Vol. 2 Ch. 5: Skill Library Exploration Tutorial

Author's Note:
Recurring Characters:

Peter: The protagonist of this novel. 

Mariah: Mother of the Protagonist.

Edited and Proofread by Snazzycub.

Important Note: If you have problems understanding the library exploration part, you can reference the notes and explanation in the post author's note. 

....

Peter roared, fingers extended and glowing blue, his legs driving him forward in powerful strides toward the bird. It screeched and lunged with its beak wide open, ready to bite. With a burst of strength, Peter leapt, spun mid-air, and kicked the bird in the face. Its beak gave way under his mana-reinforced foot. Cracks splintered through the outer layer, sending shockwaves into the bird’s skull.

It stumbled back, while Peter pulled out his spear in one swift motion. He whirled the spear around—the tip sliding into its neck, delivering a deep cut. Under the barrage of attacks, the bird backed away in distress. Peter welcomed the brief respite, but readied himself for another skirmish.

Peter waited to the side, giving it time to recover as the bird was harmless. He still needed to test the defensive capabilities of his body without his skills. ‘The books weren’t lying about their nature,’ he mused, watching it spend more health points to heal its wounds.

The terror bird’s head snapped to him with a chirp of fury, looking much angrier with him than earlier.

‘Prideful indeed,’ Peter smirked, ‘Makes sense to use them as mounts when horses won’t cut it.’

Horses needed to be trained extensively so they would behave in the presence of higher-level beasts. Meanwhile, terror birds were naturally arrogant, and fiercely loyal.

The bird rushed to capitalise on the breathing room by swooping in for another beak slam. Peter narrowed his eyes and easily fended it off with a swipe of his spear. The bird righted itself and kicked him with one of its talons. Peter had a hard time closing his eyes and letting the attack connect with his shoulder. He stumbled back, claws buried in his flesh, bones protesting but holding firm.

‘Quite a strong pair of legs,’ he winced, his face twisted in pain, ‘Its claws are meaner than its attitude.’

Peter’s gripped tightened on his spear as he braced himself to try something daring. He swung at it’s head, baiting it into ducking its head.

Seeing his chance, he quickly jumped onto its neck before clamping down hard on either side with his legs. He raised his spear, struggling against the bird flailing to throw him off—before finally plunging the point deep into its eye.

The bird gave one last squawk of defiance before it finally collapsed to the ground. The last vestiges of life shuddering out as a System notification appeared in Peter’s peripheral vision.

[

System...

You have slain a level 32 Terror Bird in combat. 20 Experience gained.

]

Peter frowned while jumping off the bird, looking at the notification he had just received.

‘I guess that’s fair. The bird was nine levels lower than me,’ he mused. A single use of Undying Vitality immediately fixed whatever damage the bird caused. ‘Gaining those forty-one levels had been a great stroke of luck,’ he thought, remembering the circumstances. He had barely gained a class when the attack happened and killed plenty of kobolds.

‘Levelling up is going to be troublesome,’ he thought, looking at his blood-soaked clothes. ‘Unless I fight a large number of enemies or much more powerful foes,’ he clicked in frustration. He had grown addicted to the feeling of growth, but he had to admit that the System was fair to all.

Peter didn’t want to let the corpse go to waste. He turned toward the bird and stepped in, grabbed a talon, and started dragging it a bit closer to the road. The carcass was heavy despite the increase in his stats. He had to grit his teeth, sweating from the exertion. It was quite the effort.

After a lot of struggling, Peter dragged the corpse near a large tree. He left it there and walked to the back of the first carriage. Leaning forward, he grabbed a set of knives and a bundle of rope.

Peter returned and trussed up the bird’s legs, throwing the other end over a wide branch.

Peter went to the other side and grabbed the rope end dangling from the branch with both hands. He took a deep breath, widened his stance, and heaved. His lips clamped shut. His face turned red from blood. He left a trail in the soil as he slowly hauled the carcass into the air. Peter turned around, braced the rope against his left shoulder and circled the tree trunk a few times before tying a knot.

Peter stepped away to admire his work. Sweat trickled down his cheeks. He breathed roughly, leaned forward, hands resting on his knees, a proud smile on his lips.

Standing back up, Peter walked to the camp and added more dried branches to the fire. He returned with a clean cloth and a bucket of water. He approached the carcass and started to pluck its feathers. He planned to use every bit of the bird that he could extract and preserve. Even if that meant staying at this campsite for longer than he initially intended.

