William's gaze would fall upon his master, a dew drop waving goodbye to the elderly tree leaf that carried him here.
"I see. Master, as I said before. In this world where power reigns supreme, my goal of a calm and peaceful life can only be achieved by attaining the highest status of strength. I understand that you're worried about me."
William would leave his right hand outstretched, allowing Kaelus to see his decaying state.
"This'll be dangerous, but life's a gamble, so why not go all in?"
Kaelus would grab William's hand for a firm handshake. Revealing a warm, yet sly smile.
"Let's have it your way then, but you'll need to listen up for the next few days. Cause I'll be trainin you!"
------------------------------------------------------------------
Day 1 of Training.
Today, Kael made me talk in depth about my experiences in The Odyssey and all the things I'd done in there and afterwards. After learning about all my skills (Shh), he devised a basic training regimine for me.
Composed of a workout plan, a study plan, and a meditation plan. Usually I would've tried to get out of things like this, but I suppose your mentality changes when your life is on the line...
The workout plan was composed of 500 Push-Ups, Sit-Ups, and a 100 Kilometer run. In the early winter morning no less.
In the local park, 2:00 A.M.
Huff...Huff..
'What kind of superhuman workout regime is this? Why do I even need to exercise? Huff...Can't I just upgrade my stats through the Library?'
William would complain while running. If not for his enhanced physique he would've passed out ten times over by now.
After a couple hours, he had finally finished his first day's workout.
[Strength has leveled up! Lv.10 ---> Lv.11!]
[Endurance has leveled up! Lv.10 ---> Lv.11!]
'What the....I can get stronger by exercising? Wait, that sounds dumb now that I'm think about it...'
'I can save tons of money this way!'
The study plan, which consisted of Kaelus teaching William about the intricacies of the Library system, went a little like this.
"Sooooo, William, how much money you got? Have you tried out the Shop system in the Library?"
"No, not yet. And I have five thousand loreld so I should probably check it out."
[Shop System Loading....]
[Shop Theme(s): The Odyssey(Greek Mythos)]
[Featured Items:
Zeus's Lightning Bolt (???) (One-Of-A-Kind) : Negotiable
Type: Weapon
Description: The main weapon of the notorious Thunder Bringer himself, the God King of Olympus, Zeus! With this pretty piece of electricity your enemies will end up like a toddler who accidently stuck a fork into the electrical outlet in no time!
Poseidon's Trident (???) (One-Of-A-Kind) : Negotiable
Type: Weapon
Description: The main weapon of the snarky ol' sea god himself, Poseidon. With this beauty you'll be able to command the seas, control the marine population and forcefully waterboard your enemies!
Hade's Invisibility Helmet (???) (One-Of-A-Kind) : Negotiable
Type: Armor
Description: The main armor piece of the King of the Underworld and everyone's biggest sweetheart, Hades! With this baby noone will be able to track ya, not even gods.
Heracles's Club (A): 10000 L
Type: Weapon
Description: The famous and iconic weapon of Heracles. It packs a mighty punch, perfect for any brawny person!]
Nemean's Lion Hide (A): 10000 L
Type: Armor
Description: The hide of the famous Nemean Lion, which provides extremely powerful defense. Light and stylish!
....
The shop was themed after the trials taken by each individual verifier. And this was one of the big reasons William had chosen The Odyssey as his first novel to enter. As the Greek Mythos had a ton of interesting and useful items and gear for him to buy. The only issue would be...money.
Although he had received quite a large payout for the Moonbeast mission, it still wasn't enough to purchase most of the higher quality items in the shop. Truly unfortunate.
He would continue scrolling until an item caught his attention.
"This could be useful later on, do you think so master?"
"It seems strong, and it's pretty cheap too! Probably a good investment."
[Purchase Successful!]
[Would you like to equip the item?]
[Equipping item.....]
[Item, Soul Bident, have been equipped!]
[Name: Soul Bident (B) One-Of-A-Kind : 1000L ]
[Type: Weapon (Polearm) ]
[Description: A polearm forged in the depths of the underworld, crafted with the souls of the forgotten.]
A two pronged spear made of dark, cold metal would appear in William's hands. The air would turn cold around it. As if channeling the power of the underworld itself.
A bident from the underworld, with the power to inflict soul damage on those that it struck. A very powerful weapon for only 1000 Loreld. Perhaps there was a discount sale going on.
Thankfully, the items bestowed by the Library allowed for the user to choose whether or not they wanted them to appear or not by picturing the information regarding the item to summon it. Saving William from having to lug around a bident as tall as him everywhere he went.
[Item, 'Soul Bident' has been deequipped!]
The Bident would disappear in a flurry of illusory text, being absorbed towards William's soul.
