One Last System

During my first visit, I spent a single day at the sect.

Instead of taking some time to rest after all the bothersome stuff in the sect's business area, Lucius opted to return immediately.

"Every second we spend outside the forest dulls our senses," he claimed when he told me to pack up.

Was it his revenge about not paying him for the girls with favors? Or was he really that diligent?

In the end, I never got any straightforward answer to that question. Still, not asking about it ended up with an entire day spent on the road.

'It was one hell of a ride,' I thought, releasing a tired sigh.

I've been walking for the entire last day.

To a point, I was used to it.

The massive shock of lacking any meaningful ways of transportation. One wouldn't think about it, but it greatly impacted my life.

I simply wasn't made for walks that long.

Used to cover vast distances while half-asleep; I just couldn't handle the long boredom of just... walking for the entire day.

If not for my cultivation, I would likely run out of my stamina several times in that single day.

When we went to the sect, I was excited. The prospect of securing Mia's sponsorship occupied my head to the point I didn't care for the long boredom.

It was one hell of a ride. But I just managed to preserve through it.

'If there is anything I'm thankful about, it's the lack of accidents,' I thought to myself.

The shadow cast by the trees nearby brought comfort to my soul.

After a month at this forest, far away from any semblance of civilization, I much preferred being here over in that crowded sect.

The forest was dangerous, sure. It was filled with predators and was part of a massive eat or be eaten grind spot.

But the rules here were simple.

'No mind-games, no manipulations, no schemes,' I thought, taking a deep whiff of the local smell.

It was filled with the distant echo of the many herbs enriching the forest undergrowth. And then, right at the border of one's perception, there was the smell of blood.

'Here, everything is simple,' I thought, glancing around the area, eager to immerse myself in the peacefulness of our camp.

'Or so it should be,' I thought, moving my eyes at my Overseer ahead.

Ever since we left the sect, he didn't say a single, cohesive sentence.

Lucius ignored every and all of my attempts at talking. He refused to answer any of my questions.

He just continued to walk, just a few paces in front of me, and grumbled something to himself.

"Let's call it a day off," Lucius spoke the second we reached the familiar clearing. The tent stood erected a bit further away, right in the middle of the open space.

We arrived at our camp around midday. After a night spent in crude housing, we improvised, topped with some more walking right off the bat in the morning, I was spent.

A day of rest?

That sounded too good to be true!

"Nothing good will come if we hunt while tired," Lucius shook his head.

'At least his professional side is not affected by his anger,' I thought.

He really didn't want to forgive me for what he perceived as an offense and betrayal.

'What a simple man,' I thought, releasing a relaxed sight.

"Thanks," I said cheerfully, only to break the pretense a second later.

'There is no fucking way I will waste my time,' I thought, my face darkening a little.

The situation back at the brothel forcefully reminded me of something simple.

I was still a weakling.

It was the part I hated the most about this world.

Once I would get powerful enough to be safe in my place, it would throw me off to some different place where my strength no longer had any meaning.

The second I could stand my ground in the Skyladder sect, I was forced to the Tuxi's sect contract. The second I got used to that life, it threw me off to the sect headquarters...

This world would never give me a rest.

'At this rate, I will have to aim for something like the top of the world,' I thought offhandedly. Then I froze.

This thought was just too damn accurate.

Was I really going to become the strongest... just to get rid of the nuisance that this world is?

'Was there ever a hero who strived for the top of the world just to get some peace?' I thought, suddenly amused by the situation.

I then shook my head.

Right now, I could do nothing about it. Was still at the whims of this world's will, defenseless against fate.

It sounded fun to be through adventures like that and have my potential constantly expand...

But the reality was far more serious.

By throwing me into different places and against people far stronger than me, this world doomed me.

All it would take was a single, unreasonable elder a few ranks above me.

'No matter how much everyone wishes to hide it, this is the truth about this world,' I thought.

A random insult, missplay, or even bad luck. That would be enough for the force of fate to squash me like a bug.

'I guess there is no time to rest,' I thought, pushing forth towards the tent.

