Chapter 002

-------------------------------------

‘ ‘ for thoughts

“ “ for speech

Hope you enjoy the chapter. I had a bit of free time this weekend, so you get the chapter early! –please point out any mistakes/inconsistencies you notice.

-------------------------------------

After completing his 8 hour stint at the training hall, Jack jogged towards the library to familiarize himself with Lore. As Jack entered the library, he felt goose bumps on the back of his neck. ‘Must be some sort of magic in effect here…’ Jack thought while trying to make sense of the sudden goose bumps. Jack saw a visibly bored young boy, about 12 years old, sitting on the reception counter on Jacks left. The boy was playing some sort of guessing game with cards. Straight ahead of Jack was some space with a lot of shelves. There was a spiral staircase in the center, which Jack assumed went to the upper floors.

Jack approached the reception, and inquired: “Greeting to you. Can you please tell me where I can meet the Head Librarian Madam Curie?”

The bored boy looked up at Jack with a quizzical gaze. “You want to meet Auntie Curie? Sure I can take you there. But tell me are you one of those travelers? I haven’t seen you before” the boy said in an irritating droning voice.

Jack suppressed an urge to slap the owner of that droning voice and replied “Yes I am a traveler. I am known as Jack.”

The boy looked visibly excited and replied in his droning voice which started squeaking intermittently “That is so cool! I am Dan by the way. Are you a mage? Are you looking to expand your knowledge to do cool spells? Who sent you here anyway? If you are a mage, don’t tell Auntie Curie though. She doesn’t seem to like them very much.”

Jack chuckled outwardly and thought ‘This brat’s voice sure is irritating.’

“No I am just a novice. Can you please lead me to Madam Curie now?” Jack said suppressing his urge to slap Dan silly.

“You are just a novice? That is so lame. You can take the stairs, on the 3rd floor to your right you will find a door labeled ‘Head Librarian’. Auntie Curie should be there now.” Dan said dismissively in his droning voice and went back to his cards.

‘Someone should slap some manners into this brat and shut that annoying voice of his.’ Jack thought while fuming at Dan’s reaction. Jack shrugged, gathered himself and went to meet the Head Librarian. He knocked loudly on the door, and heard a curt voice say “Enter.” Jack entered and noticed a severe old lady, with a hooked nose. She had her silver-white hair in a tight bun. She looked up and set her stern gaze upon Jack.

“How can I help you young traveler? I hope you are not here to waste my time.” she inquired.

“Greetings Madam Curie. I was sent by instructor Theon to help you. He asked me to give you this note.” Jack said, while he withdrew the note from his inventory and handed it to Madam Curie.

The Head Librarian read his note and looked at Theon. “Hmm. This is intriguing. So you want a library card, and in return you will help me out here. Is that correct young man?”

“Yes Madam Curie. When can I start? I am Jack by the way.” Jack inquired hopefully.

“From your looks you are a newborn traveler. From the note Theon sent me, you have absolutely no skills…but are diligent. Here take this note to that brat who sits at reception and familiarize yourself with our filing system. You can’t miss him; he has the most annoying voice I have heard. Then you can begin shelving returned books in their proper place.” Madam Curie said and motioned him to take a note she had just written. Jack thanked her and pocketed the note. He was almost about to leave, when he heard Madam Curie again.

“Oh, I almost forget! Take this provisional employee card too. This enables you to sleep at the dormitory and have meals free of charge in our cafeteria. Your dormitory will be on the 4th floor. Enter the door labeled ‘Employees Only’ and take the first door to your right. I know you travelers just disappear while leaving this world in city limits, but sleeping before you return to your own world has its advantages.” Madam Curie took out a brown card from her desk drawer and kept it on the desk.

“Thank you Madam Curie. Can you please tell me where the cafeteria is located?” Jack asked. He had noticed that his Stamina had stopped regenerating and his satiety and thirst bars were around 1/3rd full.

“The cafeteria is at the ground floor behind an ‘Employees Only’ door. Just go straight ahead and you will land there. Meal times are at 7-8am, 1-2pm and 7-8pm daily. Since you will be getting a library card, free food and lodging, you won’t be paid. Although, with this provisional employee card, you can read any books you want in your free time, but aren’t allowed to take books with you. There is a very powerful anti-theft magical system in here…so don’t even try. So is that acceptable Jack?”

