Chapter 101

There is something there, I can distinguish where the lines of text are and where it is just blank paper. The grayish colored letters of the book I bought to train is difficult getting used to, but the improvement in my Perception stat had done a lot to improve my ability to recognize the difference.

I stand in my hut surrounded by experiments where I cut pages of the book, and separate the letters from the rest of the paper with the closest thing to an exacto knife we could forge.

Putting the book in my inner world almost lets me make out the individual letters. After a long time getting used to the very feel of the ‘ink’ I came to realize the problem, it’s not ink at all.

That is why it is so difficult.

Like in my class trial and the different materials of the table I found there, it is the same material with a single property slightly different. A darker shade of paper somehow perfectly melded with the crisp white paper. Fully organic cellulose fibers like the rest of the book, except some of those fibers are for some reason dark gray.

Ink is just so different as a material compared to paper. Real ink is dead and contains much heavier elements that scream their uniqueness in my perception field. After gaining enough ‘resolution’, I managed to easily read the system’s reward book or the village's notes.

The ‘introduction to the system’ book is something else entirely. It isn’t just about color, though they are also fainter, it is about their very similar feel to all my senses except vision. Though I can only speculate about other aspects, the smell, touch, sound and even heat conductivity are exactly the same in all tests I ran.

There is no distinguishable difference between them, though finally I started to make some progress outside the inner world in reading it. Before the upgrade to my senses, even in it, I could barely make out the lines with the book open. Though that particular detail made like difference to the perception filter, I didn't switch between closed and opened when training.

After making as much progress as I can for now on this, I get up excited for the day.

Running to a new building near the Blacksmithy, I find Merlin, Charlie, and a pair of representatives from the two villages that would be seeing the first benefits from a new arrangement. It is a highly complex system with a lot of moving pieces, but as with so many of the recent developments, I am smack dab in the middle of it.

Merlin approaches me and starts speaking.

“So, are you excited for the opening of the instance’s library?”

“Hell yeah, though I don’t agree with the name, it should be called the repository or something.”

“Let the politicians worry about the trivial details like that. With it in place, everyone will be able to have access to the information in the books we bought.”

“I will finish connecting the entire instance. I need a few more weeks to finish the round around the high-level zone at the pace it’s going. It will be months before the farthest villages get connected even with all the help I’m getting.” I reply.

“I just wish I had your access to mana, that way I could go around for a couple of days and help accelerate the process.”

“If mana is the problem, I think I have a solution.”

“Humm? What is it?”

“Never leave the network, with a little help you should be able to tap into the mana there and use it to slowly grow into any direction, though it’s a dozen times faster if you get help from somewhere with grown seeds, then you just need to finish the connection.”

“Why didn’t I think of that? I fell so stupid.” He says scrunching his face. “How exactly does the mana transmission happens on your network?”

As we wait around I explain to him both the security mechanisms and the dual principles my roots use to transport mana. With only a little work every couple of hundred meters he should be able to easily tap into a constant stream of mana spread throughout the network.

“Actually, I think I can do you one better, if you really want to help complete the loop around the high-level zone, I can probably come up with charging pads every ten miles or so, and it will be able to charge the battery for a flying vehicle.”

“Perfect. Even if I don’t use it, the scouts are bound to come begging you to let them use it.”

“Definitely, I’m just beating myself up for not having thought of it before, I even prepared to make a smaller independent vehicle, but when that didn’t pan out, I put the idea on the shelf.”

“Yeah, for some reason independent vehicles don’t work very well, it’s like the system doesn’t want us using them.”

“Not sure if it goes that far. Probably just a lack of knowledge in the specific field.”

“No, it’s not just that. There were plenty of moments when the mining drone went haywire for seemingly no reason. And it wasn’t just during the harder part of breaking rock, but even basic stuff like moving back and forth across a tunnel was encountering all kinds of problems.” He says perplexed.

“I haven’t heard anyone put it like that, but now that you mention it, you are right. I haven’t seen any project with something relatively simple like this in any other project.”

I look on as more people file in, along with the last of the representatives, it will start any minute now.

“We are in the instance, do you think…?” He begins to ask me as I look back at him. A few seconds after he trails off, it dawns on me.

“Yes, I felt something off whenever I went over for a minute or two of work, The system didn’t provide a single ‘epiphany’ that always seem to accompany anything that we work on,” I note.

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“It’s very curious that the system’s interference.” Merlin answers.

“Technically, the system just stopped helping us even if are still in this instance. Maybe they didn’t even get bonus experience for crafting the mining bot. There are probably many more and we just haven’t come across them. But think about it, as everyone returns and the people left in the instance are in the thousands then hundreds, and eventually a small team or a single person, think of the reduction in their capabilities.”

“There will be way fewer people for mining, smithing, engraving and a dozen other things.” He lists the off in his fingers.

“I believe the main change to be the potential income. There must be other jobs like mine on the smithy that pay a lot for specialized skills, but that doesn’t compare to what they could do with the resources from the entire instance if we can set something up.”

“Ohh, there are other high-paying jobs, talk to the potter’s apprentice later. I think you will find the conversation illuminating.”

“I will.” I finish.

We both turn to the center of the library as Charlie gives a short speech, heard not only in our village but also, through video, in the other three villages. It was mostly for the delegate’s and their village’s benefit, to convince them to spread the word of how helpful and how much access to the knowledge on our library could do for other villages, but about 50 people are physically present for the event show our support.

