Chapter 7

In response to Keith’s command, a notification appeared before him.

Determining authority…

Authority confirmed. The user holds ownership rights of the items intended to be stored.

Keith nodded in understanding. It seemed there were some restrictions on whether he could collect something. He needed to own the item first, or at least it needed to be ownerless.

In the next moment, the entire warehouse brightened considerably. Thousands of items transformed into motes of light as they flew towards the Grimoire in Keith’s hand. A second later, the warehouse was empty, including the work golems, something Keith forgot to consider.

However, before he could even feel regret, a surge of power flowed through him. Gravity seemed to disappear as a weightless feeling came over him as if a single leap could carry him into the sky. Not only that, his senses sharpened several times over. The flood of information entering his brain left him paralyzed.

Initially horrified, Keith quickly realized he was experiencing a phenomenon called sensory overload. It happened when adventurers gained a sudden massive increase in stats. Typically, stat gains were incremental, allowing users to adapt to their newfound perception without much trouble. Only when your senses multiplied on the spot would the mind be temporarily unable to adapt. Keith learned this in school, and he especially remembered the severe expression on his teacher’s face when they explained the phenomenon.

After identifying the problem and knowing it was harmless, Keith spent nearly an hour adapting to his heightened perception, eventually returning to normal. Now, he could appreciate his newfound senses. Stepping out into the garden, Keith found everything was crisp and more detailed. The air carried several new smells, which he needed to learn to identify, and his ears picked up even the slightest vibrations. All the new sensations left him filled with awe towards the world, giving him a newfound appreciation for life.

At that moment, a notification appeared.

New title acquired: Nature Enthusiast

Title: Nature Enthusiast

Description: Reduces damage taken from plants by 5%.

Keith wasn’t particularly excited about the new title. Nature Enthusiast was a common one. Closing the notification, Keith wondered what his stats were. With a thought, his status appeared, shocking him.

[Keith Walker]

Level: 159

Age: 18

Titles: Philantropist, Born With A Golden Spoon, Troublemaker, +10 others

Health: 545/545

Mana: 630/630

Strength: 83

Agility: 85

Intelligence: 90

Vitality: 87

Endurance: 88

Skills: Void Shadowstep, Elementary Status Resistance, +25 others

Keith wondered if he was looking at the right status. How were these his attributes? Holy hell, he was wearing pajamas right now! They didn’t offer a single stat. That meant without wearing any equipment, Keith had stats equivalent to an epic grade monster of the same level.

If Keith could kill an epic-grade monster of the same level, he’d become an epic-grade adventurer, a genius among geniuses. Only a few humans had that status below level 400, and humanity invested everything into cultivating them.

Although, as high as Keith’s stats were, he didn’t dare fight an epic-grade grade monster without skills to back him up. He was confident in his movement skills, his aunt praised him as a genius in that regard, but he sorely lacked skills meant for fighting. He just didn’t like battling. It was scary and painful.

After admiring his status for a minute, Keith checked his Grimoire. Flipping to the storage page, he saw his current CV.

Collection Value: 3,230,000

“What?” Keith was dismayed, drastically overestimating how much CV he’d receive. It took ten years to collect all those items, yet it only amounted to a measly 3 million CV. How long would it take to get the Battle Loadout function, which cost 100 million?

Adjusting his emotions, Keith sat down on one of the many benches in the garden, then spent several hours organizing his storage page. Not only did he create numerous groups and subgroups, but he also added tags to each item, such as ‘food ingredient,’ ‘equipment material,’ and so on.

Years ago, Keith created an intricate system to organize his inventory and warehouse, so he simply copied his previous settings. Setting it up wasn’t difficult, but it was tedious.

As he worked, the maid, Cami, brought him breakfast. She observed him interact with his Grimoire with a solemn expression for several minutes before deciding to place his meal on the bench and leave. Sometime later, Keith’s mom silently appeared and left after seeing him hard at work. Keith was too absorbed in his task to notice them.

