Book-San: What happened in the last chapter? I can't see much of what Narrator-San had written. To me, the text appears blacked out. But I could read the boy's name. He was called Will. He was badly wounded and now he is sleeping, recovering. I used my ink Beatles to search his pockets and found some herbs. I asked Narrator-San for information on the herbs and he told me that some of them could be used for recovery, so I applied them to the wounds.

I wish my skill, Cure worked on others.

Maybe if I increase the skill level it will also work on other people. Narrator has evolved a lot from when it was at level 1.

Would casting cure on myself increase the skill proficiency? I tried but I felt like I was filling a glass already full. The proficiency gain was minimal. Do I have to get hurt to increase the skill proficiency? I am not looking forward to that.

Wait! Maybe I can use Spreading Knowledge to teach the skill to Will, Now that I think about it Spreading Knowledge is not limited to the skills I can't use. It should be able to teach any skill.

---

To reward your hard work and the long study that leads you to this new discovery your skill Spreading Knowledge has been upgraded

It is now a passive skill that will automatically teach compatible skills to your contracted.

The skill will activate more often the more readers you have.

No mana usage.

---

Wow, usually passive skills are worse than active ones but Spreading Knowledge became even stronger. It now needs no mana. Although I'm worried about the readers part. It's been a while since I had checked my readers, favorites, and page views. Those stats are connected to my mana and special pages. If my readers have decreased I will lose my special pages so I don't want to check.

But it looks like the system is pushing the use of readers as a kind of skill proficiency or skill level. If I have one reader the skill is level one. By having 30 readers it becomes level 30? I was at 56 readers last time I checked. It would be good if there are still 30 readers left. I don't write that often.

Let's not check for now. Let's wait for Will to wake up and then decide what to do.

Narrator-San: Will has regained consciousness.

Book-San: Oh, I can read what Narrator-San had just written. I'll try to call Will's name to see if he opens his eyes.

Will!

Will!

Will

'Dad, Mom, are you calling me?' thought Will.

He slowly opened his eyes and realized that his parents were in prison. He was on a shore. Above him, there were azure plates, at his sides the green and sturdy walls of the labyrinth, below him the dead bodies of the wolves he killed. No, he didn't kill them alone, to his side there was a book.

Will and Book-San talked. They told each other story and Book-San become invigorated and hopeful after hearing something a soldier of the archmage faction had said.

"Sir, we have found Agnes. She is in a library, not far from here."

The timing was right. The woman Book-San met in the library now had a name, Agnes. After so long Book-San finally had a clue. Even if a name was not much it was still a sign that success was possible. He could definitely find her.

For more clues, he could interrogate the archmage. But the archmage was a mystery. The archmage's motives and even his position in the army were unclear. Was he a lieutenant-general of the army of [Saint Ancestor Mountain], the right hand of the king. What was the relationship between blue-robed mages and the army?

At times it looked like the archmage held more political power than the king. Did he want to usurp the throne? Why was he hostile to non-human species?

But the scariest thing about him was not his political or magical power but his control. Some people could conjure a fireball as big as he did but no one could reabsorb the power with minimum waste of energy. Where did he get his control from? Nobody knew with what god he was contracted with.

As I was thinking about the archmage Thorn send me a telepathy message.

When using telepathy mana usage increased with the distance and the length of the message but it still worked.

The mana utilization followed the same pattern for the special pages I left to Dorothy, Hanzo, and the mermaid Jein.

During the first test, I gave a special page to Thorn and Rose, and now Hanzo, Jein, Thorn, and Rose were all drawing on the special pages.

Each person was drawing a map of their location. I could see remotely what they drew and I was drawing remotely on everyone's special page the maps put together.

The labyrinth was big and we only covered 7% of the map after several hours. I managed to locate Thorn. It was not too far from Will and me.

I found only Thorn because I could communicate telepathically with him. We used the moving plates as features for the localization and only by talking we had the speed necessary. We tried to communicate using the special pages but the plates moved before annotating their positions.

But the message that Thorn send me this time was not about the map.

Thorn: "I saw a blue-robed mage."

In the labyrinth, there were animals but also traps and you would often find the two of them together.

Thorn saw a pack of animals similar to wolves but with six legs and tried to go around them when he saw a blue-robed mage.

Thorn hid and the animals attacked the mage. The animals cornered the mage and the traps activated blocking all exits.

The mage smiled: "You think you cornered me?" He put a hand on his chest and the other on the wall. His armor transformed into chainmail that covered his whole body and the wall become frozen. Even the traps were frozen and a frozen sphere formed around the wolves and the mage.

Then with a blue light, the mage released electricity. The electricity jumped crazily and when hitting the sphere walls or the chainmail it changed direction until hitting the wolves. Not one wolf remained.

