The secret passage sat in the wall like a held breath. He could go now. He didn't.
Power first.
William turned from the seam and started working the shelves with a method that felt half ritual, half scavenger's patience. Lick, wait, decide. It looked ridiculous; it worked. He trusted his mouth more than the covers now. Better than judging by fonts.
Magic was his first hunt. Titles with sigils, charcoal bindings, gilded script—he touched tongue to corner after corner. Most came back dull and glue-flat, colors barely stirring behind his eyes: washed gray, dry brown. Somewhere in this room there had to be more, but he didn't have days to sift for it.
Move on.
He needed hard numbers in his body, not just tricks. Unarmed made sense; a knife was great until it wasn't, and heels traveled with you when thieves didn't. He wanted a foundation that stayed useful whether disarmed or holding something better than stainless steel.
He paused before a sober volume with a medical cross. He tasted the corner.
Cool tannin and a faint copper thread. Behind his eyes, tempered silver slid through a dry, bone-brown—precise, unshowy, square.
"Anatomy it is."
He bit, chewed past paper dust, and swallowed. Meaning came on rails: ligaments where they lived, ribs where they floated, the angle of a jaw that slept with a thumb's pressure. Not surgeon knowledge; a map for strikes, grips, impacts.
[Book Consumed: Practical Human Anatomy]
+1 Durability
Skill Gained: Anatomy (Basic)
[Combat Values Unlocked]
Critical Hit Chance: +10%
He rocked back, surprised by how light it sat in his gut. Not much fullness. The hunger inside eased rather than swelled.
Durability increased capacity. Bigger tank. He grinned at the logic.
He kept moving. A pocket-sized manual winked from beneath a slumped atlas: Self-Defense for Women. He almost snorted at the cover. Then he licked it.
Peppered citrus. A clean, canary-bright flicker, quick as a jab. Surprisingly enticing…
He ate. Lines tightened through his elbows and knees; the economy of someone who refused to be grabbed slotted into his stance.
[Book Consumed: Self-Defense for Women]
+1 Speed
Skill Gained: Unarmed Combat (Basic)
Two shelves down, a sun-faded fighter squared his shoulders on Old Time Boxing. The taste ran leather and liniment; warm amber pooled behind his eyes. His hips loaded the floor without asking.
He ate.
[Book Consumed: Old Time Boxing]
+1 Strength
Skill Upgraded: Unarmed Combat (Basic+)
Grappling next. If something chewed its way into his reach, he needed answers that didn't rely on steel. Greco-Roman Wrestling watched him from a cracked slipcase. He licked the spine—chalk dust, old sweat; a square gray like mats underfoot.
Down it went.
[Book Consumed: Greco-Roman Wrestling]
+1 Durability
Skill Gained: Wrestling (Basic)
The durability bump made space again; the hunger shifted, accommodating. He wanted legs that cut like blades. He found Savate in thin blue wrappers, edges frayed. The taste was salt air and old rubber; a cold sea-blue flashed and sharpened his shin in his mind.
He ate, and the line from hip to toe turned into a lever.
[Book Consumed: Savate]
+1 Strength
Skill Upgraded: Unarmed Combat (Intermediate)
He exhaled through his nose, pleased. Strength layered like rebar; durability settled his frame. The unarmed upgrade didn't feel like fireworks; it felt like a step on a staircase he'd already been climbing.
He pulled the status because writing it down in light made it real.
Status: William Page
Age: 18
System: Unbound Bookeater
Class: None
Level: 2
EXP: 0 / 200
Strength: 11
Speed: 12
Durability: 11
Mental: 12
Social: 5
Luck: 5
Traits:
– Hunger for Knowledge
– Synesthetic Cognition
– Rational Mind
Skills:
– Survival (Basic)
– Mycology (Basic)
– Cooking (Basic)
– Knife Use (Basic)
– Herb Lore (Basic)
– Knife Combat (Basic)
– Medicine (Basic)
– Magic (Basic)
– Anatomy (Basic)
– Unarmed Combat (Intermediate)
– Wrestling (Basic)
Abilities:
– Sense Magic (Basic) [Touch]
Combat Values:
– Critical Hit Chance: +10%
Unallocated Points:
– Stat Points: 0
– Skill Points: 1
He studied the numbers with the same satisfaction he'd gotten from a perfect bowline. The earlier deduction still held: if five was median and ten was ninety-fifth percentile or higher, then eleven and twelve put him past what most humans on Earth could manage without augmentations. Not omnipotent. Enough to cheat the next exchange by fractions.
He wondered about classes again. Milestone level? Book synergies? Some threshold where the System decided he had a "path." Unarmed plus Anatomy; Knife plus Anatomy; Magic waiting for a second leg to stand on. The library would show its teeth when it was time. Until then, eat and not die.
He circled back to the snare he'd set, fingers careful on knots. Survival skill wasn't just for huckleberries; it was for not dying in clever ways. He broke the rig down, coiled the paracord, and measured by feel and habit. A foot lost to abrasion; call it eight. He logged it mentally, then physically. Numbers beget neatness.
He wanted a ranged answer even without ammo. A sling cost nothing but cord and time.
He harvested a ruined hardback's cloth cover for a pouch, punched holes with his knife tip, and tied two lines through at measured intervals. Adjust. Retie. Center the cradle so a stone would sit true. His hands moved like they remembered this from somewhere; maybe Scout manuals, maybe a bored afternoon with YouTube and twine.
He gave the sling a few slow rotations. The cords hummed. Promise.
Curiosity itched. He had cut a sacrificial foot from the paracord's frayed end, wrapped it twice around a shelf post to kill slip, braced a boot, and pulled like the numbers were a dare. Fibers creaked. The line stretched with grudging grace. A thread popped. Then two. Then a sudden, mean snap that jerked him half a step.
He laughed once, breathless. "Okay. We're playing with grown-up muscles now."
He updated the ledger because ritual mattered.
Inventory:
– Knife (Common, Durability 92%)
– Trail Mix (Mundane, 340g)
– Water Bottle (Common, Empty, Durability 100%)
– Paracord (Common, 16 ft, Durability 98%)
– Firestarter (Common, Durability 87%)
– Poncho (Common, Durability 90%)
– Goblin Key (Uncommon)
– Improvised Sling (Common, Durability 85%)
He palmed the Goblin Key and let Sense Magic read it. A faint metallic whisper against skin, not a chorus. Close to power. Not power itself. It wanted a lock the way a magnet wants its twin.
The secret passage waited where he'd left it. He walked back, letting the new strength and speed settle into his stride. The bandaged bite tugged; he listened to the ache and kept moving.
He pressed the carved leaf. The panel sighed and slid. Cold air breathed out, sharper now that his senses ran hotter. The passage angled down, shoulders-wide, walled in old wood and older stone. His light—little more than the library's nowhere-glow—died after a few yards.
He stood at the threshold, feeling the temperature difference on his cheeks. The silence felt poised.
He set the sling on his belt, the knife at his hip, the key against his palm, and leaned into the dark.
The library swallowed him one step at a time.