“So what do we do with dollars in the game where we use gold?” Jessie, damn, I mean Valerie asks.

“Drop it in the inventory? It doesn't have a problem with Canadian quarters, they come back out as American, maybe I can get it to produce gold coins.” I open up my inventory and find everything there. All the food supplies, my cash, laptop, and various odds and ends. I pull out a dollar. One dollar appears in my hand. I put the dollar back in and Will the inventory to give me a gold coin. My balance drops by a quarter, and I have a gold coin. I pull out a box of sugar, pop it open, and taste it. It tastes like it should.

“Hand that over.” Val's being bossy again all of the sudden. I give her the sugar and she tastes.

“This is amazing. Do you know how hard it is to get good food in here? The waiting list for anything even half decent is a week long.”

“Well, I'm not starting a restaurant because you are hungry. If you want me to carry around tons of food, you'll need to get me someplace I can cook tons of food.”

She gets a determined look. “I'll rent out a bakery for an evening. Tonight, you cook.”

Well, it won't be too much trouble. Maybe I can figure how to get my cooking skill to use ingredients directly from my inventory. Wow. I am getting really lazy about food.

We head back to town and I'm a hundred dollars richer. Fifty from the quest, and another fifty from the rabbits. Valerie wants to go arrange access to some cooking space, so she shows me to the library where I can teach myself for a while.

It's amazing. I goggle a little at the sight. It rivals any library I've ever been in. This building is definitely bigger on the inside. It goes up for at least ten stories before the view twists out of sight. I'll have to climb if I want to see how high it goes. I stop ogling the architecture and step forward to the desk where instead of a dowdy librarian, I find a grinning teenager. “First time here?”

“Yes. This place is amazing.”

“We like to think so. Do you have a library card?”

“No, what's involved?”

“Library cards are free, but you need one to access the library. They signify that you know the rules and you haven't broken them. Would you like to get a card?”

“Absolutely.” I can see myself spending a lot of time here.

“Here are the rules. No fire. It will trigger the wards and likely suffocate you. If you damage a book, you pay for it. We can copy any book for 20 silver, so that's the replacement fee. If you know the spell to copy a book yourself, you'll have to register your ability. The mages guild teaches the standardized version for 10 gold I was last told. If you bring a book to a table, don't try to put it back yourself. You can't check out books, only copy them for the 20 silver fee. There are resellers that will sometimes buy and sell books below library rates, but their inventory is always limited. If you lose your library card, there is a one silver fee to retrieve your records, and it may take a few days. Lastly, no crime is tolerated on the premises. Depending on the severity, penalties range from a hefty fine, up to being banned from all libraries in the land. Do you understand these rules?”

“Yes.”

“Alright then. Write your name on both of these cards, and place a drop of blood on yours.”

The blood turned out to be a bit of a problem, as I didn't want to use their blade. Blood was considered a strong sympathetic link in many magical systems, and it could be used to do all kinds of nasty stuff to you. I managed to nick my finger on my beginner's sword and dropped it back into my inventory. After a drop of blood touched my card, both glowed brightly for a moment, and my name appeared on the top in an almost machine precision cursive script. The librarian handed me the card I had used the drop of blood on, and I was free to explore.

I was supposed to go read history and learn about all the threats in the land, but I really wanted to learn more magic. There were automatons, clockwork looking things, on each level that could direct you to whatever you were looking for. I asked for beginners magic and was directed to the eighth floor. The entire floor was for beginner's magic. There were so many books. Just rows and rows that seemed to go off into the far distance. I walked and read titles at random. Most were introductory texts, some were the first volume in a series, the vast majority were personal spellbooks and notes by mages that never passed the beginner's level. Every type of mental energy was represented, even the weird modern ones like Chakra. I opened that one.

Data Storage Device Detected, Absorb?

Huh. I wasn't sure what my power would do to a book. The goddess it ate was restored from backup, but there were fines here for damaging books. Would the book be wiped from the system if I absorbed it? I put the chakra book back and went to look for something useless. I eventually found a beginners spellbook written by someone using raw mental energy. It was short, not saying good things about whoever had been writing it. I got it copied and tried to absorb it.

Skill 'Fire Manipulation' Unlocked!

Skill 'Water Manipulation' Unlocked!

Skill 'Ranged Construction' Unlocked!

