“You are absolutely not ready to head out now.” The librarian stared at me incredulously.

“Okay, fine. We’ll do your plan.” I sighed and leaned back in my chair, folding my hands behind my head. “But first, I have some questions.”

“Proceed.” The librarian’s expression shifted to a soft smile. Despite his protestations of not noticing time away, he still seemed to be happy to have someone to talk to, at least as far I could tell.

“Okay, first things, what would you prioritize as the most important facilities to bring back?”

“Oh, that is a lot of possible answers. I would, though, suggest that you not wait too long for the Research lab,” he said. “It is vital for allowing you to develop new crafting schematics, which will of course radically expand the things that you can do here.”

“Wait, so I can learn new recipes without having to learn new skills or perks?” I perked up at that, leaning forward again, the legs of my chair clattering against the floor.

“Of course.” The librarian flicked a hand and a book appeared in his hand. “In fact, most of the books here are devoted to additional schema. Now, the ones you can learn are based on your skills and your perks, but you do not receive every schema immediately.”

I reached forward to snatch the book out of the librarian’s hand, but my hand just passed through it, bringing a smirk to his lips. “Anyway,” I said, “I’d like to learn some of these recipes.”

“Yes, that is the plan after all.” The librarian nudged up his glasses, his smirk turning mischievous. “Your power is based on your knowledge, and that knowledge is most concentrated in your schema. And of course, we’ll back that up with the theory that underpins it.”

“Sounds a lot like engineering class, but… well I guess the stakes here are a bit higher.” I sighed then and ran my fingers through my hair. “Oh, before we get started, I activated the Survey Chamber.”

“A good choice,” the librarian interjected.

“Thanks, I guess.” I smiled a touch sheepishly. “And I activated this option that sent out a pulse, do you know what that is?”

“Oh yes, that’s the resource scanner. It’ll show deposits of ergonic materials.” The librarian began idly flipping through his book. “Also, the data will transfer from the scanner to your map, so you don’t have to write it all down. Very convenient, if I say so myself.”

“It was your idea wasn’t it?” I said.

He just smiled that mischievous smile. “Let’s get you started with some schema.” He seemingly plucked a page from his holographic book and feeded it down into the screen on my desk. That screen flared to life and I turned my attention to the information displayed.

Unlike previous schema that I had discovered, which had been given to me by the system directly, this was much more complex. It didn’t have a simple list of ingredients that I could smoosh together, instead it provided a list of material requirements and a complex diagram describing how they would all fit together. As I studied it, I slowly figured out the pieces would fit together, and how they could be derived from the components I already knew how to create. In my mind’s eye, the joiners I could construct merged with ingots to form the broad shape of the structure described by the diagram.

“This is a war drill, isn’t it?” I asked, slightly incredulous.

The librarian nodded slowly. “It’s important for you to understand how to make the tools of war. Your path does not contain any perks that will provide a direct boost to your combat ability at any point, your strength in battle is going to be based entirely on your ability to develop new equipment that will help serve you in the field.”

“Okay, so research lab is definitely next.”

“Good.” The librarian seemed a touch smug, before feeding in several more pages into the monitor. “Your strength also derives in large part from the variety of tools that you can use. While your current skill and perk set does limit that somewhat, if you study some of these schema you can activate a phantom skill.”

“Phantom skill?” I looked up from my study and blinked owlishly. “That sounds awfully impressive.”

“It’s not.” The librarian’s voice was deadpan. “Phantom skills are temporary skills that can be made available by perks in your path that you have not unlocked yet. You can only have a limited amount, most can only have one at any given time but you might be able to have two. Still, the advantage can be significant.”

“How significant?” I said. In response to my question, the librarian fed in another page, this time causing the screen to change the display.

I turned my attention back down and began digging through the description once more. This device was far more complicated, all the engine did for the war drill was spin an axle, one of the easiest things for an engine to do. Here, the engine cranked a spring, which was attached to a plate, and once that spring was fully depressed, fed in something. I scrolled through the description some more. The device loaded in a spike of some sort, like one of those large plastic tent stakes but far sharper and made fully of metal.

