From an aesthetic standpoint, the Slot Library perfectly embodies Cheng Zhu's vision of science fiction.

This is a huge, semi-circular building, about thirty meters high, which looks like an egg turned upside down on the ground from the outside. Once inside, you are greeted by a spectacular scene of light and shadow interplay.

Cheng Zhu felt this place resembled a planetarium largely because the library's interior features a glass skylight that allows a direct view of the roof, much like the giant spheres found in planetariums. Furthermore, the Slot Library's design is cosmic-themed; besides shooting stars occasionally streaking across the glass ceiling, celestial-shaped objects float in the air above the entire space.

These objects are likely high-tech aircraft that spend most of their time moving randomly in the air without ever colliding with each other, suggesting they have an automated navigation system.

Mary's room was located in the reading area on the ground floor, which was filled with tables and chairs and occupied by a few scattered people.

Since Cheng Zhu's personalized push system was fixed, many people around him have disappeared, and those who remain who can see it don't care about the situation of those around them at all. Come to think of it, those people weren't really doing anything wrong; they were only blocked because of the personalized push. If they were really put together, they might even start arguing with him.

There are flowing bands of light on the ground, guiding students to different areas. When a "celestial body" falls back to the ground, it reacts with the ground it touches, just like a pebble falling into a lake, creating concentric circles of light patterns on the floor. Except for not simulating the splashing water, it is almost identical.

The Slot Library certainly has many books, but all of them are embedded in the surrounding walls. Every now and then, a person or robot flies up and takes down a book—so why put them so high?

Cheng Zhu inexplicably recalled Alice's words: This is a sense of ritual.

Arriving at the library's front desk, Chengzhu looked at the librarian in green and, remembering the rules here, peeked at his ID card again. The colorful headshot was of a person whose gender was indistinguishable, just like himself, and the name was listed as "Hermann".

5. All librarians in this library wear green uniforms and a color ID card that matches their own appearance on their chest.

All librarians' identification documents are in color; black and white is not permitted. If you encounter a librarian with a black and white identification document, please do not attempt to communicate with them.

Since the other party's ID is in color, there's definitely no problem. It seems that while viruses can impersonate administrators, they can't completely replicate them; at least they don't have color printers.

"Hello, I would like to borrow a book about mathematics."

Cheng Zhu politely asked Herman, "I'd like to know which section the mathematics textbooks are in."

However, after Herman confirmed Cheng Zhu's student status, a semi-transparent display page popped up in front of him. He tapped on it with his slender, fair fingers, and several books appeared out of thin air in front of Cheng Zhu, falling from mid-air and landing steadily in Herman's hands.

"These books on mathematics are more suitable for freshmen to read."

With a professional smile, Hermann handed the book to Chengzhu: "Which one do you want to read?" Almost instantly, a dialog box appeared in front of Chengzhu, automatically searching for the books in Hermann's hand and labeling each book with its name and relevant information.

Cheng Zhu was a little confused: "Don't we need to climb up to get it?"

Hermann's smile held a hint of confidence: "This is the Slot Library, the most technologically advanced library in the entire Smart City. Countless brilliant creations originated in Slot."

Cheng Zhu's brain automatically translated—Hey! Country bumpkin, you've never seen this before, have you? It's fully automated!

She's so stupid, really.

She only knew that the smart city was technologically advanced and that smart chips had replaced mobile phones as a necessity of life, but she never thought about why the Slot Library was built in such a terrible state, and why she wasn't worried about the inconvenience for students when they wanted to take books.

Now all books have been entered into the database, so students can quickly create physical copies of the books they want to read in front of them.

Herman also recommended an app called "Easy Reading" to Cheng Zhu, which allows users to switch between the contents of their books at any time.

Considering that Cheng Zhu was a suburban immigrant, Herman felt a great deal of tolerance for Cheng Zhu, a cute and new student. Considering the backward development of the suburbs of the Smart City, Christine's unfamiliarity and discomfort with many things in the city seemed quite reasonable.

Cheng Zhu returned to his seat with a book in hand. He glanced at the forum and, finding no replies from Mary or Alice, felt relieved and started playing with the library software.

Cheng Zhu did some research before using it, and was surprised to find that reading an encyclopedia entry would cost 100 universal coins. It just goes to show that "knowledge payment" is indeed very common in Smart City, and quite expensive. Even after paying, Cheng Zhu could only see some unimportant information, such as "the founder was a top student at Slote High School, who created this software to solve the problem of cumbersome book exchange in the library, making it convenient for students to exchange books with one click," which was just the most basic historical background.

Simply put, this software was developed by students of Slote High School to facilitate book exchanges in the North Campus Library, and was later popularized throughout the Smart City.

However, Cheng Zhu has a vaguely strange sense of déjà vu.

After opening "Easy Reading", Cheng Zhu felt a stronger sense of familiarity – although this software allows users to freely change books in the Slot Library, it requires a monthly membership fee of 288 universal points to use this service.

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