The Insider System

Chapter 30: Fruit Salad

Lake had just finished his breakfast which had been the best meal he had eaten since arriving to this world. The only thing that could have made it better was if there was some meat. It seemed eating meat wasn\'t very common in a lot of people\'s lives, he wondered if it had something to do with animals being hard to tame or kill. Animal farming wasn\'t really a thing either. The only way to eat meat was to go and kill it, and hunting was a dangerous job so most people stuck to farming.

The reason he had enjoyed this meal so much was it had been vegetable soup that had actually been seasoned, and there was juice to drink. Lake wondered if they had tea If he was still here tomorrow he should ask, and if they didn\'t he would show them how to make it later. It would fall in line with him being an Alchemist apparently, because that was how he unlocked the job to begin with.

As soon as the plates were removed Lake saw the old lady go back to nagging the Temple head, and knew it was alright to talk again. Lake turned to Cas and asked, "So what do we do for the rest of the day?"

"It\'s more like what you do. You\'re free to walk around and do nothing, or you can go to a class, since you can use Light magic. The temple head usually holds a short class every morning, but me and Mimi are going to work in one of the gardens."

"One of the gardens, there\'s more than one?"

"There\'s nine that I know of. I was lucky enough to find where they grow the fruit last week, so me and Mimi have been spending our days there." Lake guessed this was one of the benefits of controlling light you could build farms underground.

"So how big is this place? It\'s like a town down here." He had been wanting to know for most of the time he had been here.

"I\'m not sure, every few days I look around for a while, but it seems new rooms appear every now and then, so I don\'t think you could ever figure out how big it is."

"The light temples serve as a distraction for people like us that can\'t go outside anymore. That\'s why there\'s gardens, and why there\'s so many rooms with different things. It\'s so we never run out of things to do." What Mimi said made Lake realize some people actually spent their whole lives here. He bet it wasn\'t like this before the Demon Lord. Now the dark guilds seemed to reign supreme.

"Cas, how long have you been in the temple?" He wanted to see what might happen to him in a worse case scenario.

"Two years. None of my applications to guilds were accepted so I have no way to pay off the Assassins guild." Two whole years, hopefully Mimi gave him a better answer. "What about you Mimi?"

"Just a couple of months when my intelligence reached 10 I was given Rare Comprehension and one of my three affinities was holy magic. When I told my mom she sent me to the temple for protection." This wasn\'t to bad Lake could probably keep himself busy for a few months. He just wondered why Mimi\'s mom sent her here right away. "Can the Dark guild alliance find people with holy affinity, or could you have kept it a secret?"

"No it\'s pretty obvious. I\'m not supposed to tell people, but a lot of people can tell just looking at me." Lake had also been able to tell almost right away there was a strange mana gathering around her that seemed really weak. Lake decided to get off such a heavy topic. "So what are holy spells like?"

"They are able to do lots of things similar to Light and Healing magic but its main use is fighting against Unholy and corrupt magics Like necromancy and curses. Normal healing magic can do nothing against curses or undead." It was starting to seem this world was a lot more dangerous than he would ever have thought when he first got here. He had been pretty safe in the corn village, so he assumed this world was laid back.

"You should get going if you\'re going to class." Get going to where? He had no idea where he even was in the temple right now. Seeing his blank look, Cas said. "Come with me I\'ll show you."

A few minutes later, they had arrived in a heavily lit room with people sitting on mats. There were a lot of people that had not been at breakfast here, and he wondered if they were people from town for the class, or if the temple had mutable places for people to eat.

The temple head saw him as he walked in with Cas and motioned for him to come to her, so Lake said bye to Cas and walked over to her. "There\'s not much point in you taking this class, you\'re too new to magic. You\'d be better off going to the library to read a book for beginners." There was no way that was true, he had kicked ass last night.

"I was told this class is short. I can go to the library later, it\'s not like I have much to do." After he said this he saw a look on her face like he was going to regret not taking her advice. "Ok, find an empty mat, class will start in a few seconds." Lake was wondering if he should leave, his prank senses were going off because of what the Temple head said, but decided to stay because he would have to wait till after the class to go to the library anyway because he didn\'t know where it was. Lake sat on a mat near the front of the class.

