of damage to the insanely precious scrolls and manuals around him, it went without saying that my precision and speed had their limits.

Never corner your opponents. Only when they have nothing to lose, will they genuinely use up all their talent, potential and energy to break off from the encirclement!

Only when I moved nearly to the other end of the entire hall, did I halt my steps and shouted.

"Come out, come out, wherever you are!"

Almost singing those words with the well-known tune of a childish play, I started moving in random directions while keeping in mind to stay in overall the fixed distance from the hiding person. 

"How about this. As long as you answer all my questions, I won"t kill you like all your friends, masters and acquaintances that resided at the top of the mountain. Deal?"

With how vastly different the cultivation method of the other party was from everything that I ever trained in my life so far, I didn"t dare to risk anything that I would be sure to work on the locals or the first wave of refugees from the continent. For all I knew, those aura constructs that this hiding rat fol used could bear some resemblance to entropy, turning all my attempts to do something sneaky futile, alerting the lucky survivor instead.

Yet despite my best attempts, there was no reaction to my words!

"Listen. I know where you are, it"s just that I spent too much effort to be able to reach this place. I don"t want to risk you destroying some of the manuals in the stupid attempts to survive my attack, so I

m offering you something that your folk couldn"t even ask for, mercy. After all, it was their fault they put me in a situation where the violence was the only possible solution. The question is, are you going to repeat their mistake?"

This time, I could see that my words finally lead to any reaction from the other party. Even if this silent adversary remained hidden, I could see that the shape of his energy moved a little, without any other changes to its flow or intensity.

"What I want from you, is to tell me everything that you know about the continent, its customs, the powers that exist there, its history and ultimately, in what order are the books placed in this archive here? Even my patience has its limits, so I don"t want to waste several weeks going through all the scrolls only to learn that half of this library is dedicated to useless records!"

Only after saying those phrases could I finally see the human-shaped energy hiding behind a stone shelf filled with some old scrolls stand up and reveal itself to my normal vision. Since the other party made its choice, I turned my energy vision down and moved closer in order to make sure this d.a.m.ned rat wouldn"t try any other tricks.

After all, even if I decided to go easy on him or her, it didn"t change the fact that he started the entire situation with an attack on his own!

"You promised you won"t hurt me!"

As soon as the robbed person with their head wholly hidden in the shadow of robe"s hood stood up and saw how I didn"t bother to approach slowly but was walking directly towards their place, this unfortunate disciple from the continent couldn"t help but back off while protesting in a weak voice.

"And why should I..."

Considering how the very first act of this person endangered the precious scrolls of this library, I wouldn"t mind keeping them tense for a little moment. Still, before the situation reached the point where my adversary would turn desperate, I finished my sentence.

"... will hurt you? Show your face and your hands, then tell me what I want to know."

Stopping at just the right distance to pressure the person in front of me but not make them desperate, I waited for their action. With no other choice than to follow my words, this little rat reached with its hands towards the hood, but just when I thought that everything would go smoothly, I could tell how its muscles tensed up. 

Yet after a moment of hesitation, this sneaky brat fingers clenched the fabric of its hood before decisively pulling it down and revealing an averagely looking face.

Even though most of the population of this world would easily consider the delicate face surrounded by the streaks of long, golden hair as the strong contender for the upper echelons for female beauty, yet for me, it was a just a face of a cute girl like many others! 

Yet, it didn"t stop my mind from stalling when I noticed several familiarities on her head. While I couldn"t precisely put how come I could recognise some of her features, I was sure that I saw her somewhere before!