GreenerThanGreen

I know I could have just written "She read the book and memorized its content" and then when appropriate just take some world building fact and write "as I learned from the books in the library", but I am bad writer and that is why you are reading useless, info-dumping chapters that could have been skipped.

After finishing my lunch, I make my way back to the library and continue reading the books from my stack. The next one I take hold of is “The adventurer’s guild and what you need to know about it”. The First Adventurer’s Guild was founded shortly after the appearance of the first dungeons on this world. The 3 races didn’t know that if they left a dungeon to fill up it would cause a Monster Surge and from neglect, greed or something else, one dungeon did overflow. The habitats of sentient beings were still developing and most able bodied Warriors and Spellcasters were busy protecting them from the treat of Monster Surges from the dungeons. Then an oracle spoke the message of the gods, to send a 6 man team to cleanse the dungeon responsible for the Monster Surge. A Sidhe Ranger and a Spellcaster answered the call from the Sidhe. A Shield Bearer and an Axe Warrior from the Stonekin answered the call. And a Paladin and a Thief showed up from the Humans side. The 6 made their way around the surging monsters and entered the dungeon, then after days emerged victorious and the monsters on the surface were soon after hunted down and killed. 

The 6 party members created the first Adventurers Guild together with the task to search for new dungeons before they break, subjugate monsters and dangerous beats in the wild and later, explore old ruins and act as guards and mercenaries. Their symbol, crossed wand and sword over a shield stands for “With Magic and Weapons we protect”. The members of the party developed a system and rules, then they made branches of the Guild in the bigger inhabited places in the 3 races territories. Soon the Adventurer’s Guild became a global organization working independently from the government of any country or their army, but cooperating when necessary. The government protected the habitats with their armies and guards, keeping the peace, while the adventurers investigated outside and dealt with monsters and beasts and dungeons. 

Since the first party formed, it became a tradition to have at most 6 persons in a party, but it isn’t a strict rule that forbids more or less people in one. After rotations of trial and error, 12 classifications were established for adventurer ranks and monster strength. I, H, G, F, E, D, C, B, A, S, SS and SSS. There were also ranks established to gauge the trust or completion ratio of quests for individuals and parties in the form of metal ranks Bronze, Iron, Steel, Mithril, Adamant. After the first 20 quests, the learning curve a Bronze rank is granted to an adventurer. At the 60 quest mark, if more than half the quest have been finished successfully, they receive Iron rank. At 70 quests if at least 50 have been completed, they receive the Steel rank. At 90 quests, if 70 have been successful, they get the Mithril rank. And at 100 if at least 90 have been completed, they are granted the Adamant rank. After that, the rank if reviewed every year and the completion of the last 100 quests determines the Metal Rank of the adventurer. 10% Bronze, 30% Iron, 50% Steel, 70% Mithril, 90% Adamant. 

These are things I could have probably been able to learn gradually in the guild or during my registration, but since I am already reading this book, might as well finish it and the next part explained something I actually needed to know and could act upon. 

The Adventurer’s Guild is responsible for the buying and selling of all dungeon equipment and materials as well as materials acquired from hunting and gathering, unlike the Merchant’s Guild that is responsible for selling and buying finished products from craftsmen and materials obtained from mining and food items. 

I skimmed the rest of the book, it contained mostly some Guild rules, traditions, perks for members and other minor things. The book made me certain I will register in the guild, there are just too many perks to being a member and not enough demerits to not register. 

The book about the Merchant’s Guild I just skimmed, because it talked about some similar things, how it was founded, what it did, how it did it, rules, regulations and so on. The only real merits were received by traders and people that didn’t buy in bulk owned a business, shouldn’t bother registering. 

The next book I started reading was about the dungeons in the world and how they work and what it has to say makes me more suspicious about the one I found myself in. The system creating new dungeons was mostly automated. When miasma starts to gather in a place and monsters start appearing because of that, the breach seals itself in a pocket space that is the new dungeon. They always start with 1 floor and at I rank monsters and begin to develop from there. Usually, the Adventurer’s Guilds detects the appearance of a new dungeon and finds it before it turns into a 2 floor dungeon. 

