Records - CH 30 - LIBRARY 3 - Other People (Patreon)

[THIS CHAPTER HAS BEEN EDITED]

(Word Count: 2,495 => 2,574)

I debated just going on to the next world right away. In the end, I decided I wanted to try and find some other people to try and see what's going on with them.

There were 100,000 people in the beginning and roughly 30% of us have already died. I wanted to see what people's game plans were.

“Index, is there anywhere here in the Library where I can meet with people?” I asked.

“No, there aren't any central lounges like you're thinking of. Only these sitting areas like the one you're in right now for guests to sit and read. Your best bet is to just walk around to find someone.”

Wait, sit and read? “There are books I can actually read? I thought these books were just representing different worlds.”

“This is the Akashic Records, the Library containing all knowledge from all of creation. You can find any book or manual about anything you can think of,” Index said, sounding mildly offended. “However, access to the books do cost World Points.”

Okay. People can wait. “Can you find me a book on Energybending?”

“Of course,” Index said, and the screen on the podium changed to show a list of hundreds of books about ATLA's Energybending. It also included books from other worlds that also used Chi.

The prices ranged from 100 WP to the thousands.

The ones that were only around 100 WP, which I could actually afford, weren’t manuals, but journals. Presumably ones that mentioned Energybending. Still, this was good, since I couldn’t even find that in Wan Shi Tong’s library. If I was lucky, they should include insights into how to Energybend.

Among the other books that I couldn’t afford, there were many different manuals that seemed to be specific techniques. The one that most interested me was the one that said “Elementalization of Inner Energy.” that reminded me of the Lion Turtle, and how he made my Chi attuned to the Earth element. 

Is it possible to change my own Chi to the other elements?

It seemed to fall in line with the story of the first avatar, and how Raava had to pass through Wan to change what type of bending he had. That made my decision to have “Elemental Chi Manipulation” skill much, much better.

There was also another manual, still far outside of my budget, called “Separating the Yin and Yang, the power of bringing unity.” If I recall correctly, Lightningbending came from separating the yin and yang energies in the Chi and bringing them back together. Right? But that was with Fire-type Chi, so why was this with the energybending search?

Was it possible to do this with Earthbending, but it required Energybending?

Both of the manuals cost 3,000 WP, but it was something to save up for.

“Can you bring up anything for earthbending?” Just to see if there were any techniques I hadn’t learned.

Looking through the titles of the books pulled up, nothing immediately jumped out at me, so I left it at that.

Time to go be social! I started walking in one direction, passing by sitting lounges until I found one that had people sitting there. Two guys, two women. One of the guys was telling a story of something that had happened in the world he had just come from. They all had a southern drawl to them, so they were definitely from the southern states in the US. Except for the other guy, who was definitely from the UK.

“—and that's how I got this Omnitrix!” he said, flashing a bulky black and green “watch.”

“That's cold, man. I can't believe you knocked out a 10 year old kid,” one of the women said, giving him a disgusted look.

“Hey, don't judge me, it's not like I killed him or anything, but I couldn't let him get the omnitrix before I did.”

Did this guy just go to the Ben10 universe to steal the Omnitrix? That was actually pretty smart. Still, I didn't think I could go around with that ugly thing on my wrist. Kudos to him though.

“Hello,” I approached the group.

They eyed me warily, before the guy with the omnitrix came to stand between me and the group. It made sense for them to be wary, I supposed. I was in armor after all, with a giant sword on my back.

“Can I help you?” He asked defensively 

I raised my hands in a calming gesture. “I'm not here for any trouble. My name's Callan Stone. I just came from the world of Avatar, and was wondering how everyone else was doing.”

One of the other guys behind the omnitrix guy perked up with a grin. “Avatar? Did you get yourself a hot blue alien wife?”

I blinked. “What? No, man! I mean Avatar: The Last Airbender. You know, with bending the elements?”

“Oh, yeah… Of all the worlds you could go to, why would you choose that lame a** movie?” The same guy said.

My brain halted at the heresy I was hearing, and I sighed. “I didn't go to the movie world, I went to the tv series world.”

