I also thought that hopefully, I would be able to return home before long. As such, worrying too much about the long term consequences of my actions didn’t make much sense. And even if it came to that, there was always next year’s Book Fair.
I hunted for a good bargain for a while longer. There were many Rank Two grimoires for sale along with the Rank One grimoires, though I hadn’t seen a single Rank Three - likely because they were locked up somewhere given how valuable and dangerous they were. Not to mention they would be far, far out of my budget range anyway.
The second grimoire I bought was another one that boosted Luck - I was still not sure if all the Luck boosts I was getting actually helped in any way to enhance my overall luck in life, but I figured I may as well commit to the bit for now. If it didn’t pan out, I would just fix it later.
Not to mention, since they weren’t in high demand (which kind of countered my own theory because if they did boost your fortune way more people would want them) they were also relatively cheap.
This grimoire was a collection of jokes and was sold by a rabbitman. Although fully grown, he was only slightly over four feet tall, and on first glance his face looked very deformed though I quickly realized that was just his rabbit features.
Two ears sprouted from the top of his head, and though I was taken aback by his appearance he was quite friendly as he read out the grimoire for me.
As it was a collection of jokes, unfortunately it made very little sense to me. Take for example: “Two hunters go into the forest to catch a raccoon they were hunting. The raccoon runs up a tree and hides there, only to run into a monkey. The monkey, angry, knocks the raccoon off the tree and it falls into the lap of one of the hunters. The hunter, however, tosses it away. The other hunter wonders why he’d do such a thing, to which the first hunter replies, ‘I ate too much fruit this morning.’”
The rabbitman stopped reading just so that he could start laughing for nearly a minute before he continued with the translation. “Sorry, that was quite a knee-slapper back where I’m from, I’d actually forgotten how funny this was…”
I hadn’t seen a grimoire written this way before - it seemed to just be a collection of unrelated jokes. From my experience making grimoires, just writing multiple unrelated paragraphs would mean that you were nearly guaranteed to fail.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
Perhaps there was some semblance of structure to these jokes that tied them together? And maybe I just couldn’t figure out what it was due to the language barrier?
Still, even though it was quite confusing, I memorized the grimoire and it vanished, finally filling all thirty of my Rank One slots!
As of now, this is what my slots were filled with:
1. Polonius Advises Laertes which gave +1 to Wisdom
2. Sonnet 95 which gave +1 to my mana bar
3. An essay on the properties of water that granted [Create Water] as a spell
4. A similar essay on the properties of fire that granted [Create Flame] as a spell
5. A short summary of the major organ systems of the human body that granted [Soothe Wounds], a weak healing spell
6. An essay on basic geometry that gave +1 to my mana bar
7. The poem Rose had written about Cheddar that gave +1 to Luck
8. An essay on probability, that gave +1 to my mana bar
9. An essay on poker that gave +1 to Luck
10. An essay on dice games and gambling that gave +1 to Luck
11. A grimoire I had traded from Rob that gave [Minor Poison Resistance]
12. A poem I had written back in high school on how much I loved drinking coffee, which gave +1 to Resistance
13. A description of America’s political system that gave +1 to Wisdom
14. A poem I had gotten from Rose that gave +1 to my mana bar (I had exchanged Sonnet 95 with her to get this)
15. An essay on farming that gave the [Green Thumb] passive ability, that helped with farming and otherwise growing plants
16. A description of how soap was made and worked, that gave the [Clean] spell
17. An essay on various properties of triangles that gave +1 to my mana bar
18. A description of Newton’s Three Laws of Motion that gave +1 to Speed
19. A grimoire I had gotten from one of my other coworkers that gave +1 to Charisma
20. An essay on how the stock market worked that gave +1 to Luck
21. A brief history of Egypt that gave +1 to Resistance
22. A description of basic Game Theory that gave +1 to Luck
23. A description of Lanchester’s Law that gave +1 to Wisdom
24. A description of how ranged weapons had evolved from the common bow and arrow to the modern gun that gave +1 to Attack
25. The essay I had written on the sea that gave the [Poissonnier] ability
26. A description of how modern banks worked that gave +1 to Luck
27. A summary of The Wizard of Oz that granted [Wizard’s Blessing], a passive ability that let you cast a single spell once a day completely free of its mana cost
28. A description of electronics that granted [Shock Stun]
29. The grimoire I had bought that needed to be written on scented paper that let you cast [Fragrance]
30. The grimoire of jokes I had bought that gave +1 to Luck
In terms of levels, I had completed everything I needed to at level ten, and would now need a Rank Two grimoire in order to ‘level up’ to level eleven. Reading more Rank One grimoires would not do anything for me anymore when it came to increasing levels - and in case I did find an interesting one that I wanted to have, I’d have to erase one of the above to accommodate the new one.