Quest InformationNameWork for KnowledgeGrade???Description

On Instructor Theon’s recommendation, the head Librarian Madam Curie has offered you to help her out to classify books which are not in their respective shelves.

Duration / Time Limit4 weeksPrivileges:

You get free food and lodging for the duration of this quest.

You can also access the library at any hour.

Failure

You abandon the quest.

You damage a book irreparably.

Rewards

On satisfactory completion of your responsibilities, you will get a library membership card.

Depending on your dedication, you may get additional rewards.

“Yes, head librarian. How do I use this card anyway?” Jack asked and dismissed the Quest Accepted Notification. The terms of the quest seemed quite favorable. He didn’t need to worry about food for four weeks in game! He can just mooch off the library. He also wondered what the benefits of sleeping in-game before logging off, and the mystery rewards were.

“Oh that is easy. Just prick your finger, and pour a drop of your blood on the card. Whenever you want to enter an ‘Employees only’ section, just wave the card. If you have access to it, you will be able to enter. Now get to Work. Chop Chop!” Madam Curie snapped at Jack. Jack took the hint and went to meet Dan.

Dan seemed annoyed to be interrupted from his card game. But as soon as Jack gave him Curie’s note, Dan quickly gave him a thin book from his reception and gave a brief explanation of the book classification system used and the layout of the library. Jack listened intently; it was a numerical classification system. He hoped that its intricacies were similar to the Universal Decimal Classification used in his University Library.

Dan explained that each floor had many tables and chairs for reading, arranged between the shelves. After readers had finished reading, they would keep their books on the tables and leave. Also books which were returned after being lent were in the ground floor. Dan was somewhat gleeful when he explained that Jack’s task for today was arranging the books in the first floor, which usually had the most number of books. Jack was also reminded to start his job after 6 pm, as non-employee members were allowed to read until then.

Jack grudgingly thanked that annoying little git, and left to read the Classification Manual Dan had provided him. Dan was barely able to contain his sniggering until Jack left. ‘It is impossible to be familiar with the library system in an hour and half till 6pm today. I wonder whether I overdid it by assigning him a week’s job today? What if he mentions to Auntie Curie? Nah a Novice like him will never be able to complete it run away anyways.’ Dan rationalized while sniggering all the time.

Jack set an alarm for 7 pm IGT, 7am IGT and 1pm IGT. He disabled the previous alarm for 8pm IGT. He had initially planned to only spend up to 8pm (IGT) in the library, and spend rest of the time outside the outer city gates for some xp and loot. He changed his plan to spend the rest of his time in the library before he had to log out. He didn’t want to miss his free meals, anyway.

Jack found an empty table and quickly memorized the Library Classification and started memorizing the numerical scheme and the layout of the library. He made an abridged version of it in his NTOEPAD to help him later. It was surprisingly easy as the classification system used was fortunately; very similar to the system used by his University. After Jack finished memorizing, he noticed that his stamina was around 80% full. His satiety and thirst bars were around 1/10th full each. ‘This must be due to another satiety related penalty which stopped my regens.’ Thought Jack.

Jack didn’t want to use his bread and canteen to satiate himself, as he was about to get a free meal soon. Jack decided to meditate until dinner time to conserve his pieces of stale bread. Jack sat on the floor nearby in his practiced lotus position and entered into a meditative trance. He lost track of time and was soon engrossed in cycles of rhythmic breathing. Suddenly, he heard the familiar *Ding* and a notification popped up.

Alarm Notice: 7pm In Game Time.

Jack noticed that his thirst and satiety bar were still around 1/10th each and his stamina too was around 80%. The same before he went into meditation. He was also a bit surprised that the game could insert notification into his mind directly while he was meditating. But he then quickly recalled, that this whole VR world was experienced directly in his brain. After such level of detail and nuance he noticed ingame, inserting a crude popup would be no big deal.

Jack quickly went to the ‘Employees Only’ Door on first floor, waved his card and quickly jogged to the cafeteria. Unsurprisingly he was the first person there. Shrugging, he piled up his plate from the buffet, and started devouring his food. The food was quite decent, even if the variety was a bit lacking. It had fresh green salad, bread, some sort of rabbit stew with vegetables mixed in, apple pie and for some strange reason rabbit meat jerky.

