Chapter 2 - Searching for Books

[You have finished reading The Myriad Colors of Dawn]

[You have comprehended the truth behind the text, allowing you to draw power from it]

[You have obtained The Blessing of Myriad elements]

'Now what's this?'

A transparent screen appeared in front of me the moment I closed [The Myriad Colors of dawn]. I understood what the first message meant but the other two escaped me, along with the existence of the screen itself.

'Never hurts to experiment'

Thinking this I poked the third message to see if something would happen

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[The Blessing of Myriad elements]

Rank SS skill

You are a child of the world, the countless elements herald you onwards and elemental essence longs for you. You will have little trouble bending the world around you to your needs and elemental essence will naturally accumulate in your body.

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'Well this is obviously related to [The Myriad Colors of dawn], I suppose this is what the message means by drawing power from it. Well whatever, I need to head home and grab another book'

I swiped my hands across the screens and as I expected, they disappeared. Standing up, I started to walk back through the forest towards my house.

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30 minutes later I once again reached the edge of the forest, but something had changed since the last time I'd been here. Or more accurately, everything. Instead of the small suburban town I expected to see, a large expanse of grassland spread off into the horizon. And a few miles from where I stood, sat a huge walled city with a castle that stretched into the sky many times higher than the walls.

'Well I hope the locals speak English, and have some good books'

Thus I began the short trek to the huge city. There was a dirt road nearby that seemed to be packed down from centuries of use. Only 40 minutes later when I got within a mile of the city did I truly realize its size. The walls stood an imposing 500 feet(152 meters) tall and surrounded the entire city, which spanned miles across. The castle was even more impressive, with its keep reaching 2000 feet(610 meters) into the sky. It was truly an astonishing sight... and I didn't care in the slightest.

Finally reaching the city's busy gate I stepped into what seemed to me to be the inspection line and took a moment to listen to the conversations in my surroundings.

"Haha, after this deal I'm gonna be rich!"

"Yeah yeah, you said that the last five times Arnold"

"Oh shut up Mark this time is gonna be different"

"If you say so"

"Wow look at how tall those walls are, it's like their reaching into the heavens"

"Hey! Catch that child, he just stole my purse"

"Ugh, this line is far too long"

'Seems like they speak English, this should make the rest of this much easier'

After waiting in line for a good 20 minutes it was finally my turn to be inspected. The guard looked at me quizzically, most likely because of my modern clothes, before asking me some questions.

"What is your name, occupation, and reason for entertaining the city?"

"I'm Magnus, I don't really have an occupation, and I'm here to read books"

"Well you've come to the right place, identification please"

"Apologies, I don't have any, I come from a rural village"

"Well you don't look very threatening, so I'll let you in, but you should pick some up while your here. And with that, welcome to Sapianas Cognities, the haven of scholars"

'It seems I am in fact in the right place'

After the guard finished speaking I walked past him into the large and extremely bustling city. The wide paved streets were lined with a plethora of shops and stalls selling an assortment of items, many of which were new to me.

'Demon rabbit skewers, wind hound hides, and spirt leaves, huh. Seems like this is another world after all'

After completely coming to the realization that I was in another world different from my own, I walked up to a particularly friendly stall owner that was selling the demon rabbit skewers.

"Excuse me, do you happen to know where I can find the nearest library"

The man was stunned for a moment then scoffed and said

"A library you say! Even the haven of scholars isn't rich enough to have one of those. But If it's books your lookin' for then I can point you to 50 different bookstores within a five minutes walking distance"

"No thanks"

As I responded I contemplated my choices, or choice for that matter.

'No libraries, I need to buy books, which means I also need money, so I need to find some work, I suppose I should look into food and shelter while I'm at it'

"Do you know where I can find some work?"

"Lookin' for some coin are ya? Well then you need the workers' bureau, it's a huge gray building straight down the Main Street, a few minutes from here, you couldn't miss it if you tried"

Thanking the man, I walked calmly down the Main Street. As I did I observed the surrounding buildings. Strangely, none seem to follow the same style of architecture. One building was a miniature fortress while another was a wooden pagoda-like structure. But still there seemed to be a chaotic order to the city. A few more minutes of walking and I found the bureau, it was just as unmistakable as I was told. A massive brick of a building, it looked the part of a government institution, bland and functional.

I walked through the massive doorway in the front of the building and was greeted with what looked like a line of bank tellers that each discussed business with the plethora of different folk in front of them. They were each behind large wooden desks that held endless stacks of paperwork. The rest of the interior was just as bland as the exterior, with bleak gray walls and a few doors and staircases leading deeper into the building.

I joined the line that started by a sign that read "Part-time jobs and quick work." This seemed to be one of the longest lines in the lobby. After a surprisingly short wait of ten minutes, I came before one of the large desks, behind of which sat a strict looking businesswoman.

"From the look of you, I doubt you'd be much use in physical labor. Can you read, write, and perform arithmetic?"

"Yes"

"Proficiently?"

"Yes"

Seemingly satisfied by my answer she shuffled through her papers before handing me a small slip and continuing,

"Head through the door directly behind me, you will be put to work calculating transactions of lesser importance for the bureau. For every page you complete you will be paid two copper. If you are found forging any of the results you will be fined four gold"

'Easy, I picked up how the currency works by listening to conversations at the stalls as I walked here, 10 copper to 1 silver, 100 silver to one gold. I doubt these transactions are much more than addition, subtraction, and multiplication"

Thinking this I walked through the large wooden door behind the desk, there stood a tall, thin, and pale man who seemed to be a secretary. I handed him the slip of paper and he quickly scanned it.

