On her way down from the building, Erin heard something collapse far away. She peeked through the shattered windows and saw a giant bat monster in the sky. With her improved vision, she could see it clearly despite the great distance. Thankfully, it was flying away from her.
[Inspect]
[Deathbat]
[Advanced tier beast]
[Health: ???]
It was likely that it was the beast that caused the sound. It wasn't unheard of for beasts to attack other beasts if they approached their territory, so she didn't want to head towards that direction. Judging by her skills and stats right now, she couldn't take on an advanced tier beast without major risk to her life.
Erin was thinking about how long she had been up by now. Currently, she was fine, but with all that had happened, getting some sort of rest would be greatly appreciated. Seeing as there was an advanced tier beast around, she wanted to be somewhere safe and away from it before she went to sleep.
She left the building and ran across the street to the storage room. The storage room was meant to store equipment like mechs, airships, and skill books. It didn't look like a storage room, but more like a hangar. Under normal circumstances, it would be wide open in the front and back of it, where ships and machines could take off.
The doors to it were large and metallic. It was closed now, and she had no way of entering without making a lot of noise. She did not want to attract the attention of the deathbat she saw earlier, and searched around the structure to see if there was some sort of other opening. Unfortunately, Erin couldn't spot anything obvious.
Not sure what to do, she decided to message someone for advice.
{Erin} I'm trying to enter a military storage room right now, but there's no way in without making a lot of noise. Do you have any tips on how to enter?
A few moments passed before Erin got a response.
{Quinn} Did you check the other side?
{Quinn} I think they have doors on both sides of them.
{Erin} What are you doing awake?
{Quinn} You asked for help, didn't you? And you're on a red portal planet. I'm more worried about you than anything.
{Erin} Ugh.
{Erin} Because I know you can't see me doing this, I'm letting you know that I'm rolling my eyes very hard right now.
Erin wasn't actually rolling her eyes, but she did follow Quinn's advice. She quietly walked around the storage hangar and saw that the door on the other end was closed shut. She was about to cut her losses when she spotted a rattaclaw squealing in pain.
The beast was making a ton of noise, so she ran up to it, slicing its head off in one swooping motion. Then, she kicked the body to the side.
[100 EXP gained]
[1200/6400 EXP]
Now that the beast was out of the way, Erin realized there was a small gap in the corner of the doors. There was a thought about what caused the rattaclaw to be injured, and if it was perhaps inside the hangar. She needed to be alert.
She got down on her knees and peered through the hole. Judging from her first impressions of the inside, she couldn't see anything particularly dangerous. However, it was a mess and was clearly looted. Erin was slightly disappointed by the lack of anything. With how this area was meant to be storage for beast gear, she was honestly hoping to find a cooler sword than her current one.
Erin crawled deeper inside, and the place was certainly picked apart beyond usefulness.
{Erin} I made it inside.
{Quinn} You should use the inspect skill more on things other than humans or beasts. I'm sure I would use it all the time when I'm an unfamiliar place.
{Erin} Go to sleep.
As much as she didn't like to admit it, Quinn was right. She wasn't quite used to using the system's skills. Erin preferred using her own skills with her own body rather than being dependent on clicking a mental screen.
Walking around the hangar, Erin looked around to see if there could've been anything of interest. That was when she spotted a room in the corner of the structure. Heading up to it, the room was more like a giant safe due to how it was a giant, thick metal box. It had a steel door with a pass code device.
Tapping the side of it, it certainly was made out of thick steel, and would've been hard to break down. Even if Erin had her old level 5 ice ability, she doubted she could've broken in. It would certainly be a safe spot to hide in since the inside was untouched despite all of these years. That is, if she could get in.
Erin held her sword up to the container's door and tried to stab it between the crevices. She pushed her sword in with as much force as she could, but it barely even left a scratch.
'Should I use bloodswipe? No, that's a dumb idea, that'll just use up my health,' Erin thought.
She looked at the pass code and thought about what Quinn said about using the inspect skill more often. It couldn't hurt to try.
[Inspect]
[A pass code machine which is linked to a steel door. Entering the right combination to the door will successfully open it]
'Oh yeah, go ahead and tell me something I don't already know,' Erin bitterly thought.
Suddenly, she heard a new notification sound that had a positive sounding chord.
[Inspect skill is now level 2]
[Inspect skill will now display more information about objects, humans, items, and more]
'You better tell me something new,' Erin thought as she tried it again.
[Inspect]
[A pass code machine which is linked to a steel door. Entering the right combination to the door will successfully open it. Please touch the lock for more information]
Erin did just that, and nothing happened when she touched it. She was slightly angered until she tried it again.
