“I can't believe this! I was tricked! They didn't block the library class on purpose, and I fell for it! And seriously!? Was the +0 even necessary!? Ptah is a massive asshole! Do I at least get cool techniques like Konjiki no Wordmaster!?”

Mrs. Allensworth immediately dashes the little hope he has. “I'm sorry Null, but the librarian class has no offensive techniques.”

Null looks like he's about to cry.

The librarian tries to comfort him. “Now now, right now it might seem hopeless, but I have faith that you will make the class into something formidable.”

Null gives her a strange look. “Okay, of all the people around the world, how many foreigners have gotten the library class?”

“37,329.”

“Okay. Now of all those people, how many have deleted their accounts?”

“32,476.”

“Now work with me here. Of those remaining people who haven't deleted their accounts, how many of them are under level 25?”

“...All of them?”

“I need some air.”

David goes outside the library into an alley and starts yelling profanities. People walking around are wondering what that is. This event is how the legend of the bad mouthed ghost formed. He gets it out of his system and goes back to the library.

“Okay. I'm fine now. There's nothing I can do about this situation. I also don't feel like making a new account even if I do hit level 25. Can you teach me library stuff?”

“Sure.”

The librarian taught him how to make paper, ink, and books.

'Well if I ever need paper, I won't have that much of a problem I guess. Still, even compared to the other production professions I'm weak. I am even weaker than a merchant. At least a merchant can get money for their troubles. At least a tailor can sell clothes. What exactly can a librarian do? Sell books that I made? Yeah, no.'

.

Mrs. Allensworth speaks to him. “If you decide to work at the library, your pay will get promoted to 3 silvers.”

100 coppers equals 1 silver and 100 silvers equals 1 gold.

Null nods. 'Good. I don't have to work as often to survive. Now that I now have more free time, lets look at my skill list.' “Skill list.”

Librarian MasterySkill typePassiveSkill ProficiencyBeginner level 1Librarian skills become better the higher the level.

Book RepairSkill typeActiveSkill ProficiencyBeginner level 1Can repair books or written documents.

Cost: 150 mana

Paper CreateSkill typePassive/ActiveSkill ProficiencyBeginner level 5Create paper.

Universal IdentifySkill typeActiveSkill ProficiencyBeginner level 1Can identify many things. Unlike other identifies like item identify or plant identify, the librarian class contains the only universal identify.

Cost: 100 mana

CookingSkill typePassive/ActiveSkill ProficiencyBeginner level 1Cook food without it spontaneously exploding in your face or rotting. Some of the time.

'God damn this is depressing, but at least that Universal Identify seems useful. A librarian could probably work as an Identifier, but people only care about Item Identify. Identify grows as it identifies rarer and rarer things, which are found in more and more dangerous places, which a librarian has no business being in.'

He starts identifying random things just to play with it. While he's doing this, Null remembers something. 'Wait. Now that I have my main class, I am automatically qualified to get sub classes. Not even the Count can block that from me. I hope I can get a good subclass, but judging from the librarians before me, I'm not holding my breath.'

When he went through all the possible guilds, the only sub classes he could get are the painting class and the calligraphy class.

'Painting and Calligraphy class, classes notorious for being super weak, but still not as weak as the librarian class. Well it's better than nothing.'

He looks at the skills. “Skill list.”

Librarian MasterySkill typePassiveSkill ProficiencyBeginner level 1Librarian skills become better the higher the level.

Book RepairSkill typeActiveSkill ProficiencyBeginner level 1Can repair books or written documents.

Cost: 150 mana [/td4]

[td4]Paper CreateSkill typePassive/ActiveSkill ProficiencyBeginner level 1Create paper.

Universal IdentifySkill typeActiveSkill ProficiencyBeginner level 1Can identify many things. Unlike other identifies like item identify or plant identify, the librarian class contains the only universal identify.

Cost: 100 mana

Calligraphy MasterySkill typePassive/ActiveSkill ProficiencyBeginner level 1Calligraphy skills become better the higher the level.

