Author Notes: Hey everyone! Thanks for your interest in reading my fiction, I would like to ask everyone for a favor and kindly leave an honest review for this story! Constructive criticisms will be much appreciated as I am trying to hone my writing skills and it is very hard to do so without feedback. Things like saying you hate how unrealistic a particular scene is, you don’t like the lack of descriptions or perhaps you like a certain element of the story that you hope will be more prominent, bad grammar, etc. All these will be invaluable advice for me, so once again I humbly request for you to spend a few minutes to provide me with your valuable feedback! Thank you!

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A tiny figure stood in front of him, Feng’s eyes slowly took in the sight before him. Her large sapphire blue eyes stared back and her brows rose inquiringly as moments ticked by with Feng staring fixatedly at her long ebony tresses that cascaded down to her mid-back… or more accurately the two furry white-tipped cat ears peeking out of her hair.

Seeing the petite girl tilt her head questioningly to one side and her ears flicking, Feng couldn’t help himself anyway and the last pieces of his self-restraint broken. Walking up slowly to the girl who looked adorably confused, Feng stretched out his hand and… laid it on the tiny girl’s head and started patting her ears.

“Cute kitty!”

“Wai- whaaaaa- mistahhh staapppaahhhh daatt… Mrrreeewww…”

*A few minutes later*

Feng finally lifted his hand from off the tiny cat-girl’s head and snapped out of his cute-kitty induced petting frenzy. Realizing he just basically started patting a random little girl on the streets out of nowhere, Feng started to apologize profusely.

“Oh Lord, I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to… I mean I just got caught up in your cuteness and…”

Adorably large eyes looked at him with tears in the corners of her eyes, as the little cat-girl snapped out of the pleasure-induced haze of Feng’s expert cat-ear scratching hands and her lips quivered… before her leg shot out with unexpected force crashing right into Feng’s left shin.

“Mouu.. MEANIE MISTER! You can’t just randomly pat a lady’s sensitive parts like that… Though it felt soooo good… BUT NO BAD MISTER. You can’t just do that! And here I was being trying to welcome you to the library you were looking for…”

Rolling around on the floor and clutching his shin in pain which he feared was broken by the absurd strength hidden within the cat-girl’s petite body; Feng could hardly appreciate the scolding he was receiving and simply frantically nodded in hopes of avoiding another blow.

Winding down from her tirade, the little girl looked at Feng for a moment and blushed as she muttered under her breath.

“… good deed. Not because… felt good or anything.”

Suddenly bending, the little girl grabbed on to Feng and lifted his entire body up in her arms despite him being at least twice her size and moved towards the building behind them before Feng who was utterly surprised could even protest.

Entering the run-down building, the little girl dropped Feng off at a nearby chair as he took in the surroundings… Rows and rows of shelves lined the inside of what is clearly his target – the library; but those same shelves were only partially filled with tomes while piles and stacks of books were strewn around the floor and haphazardly placed on the few tables and chairs contained within the central area. Looking up, Feng idly noted the illumination coming from some odd glowing balls which revealed a second floor in similar condition or perhaps even worse off.

“Not a pretty sight, isn’t it mister? This library used to be one of the most important buildings in town, holding an incredible archive of knowledge and histories… But that was a few years ago before my father passed away. So what did you want to visit this place for anyway? As you can see there is nothing much here for anyone anymore…”

The little girl spoke morosely as she watched Feng gawk at the sad stage of the once incredible library.

“How did it become like this? Considering the number of books and their condition here, it doesn’t look like there were burglars or anything so the library should still be operating fine, shouldn’t it?"

Feng asked in surprise as he tried to process the odd scenario presented to him.

“So what if it is the books are fine… No one wants to visit after the Church of Light opened their own holy archive and declared this library contains heretical knowledge and… is run by me… a half-catkin.”

See the little cat-girl sniffling by the end of her explanation, Feng unconsciously reached out to comfort her, impulsively speaking as he patted her head lightly.

