Sun read a lot, thanks to the help of the Woodland elf whose name was Vallos he got to learn information. Information that he didn’t know about before, whether it was about the culture of surrounding monsters — apex predators, and small critters alike — or about their evolutions and biological needs and habits. It was enlightening and enthralling to him, he could just learn things by reading about them and not experiencing them?
He used the aid of the elf to continuously read the Book of Monsters, however, unfortunately the elf was weaker than him and couldn’t stay awake. But thankfully, the annoying ball light companion Glim, was now able to do things thanks to now being a winged being, one made out of a strange material. But asking it to flip the pages, with some small amount of meaningless and pointless praise got it moving.
[Ah, you sure are helpless without me!] It would comment before turning each page.
Sun had learned to tune the annoying thing out, but it was very easy to coerce into doing things thankfully. So that was nice to him. It was certainly useful to him. With that in mind, he had stopped calling upon the elf and started enlisting Glim’s help.
His heart still missed Blair, wherever she was, he missed Blair’s Patron a bit less, but he just missed having truly familiar figures around. In the end, all he could do was turn to reading. And read he did, he consumed the Book of Monsters in just three days. It was a thick book with hundreds upon hundreds of pages, and yet it didn’t matter to him. He learnt a lot, observed a lot within it, and made his own theories.
He had seen his own species within the book.
Fangerythr, a subspecies of the Fang family. He had read about his supposed evolutions, what would happen once he eventually reached C grade, but it wasn’t particularly useful. He would just grow bigger and stronger as expected.
Maybe if he was lucky his evolution would allow him to branch into another subspecies. That wasn’t particularly important, the interesting thing was how the book was written. Half of it was akin to an encyclopedia, enlisting all of the Monsters that Sun had ever seen plus a couple dozen that he had never observed. The other half however, was full of notes, theories about monsters and their evolutions.
That was the thing that piqued Sun’s interest. The things he could learn and observe from the notes were staggering. From experiments regarding Feat gains, whether Feats would influence a Monster’s evolution, to other stranger things.
And then, at the end with a bloodied page it said it.
An Evolution is an stimulation of the being, if one has the right things at their disposal, Monster, Human, or any type of sentient being. If one has the right tools at their disposal, the right mana crystals intentions and frequency they can change their form.
Humans may be able to attach wings, tail, claws. They might be able to change their forms altogether. Same goes for monsters. It is possible that the vast System offers skills, ways to change our own being.
I heard of a Legendary Ranked Skill called Metamorphosis. I’ve spent all of my life trying to obtain it but to no avail. Nonetheless, I have made exciting discoveries.
The book ended like that. Sun was a bit enthralled with the Alchemist’s research if he was being completely honest with himself. That said, once he ended he just re-read it, but it wasn’t as intriguing nor as interesting, he already knew its contents.
And once more, Sun was bored. Sun was lonely, but this time he could deal with it calmly.
◇ ◇ ◇
The Vexvine wailed thrashed in pain, its fleshy extended limbs burned, its wings shook as they were gnawed away, eaten mercilessly stripped from them. With a red slash, it was beheaded. Sun let out a deep breath as he ignored the notifications of the stupid Guardian. The stupid thing had requested assistance a couple of times, but so what? It was dead, and he won.
He wasn’t dealing with it calmly. Or even close to calmly. He had killed how many of the stupid things—
Thirteen by now? Of course, now he had some sort of goal, a specific thing to reach for. Sun sighed as he saw his level go up, it was a bit of a rare thing by now. The Guardians and their nests were getting more and more annoying to find, but he managed. He had been killing them left and right without a care in the world, but now he feared.
He had found a grand total of zero books in their chests. Zero. Nil. None. No books to read no matter how many of the fuckers he killed. He didn’t want a shiny pointy stick like Blair’s, he didn’t want some armor that he couldn’t use, he had even grown tired of eating the stupid potions! Sure they were nice, but he wanted to absorb knowledge.
With a bated breath Sun approached the chest and he smacked it open with an empowered attack. The wood splintered, flew away, and inside there were the potions he had grown used to seeing, but there was something else. Two rectangles, two—
TWO BOOKS.
His tail wagged in excitement. He had struggled so long and finally, at last, his efforts had been rewarded. The Voice of God, The System, had answered his calls at last.
[The Drowned (Rare Item) — A tale of danger, a tale of love, a tale of bonds and tragedy. Written by the famous Novelist, Mel. D. when witnessing his world’s destruction.]
[Planetary Encyclopedia: Selia Edition (Epic Item) — An Encyclopedia with all the data and grades within the Selia Super Star Cluster Region, penned by an avid explorer whose name has been lost to the sands of time.]
