Chương 8

Rudra finally focused his blurry eyes. A stack of system notifications was quietly waiting for him in the corner of his vision. [You have entered a state of 'Deep Immersion'.] [You are the first player to enter a state of 'Deep Immersion'!] [You have pushed your physical limits to the absolute brink.] [Stamina +2] [Strength +1] [Agility +1] [Your extreme tenacity has unlocked the hidden stat: Persistence.] [Persistence +5] [You are the first player to unlock a hidden stat!] [For achieving this incredible feat, All Stats +10.] [Through endless repetition and focus, you have grasped the basics of your weapon.] [Passive Skill: Basic Staff Mastery (Lv. 1) has been acquired.] Rudra blinked. Hidden stats? A passive mastery skill? A World First achievement? He hadn't fought a single monster. He hadn't accepted a real adventuring quest. He had literally just stood in the dirt and twirled a piece of wood until his arms stopped working.

"Holy shit," Rudra whispered, a tired laugh escaping his lips. So that's how this world works, he thought, leaning heavily on the wooden staff. If you suffer enough, the system pays out. Before he could celebrate, his stomach gave a violent, painful rumble. Right. He had been swinging a staff for four and a half hours. He looked up at Gareth Rowan, who was still watching him with a strange expression.

"Sir," Rudra asked desperately.

"Did I miss dinner?" Gareth sighed. He reached into his pouch and tossed a wrapped bundle of tough dried meat and hardtack at Rudra.

"Eat it on your way out. See you tomorrow at 6 AM, recruit."

"Thank you, sir!" Rudra didn't care how tough the dried meat was. He devoured it like a starving dog as he limped out of the militia camp, opening his status window while he chewed. [Name: Rudra] [Level: 1] [Class: None] [Title: None] This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon. [Health: 148/148 | Mana: 60/60] [Strength: 26 | Stamina: 27 | Agility: 26 | Intelligence: 20 | Persistence: 15] [Stat Points: 0] [Basic Staff Mastery (Lv. 1)] [Passive] [When equipped with a staff, attack power and attack speed will increase by 4%. The probability of a critical hit will increase in proportion to the user's Agility.] Rudra did the math in his head. Just the raw numbers he possessed were already equivalent to a standard Level 6 player. Plus, the Staff Mastery was a passive skill, meaning it would scale infinitely without consuming a single drop of mana. He looked over his stat spread again.

Stamina, Strength, Agility, and his new Persistence stat would naturally increase during the rest of Gareth's brutal training camp. But his Intelligence was stuck. It only had the base 10 points, plus the 10 he got from the achievement. If physical suffering equals physical stats, Rudra reasoned, taking a bite of hardtack, then mental suffering should equal mental stats. He flagged down a passing militiaman on the cobblestone street.

"Excuse me. Could you point me to the library?" The soldier stopped and laughed.

"A library? Boy, do you really think a backwater fishing town like Seabreak has a grand library?" Rudra paused. Right. Medieval fantasy setting. Books are expensive.

"Let me rephrase," Rudra corrected smoothly.

"Is there a place where I could read, even if it costs a premium?" The soldier scratched his chin.

"If you have the coin, go find Old Medivah at the southern end of town. He runs the Temple of Asterion, the Ocean God."

"Thanks," Rudra nodded, heading south. He soon found two distinct temples standing side-by-side. The first was a massive, pristine Temple of Rebecca. As Rudra glanced at the Goddess of Light's statue through the open doors, a strange, phantom trace of familiarity rippled through his mind. He frowned, rubbing his temples to shake off the weird deja vu, and turned to the second building. The Temple of Asterion looked run-down on the outside, but the inside was incredibly clean.

An old man sat near the main altar, entirely absorbed in a thick book.

"What do you want, boy?" the old man asked without looking up.

"I'd like to read some of your books, sir," Rudra said politely.

"I heard there was a fee."

"Knowledge isn't cheap," Medivah grunted, finally closing his book.

"One silver per day. Read as much as you want until midnight. If you can't pay, leave." Rudra pulled a silver coin from his inventory and placed it on the table. He had started the game with ten silver. Two went to the training camp, and now one to the temple. He had seven left. Medivah raised an eyebrow, clearly surprised a Level 1 player had the money. He pocketed the coin.

"Follow me." He led Rudra into a back hall. There were more than fifty books lining the shelves. In a medieval setting where the nobility usually hoarded information, fifty books was a goldmine.

"Asterion is the God of the Ocean, which holds many lost things," Medivah explained, noticing Rudra's surprise.

"He is also the God of Forgotten Knowledge. We keep what the rest of the world leaves behind." The old man pointed to a desk.

"You will be kicked out at midnight." Since it was already evening, Rudra only had about four hours left, but that didn't bother him. He grabbed a thick bestiary about local sea creatures and sat down. As an IT guy who spent half his shifts secretly reading translated web novels, Rudra basically had a doctorate in speed-reading. He immediately applied his talent for skimming 2, 000-chapter garbage novels to the fantasy texts. He read in absolute silence, tearing through three entire books. He noticed a few things.

First, the books weren't actually that long. Second, as he read the lore, that strange feeling of deja vu kept returning, like he already knew the information buried deep in his subconscious. But the most important discovery was the system's reaction. By the time the clock struck 11: 00 PM and his eyes were burning from the candlelight, beautiful blue text began popping up in his vision. [Your understanding of the world has expanded.] [Intelligence +2] [Your understanding of the world has expanded.] [Intelligence +2] [Your understanding of the world has expanded.] [Intelligence +1] [Your understanding of the world has expanded.] [Intelligence +1]