《Statless》Chapter 7 - The Library of Balberton

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Walking through the barrier, Alex felt a shiver run down his spine, the temperature suddenly shifting and his vision blurring. When he came out the other side, all these symptoms vanished as if an illusion, instead a feeling of security envoloped him, the dangers of the forest forgotten.

The inside of the barrier was calm, aside from the banter of the guards having passed through before him. After waiting a short while for everyone, they resumed their march towards the pyramid, still a distance away from the magical shield providing its inhabitants a safe haven in this monster-infested world.

Reaching the pyramid, Alex was shocked to see a repeat of the scene that transpired back at the barrier. The guards at the front simply walked through the wall of the collosal structure. When it was his turn, Alex placed a hand on the wall, making sure it really was immaterial, only to be greeted by a feeling similar to touching flowing water. It was different from the illusional barrier, more akin to a liquid giving way for his hand to pass through, while at the same time not allowing him to manipulate it like one could with the water in a river, like causing waves or the like. He assumed the reason for this to be that the pyramid consisted of actual matter, while the barrier was formed by energy.

Once inside, Alex was greeted by a magnificient sight, even more so than the giant black monument he currently found himself inside of. A giant city, easily providing residence for millions of inhabitants, spread out in all directions in front of him, still illuminated by the sun shining through the now transparent walls of the pyramid. Individual regions were distinctly seperated by walls, not as big this time, but certainly strong enough to keep the common masses outside of the wealthy zones.

Still following closely behind Alberton, to avoid any unfavorable encounters, they walked further into the center of this city, passing through what could only be refered to as slums. Rotten structures and ruins lay to the side of a muddy road with a slim path of white stone in pristine condition situated perfectly in the center, apparently to allow the wealthier population to reach the outside without having to sully themselves. All around him, Alex could see poor souls, hurrying to work, all avoiding the white tiles like the plague. With a sudden flash of inspiration, he decided to call it the Royal Road.

His entourage did not bother with it much, walking anywhere over this symbol of oppression or to its side, not caring about their already dirty attire being sullied further. Alex kept closer to the road, mostly because this sight reminded him that he knew nothing about the micro-organisms of this world and whether a common germ would end his unadapted body as if it was the black plague.

After a good hour of marching through this pit of despair called the outer layer they reached the middle section. A much more welcoming region with lanterns siding the clean, paved roads. The buildings looked inhabitable, unlike the broken structures found in the outer layer, with mostly white facades, actual rooftiles and glasswindows. Most of the houses had shops in their ground floors selling daily necesseties or other wares.

Coming up to an impressively large building, his group went inside while he was halted by a security guard telling him to wait outside. Apparently only members and clients had access to the building. Having been left behind by Alberton, he waited patiently, but mostly bored. Every now and then he witnessed people walk in and out of the structure, some being received or led out by attendants.

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"Sir Grendor, it is a pleasure to have you with us today. I see you have returned in good health from the expedition. I hope everything was to your satisfaction." An old, corpulent man with brown hair and dressed in a dark-green robe greeted him in an obsequious manner.

"I fear not, mister Fiser. We encountered a dangerous creature and had to retread ahead of schedule," he told the leader of the military organization called Union of Sardia, known to most as the Union. It was the worlds only frontier against the creatures hiding everywhere on the surface and underground.

"That is most tragic, sir Grendor! Do you intend to lead another expedition to collect your materials? We'll provide you with everything necessary to ensure your next expedition is successful!"

"That will not be necessary. I have decided to conclude this research project and will not need those materials in the foreseeable future," he said, a slight smile hidden under his beard.

"I apologize for this unpleasant occurance. Sadly, incidents like this one seem to happen more often lately. If I may ask, what are you planning to do now?"

Alberton, not wanting to reveal the true nature of his new acquaintance, recalled the rumor spread by the guards regarding him and his new research subject. "I have taken on an apprentice," he said, thinking to himself, 'Part of our agreement was to teach him about magic, so I might as well make it official.'

"To think I would live to see this day! Sir Grendor, it would be my honor to see the person talented enough to receive your teachings."

'Ass-kisser,' he though, but instead, with a smile, said, "Of course, you are welcome to visit us. Talking about him, he is currently waiting outside. If you would excuse me."