He didn’t know what to make of them, but nonetheless he ate the potions, and snatched the books away from the chest. He could read new things soon, he didn’t exactly care about the topics covered, he just wanted to read. He wanted information.
With that in mind, Sun returned happily. The rubbles and fires of destruction inside the cave he was in did not cross his mind. The slaughtered corpses were nothing but background decor for him as he headed to the exit.
Soon I will be able to read more.
Happily, and ignoring the burning forest fires, he returned.
◇ ◇ ◇
Sun had decided to read the Encyclopedia first, at least he sort of understood what it was about. The Drowned started a bit odd by describing a woman, he didn’t care for no woman, he just needed information. So he read the Encyclopedia first which was more to the point.
There he found out about how large planets were, the star systems, the asteroid belts, star clusters and finally regions. He found the so-called Fractured Region in the Star Cluster, a place where most planets were destroyed and only two remained. Two that were in perpetual war with each other. He read about the Planet of Legacy, home of the Empire, the A Grade planet.
He read about the Crimson Stretch, a deadly planet filled to the brim with dark plants. A place to avoid a danger zone. He read about the Lueya Asteroid Belt, home to those planets.
He even read about places called islands. Things akin to planets but closer to small asteroids that could host bustling cities and life. Though not as big, they tended to be rarer than planets themselves, since powerful figures made them their home.
It was all very interesting to him, and the book was thick.
He spent multiple days digesting the information about planets, about their hostile climates, or seemingly non-hospitable environments. Places where Ice rained all day, where thunder struck sideways, it didn’t make sense to him, but he noted it nonetheless.
Sun absorbed and absorbed until he ran out of book content. Just when it was talking about the rifts, it only said they were paths to other Regions, to other Super Star Clusters. He wanted to know about the Mythos Super Star Cluster, he wanted to know about the place called The Crucible, but instead there was just no book.
And finally, with some hesitation, he turned to the other book.
The Drowned.
It was a tale, supposedly.
◇ ◇ ◇
Argar looked into Elis’ eyes from afar. “I won’t stop struggling, because I love you, Elis. I fight for you. I regret leaving that time. So… I plan to make up for it.”
Shortly thereafter Argar died.
Sun stared wide eyed at the end of the book. Why was his heart beating so fast? What had he just read in a day? What was that thing? He barked and growled at the cursed text. Why did he feel so much pain, so much heartache, why did he feel like crying for Elis. What was that thing!? He couldn’t comprehend it. He just wanted to read to find out things.
He didn’t want to feel things. Sun tumbled and went away, he gave the book a look but shook his head. He would destroy it later, surely.
◇ ◇ ◇
Elis stared at Argar. “Please don’t leave. I am nothing without you.”
“You will achieve great things, Elis.” Argar turned.
With those parting words, they separated as the meteorite loomed over their city.
Sun felt pain reading and yet he wouldn’t stop. What was this magical love thing, he understood love. He loved Blair, he loved his kin, but this love was different. This one could cause them to lose all sense of reason, and yet he wouldn’t stop reading. He found it magical. The connection between Argar and Elis, how Argar helped Elis and how Elis lifted Argar to be better. Sun couldn’t get enough.
He needed to read more—
[Hey, I found some books in the bedroom!] Glim called.
Sun in an instant shot up and ran towards the back room. Where indeed, the flying metal thing Glim was hovering over some books. He inspected them once more, and he saw the word tale— he had to read them all.
◇ ◇ ◇
Sun consumed, devoured the books. One after another he read voraciously. He laughed, he cried, his heart fluttered, pounded, he felt happy, sad, all — a myriad of emotions that he had experienced before, but not so fervently, nor as often. He read and read, specially the tales of love, he wanted to understand what drove them— the connection they formed.
What made them ignore the need to procreate, what was that intimate bond that they had? Days passed as he read, he lost track of time as he re-consumed, re-read certain books and removed others for being insincere, or illogical. And soon, he was satisfied he had a collection of five love books that he found to be true, to be studied.
Nothing was better than The Drowned, so he would read it once a week. And this time, as he was reading, he felt a weird sense of foreboding. He stood up and pushed the book aside, and at that moment, with a bright flash, four figures emerged. He saw a familiar face, Elasia.
Then—
[The Light Maker. Lvl. 232]
[Lumina, the Dark Calamity. Lvl. 599]
His heart jumped. He was going to die! But then he saw her.
[Realm Breaker. Lvl 106]
It was Blair. His aching heart calmed all at once as he rushed towards her. The loneliness in his heart quelled as relief overtook him. Her face lit up as they hugged, and Sun felt relief. Finally, his pack leader was back.
At last.
