Lord Dorchen’s day was not going well. He had ordered his idiot of a nephew executed. Which, of course, led to his wife throwing a fit (and his recently purchased Beskin vase). At least she eventually locked herself in her wing of the estate. Hopefully, she would stay there and not cause any other issues that he would have to deal with.
He didn’t understand why she cared so much, she should have understood why it had to happen. It’s not like he wanted to kill the man. Was he just supposed to ignore the idiocy that the bastard displayed? There was a limit to his sufferance, and even being exiled to an estate as far from Dorchester as possible, that imbecile was still causing problems.
He looked up from his status reports as the door to his office opened. Before his aide finished entering the room, Dorchen demanded, “Report!”
The aide gave a bow, then closed his eyes and activated his link. “The Ghost division took care of the merchant train. There were no survivors, and all evidence should point them toward a rogue Islangur raiding party. All links were reported destroyed, and they looted everything to add to the confusion. 100 men have been left to stave off questions. The volunteers accepted the suicide price.” the aide finished his report and opened his eyes.
Dorchen just nodded and sat in thought. The aide continued, “What are your orders in regards to the estate. The guards on duty knew that they should not have let the merchant stay in the house. Should they be disposed of? We can bring in some more from the other estates.”
Dorchen shook his head, “No, the men are loyal. It was my nephew that offered the merchant passage through the gate. None of this would have happened if he just let the caravan set up in the assigned guest areas. To think, my plans have been put in jeopardy because my 40 year old level 24 of a nephew couldn’t be bothered to WALK a mile to purchase furniture. Can you fathom how utterly clueless you have to be in order to not reach 30 by 40. If he had lived, he might not even have reached 50 before age caught him. To think a noble associated with the line of Dorchen was such a disappointment.” Dorchen’s shoulders sagged. Time was not on his side, this diversion might buy them a day or two at most. All of his plans had to be moved up; drastically moved up.
“Sir, I thought he was your wife’s sister’s kid? He wasn’t a Dorchen was he?” the aide asked curiously.
“What? No, he wasn’t in the direct line. But he was still family by association. It doesn’t matter. We have to push everything forward. How are the shipments for the Islangurs coming? There can be no trace left of what we were doing.” Dorchen asked with worry.
“The last of the shipments is ready to move, but it will take time to remove any traces of the production lines. As you know, the records have to be purged, molds destroyed, people paid to keep silent, or just silenced. It will be a few days.” the aide said.
“We may not have a few days. Just to be safe, start getting the plans for ‘Rebel House’ going. Don’t activate anything, just get it ready.” Dorchen replied.
‘Years of planning, falling apart because of a fat bastard who wanted to buy a chair’ he lamented.
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To find my dorm, all I had to do was look at the map included in my welcome packet. In the top left corner was my dorm number stapled to it. ‘Convenient. Staples are multi-dimensional,’ I noted.
I followed the map, and the third floor was easy to get to. The halls were filled with people, some standing in the hallway chatting and gossiping, others making their way about their day. It was very college like; I expected it to be more like an apartment building. Once I found my room, I examined the door. It was a dark wood with a white plaque with the number 3.18 in shiny black. ‘Ha… at least I’m close to 'pie',’ he thought.
Along the right side of the door, there was a thin clear crystal-like strip, which I guess is where I was supposed to place my chit. I leaned forward and held the chit to the crystal. The entire strip turned blue, and I heard a click.
Opening the door led to a room that was maybe 15ft x 10ft or around that. It had simple furniture, including a single bed, desk, closet; all the basics. The only thing of note was a small square mat taking up a corner. The over head lighting was nice, it looked like some kind of square that produced an omnidirectional calm light.
I figured the mat might be for meditation. It made sense that daily reflection would be a thing here. In the closet there were three neatly folded sets of clothes, underwear included. The robes were a muted beige color. There was even a cute diagram explaining how to wear them.
Maybe whatever job, or duty I signed up for in the future will earn me a cool color. But for now, standard beige will have to do.
‘Should I return this shirt to Captain Angelton? Eh… I’ll wash it and keep it as a spare.’ I decided. Maybe he’ll swing by sometime to check on me.
There was only one door which led to a large bathroom that was as long as the room. One side had a pretty big shower, the other a bath. I bet some study was done on bath-time reflecting being good for personal development. The sink had a small reusable box filled with a toothbrush and other sundries. The toilet looked like what I was used to, so no surprises there. Now that I’ve had some food, it looked like my digestion has been kick started. ‘Time to christen my kingdom,’ I thought as I went to do my business.
After I took care of my personal needs, I took a shower and tossed my clothes in a basket by the bathroom door. My boots were tossed at the closet. Wearing just a towel, I didn’t feel like putting on a robe, so I went to peruse my book while air drying. I noticed that the room had a window behind some curtains which was nice. ‘OK, let’s learn about identity. Is there an index listing for clock?’ I wondered.