“Hey, hey, why would anyone not want to come to this library because of you? If anything, I would love to come to here just to see your cute visage and this incredible amount of books will definitely have more useful knowledge than the typical “holy books” in the Church’s library!”

His actions seem to have unleashed the flood-gates and he was surprised with a sudden heavy weight landing in his lap as the petite cat-girl buried her face into his torso bawling away. Taken off-guard, Feng was stunned for a moment before awkwardly patting the little girl’s head and back to attempt to comfort her.

Slowly as her sobbing died down, the girl sat up in Feng’s lap still sniffling slightly as she looked up to him with an adorable teary-eyed face with her furry ears folded to the front.

“Thank you mister! … Wait I don’t even know what your name is… or introduced myself. I’m Rania, the current owner of this library.”

“Hi Rania… I’m Feng. Um, do you mind you know getting off my lap? You are kind of hea-“

Feng greeted Rania awkwardly as she perched cutely on his legs which were screaming in protest at the heavy weight despite Rania’s seemingly petite build, only for his request to be cut off by a terrible feeling of danger from his recently acquired skill except that the instinct was screaming of danger a hundred times more deadly than any of Roth’s attacks…

Wisely shutting up immediately, Feng laughed awkwardly to cover up for his near-brush with death as Rania’s sudden death-glare abated and she agilely leaped off to sit on top of a nearby table.

“Anyway, you mentioned that the library is not getting any more visitors? How come it is in such a messy state then?” Feng quickly try to divert Rania’s attention off to safer grounds once she settled down.

“Ehehe… Because, I can’t really read that well… So I couldn’t organize the library properly after my father passed away… Plus, I’m really sensitive to dust so I have to periodically take the books off to clean the shelves but I always forget where to place them back on to…”

Sweat-dropping at her inability to read and wondering if the decline of the library is due more to her mismanagement than other outside factors, Feng still couldn’t find any heart to blame such a cute little child for not managing this large library alone…

“You must find me pathetic right… Thirty summers old and still poorly educated and not able to manage the heritage my father left for me…” Her ears drooping sadly once more, Feng couldn’t help himself but to reach over to give her a quick pat and words to cheer her up.

“Hey cheer up, it’s not that ba- Wait what, you are THIRTY YEARS OLD?”

Freezing completely in shock as he struggled to reconcile the barely 1.5 meters tall chibi-looking cat-girl to be thirty years old, Feng’s brains fried in that instant.

‘… Impossible. SHE’S OLDER THAN ME??? With that appearance?’

“HEY, what’s with the surprise? I’ll have you know I’m one of the strongest warriors in the Adventurers’ Guild before I came back to take over the library from my dad!”

His mind still struggling to cope with the information, Feng merely blinked woodenly and replied automatically. “That’s nice; I trained under Roth just a few hours ago and was inducted into the guild too.”

“Wow! So you are a greenhorn? I wouldn’t have pegged you as an adventurer, you seem so… weak. You seem more like a mage or maybe a crafter… Hmm, in that case!”

Leaping off the table with a dramatic flourish, Rania landed on a stack of book and posed imperiously as she spoke.

“Greenhorn Feng, I, Warden Rania request that you aid me in order to restore this library and in exchange I’ll provide you free access to this library forever.”

Shaking his head fiercely to clear his thoughts, Feng narrowed his eyes as he processed Rania’s words and abruptly changed his attitude as though a switch was flicked in his head.

“Now, that’s hardly fair isn’t it, Warden Rania? While I will be pleased to aid you on this task, the rewards seems miniscule compared to the size of the task, after all in its current condition, free access to this library is not worth very much is it? … Not only that, it seems like you don’t have any other solutions to fix the situation, given your poor reading ability and discrimination against your race. Furthermore, with the Church spreading rumors against the library, if I associate myself by helping you I run the risk of offending a very powerful faction!”

