"And how many points do you have left?" She knew that spatial skills were amongst the most expensive skills within the system so buying seven of them at once had to hurt.
Chronos looked away from her feeling a little ashamed now.
"Chronos, how many points do you have left?" She pressured him as she leaned forward.
"...2." He quietly said.
"Well 20 is not bad, you can still buy one maybe two skills with that." She hadn't heard him very well leading to a misunderstanding.
Somewhat louder Chronos repeated himself, "Not 20, I only have 2 points left."
She stared at him for a moment before exploding in laughter, "Pft, hahahaha, you went from having a whole pile of points from fighting devils to nothing in a single buying spree! Hahahaha I can't... I can't make this up."
She couldn't stop laughing at his ashamed look. She knew he might spend a lot of points but spending everything made it difficult to prepare for or respond to emergencies.
Becoming annoyed with her he said, "It can't be helped. If I could go somewhere to learn the basic skills I'd do so but as far as I know nobody practices these skills. I can only acquire them from the system."
"That's true." She said as she regained control of herself again. "I've never even heard of people using spatial skills below the fourth rank and at the fourth rank it's almost always setting up portals or other complex magics. People below the fourth rank don't even touch on spatial knowledge."
"That's why I have to go all in." He sighed. "I still need to write down all of the basic utility skills, those ones are too important not to have available for my clan."
He grimaced at the thought of spending a whole day writing down skills again. Last time it had taken him an entire day just to write one book he didn't want to think about how long it would take him to write multiple skills.
Although it had been a whole book and not just a single skill, he hoped it would be easier to write three basic skills instead of a whole book.
"Well, then you'd better start now. Here, we have enough sturdy paper and here is some magic ink for transferring intent." Lyla handed over a stack of paper and some of her personal ink.
"We have intent ink?" Chronos said as he took it and sat at a desk made from smooth tree branches.
The swamp hag and the matron had been going around upgrading the various facilities with everything they thought would be needed for the children's growth including study rooms.
"I received it from a silver dragon priestess that insisted on having copies of any magic skills we learned. If we need more, we can ask for it. I'm sure the silver dragon's followers would be happy to provide more." She said.
Sitting on a comfortable chair he set the ink and paper down as he prepared to finalize his purchase. He wasn't sure what would happen when he bought so many skills at once.
Selecting buy he waited. At first he didn't think that anything had happened then everything went black.
He wasn't unconscious but he couldn't feel anything and he didn't see anything around him except a few glowing books.
"What is this place?" He muttered.
With nothing else around him he approached the largest book, on the cover was a title he recognized. {Spatial relativity for kids. The place to begin your journey!}
Oh, was this his mental space? There was one way to find out for sure.
Approaching the second largest book he read its cover. {Divine Beast Method}
So, this was his mental space. He had looked inside of it before, but he had never managed to enter his mental space until now. Most people would never be able to interact with much less enter their mental space at such a low level making this a very novel experience for Chronos.
Even at higher levels while they could enter their mental space, they couldn't do anything while in there. It was more a form of meditation than actually being useful for most people.
Being inside of it didn't mean he would be able to do anything while in here either. He didn't know any technique or method that would let him make changes or use this space and he wasn't confident he could come up with something while he was here.
On top of that he was starting to have a headache.
"What's going on? I shouldn't be having a headache when nothing has happened." Chronos said.
He had sat on the comfortable chair when this started to prevent himself from falling and injuring himself. Besides this felt more like a migraine rather than a headache from a blow.
"Right, my purchase, buying that many books at once might have caused all of this. Where are they anyways?" Chronos asked no one, thinking he wouldn't get a response.
Surprisingly he got a response.
"They're over to the left."
Spinning around Chronos searched for the origin of the voice only to be faced with darkness.
He knew this wasn't his subconscious, it didn't sound right and his subconscious didn't usually communicate through words. It would use visual images, scents, or emotions in most cases.
"Is someone there?" Chronos asked.
"Well yes but also no. It's a bit complicated for someone at your level to understand."
The voice felt immense, ancient, and powerful. And right now, it seemed to be enjoying his confusion.
"Rather than looking for me you should be focusing on those new skills of yours. You took in too many at once, so you'll forget them if you don't focus on them." It said.
Turning back to the books Chronos saw that the voice was right, some of the books were beginning to turn transparent.
Focusing on them a great amount of information suddenly bounced around his mental space. So, this was the source of his migraine, too much information coming in all at once.
Moving swiftly, he grabbed the knowledge and began reviewing and organizing it.
"Hoh." The voice was quietly impressed.
It knew that Chronos didn't understand what he had just done. Being inside of one's own mind was one thing as everyone got lost in their thoughts but being able to interact with what's there was completely different.
It was as difficult as actively controlling your dreams while being inside of them. Very few people could do that.
Chronos picked up one book after another until he had read through all seven books. Once he was done, they became solid and floated next to his other two books.
Seeing them floating there he felt a sense of satisfaction, but this process made him wonder if he could turn the skills he already knew into books as well. Organizing so many skills at once had given him a sense for how mental energy acted, if he used that feeling he could learn how to write his own skill books.
Acting on instinct he held out his hand like he was holding a quill and began to write. Nothing happened for several seconds but as he focused on it words slowly appeared. Faint at first but the more he focused on and rewrote them the darker they became.
This was interesting! If he could make words appear then he could make other things appear as well, he decided to save that thought for later right now he needed to finish this book first.
After writing down everything he knew a cover materialized around the pages and a title wrote itself onto the book.
{Shatter}
The simplest skill he knew turned into a book in front of him.
Staring at what he had just done Chronos let the accomplishment slowly sink in as it floated alongside the other books.
As aura users and magic users aged, they sometimes forgot their skills as their memories degraded but with this book Chronos would never forget his skill as long as the book existed. This could easily change the way people learned and remembered skills.
"Hm, this is amazing. Still, I can't help but think that this method will be limited to the higher ranks, lower ranks aren't able to enter their mental space after all." Chronos said.
"You're right but what if you used this method to inscribe knowledge into another person's mind?" The voice said in a teasing tone.
"That's an interesting thought but right now I want to write down my other skills. It won't do me any good to forget them." Chronos said.
"Don't make a skill book for any skills that haven't reached the master rank otherwise it will be hard to advance them." The voice advised.
"I didn't know that. Thanks for telling me, by the way, who are you?" Chronos asked.
"Haha, took you long enough to ask, don't worry about that right now. You'll eventually find out if you keep walking your current path." The voice replied clearly not wanting to tell him yet.