Sun read a lot, thanks to the help of the Woodland elf whose name was Vallos he got to learn information. Information that he didn’t know about before, whether it was about the culture of surrounding monsters — apex predators, and small critters alike — or about their evolutions and biological needs and habits. It was enlightening and enthralling to him, he could just learn things by reading about them and not experiencing them?
He used the aid of the elf to continuously read the Book of Monsters, however, unfortunately the elf was weaker than him and couldn’t stay awake. But thankfully, the annoying ball light companion Glim, was now able to do things thanks to now being a winged being, one made out of a strange material. But asking it to flip the pages, with some small amount of meaningless and pointless praise got it moving.
[Ah, you sure are helpless without me!] It would comment before turning each page.
Sun had learned to tune the annoying thing out, but it was very easy to coerce into doing things thankfully. So that was nice to him. It was certainly useful to him. With that in mind, he had stopped calling upon the elf and started enlisting Glim’s help.
His heart still missed Blair, wherever she was, he missed Blair’s Patron a bit less, but he just missed having truly familiar figures around. In the end, all he could do was turn to reading. And read he did, he consumed the Book of Monsters in just three days. It was a thick book with hundreds upon hundreds of pages, and yet it didn’t matter to him. He learnt a lot, observed a lot within it, and made his own theories.
He had seen his own species within the book.
Fangerythr, a subspecies of the Fang family. He had read about his supposed evolutions, what would happen once he eventually reached C grade, but it wasn’t particularly useful. He would just grow bigger and stronger as expected.
Maybe if he was lucky his evolution would allow him to branch into another subspecies. That wasn’t particularly important, the interesting thing was how the book was written. Half of it was akin to an encyclopedia, enlisting all of the Monsters that Sun had ever seen plus a couple dozen that he had never observed. The other half however, was full of notes, theories about monsters and their evolutions.
That was the thing that piqued Sun’s interest. The things he could learn and observe from the notes were staggering. From experiments regarding Feat gains, whether Feats would influence a Monster’s evolution, to other stranger things.
And then, at the end with a bloodied page it said it.
An Evolution is an stimulation of the being, if one has the right things at their disposal, Monster, Human, or any type of sentient being. If one has the right tools at their disposal, the right mana crystals intentions and frequency they can change their form.
Humans may be able to attach wings, tail, claws. They might be able to change their forms altogether. Same goes for monsters. It is possible that the vast System offers skills, ways to change our own being.
I heard of a Legendary Ranked Skill called Metamorphosis. I’ve spent all of my life trying to obtain it but to no avail. Nonetheless, I have made exciting discoveries.
The book ended like that. Sun was a bit enthralled with the Alchemist’s research if he was being completely honest with himself. That said, once he ended he just re-read it, but it wasn’t as intriguing nor as interesting, he already knew its contents.
And once more, Sun was bored. Sun was lonely, but this time he could deal with it calmly.
◇ ◇ ◇
The Vexvine wailed thrashed in pain, its fleshy extended limbs burned, its wings shook as they were gnawed away, eaten mercilessly stripped from them. With a red slash, it was beheaded. Sun let out a deep breath as he ignored the notifications of the stupid Guardian. The stupid thing had requested assistance a couple of times, but so what? It was dead, and he won.
He wasn’t dealing with it calmly. Or even close to calmly. He had killed how many of the stupid things—
Thirteen by now? Of course, now he had some sort of goal, a specific thing to reach for. Sun sighed as he saw his level go up, it was a bit of a rare thing by now. The Guardians and their nests were getting more and more annoying to find, but he managed. He had been killing them left and right without a care in the world, but now he feared.
He had found a grand total of zero books in their chests. Zero. Nil. None. No books to read no matter how many of the fuckers he killed. He didn’t want a shiny pointy stick like Blair’s, he didn’t want some armor that he couldn’t use, he had even grown tired of eating the stupid potions! Sure they were nice, but he wanted to absorb knowledge.
With a bated breath Sun approached the chest and he smacked it open with an empowered attack. The wood splintered, flew away, and inside there were the potions he had grown used to seeing, but there was something else. Two rectangles, two—
TWO BOOKS.
His tail wagged in excitement. He had struggled so long and finally, at last, his efforts had been rewarded. The Voice of God, The System, had answered his calls at last.
[The Drowned (Rare Item) — A tale of danger, a tale of love, a tale of bonds and tragedy. Written by the famous Novelist, Mel. D. when witnessing his world’s destruction.]
[Planetary Encyclopedia: Selia Edition (Epic Item) — An Encyclopedia with all the data and grades within the Selia Super Star Cluster Region, penned by an avid explorer whose name has been lost to the sands of time.]
