(Luca)

This library smells kind of musty. I've heard that Lord Zack hangs out in here sometimes, that he looked up a lot of stuff, including some of what he used to kill the Dragon. I'm still trying to figure out how he killed the Dragon. All anyone knows is that he did kill it, and nothing else. Not how it died, not what happened to its body, not what the rewards were, nothing.

Which is a little annoying, but I'm sure I'll know before most of them do, since I'm on Lord Zack's team.

Here in the library, I wander around until I locate one of the librarians. Actually, there's one at the desk by the front door, but I ignored them because of reasons. It's not that I was too shy and timid to approach him, it's that I was trying to figure out what to say, which is why he ended up being the one I found.

That's really it. I'm not lying at all, and there probably are other librarians here. Somewhere. I hope.

It's an old man. He might not be as old as Sir Nik, but he looks way older than Sir Nik does. He has grey hair and dulling eyes, and his face is all wrinkly. So are his hands. He might be as old as the ancient book he's flipping pages in.

"Hello," I say.

See? Have to pick my first words carefully.

"Hello, Luca," he smiles at me. "How are you?"

"Hungry," I answer. Perfect answer. "I want to become a Scholar."

"You do?" He asks, and I nod. "Mind answering why?"

"Yes."

He stares at me. I do mind answering.

"Do you know what the Scholar Class is?"

"A magical support Class."

"Do you know what it does?"

"Supports."

He stares at me. I stare back. Can we please get this over with? I don't know how to unlock the Skill for Tier 2. Well, I haven't actually taken it on yet, but that's irrelevant. I need to start now.

"Do you have Appraisal?" He asks.

"Yes."

"Then you're able to take on Scholar."

"I need Assess and Scan."

"Those are for Tiers 2 and 3," he says.

Warp and Teleport are Tiers 4 and 5.

I stare at him. Is he going to explain how to get Assess and Scan? Or do I need to look it up? Assess allows me to determine the worth of any item, so long as I can Appraise it and its Appraisal Value is lower than or at my Assess Level. So something that needs Level 5 Appraisal to read the information of, I would be able to know the value of if my Assess is Level 5 or higher, but not Level 4 or lower, but also would need me to have at least Level 5 Appraisal.

The main reason I want to take on Scholar is for access to Warp and Teleport. Warp allows us to warp out of a Dungeon Zone, which means we would be able to leave somewhere like the mines with just a cast of the spell.

Teleport would allows us to immediately Teleport back to the nearest City, as long as it has an active City Barrier and we have been there. If we're in a Teleport Plaza on one of its Teleport Rings, we can also Teleport to any City we've been to before, as long as it has an active City Barrier.

Those will be very useful in Lost Territory, once we head out and start exploring it. So I want to take on that Class now to start working on its Levels. Both of those are costly with Mana, too, but Scholar, naturally, boosts that – Wisdom is its best stat. I can't unlock either of those until the third Tier of Scholar, though, which is part of why I need to get started now. Otherwise, I won't be ready for when Lord Zack wakes up and is ready to go.

So I stare at the old man. He needs to hurry up and tell me how to get Assess and Scan. I'll need both of those to unlock Warp and Teleport.

"For Assess," he gives in to my ultra stare. "You have to learn the values of items around you and remember them. You have to be able to judge and estimate a value based on what you know. It's not an easy thing to do, especially for a young boy like you."

Want to get bashed in the head with my staff? I find my grip tightening on it. Yeah, I'm mad. Don't make me mad, that's rather bad. For you. I will bash you in the head a hundred times, then a hundred more. Then, I'll beat you all over your body with my staff, making it so that your paleness turns into just one giant, black, blue, and greenish blob of bruising.

Trust me, my ability to focus and remember things is quite high. Much higher than yours. I know that Max always eats seventeen blueberries if we have them for breakfast. I know that Lord Zack averages four hours and twenty-eight minutes of sleep a night. I'd say that makes it a miracle that he's able to function like a normal person, but he's obviously not normal. I know that there are exactly nine hundred and eighty-two books in my view right now. You've flipped a page eighty-seven times since we started talking, including when you've gone back to a previous point. You've blinked twenty-seven times since I approached you. I've blinked eight. When Gavin cleans and sharpens his sword, he averages six wipes on each side, then seven sharpening strokes per side. Braden always has a pause after his fourth volley of Multishot, which is around two and a half times as long as the normal time between his shots. Lord Zack typically eats fourteen sausages for breakfast if we have those, no more, no less. Aurum's post-waking stretches last for six and a half seconds. Sir Nik averages one and a third hair-ruffles on Lord Zack whenever they're around each other for more than one minute.

Do not underestimate me and my ability to remember numbers and things they are associated with. I may be a kid, but that doesn't mean I can't be smart or good at remembering things. Especially since I'm a demigod.

