I woke up the following day, surprisingly refreshed. The nightmares of the previous night hadn’t returned, and with the hope that they wouldn’t, I took the book, grabbed a quick breakfast, and returned to the reference desk. Elody was sitting behind it just as she had been the tis before.
“Hey there, do I need to do anything special to check this book back in?” I asked her. Two of her eyes swiveled up to look at , and a smile crossed her face.
“Just pass it over for to do a quick check, and I’ll return it to the shelf,” she said. I pushed over the book, and her upper eyes once again scanned it. The mont they finished, the book vanished. I assud that ant it was back in its proper place.
“I’ve actually got a couple of questions. Besides the book hunt, I was hoping you could help today. Would that be possible?” I asked, giving her my best friendly smile.
“I don’t know. You’d have to tell the questions before I know if I can help,” she replied.
“Fair point. So, first up, every ti I try to check my level, attributes, or even skills in the system, all I get is an error. Alongside that, I don’t seem to be gaining any experience for the quests I’ve completed. Any guesses what might be the cause?” Her second set of eyes lowered from watching the archive and looked directly at for the first ti.
“When you say you get no experience, are you getting any notifications that you gained experience, but no counter goes up, or are you not even receiving those?” she asked. Her bottom set of eyes narrowed.
“Nothing at all,” I replied. Judging from her expression, this wasn’t a common experience.
“Certain high-grade items could be responsible for the experience loss, though to even suppress the notification, you would be looking at sothing exceedingly rare. Do you have anything like that on your person?” she asked, her tone having beco just slightly accusatorial. No, that wasn’t the right word, intensely interested was probably more accurate based on her eyes.
“So the world I co from has no ambient mana at all. The fact that I’m even here is kind of strange, so it’s pretty unlikely unless it’s this thing?” I said this as I pulled the experience orb from my pocket.
“It is certainly that thing, as you so put it. Go ahead and put that away for now,” her voice had dropped to a whisper, but I still felt the weight of the order behind that whisper.
“I promise I didn’t steal it if that’s what you think. It was given to by the person who sent to the Spiral. He said it would be more useful for than him at this point,” I said, pleading my ignorance.
“It’s alright, I believe you. I apologize for the intensity in my voice. It’s just items of that nature that will draw prying eyes, and not everyone who seeks out a refuge of knowledge does so with noble intent. Be very careful of who you trust with the existence of that orb. Do your comrades already know of it?” she asked, her second pair of eyes having resud watching behind us.
“Yeah, they weren’t really sure what to make of it when I showed them. Elicec puzzled out what it probably was, but beyond that, they didn’t really get it,” I answered. What had the bird, no, Sanquar apparently, given ? I know he had called it an experience orb, but what did that an?
“I have no idea how soone would have attained an item like that or why they would ever give it away, but I would rather not have this discussion in a public setting any further. Would you be open to joining for lunch in my private study here? I can make sure we aren’t overheard,” she asked. Was I? She was the one who was concerned about prying eyes after all, so should I risk being alone with her? I wasn’t sure I had much choice in the matter.
She already knew about it and knew far more about the archives than I did. If she really wanted to take it from , it seed likely she could just slit my throat in my sleep or sothing similar. I suppressed a shudder at that thought. She had been nothing but nice to so far, and I didn’t need to start thinking that about strangers, just because of my own terrified anxiety that was again creeping up.
“Yeah, I could do that. What ti were you thinking?” I asked, having made my decision.
“et back here in about six hours, and we can break for lunch. In light of that object, I suggest you hold any other questions you may have until then. Now, what was the book you were looking for today?” Her tone had returned to its usual pleasantness as she asked the question.
“Doplingint’s Manual on Synergistic Effects,” I said, causing her eyebrows to rise.
“My, you really have an interest in the archaic, I see. For that one, you’ll want to take the elevator to the archival sub-basent thirty-seven. While you could walk there, I don’t imagine you would be back in ti for lunch, or dinner for that matter. It should be in the fifth row. Good luck, and I’ll see you for our al,” she said, still giving the curious expression the na of the book had elicited.
As I stepped from the elevator into the dimly lit sub-basent, another question to ask her the next ti we t occurred to . Was it possible to access the System’s interface anywhere besides my room? It would be convenient to see the new quests as I completed the old ones instead of having to make the trek back anyti. I was making footprints in what was hopefully just a thick layer of dust on the ground with every step. Why was the System sending off to read books that hadn’t been touched in God knows how long?
If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringent.
I found the book exactly where she said it would be. What I didn’t find, though, was anywhere to read it comfortably. I sighed, knowing it wouldn’t be the first ti I had sat on a dirty floor to read a book, but I had hoped those years were long past. I tried shoveling so of the dust away with my shoes before sitting down, but all that did was cause it to fly into the air, causing a round of sneezing.
