'Aah, got to talk to Gilmer.'

Louie looked around, but in the chaos of the happy reunion, Gilmer had taken his chance and slipped away.

Most of the people had been chased out of the kitchen by the Cook as she and her helpers started with breakfast.

Louie saw that they were using powdered eggs and Smash Instant Mash Potatoes, and he realised that he hadn't seen much but canned foods in the pantry.

"You don't have meat?" He asked the Cook who gave him a 'are you stupid' look.

He held up his hands to stall her from biting his head off.

"Sorry, I'm just asking because all I saw was canned foods."

"We got no way to keep meat from spoiling, and with the undead, they don't drop meat as loot, not that I would eat any if they did drop as loot."

Louie stepped out of the way of the working Cooks and leaned against a counter deciding to go through his inventory and look through all the junk in there.

Since the first day in the Dungeon, when he discovered how big his inventory was, he had been dumping everything that looked useful in there, from weapons to the kitchen sink, literally since he had cleaned out the Dungeon restrooms, including the kitchen, a couple of times.

He soon realised that it would be a colossal task since there was a lot of crap in there, and he had no idea where most of it came from.

He found a couple of kitchen appliances from the Dungeon that he had missed, including two mana-powered fridges and, lo and behold, another mana coffee machine and a shipping container, 'a container? Where the fuck did I loot a container from?'

He tried to think back to the first day that he woke up on the riverbank and can't remember seeing a container in his inventory, and then it clicked.

The SPAR store they looted in Worcester, they loaded all the contents in the shipping container that was in the parking lot. He had meant to give it to Johan and Bianca at the Fort, but it never happened due to all the groceries they got from Paterson's loot.

He also found the inventory slots with his bracelets and removing them he placed them on the counter in front of him.

He started equipping the bracelets one by one, checking their contents before he found the one he was looking for

"Excuse me, but do you know how to skin and dress an animal?" He asked the Cook.

"Boy, I grew up on a farm. I slaughtered my first chicken when I was ten years old. Of course, I know how to dress an animal."

She straightened up from the table, "why what you gots?"

He handed her a bracelet.

"This is called 'Cook's Pantry', it's a bracelet that is a spatial storage device with a 10 sq Chrono locked space that can stack 99 of the same items per sq, mostly used by those with a Class."

"Chrono locked?" She asked as she turned the bracelet over in her hands.

"It means that any food item that you place inside will stay the way that it was when placed inside, a bowl of stew will stay warm and fresh cold milk will stay cold and fresh. Unfortunately, it has only ten squares, but you can stack 99 of the same item in one square, and it won't weigh anything."

Cooks Pantry (Bracelet)

Contents are limited to food items.

All food items stored in the bracelet have their weight decreased by 99.9% and are permanently under the effect of a Chrono Lock spell. The bracelet has 10 Sq slots that can stack up to 99 of the same food items, bigger items might take up more slots but those items that occupy more than 1 slot won't stack.

If damaged, the storage space inside the bracelet shrinks to its original dimensions, 1 x 1mm, and any contents are destroyed

She handed it back to him but he waved it away, "it's yours, keep it. Here take these also but I would suggest that you keep those for emergencies, there are 50 cubes in the bag."

Foodstock

A small 5x5x5cm cube made from XXXXX will transform water into a stew. Ingredients redacted by suppliers.

This Food Stock cube is easy to use. Simply dissolve the cube in a pot of clean boiling water together with at least one vegetable type, tomato for tomato stew, and it will transform into a delicious nutritious stew that will serve 12.

After 3 hours any leftover stew will transform into slush only fit for pigs.

She gave him a suspicious look, "why, this must all cost a pretty penny, what you want for it?"

He shook his head, "nothing, you guys are doing a good thing here, and you need something like that. There are carcasses inside the bracelet, they just need to be dressed. Children need meat to grow big and strong."

She nodded and placed the bracelet on her wrist. Her eyes grew big and round as she looked at the content notification.

"When you said carcasses I thought you meant chickens or a rabbit or two, what is this?"

He stopped her when she started clearing a space on the table, "you might want to do that outside or it might be best to talk to Allet to get a room especially to dress animals, that's a horned bunny, there are two of them and they are big."

"How big is Big?" She wanted to know.

"About one and a half meters tall, that does not include its antlers."

She whistled appreciation, drawing the helper's interest.

"Donner, dis a moerse haas!" She called the one helper over, "girl go call Mother."

"Is there a problem?" Louie asked the excited Cook.

"No, I just want to ask Mother if I can show and maybe teach the kids how to skin a carcass and harvest the useful organs and stuff."

A slightly breathless Allet followed the helper and after listening for a moment she was relieved that there wasn't another emergency.

