Sort

What Sort Does

Sort is the highest throughput magic ability in Clean The Library for most builds. Activation reorganizes a nearby pile by color and section affinity, aligning spines into groups that map to shelf codes like 1A Horror dark red, 1E Poetry soft pink, 2G Engineering steel blue, and 2Q Miscellaneous varied covers. One well-placed Sort after Assemble can replace minutes of manual spine reading.

Sort strength scales with pile size—casting on three books wastes cooldown while casting on thirty after co-op dump transforms routing. Learn section color patterns on the shelf sections page to verify Sort output quickly and catch edge cases Sort misgroups due to similar palettes.

Inspired by sorting mechanics in Librarian: Tidy Up the Arcane Library, Sort defines speedrun pace in videos linked from our magic upgrade order guide.

Strategic Usage

Establish pile hubs centrally between floor wings before Sorting—reduces sprint distance after groups form. Emerald Club sprint delivers red Horror batches to 1A while teammates handle blue Science to 1D in parallel.

Combine H hints only for books Sort leaves ambiguous—2C Curses and 2K Summoning both skew purple-dark. Shelf Guide resolves single-book deadlocks cheaper than re-Sorting entire piles.

Unlimited Magic players should Sort on every cooldown with zero idle standing—manual pickup fills gaps between casts.

Sort in Different Builds

Balanced builds unlock Sort immediately after Assemble per upgrade order. Speed runs prioritize Sort cooldown uptime above Insight. No-magic builds never cast Sort—manual color piles replace it entirely.

Co-op: designate one Sort caster while others pre-Assemble incoming dumps from second floor elevator returns.