Alpha Zero (Alpha LitRPG Book 1) Arthur Stone (hardest books to read .txt) 📖

wouldn’t fall apart after a few casts or survive a duel against a ten-pound kote.

ORDER had rewarded all of my efforts with a personal talent mark, Novice Blacksmith. Evidently, it had finally caught on that the tackle had nothing to do with ornaments, so raising my Jeweler skill was an ill-fitting prize.

It was impressive how quickly it adapted and learned. Of course, a nitpicker might point out that blacksmithing still had little to do with the work I had been engaged in.

But I was content to let the matter rest. Another starting mark was a cause for joy, fair or not.

* * *

The fishing session began with a tangled cord. Thin as it was, I was unaccustomed to handling it. It took a lot of time—and even more effort to resist the temptation to cut it up into tiny little pieces.

The first trouble was quickly followed by the next. Upon using my fishing instinct to pick out a fish that seemed to be behaving like a kote, though on a smaller end, I cast the line. Before too long and after a bit of resistance, I pulled the prey onto the beach.

It was indeed small, barely over six-seven pounds. My tackle-changing tactic seemed to be working. Now, sure, smaller kote weren’t as lucrative as their larger brethren, but on the plus side, there were much more of them in the shallows, and they were easier to pull out. Case in point, I’d been able to drag this one out without even bothering with the block.

ORDER’S revised rewards, however, left much to be desired.

You have caught a kote using a rare method. You have dealt significant damage to the kote. You have dealt fatal damage to the kote. The kote is dead. You have defeated the kote (1st Degree Enlightenment).

You receive:

Rare Method

Medium Symbol of Chi x1

Medium Standard Talent Mark x1

Medium Standard Universal State x1

Kote Defeated!

Lesser Symbol of Chi x4

Lesser Attribute Mark, Agility x1

Lesser Attribute Mark, Strength x1

Talent Mark, Detect Traps x1

Lesser Standard Talent Mark x1

Personal Talent Mark, Fishing Instinct x1

The fact that a smaller kote earned fewer rewards was expected. But downgrading the method from ultra-rare to just rare was a surprise. And an unpleasant one at that, as the downgrade translated to serious inferior rewards.

Yesterday I had caught ten kote, and I couldn’t point to any significant changes from yesterday to today. Assuming that ORDER was keen on the decimal system, after fishing ten more, the rare method might become something even less prestigious, and so would the rewards. If there’ll be any rewards at all...

This sucks. I had been counting on quickly raising my states to cosmic heights. It had seemed so simple: fishing peacefully to my heart’s content, enjoying the fresh breeze while chewing on leak stalks, and piling up the strategic rewards.

On the other hand, talent marks were far more valuable to me at this time, and ORDER was still rather generous with those. What others earned for a full day of arduous labor, I was netting for each kote caught, no matter how small.

“Something the matter?” Beko asked.

“Why do you ask?” I wondered.

“You’re staring into the distance. As if you’re seeing something I’m not.”

“That is true. I see a great many things.”

“Tell me? I’m curious what’s there to be seen.”

“I see us catching around twenty kote like this one. Maybe even thirty.”

“This one is kind of small.”

“True, but they’re easy to pull ashore. And there’s going to be twenty of them. Maybe thirty. We can hand in enough baskets today to give us a week’s worth of leisure.”

“What’s a leisure?”

“You know, not having to do anything. Haven’t you ever just lazed around, doing nothing?”

“No. There was always something to do.”

“So you’re a workaholic, eh, Beko?”

“What’s a workaholic?”

“Mm-hmm, there are some serious gaps in your education, my friend. But fear not, I’m going to help you fill them. Go ahead and prep the baskets and the knife. We’re going to have a large haul, since the river is full of fish that are crazy for our new bait.”

* * *

The promised twenty were caught by lunchtime. I had also confirmed my assumption from before. The worst version of it, unfortunately: the ORDER had ceased to award rare-method bonuses after ten catches. I now had to content myself with the prizes awarded for fish alone, which, in all honesty, were still extraordinarily generous. Most people couldn’t dare think of earning such fortunes in their boldest dreams, but my beast had already grown accustomed to luxury, and this sudden shift was akin to downgrading from color television back to black-and-white.

Having quickly secured the three planned attribute gains, I now boasted two points in Agility and one in Stamina. This opened up the option to unlock a couple of new talents, but I was in no hurry to do so. This was a serious step that called for serious analysis before making any decisions.

For instance, in my utter ignorance, I had no idea whether these talents could be unlearned at any point in the future so as to make room for something better. Despite mother’s best efforts, my homeschooling had been rather deficient. Many topics had been left uncovered, or mentioned only passingly, without delving into details. Even crucial ones like the amulet, which remained to me a mystery wrapped in an enigma. Charging it even to comically low values cost an arm and a leg, and our family budget had been in a state of chronic corrosion as a result. But now, all of a sudden it had refilled itself for several months ahead, and with a powerful stat boost besides.

How could this happen? Who directed this process? If I remembered my lessons correctly, chi was a blind force. Its streams flowed along