He didn’t know what to make of them, but nonetheless he ate the potions, and snatched the books away from the chest. He could read new things soon, he didn’t exactly care about the topics covered, he just wanted to read. He wanted information.
With that in mind, Sun returned happily. The rubbles and fires of destruction inside the cave he was in did not cross his mind. The slaughtered corpses were nothing but background decor for him as he headed to the exit.
Soon I will be able to read more.
Happily, and ignoring the burning forest fires, he returned.
◇ ◇ ◇
Sun had decided to read the Encyclopedia first, at least he sort of understood what it was about. The Drowned started a bit odd by describing a woman, he didn’t care for no woman, he just needed information. So he read the Encyclopedia first which was more to the point.
There he found out about how large planets were, the star systems, the asteroid belts, star clusters and finally regions. He found the so-called Fractured Region in the Star Cluster, a place where most planets were destroyed and only two remained. Two that were in perpetual war with each other. He read about the Planet of Legacy, home of the Empire, the A Grade planet.
He read about the Crimson Stretch, a deadly planet filled to the brim with dark plants. A place to avoid a danger zone. He read about the Lueya Asteroid Belt, home to those planets.
He even read about places called islands. Things akin to planets but closer to small asteroids that could host bustling cities and life. Though not as big, they tended to be rarer than planets themselves, since powerful figures made them their home.
It was all very interesting to him, and the book was thick.
He spent multiple days digesting the information about planets, about their hostile climates, or seemingly non-hospitable environments. Places where Ice rained all day, where thunder struck sideways, it didn’t make sense to him, but he noted it nonetheless.
Sun absorbed and absorbed until he ran out of book content. Just when it was talking about the rifts, it only said they were paths to other Regions, to other Super Star Clusters. He wanted to know about the Mythos Super Star Cluster, he wanted to know about the place called The Crucible, but instead there was just no book.
And finally, with some hesitation, he turned to the other book.
The Drowned.
It was a tale, supposedly.
◇ ◇ ◇
Argar looked into Elis’ eyes from afar. “I won’t stop struggling, because I love you, Elis. I fight for you. I regret leaving that time. So… I plan to make up for it.”
Shortly thereafter Argar died.
Sun stared wide eyed at the end of the book. Why was his heart beating so fast? What had he just read in a day? What was that thing? He barked and growled at the cursed text. Why did he feel so much pain, so much heartache, why did he feel like crying for Elis. What was that thing!? He couldn’t comprehend it. He just wanted to read to find out things.
He didn’t want to feel things. Sun tumbled and went away, he gave the book a look but shook his head. He would destroy it later, surely.
◇ ◇ ◇
Elis stared at Argar. “Please don’t leave. I am nothing without you.”
“You will achieve great things, Elis.” Argar turned.
With those parting words, they separated as the meteorite loomed over their city.
Sun felt pain reading and yet he wouldn’t stop. What was this magical love thing, he understood love. He loved Blair, he loved his kin, but this love was different. This one could cause them to lose all sense of reason, and yet he wouldn’t stop reading. He found it magical. The connection between Argar and Elis, how Argar helped Elis and how Elis lifted Argar to be better. Sun couldn’t get enough.
He needed to read more—
[Hey, I found some books in the bedroom!] Glim called.
Sun in an instant shot up and ran towards the back room. Where indeed, the flying metal thing Glim was hovering over some books. He inspected them once more, and he saw the word tale— he had to read them all.
◇ ◇ ◇
Sun consumed, devoured the books. One after another he read voraciously. He laughed, he cried, his heart fluttered, pounded, he felt happy, sad, all — a myriad of emotions that he had experienced before, but not so fervently, nor as often. He read and read, specially the tales of love, he wanted to understand what drove them— the connection they formed.
What made them ignore the need to procreate, what was that intimate bond that they had? Days passed as he read, he lost track of time as he re-consumed, re-read certain books and removed others for being insincere, or illogical. And soon, he was satisfied he had a collection of five love books that he found to be true, to be studied.
Nothing was better than The Drowned, so he would read it once a week. And this time, as he was reading, he felt a weird sense of foreboding. He stood up and pushed the book aside, and at that moment, with a bright flash, four figures emerged. He saw a familiar face, Elasia.
Then—
[The Light Maker. Lvl. 232]
[Lumina, the Dark Calamity. Lvl. 599]
His heart jumped. He was going to die! But then he saw her.
[Realm Breaker. Lvl 106]
It was Blair. His aching heart calmed all at once as he rushed towards her. The loneliness in his heart quelled as relief overtook him. Her face lit up as they hugged, and Sun felt relief. Finally, his pack leader was back.
At last.
