After going through both the books, I get an inkling of an idea of what happened here and also got two more agendas to fulfill.

The first is to find that legacy left for an Otherwolder like me and the other is to check, if the source of the disaster is still here. It looks like I'm going to need to thoroughly explore this ruin.

If I'm going to explore this ruin, I may come to face some monsters, unlike the small critters I've been facing until now.

I should be ready to fight them if the need arises. And for that reason, I should start practicing the combat techniques I've learned back in the military. They may be useful. I should also start training my physique by doing daily physical training.

Hmm, I should make that into a habit, similar to what I used to do back home when I was still in my prime.

Okay, from now on, daily I should focus on my combat techniques and physical training an hour each in the morning before I do anything else.

It's good practice to train daily and to once again engrain those techniques into my body.

For now, I'll head back to the library and clear the rest of the building. Maybe I'll find a few extra books on the upper floors that may clear more of my doubts.

I take my improvised staff and go back to the library and move towards the stairs at the center of the building, which leads to the first floor, and slowly move upwards.

After climbing the stairs, I look around and I can see that the first floor is slightly larger when compared to the ground floor, as it doesn't have the reception hall.

Other than that, the layout is similar to the ground floor, just that the length of the shelves is a little bigger when compared to the ground floor ones.

I skulk slowly towards the books on the shelves to the right side. Touching them one by one hoping some of these books are of the same type as the ones I found on the ground floor.

I make it through the right side and move towards the left side of the stairs, carrying two books with me. And that's when I notice a lumbering skeleton moving slowly along the shelves on the far left corner.

I observe it carefully. It's a humanoid skeleton, five feet tall. Its bones are all pitch black, dark blue wisp-like glow in their eye sockets and what looks like grey smoke is rising out of its body and coiling around it. It doesn't have any weapon or armor with it.

As soon as I lay my eyes on the skeleton, I feel this sudden feeling of dread.

Where is this coming from?

I never felt anything of the kind when I was fighting against the wildlife in the forest. But when I look up at the skeleton, I feel an unknown dread up my spine and I don't know the reason why.

It's my first time facing an undead, maybe that's the reason why I'm feeling like this - thinking along these thoughts, I take my time to try calming my nerves but I can't.

Strange.

Even if I don't have any experience against skeletons, I'm usually not that afraid of facing new enemies. Even now I'm ready to fight. Still, there is that feeling of dread at the back of my head.

Something odd is going on here. My guess is this isn't normal fear, something magical is going on here.

Luckily, I'm at the center of the floor, near the stairs and the skeleton is at the left corner wall. I move towards the right side.

As I move away from the center towards the right corner, the unnerving feeling is slowly gone. Now I'm sure, there is something magical going on with that skeleton.

I move back towards the center, grit and bear that unnerving feeling, and quietly appraise the skeleton.

Corrupted Librarian - Lv. 5

As the skeleton is still lumbering around, I leave the books at the staircase, activate my Stealth and slowly move towards it, hoping to sneak attack it.

But no such luck.

As soon as I move near him, he eerily turned towards me even though I'm actively stealthed. I freeze for a second, as I didn't understand how I was discovered. And then immediately charge towards him and slam my branch over his body.

As the staff's reach is longer than his hands, I was able to get two solid smacks before he closed the distance between us.

I move further back to take my time to observe his combat pattern. But he changes from his walking gait to a running stride and charges towards me.

Again I'm a little shocked by his sudden change but quickly overcome it and dodge his attack. After that, I always kept an arm's length distance between us with the help of my staff so that I can dodge his attack. And more importantly to study his attack patterns.

After observing him for a few minutes, I was confident in defeating him so I went on the offensive. As he is a humanoid skeleton, I started focusing my attacks on his right knee. And with the length of my staff, I was easily able to attack his knee without having to face its attacks.

Although I couldn't break his knee in a single attack, I was able to damage it enough in a few blows such that his balance became unsteady. And from then on the fight became much easier.

It took three more minutes to bring him down as I stopped trying to kill him and only keep dodging his blows whenever possible as a form of training.

I had to kill him by the end of my fight as my stamina was starting to get real low.

You have defeated a Corrupted Librarian

Your race has gained a level

Skill Unlocked : Dodge

I unlocked a skill and gained a level in my race which gave me five Attribute Points, similar to when I got a level in my class.

Then why two different leveling options?

Can't the system combine them?

Or is there some difference in what leveling each of them entails?

As for the skill, I didn't add it as it didn't seem that necessary.

Now, I have ten Attribute Points in stock. I don't think it's a good idea to store them like I'm doing. I should invest them into the attributes according to how I plan to fight from now on.

First things first, I need to decide what I want to do in the future to decide the way I want to develop my skill set.

I plan on exploring the world and for that, I would need strength. I also need strength right now to get out of this forest.

And I don't know much about magic so I plan on going the physical warrior route. Then again I have a lot of experience with close combat and that would be my asset. Rather than choosing something I don't know like magic I would prefer to focus on something I know like close combat.

Now that I've made a decision, I immediately invest five of my Attribute Points into my Endurance and the rest into my Dexterity.

According to the description, Endurance should increase my stamina and Dexterity should increase my body's speed.

The improvised staff I'm using until now is already on its last legs by the end of the fight. I'll need a new one for the next fight.

Now that the skeleton is down, I take a closer look at it. The grey smoke around it is gone and so do the unknown dread I was feeling. Aside from that, the skeleton looks like how a normal human's skeleton should look like.

