The Insider System

Chapter 66: Just Books

Lake was flipping through the journal they had just unpacked from the bag and was wondering why Lucas didn't seem to want to hold it. It was almost like he didn't care about it at all but Lake knew that wasn't true because these journals were the thing Lucas cared about the most. "Here, you wanna see it?" Lake tried to hand it to Lucas but he just set it on the bookshelf he had brought here to hold them.

Lucas had set it in the second slot because amazingly they had in fact beaten the odds and recovered the second journal. It had always been possible, just unlikely. Lake decided to decide if it was weird or not till after they got the next one. If it ended up being the third, Lake would really start to suspect something was going on.

"Would you like to open the first bag?" It seemed Lucas could tell Lake was treating this as some sort of game but Lake was actually more curious why Lucas didn't even spare a glance at the journal. "Is the second journal one of the boring ones you told me about?" Lake had been planning to read it later but if Lucas thought it was bad Lake would skip it.

"Only a few of them are worth reading more than once. The second journal has Amanda's earliest memories from both lives, so nothing exciting really happens." So it was just about her being a baby, Lake could see how that could be boring. "Is it worth reading?" Lake bet Lucas had read them loads of times looking for clues, so he should almost have it memorized.

Lucas shook his head. "Only if you're interested in information from her original world." Lake got what Lucas meant by this. Lucas knew Lake was most likely also from another world and if it was the same one there was no reason Lake would care about any of the stuff he could learn from the journal.

When he had read the first one he had noticed Amanda was either from earth or somewhere so similar he wouldn't be able to tell the difference. Lake saw Lucas was about to unpack the rest of the book that had been in the bag with the journal and focused up. These books had most likely been right next to the journal in the collection.

If the person who put it there was arranging based on value these might be pretty good. The first book Lucas pulled out had a pitch black cover and no title but Lucas didn't take the time to see what it was he just handed it off to Lake. Looking through the first few pages, Lake saw the person had been arranging based on topic.

This book was about the Dark element and it detailed someone's personal experiences mastering the elements principles. Lake wanted to read this book in detail later, but he set it down to receive the next book. Seeing it was another hand written book on the Dark element Lake wondered if every book in the collection was one of a kind.

After seeing the first two books weren't that valuable Lucas started going through them faster which left Lake less time to look at each one. Finished with the first bag Lucas looked back at Lake and said. "I was expecting most of this to be worthless, because it's the only reason the thieves guild would push me into buying it. Once the thief got back to their guild, and realized most of this stuff would never sell, they used the few items with value to sell all of it."

Lake could tell Lucas was trying to teach Lake a lesson on how the thieves guild did business in case he ever had to hire them in the future, but Lake had already understood what they had done to move more merchandise. "This stuff isn't useless. My guess is all these were handwritten by important people, and most of them are one of a kind."

Lucas didn't seem to care about this fact because he said. "There are plenty of books with the same info in the libraries. I'll only be impressed if there's something I haven't seen before in one of these bags." Lake realized Lucas was probably appraising everything he took out before he handed it to Lake, and that was why he didn't care about any of the books.

It was probably the same thing the thieves guild had done before selling it all off in bulk. This was most likely the way almost everyone told the value of something if they had access to the Appraiser job, but not everyone valued something based on how much money it was worth. Lake wondered why the person responsible for this collection had cared for powerful people's handwritten books.

Really putting his brain to work Lake thought of the only reason there could be other than they just liked them. It was like the lottery, if one of the people who wrote these books ascended it was possible one of these books would become an artifact. Lake wasn't sure how the items that became artifacts was decided, but if it was random each of these books was a chance at becoming a demigod.

The fact that all these books belonged to people who were masters of elements was more evidence he was right. They were the most likely to ascend based on what Lake knew about gods. "Lucas, how are gods' artifacts decided? Is it random?" Lake wanted to see if he could be right about this collection, before he spent this whole time thinking about it.

"No idea, there seems to be connections between how important something is to them, but sometimes it's just something they barely had any connection to." This sounded like random to Lake, and he wondered why Lucas hadn't just said yes. It was also impossible to know how important something had been to someone just based on what you knew about them.

Lake realized this might be another use for Treasured. He might be able to tell what was going to be an artifact when everyone else had to just assume it was random, because they couldn't tell what had actually been someone's favorite thing. Now Lake just had to meet some people who had a good chance of ascending, and steal everything they loved.

Lake snuck a glance at Lucas and shook his head. Lake really doubted He had it in him to become a god. If all you needed was money, and resources there would be way more gods than there were. Lucas had also told Lake the Demon Lord stole divinity from most people that made it to demigod hood in recent years.

This made Lake think Lucas didn't even want to try. The fact Lucas didn't want the guild to help fight the Demon Lord just showed how scared he was. "We've got a winner." Lake focused on the book Lucas wass holding and could tell it was giving off an aura. They had gone through a few bags already but this one seemed to hold things about the Fire element.

Lake had heard this was a very popular element, so he bet a few of the bags would hold books with Fire as the topic. "This holds information on a divergent element. Which means whoever wrote it was ready to ascend. My guess is the Demon Lord put a stop to that." Lake had actually heard of a divergent element of fire before, cold fire. Lake wondered if that was what this book was about.

After a few seconds of flipping through it Lucas said. "Don't read this, it's dangerous. It has a demigod's thoughts in it and you're not ready for this kind of mental attack." Looked Like Lake wasn't going to get to know what the book was about but what did Lucas mean by attack. "Is the book enchanted to protect itself in some way?"

Lucas shook his head and said. "No. If you read this book the power of the demigod would affect your mind and make you think fire was supposed to act differently than it does. In this case fire doesn't spread, it converges. One of Fire's principles is that it spreads, but the demigod responsible for this, made a version of fire that gathers itself in one place and increases its temperature to burn as hot as it possibly can, and every time you target the same spot it just adds to the already burning point until it grows hot enough to melt whatever you were targeting."

This seemed like a good way to give people a way to defeat something much stronger than them to Lake. He could imagine an army all casting these spells into one tiny dot of fire to burn through a city's wall. "If I read the book would my Fire spells actually act like that?"

Lucas put the book in a separate pile and said. "It depends on how much the book affected you or actually infected you. If it really hypnotized you into believing that was how Fire was, you would subconsciously change the principles of your spells to match what this book describes. If the demigod was successful in their ascension, there would be an element called Focaries right now."

Lake was happy Lucas sated his curiosity because he would have been tempted to read it even though he knew it was dangerous. Seeing Lucas was going back to opening bags, Lake counted how many more bags there were to estimate how much more time this would take.

Lake had thought this was going to be fun, but so far both the books they had found worth anything he wasn't going to read for one reason or another, and with the book Lucas had bought all this for most likely holding secret information, there was a chance he wasn't going to get to see what it was about either.