Named items detected. Would you like to use Cores to upgrade them?
Tailyn looked over at Valia in confusion, at a loss as to what to do. While he didn’t want to decline the System’s gift, he also knew all too well that he wouldn’t have access to his named equipment for the following few months. Any upgrade he went for would do nothing for the group in that moment. But Valia came to the rescue.
“You gave me the star, so go ahead and use the cores yourself. That would be fair.”
His mind made up, Tailyn hit the accept button.
Select an item to upgrade (Matilda, Vargot, Raptor).
The choice was obvious — Raptor. It was the device Tailyn valued most, far more than his armor and weapon, as the ability to interact remotely with the world around him was invaluable.
Analyzing Tailyn Vlashich’s activity to determine the most suitable upgrade...
Upgrade applied: removed attribute requirements and increased probability of successful hack by 10%.
***
You successfully updated a named item
Level +1 (9).
You used a free Attribute point.
Regeneration +1 (15).
The rods and their blue mist disappeared, and Tailyn pulled up the description to see if the miracle really had happened. There were no requirements to be found.
Raptor. Description: universal alchemist’s accessory belonging to Tailyn Vlashich (cannot be stolen or used by anyone else). Current Raptor level (RL): 6. Scans the area within a radius of 5 * RL meters, showing all living and non-living creatures, including those with Concealment less than RL + Perception. Lets you interact with other objects and machines within a distance of RL + Enhancement meters. While in workshops, decreases the cost of materials by 50%, though materials bought at that discount are only available for use in the workshop. Additional parameters: magic attack +100 * RL; mana level +100 * RL; Alchemy: +2 * RL. Probability of successful hack: +10%. Additional property for Raptor level 5: Alchemy: +5 * RL.
“It worked!” The room rang with the happy shout, only it came from Valia rather than Tailyn. The girl was overjoyed for her boy and the success she even counted as her own. Slipping off her face shield, she pulled him close for a long kiss.
I can’t breathe, Tailyn said mentally a minute later. The boy enjoyed having his arms around Valia, not to mention kissing her, though the cold underground air was still sending shivers up and down his body. And he really wanted to strap Raptor back on his wrist, too. Without the device, the boy felt as blind as a mole.
The OGM-III and Raptor integrated with each other seamlessly. Checking the scanner, Tailyn found it was working beautifully. The monster had bored a well in its attempt to get at them, and while it was filled for the time being with a tentacle, the creature was going to disappear in a couple hours. The kids were going to have a chance to get out of the trap they were stuck in. The most important part was widening the hole in the ceiling, though they had time to think about that later. For the present, they needed to work on the mission that had sent them underground in the first place.
“Do you know what we’re supposed to do?” Tailyn asked.
“Open a book and read it,” Valia replied. “Honestly, I’m not really sure how everything gets checked, so let’s each take one. I assume it will make sense as we go along.”
Tailyn picked up the nearest book and immediately earned himself an explanation of what the System wanted from the pair.
Functionality unlocked: Bookshelf. Description: only the worthiest of adventure seekers find ancient books, which gives them the right to store the books in their memory regardless of whether they are unique or not. From now on, everything you read will be added to your virtual bookshelf. That will let you materialize your beloved tomes whenever you want, reading back through them in your favorite spot.
Level +1 (10).
Mysticism +1 (15).
***
To add books to your shelf, read them from beginning to end. They are checked for uniqueness after being added to your shelf, at which point a decision is made as to the fate of the paper copy.
“One more level, and I’ll catch up to Valanil,” Valia said sadly as she surveyed the scope of the work ahead of them. “A hundred and twelve books. Tailyn, we’re going to be here forever... And finishing in the time the god gave us... Okay, we’re going to need more lanterns.”
Late that night, Tailyn finished the first book. Simply leafing through it didn’t work — that was the first thing he’d checked. Instead, he had to read every line, though it didn’t really have to make sense. Valia had nodded off a few hours before, a thick tome in her hands. Closing his shimmering book, Tailyn nearly squeaked in surprise when it evaporated.
On the Harm of Running is not unique and was disposed of.
You received a reward for a book that was disposed of: +1 to a random skill.
Crystal miner +1 (12).
Tailyn checked his list of skills. To get them to the maximum he had available right then, he needed to read thirty-one books, something that was more than doable. But what was going to happen after that? Would his skills just be wasted? Who had come up with that idiotic parameter limit?
With those thoughts on his mind, Tailyn closed his eyes just for a second only to open them again sixteen hours later. Valia grinned sheepishly — her first book had been useless, and she was worried about that. Tailyn just shrugged in reply and reached for the next shimmering tome. The god’s mission needed to be completed.
They were going to die, otherwise.