I'm not an expert at skeletons of humans. I just saw a few that were used during my military training. I can't be hundred percent sure but it looks like a human skeleton. There's no difference in this skeleton to the one I was back in my world.

Then what was that rubbish about me not being human?

Forget it.

I should continue what I was doing before the fight. I move towards the left side and check the rest of the shelves. I find another book in good condition and that makes three books on the first floor. It's already late by then.

Going through hundreds of books one by one takes a lot of time.

I go back to Summoning Temple and rest for the day. I repeat the same process of practicing Stealth and Meditation until I'm exhausted and then go to sleep.

Of the three books I found yesterday, two are encyclopedias about the various monsters that are found on this continent. And the last one is about magic titled Magic : A Basic Understanding.

The book about magic is written by the same author as before, Khanse Servon. And the encyclopedias seem to be a compilation done by the combined effort of different organizations under the empire.

As the monsters encountered on an Empire-wide scale are numerous, they were arranged into two encyclopedias according to their species.

Remembering that feeling of dread I felt when I faced the corrupted skeleton, I opened one of the encyclopedias to check for anything related to corruption.

There is a whole chapter focused solely on corruption and corrupted monsters.

According to the book, when any being that is exposed continuously to negative mana like abyssal, infernal, etc. over a large period, which may be weeks, months, or years, that depends on the strength of the source, there is a chance this may cause that being to be corrupted due to the influence and this change is irreversible.

The beings that are corrupted start to become more and more influenced by their negative emotions and will act upon them unless they have some sort of skill, perk, or any other such thing that can negate or block the influence of these negative emotions.

As long as any being that is being corrupted doesn't have anything to protect from the corruption's influence, they slowly lose themselves to it and become monsters that focus solely on hurting others.

Hmm.

The librarian I faced was a corrupted monster.

Doesn't that imply there is a source of corruption somewhere in this ruin?

Is this source of corruption is the " something " that caused the Empire capital to fall into ruin.

And also the reason there aren't any predators around here?

Would I be corrupted if I stay here for a long time?

The book does say that it depends on the strength of the source. And something that can cause a disaster in an Empire capital can't be weak.

But I haven't felt that creepy feeling anywhere in the surroundings, only on that skeleton.

Why is that?

I really need to find someone to answer these questions.

As for the corruption, either I need to leave this place before I could get corrupted or find something that can help me fight the corruption.

I don't plan to leave this place that early so I should focus on finding something that can help me against corruption.

After reading the chapter focused on corruption and corrupted monsters, I skim through the rest of the book. I won't be able to remember everything anyway.

Now for the main course, a book that explains the basics of magic. I didn't think I'll find something this useful, let me see what it has to say.

The book's author speaks as if it is common sense to know most of what he says. It does explain the basics that everyone needs to know about magic, which is a tremendous help for a beginner like me.

According to the book, mana is a form of energy that permeates the world and within people. Mana is everywhere, inside the creatures, plants, the atmosphere, etc. It is naturally existing everywhere. It is the source of all magic. Mana is required for casting magic spells.

Unlike the different affinities of mana that exist in the world, any being in the world would already have its elemental affinities fixed by birth, whether that may be by luck, bloodline, or any other possibility.

These elemental affinities can be of a single element or multiple elements. Single elemental affinity is most commonly seen in the world. It's rare to find dual elemental affinities and a miracle to find those with more than two elemental affinities.

Even in a single elemental affinity, there are ranks according to how much effort is required to use that particular element. These ranks are Poor, Average, Greater, High, and Perfect. As the rank increases, the effort and mana required to cast the same spell decreases respectively. This in turn creates the difference between their strengths at the same level.

It appears Perfect rank affinity of any element is mostly seen as a myth. The most commonly seen elemental affinity ranks are the Poor and Average. Anyone that has a Greater affinity to an element has a chance to become an Archmage in that element if they tried harder. And those with a High rank are guaranteed to become one. On the condition that they work for it and they don't face any mishaps along the way.

So the Summoned Being's second effect of allowing me to select a Perfect rank affinity of any Phantasmal rarity element is a huge boon. I don't know much about the Phantasmal grade but if it is anything like the Perfect rank, it should be of high value.

Damn.

And here I thought I didn't get any overpowered power.

As for the different types of elemental affinities that constitute the world, one can say they are innumerable but the most common among them are Fire, Earth, Water, and Wind.

It further talks about different skills like Mana Manipulation, Mana Sight, Mana Perception, etc. which are seen as the most basic and important skills when one is planning on delving deeply into magic.

Apart from gaining a basic idea about magic, I was at least able to clear my doubt about elemental affinity ranks after reading this book.

Now that I've learned a bit about magic, let me see if I can unlock the basic skills mentioned in the book.

Name : Janus Arthridge

Race : Human

Level : 1

Bloodline : N / A

Class : N / A

Level : 1

Health : 100 / 100

Stamina : 150 / 150

Mana : 100 / 100

Attributes

Strength : 10

Dexterity : 15

Vitality : 10

Endurance : 15

Resilience : 10

Perception : 10

Intelligence : 10

Wisdom : 10

Willpower : 10

Attribute Points : 0

Skills

Appraisal Lv.1

Stealth Lv.2

Meditation Lv.3

Skill Slots : 7

Perks

Otherworlder

Summoned Being

Polyglot