Is This Librarian a Physical Labor Job!

Gret's path as a Mage began in tranquility.

The constant scheming, face-slapping, and noble brats bullying commoners he'd read about in webnovels from his past life... none of it was here.

Gret walked from Hartland City to the Mage Tower, imagining countless common scenarios along the way, but to his dismay, none of them happened. It wasn't that his classmates were morally upright and adhered to the twenty-four character mantra; it was just... there was no one.

Magister German was nowhere to be seen.

Magister Eliot, who had been blasted out of the Mage Tower last time, was also nowhere to be found.

It was so quiet outside the Mage Tower that he could hear birds chirping. Gret guessed that perhaps the experiment was going smoothly, or the Magister was working on a different experiment and it wouldn't explode for now.

The other low-level mages, or Mage Apprentices – when he came yesterday, Magister German had called them "disciples," so there should be more than one – were also nowhere in sight.

Considering the explosion yesterday happened on the fourth floor, and Magister German had only allowed him to read books on the first floor, Gret had reason to believe there was a library upstairs exclusively for mages and Mage Apprentices. These extraordinary individuals who had stepped through the gates of magic were active on the second floor and above, and would not come downstairs unless absolutely necessary.

As for classes... could it be that today wasn't a class day?

The library on the first floor of the Mage Tower was empty, with only Gret inside.

The servant guarding the door of the Mage Tower led him to the library and, after saying, "You're not allowed upstairs," turned and left. Gret wanted to ask him where the restroom was, but before he could speak, the person had vanished...

They didn't even provide a pot of water.

Sigh, the libraries at his old school didn't provide drinking water either, so he was used to it.

Gret put down his backpack and walked to the bookshelves. Stepping into the library, the first thing he saw were these bookshelves, made of the finest dark chestnut wood, reaching from floor to ceiling. The pillars and the tops of the bookshelves were carved with exquisite patterns; just looking at the decoration made one feel that the books on them were priceless.

Just this bookshelf alone must be worth my annual salary, right?

Gret secretly speculated, then quickly scanned the books on the shelves. There weren't many books in the library; there were only two bookshelves. The books on the shelves were thick and large, about as long as his forearm to his fingertips, and nearly a fist thick.

To accommodate such large books, the bookshelves were divided into only four layers from top to bottom. The shelves in the middle were clearly made of solid wood, over five centimeters thick, and the middle of the shelves were already sagging under the weight.

Because the books were so large, the two bookshelves combined held no more than a hundred books...

Gret quickly calculated. Thank goodness, thank goodness, it's about the same as our seven-year combined Bachelor's and Master's textbooks... in terms of quantity, it's pretty much the same, haha.

After all, their medical textbooks were called "Blue Love" by the junior students who came after them, totaling 53 volumes. Add in political science, general education courses, and some elective courses just to fill the quota, and the textbooks alone were close to a hundred.

Moreover, in addition to textbooks, medicine had a large number of workbooks, reference materials, clinical diagnosis and treatment guidelines, and so on, all of which had to be memorized.

We're professionals when it comes to studying. No fear.

Gret secretly cheered himself on. So, next, he had to pick out the books he needed to read!

The book titles Magister German had mentioned!

Basic Spells!

Magic Pattern Construction!

Elemental Introduction!

Potions!

And the most fundamental one, Magic Script!

As for the other books on the shelves, perhaps they weren't unimportant, but he'd start with the introductory basics!

Gret tilted his head and looked at the words on the spines, but couldn't make out anything. He tilted his head further to the left. He still couldn't tell what kind of characters they were, or even if they were written vertically or horizontally, or if they were tilted to the left or right. He had no choice but to tilt his head to the right again...

After doing a few rounds of neck exercises, Gret finally accepted a cruel reality. He couldn't recognize a single character on the spines of the books.

There's no other way, I'll have to read the content!

He stood on tiptoe and took a book down from the shelf. As soon as he lifted it, his arms sagged, and he had to exert more force to hold it steady.

...So heavy!

In this day and age, being a librarian must be a physically demanding job!

Gret clicked his tongue. He carefully placed the book on the table, righted it, and examined the cover closely. The dark blue leather cover felt thick and soft, with silver cursive script winding around it like vines. Gret struggled to decipher it for a moment, then had no choice but to open the title page.

He couldn't read it.

Still couldn't read it.

He flipped all the way to the inner text, but still didn't know what the book was about, and he didn't even recognize the characters. The only good thing was that this large book was a handwritten copy, and the characters were more than ten times larger than modern printed text. The entire content of the book, as one could imagine, was at most one-tenth of what it could have been.

No, not even one-tenth. The paper under his hands was several times thicker than in his previous life, thick and yellow, with visible fiber textures. Since the paper was thicker, the number of pages was naturally fewer, and the information recorded on it was less, which was not surprising.

Gret breathed a sigh of relief, then his heart tightened again. The papermaking technology of this era was still quite crude, and it could only record ordinary knowledge.

He could imagine that in the future, when copying spells, the paper, parchment, or beast hides used would cost several times more than this paper just for the material. If the material was too poor, it couldn't hold the magical power at all, and it would likely burn up after writing...

In the future, he'd have to pay for the materials himself to copy spells!

He'd have to buy paper, pens, and ink himself!

He'd have to go check the prices later... Ugh, I feel so poor...

Gret sighed, closed the book with teary eyes, placed it back on the shelf, and went to move the second book.

The second book.

He couldn't read it.

The third book.

Don't recognize it.

...Tenth book.

Don't recognize it...

A thin layer of sweat had already broken out on his body, half from exhaustion, half from urgency. He had arrived early, so his stomach wasn't rumbling yet, but the feeling of his muscles being strained, his body being emptied, and his actions being disrupted... he had tasted all these sensations, one by one.

No wonder the librarian was a hidden profession. Truly, one could achieve great things in this line of work!

He wiped his sweat and continued moving books. The seventeenth book finally had its title written in the common tongue: The Archmage's Journey of Miracles. Gret had a bad feeling just from the title, and after flipping it open and reading two lines, it was indeed a novel...

A poorly written adventure novel, at that. The kind that wouldn't even get a contract on Qidian.

...So, after all my hard work and sweating, how many of these things I'm moving are novels?

Oh no...

Gret pounded his chest. The bad news was that he'd have to battle these novels for who knows how long. The good news was that the amount of textbooks he needed to read (and memorize) had decreased...

"This won't do."

A voice suddenly sounded from behind him.

Gret's hand, reaching for a book, froze.

Thanks to @Screwls for the 100 Qidian coins (please vote for this book with your recommendation tickets too, dear readers)

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