The first 10 floors of any dungeon are mostly inhabited by the same rank creatures and more often than not from just 1 type of Monster. Every 5 floors there is usually a mini or full on boss monster. That is also where dungeons start to become dangerous. The boss Monster at the 10th floor are leaders and if enough subjects gather under them, they may command them to break their prison, the dungeon, and escape. 

The periodic clearing of the monsters in the dungeon keeps their numbers managed and allows the dungeon to grow more floors with higher concentrations of miasma, creating higher rank monsters in the process. 

The first 10 floors may vary from rank I to G rank and it increases by 1 rank every 5 floors. That of course is only true for automated dungeon creation. When needed, the Gods create the dungeons themselves, either to test the strength of people, to prepare them for something specific, to trap a powerful entity or for some other reason. These dungeons may not adder to the patterns explained so far. 

Dungeons form the miasma into monsters, so it can be purified when they are killed, but they also manipulate the Magic inside them to create additional incentives for adventurers to clear them. Dungeon items don’t contain a trace of miasma and can be used without adverse effects on the body, unlike monsters that cannot be consumed and can cause problems f used to create items before they are purified. 

Okay, this explanation as well as the higher than expected Divine affinity leads me to believe I was guided to a dungeon created by the Gods themselves on arrival. Maybe the guidance to the dungeon increased my affinity or the time I spend inside it or any number of other ways I may have come in contact with Divine Magic. I may need to visit a church in the future to ask for an explanation, but it isn’t high priority. 

The next book I take a look at is “Local Monsters and dangerous creatures”. It first explains how it is almost impossible to eliminate all monsters after a Monster Surge and the few that appear when the miasma leaks through, before it is contained. Another explanation is that these monsters don’t create enough problems for people in comparison for how useful some are and lucrative hunting others is, so they are not being hunted to extinction. 

I mostly skim the book, this is the first one that actually contains some actual illustrations with the Monster and creature explanations. There is information of the Monster, its strength, habitats, hunting behavior, methods of attack, weaknesses, how to dismantle them and sometimes uses for its parts or the creature or monster itself. Some types of slime are apparently used as water filtration and recycling. They infest the sewers and water purification plant in town and are left to breed freely, until their populations starts to become a problem and adventurers are sent to decrease it to manageable levels. I also learned that the goblins on the lower floors were goblin soldiers and not warriors. But there is too many creatures for me to memorize, so I may have to actually buy the books on monsters from the Guild and study them carefully. I suspect the same will be true for the books on plants. 

The books on items, that the librarian said for whatever reason was distributed by the Merchant’s Guild, are a little more help. They are a catalogue of items and materials with explanations of their functions, what dungeon they come from, which could be crafted and rough price estimates. From contexts I learn that there are few types of Enchanting solutions and they vary in price from a few silvers to a lot of gold. So the enchanted products I saw until now were probably made using higher quality Enchanting materials. I could of course learn all this information slowly by talking to shop keepers and merchants or craftsmen, but that implies I have to talk to people, be friendly, maybe even begin knowing them and their lives. Which is a waste of time, because this is not my world and I don’t plan on staying, so getting friendly with people is meaningless. I will only interact with the minimum amount of people to progress on my path to find a way home and strive to not get enrolled in this World’s problems. After all there were only 2 types of problems, mine and everyone else’s and I have my hands full dealing with mine alone. 

The book on holidays and festivals, luckily, turned out to be more of a calendar. From it I learned that a year here, or as they call it a rotation is 11 months, probably because of their number of deities and each month consists of 34 days. I already know every day is 24 hours or arns. From the book I also understood they have quite a few festivals. There was the Harvest festival, 2 Solstice festivals, Year end Festival, Year beginning festival, hunting festivals, Magic festivals, one for every God and 2of those were actually tournaments. I guess even in a society that doesn’t have art culture they get bored and want something to do, so all the festivals. 

