When I get back to the library, I find Croce just about finishing her book. Did she stay awake the whole night?

Deciding that it’ll be better not to disturb her, I wait for her to read to the end. And while I’m waiting, I might as well peruse the selection of books.

Sure, I can’t actually understand them, but that doesn’t stop me from familiarizing myself with the script. Similarly, to what I did with the ritual stones by the Void hole, I carefully study the words within a random book, identifying patterns.

Thankfully, Croce’s speed-reading skill, or something like that, must be extremely high level, because just a few minutes later I’m interrupted.

“Can you even read that?” she asks.

“No, not exactly. But getting familiar with the written word will help me once you start teaching me.” Yeah, good one Ra’mon. An explanation along with implying she’ll teach you, all rolled in one.

Which sort of has the intended effect. She grins, as if already thinking about teaching me. Then, she turns and gestured for me to follow her.

“Fancy something to eat?”

“Very much so,” I reply, “the last time I ate was before my unfortunate encounter with Mr. Douche. I was actually just making lunch when we met.”

“Ha, Mr. Douche! Now there’s a new one! Though I’d recommend not being so casual with calling him that. Bastard can be petty.”

“Um, sure.”

Is he someone important? Has to be, otherwise he wouldn’t have the opportunity to be so petty. Or at least he’s powerful. Then again, he does have that bodyguard accompany him everywhere, so perhaps not.

As we walk to a canteen we talk along the way. About some unimportant stuff, but she also elaborates on what my deal with the stone giant actually entails.

Who is indeed the ruler of this floating mountain. And their name is Orok’Kove. But that’s beside the point right now.

It would seem that depending on my luck, I may have severely underestimated the length of time I’d have to stay here. Because traits are apparently not that easy to work with.

Similarly, to skills, they can be upgraded by something similar to great feats. Except that you don’t necessarily keep the old one. And the upgraded version could be something similar but greater or, in extreme cases, something seemingly completely unrelated.

Thankfully, most resistance skills have a set path on which to progress. Resistance is also not the starting point for this kind of trait, that being something more along the lines of adaptation. And the far end point is most often complete immunity, though that’s mostly spoken of only in legend.

Then again, with how much fiction has already proven to be reality, I wouldn’t be that surprised if beings with complete immunities do, in fact, exist.

Anyway, after that she outlined some general training plans.

We’d start with exploring what the skill actually helps resist. Once we have that down, we’ll move on to pushing the limits of what it can do. And, id that doesn’t work, we’ll try some more out of the box thinking methods.

But for all that, we’ll need a source of Cognito-hazards. Actually, while I’m on that topic, what even is a Cognito-hazard?”

“Hey, Croce?” I ask. By now we’ve had breakfast, or whatever the time is, and are heading back to the library.

At her questioning hum, I ask my question. “What actually is a Cognito-hazard? Like, I know that the aura surrounding the eldritch creatures counts, but what is it?”

“That’s the question, isn’t it? If we knew that, we wouldn’t have to ask for your help. At least now we have a name to go off of.”

Shit, that’s not good. If we’ll have to figure this out truly from scratch this could take even years!

“Cognito-hazard, when divided into its component words, is cognition and hazard. I hope you know what a hazard is, and cognition is more or less the process of learning, of acquiring knowledge.

From that we can infer that either it is something that blocks your ability to acquire information, or that the information acquired is dangerous in and of itself.”

Huh, that’s sort of unexpected. But not really? It does fit into the whole idea of eldritchness. But it never would have occurred to me that there could be two explanations behind it.

Most people even vaguely familiar with the concept would probably lean towards the second option. Something about the Void and its creatures being so alien that even perceiving them or being in their presence twists the mind.

The other option… it’s unorthodox. I suppose it’d function more of a total sensory deprivation? But that, by itself, doesn’t seem enough to cause someone to go insane.

Oh well, that’s why we’ll be experimenting after all.

This does bring me back to how to even begin experimenting though. We’re going to need a source of this effect. And the only one I know of is the Void, more specifically the scroonusi and the summoning ritual.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

The first option is obviously out of the question. And telling them about that ritual… well, let’s just say I’d rather avoid it. I have the feeling they’d rather destroy it that experiment with it. Maybe if we don’t make any progress, I’ll consider it.

Once back at the library, Croce turns to me.

“Alright, so. I’m going to need to do some research to figure out how to begin. You, on the other hand, will have a long and hard think about what gave you the trait in the first place.” And she’s gone.

Great, what do I do now? I already know how I got it and I’m for sure not telling. She could have at least given me a short lesson on the local language. Or anything, really. I still know too little about the System.

Not left with much else to do, I enter meditation and continue my attempts at creating a mental world.

Time quickly passes and Croce returns. Along with a giant stack of books. Books that are of a similar size to the gigantic tome from yesterday.

“So, come up with anything?” she asks me expectantly.

I just shake my head and stare at the pile of books in her hands. I really hope she first teaches me something before diving into reading all that. I shudder just thinking about being stuck waiting while she reads through all that.