The Jugs on the table had warm honeyed water to quench his thirst. After he had finished refilling his satiety and thirst, he noticed that many other employees had started eating. He noticed a shallow raised metallic cart in the corner. He assumed it was for dirty dishes and glasses, and was proved correct. He was about to leave, when he noticed that the buffet had rabbit meat jerky.

He took this opportunity to store a few of them in his inventory. ‘They will definitely be better than that stale bread anyways. Might as well dump my stale breads and stock up on rabbit meat jerky for the night.’ Jack dumped his stale breads in the cart and took another few pieces of the jerky so that he had 10 pieces in total.

After his theft of rabbit jerky, Jack decided to start his job of arranging the books properly. He went around and used his NOTEPAD as a guide. Most tables usually had up to a dozen books each, which were supposed to be stored in the first floor itself. He noticed half a dozen of side alcoves, each of which probably had around a hundred books. ‘They are probably the returned books, Dan was talking about. I will deal with them later.’ Jack thought.

The library had 6 floors total in the unrestricted section. Each floor had around 20 tables for reading. Jack’s task for today was clearing the first floor including the alcoves. Jack opened his inventory and according and started storing books according to its classification number. After he cleared around 5 tables and had around 60 books in his inventory, he noticed that he was moving slower.

‘Must be the over-weight limit penalty. Oh well I still have 33 slots left. I can store books worth another 2-3 tables in my inventory.’ Jack thought, and decided to fill his inventory to capacity. He then implemented only the breathing patterns from his meditation so that he could conserve stamina, and went about arranging the books in their respective shelves. He kept his notepad summoned constantly so as to avoid any mistakes.

After a while he had finished dealing with all the tables on the first floor. Near the end, Jack noticed that he could walk faster with his inventory full. He went towards one of the alcoves and started glancing through their classification serials. Jack noticed that each alcove was for one of the floors. He decided to deal to clear the first floor first and then move up the floors in ascending order. He filled his inventory to the brim with books, and noticed that there were 6 books left. He took three of them in each hand and placed them in their respective shelves.

Jack decided to try an experiment. He summoned his inventory and thought with concentration, ‘Sort library books in the inventory, with NOTEPAD library notes as guide.’ After a few second, to his amazement, the icons in his inventory started flying from one slot to another. ‘Nice. I thought this task would be impossible. But looks like there is a way to complete this quest after all, I just had to be smart enough to figure out the inventory and NOTEPAD features.’ Jack thought happily.

After his discovery, Jack practically ran around the first floor, shelving the books properly. He continued to tackle the other floors. After he had finished with the second and third floors, he noticed that his satiety and thirst were around 60% full. ‘Guess running around with overloaded inventory depletes them faster than just reading. Makes sense I suppose, after all I will be hungrier after running all day as compared to reading.’ Jack pondered whether he should eat a jerky and drink some water, but decided against it. He would have a short break when his stamina stopped regenerating.

After Jack was done with all the six floors, his satiety/thirst bars were around 30% and his stamina was still regenerating. Jack debated whether to start reading about the game world, but decided against it. He wanted to see what the special reward for exceeding expectation was. He went to the second floor, and was pleased to see that there were a lot less books on the tables there. He quickly stored them in his inventory and sued the sorting trick to deal with them.

By the time Jack had dealt with the third and fourth floors he noticed that he was no longer regenerating stamina. Jack’s satiety/thirst bars were around 10% full. Jack decided to take a break. Each jerky filled 15% of his satiety bar. Jack eats a couple of them. He also takes a couple of long draughts from his water canteen. After his satiety/thirst bars were 40%, he started regenerating his stamina. ‘Hmm, strange. Judging by the amount of water I drank, the canteen should be empty. But it is still almost full. Guess the canteen is enchanted. I drank around 1 liter of water. The canteen still looks like it could provide another 20 liters of water easily. 24 liters at max, I guess.’

Jack resumed clearing the fifth and sixth floors. Afterwards he decided to start his reading when he received another notification.

Alarm Notice: 7am In Game Time.

‘Oh free breakfast, here I come!’ Jack thought gleefully and ran towards the cafeteria in the first floor. He was again, the first one to reach and wasted no time in piling his plate with the dishes. The breakfast menu comprised of bread, scrambled eggs, Shepard’s pie with rabbit meat and again, rabbit meat jerky. Jack guessed that the rabbit meat jerky was a constant item on the library’s menu. It was kept for the purpose of snacking in between meals for the employees. But it mostly remained untouched as most of the library employees were absolutely sick of rabbit meat.

