The Benefits of Self-Study, or Lack Thereof

Stephanie said nothing. She simply placed her books at the same table as him and began reading.

10 minutes passed like that before she spoke.

"Why are you avoiding everyone?" She said.

"Delicate as usual Steph" Jacob sighed without stopping his browsing of 'Jin clan cultural effects'.

His only response was silence as she occasionally flipped the pages of her book.

Eventually, he had to speak again, but he still didn't raise his head from his book.

"It's no big reason really, we're just moving in different directions I guess" he said, trying to explain his thinking concisely.

"How so?" She asked back, still not looking up.

"Everyone's only care is about the dream realm. I don't blame them, if I were in their shoes, it would be all I wanted to talk about as well. But since I can't and don't want to join the conversation, it doesn't make sense for me to show up and just sit there." He explained.

"That's what I usually do" she said back, deadpan as ever.

"So you be you. I just don't particularly want to join in on topics that I can't relate to. Besides it's not like you lose much if I'm not there, I basically got to know you by chance anyway so I doubt much will change with me gone." He said back.

For the first time, Stephanie looked up from her book, staring at him.

"You really believe that?" She asked.

Jacob looked up in kind and was surprised to see a look of genuine annoyance on her face.

It was rare that the girl emoted, especially when she was sober.

"Well yeah, I mean I know we're friends and all but I'm sure you'll get along fine without me. You basically already are, it's not like I founded the group or anything. I was just there." He explained to her.

"I didn't have friends growing up" she said suddenly, changing the topic completely.

"uhhhh, ok? Sorry about that, but I don't see ho-" Jaocb started.

"Erwin spent the first month in the dreamer world terrified for his life, he had constant nightmares about his trial and barely even slept" she continued, cutting him off.

"Ressana spent her life at sea in a world that didn't welcome her. Victoria's whole life was based around her being the perfect girl only to have it taken from her in less than two years. Arthur grew up an orphan and Shin grew up on the streets of China. Fredrick is only 14 years old." She continued in a huff.

It was the first time in a while he had seen her speak so much. Not to mention with this much emotion.

"Shin barely speaks and has a short temper. Arthur constantly acts like he's responsible for everything. Fredrick is entering the world of grownups about 4 years early. Ressana spends her days making dirty jokes and starting fights. Victoria's arrogance turns people against her without her even trying. None of us have anything in common from personality to upbringing to goals." Each sentence gained more momentum than the last as she stared at Jacob without blinking.

"Each of us were broken when we started this unit, and that hasn't changed. But that didn't matter, because you didn't care about quirks, our pasts or anything else that made life hard for us to deal with. That's why the group formed, not randomly but because you somehow accepted everyone despite who they were and where they came from" Her words astounded Jacob.

He hadn't even thought about the idea of their backgrounds or personalities being difficult to deal with.

They all seemed to be decent people deep down, they may have had their quirks but that didn't mean they were unlikeable or anything.

"Stop being selfish. You're the core of this group. If you feel left out, say something. Despite your ability, you don't always have to be logical. Don't leave because you're too selfish and prideful to admit you're human." Each sentence was like a blow to his chest.

Before he knew what had happened, she had gotten up and left, leaving him to his thoughts.

He sat there for a while, stunned.

That was quite possibly the most Stephanie had spoken in one sitting since he had met her.

And he had no idea what to make of it.

'I mean, I guess they are all very different. But me being the common factor…?' His thoughts were a jumbled mess.

'I never really thought about it before, they all just kind of appeared one after the other. I didn't go out of my way to get closer to them.'

'Is it really just the case of me being prideful?'

'Am I just annoyed that my friends are doing something I can't? So I feel left out?'

'Maybe…'

'Should I just ask if they could talk about something else so that I can join in…'

'Uhhh, I don't want to think about this right now. Even these hypotheticals are making me cringe. I'm just going to study, I'll think about it tomorrow.'

Jacob tried to put their conversation out of his head as he focused on the books he had grabbed.

They were mostly random, he liked the idea of fate guiding his hand a little.

But one thing he always tried to find was information related to the clanless.

What he learnt worried him more than a little.

Dreamers outside of the 5 great clans had a much higher fatality rate.

About 80% higher according to what he could find.

At least until the third quest.

The fact was that the first two quests would be much more dangerous for him than most of his friends.

Erwin was the exception but from what he had mentioned about his first quest it seemed to be more about deciphering text from old ruins rather than fighting.

Jacob on the other hand would probably deal with more demons that he had no clue about.

So far, he'd found next to nothing about them in the library leading him to believe they were either exclusive to his realm or at least uncommon enough that they hadn't been researched in depth.

The only thing he could find was a few mentions of them in drawings found in the fallen civilisations.

Sadly, the translation for most of the realm's language was still minimal.

Honestly speaking, what they had achieved was impressive on its own. Especially considering each realm was, at least from what they could tell, a whole world.

That meant that each realm had multiple civilisations and within those civilisations there were different languages, accents, and other writing habits that they had to learn from nothing but ancient books or inscriptions.

There was only one other interesting discovery for the evening. Found in an odd location no less.

The book he had gotten was small, tucked away behind other larger books. Like someone wanted it to remain hidden for some reason.

But that wasn't what got his attention, although it did arouse interest.

It was the title of the book: 'A Study of a Quintuple Affinity Dreamer'.

Jacob was intrigued.

Arthur was only a triple affinity dreamer and from what his sister said, both she and him were so rare that there were probably less than 10 of them in the whole of the society.

Now he had learnt that there was someone with five different affinities.

The only suspicious point was the fact that he hadn't heard or read anything about them until now. If the book was about a real dreamer with five affinities, why wasn't the dreamer in question famous?

The only downside to being a multiple affinity dreamer was that they had to complete extra quests since they needed to progress each affinity individually. This meant that given enough time people like his sister and Arthur were sure to become much more powerful than others, much less a quintuple affinity dreamer.

Jacob opened the book and began to read the first, and only page within the aged book.

The rest were blank, either by design or because the book simply wasn't finished. The only reason such a thing was plausible was because all of the text appeared to be handwritten.

It wasn't as if the book's pages were torn out, so he assumed it was on purpose that only the first page contained anything.

What he did read was that the study was supposed to be a close-up examination of the abilities and oddities of a dreamer with an affinity for each major clan.

The dreamer in question showed significant talent in a diverse arrangement of fields. That much was hardly surprising, pretty much every double or triple affinity dreamer was talented. They wouldn't have passed the nightmare trials if they weren't.

Jacob had previously learnt that the nightmare trials of dreamers were much harder than typical ones as the difficulty scaled with the number of affinities gained.

He couldn't imagine the miracle that the quintuple affinity dreamer had managed to pull off to be given so much power.

The only other real information was about the abilities themselves, all of which were pretty handy from Jacob's perspective.

Sadly, the author only listed three of the five before the contents of the page stopped.

Jacob sighed as he put down the book, deciding to check if the rest was written in invisible ink at some point.

It was a long shot since whoever wrote it would have more likely used Dempster clan magic to conceal the words instead, but it was better than nothing.

Jacob kept reading books in the library as he slowly became drowsy.

He still kept reading though.

Stephanie's words kept popping up in his head and he found the best, and only, way to keep them out was to focus on something else.

That's how he fell asleep.

In the middle of the library.

Comforted by the smell of old books and the gentle light of the magically enhanced candles used after dark.

[Connection established]

[Entering dream realm]