He stood in the doorway a moment and let the room be a room again. Shelves. Dust. The quiet comfort of paper stacked like firewood. No teeth in the walls. No iron in the air.
Safe enough to think.
He rolled his tongue against the back of his teeth and weighed a problem: water. Survival taught him you don't eat if you can't drink; digestion costs fluid. Did books count? They felt like food to his body, but the System wasn't a biology textbook. With durability where it was, maybe he had more margin against dehydration. Maybe not.
Either way, goblins drank something that wasn't blood. He could find it later.
For now—the feast.
He wanted scouting, he wanted better survival, and he wanted sky-blue utility magic to make the maze less smug. He also wanted to spend down capacity while he had it; level reset would clear the tank soon enough, but that was a bridge to take stocked, not starving.
He walked the perimeter first, hands behind his back like a man in a used bookstore pretending he could leave without buying anything. The memory-trick for detect magic slid open in his head; he let one copy burn and watched the room sketch itself in faint lines.
Pale traceries appeared along three spines in a high case, two more buried behind a collapsed shelf, and a soft halo around a thin book he'd noticed on his first pass maybe an hour ago. Enough to work with.
He pulled the first thin one. The cover was canvas-green, stamped with a compass rose. He tasted the corner: clean, resin-bright, like pine smoke and notes flipped in a field notebook. It lit his mouth with a careful, disciplined clarity.
"Eyes of the Trail: Fieldcraft & Scouting," the spine said.
He ate. The knowledge came in short, useful lines—angles of approach, where to put footsteps so they left no story, how to read a room's sightlines without looking like you were. He saw paths even inside: through stacks, around corners, across shadows laid by lamps that weren't there.
[Book Consumed: Eyes of the Trail: Fieldcraft & Scouting]
+1 Mental
Skill Gained: Scouting (Basic)
He swallowed and moved. The detect magic trace led him to a high shelf where two titles sat like old friends. He licked the first: dry sage and flint, the taste of someone who'd slept under a hundred skies.
"From Tinder to Shelter: Practical Bushcraft."
Down it went.
[Book Consumed: From Tinder to Shelter: Practical Bushcraft]
+1 Mental
Skill Upgraded: Survival (Basic+)
The second wore leather cracked to a map. The tongue said smoke and river stones.
"Water, Fire, Hide, Rope: Intermediate Bushcraft."
He ate. The advice was physical now—how to ration sweat, to read the air for water, to make a container from trash and bark. It settled into his bones like extra webbing on a pack.
[Book Consumed: Water, Fire, Hide, Rope: Intermediate Bushcraft]
+1 Durability
Skill Upgraded: Survival (Intermediate)
The thirst question pivoted. Yes—eating would make him drier. But durability bought him hours, maybe a day, before it became a problem that blurred edges. He logged it. He'd have to solve water soon.
Back to the magic signatures.
He pulled the thin volume he'd clocked earlier on his first day here and dusted the title with his thumb. "Theory of Ritual Geometry." The taste was chalk and basil and cool stone. Necessary, not flashy.
He ate. The pattern of circles and cuts he'd guessed at in the blood chamber refined into measures he could feel. Lines wanted to go here, not there; a breath at the right moment mattered. A small door opened in the back of his mind, neat and square.
[Book Consumed: Theory of Ritual Geometry]
+1 Mental
Skill Upgraded: Rituals (Basic+)
Ability Unlocked: Item Box (Basic)
He exhaled. Storage—the wish made real. The space was small, a pocket the size of a lunchbox in nowhere, but it was dry and safe and one reach away.
He palmed a sling stone, felt its weight, and sent it into the new pocket with a thought. It vanished with the mental sensation of a drawer shutting. He followed with the other two stones, the two unidentified potions, the cut paracord coil, and the firestarter. The world felt lighter by a few pounds and better by more.
He smiled. "Thank you," he told the empty air, then turned to the next glow.
"Foundations of Geomancy: Lines, Stone, and Flow." The taste was iron-rich sand and a cool hint of rain on granite.
He ate.