Noticing my gaze, she replies, “Yeah, we’re going to go through all of that.”

“We?”

“Yes, we. Did you think I forgot about teaching you? Think of this as some light reading to learn the language.” She passes me the two top most books. “One of those is what you’ll be combing over. The other one is a special dictionary. It should help you get started.”

“This is nice and all, but a dictionary won’t be that useful. Without a translation I won’t learn much… from… it.” As I open said dictionary, a strange feeling similar to double vision assaults me. The words in the book aren’t just simple words. Somehow, they have meaning imbued in them and simply looking at it is enough for me to comprehend it.

“Oh. This will be useful.”

“Ha! You bet it will. Now get to it. Try to finish before I’m done with the rest.”

For a brief moment I just stare in stunned silence. But then I see her start reading, turning pages much faster than should be possible to read the contents.

Right, I forgot about that. Better get to it the. Don’t want to be beaten by an old granny. Admittedly, a granny with superpowers, but… actually, there’s not but there.

I sit down at another table, both books open in front of me. Now’s the time for my level 46 languages skill to truly shine.

At first, it’s really slow. I have to look up every single word, which isn’t very time efficient. Fortunately, through a combination of my high skill with languages, fortified and superhuman mind, I can memorize words much more quickly. Even parallel processing and visualize help, allowing me to keep a couple more words, that I don’t yet have memorized, in the back of my mind.

Sure, it still takes a while and I still have to look up words pretty frequently, but about half way through the book my reading speed has reached an acceptable level. Nothing compared to Croce, but still unbelievable for someone who just started learning the language.

The book itself isn’t that interesting and only tangentially related to Cognito-hazards.

At some point I even enter a sort of meditation, or perhaps trance, that helps me even more. I suppose I do have a skill set suited for getting more and more knowledge.

Speaking of knowledge, let me take a short break and use general knowledge. Last time I remember it was around level 48.

A universal thesaurus for the Aztifikian language. It is imbued with a special affect, allowing all to understand the contents.

I knew that much. Though it’s nice to know how the language itself is called. Weird decision not to put that into the book.

Also, small side note. I’ve really been underutilizing this part of the skill. Yeah, it’s a weird addition to my life, even stranger than the System and magic, but it’s really useful. I’ll have to build a habit of identifying things.

Anyway, break over. Croce it on her last book and I still have a couple dozen pages to go. Better dive back into it.

In the end, I wasn’t able to beat her. No matter, I’m sure once I’ve lived with the System for a couple decades too, I’ll be similarly capable.

“Did you find anything useful? My book was almost entirely useless, something about strange animal behaviour or something.”

She sighs, “No, I’m afraid not. I fear we’ll have to involve one of the mages. But I’ll give it a few more days. There’s got to at least a lead somewhere in this library.”

Before I have a chance to say much, she’s off again. Seriously, how is she that fast?

Except that this time I don’t have to peruse the books blindly and can choose one that actually interests me. Like, for example, something about the System.

Before I manage to find one, Croce returns holding another stack of about a dozen books.

“I think I remember you wanting information on the System, right?”

“Uh, yeah. As much as you have, if possible. For now, just the basics though.”

She hands me one of the books. It’s much thinner than the other ones. “Yeah, I thought so. That there is an introduction to the System and most of its functions.”

“Cool, thanks! I’ll guess I’ll start with this then.”

The book opens with a very straightforward sentence.

We don’t know much about the System. What it is, where it comes from and how it does what it does are all mysteries. What we do know is based mostly on observation. With all that said, here are some basic things we know.

A bit disappointing, but it’s fine. Not like I need to know exactly what the System is. Mostly, I just need to know what it does. Like, for example, skills.

I have that more or less figure out. All I need to know is if there’s a limit on skills. And if there are other surprises like great feats and tiers.

It starts of pretty simple with an introduction to the System and some simple description of its parts. The stats describe you, your skill what you can do and similar stuff.

After that, it goes into a bit more depth into the mechanics.

The name sections, for example, is quite sparse. It mostly consists of stuff I already know, like that you can change it. Not exactly whenever you want, but it’s close enough. What surprises me a bit is the fact that apparently, it’s possible for it to change against your will. It doesn’t say under what circumstances, but it’s still concerning.

Similar things are written about the stats too, though it’s all very vague and not informative. An interesting thing I take note of is that there isn’t a section on traits. Does that mean that that isn’t a basic function?

And lastly, it arrives at skills. The whole process of acquiring one is described, along with a disclaimer that just because you don’t have the skill doesn’t mean you can’t do something.

After that it explains great feats, though there isn’t much I hadn’t already inferred.

Lastly, at the very end, there is a small section, barely a paragraph, talking about limits. Limits on how many skills you can have. Which is, technically, an infinite number. But only technically.

Apparently, once you breach an indeterminate number of them, most of your skills begin to level much more slowly. And then there’s the other thing. The difference between your highest and lowest tier can’t be bigger than one. So, to achieve tier three skills, I’ll have to get all the ones I already have to the second tier.

Which just brings more questions to my mind. Like, why would I so desperately want higher tier skills?