Chapter 14: Busy day part 1
With the disaster about to happen and my recent death on earth, I have a night of many dreams and nightmares, but I am pulled out of them by a faint voice and knocking on the wood:
"Knock Knock"
"CHIEF!"
"CHIEF the carriage is here!"
I open my eyes and realize that it is daytime again, the person calling me is Ted. Yesterday I asked him to wake me up early, I go to the door and tell him that I will be out in 15-20 minutes. I move a little sleepily to the back to take a shower and brush my teeth. I quickly dress in the same elegant clothes as yesterday and that reminds me to buy a few more pairs now that I have more money, but for now it will do. My father is not home, but I see that he ate the food I left for him yesterday, he also left some tea ready before leaving for work again. I grab my cloth bag with some of the papers, drink some tea that vaguely resembles coffee and a piece of stale bread, and walk to the front of the house while I eat, there I see Ted and the Coachman. Behind them I see a very simple carriage with two skinny horses, it is not fancy, but it should serve its purpose.
I quickly finish my tea and bread and Ted approaches with a bag, inside it are some glass items such as saucers, glasses and cups. Ted stands by while I inspect the glasses looking at their effects on the sun and soon find one that I consider suitable for its purpose of amplifying the sunlight. I put it in my bag and leave the others in the house before heading towards the carriage. I greet the coachman and get into the carriage, ask him to go to the public library while Ted also gets in and sits next to me.
Halfway there we stopped quickly at the inn where I paid for many meals in Ted's name and then we continued towards our destination. Since Omar said he didn't want to go to the port so early, I made Ted get up around 5 in the morning with his brother who goes to the port early to work and find a carriage for me. While he was doing this he also bought the glass that I will use to create the prototype of the desalination plant. Less than 15 minutes later we arrived at one of the libraries in the northern district. Before entering I gave the coachman 6 silver coins and told him that I would need his services for the next few days and if the money wasn't enough for his time he could charge more. He smiled, thanked me and said that the price was fine for a week. Then I asked Ted to look for a place that sells watches and buy me one. I gave him a gold coin and told him that he could buy more than 1 if he had the money. He nodded and quickly left, while I headed towards the entrance of the library. I go through the necessary procedures at the entrance, such as registration and the rules on the proper procedures to avoid damaging the books.
Only then do I start looking for the first candidate to make a copy. It is possible to borrow the book and take it home, if you leave some money as collateral, but I do not plan on making this type of copy infinitely. I want to see how many are needed to complete the Valyrian knowledge mission, and if that is not possible, I will only buy the most important books so as not to lose this valuable knowledge. It does not take long before I find a book that teaches how to make a fermented drink in the chemicals section. The pages are short, with little writing and less than 10 sheets. When more than 20 minutes have passed and I am about to copy the last two pages, a system message appears:
[Complete knowledge detected]
[Do you want to register in the system?] (Y) (N)
I am surprised and do not understand because there were still 2 pages left to complete the physical copy, but the system offered me to register the book. Even though I'm confused, I click YES, and a small glow appears on the screen followed by a small floating book that is now in front of me as if it were a digital e-book. On its cover it says: Basic Fermentation for Amateurs. I focus on it and the 10 pages appear without missing a single detail. I pick up the physical book on the table and go back to the shelf before returning it and choosing a new one. Without moving from my spot, I flip through the entire book page by page, making sure to look at all of them for 1 minute before finishing the last one. As I expected, the familiar message appears again:
[Complete knowledge detected]
[Do you want to register in the system?] (Y) (N)
I don't waste any time before finally understanding how I'm going to be able to complete the knowledge mission. I ignore the more rudimentary books and focus on the most important knowledge first.
I start flipping through several books one after the other, going from shelf to shelf. The familiar message constantly appears:
[Full knowledge detected]
[Do you want to register in the system?]
YES!
The same happiness I had yesterday when I won the wealth of 200 gold coins from the Bank repeats itself again, I didn't imagine that I would feel so happy again for something so simple after coming to this world. As I look at a sort of digital library forming in my mind through the system, it's as if I have the internet again, and can search for anything at any time. Sure, the knowledge is pretty basic compared to my previous world, but it's still satisfying enough. Without me noticing, Ted is behind me in the library.
"Boss, I managed to find the watch you asked for, it cost 8 silver coins, these two bronze ones cost 9 coins each."
He hands me 3 silver coins and 3 pocket watches with chains. Two of them are bronze in color without anything too detailed, the last one is silver, much prettier with more detailed craftsmanship. I open them all and see that it's 7:20 in the morning and I'm satisfied with its accuracy, I attach the chain of the silver one to my pocket, put a bronze one in my bag and give the last one to Ted. He's completely speechless.
"Boss, I can't accept it. This is worth much more than what you're going to pay me this week... I can't accept something so valuable."
—I need you to know the exact time this week while you work for me, so just accept it as a gift and make good use of it to always wake me up on time and not be late for your appointments, okay?
The young man nods and starts admiring the watch that not even his brother has.
I see that I still have 40 minutes left before the time I agreed with Omar, and this public library isn't that big, so I continue my work.
I ignore the fiction, novels, and other philosophical sections and finish almost everything in 30 minutes. I decide to pick up a few more famous books in the area of romance and fiction just to complement and have some entertainment during the trip at sea. This seems to be enough for the long-awaited mission to end.