"It was a pleasure, sir Grendor!"

"Welcome to the Grendor residence."

Having passed straight through the middle region of the city to the center, they currently stood in front of a villa located in a well-situated neighborhood.

The whole walk, not including the time spent at the Union building, from when they first entered the pyramid to Albertons home, took over two hours; a testament to the incredible size of this city.

The sun hiding itself behind the horizon and plunging the city into darkness, the street lanters and nearby villae remaining the only source of light, told him that it was late in the evening.

Once inside, Alberton turned towards him and said, "I will lead you to the guest room, where you will spend the night. I still have many questions about your world that need to be answered, but that will have to wait for tomorrow. Afterwards I will show you to the library where you can learn everything you will need to know about magic to become a great mage like myself, even if not quite as capable. But for now you will have to sleep."

Having said that, Alberton lead him to his room and left him to his own devices. His bedroom was already prepared, likely by some servant of the house. Lying in bed, he instantly fell asleep, not even attempting to resist the sweep embrace of slumber to contemplate his brilliant future or the wonderous situation he found himself in.

It was still early morning when he woke up, but what greeted him was not the warm morning sun, nor was it a nice wakeup call from an attendant. It was the face of a demon, or rather a young boy with a demonic expression. If Alex didn't know better, he would've assumed that he was the culprit who slaugthered that boys whole village, for he could not think of another reason that would warrant such an expression. The boy seemed to be barely in his teens, maybe 13 years old, with strickingly familiar blue eyes and short brown hair. Dressed in pompouos clothes, he likely was the offspring of a noble household.

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Not wanting to deal with shit like that, and not being good with kids to begin with, he turned around in his bed and ignored the intruder, hoping that this demon-child would simply leave him be, or at the very least not eat him.

Unwilling to leave the comfort of his bed, he pulled the bedsheet over his head and went back to sleep.

The kid, clearly unimpressed by his attempt to avoid the situation, shouted, "GET UP!" before continuing in a more subdued voice, "Uncle called for you!"

Not eliciting the slightest motion from the sloth-like human, the only testament to the existence of a living being under the bedsheets was a muffled sound: "No."

The kid was not as relaxed as Alex. Having had enough of the man-childs shenanigans, he extended his hands and levitated him, together with his bedsheets, into the air, before throwing his over the bedside, ignoring the shouts and cries of surprise coming from the entangled mess of limbs and cloth.

Taking some time to stand up and get back his bearings, Alex snapped, "What the fuck is wrong with you?! That was fucking dangerous, you fucker!" using a vocabulary that should be avoided in the presence of children, even if Alex considered him to be more of a demon than a child.

Confirming his suspicions, at least in his opinion, the demon-child did not react to his outburst, simply walking out of the room with a satisfied expression plastered onto his previously demonic visage.

Not having the magical faculties to get his revenge against the boy, without risking the integrity of his dignity further, Alex decided to forget this encounter for now and get ready to see what the old man wanted from him. The prospect of learning more about magic gave him some motivation to not fall back asleep, too.

Walking out of his room, he noticed a minor problem. Mezi was a gigantic city, comparable to a megapolis, easily providing shelter to millions of inhabitants only in its outer layer. Even with that being kept in mind, the villa was simply out of proportions.

When he first entered this estate through the silvery gate at the entrance to the vast garden leading up to the building, he saw hundreds of windows on its surface, each one likely representing a single room, spread out over 8 floors, not even taking into account the other side of the building or any rooms situated inbetween, without direct access to the outside in the form of a window.

The buildings in the surroundings were all of similar proportions, only varying in style, providing a stark contrast to the rotten houses found in the outer region or even the humble houses of the middle section of this city.

Finding himself stranded in this vast place, he knew not how to find Alberton in the first place. His intention to complain about the demonic brat was quickly thrown out of the window, there were enough after all, when he realized that he had no idea where he was or even in which direction the scholar would be.

Not having found a solution to his current dilemma after some thought, he decided to blindly walk down the left corridor, hoping to have remembered the way correctly. A futile hope, for it lead to a dead-end. He turned around and began to walk back in the opposite direction, grumbling about the necessity of a map to find ones way in this large villa.

