Limitless Path

She made to hand it back to Lyrissa, but the woman just gestured, indicating Blood. Beth raised her other eyebrow, but turned and held the crystal against Blood's forehead. After a little over a minute, Blood reached up with her right paw and pushed Beth's arm back, seeming to indicate that she was done with the crystal.

"Now I'll take that back," said Lyrissa, holding out her hand. Beth passed the crystal back to her, and she put it back on a small holder on the shelf. "Now you should be able to get through about eighty percent or so of what's in here. And most of the basics you can find on the Net."

"Eighty percent? What's the other twenty then?" Beth asked, lowering one of her two raised brows.

"Very impressive facial muscular control. I wonder if your other muscular control is as refined?" Lyrissa replied with a throaty giggle. Beth flushed in response but didn't reply, keeping up the arched eyebrow.

"To answer the question, there are a good number of random assorted works in here in languages other than Standard. We do have some crystals for them," she pre-empted the question she could see on Beth's tongue, "but not all of them. You should also rest for at least a day if not longer between learning languages, particularly at your level. It'll overstress your brain if you're not careful," she continued, wagging a finger at Beth.

"Alright, I got it. I'll look around some more. Is there some kind of sorting system here?" she asked.

"There is. There are a couple tablets at the small counter area at the front of the room that have listings of everything that's here in the general members area. The ends of the shelves have notation on them that is used to organize what is on the shelves. Just come down to the front desk and ask if you have questions," Lyrissa explained.

"Alright, will do. Anything else I should be aware of?" Beth asked.

"No, not in particular. Just be careful on the Net, though I don't really think I have to give you the online safety talk, do I?" Lyrissa replied, smirking slightly.

"No, no, no. That's alright; I totally have it from here," Beth said, raising both hands and taking a step back.

"Just find me if you need anything," she replied, with a slightly playful accent on the word 'anything.'

"Don't worry Rissa, I will," Beth replied with a smirk herself, causing Lyrissa to pout before patting Beth and Blood on the head as she walked by.

Beth returned to the front area of the library, making her way over to the counter. She found a number of the tablets Lyrissa had mentioned sitting vertically on a stand that looked like it might be charging them. Beth grabbed one near the base and gently lifted, feeling and hearing a slight click, confirming her suspicions that the stand was a charger of some sort.

She looked at the tablet, noting how thin it was, and that it appeared to be made of a sleek black metal, polished to gloss finish. There was basically no bezel at the left and right edges, and only a small one at the top and bottom, with three little buttons on the top left. Beth pushed the largest of these and the screen immediately came to life.

The default display of the screen was something very much like a standard menu that she was used to from her phone. With her newfound understanding of the Universal Standard Language, Beth was able to navigate this menu, selecting the option for the directory listing. A long list of items appeared on the screen, with a small menu at the top that also had a search box on the right side. Beth experimented for a moment, finding the screen responded to touch in a similar manner to her phone.

She then selected the search box and typed the name Combat and Magic Basics, in Standard, of course, and searched. The central section of the screen containing the list narrowed down to just one item, showing its location by shelf. Beth put the tablet down after memorizing the listing and strolled down to the end of the room until she found the proper aisle.

Walking down the aisle, she found it was almost entirely printed books. It really didn't look much different than a 'normal' library, the books being of all sizes and thicknesses, mixing both hardcover and paperback, as well as a few seemingly more esoteric bindings. Beth made her way down the aisle trailed by Blood, and eventually found the section of shelves that should contain the book. It took a minute or so of looking up and down, scanning the whole set of floor-to-ceiling shelves before she managed to find the book. She pulled the book out from its compatriots on the shelf, finding it to have a rather plain dark blue cover with white lettering on the spine and cover.

Having found what she needed, Beth made her way to one of the tables in the center area of the library. She set the daggers she had for Sabs down, finally freeing her left hand, and then sat at the table and went about opening the book she had selected. The book certainly wasn't a wonderful fantasy adventure, but Beth found it was surprisingly entertaining.

It broke down many of the basics, as its name implied, of the adventuring life, giving short but descriptive explanations of many things. It also included a handful of colorful anecdotes, among them one being a rather funny tale of the dangers of wanton casting of fire magic combined with the lack of foresight in preparing a spare set of pants.

The book definitely helped to fill in some gaps Beth had in her overall knowledge, including a breakdown of how beast and monster strength worked early on. It seemed every ten or twenty levels was, essentially, a bracket of strength. On top of explaining the general strength of the brackets, there was a breakdown of experience gained in a general way.

Fighting the same level or higher-level monsters only became more rewarding as levels increased, but this was due to beasts becoming much stronger with level. Many Wayfarers that lacked the drive or the talent would spend months at higher levels grinding lower-level beasts to gain one or two levels themselves.

The book also contained a generalized explanation of coin drops from monsters. Beasts between level 1 and level 10 would have about a ten percent chance of dropping a single copper coin. A beast between 11 and 20 would have about a fifty percent chance of a single copper. Between level 21 and level 30 a beast would always drop a single copper coin and no more. As to silver coins, only beasts level 51 and up would have a small chance of dropping one instead of several copper coins. Based on her review of the strength of beasts, Beth had a new understanding of why so many would find difficulty in earning money, at least from slaying them.

It seemed clearing dungeons could provide greater reward, as she had seen firsthand with her own rewards, but there were several problems with that. Dungeons were quite dangerous, and that was counting fighting through them as a party. While they seemed to be fairly numerous as well, they were often located in the wilderness, surrounded both by the beasts they produced as well as various roaming wild beasts.

