The store was pretty plain for what it was. Not a lot of interior decorating or fancy materials. It looked just like any other small store. If you ignored the two massive shelves of books. Together they they separated the store into three isles. I'm currently facing the middle one. In the right corner is a singular reading chair, barely illuminated by the light spilling in from the window.
At the opposite end of the store is a desk. This desk had a person passed out on it, Their blond hair spilling out over the desk. I'd rather not wake them, so I'll try to be quiet while browsing the books.
And oh man the books. Just a glance told me these books held power, power in the form of knowledge. I decided to start on the left side, for no particular reason. It only took a few minutes to find a book that stood out to me.
[The Big Book of Weird and Wacky Skills]. It sounds childish, I know. I'm still taking it. All the books exude knowledge like it's a Skill, all except for this one. I pull it out of it's little corner only to nearly drop it on my foot. Holy shit it's heavy! Is it made of metal or something?
"Tap tap" Yes. Yes it is.
A normal person probably wouldn't even be able to lift it off the ground.
I browse the middle isle next, nothing catches my eye. I move on. The last isle, the right one. A few books catch my eye here, and after a bit of deliberation, I chose [How to acquire Skills]. Seems simple enough, and the only Skills I've managed to acquire I wasn't trying to get.
I have to stand on my tip-toes to reach it, but in the end I do manage to get it off the shelf. Even it I had to strain to reach that high.
"Snicker" I whip around in the direction of the sound, red beginning to creep into my face. The only one in sight is the person asleep at their desk. I narrow my eyes at them accusingly.
"Did you just laugh at me?"
"..."
"..No."
"I can hear the barely held back laughter in your voice."
"..."
I walk up to them and drop the books right next to their ear.
"BAM"
Instead of jumping or even acting the least bit startled, she moves her head up and just looks at me. Even sitting down, her head is level with mine. She quirks an eyebrow at the two books before asking;
"You gonna buy those?" She sounds tired.
"How much do they cost?"
"4 Silver." I pull out 4 silver from my pocket and place it into her hand. I then take my books and head to the reading chair. There's a Skill that's basically a necessity for every adventurer. A storage Skill. I need one I can use between bodies, and I'm hoping I can find one before leaving.
I sit down and open [The Big Book of Weird and Wacky Skills]. At the same time, my third group of bodies encounters another goblin. It's alone, and clutching a wound on it's stomach with it's left hand. It's bigger than the one in charge of the camp was, and upon my group of five approaching it, I'm noticed.
It snarls and mutters something under it's breath before charging at the leading 'me'. It uses it's long nails to slash at me. I dodge it, slamming my fist into it's stomach. I hear a crunch as the hand it was using to hold in it's guts breaks. It screams, but that scream is cut off by another one of my fist's impacting its face.
I kick out it's knee's, then stomp it to death with five pairs of feet. My feet become even more covered in blood and viscera, and a level up sends my muscles spasming. I open my [Soul Book] with one of my unoccupied [Clone]'s (Wandering around looking for goblins).
Name: [War]
Level: 4
Age: [17]
Race: Human?
Mana : 2880/2880 (3776) → 4500/4500 (5396)
Mana Regen per hour: 1 (448) → 175.2 (623.2)
Minds:202 → 328
Clones: 56/56 → 56/89
Free Stat Points: 0 → 35
Stats: [Strength]: 60 →71 [Agility]: 59 → 70 [Constitution]: 59 → 70 [Willpower]: 59 → 71 [Intelligence]: 64 → 76 [Awareness]: 70 → 82
Skills: [Multimind lv 3] [Cloning lv 3 → 4] [Stealth lv 3 → 4] [Slaughter lv 1]
Status Effects: Depression([Willpower] -18) Perfect Specimen(+5 [Str][Agi][Con] per level)
All three of my main Skills have leveled up! Nice. Assigning my stat points, I wonder if I'm growing too fast.
Stats: [Strength]: 71 → 76 [Agility]: 70 → 76 [Constitution]: 70 → 76 [Willpower]: 71 [Intelligence]: 76 → 88 [Awareness]: 82 → 88
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Free Stat Points: 35 → 0
Mana : 4500/4500 (5396) → 5464/5464 (6248)
Mana Regen per hour: 175.2 (623.2) →382.4 (774.4)
Minds: 328 → 335
Clones: 56/89 → 56/110
I also get myself the fuck away from the corpse of the goblin because something tore that gash in it, and I don't wanna find out. On second thought, I should leave a [Clone] in the bushes to watch.
