Aurora looked at the titleless magic book with a puzzled expression; she was certain she had never collected this book before.
The solid black cover had no flashy patterns, only the editor's name printed in gold foil on the front, with a reserved space for the primary author that remained unnamed.
This made it impossible for Aurora to determine what the book was about just by looking at it.
With no title, no author, and no publisher information, if not for the exceptionally prominent editor's name, Aurora would have suspected it was just a notebook.
"Comet?"
Aurora read the editor's name on the cover aloud.
"Did one of you forget this here?"
Sunset Shimmer and Twilight Sparkle also wore puzzled expressions and shook their heads in unison, denying it.
That was very strange.
Aside from the cleaners who came regularly to tidy up, only the three of them ever came into this room.
Furthermore, before the new year, Aurora had counted all the books kept here, and there was no memory of this strange book in her mind.
"Could it be that some pony snuck in during the holidays and left it here?"
Twilight Sparkle voiced her guess, and it was a highly probable one.
"Who would do such a thing? And to leave it with the books we returned to you... what is this pony's goal?"
Sunset Shimmer elaborated on the topic.
The appearance and origin of this book were quite suspicious, which made her feel a bit uneasy.
But Aurora was well-liked by everyone; it was unlikely that anyone would play a prank on her, especially one involving a book.
Except for Sunset Shimmer.
However, if Sunset Shimmer had done this, she would surely remember it, and besides, she had been with Aurora throughout Hearths Warming Eve, leaving no opportunity to commit such an act.
"...How about we open it and take a look?"
They didn't know who the owner was, nor how they had managed to leave it there.
But this thing shouldn't be some evil object like a Death Note; didn't they see that the editor had already written their name on it?
Since this book was intentionally placed here, it meant that others were allowed to read it, so Aurora was determined to feast her eyes on it.
Just taking a look wouldn't kill her.
Pausing their work of organizing the bookshelf, the three ponies huddled together and opened the nameless magic book.
They saw the first sentence on the title page.
"Let's make an exchange, shall we? An exchange regarding 'memory'."
Sunset Shimmer and Twilight Sparkle looked on, completely confused, while only Aurora frowned slightly.
Who was this mysterious pony playing these games here? Someone unaware might think this book was just a little booklet of star fables told by Black Swan.
Fortunately, the content of the main text was relatively normal and wasn't entirely riddles.
Moreover, judging from the premise of the summary, the author of this book seemed to want to argue the nature of magic and mana.
In Aurora's view, this question was very abstract, perhaps even unsolvable.
It was like how it's very difficult to define fundamental forces with a single phrase, because the term "fundamental force" is already a relative generalization of a universal truth.
However, the text mentioned that the author's initial thoughts were the same as Aurora's, or perhaps one could say, the perspective of most ponies was like that.
"Until I saw them with my own eyes."
"?"
What does "with my own eyes" mean? Saw what?
The subsequent content became increasingly obscure and difficult to understand, allowing one to glimpse from between the lines that the author's thinking was becoming abstract, making the reader feel as if the author was a madman attempting to use existing language to describe something unimaginable.
They recognized every single word in the book, yet when combined, they couldn't understand it at all.
"Is this a forbidden book? Should we hand it over to the Princess?"
Twilight Sparkle suggested, feeling a bit uncomfortable.
In Twilight Sparkle's eyes, this book was like research notes written by a mad mage who had become obsessed with magic, to the point that even Twilight Sparkle, who loved books dearly, found it a bit off-putting.
"Let's finish reading it first; I feel the pony who wrote this book did so while in a rational state of mind."
Sunset Shimmer felt that although the content was very abstract, the linguistic logic remained consistent while writing, at least indicating that the author was still calm and rational when writing it.
Perhaps it was just that their ideas were relatively unique.
Sunset Shimmer had just been about to praise the author, but upon seeing that the author was already writing in a language they didn't recognize, she immediately retracted the compliment.
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