There in fact WAS a listing in the index for the clock, it was under ‘time sense’. I saw that it was in the third chapter, so I figured I’d get to it, when I get to it.
The prologue was all drivel about how being an awakened is the start of your journey. Who you are is represented by your identity in a simple and easy to reference format. Learning to ‘feel’ and ‘understand’ your identity is a lifelong commitment, and an important part of your growth. All I really took away from the introduction was that it seems when you awaken, you are deepening your connection to the ‘essence of the world’ and your ‘identity’ is how the world sees you. The skills themselves are representations of your individual progress to mastering skills that exist for everyone, and are ‘carried on the essence’. I think I remember an eastern religion having something like that. ‘Wait, I remember this!’ I thought with excitement.
There was an anime that I used to watch that referenced the ‘Akashic record’. I remember looking it up to see what religion it came from.
I found out that it wasn’t from anything old if I remember correctly. The concept actually came from some new religion from the 1800’s. They said it came from something else, but it didn’t. It boiled down to something like ‘the sum of all knowledge is recorded in the ether, and can be accessed by people with high spirituality’. I was so pissed at the time. I went looking for a deep ancient revelation, and all I found was a relatively recent bunch of boring occultists.
Regardless, here there is something similar. This world has a ‘new age’ spiritual field that is everywhere and all knowing. ‘HAHA, they even use crystals!’ I snickered.
I was so amused, that I took a break to examine my chit. Yup, it’s still just a small piece of metal with a crystal in the middle. With a shrug, I returned to my reading.
Eventually, I ended up getting through a big chunk of the book, probably due to the fact that I tended to gloss over the ‘interpretations’ and ‘opinions’ of experts. I noticed that people here suck at extrapolating information.
From what I could tell, their version of analysis went something like: ‘we can prove conclusively that identity is merely a listing of your qualities’, therefore ‘3 pages of restating the same thing without any actual conjecture or offering conclusions’.
I had questions damn it. Can you only learn along prescribed paths? What happens if you learn incorrectly? What if you learn a crappy way to fold your laundry? Does practice matter?
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At least they had all of the proven facts listed clearly, with references in the back of the book to famous studies.
The section on leveling speeds was almost useless. While there were people who leveled extremely fast, getting to level 100 by 100 was very unlikely. The chart in the book said a ‘fast’ leveling speed could get a person to level 100 by the age of 1000. Whereas the ‘average’ leveling speed would put the level 100 age at 50121 years old, which was impossible according to the book. Someone could live to over 500, but their level would have to rise pretty quickly, and keep rising quickly. The term they used was ‘age creep’.
From the bunches of charts and curves, the time between levels continues to rise, but the rate of aging stays the same. So while a person slows their aging significantly during their early levels, as the time between levels rises, eventually the person in question begins aging faster than they are leveling. Once ‘age creep’ has overtaken leveling speed, people begin to visually age. So anyone who looks over 30 has been caught by ‘age creep’.
By the end of the chapter, I was completely confused. The charts showed that a person who leveled to 100 by 1000 was considered fast. 100 by 75 was considered very fast. 100 by 50000 would be average, and slow wasn’t even calculated to 100. The life expectancy charts were also confusing.
The faster you leveled, the slower you aged. That made sense in theory, but seeing the numbers made it confusing. For a very fast leveler, a person could take 1.39 years for their final level. While for an average leveler, it was 4555.6 years. Worse still, your leveling speed is not set, it varies as you go about your life. Every chart made sure to stress that these were observed averages, and were not to be considered factual.
The subject was depressing, but also interesting. Especially as there was a note that at level 100 ‘age creep’ is reset and you are reborn or something. The book didn’t elaborate, it just made the statement so that the charts in the book weren’t used for Tier 2 ‘age creep’ calculations.
Eventually, I decided that I wasn’t going to understand it. So, I’d just have to rely on a mirror to tell me how old I looked. ‘It worked for hollywood, it will work for me.’ I thought.
When I moved on to a new subject, I was both relieved and hopeful. Unfortunately, the section on traits was equally depressing, but in a completely different way.
I was damn-near heartbroken when I read the section on traits that you can acquire from mastering skills. The introduction to the section made traits sound like something to aim for. Yet, getting into specifics, I read the section twice because I figured I was missing something. I even checked my identity for traits and it turns out that I already had two.
Unique birth – You came to this world by facing the fires of reincarnation, rather than being ushered into a new life. Your soul is stronger for the experience.
New sight – Essence is new to you. Before you were blind, but now you can see. Variations in the world’s essence flow are easier to notice.
My golden finger is apparently just stating what already happened to me. The traits I got don’t seem to really DO anything.
Looking through the possible traits you could earn, all I could think was ‘traits suck’. For example, if you got a specific set of 25 essence skills above level 50, you could gain the ‘essence focused’. Although it sounded great, the text read as:
Essence Focused – You have immersed yourself in the essence of the world. You are able to stress your center more than before.
