Livia was working hard, but there were so many moving pieces. It was hard to gain any momentum when each day also brought new setbacks. But the good news was how at least in this world the gains were often consolidated.

Surprisingly it was after dealing with the posh lady that her experiences over the past week seemed to crystallize.

[Level 11: Business Guild Master]

That brought her back the final bit of energy she had still felt was missing, after such a long, draining trip.

[Ah, proper growth. It has been slower since the capstone, but you are in the early stages yet, we should take full advantage.]

Livia knew what he meant. It was time to upgrade a Skill again, no matter how cheap it felt. Ugh, I just hope this doesn’t bite me in the ass later, I barely have time to make use and learn of all my Skills as it is.

Of all her Skills [Pitch Perfect] was probably the one she used the most. It was active every time she tried to convince someone of anything, even in casual conversation. It was not that it steered her tongue, but more like she had a thesaurus available at all time, suggesting where she might want to take the conversation, with words the listener would prefer being highlighted. Which did not mean those were the ones she always picked; sometimes you were speaking more to the audience than the one you were seemingly ‘convincing’, and it was still a single-target ability, hence why it was first on the list to be upgraded.

But there were other candidates too. For example they had [Conflict De-escalation] which had been useful in helping them both avoid internal arguments spiraling, but also in dealing with Jane and her moods. It was the one Skill that the high level woman did not seem to consider a violation, since it only established a link between the involved parties based on the lack of true hostile intent, and so made it hard to be the aggressor and keep ramping up. In short it made both parties more inclined to reconsider their reasons for attacking in the first place.

As opposed to trying to reach past a target's mental defenses to dampen emotion directly, like what Kalle had tried.

Or maybe they might even upgrade [Guild Constitution] which currently seemed to only provide her Members with more malleable and durable bodies that could stand extra training; it seemed sort of underwhelming for a Tier-10 Skill, but Livia felt like there was still something missing from it. It nagged at her, but it had yet to reveal any hint of where she should be digging deeper. Maybe that was worth checking on at the library too. Until she learned more it would have to stay lower on the list.

This was not even mentioning all her newer Skills, since she was getting more familiar with some of them really quickly, they would need to be placed on the list as well.

Out of those, the one Skill that she was using the most was definitely [Mark of Worth]. She had been gathering information with it liberally, but she’d learned to be at least a little more careful; after an incident where she used it on the wrong Caster and ended up almost getting berated and poked with a staff openly in the streets–before he heard her accent when she apologized, and walked off scoffing about tourists with more Skills than sense. That man had had the [Cheval Magic Pool] Skill.

Meaning that still, embarrassment aside, it was so, so worth it. Livia loved finding new Skills. The most exciting so far, of those she could actually understand somewhat fully, had probably been [Trap: Foe Detection] that she saw on a man who looked like some sort of [Hunter], except he wasn’t carrying a bow. Livia had to imagine it was a sensor type trap that gave the man a way to scan and detect enemies in a larger area. Just imagine the applications if you gave him a [Quest] and upgraded it.

But besides the Skills that reminded her of technology from home, the coolest was without a doubt the Spells; [Burning Bombardment], [Lightning Elementals], [Swallow’s Flight]–and that was just from the first day. She had obviously been extra careful about using it on rich-looking Casters after the incident, but magic was clearly where it was at in terms of where to aim their ambitions. Damn it, I just can’t imagine Harold flying tho, not without shapeshifting first and his Class doesn’t seem headed that way. hm. How large will Algernon grow?

If they could manage to leave here with maybe another Caster and some other recruits, then they were golden. By then the final piece of the puzzle would truly be securing a location for their homebase and shifting focus to growing that.

But future plans were all well and good, they had several days still to look around for recruits to bring and assess on their first project of finding a suitable spot. This was only their second full day in Dormata and focusing on her own development for a bit–while there was a window of time for once–felt like the best move.

When she finally spotted the large, blue building that made up the central library she was so, so immensely impressed by the artworks covering the tall facade–despite how the constant bombardment of new scenes throughout the city was starting to make her numb to the wonder already–that here she could not quite bring herself to just walk past and inside, despite her limited time and Mr Beard urging her on.

The vast knowledge repository was a round, blue building with a huge circumference, and with only the supportive pillars surrounding it lending any credence of separate walls on the round facade. But between those pillars were some of the most realistic, detailed portraits she had seen so far. So, she went all around to see.

It depicted a man going through the different stages of life, always with a text in hand, and imagery spouting out the top of his open head, as he focused down on the pages. The image of him as a young kid showed the sparks flying, and they were always of brightly colored, inspired moments of discovery that set the mind ablaze, in the wide world with its myriad creatures, powers and Classes.

Later he was busy diving into the different theories of magic and what those discoveries could mean; cataloging the System’s Skills, Spells and Passives alike, becoming a scholar who helped others find deeper knowledge of the path they sought, and the next steps on a path into the unknown.

Lastly he was an old man, still reading and pulling colourful swirls from the pages being filtered through his failing eyes, but now he was focused on making every word count, on impacting the future he would not be part of; trying to uncover knowledge still, and jotting down words of importance to serve the coming generations as he himself had been served with insight all his life.