He came upon a staircase, similarly over-sized, interconnecting the 8 floors, all likely as absurd in scale as this one. Luckily he encountered another human at the bottom of the staircase, hopefully not as lost in this not-so-humble abode as he was.

"Excuse me! Can you tell me where to find Alberton?" he asked, praying to god that this man did not fall into cannibalism from years of starvation, lost in this desolated, albeit very well-decorated, wasteland consisting solely of walls, doors, and stairs.

"Yes, sir! If you may follow me, I will lead you to his excellency immediately!" the man, apparently a servant of this house, answered in an overly enthusiastic tone. He lead him through a parlour, similarly over-sized as the rest of the house.

"This is the dining hall where his excellency is currently eating his morning meal. If you may excuse me, honorable guest, I have many duties to attend to." With the servant being gone, Alex decided to enter the room, feeling slightly nervous for some reason.

Within he found Alberton, sitting alone in front of a magnificient table, still dressed in the same robes he wore the day before, enjoying some bread with what seemed to be marmelade of all things. "Ah, Alexander. I have to say, when I saw Simon returning from your quarters without you, I was worrying whether you would find your way around on your own. I hope it was not too much of a hassle?" he asked, not seeming very concerned about anything other than his meal.

"Had some problems at first, but then I encountered one of your servants and he was nice enough to lead me here. I didn't know you'd be an excellency though..." he said, noticing a grin creeping up under the scholars beard. "What?"

"It seems that you've encountered Samuel. He is my nephew, although he likes to mess with guests, especially when they treat him like a servant in the first place," he replied, not able to suppress a chuckle.

"But I didn't..."

"Did you introduce yourself?" he interrupted, already having guessed what had transpired between Alex and his family member.

"Oh... Sorry, I didn't mean to... It's just that he... stood there... uh..." he stuttered, not finding an adequate excuse as to why he thought a random man standing in this house to be a servant, or why he didn't introduce himself before asking for directions either.

"Do not worry about it. He enjoys those plays, that is why he does it in the first place. Nonetheless, you will likely have to deal with him alluding to this encounter for a long time," he soothed his guests worries, still smiling at his nephews mischieviousness.

"Take a seat," he offered, prompting Alex to sit next to him. Alex complied and ate breakfast with the old man in silence.

Once they were done, Alberton lead him to his atelier, where he took a seat and asked about his old world, this time getting a detailed explanation about everything Alex could remember, sometimes interrupting him to ask about various things that came up.

The man in question generously provided him with everything he wanted to know, only occassionally grumbling about his boredom, all the while excercising his magic with some pen, barely being able to lift it at all.

The hours passed and soon it became noon, Alex having finished his explanation to the best of his capabilities, anxiosly waited to be released upon the library, where he intended to absord every book about magic he could find.

Enthusiastic about the insights he gleaned from the otherworldler, Alberton lead him to his library. "Be careful not to break anything. These books contain everything you will need to know about magic to become a veritable mage, but it will take a long time and much practice, so do not expect instant progress," he warned, leaving his supposed apprentice alone in this hall of knowledge.

Not wasting any time, Alex simply went for the first book that took his fancy, opened it, and was greeted by undecipherable nonsense. "Alright, not this one," he said, placing the book back where he found it and taking another one, leading to the same result.

He repeated his endevour over twenty times, starting to fear that his Language Skill may not be able to translate books, when he finally happened upon one written in a language he could understand. He was not really reading it but rather understanding what the words meant, likely how the Skill worked when it came to written texts.

It was a sizeable book, akin to a dictionary, for that was close to what it was. A collection of all the Skills known to mankind. Each page was dedicated to five or six skills, describing their requirements, effects and some pecularities. Some of the rarer ones where only mentioned by name, while taking up whole pages worth of speculations as to their nature, possibly never obtained or kept hidden from the masses.

It also contained a short introduction to various aspects of skills and their meaning. It mentioned that Skills were seperated into different ranks: Common, Uncommon, Rare, Epic and Legendary. For some reason Unique was not listed, but Alex concluded that it was a rank solely reserved for titles, not paying more attention to this oddity.