ProofreadSkill typeActiveSkill ProficiencyBeginner level 1Can identify spelling and grammar mistakes.

Cost: 60 mana

Painting MasterySkill typePassive/ActiveSkill ProficiencyBeginner level 1Learned to paint pictures. Pictures become more detailed the higher the level.

IllustrationSkill typePassive/ActiveSkill ProficiencyBeginner level 1Learned to draw pictures. Pictures become more detailed the higher the level.

HandicraftSkill typePassiveSkill ProficiencyBeginner level 1Will enable your crafting skills to become more skilled the higher the level.

CookingSkill typePassive/ActiveSkill ProficiencyBeginner level 1Cook food without it spontaneously exploding in your face or rotting. Some of the time.

They also had taught him how to make paint brushes and paint.

Null thinks, 'I'm tired. I can only take so much disappointment at once. I'll do this tomorrow.'

**************************************************

He goes to sleep. Even though he spent around 3 weeks in the game, it only amounted to around 4 days real time. Of course, he got out to go to school and the gym.

Now David is on his way to school. In homeroom, Brett smirks at him like he just did something clever. David just ignores him as he does everyone else. What irritated him the most that day was when he went to Advanced Chemistry.

“David!”

“...I had forgotten about you, umm...”

“Cecile!”

“Right. And my day was going so well too. Oh well. What do you want?”

“Have you been studying? I want you at your best for when I defeat you in the next tests!”

“Seriously? Go get a fucking hobby!”

******************************************************

At lunch he's sitting in the corner outside like he always does. There are others who also prefer sitting outside. Sometimes he decides to listen to other people's conversations. It wouldn't do him any good to stay ignorant. He hears some guys talking near the wall next to him.

"So you asked out Veronica? How did it go?"

The other guy sighs. "Well she says she can't go out with me. Oh well, what can you do? We still talk, but now things are kinda awkward."

"Don't feel too bad man. There are plenty of fish in the sea."

"Yeah we're gonna go to a movie with friends later. I want to not go but I already paid for the tickets you know." He laughs.

Meanwhile David who was listening in was thinking, ' He still gets to be friends with girls even when they reject him? Some people have all the luck.'

After doing more school stuff like writing notes and pretending not to have the answer when a teacher calls on him, he leaves school and goes to the gym. He's been going to the gym a lot lately because he feels so weak in the game. Heraclio Maes Hinojosa, the gym instructor, noticed how hard he was working. “Any particular reason you're working so hard? Are you preparing for our tournament?”

“No.”

“Oh okay. Just wanted you to know that if you ever wanted to fight in the tournament, the doors are open.”

“Noted.”

“Okay. Now sigh this. Don't read it just sign it. Just like fighting, life's all about spontaneity.”

“...That's a tournament registration form isn't it?”

“You don't know that! But yeah it is.”

The reason Heraclio wants David to fight in the tournament is not primarily for his gym's sake, as they have many top level fighters. He just wants David to be recognized so he can work on his low self confidence. He wants him to place high in the tournament so that they could throw David a party, and then start making friends. David's knowledge and strength may have improved since he started working in the gym, but his self confidence still remains the same.

When he left gym, he went to his place of work. It was a slow day, so he just sat and played with his AR glasses. He was looking up how a NPC thinks compared to a human. He found it intriguing how NPCs in New Reality were indistinguishable from real humans. He even started hating them the same as normal humans. He researched different things about New Reality until work is over. Afterwards, he heads home.

His dad was the first to greet him saying, “Why are you so lazy? Your grades haven't improved at all, and you still have never won a single tournament! Are you a liar along with being lazy?”

“Yeah.”

David hasn't told them that he has the top grades in some subjects, because he doesn't care. He doesn't care that he has the top grades, and he doesn't care to let his parents know. His mom never talks to him until he starts making problems for her, so he just heads to his room.

David thinks to himself, 'I probably need to start replacing those locks. Knowing my sister, she's probably figured out how to break through at least half by now.'