[Book Consumed: Foundations of Geomancy: Lines, Stone, and Flow]
+1 Mental
Skill Upgraded: Magic (Basic+)
Spell Learned: Enchant Stone
He relaxed his shoulders as the new grammar snapped into place. Stone liked being told what to be, in small ways—harder, truer, more itself for a time. A pebble could become a bullet, a wedge, a doorstop that refused to give.
Across the aisle, a soft thread of magic limned a booklet bound in cream parchment. He tasted lemon oil and old glass.
"A Primer on Gentle Light."
He ate.
[Book Consumed: A Primer on Gentle Light]
+1 Mental
Spell Learned: Light
He could stop needing the library's moody glow. Good.
He wanted more hard utility. Another detect magic burned; lines traced a thick spine with no title, then a second thinner one with the sort of cover a school might have printed forty years ago.
The thick one read like tin and soap and a shop full of cracked tools.
"Basic Adventuring Magic." He cracked the cover and skimmed; a half-dozen cantrips stitched together by common sense. Fix what's broken. Make slick what needs to be slick. Name what things are. Borrow an inch of height from the ground.
He ate.
[Book Consumed: Basic Adventuring Magic]
+1 Luck
Skill Upgraded: Magic (Intermediate)
Spells Learned: Repair, Grease, Identify, Jump
The thin book carried a lavender-dry taste, like linen in a cedar chest filled with wonders.
"Lulling Charms and Waking Wards."
He ate.
[Book Consumed: Lulling Charms and Waking Wards]
+1 Mental
Skill Upgraded: Magic (Intermediate+)
Spell Learned: Sleep
He stood there a moment, letting the weight settle in his head the way a pack sits different after you repack it right. His touch for magic already felt finer; the mental shelf for spells had stretched.
He checked the numbers because numbers are a story too.
Status: William Page
Age: 18
System: Unbound Bookeater
Class: None
Level: 3
EXP: 275 / 300
Strength: 11
Speed: 12
Durability: 14
Mental: 18
Social: 5
Luck: 7
Traits:
– Hunger for Knowledge
– Synesthetic Cognition
– Rational Mind
Skills:
– Survival (Intermediate)
– Mycology (Basic)
– Cooking (Basic)
– Knife Use (Basic)
– Herb Lore (Basic)
– Knife Combat (Basic)
– Medicine (Basic)
– Magic (Intermediate+)
– Anatomy (Basic)
– Unarmed Combat (Intermediate)
– Wrestling (Basic)
– Situational Awareness (Basic)
– Rituals (Basic+)
– Scouting (Basic)
Abilities:
– Sense Magic (Basic+) [Touch]
– Resorb Blood (Basic) [Self]
– Item Box (Basic)
Resistances:
– Blood (Minor)
Combat Values:
– Critical Hit Chance: +10%
Affiliations:
– God of Spilt Blood — Angered
Memorized Spells (5 / 13):
– Detect Magic ×5
Unallocated Points:
– Stat Points: 0
– Skill Points: 2
Inventory:
– Knife (Common, Durability 81%)
– Trail Mix (Mundane, 340g)
– Water Bottle (Common, Empty, Durability 100%)
– Poncho (Common, Durability 80%)
– Goblin Key (Uncommon)
– Improvised Sling (Common, Durability 85%)
– The Complete Arts of War (Common)
Item Box (Basic):
– Smooth Stones (x3, Mundane)
– Unidentified Potion (Common) ×2
– Paracord (Common, 16 ft, Durability 98%)
– Firestarter (Common, Durability 87%)
He tasted the air out of habit—only dust and glue and the faint sweetness of old paper. No iron. Good. His stomach felt vast; the durability bump had stretched the tank, and the level reset waiting at three hundred would clear it again. The temptation to keep eating pressed like a hand between his shoulder blades.
He walked to a familiar endcap where a thick black book had waited since his first pass. He laid his palm on the cover and felt plain cloth and the quiet of long pages.
"The Complete Arts of War."
He didn't lick it. He already knew the color it would paint behind his eyes: warm amber of gyms and dojos, cold silver of steel names, a thread of dry earth from fields where strength was tested and retested.
"Alright," he said to the room, to himself, to whatever counted the beats out there. "Let's see what you make of a knife that learns."
He opened wide and bit deep.