“There was a series?”

I ignored him and looked at the omnitrix guy. “Anyway… I just came back from my first world, so I wanted to check in on others. I've asked Index, and he said around a third of us have died already.”

“Right. Well, my name's Robby, This is Emily, Kendall, and Jennifer.”

“Nice to meet you,” I gave the group a nod. “I'm from the US. South Carolina, specifically. Where are you from?”

“I'm from Texas,” said Robby.

“I'm from the UK, but I was living with these guys when all this happened,” said Kendall.

“We're from Texas, too,” said Emily, with Jennifer nodding along.

“So you all knew each other before? That's amazing. How'd you time it all so you could end up back together?” I asked. 

“erm, well, we didn't. Robby's the only one who entered a world, as a test dive,” Kendall explained.

I stared at them. “But, it's been like 7 days already? What did you all do for 7 days?”

“What? It's been a whole week already?” Jennifer exclaimed. “Man, it's so hard to tell time here.”

Emily groaned. “Yeah. When you don't need to eat or sleep, and everything looks the same in all directions? It's so easy to lose track of time.”

“We've mostly been going around talking to people. It was only recently that we decided to do our first dive into a relatively easy world. I went in to test the waters, got the omnitrix, and came right out,” Robby explained.

I nodded. There was nothing wrong with playing it safe. They would certainly be better prepared for what to expect than he had been. He remembered when he first arrived in ATLA. He had nothing on him, and was extraordinarily lucky they spoke English. Still, a whole week? They needed to get a move on.

“It's good to be cautious. I landed in ATLA and had nothing on me. I ended up having to work around the nearby town to gather up all the supplies I needed. So, what did you learn from the others? Anything I should know?” I asked.

Robby shrugged. “The main thing is the number of deaths that've happened already, but you knew that. Other than that, we learned about types of system ‘builds’ you could do, but you've probably already spent all your World Points.”

“What are some examples you've seen?”

“Well, we've seen the classic Class and Leveling system, we've seen one guy with a gacha system, one had all the Race modules and went for a shapeshifter build. We haven't met him, but we heard about one guy with a reincarnation system, so he would be literally reborn as the main character of whatever world he chose. We heard he chose to become some guy named Rin Okumura, from some Japanese anime.”

“How'd he afford something crazy like that?”

“It comes with some pretty serious downsides, making it cheap enough to afford if you use all 1,000 WP. The biggest downside is the amount of time it uses, and the early baby years.”

Yikes. Well, with the 25:1 ratio that I did with ATLA, 25 years In-World would be one year Library-Time, so it's entirely possible to get several reincarnations in before the 5 year Library-Time is used up, especially if they went to worlds with an even steeper time dilation.

“Well, I went with the classic Class and Skills system, and I have to grind for levels. I'm about to head out to a zombie or monster world to get some exp. What type of system are you all going for? Have you spent your World Points yet?” I asked.

“Not yet, no. Whatever we do, it's going to be something that helps us work as a team.”

“Well, since you have the Omnitrix, maybe build something around that? From what I know of Ben10, the Omnitrix is something insanely powerful by itself, so that's a great starting point,” I suggested.

After that, there wasn't much more to learn from them, so I left them be. They were about to decide which would be their first world to go to, and I didn't want to overstay my welcome.

Moving on, I passed by several more empty lounges before coming across another man. Unlike the first group, this guy was geared up in full plate armor, with a giant sword—big enough to be worthy of being called an anime sword—strapped to his back. His helmet was on with the faceplate down, so I couldn't tell what he looked like.

“Hello there!” I called, “My name's Callan Stone, what's yours?”

The armored man turned to look in my direction. “Ricardo Da Silva.” He said bluntly.

His accent sounded like he spoke Portuguese.

“Your accent, do you speak Español, or Portuguese? I speak a bit of Portuguese myself, but it's been a few years,” I said, trying to be friendly.

“Portuguese. San Juan de Boa Vista,” He said.

“Eu visitei São Paulo, e fiquei lá por pelo menos dois anos,” I said.

