The Idle System Box Set

by Pegaz

  After leaving John and Sarah’s new house, both men rubbed their necks where the sword had touched them.

  “Thankfully, you did the exchange in good faith,” Fred muttered. “If they were our enemies, we would be in trouble some day.”

  Frank agreed. They both took their swords out and flew into the sky. While in flight, Frank thought to ask his father a question.

  “If they’re so dangerous,” he asked through the rush of air, “shouldn’t we get rid of them before they become stronger?”

  “Well…” Fred thought about it for a moment. “We could, but he gave us all the information he had. He even presented us with valuable information that will help us make a breakthrough in the future. I would not feel right killing them after all that. Instead, let’s provide them a place to nurture their strengths and keep them as loyal allies for the Sword Sect.”

  Back at the house, Sarah was tilting her head at John.

  “What is an inborn skill?” she asked. “I know you were just using that as an excuse, but still.”

  “Some people have a technique or skill they’re born with,” John explained. “It’s very rare but not unheard of. I’ve only read about it in a book back at the Rogue Sect. One assassin was born with a skill to transform into shadows. He became the sect master of the Rogue sect because of that skill—before the Sider moved the sect, that is.”

  “Wait.” Sarah’s eyes widened. “You’ve read about other Siders? Have you met any other than me?”

  “I’ve read about them, sure.” John shook his head, “But I haven’t met any live ones. The first people I met after waking up in this new life told me about two Siders on that planet, too. One died of old age a few years before I arrived, while the other became an immortal about one hundred years before that Sider arrived. No news of him since.”

  With that, John smiled at his wife.

  “I have a question for you, too,” he asked. “To save on the monthly expenditure, how about we get worker puppets? Do we need live humans to create them, too?”

  “Oh?”Sarah looked at the skill in her system, “Yes, we do, but mortals are the only option. The skill isn’t strong enough to transform immortals like the fighting puppets.”

  “Got it.” John nodded. “I’ll see if I can find any mortal sinners on this planet after we finish reading at the library. Oh yeah, here’s your token with the credits. It has three thousand credits which should be enough to read everything in the library. It should be enough for you to open a small practice as you talked about, too. At the side of the house, there’s a large shed—we can transform that to how you want it.”

  Sarah smiled about the practice. Hand in hand, they headed to the library to read. Sarah now knew how to use the Scan skill, as John had taught her. She could also dedicate various pieces of her mind to separate tasks, which would allow her to read faster. One of her other newly polished skills was flight; she could now hover and descend just fine. Getting altitude safely was still a problem, so John often held her hand as he did on their way to the library.

  They arrived at the main headquarters part of the sect and asked around for where the library was. There were no shops or anything around here, just buildings for the government-run facilities. Soon enough, John and Sarah were standing outside the library. They showed their credit tokens to the grand elder at the entrance. The grand elder took their tokens and placed it under a machine.

  Soon enough, John and Sarah were in the middle of the room, surrounded by books, books, and nothing but books. The black and white tiles under their feet echoed as they stepped closer to the centre of the building. The library was five stories high, built from polished wood. It was a few hundred thousand square feet in size. The bookcases were a light wooden colour, and each one reached the ceiling. From above, one could see that the pattern in the tiles formed two swords like on Owens token. There were a few people sitting down on the chairs set between the bookcases, reading.

  John let go of Sarah’s hand and told her to start wherever she liked. He would go from left to right, then go floor by floor. Sarah decided to go the opposite way, right to left and starting from the fifth floor going down. They would meet in the middle of the third floor if all went to plan. John gave her a kiss and said goodbye as they parted.

  Looking through the Scan ability, John made a rough estimate that this library had more than a billion books. Even with his new way of speed reading, it would take a while to finish every book.

  Chapter 22

  The Library

  A billion books. If you read one every second, it would still take you over thirty years to read them all. John used the Scan skill as he flipped the pages to read one book per second and controlled the other six parts of his mind to digest the information as fast as possible. He still needed to eat meals, so he couldn’t spend every second reading, either. He and Sarah met outside to have a meal together at the same time every day.

  After four months, John finished the first bookcase. He thought it was too slow, so he tried an experiment.

  Because the books were not airtight, his Scan should be able to go slip between the pages if he concentrated enough. Trying this method, he read a book without flipping through then digested the information as fast as possible. He shaved off plenty of time per bookcase from that point on. He told Sarah about it and she read much faster, too.

  A few days after the experiment, the fifth Shrink skill completed. The next level came up as 8mo 8d.

  The first floor of the library was all general knowledge, including rare monster locations, their core uses, attack patterns, elemental weakness, defence weakness, sleeping patterns, and much more. It also had information about all the different sects such as the Dual Cultivation sect and the Death sect. John still remembered the sins that the Death sect elders had at the auction; his promise to teach them about manners would not be forgotten.

  Through reading, John found out that there were millions of different sects throughout the universe. The Sword sect was number one out them all, but only publicly. They could not judge the strength of secret sects like the Rogue sect.