Right now, I only wanted to just lie down and go get some well-earned time to regain my strength.

But my fingers gravitated towards the ring hidden in my pants.

The books that I bought in the auction hall weighed down on my mind.

I had only a single day but a shitload of things to do.

'And then I still need to get some proper rest,' I thought, suddenly overwhelmed by the weight of all the tasks unloading in my mind at the same time.

"Well then, see you again once I wake up," I muttered in response to Lucius' generous orders.

A single day off wasn't a lot, but it was far more than nothing. And I was going to make use of every possible second of it.

"Rest well," Lucius said, waving me away.

It was clear he still wanted to stay with his own thoughts. Splitting and using that day by ourselves was the better option for both of us.

The second I enclosed myself within one of the rooms, I started browsing through the content of my ring.

It was a weird experience, as if I had limited yet absolute control over the matter inside it. Whenever I would use the ring, my consciousness would plunge into a world where a single thought would bring the item to my attention.

I only had the bigger of the two rings that I bought on me. The other, smaller ones, I filled with cultivation resources to boost Mia's situation on the other hand.

The instructions on how to open the ring, along with the droplet of my blood and a letter written by the receptionist back at the auction hall, would use a different route, though.

Due to the sheer distance between the two places, it would take a while. But still, this was the only way to stop the sect from shamelessly stealing the content of the ring!

But there was one piece of writing that interested me more than all of the other books combined.

It was a simple graph split into roughly forty boxes, each of which split further into two.

A language graph that I made with the help of the receptionist.

'I really did a lot,' I thought, recalling recent memories I made.

It was a bet of mine. A simple gamble aimed at exploiting my own system.

I bought all sorts of books, some of which for an exorbitant price...

But I didn't know how to read in the local language.

I never struggled with speaking. I had the innate mechanism in me that translated my thoughts into the local language.

But writing, I knew nothing about.

And this simple board was my attempt at changing it.

'Let's see,' I thought, pulling one of the books from the storage ring. I then brought the translation board towards its title, slowly deciphering the letters.

"Unf argala ateinan poor," I voiced the letters by matching the sound to the letters to the similar voices I took from all sorts of alphabets from the earth.

Making this board took me a while, but I hoped it would be worth the time. Because if I would voice the sounds of those letters, then my body would translate it to normal language on its own, wouldn't it?

Tic.

"Unf argala ateinan poor," the voice came out just as I lowkey expected it.

It wasn't going to be as easy, huh?' I thought. Still, a hint of curiosity survived, forcing me to open the system. Yet, as I looked at numbers, the title on the book just happened to be within my field of vision as well.

"A guide to organizing your formations," the lettering on the book changed, replaced by a modern font of words I could understand.

The line in my system was pretty clear about it.

Jobs Window

***

Cook - Level 13 6/14

Tailor - Level 16 7/17

Alchemist - Level 4 (3/5)

Arcane Weaponmaster? - [High Class Job] - Level 3 (1/6)

Spearmaster - Novice level 7/20 (7/260)

Translator - Novice level 1/10 (1/100)

***

'Just like I thought,' I muttered before swiping the system's windows aside and taking a look at the content of the book.

But it wasn't going to be as simple as I hoped it would.

Because while it didn't make reading impossible, I could only see one sentence translated at a time.

So unless I was willing to rewrite the entire thing by hand, I was stuck at reading it at an insanely slow pace.

'Wait a second,' I thought suddenly. 'This could be actually a good investment,' I thought, looking right at the numbers.

'A hundred experience points, how should I obtain them?' I asked myself.

If I managed to raise the level of the translator job, could I grow the range of the translations by it?

'I guess I'm in for some grind,' I thought, steeling myself for another stretch of effort.

I never liked studying. But I still managed to force my way through school and college, reaching the level of programming my own, little games.

'This is going to be a long day,' I thought.

The perspective of taking any real rest was already gone from my head. I no longer even dared to dream of it.

But I was going to do it. In this way or another, I would learn this damned language!