He looks nervous of something.

"As for Scan," he quickly says. Good, my intimidating stare worked. "It's used to determine if a monster has an elemental weakness. The best way to unlock that is to learn monsters' elemental weaknesses and correctly identify them while in a group with monsters."

I do that all the time.

"For more than just a handful of monsters," he adds. "So doing it for just Slimes won't work. Once you've unlocked it, you can use it on any monster your Appraisal works on, and it will inform you of its elemental weakness or weaknesses, which is useful if a monster doesn't have an obvious one, yet has one."

I'm only interested in it so I can get Warp and Teleport. It seems I need to return to the mines, there's a variety of monsters there, plenty of which probably have elemental weaknesses. That should help me get it. I'll need it up to Level 3, too.

That's going to suck.

Later, loser!

I leave the library and make my way to Lord Zack's memorial woods. Once there, I approach the memorial markers. Because Lord Zack hasn't been by, the one for Bryce is still there, untouched. I'm sure he'll do something once he wakes and learns he performed a Resurrection on a Fallen Adventurer who died six months ago.

Ignoring my temptation to draw on it with chalk, I sit in front of my brother's marker and pull out two baskets of food. I keep eating all of the food meant as the offering, so two baskets should work. As I pull out the food and eat it, I wonder what it would take to acquire Assess. I already know the values for everything in my basket. I buy them all the time.

It would probably be best to ask the pervert, but there's no way I'm doing that. Lord Zack would know, but he's currently unconscious because he did something ridiculous again. As usual, he's a weirdo. But he's awesome. And immortal, so he'll wake up.

Hrm.

Shouldn't people who are unconscious for long periods of time deteriorate in the body? Lord Zack doesn't seem to. I bet the deterioration just takes one look at him and goes 'nope, not going to bother, he's going to kick my ass from one end of the Boundary to the other if I do' and then leaves. He's just way too awesome to deteriorate physically. I bet when he dies, he'll just be all peaceful and perfect and unharmed for all eternity. Or will he outlive eternity?

Hrm.

That's an interesting question. If Lord Zack is immortal, will he outlive eternity? That's a really interesting question. Sadly, I am nowhere near smart enough to answer that. I simply lack the knowledge needed.

Oh, crap. I ate all of the food from both baskets.

"Sorry, Braden," I put a hand on his grave for a moment, then pull it away. "I didn't realize I was eating your food, too."

I put both baskets back into my Inventory, then stand and brush off my cloak. I pick up my staff and twirl it around for a moment, then plant the butt of it on the ground. Time to go find something to do.

There's nothing actually nearby which will earn me Experience for Master Elementalist, since it's already Tier 5 and Level 5. Because of that, I'll need to head into the mines and train my ass off if I want to master it before Lord Zack awakens. That should help me with Scholar's Scan, too. I can knock out two birds with one flick that way.

Because of that, I need to prepare for a trip into the mines. I'll go in for a week, come out and rest for a day, then go in again. Rinse and repeat until Lord Zack wakes.

For a week, I'll need food for sure. Maybe I should buy some potions, too? Health or Mana Potions? I could probably use some defensive potions, too. A few Endurance Potions would definitely be a good idea. Oh, right, I should get some camping gear, too, for spending the nights in the mines.

That's going to cost money, but that's okay, I have some. I have… five gold. Oh, right, I still need to pick up my pay from the war. Even if I only killed a few things, the Crystals determined pay for everyone who participated based on their roles and how much they did. So people like Sir Nik and Mama Bear are getting a lot of money, while I'm getting a little bit.

Lord Zack is probably now the richest person in all the Boundary, and that's before he collects all of those Bounties he's deserving of. Actually, I don't think he did collect his pay. It took a week for the Crystals to sort it out for everyone, and Lord Zack had been doing his own thing.

I see Kylie. Hi, Kylie! I'm not Lord Zack, why are you coming over to me?

"Hey, Luca," Kylie says. Okay, good, she knows I'm not Lord Zack. What do you want? "Samantha's letting us – her apprentices – go off and do some training on our own for the next couple of weeks, rather than our usual training. I was planning on going into the mines to do some, but would like to have a healer around."

Yeah, well, I'm probably going into the mines deeper than you can handle. I'm much stronger. Then again, you're a ninja lady. Ninja Kylie. She's like Braden, she can move quickly and stealthily. That means she might be able to do some cool stuff against stronger foes.

She probably has some ulterior motive or something for asking me to come. I bet there are plenty of other young Priests she could ask, but she picked me. Well, we can ignore the fact that she'd have to petition someone further out to come help her, but still.

I can guess what she's wanting me for, and I'm going to abuse her being oblivious to me knowing it. This is going to be fun. But maybe just for a week? Or two. I do want to get in some solo training. But that can wait until after I scare her off.