After Jack ate his breakfast and drank his fill of honeyed water, he restocked his inventory to have 10 pieces of rabbit meat jerky. He then went to the dormitory on the fifth floor and selected a bed whose nearby locker was unlocked. There were around 3-4 library employees there, who were leaving for breakfast. They gave him a quizzed look. Jack shrugged and sat on his bed. He started reviewing his notification logs.

He had noticed many gains in Strength, Agility, Vitality and Willpower. He had gained a bit of Intelligence too. He also saw stat gains in his special stats of Sustenance and Balance, along with a bit of Endurance and Flexibility. To his delight, he had unlocked another couple of special stats, namely Concentration and Wisdom.

He noticed his meditation skill had gained two subskills, namely Controlled Breathing and Meditative Stasis. Furthermore, with the unlocking of Meditative Stasis, jack’s Meditation Skill had moved up a tier to Intermediate! Furthermore, being the first player to raise a skill to Intermediate and to unlock a trait in game, Jack had gained +20 to his fame. Jack wondered why he didn’t gain an additional 10 fame for unlocking subskill or a special stat.. He reasoned that some other player had unlocked some combat related subskill while carrying out the genocide of rabbits. But jack was still intrigued about the special stat… some other player had beat him to the punch. Jack bought up the stat information for Concentration and Wisdom.

Stat NameConcentrationStat TypeSpecial

This special stat reflects your ability to ignore distractions and perform mentally taxing tasks. This stat increases your MP regeneration and reduces chance of spell failure while receiving damage. You cannot invest stat points into this stat.

Stat NameWisdomStat TypeSpecial

This special stat reflects your special insight and your ability to act on it. This stat increases your Maximum MP and the potency of your magic (excluding magic granted by deities). You cannot invest stat points into this stat.

‘Sweet! I got a couple of nifty stats to help with my spell casting! I should pick up some option to do ranged damage, magic might be good, but I am not planning to be a mage, and am not sure about how quick I can cast a spell without system assist anyways. I don’t really like bows, they are difficult to conceal. Hmm I should pick up a skill for thrown weapons, next time I am in the training hall.’ Jack pondered on his future course of grinding. Jack summoned the skill info of his gained subskills.

Skill Name:Skill Rank:Skill Level:Skill Experience:Controlled BreathingBeginner625.68%Subskill of Meditation

You have adapted your meditative breathing techniques to function out of your meditative state of mind. This subskill increases your natural HP/SP and STA regeneration, but to a lesser degree than meditation. It can be activated outside meditation only without system assist.

Current level effects:

+13% to natural HP/MP and STA regeneration.

Skill Name:Skill Rank:Skill Level:Skill Experience:Meditative StasisTrait------Subskill of Meditation

You have adapted your meditative techniques to suppress your hunger and thirst, with the help of the special stat Sustenance. When satiety and thirst are dangerously low, you can enter a meditative state to almost pause the fall of your satiety and thirst. You do not, however, generate HP, MP and STA naturally in meditative stasis.

‘Controlled breathing looks an overall useful subskill. I thought help said traits were very difficult to gain? I guess unlocking sustenance and entering meditation at low satiety and thirst were the hidden requirements for this trait. It helped my meditation jump up from beginner to intermediate tier though. I wonder how many tiers skills have?’ Jack summoned the system help on skill tiers.

According to the system each skill had four tiers, and each tier had 10 levels. Tiers ranged from:

Beginner > Intermediate > Advanced > Master

Reaching lv10 in one tier promoted your skill to lv1 of the next tier. The exception was Master. At master lv10, the skill was at max potential. But the system help hinted at certain skills having Grandmasters, who were rumored to have transcended the limit of master tier skills. ‘Hmm interesting bit of Info this is, but I guess it is too early for me to run around looking for hidden grandmasters now. Let me review my status. It is almost 8pm in RL. I need to do a few stretches, take a shower and have dinner’ jack thought as he summoned his status screen.

