Day 34

Spent this entire morning making piles upon piles of paper for the librarian. Wouldn't bother doing so much normally, but I can't help but feel like I owe him pretty hard, so this is just my chosen method of repaying. Plus, it gets me extra money. I also really need to get off my butt and get to building a separate place where I can heat and smelt all of this stuff – it is going to take ages for the smell to leave my house.


Delivered all the paper to the librarian. Thanking me both with words and a palmful of emeralds, he told me to wait while he "experiments" and works out the quirks or something. I had some spare cobble and dirt with me, so I've done some public service by buildinga bit of a barricade between several houses – nothing very permanent, but should provide some cover for whomever might need it. Moving on from that, I actually saw the farmer, who was milking a cow in front of a bunch of kids; teaching them, in fact. Of course, I asked him for a second demonstration, having missed most of what he'd been showing to the children.

Turns out, milking a cow isn't too hard: just have to know the signs of cow getting restless, then just take it slow with squeezing the teats (until I get enough experience, at least). Not that I'm complaining – after a month of drinking nothing but boiled water, it's a welcome change.

Thankfully, I was allowed to practice under supervision. While not hard, the process isn't that intuitive either; but a few failed tries - and one frustrated cow - later, I had my first bucket of milk! Tasted great, even if it wasn't pasteurized (or precisely because).

I hope there's a recipe book around here. If I can make stuff float mid-air, I can figure out how to make some dairy products.

Quick side-note: the guy also said milk is works great to offset nausea bouts and food poisoning. That's absolutely great to know.


Great. A huge downpour started while I was minding my business; had to seek shelter in some dude's house. I hope it ends soon. I am reluctant to leave my base unattended for too long.


Okay it's a thunderstorm. Looks like I am stuck in here for good. Everyone is scrambling for cover right now.

There's a pair of kids with me, frightened out of their mind. I guess I can_


Had to drop writing because the village had come under a small monster siege. Not on the same level as that one time, but still; I'm pretty sure it was still supposed to be daytime. Why did the mobs appear so suddenly? It's only ever been nighttime and dark caves. Perhaps something to do with the thunderstorm?

I'd repelled the attack, more or less, but I was soaked. Thankfully, one lady offered to dry my clothes. Great offer, save for the part where I was stuck in a room with a bunch of frightened children (thunder plus bloodthirsty monsters). Now, while I have more experience being a babied Little Brother, that doesn't mean I didn't have the opportunity to practice my Big Brother skills. Skills which I put to great use calming everyone down. A few humorously exaggerated stories from Beacon starring yours truly, and the children let go of their worries. They were fast asleep before long.

Which leaves me writing here, in this house, on a bed graciously provided by the mother of kids I'd helped calm down. Rain is still pattering outside, so this night I spend in the village, that is for sure.


Librarian had woken me up about an hour after the midnight, said that he'd had a "breakthrough" in whatever it was that he was doing. Apparently, he'd been going at it since midday (when I brought papers), so, if anything, that's kind of dedication worthy of respect.

Then he showed me a book. A glowing book. An enchanted book.

A great moment to expand on this enchanting stuff a little bit. From what I was told - and pieced together myself - enchanting is, at its base, improving aspects of any given item, often beyond the scope of what can be done with just ordinary efforts. Some non-specific examples that I'd been given were magically enhancing a tool to make it more wear-resistant, more durable, and allowing swords blades to self-heat themselves to the point where anything they touch bursts into flames. Basically, everything ranging from just good maintenance to stuff possible only with Dust and Semblances. The specific examples mentioned by librarian (the ones he recalled working with before) were an enchantment that allowed crossbows(!) to be charged with much less effort than normally would be required, and a curse that connected any given item to somebody's life force (or something like that), and would destroy the item if that life force ceased to be (aka death).

Continuing the comparison to Dust, there are several "levels" or magnitude to enchantment's effects, from minor to very noticeable, somewhat similarly to how Dust crystals are graded from "Civilian use" all the way to "Military/Huntsman use only". Or, well, were graded.

The takeaway from all of this is that I can potentially have armor that makes me as tough as an Ancient Grimm, and a sword that incinerates everything it touches. I may not be Ruby, but the prospect of that is still so cool! Not only cool, but necessary – without Aura and Semblance, I need to stack the odds in my favor.

Going back to the enchanted book I was shown, Inventory tagged it as "Fortune III (MAX)". The man himself was not 100% sure about the nature of this enchantment, only that it "affected tool efficiency" somehow. Naturally, I asked him if he could show me the ropes of what he was doing to get that book.

He just laughed and said "You wouldn't get it." On my insistence to, at the very least, explain why not, he started doing just that. What he had done is often called "Manual Enchanting". It pretty much involves a trial-and-error method of writing words and phrases in local language, putting some lapis lazuli nearby (apparently it conducts and empowers enchantments) and seeing if anything happens. If something does happen, then it's a good candidate for magic book creation, which is even more of an arduous process: you have to fill the entire book with the magical word/phrase – the more is written, the stronger the effect (up to a certain limit). The problem, librarian said, is that every single iteration has to be perfect – one slight imperfection, and the rest of the work is pretty much wasted, as only the words before the mistake count for enchantment strength.

So, in essence, the only thing holding me back is my inability to understand local language? I mistakenly thought it not that difficult of a task, but I was stopped from going down that thought path by the librarian. He himself admitted having inherited knowledge of the language, and said that even with that, it sometimes made zero sense. "For an "outsider" it would be a nearly-impossible task to begin understanding this language. Being able to comprehend even a few single words is a grand achievement – trying to go further than that will only lead to disappointment and madness". Those were his words.

Instead, he offered me a solution, a second way of getting things enchanted – through an Enchanting Table. While himself not very familiar with how exactly it works, he said, it's a very easy, fast and effective way of enchanting items without the need for books (though those can get enchanted too, of course), with the only downside being apparent randomness in enchantments themselves, as well as their power. I will admit it all sounded a bit too much like those "bad dish-washing liquid versus (brand name) – a BETTER alternative" commercials, but oh well.

And what do you know? System unlocked a recipe for the table almost instantly; I'll be checking it in the morning.

Having finished our talk, I gave him 20 emeralds for the book (a bit of a steep price, but, seeing how much effort was put into making it, it's warranted) - and only then it occurred to me to ask him how exactly I would be enchanting anything through this book. He just shrugged his shoulders and told me to consult with any kind of a craftsman, seeing how they were usually the ones to sell enchanted items.

Oh, and I also took that strange diary fragment too. I'll copy it into here in the morning.


Story has hit over 100 followers by the time I finished lazing around with this chapter. Approaching 10k views too.

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