  He found out there were different species of intelligent forms other than humans, like beastmen. Though, it wasn’t like in the novels he read on Earth. They were at war with them here. There were beastmen who became slaves, but 99% of them were warriors that fell in battle. They then had a slave rune implanted inside them to make them obedient. No matter how hard humans tried, however, they could not make them turn on other beastmen; if they could, they would have won the war years ago.

  Eight months later, the sixth level of Shrink skill completed. The new time for the next level came up as 1y 4mo 16d. Four months after that, John had finished the first floor and was flying through the hole in the middle of the ceiling to get to the second floor.

  The second floors books were mostly breathing techniques. Each breathing technique showed what they claimed to be the best for helping absorb Life Power. The manoeuvres varied with different timing, shallow or deep breaths, and length of exhale. Most of them only differed by slight variances, but there were millions of books and some of them were so specific on the timing that they described them down to the milliseconds.

  It took John a year alone to finish the second floor. Funnily enough, he beat his time from the first floor. A few days after he finished the second floor, the system completed the seventh level of Shrink skill. The new time for the next level came up as 2y 9mo 4d.

  He met Sarah in the library a few days after he went to the third floor. They both walked towards each other and away from the bookcase since the Scan could see throughout the whole room while reading the books. They sat down at a table between the bookcases and discussed what they’d already read.

  What the two of them didn’t know was that there were rumours about them floating around the Sword Sect. People were saying the library was haunted by two skeletons who never slept. Nobody ever saw them eat or drink, so the rumour became a fact in the mi
nds of the disciples. Some disciples tried to impress others by daring each other to venture into the library for a certain amount of time, but the grand elder didn’t let them inside without credits so they failed.

  When the elders of the meeting room and sect master heard the rumours, they had laughing fits for days. Even elite disciples close to three hundred years in age were drawn into the story when they should have been above believing in some ghost story told by a few thirty-year-olds! The very thought of that made the elders laugh. But when the laughing ended, they announced that the two skeletons were new disciples of the sect.

  Owen had returned to the sect a few months before John finished the second floor of the library. His master asked him about the man he gave the token to. Owen told his master everything, describing the water element, his looks, the reward, and the man with long black hair who killed millions of people.

  When Frank told Owen about John wearing the silver skull, it shocked Owen. His master didn’t have an answer to the skull mask, but he told him that John and his wife were in the library. He also told Owen of the circumstances surrounding John’s acceptance among the sect’s ranks. Owen was absolutely dumbfounded by all the information, especially regarding the Blood Oath of the Rogue sect’s weakness.

  Owen went to the library and asked the grand elder on guard to contact him as soon as John left for more than an hour. What he didn’t count on were the years that followed without notice. It took Sarah and John almost an entire year to complete the third floor. The books on that floor were about different weapon techniques. The fourth floor was all sword techniques. Most of them were how to swing at different angles, footwork, and body position to get to the enemy faster while keeping the momentum and strength you put into it. It took another eleven months to complete this floor.

  The fifth and final floor was all books regarding absorbing techniques. John was looking forward to finishing this floor the most. Most of these techniques made use of the breathing techniques back from the second floor. If you used an absorbing technique with any other breathing technique than its counterpart, it could become fatal.

  After ten months and twenty-six days, John finished the floor. That was his fastest time through the whole five floors. A feeling of triumph in his chest, then John went to the first floor where he saw Sarah sitting down at a table with a book. She was reading that book like normal to pass the time, but she was still scanning and reading the other books in the room at the same time. Sitting across from Sarah, John rested his head on his palm. She looked up at him.

  “You finished?”

  “Yup.” John nodded. “You?”

  “I think it’ll take another week at the most.”

  “All right, I’ll stay here and keep you company while you finish.”

  Six days later, the eighth Shrink skill completed. The final skills time came up as 5y 6mo 8d.

  I could get Max Idlers and Max Workers up four times before this skill finishes. But it’s not worth it at this point. Level 9, here I come...

  A few days later, Sarah had finished reading all the books in the library. It was time to go home. John had cancelled the cleaning and gardening services and paid them for a month’s work before leaving for the library, so he wasn’t too eager to see the state of their home.

  Arriving at their house, it was overgrown with weeds, just as he’d suspected. It had been over five years since they left. There was something about the house that John didn’t expect, though, and that was a man standing right outside their front door. John recognised him almost immediately.

  It was Owen.

  Chapter 23

  Tournament of a Decade

  “Owen!” John put his hand up and waved. “It’s been years already since we last met! When did you get back?”

  At John’s friendly tone, Sarah relaxed from her fighting stance. John silently approved of the fact that she got ready to fight at a moment’s notice. If he didn’t know Owen, he would’ve done the same.

  “John?” Owen recognised the man’s voice right away and his lips cracked into a smile. “I got here years ago. You were just too busy being a bookworm! What did you do, read every book on the first floor in the five years?”