STATUS WINDOWNameJackClassNoviceRaceHumanGenderMaleLevel0 (0%)Fame / Infamy20 / 0Title---CONDITIONHP300/300HP/s0.339/sMP90/90MP/s0.7006/sStamina300/300STA/s3.842/sSatiety / Thirst97% / 97%Weight Limit2.5/40Active EffectsControlled Breathing (Beginner lv6)STATSStrength20Vitality20Dexterity16Agility20Intelligence12Willpower16Luck10Endurance10Sustenance10Balance10Flexibility10Concentration6Wisdom6Free Stat Points0SKILLSAmbidexterity (Trait)Meditation (Intermediate Lv 3: 03.18%)

Controlled Breathing (Beginner Lv 6: 25.68%)

Meditative Stasis (Trait)

Unarmed Mastery (Beginner Lv 4: 62.23%)

Jack was happy with the results of his stint in the library. He didn’t get much lore, received low bonuses to his Intelligence. On the other hand he had gained massive boost to his Meditation skill, unlocked two new subskills, two new special stats and gained decent increase in most of his physical stats. Satisfied, Jack lay on his bed and logged off.

A few minutes after Jack logged off, Madam Curie was arriving towards the dorm with a very sullen looking Dan in tow. She was surprised that Jack had done a month of manual work overnight, without the aid of librarian specific magic! She had scolded Dan and had cut his allowance completely for the next month. She decided to give Jack a very special reward for his hardwork and dedication, but Jack was already asleep when she arrived.

She admonished Dan a little bit and sent him off to his duty. ‘My nephew is such a spoil brat. I have to instruct my sister to discipline him more. She spoils him too much for his own good.’ Madam Curie grumbled internally. She left the library, and walked towards the city’s public training hall to meet Theon. Theon was chatting with the strange old man, and as usual the training ahll was devoid of any traveler.

She was very excited about Jack and told about his work in the library to Theon. She said:

“That novice traveler has done more overnight, than my incompetent nephew could manage in a month and that too without access to any of the researcher exclusive skills, or even the librarian spells for that matter! I think I will relieve him from his quest and give him something extra, perhaps offer him a post within the library.”

Theon exchanged a glance with Janus, and they seemed to have a silent conversation, and said

“Curie, don’t modify his quest yet. Give something extra at the end of four weeks if you wish, but keep him at the library as planned for four weeks. Who knows, he might surprise you once more! Also, I know that I have no right to ask you this, but please do not offer him any class. Just trust me on this.” Theon pleaded to Curie.

“OK Theon. I trust you. But for this you will owe me one! And promise me that if Jack fails whatever fool’s errand you have decided to send him on, you will direct him to meet me immediately.” Madam Curie huffed. It was very contrasting to her usual stern demeanor.

“You got it Curie! Thanks a lot for this. I will make it up to you, I swear!” Theon exclaimed looking visibly pleased. Madam Curie was a bit displeased to leave a traveler with such potential to Theon, but he was the one who actually scouted him anyway. Oh well, now Theon owed her one, and that was bound to be useful later.

Jacob exited from his FuDi capsule and checked the time. He washed a cup of rice, and set it to boil. He also set a couple of eggs to boil. Meanwhile he washed and chopped some broccoli along with some beans and set it to steam.

While his simple meal was cooking Jacob started some stretches. To his surprise he wasn’t sore at all. ‘Hmm it was developed for the military after all. They wouldn’t want their soldier’s muscle to atrophy during simulations. I wonder what sort of technology they used for it.’ Jacob wondered while doing his stretches. After 15 minutes he checked the state of his food. The rice, vegetables and eggs were done. He turned off his cooking range, did his ablutions, and took a shower.

After his shower, he had his dinner and noticed that it was around 8:30pm. He was about to strip to his undies and connect to Asunder Online via FuDi, when his cellphone buzzed, indicating he had received a text. He sighed and started reading it. It was form Carlos.

"bro ao is da best imma elf mage bombing foxes n wild dogs with magic n lv6 nw n i sent da text frm in da game!"

Jacob chuckled at Carlos’s enthusiasm. He was glad his friend was having a blast with AO. He was hoping, that when his office gossip would be replaced by discussions about AO. Jacob was also intrigued that Carlos could text from within AO. The phone linking feature was nifty. Jacob entered his FuDi capsule, closed the lids and opted to connect to AO through Full Dive mode. He started hearing relaxing music and he was looking at hypnotic patterns. Soon he fell asleep and he woke up in a bed at the library dorm..

Back to Main Page