Accepting my fate, I sat down in the dust, wiped a couple of cobwebs from my hair that had gotten tangled, and opened the well-worn cover of the book. I could feel my old habits settling back in, the long-unused need to pull apart a book for the contents that really mattered. It had been decades since I last digested information like this, but it looked like you never truly forgot the skill. Old mories of long nights with engineering textbooks sitting in my lap popped into my mind unbidden. As much as I wanted to reminisce on the nostalgia of those long-ago, happier monts, I didn't have the ti for that right now. I pushed those thoughts away to focus on the book in my hands, steadily working my way through its pages.
The book covered in great detail how different mana orbs would interact with one another if in the sa core. It primarily focused on dual socketed cores, which I gathered was the easiest to study, and even that was difficult to get access to. He did ntion that he knew of at least three individuals who had a triple socket core, but they were not willing to talk to him, let alone test any interactions. He further theorized that there were those with even more sockets who kept that secret to themselves. I was finally starting to understand the root of Karlinovo’s research. He must have been trying to replicate the concept of multiple sockets in a way that would be more accessible to the average person.
Wait, was the system pushing towards following in their footsteps? I supposed that made so sense, the more I considered it. If it was just a matter of building a circuit capable of handling energy flow, that was pretty close to my expertise. That would also explain why I hadn’t received a quest to create my core yet. For so reason, the system had taken an interest in learning about these concepts and possibly applying them in my own core creation. But why? There had to be people already within its influence who knew as much as I did. There wasn’t anything special about my knowledge. If anything, I lacked so much foundational knowledge when it ca to these concepts that I should have been a hindrance in pushing the field further.
As I was considering the implications of all of this, an alarm started sounding in my head, and the words “upcoming appointnt: lunch with the librarian in fifteen minutes” popped up into my vision. I hit my head on the bookshelf behind in surprise. I blinked my eyes in annoyance and rubbed my head in pain. The alarm was now starting to give a headache. I tried dismissing it as I would a System nu, which seed to work. While I was glad that sothing had notified , I sincerely wished it hadn’t caused a near concussion.
“Hey there, are you alright? I saw you hit your head.” A voice brought out of my annoyance and pain and back to the world around .
“I’m alright. Thanks for checking, though,” I said as I pushed myself to my feet. My knees cracked in protest, dragging back the worry about my age yet again. Maybe Elody knew sothing there as well. I looked over at the voice and realized I had a problem and that I really needed to pay more attention to my surroundings. The figure had a hood drawn over its face so that I couldn’t make out any details there, but due to the large knife it held in its hands, the intent was obvious. “Look, I don’t want any problems, so how about we both go on our separate ways, no harm, no foul.” I didn’t have any expectation of my words working at this point, but talking had the added effect of buying so ti.
“I saw you co into the archive the other day. You’re a newbie to the system, right? No core yet, I can tell. So give the mana orbs, and I’ll make it quick. Otherwise, well, as you can probably tell from the dust, no one cos down here, so I’ll let you leave that possibility to your imagination,” the voice said, inching closer with the knife.
I had no intention of giving away any of the few possessions I had, especially when the only thing I would be getting in return was a less painful death. If this guy wanted to kill , he would have to at least work for it. I threw the book in my hands as fast as I could at him, sohow managing to hit him square in the face. I followed that up by running at him and slamming my shoulder into his chest as hard as I could. I felt the knife bite into my left arm as we both crashed into the bookcase.
It hurt like hell, but it didn’t compare to what I had been through only days ago. Instead of continuing the fight, I took the opportunity my shoulder check had given and ran as fast as I could for the elevator. I could hear him huffing behind , the distance growing as I ran. Either I had hurt him enough that he couldn’t keep up, or he had decided I wasn’t worth the risk. I got into the elevator as quickly as I could, ordering it back to the main archival floor. My arm scread in pain as the doors closed. There was a lot of blood coming from the wound.
I stumbled through the elevator’s doors as they reopened. The energy I had used in my run had apparently faded, and the reference desk seed so far away. How much blood had I lost? I felt arms grab and pull up, and a warm feeling flooded my body. The burning in my arm faded, and my vision ca back into focus. Elody was holding up, and it felt like she was healing as well.
“Can’t have you die before our lunch. That would be rude,” she said, smiling brightly at .
“I suppose it would. Soone had a knife and demanded my mana orbs. They managed to stab before I got away.” The words poured out of my mouth at rapid speed, blurring them together so much that I doubted she fully understood what I said.
“Co on, let’s head to my study, get sothing to drink in you, and you can tell again once you’ve cald down a bit. I’ve healed the wound, so you shouldn’t be in any danger of exsanguinating,” she said as she guided to a door beside the reference desk.
With careful application of how they channel the mana through their orbs, certain secondary effects can be observed. For example, I witnessed a spacial gno who was capable of channeling mana through his necromantic orb into his Life orb, allowing him to heal while draining the life of others, drastically cutting the mana required for healing.
Doplingint’s Manual on Synergistic Effects.
User Comments
0 comments from readers