Chương 25: Chapter 23: Deep Dive into the Archive

In the morning after breakfast, I opened the Archive to figure out this awakening business. THE ARCHIVE WAS A MESS! When I first learned about Gates, everything was new and exciting, so I read everything I could find. If something was irrelevant, I skipped it. Now, searching for specific information was a nightmare. There was no table of contents, no index, no search function, and definitely no help function.

The first page of the Archive had two options: WORLD INFORMATION GENERAL INFORMATION When you clicked "World Information," you got all the entries, one after the other, with the newest one at the top. This was perfect for World Information. Who wants to read an account about a place from 100 years ago? The General Information section was the same: entry after entry, with the newest at the top.

The only semblance of organization was a small green circle at the top left, and when you zoomed in on it, you saw "Tips & Tricks." During my initial reading in the Archive, I noticed it by chance. When you scrolled down the main page, the circle moved up and disappeared from view. The situation was the same inside the "Tips & Tricks" section: entry after entry, with the newest at the top, except for one. The entries formed a jumbled mess, covering every subject under the sun with no rhyme or reason.

It also appeared that Travelers get bored sometimes, and when that happens, they spend time in the Archive. Some strange entries held a string of two to seven nonsense words, followed by text that read like personal messages. One entry read: Tr. KKJ:"Forge, Cat-sock, Whistling, Excavation" Got you the helfermiton you wanted. I blinked at the message a couple of times. What the hell is a helfermiton? Scrolled down. Still no explanation. Just another cryptic breadcrumb in the chaos buffet that was the Archive.

There were ramblings about life and existence, along with gripes about people and events. Some Travelers treated the Archive like a social media feed, commenting on each other's posts. Like I said, it was a colossal mess. I tried to create folders to sort the content for future reference, and a red message flashed before my eyes: YOU DO NOT POSSESS THE REQUIRED CLASS, SKILLS, KNOWLEDGE, OR MANA LEVELS TO AFFECT THE ARCHIVE The red blinking light didn't announce it.

The text flashed before my eyes in big red letters, stayed for thirty seconds, and vanished. I shook my head. Weird. I suspected that the person who posted the tip about Ability Points created the "Tips & Tricks" subsection. That specific tip remained at the top after I saw it, even after three more entries were added. The rest was just an information dump. One Traveler posted a well-thought-out list of recommended items to take with you. More Travelers added their suggestions.

Other Travelers argued about the need for this or that item and suggested alternatives. And one bored Traveler posted a long comment—two pages long! —about why it's best to go traveling "like a baby just born, without the burdens of the material world." Tr. PO: Travelers become very agitated when I say we should travel like a baby just born, without the burdens of the material world. They immediately assume I mean to reject everything—clothes, tools, preparation—as if that were the point. It's not.

This isn't about external rejection. It's about internal release. You can carry a bag and still be free, or walk empty-handed and still cling. When I say "without burdens," I mean the mental weight, the constant inner voice saying, "I need this to be safe," or "Without that, I will suffer." That voice is a burden. That attachment, that fear of discomfort, that hunger for guarantees. That keeps us trapped. Some say, "You need to be realistic. The various worlds are harsh." Yes, the worlds are hard.

But tell me, what protects you more? A list of ten survival items, or a mind that does not panic? What strengthens you in the face of the unknown: your shoes, or your understanding of impermanence? We grasp at material things, hoping they will calm our anxiety. That's a misunderstanding. They soothe the symptoms, not the cause. We keep packing for the problems we imagine, never checking the issues we have. Traveling light is not carelessness. It is clarity.

And clarity begins with loosening your grip on what you think you must have. The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation. A baby, when born, does not worry about the cold or the noise or the absence of furniture. It arrives exactly as it is, without reference points, without demands. That is what I mean. When we let go of expectations, the path becomes visible. When we are not busy preserving our comfort, we can experience what is.

If you must carry things, carry them. But do not carry them in your heart. If you walk like a baby just born, you walk with openness, with trust, with the ability to see the worlds not as threats to be defended against but as spaces to be met. That is the true beginning of travel. And it dragged on in the same vein for over two pages. Yep, he was definitely bored that day. Some Traveler posted to stock up on water before entering a desert.

Five Travelers commented on his entry with "no shit, Sherlock" in various variations. The best were "Congratulations, Dust Prophet. What's next? Fire is hot?" and "obviousness level=EXTREME. Notification: Statement exceeds redundancy threshold." Another Traveler suggested buying the Condense Water spell and using it to draw water from the humidity in the air. Two Travelers called him stupid and said the desert had no humidity to condense.

A different Traveler wrote you should wear good shoes in low- to medium-mana worlds. Many Travelers laughed at him for going barefoot in high-mana worlds. He got upset and answered all of them, with a lot of cursing, that what he meant was that lower mana worlds don't have teleportation, so you have to walk a lot. All the previous commenters wrote that he should have said so, and one threatened to wash his mouth with "Parsium" to clean up his language.