Even though he had just acquired a sick new weapon, Kaelus would sit him back down and continue their lesson.
After a grueling five more hours about the history of the Library system and geography of the world and it's major powers, William had passed the study session.
[Intelligence stat has leveled up! Lv.10 ---> Lv.11]
[Attribute: "All Rounder"'s effect has been activated!]
[All stats have received a boost!]
Since the way the stat system operated was that with each ten levels, the price to upgrade and the power increase per stat would multiply severalfold, Getting to Level 11 stats combined with the All Rounder attribute pretty much doubled his overall strength.
By this time it was already about ten in the morning. So William decided to have a quick lunch before his last bout of training for today.
As someone who once was a chubby kid, he was rather experienced with food. And with his enhanced physique as a verifier, he didn't have to worry about calories or being healthy at all, so he could eat all the junk food he wanted. Which was rather nice.
He would head over to the living quarters of the Library, and open the fridge. To find, absolutely nothing.
Thanks to his verifier physique, he hadn't really been suffering from hunger lately, and the bits of bread he had eaten had sustained him well enough.
'Oh well...time for a shopping trip I suppose!'
He would tell the Moonbeast to shape into a tiny mouse and hide in his pocket for the time being.
William would drag himself to the live central area of Shanghai, one of the biggest modern hotspots in the world. He would look around the place while groaning due to the amount of music and screaming around him.
Along the way, a child accidentally dropped their toy bouncy ball into the crowd of people, which ended up rolling near William's shoes. However it wasn't his problem to deal with, so he just ignored it and kept walking.
He was on the lookout for a fancy market, preferably one run by verifiers so he could use loreld as payment.
After a couple minutes of wandering, and dodging about fifty different social media influencers and advertisements, he finally made it to a place called 'The Greenest Greens', a massive supermarket with tons of people coming in and out of it.
While pushing through the tsunami of people, he would pick up some bread, some slices of salami and cold meats, and some tomatoes and lettuce. Before heading to the check-out.
When checking out, he would use the system's functions to create a trade window, linking with the Translator-inlaid cash registered.
The total cost of the groceries came to twelve Loreld. Which was automatically entered into the trade window with a prompt asking for confirmation. After the confirming the money was sent over and a free paper bag was handed to William by the clerk. Who would send him off with a polite few words.
"Have a nice day, protect the planet!"
"You too!"
William would walk all the way back home. He quite enjoyed looking at nature, especially in the colder months, so he would gaze at the everblooms, as well as the decaying pieces of nature scattered throughout the city.
Similar to the state of his right hand.
He would stare at his hand, which was mostly transparent by now, the Erasure had even started creeping up his forearm, a gruesome sight.
It seemed to be spreading rather quickly and exponentially. From his estimations, he only had a couple more days until things went into extremely dangerous territory.
Along the way home, he came across a wide open green field, with animals and all sorts of bountiful nature scattered throughout, like something out of a fairytale.
'Shanghai Park'
'Looks like they put the tax money to good use atleast...'
He still had around an hour until lunchtime, so he decided to go for a brisk walk inside of the park. He would take in the sights, breathing in the cold winter air, mixed with the scent of life.
There weren't many other people inside of the park today, William would see a young man about his age sleeping on a bench. Snow white hair, pale skin, wearing a light grey coat. Inside of the field, there seemed to be some kind of photo shoot with several people dressed like ancient scholars. There was a man dressed like a soldier, a man dressed as a poet, and a woman dressed as a king, or queen in this case.
Wanting to have a seat aswell, he would sit on the opposite side of the bench to avoid stirring the guy sleeping.
Though it seemed that he had underestimated the man's sensitivity to danger, as the man would instantly jolt awake and stare at him.
William would attempt to placate the guy, not wanting to disturb him any more.
"Oh uh, sorry for waking you up there. I'm just a bit tired, so feel free to keep sleeping."
The young man would groggily rub his eyes, before calmly replying to William.
"Oh uh, sorry for taking your space there. I'm just a bit tired, so don't mind me. The name's Jian Fangzhao, what's yours?"
"You can just call me William, it's nice to meet you man."
"William huh? That's not a name you hear often here in the Eastern Continent, are you from elsewhere?"
"I was born in the Western part of the world, I moved here around a decade ago right at the start of the pandemic, I do have an eastern name I just prefer the name William as is."
Jian Fangzhao's stomache would grumble, he would rub his belly before his eyes locked onto the bag in William's hand.
"Interesting, well it's nice to meet you William! Man...I'm hungry, is that food in your bag? Mind if I have a bit?"
"Sure."
William would take a out a slice of bread and hand it to Jian Fangxiao.
Although seemingly ordinary, this slice of bread would mark the birth of a powerful friendship , one that would end up defying the will of ███ █████ itself.