Tailyn was the first to come up with something. On the eighth day, disheveled and cursing all the ancient writers, the boy finished yet another book, that one a fairy tale about machines flying off away from the planet. And that was when he earned himself a bonus.
A Weapon With a Name, Book 1 is unique.
New mission: Book Delivery. Description: deliver A Weapon With a Name, Book 1 to the academy library to receive a reward.
That was the tenth book Tailyn had read. The previous nine had taken up spots on his bookshelf while also upgrading one random skill each. But that time, the shimmering around the book changed, and the boy was finally able to dump it into his inventory. Tailyn had actually suggested grabbing all the books and heading up to the surface to read them, only the strange shimmering kept them from being placed in the children’s inventory. More than likely, any attempt to dig a hole out would have resulted in the destruction of the storeroom and a fail grade for the mission. Sitting down on the floor was the only other option. Happily, oxygen made it down through the hole the monster had dug, the store had all the food they needed, and Tailyn made the critical purchase of a stationary toilet with a six-month tank. The pair’s outfits weren’t going to be able to take care of their waste for long. For the first four days, they were embarrassed to use the new acquisition in front of each other, the closed space too small to set up the walls the device came with. Tailyn was the first to give in. His OGM-III was full, leaving him no other choice. Valia was next, and by the eighth day, neither saw anything wrong with eliminating waste right in front of the other.
“I can’t do this anymore,” the girl exclaimed with exasperation when yet another book evaporated in her hands. That left eight-seven to go. “I need a break.”
“What about training?” Tailyn asked, also tired of reading. “Let’s see if we can get you started with healing.”
The idea was an interesting one, though it took Valia a while to get over the surprising fact that she didn’t need an attribute, a skill, or a special card to heal living creatures. That shattered her perception of the world she’d spent her whole life in. After all, the glow around the hands was an ability activating, no? In fact, it wasn’t. Tailyn ended up going over and over the moment he began healing, even sending his logs over so Valia could see for herself that there wasn’t anything else to it. But nothing worked for her. Finally, something occurred to Tailyn.
“You know, you don’t
need to imagine mountains and a smithy. That’s how I heal, but it doesn’t have to be the same for you. What do you enjoy doing the most?”
“Sewing?” Valia replied uncertainly. “I’ve taken lessons my whole life...”
“I wasn’t trained to be a blacksmith or sculpture,” Tailyn said just in case. “It just happened that I sense injuries as imperfections in a statue. Something that’s wrong with them.”
“Something that’s wrong...” Valia said thoughtfully. She closed her eyes and imagined to herself what she could picture that had something wrong with it. Needlework? No, that was absurd, and she hated it. But working on statues the way Tailyn did wasn’t something that appealed to her, either. It needed to be something simple, something she could catch at first glance. Something that created harmony for her. Something that was smooth, though still striking, and with terrible flaws that could be worked out. Something she would catch at first glance...
A dance.
As soon as that thought crossed the girl’s mind, the darkness of the surrounding world receded, replaced by a familiar dance hall. Valia even screamed in surprise as she began looking around frantically.
“Oh, wow,” she heard Tailyn say, and that was when she noticed something strange. One of the walls was missing. Snow-capped mountains could be seen through the gap, not to mention the wind-swept smithy right next to her hall. Part of the smithy’s wall was missing, too — it was like the two children had merged the way they healed.
“How are you going to heal?” the boy asked, though his mouth suddenly gaped wide. Tailyn had turned into a vortex of light and sparks that whirled around in a mesmerizing dance.
“My leg was bothering me, but I fixed it.” The whirl of light materialized back into the girl. “That’s what was interrupting the harmony, but now everything’s great. And I can do this.”
Valia made a few smooth motions with her arms and began to dance once again, giving in to the will of her emotions. All she wanted to do was impress her boy. Just for a moment, she wanted him to forget his problems, cares, worries. She wanted him to be happy.
The boy’s eyes glowed — he’d never seen anything so enchanting. The girl’s divine beauty was made perfection by her otherworldly grace. As he watched her, Tailyn realized there had never been anything dearer to him, and there never would be, either. A fire was kindled somewhere in the depths of his soul. At first, he thought it demanded release, only then he realized it was pushing him to join the dance. He gave in. Scooping some red-hot mana out of the forge, he took a step toward the girl. Valia sensed something and whirled closer, continuing to dance. An invisible barrier stood between them. The line between the smithy and the dance hall. Somehow, they both realized it was something neither of them could cross alone. Their only option was...
Together! Valia said in her head.
For life! Tailyn replied.
The pair both took a step forward, and the space around them exploded. The homely comfort of the hall mixed with the cold mountain range. Harsh forms melted into smooth lines. Fire became dance. The boy hugged the girl...