[A pass code machine which is linked to a steel door. Entering the right combination to the door will successfully open it. The combination to the door is 2536725364]
She typed the numbers in.
"Beep!"
The door made an unlocking sound and swung wide open. Erin couldn't contain her excitement and ran inside. Surely, there were going to be hoards of high-quality beast gear inside, including a king— no, emperor tier sword, right?
But when she looked around the container, it was just a mini library with shelves of books. All her dreams of finding a really cool sword were destroyed.
'Seriously? It's ALL books,' Erin thought as she picked one up, about to throw it.
[Earth ability book level 1]
[Unable to learn. Would you like to convert into 10 EXP?]
Suddenly, Erin didn't want to throw the book anymore. She selected yes immediately. Suddenly, the book that was once in her hands disintegrated into nothing. She felt a subtle, strange sensation inside, and a new message had appeared.
[10 EXP gained]
[1110/6400 EXP]
It wasn't as cool as a brand-new sword, but she could work with this. Erin went through the books, absorbing them one by one. The level 1 ability books gave only 10 EXP, and each book type she could only absorb once. She could only absorb an Earth ability book once, which was a shame since that's what most of the books were.
Once she absorbed all she could from this shelf, she looked at the next one, and it was all level 2 books. Despite having absorbed a level 1 Earth ability book, she was able to absorb the level 2 version. It was different enough according to the system, as they gave her 100 EXP.
[500 EXP gained]
[1610/6400 EXP]
Looking at the shelves ahead, there were quite a number of them. She then looked at the next shelf and picked up another book.
[Level 3 teleport ability book]
[Unable to learn. Would you like to convert into 1000 EXP?]
[1000 EXP gained]
[2610/6400 EXP]
She was about to absorb another book when she realized that not all of the Earth ability books were useless to her now. Erin grabbed a spare Level 3 Earth book and looked at Quinn's stats page. If she was able to absorb the books for experience, then maybe she could've helped Quinn increase his ability level.
[Would you like to absorb the book?]
[No]
[Option to use the ability book on family member (Quinn)]
Seeing those words surprised her. Erin had no more living family members. It was already strange being mentally connected to him, and they definitely weren't blood relatives, but somehow, she wasn't entirely against the idea.
It was a nice thought.
[ERROR]
[Quinn Talen is not blooded. Book will not be absorbed]
'Blooded?' Erin thought.
That's right. The system didn't mean that the two were actually related. It had something to do with a game mechanic. With how vampires had a lot to do with blood, it probably meant Quinn getting vampire blood in him somehow.
'At least I could bring these back to him; he could definitely get stronger,' Erin thought as she tucked the book under her arm, but it was a little awkward holding that as well as her sword.
Erin set the book down for now as she absorbed the next couple of books. She gained a total of 9,060 EXP, which leveled her up.
[User: Erin Heley]
[Race: Halfling]
[Level 8]
[5,270/12,800 EXP]
[HP 50/50]
Unfortunately, there weren't any more level 3 ability books. In fact, there weren't any more books she could absorb. Erin looked at the other shelves further away from her, just making sure they all were empty. She thought it was true until she saw the last shelf at the end, which held a singular ability book.
Erin grabbed it and got a message.
[Level 6 shadow ability book]
She was about to absorb it, ready to shoot up several levels in her experience levels, when a new message appeared.
[Ability is compatible with the system]
[Would you like to learn it?]
"I… I could learn it?" Erin whispered to herself in disbelief.
This entire time, she had been without an ability. The last thing she had left of her parents, the ice ability, was gone, and the only source of strength she had came from a system given to her by accident. Her old powers disappeared, and she wasn't able to relearn them or any other abilities she came across.
Erin wiped her eyes. This was a level 6 ability, stronger than her old one. She didn't quite know what would be able to control shadows entailed, but it had to be worth it.
"I'm sorry, mom and dad… I'm sorry I couldn't keep my power… but you won't mind if I learn this one, right?" Erin's voice shook.
She skimmed over the contents of the book as she didn't need to learn it instantly. While holding it, she found out that it could apparently be stored in her system inventory, unlike all the other books. It was likely because it was a book that only those 'blooded' could learn, and was compatible with her system.
Reading some of the techniques, there were details about the different shadow skills. The ability seemed to have a lot of smaller abilities to it, making it quite useful.
Yawning, Erin realized just how tired she was. Considering just how secure the container had been for who knows how long, Erin made sure the door was shut, and laid down on the ground. She was going to deicide if she would learn the shadow ability or not tomorrow.