It had been a couple of days since his advancement to reader; in that time, William had quite a few experiences.
The Fourth Wall Breaker ability kept rambling in his mind; the voices of the narrator of this world resounded, as well as a few bot comments, which he promptly ignored. It was strange, but what was stranger was his aversion to the underlying meaning of this.
During these past few days, he had picked up a couple of new hobbies, and he had a new appreciation for the smaller things in life after he nearly died back in The Odyssey. So he started writing, perhaps because of his status as the Reader of Lore, or just because he found it a nice way to lay out his thoughts.
Additionally, when he returned, his Master Kaelus was nowhere to be found. When he searched around the library for any signs of him, he feared the worst. Eventually, he found a letter inside his bedroom, of all places. It read:
To William,
If you're reading this, congrats on making it back! I'm proud of you, boy! I'm gonna be gone for a couple of days, running a few errands for my higher-ups —don't worry about me though! In the meantime, you should probably head over to the Association to be registered as an official verifier, don't want the government after ya!
I'm sure you remember most of the things I taught you about life with supernatural powers, you know the rules and all that. You should just get back to your normal life, like a kid your age should.
From, Master Kael ;)
William would sigh; it had been a day since he found this letter. After all, with no Kael to tell him not to sleep in the library, he did just that.
The Association was the government's way of gaining control over and stabilizing the world after the Library came to be, with each country having its own. They registered all verifiers to keep track of them, and provided jobs to them so they can make a living using their supernatural powers for the better, as well as forcing them to meet a certain quota of missions per month.
Personally, William didn't like the authorities too much, both because he enjoyed freedom and because it was a common novel trope for the government to be extremely evil and corrupt. So he'd rather not get too involved with them, which led him to procrastinate heading over.
'Haah....I'll go today...I just have one thing to get done before that, so stop bothering me, Narrator!'
William would yell at nobody like the idiot he was, while he headed back to his favorite section of the library. A nice little corner with a comfy rosewood chair, a big desk, and a nice oil lamp, surrounded by walls of bookshelves.
"...."
He would begin writing something, a letter. Addressed to his master, whomst he didn't know the whereabouts of currently.
After finishing up, he would begrudgingly drag himself over to his wardrobe and pick out a nice dark blue coat, fashionable and dark, but not too edgy. Just the way he liked it.
He would then head outside of the library for the first time in a long, long time.
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Walking through the crowded streets of a once apocalyptic, now rebuilding Shanghai, China in the Winter, William would breathe in the same old cold air he wanted to get away from once upon a time.
'I guess time does heal some wounds....'
The infrastructure was mostly repaired, with some areas like the Association being built up with supernatural abilities, making it grand and out of this world in terms of architectural design. Thanks to this being the largest fragment of China left, it had more resources than other pieces of the once great country.
However, William preferred a more simple and average standard of living, so areas like that didn't sit right with him.
On the way to the closest Association building to the library, he would walk by a couple small street-side markets in the poorer, slum areas of the country that hadn't quite survived from the effects of the wars.
He saw people fighting over food, money, even people. These were the outcasts of modern society, he felt sorry for them, a sense that fizzled out partially soon after, like his existence was being shared by two different versions of himself.
Still, he tried to feel empathy for their struggles, and would continue walking forward.
Eventually, he made it to the building of the Chinese Verifiers Association, or the CVA for short.
It was grand, taller than most modern skyscrapers, made out of glass and supernatural materials. Feeling rather out of place, he would sheepishly walk through the spinning revolving doors.
Inside, was a pretty big lobby on the ground floor. He would walk up to the front desk, with a red haired lady working as the receptionist.
"Uh, Hello there...I'd like to get registered as a verifier please..."
William would use his fantastic(Awful) social skills to expertly navigate the conversation.
'Shut up will ya?'
The woman would politely guide him over to a stack of forms, she would take one and give it to him along with a pen saying brightly:
"Sure! Just fill out the form with your personal details and we can get your evaluation done!"
After filling out the form with his basic info, he would follow her into the back room, where the evaluations were being held.
Essentially, the evaluations were a gauge of someone's stats, so all you needed to do was link up with a machine also connected to the Library called a Literary Translator. The machine would then be able to display the stat spread of the user for everyone to see.
Evaluations came in 24 tiers, based off of the greek alphabet. Which was globally utilized for this purpose, with Alpha as the weakest, and Omega as the elite of the elite.
Knowing his own stats to be only slightly above average in terms of readers, he would simply place his hand on the machine that looked like a big metallic book.
[Would you like to sync?]
'Yes.'
[Syncing is underway!]
William's stats would quickly appear on the book.
[Name of Choice: William Wei]
[Status: Reader of Lore]
[Strength: 10]
[Agility: 10]
[Constitution: 10]
[Intelligence: 10]
[Ingenuity: 10]
The receptionist lady would nod slightly, as if a tiny bit impressed by his stats. Before writing them down onto her clipboard.
"Alright, can I see your attributes now?"
'Attributes? Wait I can't show her those....the Avatar of the Records attribute crashed the Library when I tried to check it...Is something similar going to happen to the machine?'
What a cliche situation he had found himself in, like a power hiding main character, William was forced to find a way to conceal his attributes so he didn't have to pay for damages.
"Oh, alright. Sure."
[Skill: Describe has been activated!]
Time would come to a halt.
William would use the Describe ability to conjure a near perfect illusion where the screen would show them the attributes he possessed except for the [Avatar of Records], the skills he possess would also be shown except for [Fourth Wall Breaker] and [Recorder].'
"Wow! These are some extremely powerful attributes and skills you have! Bane...of existence? I can't imagine what you must've gone through to get a skill like that!"
'I just....killed a pig....'
The girl would write down a couple more notes before tearing off the sheet of paper from her clipboard and handing it to him saying:
"Your evaluation is done! You are now part of group Nu(Νν) the thirteenth rank! Also known as Nu:LL by the higher ups! You'll receive missions via the link function through the Library of Alexandria, so don't worry about communication! Oh, and make sure to do atleast one mission per month!"
William would nod calmly to her words, he was successful in acting like a typical power hiding protagonist this time. So he wanted to get out as fast as possible now.
He would briskly walk away, taking a slight glance at the other evaluators inside of the room with him, they were all doing their own tests but William could sense a couple of them were not to be trifled with.
He would then hear a familiar sentence.
"Your evaluation is done! You are now part of group Nu(Νν) the thirteenth rank. Also known as Nu:LL by the higher ups. You'll receive missions via the link function through the Library of Alexandria, so don't worry about communication...