From the description, Thorn had provided Will knew the mage was the one that had incited his family to steal the tax money. Part of the Archmage's plan to take his family's money. Will had to fight.

He tried to stand up but couldn't.

Book-San: "What are you doing, you can't beat him!"

Will: "How do you know? He is not the arckmage. I need to go. This is my only opportunity. If I can't beat him now I never will. I know I might die but if I have a chance I have to take it or else I'll regret it for all my life. I don't want Meg to suffer any longer."

Book-San: "I understand your resentment... I know your story but he is on another level. Please stay calm, if you go like this there won't be a fight. You will only be... killed." 

Will smiled.

Book-San: "Why are you smiling?"

Will: "When I was escaping from the archmage and alone in the demon's land I kept walking endlessly, having faith I would survive. I thought I was a noble's son and that someone would come and save me. How f*ing naive I was. Delusional even.

I started crying and gradually stopped walking accepting that nobody would come. Facing a river that I had to traverse. There was a fish inside the river. I was hungry. I tried to catch it with my hands and it swam away. Tried again and again and always failed. It looked impossible to get that fish like it was impossible for me to go back.

I wanted to try one last time before giving up and I tried something different. I took some bait from a fallen tree nearby, used a plant as the fishing line and a stick as the rod."

Will did not succeed in catching the fish but he could see it bite the bait before the line broke. That confirmed that it was possible to survive and strengthened his will. He tried different rods and lines until the day after when he caught the first fish. At that moment he formulated his definitions of two common words.

Faith is believing in something, for example, that to the same action will correspond different results.

Will is using intellect to find another way or another destination.

 

While Will was talking he looked at his hand.  A green gaseous substance was forming on his fingers.

Will: "A weak boy that can't even move wants to challenge a great magician. There's no way, right?"

The green gaseous substance that covered his fingers now exploded from all over his body and his wound rapidly healed. Will stood up and the herbs applied by Book-San fell down. Will was completely healed. He had just learned and used cure.

Will: "Let's go meet up with Thorn. On the way, we will think of a plan."

 

What was Book-San waiting for? He hadn't checked his favorites, readers, and page views in a long time. He was scared of being forgotten. Just a book left on a shelf in a dusted library. Like at the beginning.

But was he different from that now? Even if he could move around he still felt stuck. He learned something from Will.

Book-San: "So what if there are zero readers? I have to check and proceed on my way or I would be stuck for eternity!!!"

Book-San said telepathically to Thorn: "Thorn, I have to do something but you might lose all your power. Are you ok with that?"

Thorn: "You gave me that power and you can take it back any moment. It will just be like before meeting you, but I'll never forget you."

Book-San: "Hey it's not like I'm going to die or anything. I'll still be here."

                  "Will, are you ok with that?"

Will smiled and gave a thumb up: "By all means! Go for It!"

Book-San: "Then Thorn, please go to a safe place before we start."

Book-San: 'Last time I checked I had 345 376 mana stored in mana hears on my special pages. Each reader corresponds to a special page. And my contracted have a percentage of my mana based on their level. If I lose too many readers I will lose my skills and mana. But I have to try!'

3

 

2

 

1

 

CHECK!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A few moments ago Thorn had arrived at a safe place and was looking at the plates in the sky and thinking back to when he and his sister found Book-San on the shore, they searched for Spike and passed the first test together. They also went to a party before the first test where he met Jein, Hanzo, and the Treefolks. Will he meet them again?

A tear fell as he mumbled: "It was fun. Thank you Book-San!"

 

At that moment Thorn saw a light coming towards him. Is it an attack? A lightning strike? No, it had his mana frequency.

The gaseous light was going towards Will too and a giant light was going towards Book-San.

 

Book-San, Will and Thorn were shocked.

Thorn: "My mana is increasing? Not decreasing?"

            "It went up by 20% How it is possible?"

The light gave no sign of dimming.

Will: "I got 50% more mana. Book-San, what is going on?"

Book-San: "I... didn't expect this."

Thorn: "It is still increasing. It doubled!!!. Book-San, how/£&$

An explosion of light interrupted his thought. The density of the light increased.

The group's mana increased.

After reaching 4x the density of the light dimmed.

After reaching almost 9x it finally stopped.

Thorn was flabbergasted and didn't notice the girl looking at him.

Will looked incredulously at Book-San.

 

Book-San was looking at the numerous notifications that appeared and said: "I... I was not forgotten!"

 

In a few minutes, the group had increased their mana to 9 times what it was before and a fight that seemed impossible to win now had some hope.

What items can you give Book-San to increase his odds of winning the fight?