Listening to Feng’s words, Rania’s façade dropped as her lips trembled and her eyes flopped down sadly again and she immediately started to sniffle.

“So.. so… You won’t help me after all? Uwwaaah, I’ll nev-“

“That’s not what I meant! I’ll help you but only for better rewards!”

Quickly stopping Rania before she could launch into a full-fledged outburst, Feng hurriedly reassured her of his intentions is merely to negotiate.

“But I don’t have much else to offer you… I have spent most of my treasures from adventuring on maintaining the library and paying for expenses… uwwah”

“Relax Rania, that’s fine. What I propose is that we become partners! In exchange for a share… say half of the library; I’ll help you with the management and business part of things and turn this library into a blooming place with full of people. So how about it? Partners?”

Striking to the core of the matter, Feng proposed an “attractive deal” to the desperate cat-girl with a smug grin on his face like a spider watching pretty enter its webs.

Shuffling her feet cutely, Rania ducked her head and blushed after hearing Feng’s words with a completely different understanding and replied shyly. “Uwaa? … Propose? … Partners? …isn’t this too fast? … but if it is you… I guess it’s fine.”

Astounded by the easy acceptance, having started with a higher bargain with an intention of bringing it down after negotiation, Feng decided to push his luck a bit further…

“One more thing…”

“Mm?”

“… I want to be allowed to pet your ears…”

“Uwaawaaaa… You can’t just say something like that to a lady… and… you should know… it is fine since you proposed…”

Turning a bright red, Rania hid her face behind her hands as she peeked out at Feng stuttering her answer.

‘Excellent, I’m glad she has accepted my business proposal, huhuhu.. I’m the first player who will be able to get a business and a place with knowledge like this can definitely be leveraged to increase my growth… Plus Rania is really fun to pet, reminds me of the cats Mom never allowed me to bring home due to her allergies…’

Completely missing out on Rania’s odd reaction as he mentally congratulated himself, Feng was lost in his thoughts like Rania who was similarly lost in her own fantasies… in a completely different direction.

*DING*

New Quest Obtained: Reviving The Library

You have undertaken the great task of reviving the library and gaining Rania’s favor. Be warned, the Church of Light seem to have some sort of agenda against the library’s revival.

Grade: C

Objectives:

1) Re-open the library

2) Get at least fifty people to use the library within the first week of re-opening

Bonus Objectives:

1) Get more people to use the library within the first week

2) - Hidden -

3) - Hidden -

Rewards:

1) 50% ownership of the Library

2) Increased Relationship with Rania (+50)

3) Decreased Relationship with Church of Light (-20)

4) Gain Enemies: - Hidden -

Failure:

1) Decreased Relationship with Rania (-20)

2) Decreased Relationship with Adventurers’ Guild (-10)

3) Gain Enemies: - Hidden –

Staring at the quest window, Feng mentally swore.

‘Grade C? That’s higher than even the Grade D quest the play-testers talked about and that required a large group of them to clear a raid boss and most of them died… Not only that I will be gaining hidden enemies no matter what I do, plus antagonizing the Church even more… Damn it, should I continue with the quest? But the rewards… and I need the library for my magic training anyway. Ah screw it, it just means I need to outmaneuver all of them… I need to plan multiple layers of contingencies and attack plans then.’

Not wasting any time, Feng quickly scanned the library and checked out some books titles as he cooked up schemes in his mind… First of all, define the core competencies and resources, next define the target market and segments within it, then identify the key competitors and stakeholders, lastly determine strengths and weaknesses in relation to the competitors. Next, analyze the current situation, trends, future changes and determine the opportunities and threats.

Running through all the factors in his mind, Feng quickly picked out a few key factors based on what he currently know and have observed and started to refine a plan mentally.

‘The first step to get this library back on its feet is to clean it up and get it operational, the next step is to increase traffic flow, alongside traffic flow, revenue streams must be obtained. It will take too long to get it operational with just the two of us… Luckily we have some resources to leverage on… Excellent.’

