Alpha Zero (Alpha LitRPG Book 1) by Arthur Stone (top 5 books to read TXT) 📕

You have acquired a free, unbound talent: Trolling with Spinning Rod. Talent Rank: 2. Talent Level: 10. Talent Requirements: Stamina level 2, Agility level 1. You are the discoverer of the skill. For you, this talent does not require any bound attributes. It is provided to you and fully learned at no cost. Learning further branches of this talent, once unlocked, will require attribute bindings.

Superior Standard Talent Mark x2

Even cursory calculations showed me that today would be profitable based on these rewards alone. For now, though, I had to catch more fish. The kotes moved away from the shore, but they often came within forty yards or so. With the help of my new spinning rod, casting the spoonbait at them was no great difficulty.

And perhaps no small difficulty, either. If I understand correctly the essence of life in the world of Rock, the talent I had just been awarded would allow me to fish with a spinning rod much more effectively. I didn’t even have to allocate any attribute levels to it. In other words, there was no reason to delete it in order to clear up space for a more useful talent. It was costing me nothing.

In addition, I didn’t have to pump it. The ORDER had generously given it to me at maximum value. It had no progress branch for me to pursue. This world simply didn’t know what else could be squeezed out of my discovery—no specializations existed yet.

I was sure I could think some up. This was how the world worked: discover something new, develop it, refine it and diversify it.

Perhaps I would pursue that someday. Later. For now, I needed to do one thing and one alone: fish. I should be better at it now. It was a low-ranking talent, but it was something. Now my spoonbait should fly further and more accurately. I would also get extra bonuses for the first 10 times I used the spinning rod and the new talent successfully. Perhaps I would hit the jackpot with these bonuses.

This invention had, after all, given me a lot more goodies than the invention of the spoonbait. That was logical, since the spinning rod was so much more complex. Would the ORDER continue rewarding me as fairness might suggest, then?

I wanted to use all of the rewards right now, as quickly as possible, but I was not as naive as I had been just a few days before. Developing one’s character could have negative effects. I might suffer weakness—and even faint. It would take hours for me to fully adapt to the new changes. Even a day later, the echoes would still reverberate through my bones.

I’ll do it this evening, then. Immediately after a thoroughly satisfying dinner. With spices, of course. The spices must flow. My rapidly developing flesh needed them desperately.

Chapter 27 Old Friend, New Art

Degrees of Enlightenment: 0 (192/888)

Shadow: 192

Attributes:

Stamina: level 2, 112 points

Strength: level 0, 31 points

Agility: level 1, 83 points

Perception: NA, 50 points

Spirit: NA, 50 points

Talents:

Fishing Instinct (tier 2): 10/10

Cure Wounds (tier 2): 10/10

Free Talents:

Trolling with Spinning Rod (tier 2): 10/10

States:

Equilibrium (6.31): level 6

Enhanced Enlightenment (0.5): level 0

I continued terrorizing the kote community, even after the ORDER stopped giving me extra bonuses for doing so. As I expected, they had been dished out not only when I successfully used the spinning rod but also when I used my new fishing talent.

Its very first use had earned me the largest reward. This was comparable to what I had received for the manufacture of the invention and the first catch.

Few large kotes—five or six pounds—were to be found near the shore. The monster kotes had disappeared entirely, but this didn’t make me very happy, since the moderate kotes vanished, too.

I did catch more than forty smaller kotes, though—over two hundred pounds. An ordinary fisherman working with nets wouldn’t catch that many in a week.

It was enough fish that I could afford to spend part of the time strengthening my mutual understanding with Beko’s long-time enemies. Each of the Carps received a whole fish. There was a reason that the boys had become a veritable pack of wolves. Misfortune had taken their families’ breadwinners—and little Tatai had been left an orphan. He and his sister who was younger still had been sheltered by a distant relative—who had mouths enough to feed already. The trading post gave the kids menial jobs, but they paid menial sums, of course.

I had seen Tatai’s sister once. She was a mess. Thinner than some I had seen in wartime films from concentration camps. It was no surprise that the boys were cruel beyond their years. Not only were they chronically malnourished themselves; they also had to see the hunger of their loved ones. Once I saw this, I decided that I would help as much as I could from the next catch.

Even with the Carps’ help, we couldn’t bring the whole catch back to the trading post in one trip. Thankfully, Romris was down by the water, fiddling with his nets. And so, with his help, we made it up with all of the baskets. He didn’t even ask for payment. Not that the fisherman was suddenly taken with love for us. No, he was working for his own interests.

After all, along the way, I explained to him the gist of a task I had for him, for which I was more than willing to pay. I would even pay more than agreed if this task was completed by noon the next day.

Before we had finished with the fish, though, something occurred which we could not help but notice.

We had front row seats, after all.

* * *

Beko noticed it first. I was completely absorbed by the river, calculating my expenditure