Speaking of roaming wild beasts, it seemed that that was also a quite common occurrence, as many beasts would be spawned by concentrated ambient mana outside dungeons and begin to roam about. After reading the entire chapter and considering it, it seemed a likely explanation for the boars she had encountered. She still would scout around to see if there was a boar dungeon or something else in the area, but it seemed likely the giant pigs were random spawns. Disappointing, but something to keep her eye out for from now on.

One of the chapters almost at the end of the book that Beth found of great interest gave a basic detailing of skills. Well, at least, it went into some details of skills up until gold rank. Anything after that was apparently considered as more advanced materials and not included in a book just describing the basics.

The most important thing the book pointed out was the limits to all skills, excepting weapon and crafting skills, in attaining a new tier early on. Ranking up to Silver required a certain amount of mana to be present in one’s body for a number of reasons, including preventing a backlash to the user’s physical body when using a higher tier of skill than Copper.

Just leveling INT wouldn’t overcome this limitation, as it directly involved overall mana capacity, which was much more influenced by levels, rebirths, and one’s Mana Physique, assuming they had managed to construct it. INT helped with mana control and output, while WIS helped with mana concentration and regeneration within the body. Neither really helped very much with overall mana capacity, but were still very important in their own rights, even to Wayfarers focusing much more on what would be considered “warrior” type builds.

Rebirths and levels were the only ways to increase a person’s overall mana capacity and density to any significant degree. This meant that climbing in strength in terms of levels and rebirths was the only way to increase mana to the point where the person could use Silver and, eventually, Gold ranked skills. Constructing a Mana Physique wasn’t necessary to be able to upgrade skills to Gold, but Beth was able to deduce, based on the language, that it would likely be a requirement for Platinum level skills.

The other point of note in the skill section discussed learning skills. The subsection was a little broad and shallow, but Beth was sure she could find more in-depth information on the subject rather easily. Besides, weren’t Baelvyr, Jaq, and even Tazeen supposed to be insanely strong? They would likely know more than a thing or two about the topic.

The main thing she took away from the section was that skills could be learned naturally, similarly to how she had managed to acquire the Swords skill just by killing a few enemies with a blade; or they could be learned through a variety of methods. The way she had taught the others Regeneration based on her stronger Lordly Reconstruction was one such method, and the failure to pass on the actual skill resulted from her not having mastered it properly. The book detailed that most people would need to develop a skill to at least Gold rank, if not even higher, to be able to properly teach someone else the full version of the skill.

Skills could also be learned through a few other methods, including; memory crystals with the full formulae of the skill imprinted in them, being directly gifted to someone by the Path as a reward for a number of different conditions, and even developed by oneself naturally. If a skill was developed in the third way, it would fall into one of two general categories; Known Skills and Original Skills. As Baelvyr had mentioned, there were limitless classes and skills throughout the universe, and many people would, over days and months and years of fighting, stumble upon the formulae and mana movements in the body necessary to use a skill. This random discovery would almost always be of a Known Skill, something that many others had already discovered and used.

The other broad category of skills someone could learn themselves, Original Skills, was a little different. It was almost impossible to stumble on a skill like this while fighting randomly. These skills were ones that either no one else had ever created or had not been used by anyone throughout the entire universe for centuries. Immense amounts of time and effort were typically needed to develop such a skill, though, once developed and trained sufficiently, it could be taught to others just as any of the more common skills in existence. With how many skills there were already known about and used throughout the wider universe, discovering a brand-new skill through one’s own effort was both exceedingly difficult and exceptionally rare, but did occur on a semi-frequent basis. The possibilities that both mana and higher technology brought were truly endless, and one only had to deviate so far from what was standard to discover something new.

The last section of the book was something Beth skimmed briefly but did contain a single important thing that she added to her mental to-do list to ask Baelvyr or Jaq about later. It mentioned that items and natural treasures did have ranks and rarities, as well as the fact equipment could provide bonuses such as extra stat points. The big reveal to Beth was a brief excerpt about how standard Identify was, to put it bluntly, basically garbage as a skill. Only by getting a more powerful and/or complex skill to replace it would Beth be able to see more detailed information about items.

Beth was glad that upgrading her INT and WIS did upgrade her memory and recall, as she felt like, before the change of the integration, she would have had to take some rather copious notes on the contents of the book. Fortunately for both her and her phone’s already messy notes section, none of that would be necessary, as she retained an almost perfect recollection of such simple information.

Beth sat back, pressing her back against the backrest of the chair, and stretched, lifting her arms above her head and feeling her spine pop. She shook her arms loose, then glanced out the window, startled to see it had already become dark. She quickly got up and put the book away before returning to the table and waking a slumbering Blood by rubbing her ears gently. With Blood awake, the two made their way down to the lobby, finding Tazeen and Lyrissa behind the counter. Beth waved to the two as she quickly exited, Tazeen nodding while Lyrissa didn't seem to notice at all, staring at whatever was on her screen.

Beth mounted up on Blood when they were out the front doors, quickly riding around the side of the building and then northward. It didn't take more than a minute or two to hit the highway and, less than ten minutes of running from Blood later, the two were circling the neighborhood. Luckily it was moving into fall now, so it was getting dark somewhat earlier, meaning the two rode up and into the backyard without it being too late. Entering the house, Beth put her gear in the mudroom as always before making her way to the kitchen. She found both Sabs and Kim present, Kim looking through something on her phone while Sabs had her chin in her hands, staring off into the distance.