She happily agreed that this was the perfect opportunity, since there were enough carcasses in the bracelet, to hold an impromptu class on how to harvest animal carcasses.

Louie had pulled her to one side and after telling her about the container had asked where he could place it.

While the cooks finished preparing the last of the breakfast, Louie created a couple of stone tables with benches, in a classroom setting, in the corner of the courtyard nearest the kitchen where the Cook can hold her class on harvesting.

He and a couple of the people that came with Gilmer emptied the container into the pantry and a next-door room so he could use the container again.

He had thought of leaving the container with them but with the discovery of the basement, he was sure that they would never have storage problems ever again.

Louie leaned against a counter enjoying a glass of cold water when something zipped past the window leaving a trail of … sparkles?

"What the fuck was that?"

The Cook, who was gathering the tools she would need for the harvesting class, looked in the direction he was staring and saw the sparkles fading away.

"What, the sparkly trail? That's the fairies."

"The what?"

'Of course, there would be fairies, jees, why not?'

"The fairies, they showed up a couple of days after the quakes, they seem to like the trees at Gilmer's place, we see maybe one or two a day, always curious, but seem harmless."

"Harmless? They are fairies."

She shrugged, "Gilmer said they are harmless, so we leave them alone. He should know, being from the old blood an all."

Louie leaned out the window and following the sparkly trail he saw it disappear over the roof towards the back corner of the plot.

"Fairies, what's next?" Shaking his head he closed the window. "Got to talk to Gilmer."

Nodding his thanks to the Cook he set out to find the old man.

After asking around he was told to look in the dojo and that's where he found the trainer.

The dojo was located in what used to be the shed but was now part of the back wall of the new Shelter.

The massive room has been turned into a training dojo, which excited him, but he was disappointed in the outcome of the meeting.

"I won't train you boy, nothing personal. I'm sure you're a good man, but never again will I train any man."

Louie had heard this but he had still hoped to be the exception, "but you are training people here?"

"The women and the girls. Nobody will take advantage of my girls again."

Louie heard the fury mixed with loss in the older man's voice.

Louie looked around the training hall. He tried again.

"I heard from Arnold Brand that you are a retired Reece…" Louie stopped as Gilmer held up a hand.

"Stop, if Arnold vouches for you then I will help you."

Louie smiled but it dropped as he heard what Gilmer said next.

"But I won't train you. I took a vow to never train another man, and I never break a vow."

*sigh* he dropped his shoulders in resignation.

"So how would you help me?"

Gilmer indicated that he should follow him and lead him to a partitioned-off corner of the dojo.

Behind the partition was a reading nook with a comfortable-looking armchair and a bookshelf with what looked like martial arts instruction books.

Gilmer removed a thin book and handed it to Louie.

"Introduction to Tai Chi? I don't understand."

*Sigh* "Take the book boy, sit down and go through it, see if you can unlock a skill."

"This is a skill book?" Louie looked with interest at the book. Gilmer shook his head.

"Not in the way that you mean, from what I heard, call it old school." He indicated the chair. "Now, Sit down and study the damn book and I will be back in an hour."

Louie scratched his head and shrugged, 'why not.'

He sat down and opened the book and started reading.

There were a lot of drawn illustrations with a step-by-step movement guide showing the placement of both hands and feet while going through the katas.

An hour later Gilmer was back, "well did you get it?"

Louie opened his notifications to see if there was something he missed, "no, what was I supposed to get?"

*Sigh* "Boy, did you only read through the book? Start over and study the damn pictures while you read the instructions, look into your mind and see yourself doing the movements while you study them."

Gilmer shook his head, "I will be back in another hour, got to train some girls." He heard Gilmer mutter, "dig kinders van vandag."

Louie looked embarrassed as he opened the book at the start again, 'well shit, it IS an instruction manual.'

***

As he finished the last page he received a notification.

Since you have the skills, Scholar, Learning, Know-How and Quick Study, they will combine into a Seeker of Knowledge Passive Skill, Book Knowledge. Buffs gained from the previously mentioned skills will still apply to Book Knowledge.

'Well Damn'

Congratulations you have acquired the Seeker skill

Be warned that this is a mental skill only, to use the knowledge that you acquire through this skill, you will have to turn it into a physical skill.

Because you have the book knowledge does not mean that you can do the job, the only way that you will be able to use this knowledge is by constantly practising what you learned. Only through muscle memory will you be able to advance and gain proficiency in what you learned through this skill.

Be advised that Tai Chi is considered a form of martial arts and will fall under Wu Shu, there will be no separate entry for Tai Chi on your status page.