David starts preparing to enter the pod. He eats and sets the pod to when he wants to be let out. He steps in, and ends up back in New Reality. He materializes in a dark alley behind the library. The game makes it so if you sign out, your body still remains for at least ten minutes, which means you can still be attacked without you even knowing. This is why people usually go inside an inn or stay in a cave when they log out. As Null doesn't have any possessions aside from a few silvers, he doesn't care what happens to him.

'Okay. Now it's time to work on my skill proficiency. There is literally nothing else I can work on. My stats still haven't fully recovered, and I can't use any weapon, so I can't hunt. I don't have enough money to enjoy miscellaneous activities in town, so skill proficiency is my only option. I need to go to the painting and calligraphy guilds to see how they work.'

While he's walking, he hears someone calling in his direction.

“Hey you.”

Null ignores that person because it's unlikely that he would be talking to him. He keeps walking until that same person taps him on the shoulder.

David turns around and scowls. “Can I help you?”

“Maybe you can. I want you to join me.”

“Sorry whoever you are, but I am a level 1 librarian. I doubt I could be of any help to whatever you are trying to do.”

“Wow, a librarian? I thought I was doing it hardcore when I went to get the butler class, but my point still stands. I want you to join me. I like that look of loathing that you show people.”

“Are you recruiting me into some kind of cult? Because cults usually go after the emotionally unstable loners. If you are, I'm not interested.”

“HAHAHA! No, nothing of the sort. I just feel that one day you will become extremely formidable and shake the foundations of this world, and I want you to be my partner.”

“A partner to a reduced stats level 1 librarian?”

“Yeah, so how about it Mr...”

“Null.”

“HA! This must be destiny! My name is Void. Null and Void spreading havoc across the world. So how about it?”

Null senses something, insane about him. He has an ax crazy smile. For some reason he can't help but be afraid. This is the first time he's ever felt afraid since starting the game. Not even Red Serpent Guild could make him feel this way. “I'm sorry, but I walk the path of the loner.”

“Good answer! I've become even more interested in you. Well until we meet again.”

He starts jumping onto the rooftops.

Null, astonished, thinks, 'Was that really a butler? He must be at a high level.'

He starts walking in the direction of the calligraphy guild pondering, 'Why was I so afraid of him? No. It wasn't of him. It's something that I fear may one day happen to me. I fear that I may lose my sanity. That's why I do not go after people who do me wrong. If I do, then what's stopping me from going after someone else for perceived wrongness? What's stopping me from not escalating? Those thoughts are what have kept me in check all these years. I really need to stay away from him.'

He goes to the calligraphy guild. He buys some paper and ink and sits at a table. Calligraphy is more popular than the librarian class, as you can combine it with the painter skill and give people tattoos. Null watches how they do things for a few minutes then tries to repeat what they do. He makes the word plant in calligraphy. It did not go so well, as Null has terrible handwriting. He throws his attempt away, buys ink and paper, then leaves. Null got what he came here for. He gathers art supplies from the painting guild, observers them like he did the calligraphy guild, then leaves.

'Okay. I do not want to be disturbed. I'm going into a dark alley to draw. That's what people usually do there right?'

Null makes it there and pulls out a charcoal stick and paper.

'Hmm... what should I draw? Ah! I know!'

He starts meticulously drawing the picture like he's some famous artist.

'No mistakes. Come on.'

He sketches the lines and connects them.

'Okay. Now for the rest.'

He finishes. The drawing looks terrible. His triangles look like squares, and his circles look like trapezoids.

'Eh, maybe it will look better when I paint it.'

He took out his paints and mixed them with water. He starts painting the picture. He ended up mixing the paint colors together without first washing the paint brush with water. When he finishes, Null looks disappointed.

“Hmmm... looks like chicken shit. I was going for a horse.”

He draws and paints the same thing, but with system assist. He's trying to experiment. It comes out a little better.

