Azmoz sat on the floor of the library basement for a long time, watching the two spiders he had just bonded with. He decided he needed to test the limits of this new power.
He gestured for the spiders to stay by the wall. As he walked down the narrow aisle of bookshelves, he kept his eyes on the small creatures. They remained perfectly still, waiting for a command that hadn't come yet. He reached the five-meter mark, and the connection felt as strong as ever. He could still feel the faint, ghostly tug of their presence in the back of his mind. He kept walking, counting his steps carefully. Six meters, seven meters, eight.
When he reached exactly ten meters, something changed. The clear mental link he had with the spiders began to flicker, like a radio station losing its signal. It didn't vanish entirely, but it became fuzzy and distant. He tried to send a new command, picturing the spiders crawling toward him. Nothing happened. The spiders remained where they were, frozen like tiny statues against the gray paint of the wall. They were still following his last command to stay put, but they couldn't hear his new instructions anymore.
"I see," Azmoz whispered, pushing his glasses back up his nose. "So the connection starts breaking if I move more than ten meters away. They'll keep doing what I told them last, but I can't change their mind from over here."
He walked back toward them, and as soon as he crossed that invisible ten-meter line, the connection snapped back into place with a sharp clarity. The spiders immediately twitched their legs, acknowledging his presence once again. He felt a small wave of relief. It was a limitation, sure, but it was one he could work with. He assumed that as his level increased, this range would also grow. Everything else about the book seemed to scale with his power, so it only made sense that his control would reach further as he evolved.
He leaned against a nearby shelf, his hand brushing against the dusty spines of books that hadn't been touched in decades. He had originally come down here to find information, to understand the history of this place and perhaps find a clue about the strange purple book he now carried as a tattoo. But as he stopped focusing on the spiders and let his mind wander, something strange happened.
The two spiders suddenly began to move. They didn't wait for a command. Instead, they scuttled across the floor with terrifying speed, heading straight for his right arm. Azmoz flinched, his heart hammering against his ribs. He watched in a mix of horror and fascination as the spiders climbed up his leg, over his torso, and converged on the ink of the book tattoo on his forearm.
The tattoo seemed to come alive. The purple ink began to swirl and glow with a dim, eerie light. As the spiders reached the center of the design, the ink rose up like a liquid, forming tiny tendrils that wrapped around the insects. In a split second, the tattoo seemed to engulf the spiders, pulling them deep into his skin. Azmoz let out a small gasp, expecting pain, but there was only a mild warmth, like the sun hitting his arm through a window.
As the tattoo tried to settle back into its original shape, it flickered. For a few seconds, the image of the book distorted and transformed into the clear, sharp silhouette of a spider. It was as if the ink was showing him what it had just consumed. Then, as quickly as it had changed, the image settled back into the familiar shape of the purple book with the predatory insect symbols. The glow faded, leaving his arm looking exactly as it had before.
"What was that?" he muttered, his voice trembling slightly. He felt a surge of excitement. He closed his eyes and summoned the book once more. The heavy volume materialized in his hands, its weight comforting and solid. He realized he didn't want to flip through hundreds of pages manually. He tried to think about the page for the common spider, picturing the text and the level information he had seen earlier.
To his amazement, the pages began to turn on their own. They moved with a soft whistling sound, stopping precisely on the "Common Spider" entry. The book was responding to his thoughts. It was a level of convenience he hadn't expected from such a dark and ancient-looking object.
When his eyes landed on the page, he froze. The right side of the page, which had previously shown a lively, detailed illustration of a spider, had changed. The drawing was gone. In its place were two actual, three-dimensional-looking spiders moving within the confines of the paper. They looked like they were trapped behind a pane of glass, crawling over the parchment in a slow, rhythmic pattern.
His eyes went wide behind his cracked glasses. "In this way, I never have to carry my bounded insects around with me," he said, his voice filled with awe. "The book also works as storage for them. Now that's a huge relief."
Now he wondered how to get them back out. He didn't want to have to summon the physical book every single time he needed his spiders. He closed his eyes and focused on the tattoo, visualizing the two spiders emerging. Come out, he thought, pressing his intent into the ink.
A familiar buzz occurred in his arm. It was a sharp, vibrating sensation that made his skin prickle. A moment later, the two spiders crawled out from the edge of the tattoo, appearing as if they were stepping out of a shadow. They moved down his hand and onto the floor, looking perfectly healthy and ready for action. It was seamless. It was efficient. "This is super convenient," Azmoz admitted to the empty room. "Maybe the book is not as bad as I thought it would be."
He allowed himself a small, rare smile. For the first time in his life, he felt like he had an advantage.
He spent the next few hours trying to fulfill his original mission. He moved through the library aisles, pulling down old, crumbling texts about local history and ancient technology. He even sat at the old, bulky computer in the staff room, the monitor flickering with a sickly green light as he searched the limited government databases. But no matter where he looked, he found nothing new. Everything he read was just a repeat of what his senior sister had already told him during his training. The history of Kalan was a series of boring administrative records and failed industrial projects. There was no mention of hidden basement floors or purple books bound in insect skin.
It was frustrating, but Azmoz was used to disappointment. He didn't let it stop him from doing his job. Even though he was the only one in the building, his habits were hard to break. He was a boy who lived by routines; it was the only way he had survived being an orphan for so long. He picked up a rag and began to dust the shelves, moving methodically from one section to the next. He wiped away the thick layers of gray dust, making sure the spines of the books were clean even though he knew no one would likely read them for years.
As he worked, he kept his eyes peeled for any other insects. He moved the rag behind books and under the bottom shelves, hoping to see that tell-tale scurrying movement. He checked the corners of the ceiling and the cracks in the floorboards. He was hungry for more experience points. He wanted to see that progress bar move again. He wanted to feel the rush of power that came with leveling up. But luck wasn't on his side today. Aside from a few more common spiders, which he chose not to bond with since they wouldn't give him any more experience, he found nothing. No strange beetles, no glowing moths, not even a simple centipede.
The basement was strangely empty of life, as if the book's presence had scared everything else away. Or perhaps the common spiders were the only ones brave enough to live near such a dark artifact.
By the time he finished his daily duties, his back was aching and his eyes were stinging from the dust. He checked his old, worn-out watch. His shift was almost over. The realization was punctuated by a loud, violent growl from his stomach. It was a deep, hollow sound that echoed in the quiet library. He winced, clutching his midsection.
He remembered that he had eaten his last stale cracker that morning. There was nothing left at his small, decaying house—no bread, no canned soup, not even a bit of dried fruit. If he didn't go to the market now, he wouldn't eat tonight. And with the way his body was changing, the hunger felt more intense than usual, like his very cells were demanding more fuel to support the evolution occurring in his veins.
He sighed and began the process of closing up the basement. He made sure the ventilation grate was secure, though he left it loose enough that he could get back in tomorrow if he needed to. He gathered his things and headed toward the stairs. As he walked, he felt the weight of the tattoo on his arm. It was a strange weight, not physical, but a presence that felt like a coiled spring, waiting to be released.