I leave the filthiest [Clone] to watch from behind a particularly dense bush. I also spawn the next 54 [Clone]'s outside the city.
Mana : 5464/5464 → 3304/5464 (6248)
Mana Regen per hour: 382.4 → 4.4 (774.4)
Clones: 56/110 → 110/110
I stare at my [Clone]'s before facepalming (In 54 different bodies). I had forgotten since most of my bodies are either wearing clothes or so covered in blood you can't tell, but [Clone]'s come out naked. That's why I stationed a [Clone] at a clothing shop. To buy as many matching outfits as I possibly could.
****Back at the Skill Book Shop****
I look up from my book and notice the receptionist leaning over the edge of their desk staring at me. Why are they doing that?
"Are you alright? You went into convulsions for a moment there." Oh, the level up. And the Stat assignment.
"Yeah." I went back to reading my book, ignoring the glare boring through my skull.
I used the Table of Contents to find what page the spatial Skills where, and have been looking for one that suited me. None of them have really jumped out at me yet. I'll keep reading until I find one, because I am not at all comfortable walking around with these books and this much money. I get mugged the second I tried to make my way through the slums.
****At the Clothing store****
After the level up and Stat assignment, I noticed something strange. Everything around me was... slower. The people walking, the carriages rolling, even things falling were all slower than before. The world looked different too. I can see colors that I've never seen before, and see everything way better.
I could smell more things than before, and distinguish between them better. My clothes felt worse on my skin, and I could hear conversations from inside buildings. What am I going to do with all this new information? Ignore it. I don't want to know about the two people sweet talking each other three houses down, nor do I want to smell every person who hasn't taken a bath in weeks. That includes myself.
It's not like I can tone my senses down though, so I guess I'm just stuck with this. It'll probably be really useful for tracking stuff and listening in on conversations, etc, but right now it's just annoying. Main body needs to find a compatible Spatial Skill soon.
****Watching the goblin's corpse****
The first few minutes are high with anticipation, expecting some wild animal or adventurer to come charging out of the bushes looking to finish off the goblin at any moment. What I don't expect to walk out from the bushes is a giant, bloody, stuffed animal. It looks like a bear with it's four arms, two legs, and long wolfish snout.
It looks at the body, grunts, then turns around and walks away. I stay, waiting for something else to happen. Nothing does. Nothing comes for the corpse, and after another ten minutes I decide not to bother anymore and head off to join the closest group of me around. It isn't very far, I should be able to reach them if I run as fast as I can.
I take off, flying through the forest at breakneck speeds. I didn't notice the arm swinging towards me until my head was removed from my shoulders by it's sword. I only got a glimpse of the stuffed soldier before my body died.
****At the Skill Shop****
On page 2,067 I found this Skill. [Spatial Stomach]. I read the description, and I have to say, it's a perfect fit for my [Cloning] Skill.
[Spatial Stomach]
This Skill creates and maintains a secondary, immaterial stomach made out of space itself. This stomach can be accessed through the mouth and anywhere along the digestive tract. This stomach can sap away the magic of anything placed within, given enough time. It does technically preserve food due to killing all the bacteria that would normally eat away at it, but the food is also eaten away at given enough time. It is a stomach after all. The entrance to the [Spatial Stomach] is a portal formed wherever the user wishes. (Within the bounds of the Skill of course)
Know methods of acquirement are as follows:
* Hold ten times one's own volume in one’s stomach with the intent of storing it, not eating it. (How this was found out is beyond me)
* Eat a hundred times one’s own mass with the intent of storing it within a minute. (we tried to do this by eating something with the intent of storing it, letting it be digested, then eating another thing with the intent of storing it, gradually adding up to a hundred times one’s own mass. It didn’t work.)
* Use one’s own stomach to store an object that weighs as much as them for 10 months without the object being damaged. (We discovered this one because somebody accidentally ate a Bone Penny, couldn't digest it, and gained the Skill because of it.)
This Skill is very useful if one has multiple mouths, because one can use the portal not only to transfer things between the [Spatial Stomach] and the outside, but also between portals. (We measured, not a particle was unaccounted for when sticking a long object through one portal and out the other)
The part that really stuck out to me was the thing with the multiple mouths. If I acquired some sort of body modification Skill to enlarge my mouth (and do other useful things), I could portal my [Clone]'s between each other, allowing my to transfer entire army's with just one [Clone].
The only question is, which method of acquirement is most feasible?