'It's good that's using system assist is a little better than not using it, but if I continue to rely on system assist, my proficiency will not increase.'

A message pops up when he's done.

Artistic value 3

'Wow I got an artistic value? Maybe my painting is better than I thought.' He then reads the rest.

People who see this picture have their happiness increased. They think that no matter how bad they are at painting, they're at least better than you.

“...Ptah, why are you such a dick?”

He keeps drawing and painting different things and eventually runs out of paper.

'Maybe I can use some of the paper from the book the librarian gave me. Well no, that's a bad idea. The librarian lady said the book will be important and it was given with an A-rank mission. NPCs don't lie when it comes to stuff like this, unlike regular humans. Well I barely have any money left to buy anymore paper, so I guess I'll make my own. It will be at a lower quality, but if I make it enough times the paper quality will improve.'

Null gets his plan of action ready. 'First things first. I need lots of plant material. I also do not want to walk all the way to the library to make paper, so I guess I'll buy a screen from a blacksmith, and cloth from a tailor. I'll make the paper outside.'

He buys his supplies and is heading out of town when he hears various people looking to team up.

“Looking for cleric!”

“Mage with at least 30 DPS. We'll roll the drops!”

Null scoffs at them. 'It's stupid to rely on other people. They'll only betray you when things get inconvenient.'

He decides to pay them no more attention and heads into the forest.

He gathers fallen leaves and branches. He keeps at this for roughly 3 hours before his sack becomes full. Along the way, he saw a rabbit. Rabbits are supposed to be one of the weakest creatures aside from mice, but with his stats the rabbit is actually stronger than him. He avoids it by giving it a wide berth and heads back to town.

Null doesn't want to go back to town. He realizes that he missed not having people around, so decides to stay near the border of the town, but not deep enough to where he will attract different animals. Null starts the paper making process. He takes the leaves and twigs, smashes them into a pulp, pours it onto the screen, presses it through the screen, and wipes it with a damp cloth. When the paper finished drying he checked out his first paper.

“Identify.”

Very Poor Quality PaperCan easily break apart. Absolutely worthless.

'Went about as well as expected. I'm still using it though.'

He makes enough paper so that it could last him a while. Along the way, he gathered different plants to make paint with. He smashes the different plants to make dyes. He only makes the primary colors red, yellow and blue. Now that he's gotten his supplies taken care of, he first starts practicing his calligraphy. He just makes different letters in Times New Roman font for now. While he's practicing he hears people laughing and approaching him. He looks and sees the gray, black, and red colored clothing with the bright red serpent on the front. It's the Red Serpent Guild. The group numbers around 20 this time.

'Let's see how they'll mess with me this time.'

They walk up to him to try and incite him.

Brett says, “Say Null, how are you enjoying the game so far?”

“Just fine.” Null is talking to them without looking at them.

Henchman #1 says, “What's your class?”

“Librarian.” Null answered without care.

That made everyone laugh.

“AHAHAHAHA! I told you! I told you he would be stupid enough to pick the librarian class! MY SIDES!”

“We don't even have to do anything anymore! He's punishing himself more than we ever did!”

“...CAN'T *gasp* BREATHE!! AHAHA!!”

The guild leader who was also laughing told them, “Okay that's enough. We still have work to do. Let's go.” They all walk off.

Null didn't even spare them a second thought. He just worked on his calligraphy and then painting later. He would recycle the paper after using it. After he was done he would go to the library and read. That's how he spent the next 7 months in game. Making supplies, calligraphy, painting, and reading.

He kept going until he hit a rut. His skills stopped growing once he hit beginner level 5 in his mastery. Null doesn't know this, but the vast majority of people, even the top level players, have their skills stop growing at level 5. It's rare for someone to go beyond beginner level 5. The average time it takes for someone to reach beginner level 5 is 1 year in game. If you are diligently trying to raise your proficiency, then the time it takes to reach beginner level 5 is around 8 months in game. From beginner level 1 to level 2 can be reached relatively quickly, usually taking around 1 or 2 weeks. Level 2 to level 3 takes around 4 to 5 weeks. That's when it starts getting a lot longer.