"Ok everyone get ready." Lake saw the Temple head raise her hand, and then nothing for an hour. After it was over it took his eyes a while to start working again. "What was that? I saw nothing. How is this a class?" He had gotten mad when the first thing he saw after his eyes had started working again was the Temple head smirking at him. "It\'s not that you saw nothing but that you saw too much. You need to learn how to focus your senses better or you\'ll never get any further in the Light branch of magic. With your current state I would say you would be good at earth magic though."

"That sounded like an insult. Are you calling me a rock head or something?" The Temple head covered her mouth, he guessed to keep herself from laughing at him. "No Earth magic is based on the physical things that you can see and touch. Light magic is much more esoteric, so it can be hard for beginners like you."

"Fine, will you show me to the library. I want to read a book." He didn\'t say what book, but she knew anyway. "Our library has many books for beginners like you, so be careful when you pick one. There are many different approaches to magic so if you don\'t like one move on to the next one till something feels right. Also no practicing in the library."

As they were walking, Lake asked a question that had formed during breakfast. "How rare is it to get a legendary skill?" His scale was probably off since he didn\'t even know how common a common skill was.

"The rarer your job, the more likely that it happens. it\'s pretty common for a person to get at least one throughout their life but since you\'re so young your guild will see you as someone with potential to get multiple. The amount of money you\'ll make for your guild is crazy as long as those skills are any good."

"I don\'t think it\'s too useful for making potions to be honest." Lake didn\'t know why he said that. "You should keep that to yourself. If the alchemist guild heard that they wouldn\'t pay your bounty, and you\'d be stuck here for the rest of your life." After a few seconds of silence The temple head asked, "Would you mind telling me what it does? Maybe I can clear up your doubts about it."

Lake wasn\'t sure it was a good idea but he went for it. "It reverses the effects of poisons on me." The Temple head stopped walking and asked, "Are you serious?" Lake nodded his head. "Then you have nothing to worry about. It\'ll take some time but you\'ll be able to make it work for you, and your guild. They are hard to make and you\'ll have to dabble in curse magic but there are permanent poisons that act like curses, but on you they\'ll be blessings. As an added bonus you\'ll never go hungry again since you can probably eat any kind of plant next time you see a plant you should try it out."

Lake had never thought about that. He bet she was right, from now on he could buff himself while getting full by eating random plants. "Thank you, your advice has been very helpful." As he was saying this a new question formed in his head. "Wait, is it easier to make poison? Why can\'t I just make a good permanent potion? Why does it have to be bad?"

"Much easier, at the start most ingredients are poisonous. That\'s part of an alchemist\'s job, making good things out of a bunch of bad things. The way you make permanent potions is by enchanting them but it\'s way easier to curse things especially these days. You see enchanting needs materials like powerful cores and such, curses just need negative energy which is abundant; you can just pull it out of the air."

"Oh, so what jobs do I need to be able to do what you said?" To be honest Lake thought curses sounded cool, he would probably do more than dabble if he was able to unlock the job.

"There are a bunch of jobs that allow you to curse things. Since the Demon Lord won the battle the amount of Unholy mana has risen almost to the level of the God of Light. The amount of jobs that deal with Dark forces has increased as well, so you should have no problem unlocking a few."

Lake felt it was weird she was encouraging this behavior, he thought she would try to dissuade him from using dark magic and he voiced his surprise. "I\'m surprised you\'re saying these things."

"The God of Light has always said it\'s how you do something that matters, not that you\'re doing it."

"What about why you do something? What does he say about that?"

"Intentions don\'t always affect the results." Lake found it funny to hear this, in his last life people always said bad intentions made everything you did bad. The God of Light was saying intentions don\'t affect results so you had to act responsibly. It didn\'t matter that your knife was poisoned if you never waved it around. It only mattered once it cut someone, or you.

They had just arrived at the library. The temple head pointed at a shelf, and said. "Those are the books you should start with. Have a nice time reading, if you need me ask the librarian how to get to the lobby." and she left him there to figure it out.