[Chapter 32: Intellectual pursuits]

With my physical stats being greatly improved, many things necessary for me to do to maintain my lifestyle has become easier.  I figure that I should do the same with what is even more important, my mind.

Whereas I trained my physical stats through harsh repetition, training my mind, while is some ways the same, requires a very different approach. My plan is to try and absorb as much knowledge from what books I have in order to memorize a great deal of information, that should work to train int. It is easily my highest stat, with getting 4 every level and all, and by common novel conventions it will be harder to raise it through training, so I won’t be surprised if I don’t improve the stat much. Besides, what I’m really after are the possible mental enhancement skills I might obtain.

Picking up a carpentry book I have read before to start with, I begin my mind training. Reciting lines, going back and rereading bits, attempt to visualize the entire book in my head, every smart sounding thing I can think all in an attempt to not only memorize all the key pieces of the book, but get an overall understanding of the message it’s trying to teach me. And I don’t know if it’s working, this isn’t like most other stuff, I don’t really know how to train your brain, the level ups before were from slow and steady research, this is me attempting to accelerate that. Those things I tried was basically me throwing stuff at the wall seeing if any of them would net me a skill, but nothing happened yet so maybe none of them do, or maybe all of them do and I just really suck at this.

Eyes constantly flowing over the altered into English characters, I continue, unsure but unwilling to stop. I can help but think that this might be the worst training I’ve ever done, even the preceding rock carry training I did had the reassurance that pain meant I was growing stronger, but this, not only is it mentally taxing, I don’t even know if it’s going to do anything. I don’t even really need the int anyways, it towers above all my other stats, but the skill that represents it is only level 2, I’ve staked my existence on my mind, it’s disheartening to see the skill tied to it so low.

[Skill level increased]

[Able mind| lv: 3]

[+3 int]

After a couple days the aforementioned skill leveled up, this should make me happy right, and I mean it does a bit, but overall I just feel like it’s a lost cause. No new skills that I feel should have been just around the corner, just one level on a low level skill through the essentially brute forcing my way through it. Haven’t even finished the carpentry book, I’ve reached the ends of the thing, yes, but I still have much of it to go over till I reach the standards I put for myself.

Continuing on, I go over a bit in the text, feeling a headache grow from looking at the vaguely holographic letters for too long. And instead of just putting the book down to meditate for a while like normal, fueled by the frustration from the failures I was overcame by the same bit of spite that drove me to unlocking my class "I knew this day would come eventually, but fine, apparently that day is today, I’ll learn the language, better mind training than what I was doing!" A proclamation meant to be bold, but I think some part of me realized I was just whining from utterly failing a problem, though even that part is unable to argue that learning the language would be nice.

And it is true that ever since I got here I knew I was going to have to learn the language. Even learning about the mental correction did nothing to change that understanding, it just delayed when I was going to learn it by a bit. Because the mental correction is just that, correction, the baby training wheels given to us when we get here because we can’t yet do it ourselves. And in novels when has been relying on the correction ever been a good thing, especially when it has a problem like this. Though I did think that it would be a lot longer before I started this.

But first I need to know if it’s even conceivable to do in the first place. Typically for these kinds of corrections, the only way to get rid of them is to learn the skill yourself to the point that you no longer need it, but in this case the correction directly hinders the proper learning of it. "So if the thing that brought me here isn’t a complete and total idiot, there should beeee…" I posit to myself while concentrating on the text, reacting to my forced upon will by revealing strange characters I’ve never seen before, "there, knew it." A quick thought and the English returns, obscuring their original form once more. The speech correction should be the same in how it works, but unless I’d be willing to go out and interact with people that one is going to be left on the to-do list for a long while.

"Now with the language settings controlled, I can flip-flop between the two, learning the meaning of the original symbols through the translated English, but first I have figure out the syntax," the last part comes out as a groan as I realize what’s in store. "And since I have no knowledge of how to translate a language, and none of the books I stole are meant to teach this language, means there is only one way I can figure this out, trial and error," the groan now firmly a whine.

Going at my carpentry book with a new purpose, all I can resignedly say is, "At least it will be good for int growth."