‘Well, that’s fucking useless. No percentage increase to magic damage? How about an increase in my mana pool or something?’ I thought to myself.
There was an entire chapter on traits and how to gain them. Not one of them looked particularly useful. ‘I’ll get them as I practice stuff. Considering my skills are like under 10, this isn’t something I need to worry about.’ I decided.
Near the end of the most useless book I had ever read, I did find something interesting. I learned that your identity didn’t receive information from the world. It was actually YOU who was receiving information. The world had an actual consciousness that had been born from all the sentient species that used this floating rock as a home. The world’s information was all around, and as a person interacted with it the resulting conversation was interpreted by the mind as a person’s ‘identity’.
Just by being part of the world, a person receives a language download from the ambient essence. Not to mention that anyone can ask the world what time it is, with nothing but a thought. Languages and times both updated in real time by region, but it seemed the mental translation was automatic. It was amazing. Every word spoken was translated and incorporated into the language, with the meaning carried alongside the sound.
‘I wonder what someone would hear if I called them some of the more oddly specific insults from back home. Would ‘bitch’ translate as ‘a female dog’ or would it be ‘a whiny person’ like I intended. Intention has to matter, right?…. And what about translations for acronyms? Or how about phrases like ‘checkmate’, do I say one word and then they get hit with an influx of context? Maybe I should write out a list of words to sneak into conversations, just to see what happens.’ Nero wondered to himself.
Luckily, the world didn’t seem to want anything. The consciousness was really just a collection of the floating essence of what most people believed. So if everyone in an area thought it was 5 in the morning when the sun is in a particular place in the sky, then everyone automatically knew that it was 5. So, the time was really just what slice of the 30 hour day was locally accepted. The concept was baffling.
I did think it was kind of cool that seconds, minutes, and hours were the same as what I was used to; at least as far as I could tell. The breakdown came from their central number to everything being 3. 3 aspects of a person: mind, body, and soul, held together by confluence. The whole thing about time being influenced by the world was mind-blowing.
It wasn’t even brainwashing or implanting knowledge, it was the soul equivalent of putting your hand in water to check the temp. You could get the basics of almost all knowledge if you could manage to immerse yourself in the ‘essence flow’. Although some things were easier than others to learn. According to the book, everyone could learn to communicate, gain an innate sense of time and direction, and an ability to sense and interact with essence.
I closed my eyes and leaned back in my chair, still only in my towel, and tried to open my senses. Like trying to listen to a conversation that was going on down the hall, I heard it. I didn’t HEAR it with my ears, it was more like I heard it in my head. There were no words, just a feeling that it was there.
‘I wonder how long I’ve been at this.’ I thought. Then, suddenly I knew it had been around 7 minutes. I also knew that it was around 9:45 right now. The day lasts 30 hours and there are 300 days a year. 3 really is a very important number here.
‘I swear if I find out that they worship triangles, I’m beating someone’s ass.’ I thought with a frown on my face.
On that note, I opened my eyes and decided to call it a day. I spread my towel out on the chair and walked over to my bed. I then realized that I had no idea how to turn off the lights. Looking around front door, I found a small crystal plate. When I touched it, it glowed a little. ‘Cool.’ I thought with a smile.
It worked like a dimmer slide. If I tapped it once, it turned on or off. If I slide my fingers up and down, I could change the brightness. ‘Learn something new everyday.’ I thought. ‘THAT would be a great t-shirt idea for this world.’
Taking a look around the room, I couldn’t find an alarm clock. Without any better ideas, I figured I’d check the welcome packet before I went downstairs to the front desk. ‘I really don’t want to get dressed, just to go ask for how to set an alarm’ I thought as I flipped to the section on room amenities. Apparently, the default room alarm goes off at 6. The alarm can be personalized and changed by accessing the room station through the link.
‘Well, 6 should work. I don’t have to be at Nick’s until… did Mrs. Salvatore tell me what time I was supposed to be at Nicks?’ I wondered. ‘Eh, whatever. I’ll get there when I get there.’ I thought, while putting tomorrow’s problems in tomorrow’s inbox for future Nero to deal with.
As I laid down and tried to shut off my brain, My mind went over my first day in this weird world. ‘Last night I was in another world. I died this morning, then took a ride on the after life express, then I stole a body. Now I’m at a learning institution called ‘The Center’. And despite sounding like a haven for super villains, The Center isn’t evil. Instead, it’s filled with new age spiritualists on personal journeys of self-discovery and growth. In fact, the only evil I’ve seen since I got here is the massacre that I woke up to. Wait a minute. If everyone here is so into personal development and what-not, then why the hell is there a war going on?’ I wondered.
Forcefully banishing the thoughts about complicated manners, I resumed my attempt to sleep. Sighing, I focused on things that I cared about as I slipped into Morpheus’ embrace ‘That girl earlier in the market really did have a nice ass. That Heather was pretty cute too, but she’s probably 50. eh, focus on the ass.’ I thought as I drifted peacefully into sleep.