From there, a simple trigger mechanism to release a lock on that plate to let the spring unload, which would fire the spike pretty dang far if these calculations were correct, and with enough impact force to do some real damage. I said softly, “a ranged weapon.”

“That’s right. From your stats, you are almost certainly not very good at fighting hand-to-hand. That may change over time, but having a ranged option would greatly increase your chances of survival.” The librarian slid in a few more sheets then claimed a seat. “Your current skill set would not let you build or use them, at least not effectively, but if you learn this schema, it should trigger the phantom skill for them to develop.”

I nodded and turned my attention back to the screen, trying to memorize every detail. “The schema I’ve seen so far, none of them have specified what kind of metal ingot they needed, and nor does this one. I’m assuming that’s not an oversight?”

“Very good, you’re correct.” The librarian spread his hand magnanimously. “You can, in fact, use any kind of ingot for these constructions, and different kinds of ingots will yield different results.”

I paused then to look up. “You’re not just talking about different tiers.”

“No, I am not.” The librarian pulled out another sheet and slid it in. “You can take a look at this next.”

With a soft sigh I returned to my study, noticing the details of the spring and how it required special allowances in order to function properly. As I took in the precise angle and tensions requirements, something clicked in my head and I realized that a hinge joiner could be made to specification. Following that realization, a system message appeared.

Phantom Skill Gained

Spike Thrower - 1

ghosts of ghosts of ghosts, haunting the remnants of a thousand dead worlds, and it’s all our fault

Alright, cool, anyway. “I got the phantom skill. Also, these system message notes are getting increasingly ominous.”

“Yes, they’ll do that.” The librarian pursed his lips. “They’ve been like that from the beginning, a relic of the Creators.”

“The Creators?” My interest was rapidly torn from the screen up to the librarian.

“The people who created the system. Now long dead of course, and the most mysterious of the iterations over all. I wish I could understand what their motivation for the creation was, what their plans were. But it’s all dust now, all lost in the twisting mire of time and the passing of untold ages.” The librarian snapped his book shut. “Move onto your next lesson, I suspect you’ll find it interesting.”

I flipped the screen to the next page that the librarian had entered and began reading.

“Not all substances are born of the same inherent nature, indeed most are not. When all existing attunements have been washed away, then there is purity. Purity is inherently weak, though, it is the most useless of attunements. It lacks strength, it lacks power, it even lacks flexibility. Its only advantage is that it can be molded with relative ease. Yet, it is so often the most commonly sought of materials, perhaps because it does not alter the nature of skills used through it.

“I say that this is cowardice on the part of our community.

“We must embrace the strangeness of this world we inhabit, this world that we must forge into our own. The number of attunements is nearly endless, but I have found the following to be fairly common:

“Earth, Fire, Wind, Water- Basic elemental affinities, despite their nature they rarely impact the core of the materials, but rather impact their attunement directly onto the acts performed with them.

“Light, Darkness, Space, Time- Advanced elemental affinities, while these do enhance the inherent nature of objects made from them, they also largely impact the nature of the object’s effect rather than it itself.

“Wyrd- more experimentation required

“Memory- calls upon systemic storage of associated deeds, granting a significant competence boost to usage.

“Structured- results in highly durable objects with extremely predictable usage outcomes.

“Transcendent- the rarest of the ‘standard’ types, these unite with the user’s path and identity to yield extremely individualized results, but ones that are significantly more powerful than they would otherwise be.”

I continued to read, fascinated by the article, scrolling slowly as to consume each word carefully to preserve my knowledge. Eventually, I came to a phrase that raised my eyebrows. I turned back to the librarian and asked, “Hey, what’s this about Analyzing? The text is acting like it’s something that everyone can do.”

“Hm, you should know how to do it already.” The librarian stroked his chin thoughtfully. “Unless, the tutorial might be breaking down faster than we had feared. Do you have any sensory skills?”

“Yeah, I have erg sight.”

“Oh? Excellent, that is a very good one. So, you know how you can pull up more details about items on your status by concentrating on them? You can learn more about objects highlighted in your erg sight in the same sort of way.”

“Oh.” I blinked a couple times. “That sounds very convenient.”

“Extremely convenient!” The librarian beamed for a moment. “But let us move on, to battle harness customization!”