All forms of combat that are learned will fall under Wu Shu and will not be shown but will raise that Skill percentage-wise.

"Nice."

"Did you get it?"

He looked up at Gilmer, who he hadn't even noticed walking up to him.

'Damn scary'

"Yea, "

Gilmer looked confused, "Say what? Didn't you get Tai Chi?"

"Ow ja, I got that too, but I also got a Skill known as , it helps me to more easily absorb knowledge from books."

Gilmer shook his head, "Well feel free to absorb the knowledge in any of the manuals as long as you don't damage or remove them from the dojo."

'Hmm, I have heard of Wushu as a style of fighting but I never checked what the System meant by Wu Shu.'

Wu Shu, written 武 術 in Chinese, literally means “martial technique”.

It has a long history dating back thousands of years to the Qin Dynasty and encompasses the many distinct types of military and martial arts under the modern “wushu” banner.

For example:

Taijiquan = tai chi

Taijijian = tai chi with a Chinese straight sword.

Judo

Taekwondo

...

And many more.

'Okay, good to know.'

Louie looked at the shelves as Gilmer walked away, back to training his pupils.

Thinking back, he remembered back at The Fort how he had copied the grocery list into his Journal and decided to try it again but this time with one of the bigger books, 'Practice Drills for Japanese Swordsmanship'

The book was only 112 pages thick, but it was still 112 pages that he had to look at and take a mental snapshot and place it in his Journal.

A half-hour later and he was finished with the book.

As he opened his journal he received a couple of notifications again.

'Huh, two levels in one day! I'm definitely on the right track.'

He swiped the notification away to view the next.

Bookshelf

Congratulations on unlocking the Seeker Skill .

This skill will place a copy of any book whose contents you view on a bookshelf.

The falls under your Journal Tag, in your Caracter interface and will be available for later study or reference.

Be warned, you must physically see each page in the book before it will appear in the book on your bookshelf, no sucking things out of your thumb.

Evolve this Skill by filling the shelves.

Stamina Cost: 20SP + 1SP/minute.

Louie swiped the BB away and quickly opened his Status page.

He went into his Journal, there was a flashing icon in the top right-hand corner, and as he mentally pressed on the icon a single-row bookshelf appeared in his interface. On the shelf were two books, Introduction to Tai Chi and Practise Drills for Japanese Swordsmanship. He opened the Swordsmanship book and saw that it was a perfect copy of the book he had in his hands.

'Hot Damn, this will come in handy. Guess this is why only I got a Journal, it's a Seeker skill.'

He looked back at the bookshelf and saw that there were manuals for nearly every basic weapon type, from knives to polearms.

'Well, I better get started. '

With a smile on his face, he reached for the next book.

He wasn't smiling anymore as he replaced the last book, it took him seven hours to work through the four shelves of instruction manuals, but it was time well spent since he now had a copy of every book on the shelves in his Journal on his .

The smile was back if a bit strained when he saw that there were now three full shelves in his

Congratulations, it will now take 1% less time to place books on your

'Hmm, like uploading books on a computer.'

Suddenly the BB shimmered and Louie reread the notification

Congratulations, it will now take 1% less time to upload books into your

'Damn. Wait, the System can hear and respond to me? …

Ok, leave that for later.'

He got up from the armchair and stretched when he remembered seeing something on the maps they had from pre-pulse Paarl.

'Isn't the old Paarl public library one of the buildings in Shantytown? I must go and see if I can save any of the books. There might even be some more instruction manuals.'

Before they left the Shelter Louie returned to the two massive slabs that were the front gates in the wall.

'Damn, I was so fixated on creating stone hinges that I never even thought that there might be another way of swivelling a door.'

He reached into the stone frame surrounding the gates and strengthened and compressed the stone.

Compressed stone is more than ten times as strong as ordinary stone, he had tested it,

Then he created a hole at the bottom and top left-hand corner of the gate frame and shaped the massive gates to have a peg that fits the hole.

This will allow the gates to swivel and not need hinges.

He then reabsorbed the hinges into the gates and levelled the ground in front of the gates, he also created two solid compressed stone wheels on the bottom outer edge of each gate to help offset the weight of the opening and closing gates.

He wasn't worried that the stone pegs would wear out since Allet could just repair the gates by spending a bit of experience in her bonded tab.

They assured Allet that they will keep in contact, even giving her an OCD.

He promised that he would arrange for the trading caravan and especially Celia, their , to come around and see if she would be interested in buying some of the stuff in the Basement before they take the road to Starter Town and Worcester.

The sun has just set when they gave their final goodbye and started back to the Marketplace

It took them less than an hour to get back to the Tree by crossing over the now quiet footbridge.