The bird was bare soon enough. Peter picked up the bucket and washed the carcass thoroughly. Drawing his knife, Peter started making incisions in the rear end of the bird, above its knees. The knife was imbued with mana and sliced the skin right off the bird. Grabbing the skin in a fist, Peter cut along the hip joints of the bird, separating the skin from both of the legs.

The bird’s skin wasn’t very thick, making it harder to preserve with Peter’s amateurish skills. He made quite a few holes accidentally in it while skinning the whole carcass. The bird was quite well-nourished, containing a lot of fat inside its body. Peter wanted to collect all of it and use it as oil after boiling it over a fire.

Peter spun the carcass around, grabbed the skin with his hands, and started to pull it to take it off the bird bit by bit. Once he was done with one side, he spun it again and repeated the process on the other side. The Knife was already sharp to begin with, mana just made them sharper still. It cut through the bird like a hot knife through butter.

Once the skin was off, Peter set his knife aside and switched to a cleaver. Peter grabbed one of the legs to keep it steady and plunged the cleaver into the chest near its neck. He pulled it down to its hips, opening up the carcass.

Peter patiently gutted it, feeling a bit of regret, ‘Some of these internal organs are very nutritious, but they are hard to preserve. I should make an inventory. It would be a shame to have to leave stuff like this behind all the time.’ He opened his IDE and noted it down.

[

Make an inventory.

]

Waving it away, Peter seized the creature’s heart, plunged his knife into it, and extracted a translucent stone. It was blue in colour, about the size of his eye, and oval-shaped—a mana stone. Beings that lacked sapience couldn’t generate mana on their own. Instead, they absorbed ambient mana from their surroundings, storing it within their bodies. A mana stone was the crystallised form of that gathered energy.

Peter sighed. ‘Deathknell consumed the mana stones of every kobold it killed.’ He thought, gnashing his teeth. ‘These things are valuable.’

He shook his head and started to butcher the rest of the bird. He separated the thighs first, intending to cook them fresh. ‘We can’t use the whole bird,’ he thought, a frown on his face. ‘Maybe I can make some dry jerky out of it for storage,’ he reasoned, cutting the breasts next. He needed to be quick. The smell of blood would invite other predators, and the meat would spoil after some time.

Peter collected as much meat and fat from the bird as he could before returning to the campsite. The fire was still burning steadily. Using a stick on the ground, he pushed all the burning charcoal to one side, away from the flames, and set a pan over the hot coals.

While the pan was heating, he cut the thighs into manageable chunks and coated them with salt and pepper. Once the pan was hot enough, he added the fat and let it render. After a minute, he tossed in some wild rosemary and garlic, then placed the thighs into the sizzling mixture.

Peter turned away, filled a pot with water, and set it over the fire to boil. While waiting, he sliced the remaining meat into thin strips. Once the water reached a rolling boil, he dropped the slices in. He returned to the pan, flipping the thighs every few minutes over the next, until they were thoroughly cooked.

Peter stood up, taking some of the cooked thigh meat with him on a platter before walking up to his mother. Mariah looked at it with curious eyes before giving it a sniff. She locked eyes with him and received a nod. With hesitant hands, she took the plate from him.

“Dig in,” he said with a grin before returning to the fire. The stripes were almost cooked. While waiting, Peter put a bunch of green leaves on the burning charcoal. He used the same pot from earlier, putting the slices in once they were fully cooked.

‘This is going to take the whole day if I am not wrong,’ Peter thought, looking at the pan full of strips. “I just need to flip them occasionally,” he mused before walking to the carcass.

He lowered it and dragged it back to where he had slain the bird. “It’s better to keep it a bit further from the camp,” he said, rolling the rope around his shoulders before slowly making his way to his mother.

Mariah was sleeping with a peaceful look on her face. Peter saw an empty plate sitting on the ground some distance away from her. He decided not to disturb her. Sitting down beside her, he opened his IDE. As soon as he opened it, it started to draw a constant stream of mana from his mana pool. Peter could only use it for a few hours despite his massive mana pool.

Peter shook his head, feeling annoyed. Mana was a precious resource. While he could keep the skill active for a few hours, other skills also need mana. Every day, he had to keep a limited amount in reserve for emergencies.

‘Considering the fact that my mana pool is 3230 and the skill consumes 50 mana per minute on average,’ Peter mused, rubbing his chin. ‘I can use the skill for 3 hours and 20 minutes a day, after factoring in the mana regeneration, which is 323 mana per hour.’