After finishing that book I took hold of maybe the most important book of them all, explanations about the System. I open the book and almost after the first page I stop to try what was written in there. “Settings.” A screen appears and I can see various things I can change, like disabling notifications, putting my HP and MP in the corner of my vision, connecting some of my skills to the interface and others. For now I just disable notifications and put my HP and MP on display. Turns out, the only way to have  map on display is to connect an evolved Navigation to the interface. And with Presence detection and some other skills it is possible for them to be marked on the map. I definitely have to rise my Magic Control in order to get these skills. Some commands I already found out, but other are new to me and I am glad to have found out about them. 

Looking at my time piece dinner time was approaching, so I finished the book about the System, gathered my books and went to return them to the librarian. Once that was done, I visited a general store to purchase some paper and pencils, then returned to the inn to have my dinner. 

This time I decided to have something different, so I ordered fish instead of meat and boy oh boy, did I make a right decision! The fish was baked to perfection, was juicy and fatty and the sauce and garnishes went perfectly with it. The stuffing has soaked the juices and flavor of the fish and had the perfect seasonings for fresh water fish. I have to say, I stuffed myself almost to bursting and I don’t regret a thing. 

After dinner I took the change of clothes from my room and took a long relaxing bath and only exited it when I started pruning and my skin attained a very pink hue. Then I dressed and retired to my room. It is time to get some work done. 

I placed the paper and pencil on the desk and started drawing the closest thing to a schematic I was capable of. I mean, my drawing was on point and everything, but measurements and other crap like perfectly straight lines were thrown out the window. From time to time I took a look at the play mat for the cards and eventually I had a finished drawing of what I wanted my Duel Disk to look like. 

For starters, there was no disk anywhere on the schematic. This wasn’t the Yu-Gi-Oh! World, there was no need for life counters or to stuff technology inside, so there was a bracelet from my wrist to halfway to my elbow. On the bracelet is a slot for the deck and I imagine a clamping mechanism to keep it in place, pretty much no change there and a little towards the elbow part are indicators for the banished and graveyard cards. I didn’t know how the extra deck works exactly, did I need to keep Fusion monsters cards in there or did they materialize when I use Fusion on any 2 monsters, but just in case I did include a place on the bracelet to serve as an extra deck zone. 

Then there is the attachment from the bracelet where the cards are played. It was going to serve as a handle that can be detached from the bracelet and rotated to turn it into a sword in case I need one instead of a… wrist blade? As far as I understood it, the Weapon Master bracelet consumes the whole weapon and when I need it, transforms into it, so most of the time it is just a bracelet and it wouldn’t be bulky and need ant folding technology. 

The blade form is going to be curved similar to a scythe, but the end is wider and ends in a triangular sword point. Another thing I was contemplating if I needed was a slot for field spells and in the end I decided to have 6 card zones instead of making a slot inside like the Anime Duel Disks. Now the tricky part was how to make the slots for the Spell/Trap cards. If the construction is made of one solid metal peace, they will have to be drilled or something, but I don’t think it is viable and then there is the enchantment needed for it to function as a Duel Disk. So the solution is to make it 2 pieces, one up containing the Monster zones and the field spell zone and one down containing slots for the Spell/Trap cards and then have them screwed up together or attached with some other method. 

Yeah the design is a clusterfuck I cobbled up in half an arn and it definitely needs to be revised by a Blacksmith, but it is what it is. I place the drawing in my backpack and lie in bed to learn the Water alphabet of the magic language. Once I am done with all 7 alphabets I can finally start learning real Spells. 

A little after midnight I place down the book and take out the play mat and one of the decks. Time to activate the cards for the day and go to bed. As always I play 2 Last Will, Remedy and Emissaries. I write quickly in my Journal and then turn of the lights and go to sleep. Tomorrow is going to be just as busy. 

GreenerThanGreen

I was planing to include new options to the system, but couldn't come with any.