They each had different requirements. Common was simple to obtain, not needing to take any actions out of the norm, and therefore many had these Skills. Uncommon already required one to prove their worth, being achievable only for the more talented individuals.

At Rare, the difficulty took a tremendous jump, solely reserved for those who managed to reach a respectable Level in the first place, but also having superior effects most of the time. This was a statement that Alex could not refute, given the few Stat points he obtained after barely two days in this world. Although he did not have any reference for a normal Status and Stat-gain either.

Epic was apparently unachievable under Level fifty, apart from very few exceptions of evolved Skills, while Legendary was only heard of in, you guessed it, legends. Some prominent figures are thought to possess one or even multiple of those, but none gave any details or even affirmed those suspicions.

Having spent enough time familiarizing himself with the general aspects of Skills, like their Rarity, Requirements, and Effects, the latter two being exactly what one would imagine them to be, aside from a short note informing him that requirements could, under special circumstances, be substituted, reduced, or even ignored, Alex thought it wise to look up his own Skills, to get a better grasp on them.

His Common Skills, unsurprisingly, turned out to be well-documented. Language did not actually translate anything. It simply allowed one to understand the concepts intuitively while also modifying ones senses slightly to hide any asynchronicity or nudge the user to neglect them, unless considerable effort is employed to overcome those effects.

Memory and Thought simply give a boost to the basic capabilities, which does not make one smarter in any way, only allowing for faster, more diverse thoughts and a better memory.

Physical Resistance apparently increased the effect of ones Endurance regarding physical damage, while not increasing it directly or affecting any other restistances. This confirmed Alexs assumption that resistance to cold and the like where a part of Endurance, too.

Inspect was a comparatively more complex Skill, unlocking additional information with each Level, although the strength of the Skill seemed to be related to ones ability to focus. The more focus one put on a specific entity, the more information one could glean, while already having information in advance can help to increase the effect further.

Spending a long time searching for the descriptions of Statless and Skillless, he realized that those were Titles, not Skills. He turned to the shelf where he got the book from and found another three with similar covers, reading: The System, Titles and Stats.

Opening the book he was looking for, what greeted him was the exact same rank explanation he found before, only this time regarding Titles. Being slightly confused about the continued absence of a Unique rank, he decided to ask Alberton whether he knew why there were no other ranks listed, not mentioning Unique explicitly. Even if the scholar reacted positively to his otherworldly origins, he was uncertain how he'd deal with a Unique Title, something even Alex himself could not make much sense of. He'd also ask him about prominent individuals getting their own Titles or being able to characterize new Skills.

He got distracted from his thoughty by the page he had found while considering the uniqueness of his Title. It contained the descriptions for Statless and Skillless. What gave him pause was the symbol depicted to the left of both of his Titles names: a skull. An ominous sign, prompting Alex to quickly look up the legend on the last page of the book.

"Skull: Do not attempt to achieve these Titles! They will lead to certain death! Don't! In case you already received one or multiple of these, please consider changing your lifestyle."

"Huh..." Not minding the warning, since it didn't reflect what had happened to him, he went back to uncover the secrets of his Titles.

A pointless task, given that the descriptions matched his Systems by the letter. Nonetheless, he continued to shift through both books, reading about anything that caught his fancy.

It was already dark outside when he finished looking through the innumerable Skills and Titles contained in both books, finally deciding to call it a day. He went back to Albertons atelier, finding him scribbling on some papers, seemingly not noticing him.

"What are you writing?" he asked, not startling the scholar in the slightest.

"Alexander, good evening. I am concluding my thoughts on a previous project, so that I may dedicate my time to one I have recently started taking an interest in," he answered cryptically, not wanting to go into any details as to what his new project could be. Alex had a strong hunch that not only the wizards time would have to be dedicated to it.

Sighing, he told the old man that he'd go back to sleep. "Good night, Alberton. And thanks for taking care of me."

"You don't have to thank me, Alexander, we have an agreement. It is in my best interest to keep you close by," he reminded the youth, lest he took his lodgings for granted.

"Sure, whatever," was all the scholar got in return before Alex began his unsuccessful attempt to find his bedroom, quickly giving up and going to get something to eat instead when he noticed the grumbling of his empty stomach.

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