  “Pretty much.” John laughed. “We both did. It will be a few years before we go back in. We skimmed the second, fourth, and fifth floor to try and pick up a couple new techniques, too.”

  It took Sarah a second before she realised what John was doing. She wondered what Owen’s reaction would be if he found out how many books they’d actually read.

  “Well, hey. Think we can talk inside?” Owen pointed behind him with his thumb. “People might hear us out here.”

  “Sure, but nobody has been inside for five years.” John chuckled. “It might be a little dusty. Hope you don’t mind that.”

  Before John could move forward, Sarah elbowed him in the ribs.

  “Oh!” John flinched then realised he missed something. “Ah, let me introduce you two. Owen, this is my wife, Sarah. Forgive the masks, it’s a precaution. Sarah, this is Owen! He gave me his token to join the Sword Sect.”

  Both nodded and greeted each other while John walked up to the door and unlocked it. The door opened with a rusty-sounding squeak; a cloud of dust erupted as it did so. John waved his left hand about, trying to clear the air.

  “I’ll open all the windows.” Sarah walked through the door first.”That should help until we get cleaners inside.”

  “All right.” John gestured to his friend. “Owen, come with me to the living room and we’ll talk there.”

  In the living room, John opened the windows. He used some Life Power at the other end of the room to generate a gush of wind. The dust in the room was pushed to the open windows. After a few minutes, there was still some dust in the room but it was much better. Owen’s jaw was hanging as he gawked; he’d never seen Life Power used for cleaning before.

  “Come sit.” John noticed Owen’s shock and clapped to get him out of it. “We can talk in a cleaner place now.”

  Owen sat down on a sofa at one end of the room and John sat on a sofa to the right of Owen’s seat.

  “So,” John adjusted his legs on the seat. “What did you want to talk about? I’m guessing the sect master told you what happened when I arrived, yes?”

  “He did.” Owen nodded. “It surprised me when I heard you were a member of the Rogue Sect. I know why you didn’t tell me back on the Adventurer Guild’s public planet, but why announce it to the sect master?”

  “Ah…” John took a deep breath before answering. “The Rogue sect’s new master, Jeremy May, will send people to kill disciples from the Sword Sect for money if hired. They already have spies inside, which I know from the records they kept in the Rogue sect’s vault. I read there were three elders who were spies, but don’t get the wrong idea. I can pick out members due to an inborn skill—I don’t need the files. I didn’t lie about that.”

  Owen’s expression told wonders of his speechlessness. John took a deep breath and continued.

  “I know about the spies in other sects, too,” he said. “But I had to get the sect master behind me to get those elders to activate the blood oath. That way everybody would know I was telling the truth. They get a way to root out spies, and my wife and I get to live in peace for a while. Plus, I can deal a blow to the Rogue sect. It’s winners all around besides the Rogue sect.”

  The room sank into Silence. Owen stared at his hands for a moment, processing all the information.

  “You know…” he stated after a while, “I always thought you were more brawn than brains.”

  Sarah walked into the room just in time to catch Owen’s comment. She looked over to John, only to see him break into a fit of laughter. Owen chimed in, laughing alongside his friend.

  “Everyday life stuff I’m completely oblivious to.” John finished laughing, his face slipping back into a serious expression. “But when it comes down survival and revenge, it’s like I’ll think of every poss
ible vantage.”

  The silence in the room had a deadly bite to it.

  “So,” Owen interrupted to change the topic, noticing Sarah in the doorway. “How long have you two known each other?”

  The question caught Sarah off guard. She opened her mouth but found she couldn’t answer. That was when John spoke up.

  “Well, we technically met fifteen years ago on our first missions,” he said with a touch of nostalgia in his voice. “Can’t believe it’s already been fifteen years since then.”

  Sarah smiled at that but saw John look over to her.

  “You were such a novice back then.”

  BANG!

  Sarah hit John in the jaw again and walked out of the room.

  “I was only telling the truth!” John called after her. Owen was struggling to keep his laughter inside, which John noticed with a smile. “Now it takes everything I have to stop her from beating the crap out of me when we spar or train. If I didn’t have more fighting experience than her, then she’d beat me every time.”

  “I believe it.” Owen nodded. “That punch she just threw looked deadly and was timed perfectly. But to get at the reason I came here… The Sword Sect’s tournament that we do once a decade will start in a few days from now. The sect master asked me to extend an invitation to you and your wife.”

  “I see.” John hesitated a moment before shaking his head. “No point in us joining. We’re already honoured elders. We need no credits or Life Stones and we don’t care about popularity, either.”

  “Ah, but there are prizes.” Owen grinned, trying to pique John’s interest. “The reward for the outer disciple champion is a mythical Rank 5 sword. There’s another prize I can’t mention, too.”

  “The outer disciples are people are between Rank 3 Level 1 and Rank 4 Level 9, right?” John sighed. “Sarah and I could kill hundreds of them easily.”