"Follow me"

I followed the man down the corridor past a large number of doors until He stopped in front of one, seemingly at random.

"You may work for as long as you wish, come find me when you are done and I will evaluate your work"

With this, the man scurried away. I turned towards the indicated door and opened it to find a large desk upon which sat a quill, a large inkwell, and a huge pile of bound documents. I closed the door and sat down, excited for the first time since I finished [The Myriad Colors of Dawn]. I loved books and only books, and by books, I mean any kind, even bound stacks of boring documents. If I could read it, then I could enjoy it, but that did not mean I didn't like some books more than others. Collecting my thoughts I placed my novel on the desk before picking up the quill and one of the bound stacks of documents and getting to work.

I was finished with the calculations only 30 minutes later, they were incredibly simple. And with me finishing, the transparent screens finally showed themselves again.

[You have finished reading Documents of Workers Bureau Lesser Transactions #25792]

[You have comprehended the truth behind the text, allowing you to draw power from it]

[You have obtained Lesser Arithmetic Mastery]

'Huh, let's see what this one does then'

I clicked, well poked, the third message and another screen appeared

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[Lesser Arithmetic Mastery]

Rank F skill

You know your way around numbers and can more easily solve calculations and problems revolving around numbers.

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'Well with all I've seen today I assume this is real as well. So If I have skills I suppose I can bring them up. Skills'

With that one word thought another new screen popped up

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Active skills:

Passive skills: [The Blessing of Myriad elements - SS], [Lesser Arithmetic Mastery - F]

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'Well this is getting pretty game-like, I should look into that more later, now back to the documents'

With this thought, I got straight back to work with the bureau documents. Each time I finished one bundle I once again got the notifications on the screen, and instead of giving me new skills, it was ranking up my arithmetic mastery. And as the skill increased in rank, so did the number of bundles I had to complete to raise it further.

The document bundles took noticeably shorter and shorter amounts of time to complete every time the skill increased in rank, and six hours later I was completing each one in five minutes.

Ten hours passed without me eating or drinking as I was absorbed into the seemingly endless stack of documents, but as I reached to grab another bundle I found that there were no more. I had gone through dozens of the bundles, and no more uncompleted ones were left on the desk. Stretching after my long period of sitting and writing, I decided to check my arithmetic skill.

'Skills'

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Active skills:

Passive skills: [The Blessing of Myriad elements - SS], [Greater Arithmetic Mastery - A]

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'It's gone up five ranks and as many names, let's see what it can do now'

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[Greater Arithmetic Mastery]

Rank A skill

Numbers are one of the building blocks of the world and you are their engineer. Answers to almost any calculation come to you with minimal effort. You can solve problems revolving around numbers as if they were a lock and you held the master key.

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'Well the description certainly got more gracious, but I can definitely feel the effect, those last few documents were ridiculously easy. The only thing hampering my speed was how fast I could write. Well then, let's find that secretary guy'

As I thought this I exited the room and wandered for a while before I found the strangely pale man.

"I'm done"

"You were certainly in there for a while, let's see how you did"

When they reached the room the pale man let out a surprised shout.

"What is this!?"

"I finished them, all of them"

Hearing this, the man quickly looked through the documents and muttered in astonishment.

"Perfect, they're all perfect, I can't find a single mistake"

After a few more minutes of mumbling the man rushed out the door

"Wait here for a moment young man"

Having already shifted through documents for hours, a few minutes of waiting was nothing in terms of patience.

After the aforementioned few minutes, the pale man returned with a more healthy-looking but portly man in tow. The new face quickly got to work examining the completed documents.

"And you say he did all this in ten hours?"

"Yes, give or take a few minutes"

The portly man then turned to me and spoke

"Good evening young man, I assure you that you will receive your payment shortly, but first I have a few questions for you. First and most importantly, do you have an arithmetic skill?"

I pondered for a moment.

'Revealing my other skill would definitely be a horrible idea, but I very much doubt someone would kill me over an arithmetic skill'

Coming to a discussion, I nodded my head.

"Hahaha, excellent, excellent, next question, your name. I'm Gats Rosen, head of the Sapianas Cognities branch of the workers' bureau"

"I'm Magnus, Magnus Witherthorn"

Knowing that most commoners didn't have surnames, I revealed mine to have Gats think of me as minor noble so as to increase my gains in the deal I knew was coming.

"Now then, last question. Would you like to work for me?"

"What are the conditions?"

I made sure that he knew I was not a gullible idiot.

"You shall work as my personal secretary and handle transaction calculations for me as well as smaller secretarial matters, you will work from 9 am to 4 pm and receive a pay of two gold a day. You can also choose to work more and receive extra pay"

I thought for a moment before shaking my head.

"Make it four gold, the work I just did is worth more than ten, and I assure you I can keep up this pace"

Gats also thought for a moment before extending his hand and saying,

"Deal"

After shaking his hand he gave me a gold badge with a scale carved on it and told me to find him tomorrow. After this, the pale man who I did not notice had left returned with my pay, an even 15 gold. I'm sure Gats had the number rounded up.

I excused myself and made my way to an inn Gats recommenced called the Golden Pig, ironic. After eating a hearty meal I collapsed in bed exhausted, my last few thoughts before falling asleep being,

'The first thing I'm gonna due tomorrow is find a bookstore. I also need to look more into those screens, I'm certain there is more to them. Oh yeah and my identification and new clothes. It seems I've got much to do.'