“Fala como un gringo, cara. Seu accento ta forte de mais,” He complained, but he sounded impressed all the same.

“Já falei, mano. Faz muito tempo que conseguia falar Portuguese,” I said.

“Ay caramba, let's just speak Ingles then. You're butchering my language. Still, it's impressive you know Portuguese. Many Americans don't,” Ricardo said. Contrary to his earlier stoney tone, Ricardo was a lot more friendly.

“Well, we're right next to Mexico, so most opt for Spanish if they learn a second language. I like your sword and armor, man. What world did you go to?”

“Berserk.”

“Yikes. That's a brutal first world to go to. I just came from Avatar: The Last Airbender.”

“I do not know this one. Is it an anime?”

“It’s a cartoon. The powers there focus on manipulating the four elements. Next world, I'm planning on a zombie or monster world to grind some levels.”

“I'm heading to DragonBall. I will become a Saiyan, like Goku.”

I extended a hand. “Be careful out there.”

He shook my hand once, “You as well.”

I left him be and continued on, but Ricardo was already gone by the time I left his lounge.

After that, I passed through several more lounges, but no one was present. I decided that was enough trying to socialize and turned to the center console of the lounge I was in. “Index, what are some good zombie worlds you would recommend?”

Index materialized on the console, and gestured to the screen. “I have a list ready for you here.”

[Zombie Worlds:

The Walking Dead

The Last of Us

World War Z

Dead Space

Highschool of the Dead

Left 4 Dead

iZombie

Zombieland

Resident Evil

…]

I looked over the list. Honestly, I wasn't too familiar with zombie stories. Horror in general wasn't really something I enjoyed. In fact, the world I was most familiar with was Highschool of the Dead, and that was solely thanks to reading fanfics about it. I hadn't even watched or read the original work. The next best one was The Walking Dead, but only from memes and references I didn't really understand.

‘Okay, maybe a zombie world isn’t the best option. A monster world then?’ I started thinking about other worlds that I could go to. ‘I could go to a world that has dungeons…’ The thought was appealing. However, I feel like those types of worlds, with adventuring guilds and the like, were going to be Hadrian’s bread and butter, since he will eventually be able to double up on quest rewards.

If I went down the list of the isekai fantasy worlds with dungeons, I felt like a lot of my worlds would overlap with the ones my brother would go to. If it was before ATLA, then that would be awesome. But… Now it felt like I should go my own path. Let him go on his adventure, and I will have my own. Sure, it would definitely be awesome to explore some of our favorite worlds together, but I feel like that shouldn’t be all the time.

‘So what world has a lot of monsters, but doesn’t overlap with Hadrian’s journey?’ I thought to myself for a moment.

Two worlds pop out at me. Danmachi and RWBY. Danmachi had a dungeon and a main guild, but there were no quests being issued. Just dungeon delving. But there were some complications to that.

The most serious problem I didn’t want to deal with right now were the gods. I had no idea if they would be able to tell if I wasn’t a native soul to their world, nor did I know how they would react to that. No, this world was too close to the divine.

Less obvious, is that they had their own system, and I had no idea how my own would react or interact with the falna. I had a feeling that updating the falna would consume Exp to do its thing.

Lastly, was the way they used magic. I obviously want to get into magic—because who wouldn’t?—but I didn’t know how it would interact if I got this kind of magic, then tried to get another world’s magic. I just didn’t want to take the risk of being limited to only three magic spells.

Of course, I could just ignore all of that and head straight into the dungeon and stay there, but if I was going to only focus on the grind, I could go to any of the other worlds to do the same. 

That left me with RWBY. It was overrun with mindless grim, so even without dungeons there would be no shortage of exp. As far as I knew, the gods of that world had long since abandoned it, so I didn’t have to worry about the divine. And lastly, the Aura was basically a free power up with no downsides. It would help heal, it can passively shield you from damage, be used offensively if I wanted to, and I could eventually unlock a semblance.

Best of all, the Aura came from the soul, so I likely didn’t have to swap out the Race slot to get it.

Yeah, RWBY sounded perfect.