Not to waste time twiddling my thumbs, I connect with the roots spread throughout my body. I don’t go as deep into meditation as possible, now much more accustomed to the exercise, and every single cell I work on gets a similar treatment as the wood on the first of Pando’s coins.

Though I don’t try aging and drying, I still want them supple and flexible to avoid any damage to my sensitive organs. And I don’t stop there, I hold in my hand two small pieces of metallic silver and gold.

The roots intertwine the metal strips and absorb particles from them. I try to improve on the magical properties of the wood, and although it was a very, very slow process, I am happy that my idea works. Wood, originally not even as good as copper for magic, is no longer quite as shabby with the particles of gold and silver. Though even after days of work and I was barely a tenth of the way done. It will take days fully dedicated to this to convert the couple hundred grams of roots into something marginally better than copper.

This method isn’t suitable to apply to the hundreds of tons of roots in the inner world, not unless I wanted to spend the next couple million years on it, but the current use case is not quite so extensive.

Charlie draws my attention away as he changes his tune, and I pay close attention.

“Thank you, gentlemen, that is all for my speech, now, I will be demonstrating how the library operates.” He says before walking, placing a book into a receptacle, and closing the small door. He walks to the other side of the library where there are a few tables and chairs in a row. After a moment, he inputs about a hundred mana and a floating screen pops into existence on the table he chose.

He doesn’t sit down and instead moves back to give everyone a good view of the book.

“It doesn’t matter the range, just place your mana and talk with one of our operators, and they will be able to connect you to the correct stream. We have a limited number of books, so anyone simultaneously reading a book will have to conform to the others doing the same, but for now, it’s what the magic allows us to do. That is all for today, thank you for your presence.”

Most of the people from our village file out leaving only me, Merlin, Charlie, and the representatives. All three get up as Charlie turns the remote stream off, and I move to talk with him.

“It really is as impressive as you promised, and it gets around the pesky limitations on the books we buy.” Says the oldest of the representatives. I would hazard a guess in the neighborhood of 60 or 70, though with the system his age makes little difference beyond the aesthetics.

“As I said, with the right coordination the books you already have at your disposal can all be added to the library and you would get a share of the proceeds for any access to it. So you will get part of your investment back.”

“I like the sound of that.” Says another representative, a younger woman, though still in her 40s.

The older man looks at the translucent screen and marvels at it, probably not having seen anything like old Earth's technology for almost three months, ever since we were brought here.

“Yes, and we will spread the word. And we will add our manuscripts and notes to the encyclopedia. That also counts if people are reading doesn't it?” At Charlie’s nod, he goes on. “You did a good job impressing the yokels with little runic knowledge.”

“That..” Charlie starts protesting.

“I know it wasn’t meant as something condescending, and most people wouldn’t call it such. It’s just the reality of the situation, you have a lot of talented and driven people in your village. Whom you made good use of, and now that you convinced us, we will be on our way.”

“Would you mind being a little more impressed?” Says Charlie, and I look at him sharply. I have no idea where he is going with this.

The older gentleman looks at me, but turns back without asking me anything, and just nods. Behind me, I feel as Merlin’s facial muscles form a grin.

“So you know what he is talking about Merlin?” I ask as we all follow Charlie.

“Wait just a minute. I don’t want to ruin the surprise for them.” I think about what he said, and as we head to the back of the village I see a clearing where they knocked down a few empty houses to clear space.

I glance at the steel and copper melded together into long six-meter narrow flying crafts.

“I have to say, I’m impressed they managed to get one built so quickly, let alone three,” I say to no one in particular.

“What are those?” Asks the middle-aged woman.

“Flying crafts,” Says Charlie approaching the vehicles and spreading his arms out. “They won’t be able to go far, but they can cut short your trip by about 25 kilometers.”

“I don’t suppose you are looking to sell these?” Asks the last of the representatives, a sterner man. And from the way, he carries himself, probably former military.

“Not for now.” Says Charlie, “We need to have a few built for ourselves, but eventually for our closest allies, sure.”

“What timeline are thinking off?” Asks the same representative, as he leans in Charlie’s direction.

“Before the end of next month for sure, I can’t be more specific.”

“Ohh that is fine, I want to pre-order one of these for my village.”

“We haven’t opened a preorder list yet, but be assured, you are all first in line.”

“Well, I must be off then.” He says, and with the help of a scout he climbs aboard the narrow seat for his broad frame and I feel the mana being poured in the craft as it quickly gains altitude, stalling at about 8 meters of height before zipping off at a good pace, though slower than the cruising speed of my own crafts.

The other two representatives take their time but Charlie sees them off and walks in the direction of his office. Having no one to attend to them, they stop dawdling and get on the flying crafts.

“How are they going to come back with the amount of mana they have in the craft?” I ask Merlin.

“They managed to come up with a new design, it doesn’t reach the same speeds or heights, but it’s more economical. The cruising speed ends up at about 120 kph consuming just 1 mana a second for these crafts.”

“That’s… very good mana economy given the weight was expecting about 3 mana for 160 kpm,” I say, a smile lighting my face at the pun.

“Yes, it is. Just make sure to build the recharging station, and moving around the instance is going to get a lot faster all of the sudden.”

We both look for another few seconds in the directions the flying crafts took, before getting on with our day. After all, those crafts were already built and in use, however, we could come up with even better flying vehicles, or different ones, or other magical technology, and that is what people like me and Merlin do.

They were right, our village was lucky to get so many talented people, and it is time to make full use of it.