Peter smiled. “I can use it for half an hour longer than before. Even half an hour can be monumental.” Opening the terminal, he started writing the command to access the skill library.

[

IDE...

Terminal:

invoke –server=system.skillforge –auth=keyring://soulbind_token –fetch=library –target=SkillLibrary –mode=read-only

[SkillForge Kernel v.0]

> Authenticating via soulbind_token... ✓

> Connection to system.skillforge established.

> Locating skill repository... ✓

> Accessing node: /SkillLibrary

> Permission level: Read-Only

> Syncing metadata...

[ 23,879,382,934,243,… skills indexed ]

> Displaying catalogue...

[Common]

[Uncommon]

[Unusual]

.

.

.

[Divine]

> Tip: Use `invoke –inspect [Skill ID]` to view details.

> Tip: Use `invoke –inspect [Grade ID]` to view the sub-category.

> Tip: Use `invoke –inspect [Skill Type ID]` to view the sub-category.

> Tip: ...

]

Peter scrolled to the next page and searched for the Healing Skills category before invoking the next command.

[

Terminal...

Invoke –inspect [Healing Skills]

[SkillForge Kernel v.0]

> Query received: Category = Healing Skills

> Filtering results... ✓

> Matching entries: 71,294,703

[HS-Physical]

[HS-Mental]

[HS-Soul]

[HS-General]

[…]

> Tip: Use `invoke –inspect [Domain Type ID] ` to view the sub-domain-category.

>Tip: …

]

Peter inserted the command to access healing skills for the mental domain.

[

Terminal...

Invoke –inspect [HS-Mental HS-General] –order-by=ascending –group-by=grade

[SkillForge Kernel v.0]

> Query received: Domain = Healing Skills [Mental, General]

> Sorting entries: Ascending

> Grouping by: Grade

> Retrieving data... ✓

> Matching entries: 534,112

> Displaying catalogue:

[Grade: Common]

[HM-0013] "Soothing Whisper" – Eases minor stress and fatigue; duration: 30 seconds.

[HM-0027] "Clear Thought" – Removes minor confusion and mental haze; cooldown: 60 seconds.

[Grade: Uncommon]

[HM-0196] "Memory Stitch" – Repairs fragmented short-term memory; side effect: brief dizziness.

[HM-0233] "Cognitive Anchor" – Stabilises thought patterns during magical interference.

[...]

> Tip: Use `invoke –details [Skill ID]` to view full skill description and usage tier.

]
...End Of Chapter...
Terminal command notes: 

invoke –server=system.skillforge –auth=keyring://soulbind_token –fetch=library –target=SkillLibrary –mode=read-only

Invoke: A keyword specified to give a command. 
--[word]: it means a flag to the command. Think of them like filters. 
--server: A flag to specify a server being called to establish a connection. 

system.skillforge: This is a chain command. This is called the Skillforge function of the System. 

--auth: Auth is short for authentication. It is a flag that is used to give the authentication a unique identity. 

Keyring://soulbind_token: This is both a username and a password. As we are already familiar with the fact that every person has a small client system tied to their soul, and it has a unique identifier. This is putting that unique identifier into the command without outright spelling the identifier. This is done for security. Using a variable instead of a magic number is better code practice. 
--fetch: this is a flag to explain what you want to fetch from the system.skillforge server in this instance. 
library: Library is being fetched. 
--target: A flag to denote what you are specifically targeting. This flag is redundant, but sometimes redundancies can be good. SkillLibrary is being targeted. 
--mode: This is a flag to describe what kind of access you are requesting. read-only is the access being requested by Peter. 

[SkillForge Kernel v.0] (From here, the response is being received)

Kernel: Kernel is a term to describe the layer responsible in a software to act as a bridge to establish communication between the Operating System or any deeper system and the user interface of a program. v is short for version.

Repository: Directory or folder. It's a synonym.
Node: So, this can be complex for some people, as this term is used in relation to non-linear data structures. For now, think like this: The System is like a tree, and it has a stem and various branches. On those branches, there are leaves. A node is a leaf. 

--Inspect: A flag to filter fetched data based on the ID entered inside [] blocks. 

[HS-Physical]: HS is the initials of healing skills. This is a naming convention. 
[HM-0013]: HM is initial for Healing Mental. 0013 is the ID of that skill.