Skill 'Mental Manipulation' Unlocked!

And the copied version of the book vanished. Thankfully the original was fine. The book was there in my memory, but unread. I spun up a partition and had it start reading through. Apparently unlocking a skill like this started it at level 0, and I had to read the material before I gained actual understanding or levels.

I decided I'd check out some of those resellers, and buy in bulk. If anything useful unlocked, I could prioritize reading those books. In the meantime, I wanted to scan some of these books into my memory so I could get to work digesting them.

First I aimed for mana based beginner's guides. Then I looked for books that were part of a series for any system. I wanted to get a variety and discuss the pros and cons of each with Val.

I mostly scanned the books at the shelves. It didn't take long per book, but there were a lot of books. I was getting pop-ups left and right for energy types and elements. Specific spells didn't seem to rate a skill or notification, only the type of spell, manner of delivery, and effect it produced counted as skills. Hopefully I could learn to mix and match without needing a specific spell. That was probably beyond a novice's skill though.

It turned out there was a rule against consuming an energy field larger than your head. I couldn't find anything related to my Mana Vortex skill, but there were lots of common exercises and rules. Don't push something out of the workshop until you're ready for it to explode. Don't pull anything into the workshop before scanning it. Mental viruses were apparently a thing. I was pretty sure a black hole would take care of any nasty self-replicating worm. Don't run out of mana. Your spells can go out of conscious control if you do, and bad things happen.

There was a surprising lack of rules regarding ethics. There wasn't much in terms of sacrificing people for power, but vampiric energy spells were common. It seemed like the difference between sharing power and stealing power was very fine, and it worked for all sorts of energy. I would need to hit up the law section to see if any of these practices were banned.

After I finished a few primers on mana and basic mental energy, I tried life energy.

Advanced Skill 'Mental Harmony' Unlocked!

It was hard at first, but the skill helped. Holding onto the idea that life was everywhere and everything, and mana was everywhere and fueled life, was not easy. I couldn't even cheat and have different partitions think different things. I had to fuse the ideas together and accept them all despite their differences. I'm fairly sure I would have a screaming headache if not for my protection from mental status effects.

There's just no way I could focus on casting while holding too many energies at once. I would need to learn a couple powerful combinations, or cycle through to what I needed at the time. Unfortunately, the process of melding the energy thought patterns or cycling to a different thought pattern, emptied my mana bar. If I wanted to sling different schools of magic around, I would need a way to quickly regain mental energy, or spend a lot of time learning to merge them.

I read the chakra book, and cycled over to that. I could feel my muscle's potential increasing as chakra suffused my body. Not by much, but it was there, and I could level it up. I switched back to mana and spent one partition on trying to merge with chakra. They would be a good combination until I could learn something better.

There was still a lot more to scan and do here on this floor, but I felt like I needed some practical experience before I could progress. Even the novice books had some spells that were obviously far beyond me at this point.

Now that I had the foundation down, maybe Val would teach me some more advanced stuff, or at least point me in the right direction. It would be slower to keep coming back to the library to find the next step, but it was doable. I asked the automaton where to find bestiaries and was directed to the 4th floor.

When I arrived Valarie was already there, and she looked annoyed. “Where have you been?”

“I can explain. … Magic is cool?”

She sighs. “Yes, magic is cool. We'll go over what you read later. I managed to get a bakery and an inn to let us use the kitchens tonight. Once I'm satisfied you are sufficiently aware of the threats out there, we can go elsewhere if you want.”

“This place is amazing, why would I want to go anywhere?”

“Because magic is cool?” she asked archly. “You still need to learn hand to hand before I'll let you go out with a sword. The bunny adventure was strictly because your quest required it. Our next fights won't be against animals quite so helpless.”

“Alright, three hours here and two hours training hand to hand. Then cooking.”

She smiled again. She was really a food nut. “There are some good books here that you should be able to get through quickly, sit down and I'll bring them.”

I sat down and switched over to maximum partitions, grinding away at my reading list. I was quite annoyed healing was one of the few things that didn't get much mention. It was a priority given how much I was likely to get tossed around, and I wanted to see how it interacted with my Hit Points.

Jessie came back with an armful of books, dropped them off and headed out again this time with a cart. Bernie's Beastiary Bonanza. A series of seven. Great. I hoped the books themselves were a little less alliterative. Damn. Now I'm doing it.