Even though it's just him, Sher and Shira together with their pets, Trok and his team have decided to stay at the Shelter for a while, they did not come across any creatures that they couldn't handle.

Most of them were still under the debuff caused by the smell of the Slakblom flowers

They reported to Leon about what they found at the Shelter and Louie asked for a lookout post to be constructed at the top of the Tree to keep a watch on the shelters and outposts in Paarl and the surroundings and also to be on the lookout for more groups of survivors,

Sher had returned to her 'Clinic' and Shira to her scavenging as Louie went looking for Arnold, he had an idea that he wanted to talk about with him.

After much deliberation, Arnold agreed to go speak with Allet and Gilmer and see if they couldn't come to some agreement on training some of the girl orphans who weren't cut out for the Legion-style training that everybody was going to be receiving.

Not everybody was made to handle a shield, sword and heavy armour or has the skill or temperament for fighting in a tight formation, take Bertha for example, Barbarians don't make good shield wall material.

It was after 24:00 according to the clock displayed on his HUD when he got back to his tent next to the Tavern.

He entered and closed the door from the inside so that anybody that doesn't have an entry token would only find an ordinary empty tent when entering, something he had made just after creating the tent but never bothered in using, that was before the teen assassins tried to ambush him.

Sleep is a luxury when you have too many things on your plate. Luckily a high constitution helps the body need less sleep, he only needed to sleep for about two hours a night, but still, there weren't enough hours in a day to do or study all that he wanted.

'Maybe I should go back to the Dungeon and utilise the time effect to do some training and studying?'

Thinking of that possibility Louie sat down and made himself comfortable on the shag carpet in front of his bed, closing his eyes and opening his status page, he opened his bookshelf tab.

In front of his mind's eye appeared the with the shelves filled with the books he copied from Gilmer.

He picked the book from his "Look=learn=teach illustrated Naginata"

He opened the 119-page book and started to read and study the contents.

[Most people have this image of the Samurai wielding a Katana in their mind, this is an image placed there by Western television. So when people think of the Katana they immediately think it was the primary weapon of the Samurai, but they are wrong.

The primary weapon of the Samurai was the bow, this is recorded throughout history and can be seen in the shape of their armour, this is why their pauldrons were shaped like big flat squares.

Other than the bow, the Samurai also used the Naginata which was a claive-like weapon and was the preferred melee weapon used by the Japanese infantry in the fifteenth century. A weapon used by most Samurai and was much more effective as a two-handed sword than the Katana was the Odachi, but we will study the use of the Naginata in this manual.

First, we will start with the apparel…]

Louie read and studied the illustrations and in his mind he saw himself following the movement instructed by the illustrations, placing his feet and hands and moving his body as he was instructed by the manual.

Time flew by and as he turned the last page and closed the book it disappeared from his hand and reappeared back on his

He was greeted with the notification.

Be advised that Polearm Mastery is considered a form of martial arts and will fall under Wu Shu, there will be no separate entry for Polearm Mastery or Mastery in any specific weapons or fighting styles on your status page.

All forms of combat that are learned will fall under Wu Shu and will not be shown but will raise that Skill percentage-wise.

Do you wish to receive this notification every time you learn a combat skill

Y/N

He pressed N

He removed another book from the when he realised something.

'Wait, I can make blueprints that can teach somebody how to make weapons,' he remembered giving Brandon the stack of blueprints and him saying that he now knows how to make those weapons, 'and I made those notes that I tore from my Journal that immediately transferred the knowledge on those notes to the person that reads them, isn't that instantaneous knowledge transference, that is how skill books in games work aren't it?'

'If I copy the Tai Chi book to my Journal with the intent of it staying in my journal and not going to my and then tear the pages from my Journal and send it to somebody say, Sher, then she might be able to get Tai Chi at Level 0 too.

He thought for a bit before smacking himself.

'Why would I do that if anybody can learn the skill as I did by just studying the book? It's like Gilmer said, it's old school but it still works.'

Time flew by and according to his clock it was already past breakfast when the last book, 'The Fighting Kukri: Illustrated Lessons on the Gurkha Combat Knife,' turned into dust in his hands and reappeared back on his

'Well our knife fighting instructor in the army bragged that he got trained by a Gurka, looks like he was telling the truth.'

Louie exited his character sheet and got up from the floor and stumbled as he tried to stretch his cramped muscles and nearly face-planted in the shag.

Thankfully, it only took him a few seconds to regain his posture, his high stats driving out the cramps that he had from sitting in one position for so long.

'Let's see if the caravan is ready to go to StarterTown, I can go through the Tree to my Tower and then spend some time in the Dungeon training.