The Insider System

Chapter 34: Spire

Lake saw the door of the cart open, but instead of the cart driver it was an older man. "Hello Lake, I\'m guild master Lucas. Come on, we\'ll talk on the way up." Lake hopped out of the cart and followed Lucas to what looked like an elevator. Seeing Lucas get inside Lake get inside and stood beside him. "I heard there was an incident on the way here, and one of the guards is in custody. What happened?"

Lake liked that Lucas got straight to the point but he wasn\'t sure if he was supposed to tell him about his skill now or just be vague. "Is it ok for me to go into detail, or should I wait till later?"

"Just tell me if what happened was caused by you, or you think the guard was trying to kill you. I don\'t want him to be in jail for longer than necessary if he\'s innocent."

"He\'s innocent."

"Good, that\'s what I thought. We sent some of our best to bring you here, and I was surprised when something happened." Lake saw Lucas pull out a mirror and say, "Release him, he is innocent." Lake guessed this was some sort of communication device. He wondered how widespread they were; maybe he would have one to soon.

"When we get to my office we\'ll talk about your skill. My office is in Legend spire which is where you\'ll be living from now on. I\'ll also be the one handling your training so just call me Master or Master Lucas from now on." Just like Lake thought Master Lucas was a no nonsense kind of guy.

"How many people live in Legend spire?" Lake was hoping it was going to be more people than just him and Master Lucas because he didn\'t think he could withstand spending all his time with someone like Lucas. "There are technically 46 residents, but at the moment if you count me and you there are 15 people in the spire." Lake just hoped a few of them weren\'t old.

"You said some of the residents aren\'t there, where are they?" Lake was happy people were able to leave. He was scared that he was going to be trapped here, and was going to have to attempt a prison break. "They\'re out on research assignments, most of them are looking for rare plants they need to make special potions."

"What do these special potions do?" Lake guessed they had to be pretty special if the guild was willing to let their most important people go out and look for things. "Most are researching ways to grant themselves new affinities most people are only granted one so they\'re kind of handy capped after they max out their one mage job."

This made Lake wonder if he should tell Master Lucas about his Unique comprehension. He felt like he would find out eventually, it was going to be pretty obvious when he used more than 5 different types of magic. "Master Lucas, should I tell you all my skills or just the legendary skill from my Alchemist job?"

"If you think it pertains to Alchemy." So he should tell him now he just wanted to know how rare it was to have a unique skill. Maybe this was going to be a big deal. He couldn\'t just say it was legendary like had happened with Poison Taster because there was already a legendary form of comprehension.

"Alright we\'re here, this is my office it\'s also the bottom floor of the spire so the door is always open feel free to come in at any time. Alright let\'s get down to business, have a seat, we\'re going to go through the Legend of Legends to see if your skill has already been recorded, or if this is the first time it\'s ever been seen."

This was fine with him whoever changed Poison Taster had changed the name so he wasn\'t worried about it being a unique skill being discovered. Sitting down Lake saw Lucas walk over to a shelf and take out a golden book. He set it in front of Lake and held his hand over it and said, "Unseal." Lake saw the book flash. "Now put your hand over it and say the name of your skill."

Not wanting to waste time, Lake did as he was told. "Poison Taster." The book didn\'t react and Lake could tell this made Lucas excited because this was the first time he saw his face move since he met him. "That means it\'s not recorded. This makes this a little more complicated because we have to add it to the book now."

Lake saw Lucas pull out a pen and some ink and open the book to a blank page. "Alright, Poison Taster was the name right?" Lake nodded his head and watched as Lucas wrote the name at the top of the page. "What does its description say?"

"All poisons have the opposite effect on you." Lucas was halfway through writing this when he stopped, "Are you serious?" Lake remembered this was what the Temple Head said when he told her. Lake nodded his head. "Well that explains what happened in the cart."

After Lucas got done writing the description down he walked over to a shelf and pulled out a blue book setting it down on the desk he held his hand over it and said, "Poison immune. This is the closest skill I can think of to yours. Yours seems to be a Legendary version of this Rare skill. Looking at the book Lake read, "All poisons have no effect on you."

Lake guessed this was what his skill had been before one of the previous holders changed it with the gold writing. This made him feel the next two skills he was going to get were probably going to be Unique as well. He was going to have to deal with the commotion when that happened. Maybe it would be best for him not to be here when it happened. they would probably never let him leave if they thought he had 3 different Legendary skills.

"We\'re done here I\'ll show you to your room and you\'ll have an hour to situate yourself then your training will begin. No point in wasting time."

"Actually Master there\'s one more skill I think you should know about." Lake still wasn\'t sure about this but he felt this was a good time to learn more about Unique skills. "Ok what job is it from?"

"It\'s actually not from a job, it\'s my Comprehension skill." Lake saw Lucas\'s face bloom into a smile. "Is your Comprehension Legendary?"

"No Master, it\'s Unique." Lake was expecting Master Lucas to jump in joy or something but instead he walked over to the bookshelf and grabbed an old leather book bringing it over. He handed it to Lake and said, "Read this once you get to your room then decide what you should do."

"Alright let\'s get you to your room. I need to get the things for your training session ready." Lake followed Lucas into a spiral stairwell in the center of the room. "This staircase is the only way through the whole spire so I hope you like walking, but if you don\'t you can always have your servants go and get the things you need."

"Why not build an elevator like the one we took earlier?"

"Well when this was the Mage Guild we used teleporters and that was the only way in and out of the spire so once the teleporters went done we had to install this staircase. We might upgrade to an elevator in the future; this was more of a quick fix."

"What happened to the teleporters?"

"There aren\'t enough people to keep them charged anymore, so we only use them during emergencies."

After a while of climbing the stairs Lake was starting to think maybe this was a joke. "Master, how much longer until we get there?"

"We\'re almost there." Lake had just seen a sign that said 24 and he assumed that meant the 24th floor of the spire. "Master how many floors are there in the spire."

"There are 100 but the top 10 are off limits to you until you reach master. That\'s where all the really important research takes place so you\'d be in the way." 100 floors it had taken 25 minutes to get here that meant it would take 2 hours to go from the bottom to the top and 2 more to come back down.

"What floor is my room on?" This was his main concern the higher it was the more time he would spend on these stairs everyday. "32, it\'s where the younger people like yourself live because it\'s right above the library you\'ll be spending your study time in and right below the beginner lab where you\'ll be practicing alchemy. It saves a lot of time since you don\'t have to walk all over the place. If you\'re lucky you\'ll only spend 10 to 20 minutes on the stairs a day.

Lake was happy to hear they had moved everything he needed close together but couldn\'t they put everything closer to the bottom. "Why isn\'t everything closer to the bottom?"

"The first 30 floors are used for storage and growing rare plants. The gardens used to be higher up but we couldn\'t get all the fertilizers and such up the stairs so we had to move them where the elevator could do all the heavy lifting."

Lake saw the 32 up above them and guessed it was only five minutes away and thought about if he had to do this while carrying bags of dirt and agreed they made the right decision. "So when is the elevator being added?"

"You\'ll get used to it, also you see this open space in the middle, if you learn how to fly you can make this trip much shorter."

"How do I fly? Is it magic?"

"That\'s right, the easiest way is wind magic. Fly is a medium ranked spell." Lake just made up his mind to learn wind magic as soon as possible "Alright this is your floor there are 3 others that live here so you shouldn\'t get too lonely. Go in and they will show you to your room. I will see you in an hour."