The first volume was solely dedicated to humanoid creatures/people. Varieties of dwarves, elves, merfolk, beast-men, and much more. It seemed like if I had ever heard of it, it existed here with only one exception. There was no mention of gods or celestial type beings. There were demons, but they didn't seem to have any divine origins or weaknesses. In each variety of sentient being, there were multiple cultures and societies. It didn't go into much history, just listing the major factions, but it hinted at a rich heritage for all races. I wondered if they had their own version of powered people.

Val came back when I finished scanning Bernie's books, and I had to ask a question. “Val, why is it every popular media race or species is represented here? Isn't that weird? Shouldn't there be completely made up stuff in movies and such?”

“All stories are true. Remember that. It is a pan-universal constant. Even non-magical people have mental energy, and it doesn't sit idle. When they watch a show or a movie, they make those stories real. Part of your training will be locking down such thoughts and preventing your imagination from leaking into the global gestalt. The reason you don't see the monsters is because they aren't all here. Some are on different planets, some are in different dimensions, but they are all real. These bestiaries only cover the things you will find on earth, but with LucidTech's next release, there will be a lot more books to read.”

Well, that explained a lot. I wondered if there was a way to get to Ichiraku's Ramen Stand. I hope someone is taking care of moderating popular fiction. The horror movies I've already seen would be bad to run into. We didn't need worse things running around.

I scanned through the books Val brought, and continued reading Bernie's Bestiaries. It was starting to get a little scary. Contagious undead. Sentient spirits. Things with not so grand delusions of being at the top of the food chain. The classics were present, goblins, orcs, dragons, trolls, slimes, and griffons to name a very few. Then the cultural monsters came. I wasn't as familiar with them as I was with the modern pop culture monsters, but they seemed much more vicious. Then came some weird stuff. Maybe the things that went bump in the night when we had just discovered fire. Amorphous and dangerous.

Thankfully, there was no mention of Cthulu or the Outer Gods. Most of this information would have gone in one ear and out the other before my memory skills had unlocked. It just didn't seem real. I would have to encounter some of this stuff in the real world before it would fully sink in.

Val came back with the last load of books and I scanned them, but there was a lot of repetition at this point. I let her know and she agreed we would hold off on any more bestiaries. I finished scanning, and we moved to the twelveth floor with histories. It looked like the library did go above ten stories, and looking up, it twisted again above floor twenty-two suggesting even more.

The books here were slightly different. I was beginning to pick up a pattern where histories matched real world locations, if not real world accounts. This must be the Hidden World's official history. Stories of dwarven uprisings, elves who refused to cede forests, and dragons that devastated armies and countries alike. Firearms seemed to level the playing field a bit, and the Hidden World made up the difference. Since then human supremacy and technological advancement had been the order of the day. The histories went much further back, but Valerie said the changes in culture and weapons had changed us into a practically brand new world, making things too far back irrelevant.

I spent an hour just letting my partitions churn through books. Valarie was getting bored and I had gone through a sampling of each section well enough I could answer easy questions. She decided that was enough for now, and we left the library.

* * *

The training hall was the first place most people went. There were sections everywhere for any and all types of practice. Warded areas you could try out spells, sand fighting circles you could spar in, archery targets and practice arrows, even the ever traditional training dummies.

We headed straight for the fighting circles where only a few were in use. We watched them for a short while and Valarie provided commentary. “See where he let his grip slip there? It's easier to maintain a grip if you can encircle a limb. Otherwise, you need to put a lot of pressure and counter pressure to hold your opponent.” “That's how you don't fall. The sand saved his neck, but he'll still feel it until he gets healed.” “Watch their feet. Especially in the sand, footing is important. If you have no base, you cannot exert proper leverage.”

I think she was annoying them, because they came to watch us the moment we entered a ring. I had gained a skill level from watching, and was happy to continue gaining experience that way, but Valerie had other ideas. We went back to her modified monster fighting martial art.

“Footwork!” Ow. “The eyes lie! Watch the body!” Ow. “Put some weight behind it!” Ow.

That looks like it hurts.

That's because it does dammit. Any tips?

Get her to teach you healing. Your stats do not depend on natural muscle growth.