Livia took the time to walk all around the building to see the portraits up close and direct, reading the chosen quotes and studying the different characters in the background that he was helping, and trying to put herself into the different perspectives, making as much of an effort to learn from this compelling look into a man’s life, as much as she would from the words she aimed to find inside.

But when she finally did enter the sight that greeted her inside was not the one she expected.

Oh, the details were all correct. There was silence–and people doing focused research– ignoring the world all around. And there were librarians, assisting young and old alike at different tables in the main hall.

But there was not a single book, there was not a page to be seen anywhere, except at the small desk where a librarian seemed to be handing out membership cards to a few young people standing in line.

Livia went to stand there instinctively, but she was still looking around confused and trying to make sense of where the knowledge was stored.

Then she saw someone pull out a thin stone tablet out of the wall, and she realized she was truly in the dark ages in a couple of very vital ways. Don’t tell me they don’t have books, you can’t tell me that, maybe not LitRPG, I guess that’s fine, I was prepared for that in a way, but books? Fucking books!? Come on! I’ve seen paper, even out in Salcret for crying out loud!

She was looking around, feeling so distraught that she barely noticed the line moving. The first sign of something amiss was when Mr Beard spoke up.

[Uh, Livia. I’m sensing something, not sure what, it’s not a Spell I don’t think. Huh. That can't be her?]

Before she could even start to feel magic in the air or look around for some Skill or Domain targeting them, her thoughts were interrupted by an older voice. “Livia, is that you?”

The inn they had been recommended on the north side was called the Legume, and yes… That was what they served there with every breakfast.

It was not bad, Sten certainly enjoyed the high-protein base, and had great respect for someone with a specialty; but the others were complaining by dinner of day 1.

Now Kalle was refusing to eat from anything but street vendors selling grilled meats, since apparently that had been a childhood treat–so, now that he could afford to eat it whenever he wanted, he seemed to be planning to do so every meal of the week.

While Harold kept letting Hyde dictate where they ate, and yeah. That did not bring them around to the Legume very often. The head chef at the inn had managed it for one lunch where they served the fish from the local lake that Algernon happened to have bragged about getting the tastiest meals from; right before he went missing, but ever since they’d failed to attract the picky wolf. Pretty tasty, nothing special. Now, catfish from a proper marsh on the other hand, yum.

And Jane–with her new cat that they’d started calling Harry, despite it being a female–preferred not to eat at all unless Sten made it clear he wouldn’t leave her alone otherwise. “Wanna eat Ants! Wanna eat Mantis. Should have left me there, dead then.”

Sten ignored that second part. And he had heard this one before. “No, you really don’t Jane, trust me, they are barely edible if you’re starving in winter. You can eat what you want if you do decide to leave tonight, or, yes. If you decide not to stay. But until you feel better, you take care of yourself or I will.”

She stared at him, green eyes piercing, before turning to speak to the wall again. “Eat them all. Fuck their house.”

Sten just sighed. Jane had been ignoring how she had nowhere to go, and she had not asked to stay with them yet, something Sten was pretty sure Livia would require before they gave her any more charity. The [Guild] was not in a position yet to be taking on people who did not wish to contribute fully, and that was certainly fair enough.

Their goals were preparing for the future, and the distant future too, and that was hard if you got too bogged down in the personal issues of people today before you could truly afford to. Maybe I've just been using this to distract me from what Livia told me, what we're actually doing all this for. Maybe helping people like this is good enough, even without a Class, being there for them after they fought to help people. Is that what I really want?

And so there was a select group remaining at the inn to pick over the breakfast on that second day.

Oscar was the one doing the best out of the group at keeping his mood up, but his efforts to spread the cheer were not getting much of a response, other than a smile from Alfred, their [Herbalist], at the mention of some inside joke. At least not until Sten decided he needed to clear his head.

“Hey Oscar, do you wanna go with me to the Adventurer’s guild? I was gonna see if anybody recognised Jane the other day,”

“Sure, but uhm, do you think they've got a place we could spar there? I still haven't gotten to flex my Skills properly, not going anywhere near full tilt yet like back at Brunner's, you know? And yes, I'm not stressing about it, but I swear it feels physical, like my body is slowing down its growth or something,” When Sten looked sceptical he had only this to clarify: "I think my Skills might be syncing with Livia's, I don't know, I can feel more room to keep pushing,"

Sten was surprised, the first month was usually a bit overwhelming physically since it took time to get your coordination back while your mind adjusted to your body's changes. Maybe his [Apprentice Mentality] has been helping him make the adjustment?

There was an obvious cure to Oscar's issue, although Sten was a bit surprised Oscar had not heard of the Arena yet, but then again Sten was probably the one who should have said something, and he’d been acting a bit obsessive lately about helping Jane instead of the [Guild].

“Not there, but I’ll show you where you can go afterward, there’s always general practice between nine o’clock and twelve. Just go get changed so we don’t have to come back here after we’ve asked around. We should have time for at least an hour.”

Despite there only being a two year difference between them, Oscar responded with a glee like his father had just told him they were going fishing.