Denied

Asher woke from his slumber in a daze. He yawned as he noticed the sunlight leeching from the drawn curtains. He hoped from the comfort of his bed to throw open the curtains. Based on the sun's height in the sky, it was sometime in the middle of the morning. He wondered why the servents did not come to wake him like usual. He decided to forget it and stretched his body.

Today was an important day, and it was the first day he would begin his path to becoming the strongest noble in the holy empire. Last night was crazy with having punched a prince and almost got caught by Henry, and he even got to use his first spell.

He let out a yawn as he lazily changed out of his clothes for some clean ones. He pulled up his system's quest panel to check the daily quest as he usually does at this time. But he felt his blood freeze in his veins as the screen appeared.

[Notice: This system function is currently unavailable.]

Asher felt like punching a wall. His head began to ache as he thought over what this meant. Since he was born, his system never denied his access before. There was little to no change in the design for ten years, and now it seems like the system was changing by the second. The first was the introduction of the skill screen after his fight with Tom, and now he could even pull up the quest screen.

"What the hell do you mean unavailable, you isekai cliche," Asher shouted in frustration. He took a deep breath before calming down, and it only proved how little Asher knew about the system. But he turned his eyes to the message and read over it again.

"'Currently' probably just means that I can't use it right now but will be able to later, right?" He tried to reason that it wasn't a big deal and was overthinking it, and it worked only a little to calm his nerves. He flopped onto his bed in defeat.

"This is so unfair. I have to have the most glitched-out system ever. Isn't the cliche suppose to be that I get into a magic world with a broken system that makes me badass. Instead, my system is broken." He moaned into his pillow.

After a while, he decides to get back up and walk over to his desk. "Well, might as well get some work done." There was a lot he had to be able to do before he could continue in this world, and one of the first was to test his new abilities.

He pulled out a leather-bound from one of the desk drawers. Information about his new world already filled some of the pages. It was a journal he kept detailing all he learned about this world. The writing would not be able to be read by anyone else as he had written the entire journal in the language of his old life. It was a cipher that made many of the secrets in the book pages secret as he could only read them.

He scribbled down the details of his new spells, 'veil' and 'dimensional storage.' 'Veil' was already thoroughly explored, and it could hide any object by creating a false wall. However, the properties of the 'dimensional storage' abilities were untested, and before he could do anything, he had to know what he had to use.

Asher scratched his head. "But with my system malfunctioning, can I even access my inventory?" He found himself staring at the open inventory screen when he opened his eyes. He was shocked. Had his system been unlocked? He tried to pull up another screen.

[Notice: This system function is currently unavailable.]

Asher slammed his hand on the desk. "It's official. The system is trolling me." Though Asher thought about it, it did make sense that the inventory was available while the rest of the system wasn't. The 'dimensional storage' spell created it, and thus, it was an ability instead of a part of the system.

Asher summoned each of the four books from his inventory. Small shining lights gathered together and formed the shape of each book. When the glow died, the books appeared on his desk. Asher wrote in his journal.

{Experiment one Dimensional Storage}

{Test one: Distance}

Asher started by staring at each of the four books, carefully waiting for something to happen. He tried to will them into his inventory, but nothing happened. He picked up the book of illusions, and it shattered into fragments of lights just like before.

{Objects can only be placed in inventory by touch.}

Asher then looked over to the bed and focused on the space above it. The light formed like before, and the book dropped onto the bed.

{The spell can summon objects from the inventory at a distance. I will determine the exact length later.}

{Test 2: Size}

Asher stood up, walked over to the bed, and placed his hand on it. This time, a notification appeared.

[Notice: Object can not be placed in the inventory]

{There is a size limit to what could be put into the space.}

Asher figured as much. It would have been too convenient if he could have carried his entire bedroom around like it was nothing. Asher let out a sigh. "I wonder if I could but a person in my inventory. It would be nice to know if I could put living things there. Though I doubt any servant would be happy to confirm this theory."

Asher let out a sigh. He tried to pull up his status screen again and was met with the same denial notification. Asher felt like this was a bad joke. When he was reborn in this world with a system, Asher believed that he would be able to live an easy and lazy life. But now, he was being denied by his system.

He slumped on his bed and looked around. He found two unfamiliar books sitting on his bedside table.

"What is this?" He picked up each of them and read the titles. The books read "Monsterpedia and Taming" and "Basic Enhancements." Asher's eyes grew wide. They were the two books that he couldn't find last night before he was interrupted. He began to wonder how they got here. Did someone bring them? If so, then who?

Asher rubbed the bridge of his nose. It was frustrating to be constantly just out of the loop. Asher picked up the Monsterpedia and briefly flipped through the book, and it was just what it sounded like there were details about monsters of all shapes and sizes. More importantly, it contained information on how to care for each creature or what kind of food and grooming practices the creatures needed.

"Does this mean I can make a monster my pet?"

Asher grinned at the thought of having a dragon or cerberus like a house pet. He laughed at how much the staff might freak out if he brought such a beast home. They certainly would not be happy about it, but they should be able to expect this to happen from the moment he awoke the taming element.

He looked at the different types of monsters he could choose. In the future, he would definitely have to get a pet. There were dragon-like like the salamander, a giant lizard whose tongue could catch on fire from special silva, allowing it to breathe fire, or beast-like monsters like the hell hound with its armor-like fur.

As Asher flipped through the pages, he got more excited, picturing having a giant monster at his beck and call. He stopped on a page with a shocked expression. "No way there are slimes in this world." The page depicted what looked like a droplet of water. The page was riddled with details on the creature.

"Slimes are Advanced magic beasts that can survive in a large range of environments. There is a large variety of slimes, and due to this, experts speculate that various types are still undiscovered. Despite being advanced, this creature is rather easy to tame and control as they are simple-minded and require minimal attention to raise. Thus, they are a popular pet for alchemists as their gelatinous body can produce being a base for many alchemic recipes."

Asher blinked at what he read. "Wow, maybe I should get a slime pet. It sounds useful. What this?"

On the margin, there was a note that had different handwriting than the rest of the book. "Warning: Keep away from women."

"That is an suspiciously odd warning." Asher scratched his head, trying to understand why someone would write such a thing. But before he could think about it for too long. His system chimed, and a new notice appeared.

[System update complete.]