Finally, at noon, Keith unsummoned his Grimoire, then stood up and stretched his limbs. Suddenly smelling something, he turned and found his food, now cold. Only then did his stomach rumble, reminding him he missed breakfast. A few minutes later, he returned to his room and changed into an outfit as equally outlandish as yesterday.

Keith considered collecting the Appearance Cards but decided against it. If he did, he’d have to pay a monetary fee to withdraw a card whenever he wanted to change outfits. It wasn’t possible to store it in his inventory either. The System granted everyone an inventory with 200 slots, and all 200 slots were already in use.

Moving over to his desk, Keith sat down and started to think about his plans. Becoming stronger wasn’t too important for him, so he didn’t care about maximizing his stats through the Grimoire. Unlocking more functions, however, did interest him. Excluding the hidden functions, just the available ones were all special abilities that were hard to come by.

For example, Material Synthesis and Fragmentation were both abilities possessed by grandmasters in their respective professions. Grandmaster was a title given by society, not the System, and to become one required having a crafting skill above level 400. Keith heard it took thousands of hours and countless resources to raise a crafting skill to that point.

Knowing this made Keith appreciate his Grimoire even more. If he included every grandmaster in the world, plus other people’s innate gifts, maybe only a hundred or so people had Material Synthesis and Fragmentation. Oh, perhaps a bit more. Keith recalled hearing about the Philosopher Stone, an item with similar abilities. Still, there couldn’t be more than a hundred and twenty people with this ability.

Reaching this point in his train of thought, Keith decided to purchase both abilities. Two million CP was gone in an instant, leaving him with a little over a million.

“Hehe. I’m gonna be rich.” Keith rubbed his hands together as he thought about all the money he was about to make. Since only a hundred and twenty people possessed this ability, that meant the auction house would have plenty of opportunities for him to make a profit. Thinking so, Keith pulled out his magic tablet and began browsing through the auction house. In minutes, he found a potential item to synthesize.

[Epic] Ognite Ore x196 – 22 hours remaining

Buyout: 50g each

[Legendary] Ognite Ore x2 – 12 hours remaining

Buyout: 300g each

Keith’s eyes flew open as he began to tremble in excitement. Oh my! A single synthesis would net him 200g profit, excluding transaction fees. Why wait any longer? Keith immediately spent a considerable portion of his money buying out all 196 Ognite ore.

After rushing down to his warehouse, Keith found a box sitting atop the teleportation array. Since the work golems were accidentally collected, there was no one to store the box. It was common sense to leave teleportation arrays clear of obstructions, so Keith moved the box to a nearby table before opening it.

Inside, he found 194 fist-sized jagged brown rocks with a metallic sheen. Already imagining the windfall of money he was about to get, Keith placed his hand into the box and activated Material Synthesis, one of his two new skills. A notification appeared.

Material Synthesis: [Epic] Ognite ore

Mana cost: 20

The smile on Keith’s face froze, and only after several moments did he finally react. “Damn it! How could it cost so much Mana?”

Keith had a little over 600 mana if he was topped off, which meant he could only use Material Synthesis 30 or so times before running out of juice. If he combined his natural mana regeneration with his best mana regeneration equipment, it would take around two days to regenerate to full.

At that rate, it would take a week and a half to synthesis all the ore, netting him almost 20,000 gold. In reality, not many around Keith’s age could make 20,000 gold in less than two weeks in the safety of their home. With 20,000 gold, you could take care of a family for a couple of decades, but it wasn’t a lot for an adventurer. On average, that much could buy you a level 300 legendary grade shield, only a single piece of equipment.

20,000 gold wasn’t nearly enough to satisfy Keith’s needs. It took him a decade and several million gold to build up his hoard, yet it only netted him a bit over 3 million CV. What was 20,000 gold in comparison to that?

“There’s gotta be a way.” Keith leaned back in his chair and started to think. If he could figure out how to handle the mana problem, money wouldn’t be an issue. With the myriad of innate gifts, items, and skills in the world, Keith was confident there was a solution to be found. He just needed to find it.