“Rania, let us begin operations. Firstly, I presume there are some storage areas in the library? I would like to you first empty all the shelves in the first third of the first floor and move the shelves into storage, then please rearrange the remaining shelves like so. I will be sorting out the books into piles while you do so and after you are done with that, kindly empty all the shelves and bring all the books to the second floor where I will sort them. I intend to create a new sorting system and you just need to move the piles I have sorted to the respective shelves I will be labelling... There is writing material here somewhere right?”

“Of course! We keep a large amount of paper and ink here, considering the large amount of scholars who needed to take notes and it is also used for records.”

“Excellent, bring me some writing materials and let’s get started!”

*8 hours later*

“Feng… is a slave-master! We have been working for HOURS since the moon rose up and haven’t eaten a bite since afternoon… Can we please stop now? I am so hungry and tired…”

A dispirited Rania pooled on top of a desk grabbing her tummy and moaning to Feng who was rapidly looking at titles and occasionally flipping through the first few pages and scanning the text before sorting the books into six distinct stacks.

“Oh yes, we should grab something to eat to ensure we remain productive! Here, do you want some hard bread? I took some from the guild training room!”

Looking up briefly, Feng nodded in agreement and pulled out two breads from his inventory and tossed one over at Rania before returning to his work while gnawing on the other.

“EHHH! … But but… can’t we go get better food and rest soon? … I can cook for you and… you could come and… sleep at my place?”

“Mm.. You go ahead then, I’ll need to do a lot more sorting work since shelving is a lot faster to do.”

*Many hours later*

Stretching his arms to get rid of all the kinks and knots he gotten from poring over the books for hours and hours, Feng yawned and rubbed his eyes blearily as he finally paid attention to his surroundings. The first thing he noticed was the gentle light of dawn shining into the library… onto a Rania curled up into a little ball napping on the table beside him. Glancing at his work, he realized that he created six large piles which could populate perhaps one fifth of the first floor shelves with ten times the amount left to be sorted… Not to mention the sorting he has done was rough at best.

‘Oh well, I already expected this result, time to execute part two of the plan... Hmm, I seem to have gotten some notifications while I was sorting out the books. Must have blocked them out due to my hyper-focused state.’

New Stat Unlocked: Willpower

Through long hours of repeated labor and staving off fatigue and hunger through sheer mental fortitude, you have unlocked Willpower.

Willpower enables you to push past your limits and accomplish feats you are normally unable to achieve… This may come at a severe price if you push too far beyond your limitations.

New Skill Obtained: Concentration

Through long hours of dedicating yourself to a particular task, you have learned how to concentrate fully and enter a deeper state of complete focus. It helps you in all skills requiring mental focus.

(Passive Skill)

+2 Wisdom

+2% Effectiveness for any focus-related skills

Congratulations! Your toil has earned you:

+2 Wisdom

+6 Endurance

+10 Willpower

‘These should come in handy, especially for once I learn some magic! Better get things rolling first if I want to get my magic training soon though…’

Poking Rania gently to try to rouse her from her slumber, Feng soon got annoyed as Rania proved to be absolutely impossible to awaken. Grinning evilly, Feng started gently scratching Rania’s ears which elicited gentle purring from her tightly curled up body… before abruptly sticking his finger right into her ear.

“NYAAAAAAHHH!”

Leaping up so high she nearly crashed into the ceiling, Rania landed on the table with all her hair and ears sharply raised and looking absolutely shocked. Feng merely grinned innocently and carried on casually.

“Glad you are awake Rania, I laid out some instructions telling you where to put the piles I sorted and also some special instructions if you manage to complete the shelving before I am back.”

‘Approximately twelve hours should have passed out in real life given that it has been a day since I entered, it is probably time to take a quick refresher break especially after that long monotonous task.’

Laying down his head to rest on the table, Feng then pressed the log-out button leaving his avatar behind to rest.