The "Genesis" section of the library.
The immense bookshelves towered like walls, extending straight upward.
From time to time, small winged creatures less than a foot tall could be seen floating among them.
They were Book Sprites raised by the Witch Tower, retrieving and returning books according to the instructions of the apprentices who came to borrow them.
"I'm looking for Ode to the Ocean and Four Color Theory..."
Roy came to the service desk and flipped through the floating library book, which seemed to have an endless number of pages. He spoke to the Book Sprite that approached him.
Several Book Sprites immediately flew into the distance to help him search.
Not long afterward, in a corner of the reading area, Roy flipped through the materials, deep in thought.
One theory of evolution claimed that life originated in the ocean, and that the primordial ocean was a pot containing numerous nutrients—the "Primordial Soup."
This was much like the blackening of the Primordial Soup.
The four colors of alchemy were black, white, yellow, and red, each representing a different stage of change in alchemy.
The first stage was blackening: the dissolution, decay, and destruction of matter.
The second stage was the process in which matter was broken down and purified, known as whitening.
The third stage was Matter Recombination, in which new substances were formed through combination. This was called yellowing.
The final stage was the so-called reddening, or "red completion."
The Philosopher's Stone was often said to be red in color, and this was where that description came from.
The prototype of alchemy's idea of "understanding, decomposition, and reconstruction"—the cycle of all destruction and creation—was likewise related to this.
However, there was another interpretation, which arranged them as "black, white, red, and yellow."
This might have been an