“Val, I think you need to teach me healing. I gain skill levels regardless of whether I am damaged or not, and I'd prefer to fight fresh until I learn enough to need to fight tired.”

She seemed to think about it for a moment, then nodded and we went to the warded areas.

“First, the only reason I'm teaching you this now is because of your Hit Points. If you were likely to need to heal deep wounds you would probably kill yourself.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

“Says the guy who created a black hole and nearly fried his brain.”

“I did want to ask you about that, I couldn't find it in the books.”

“Because it is a master level technique. Something you should not even be aware of, let alone accomplishing. Now pay attention. I'm going to heal this bruise in your arm. I want all your focus right there watching the change.”

I switched one of my partitions over to sense any magic, and watched the surface wound with the other. When she was satisfied I was paying attention, she sank her magic into my arm. It felt incredibly uncomfortable, like there was something under my skin that needed to get out. Then the magic took the shape of my arm, mimicking the arm bruise and all. It no longer felt wrong. It didn't feel like it was there at all. Slowly the broken and bruised area was clearing up and I focused more on the magical effects. She was putting in energy, but also spreading concepts all over the place. There were ideas of capillaries and veins being whole, cells moving back to their former state. This was real healing magic, not just speeding natural healing.

“You need a good understanding of biology to do this. You should study it in more depth if you want to heal like this. There are other ways, but you aren't ready for them yet. Give it a shot.”

I rolled up the sleve on my other arm. Bruises everywhere. I focused on a small spot, then started constructing the concepts of a fully healed patch of skin. Based on what I saw, they would need a lot of power to work with. I summoned up the misty mana and pushed it into my arm with the concept, willing the concept to replicate. The concepts started sinking into the cells, fixing them while eating the mana present. Every time one wore out, two more took their place. A small dot on my skin cleared of bruises, and the dot rapidly spread over the whole of the area I had been concentrating on. I let my concentration spread and let it run until the mana ran out. The bruises on my arm were erased, but it was still a little sore.

“Why is it still a little sore? It's not like that on the other side.”

“You didn't go deep enough. But don't try until you get some advanced biology under your belt. This should be enough for now. Finish healing yourself and we'll get back to practice.”

I decided I wanted to do this in one sweep. I sculpted the most perfect concept of unblemished skin, and placed it in my chest. Then I infused my body with half my total mana. It spread like wildfire, rapidly replicating in the more bruised areas, and slowing when encountering the rare healthy skin. When it was done, I didn't feel fully healed, but I felt much, much better. Valerie was laughing.

Skill 'Healing' Unlocked!

“What?”

“Your head.”

I reached up, and my hair was gone. I looked at my arms, my hair was gone. I looked down my shirt, my hair was gone. Ok, I was freaking out.

“No no no no no, please no. How do I fix it?”

This only caused her to laugh harder.

“You knew this would happen!”

And she fell to the ground laughing harder. She was going to hurt herself if she kept that up. Or I was going to hurt her. One of those.

“If you don't fix this, I don't cook. Ever. I will live off delivery food for the rest of my life.”

She was still laughing, but it was less now. She was calming down.

“Don't freak out. Yes, I knew it would happen, and it is a perfect example of why you shouldn't go off half cocked. Just hold still.” She did something and my skin started itching uncontrollably. It felt like a million ants were crawling up my body. Then I realized she was just putting the hair that fell out back where it was instead of regrowing it. Oh my god, this is so gross. I have hair crawling up and attaching itself to me. I don't care if it was mine before, it stopped being mine when I was freaking out!

“This is so not cool!” She fell to the ground laughing again.

After she finally calmed down we went back to the sparring circle. Let's say I was a little more motivated this time.

Strength +1, Agility +1, Vitality +1

After two hours total, my Melee Combat had leveled three times and Val's weird foreign style had leveled half a dozen times. I was starting to be passable. And as my Melee Combat increased, I would be able to use other styles and weapons without training in them quite so much.

We went to where Val had rented the bakery and inn kitchens, and the cooking marathon began.

Jack Ambrose Webb's Statistics

Strength

34 (+1)

Wisdom

24 (+1)

Agility

42 (+1)

Charisma

33

Dexterity

42 (+1)

Luck

7 (+1)

Vitality

36 (+1)

Transcend

2

Intelligence

59 (+2)