Someone posted that they got the Willpower Trait and suggested there might be other unknown Traits. A lot of Travelers asked how he got it, but he never answered. Someone else claimed they received the Luck Trait after getting the Treasure Hunter Subclass. Over fifty Travelers called him a liar. They had the Class, but not the Trait. Another person said they got the Luck Trait through the Pathfinder Subclass. Thirty-seven called that one a liar, too.

Adding my two cents, I said I got it with the Merchant Profession. One day, if I were bored, I'd check how many called me a liar. The next "gem" threw me off completely. I stared at it and shook my head in bewilderment. Tr. BM: Why wear clothes if the mana protects you? Free the wee! Tr. MMX: Finally, someone said it out loud. Tr. ES: Mana Shield and breezy freedom? Count me in. Tr. ZK: Clothes are a scam invented by textile merchants. Tr.

FS: If the Guiding Spirits wanted us clothed, they would've woven us little pants at birth. Tr. DFJER: I stopped wearing armor three worlds ago. Never going back. Tr. BD: Honestly, it's just more efficient. Tr. WS: Free the wee, free the soul. Tr. BBN: What he said. Tr. VA: I've been naked this whole thread. Spiritually. Tr. OQ: Finally, a push for body confidence. Tr. JRC: The ancients fought bare-chested. We walk in their breezy footsteps. Tr. CY: I agree. Wind feels better than plate mail.

The support continued for three full pages. Yeah… I had no words, out loud or in my mind. Five pages later, another disconnected gem read: "So there I was. Naked. Screaming. Covered in glowing ointment and bees." This time, the commenters unanimously agreed the poster was an idiot. One excitable Traveler announced that the world Ziondla had "Non-Arcing Biometric-Senonites," with five exclamation marks. He got a lot of grief.

One comment was so over-the-top, it took me a few minutes to decipher:"Thou art a total chop-logic m'ron. If 't be true any of us kneweth what 'non-arcing biometric-senonites' w're, haply we wouldst hast been excit'd with thee, but since thee didn't both'r to clarifyeth, thee simply stuff'd the archive with m're hilding garbage." (You're a total dunce moron. If any of us knew what "Non-Arcing Biometric-Senonites" are, maybe we would have been excited with you, but since you didn't bother to clarify, you stuffed the archive with more useless garbage.) I picked up a few interesting bits between the lines: optional spells, teleportation, buying and selling across different worlds… but sadly, none of it was what I was looking for. Finally, after two days, I found something. It was an article titled "My Thoughts on the Difference Between Awakened Beasts and Monsters."

It was a LOOOONG article by a pretentious, long-winded, and pompous writer who was clearly in love with himself. Pretty sure he opened a thesaurus for every word, skimmed the options, and picked the longest. He also wrote in long, involved sentences that, after three to five lines, conveyed some tiny piece of information or a fragment of a thought.

The article was five Archive pages long, but since it was the first thing I found about awakened animals, I slowly slogged through it with a dictionary and deciphered it. Bottom line, he had four conclusions: Awakened beasts and monsters are more intelligent and stronger than unawakened ones. Awakened monsters are bad because they retain their aggression toward everybody and everything. Awakened beasts are usually not much better because they remember past slights from before awakening and sometimes want payback.

Awakened beasts who were friendly before awakening are usually good awakened beasts. That was mostly it. That was the content of the five-page article, along with some additional thoughts. At least I learned some things in the Archive and knew Stretch would be more intelligent and stronger. I didn't think he would turn on me as revenge for "past slights." Looking back, he was always smart, but his reactions became more on point after he started eating mana-rich meat.

To understand the mage's excitement, I cooked some bison hamburgers for myself. After each hamburger, my mana jumped by 120 points. Hmm, maybe I could understand the excitement. I had an idea for an experiment: Stretch was less enthusiastic about the goat meat, probably because of the low mana levels. So I took out the cooler with the goat meat, eased the lid open just a crack, slipped my hand inside, and channeled mana into it. Nothing at first, just the smell of goat meat. Then— pop!

Something wet slapped the inside of the cooler and my palm. I yanked my hand back. The meat had turned into minced meat. I knew it! I wasn't really looting; I was exploding. That's why the pelt kept flying away, and I got minced meat or chunks. The only thing that kept the chunks from being minced meat was my intention. I needed to create an entirely different loot spell, and I had an idea. When healing the people in the caravan, the first thing I did was diagnose them.

Why did I never diagnose the animal during the looting attempt? I should have checked what was happening and adjusted accordingly. However, before trying the new looting method, I still needed to visit a town and speak with a butcher, a tanner, or a hunter. I needed knowledge about the process to do it right. My promise to Stretch stands: my next attempt will be epic!