Now as was said before, a person diligently trying to raise proficiency will reach beginner level 5 in around 8 months, yet Null has reached this milestone with three skills in 7 months. Why? Well first and foremost, Null has nothing better to do with his time. He has no friends, he doesn't hunt, he doesn't travel, and he doesn't do any miscellaneous activities. Second has to do with the knowledge stat. It's not all the knowledge stat does, but the higher it is, the faster your skill proficiency will level. It's slight, but it's there. When a person's class hits beginner level 5, they get a new skill. The skills that Null had acquired?

Information FinderSkill typeActiveSkill ProficiencyBeginner level 1By using this skill, you will be able to locate information. Books with this information will emit a light blue glow.

Cost: 40 mana per second

Ink HandSkill typeActiveSkill ProficiencyBeginner level 1Can make calligraphy design just by having a thought and touching the paper. Can move ink at a maximum of 0.1 meters per second.

Cost: 50 mana per second.

Art is FeelingSkill typeActiveSkill ProficiencyBeginner level 1Draw opponents in any emotional state to make them feel that way. The higher level the opponent, the longer it takes for it to take effect.

Cost: 500 mana

Null looks to see how his proficiency in all of his skills are looking. “Skill proficiency.”

Skill ProficiencyLibrarian Mastery: Beginner Level 5

Book Repair: Beginner Level 1

Paper Create: Beginner Level 5

Universal Identify: Beginner Level 4

Information finder: Beginner Level 1

Painting Mastery: Beginner level 5

Illustration: Beginner level 5

Handicraft: Beginner level 5

Art is Feeling: Beginner level 1

Calligraphy Mastery: Beginner level 5

Proofread: Beginner level 3

Ink Hand: Beginner level 1

Cooking: Beginner level 1

Null, being the ignorant, friendless guy that he is, doesn't know that beginner level 5 is a bottleneck. He goes to the library to research a way out of this rut. When he brings the problem to the librarian, she says that he has to figure it out on his own. Since Null's main class is librarian, he decides to research that first. He uses the information finder skill to find all the books that have to do with his class. How it works is that you think of what you want to look for and say the skill name. Since the glow is so faint, it takes him a while to find the books he needs.

The information he finds is interesting, but useless. He learns that the librarian class's specialty is information gathering. It's also the weakest combat wise even among other production professions. None of the books he read taught him how to get pass beginner level 5. Throughout all the information he read, at the end of them, they all said to look through the history of the librarian class. He thought he would be wasting his time, but since he thinks his time is worthless, he doesn't mind.

When he reads through the librarian history, it doesn't help at all. He went through about 10 books when he notices a blank page with a dotted line and the letter T on the side of the page. Null finds that very strange. It's almost like a treasure map, but there is nothing here except a dotted line and the letter T on the side of the page. He then remembers all the librarian history books had a page with weird markings and a letter, but didn't understand what it meant. He gets an idea. He gets out his map of the area and draws the dotted lines on it. He then draws all the rest of the strange markings on the map. He makes it so that the dotted lines start at the library. When he's done, it shows a map that starts at the library and ends at an E-rank dungeon. The letters that were accompanied by the weird symbols are differently spaced out. When put together, they spell LEFT COLUMN.

He looks up information on the dungeon. Apparently the average level in the dungeon is level 40, which is 39 levels higher than Null is right now. It has already been explored, but the monsters there make it so that people do not like going there.

'Perfect. No people. But still, if the dungeon makes it so no one wants to go there, that means that the effort expended for the reward isn't worth it. Well its not like I have any other leads. I've been level 1 for long enough. I need to get every stat that matters back to level 1 before I start.'

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

Authors Note: My chapters are really long huh? Maybe I should start making 2 paragraph chapters with 3 sentences each. You should have seen the chapter lengths before. I had up to 6000 words per page. Advertisement Previous

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