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

“That’s no problem—tomorrow we’ll make more. Ah, and you’re getting the spinning rod tomorrow!”

“Honestly?”

“Why would I lie to you? You’ve been doing well with it. I’ll give it to you when I get my new one. We’ll catch garpikes at twice the speed! We’ll have so much money we could paper the walls with squares.”

“Don’t paper the walls! We can put it in pots and bury them. That’s what one of the people here did, they say. Then the man got killed in the mine. Haven’t you seen Romris wandering the hill with a shovel sometimes? He’s been looking for the money.”

As Beko mumbled on about lost treasure, his voice slowly trailing off, I spent 500 chi to boost Perception to 3 and Spirit to 2. I moved to activate, at last, the Artificer talent, but then nearly scolded myself, and then nearly descended into laughter.

At myself and my own stupidity.

In the euphoria of the spinning and shopping today, I had miscalculated. In order to activate this difficult talent, I needed 600 chi. I could scrape that together, sure, but that was just the start. Every talent boost cost a hundred more. To develop this new talent, I would need another 1000.

I didn’t have anything close to that—and an undeveloped talent was barely worth anything, in practice. Investing so much without any hope for a quick return did not align with my growth strategy.

Haste almost made waste. From now on, I would be more precise. Thankfully, the error was not a critical one. Perception and Spirit would be useful. I would have needed to boost them eventually, anyway.

I used the chi elsewhere, boosting Stamina by one point.

Now, it was time to sleep.

Chapter 33 A Truly Terrible Man

Degrees of Enlightenment: 0 (321/888)

Shadow: 321

Attributes:

Stamina: level 7, 350 points

Strength: level 4, 200 points

Agility: level 5, 250 points

Perception: level 3, 150 points

Spirit: level 2, 100 points

Energy:

Warrior Energy: 150 points

Mage Energy: 100 points

Talents:

Fishing Connoisseur (tier 3): 10/10

Cure Wounds (tier 2): 10/10

Melee Weaponry (tier 1): 10/10

Free Talents:

Spinning Rod Master (tier 3): 10/10

States:

Equilibrium (15.21): level 15

Enhanced Enlightenment (0.50): level 0

Shadow of Chi (0.50): level 0

Measure of Order (3.00): level 3

The next day was entirely routine, except for my retrieval of the crossbow, the quiver of bolts, the parts for my new spinner and rod, and the protective sleeves, all of which I picked up after our second training session, just before lunch. The sleeves would help conceal our tools of the trade, so we would probably encounter fewer looks of envy.

Beko and I were becoming famous far too quickly. It was indeed suspicious: the worthless teenagers of yesterday somehow now procuring an endless supply of garpikes. Many wished their fortunes were half as good. I hoped to somehow mitigate the envy of the people. That was one reason why we spent a good deal of time training, rather than fishing as much as possible. It wasn’t just to become better fighters; it was to dampen our prosperity. Perhaps we could find a better fishing spot, but why would we bother? We had more than enough here, even with time left for training and development.

I had not learned Hand-to-Hand Combat, but that didn’t stop me from beating Beko eight out of ten times. My boosted attributes were starting to make their presence known. Yes, my comrade’s Enlightenment was higher, but he was clearly behind in other numbers. Plus, as I mentioned, a talent which had not been fully developed gave only a negligible advantage.

The ghoul had been observing my progress and now began complaining that he was of little use. He said I should find a better, more experienced teacher. I could pay for excellent hand-to-hand training. This would also give me talent marks more often—the higher your opponent’s level, the greater your chances of having such treasures drop.

We ate lunch on the shore. It was a marvelous meal—something we rapidly got used to. I began to feel sleepy afterwards, but there was no time for a nap. Midges of some kind flew over in a mob, enticed by the smell of the fish. They did not bite much, but it was a nuisance regardless.

We retreated to the very end of the sandbar. Small sun-warmed stones lined the beach underneath us, and soon we ourselves were sun-warmed.

Normally, I wouldn’t have been so sleepy. But boosting my ORDER parameters so quickly had that effect. Twenty-one maxed-out attribute levels in a couple of weeks was incredible development speed. Even a noble with access to the richest sources of marks and levels couldn’t gain such growth in months. But I was still far behind in my overall development. I had to make progress at maximum speed. So I had to eat enough for two full-grown men—and sleep enough for both, too.

But I couldn’t sleep until evening. A half hour later, we returned to the raft and pushed off.

The route from the day before was repeated. We barely paid attention as we pushed off with our poles and directed our craft to the middle of the current. Inertia took it from there.

“Look! What are they doing?” Beko asked, watching the shore.

I turned to see two people rushing away from the fishing shed. It was Tatai, one of the Carps, and Romris himself—cousin of the Carps chief. The latter was clearly chasing the former, who was dodging and bolting, waving his hands wildly for some reason.

“I think he’s trying to tell us something,” I wondered.

At those words, Beko tossed the anchor into the water, and it uncoiled its rope and found its place quickly.

Romris had just caught up with Tatai and grabbed him, hauling him up from the