When Tailyn opened his eyes, he found himself in the dark room filled with glowing books. The books they needed to read if they didn’t want to die. Next to him, Valia was sitting with a smile on her face. And while her eyes were still closed, Tailyn somehow knew she was awake. That was how Valanil did it, apparently. The boy didn’t want to bother her, as she hadn’t had many reasons to smile in recent memory, though he didn’t end up having even enough time to sit down. A message popped up in front of him:
Valia Levor gave you a Blessing buff.
All your parameters were boosted by 20% for 24 hours.
“You can get your dragon back now,” the girl said, eyes opening, and a satisfied expression on her face. “The System actually gave me a skill called buffer that lets me give people that blessing. And there’s no time restriction! I could use it every hour if I wanted to.”
It was true. The additional 20% bump to Tailyn’s attribute values led to the room being bathed in gold sparks — his updated enhancement and wisdom gave him the thirty-six he needed. The dragon activated, wagged its tail in greeting like a dog, and wrapped itself around Tailyn’s wrist. The small room wasn’t big enough for it. Unfortunately, the boy was still two points short of returning his named items — his values were only at eighteen with the buff.
From that point on, books took turns with dances. In that world — Tailyn had no doubt the blacksmith and dance hall were very much not on their planet — the boy had no problem with dancing. Stepping over into Valia’s section meant immediately losing the rough smithy clothing and picking up a dance outfit. The boy mastered lesson after lesson, though he also returned the favor. Valia headed over to Tailyn’s smithy, where she transformed into a fur-bedecked northerner. For the first little while, she had a hard time working with the hot mana, though it grew easier with each passing day. The two children had nobody to heal, of course, so they weren’t able to put their new abilities to the test, instead jumping back into the book storeroom and adding the next ancient tome to their virtual shelves.
It happened midway through their second month of confinement. Yet another book evaporated, and Tailyn got a new message:
You received a reward for a book that was disposed of: +1 to a random skill.
Attention! Error detected...
You cannot increase your skills due to the fact that you reached your current limit.
Finding a solution to the problem...
Solution found!
***
Crystal +1 (4).
“Valia, leave the rest for me! I’m going to get crystals for them!” the boy shouted. Of the hundred and twelve books that had originally been in the room, only nineteen were left. Tailyn had found six unique copies; Valia had only found four despite the fact that she’d read more overall.
“But if I get my blessing to fifty, I can boost parameters by thirty percent. You’ll get your named equipment back.”
“And if I pick up twenty crystals, I can resurrect Ka-Do-Gir,” Tailyn replied excitedly, though he fell silent when he saw Valia’s widening eyes. “Wait, did I not tell you?”
The girl’s heavy breathing and flared nostrils spoke volumes. Tailyn knew what to do, so he dug the right phrase from the romance novel out of the depths of his memory.
“Valia, you know your boy has a memory problem, don’t you? Give me a couple seconds, and I’ll fix this.”
It worked. The girl’s face smoothed back out, and Tailyn eventually found the mission synchronization functionality. Placing a hand on Valia’s shoulder, he went through the set of commands. It was something he should have done long before but had completely forgotten about.
Tailyn Vlashich is offering to synchronize his mission Ancient History.
Valia pressed the accept button and was lost to the world for a little while. There were so many updates, in fact, that she got a random skill bump. Finally, she found what Tailyn had been talking about — fusing crystals to form concentrated noa.
“I only have four crystals right now since I had to spend so many on hacking. Even if three of the books that are left are unique, I’ll still have enough crystals to make one of those spheres. I’ll get Ka-Do-Gir back!”
The boy’s argument, or rather the fact that he’d shared his mission updates with her, did the trick. Closing the book she’d begun with a sigh, the girl handed it to the boy, letting him take over checking for unique copies.
But that thought began eating away at Valia. She remembered incidents from the past, and each passing moment saw her grow more convinced that there was something wrong with what she’d been taught her whole life.
“Tailyn, is the god omnipotent and omniscient?” Valia asked, looking to share her idea.
“Of course!” the boy replied, taken aback. “Nothing happens in this world outside its will.”
“Okay, then what are we doing here?”
“Completing a missio
n. Reading books so we can...” Tailyn trailed off. He’d suddenly realized what Valia was getting at.
“Exactly. So, the System knows there are books. It hid them behind shields to make sure they weren’t lost to the passage of time, though it can’t figure out for itself if they’re unique or not. It needs people. Really, it’s almost like the god doesn’t know what the books are about! And that’s not all. There are a lot of ways the god is neither omnipotent nor omniscient.”
“And the messages that pop up when we get three levels at once,” Tailyn said. “The ones about freeing up system resources. If that were so important, the god would do it itself.”
“But it doesn’t want to. Why not? What happened during the exodus that made the god forget about part of the world?”
Tears of Alron (The Alchemist Book #3): LitRPG Series Page 16