Stuck as a Dungeon Mob

There were lots of things that went into the formation of weather. But the one key factor was air pressure, something which Ed could not say was missing from the dungeon.

'I do often feel the wind so there must be air pressure… right?' But could he apply the common sense of his previous life to the dungeon? Everything in there appeared to happen at the whims of the dungeon.

'Even the day and night cycle likely relies on the dungeon' Simply put everything felt like a real-world but was ultimately artificial. The dungeon must have recreated everything based on whatever it knew on the outside world or at least what it knew was necessary for the growth of life.

But that begged the question of how it knew these things…

'The system could have told this dungeon, but what about other dungeons?' There were dungeons with suns and moons, so did they also have a system? If they needed to first learn about them from the humans who attacked them all first floors would be dark and undead.

Instinct. It had to be instinct.

If not instinct it was knowledge that the dungeon was born with. Though that in itself begged another question… why?

'Who would put this knowledge into dungeons?' The creator of the dungeons had to be the right answer but that also required another question. Who created the dungeons? And, and while you are it, who created the creator of the dungeons?! Who created them too!? And them and…!

It was a rabbit hole of questions that Ed had no intention of traversing.

Thus, before his brain suffered from a meltdown, Ed stopped asking himself these questions and focused on something else.

[Divine Wood Safe]

{ A safe made from the wood of a divine tree, it is hard and everlasting }

'There's no way the secret formula is in this safe after all, right?' Ed thought as he skillfully avoided the mess of papers and other items on the ground. It was clear that the elves in this community were either desperate or messy.

The divine wood safe had a nice color and it looked rather quaint. It was good enough for Ed to want to keep but… Ed's hand lit up with sparks. He didn't really need a safe.

The safe's door started to slowly melt away under the power of the forge sparks. Once it was turned into mush Ed made sure to put it in the storeroom for potential future use. It was time to assess the contents of the safe instead.

[R-035 Research Records]

[Divine Juice Vial]

[Wrinkled Note]

'That's a bit disappointing…' After assessing everything, Ed confirmed that there was no array ink formula for him to peruse. That said, the research records might contain something of interest.

While he couldn't read them thoroughly, the research records which was a hefty book, was still interesting to page through. For one, it gave Ed a better understanding of how exactly this elven society was divided.

'This lab must be for researching water and weather' All the listed records pertained to one of these things. As for the divine juice vial… It was likely just something precious.

Ed grabbed the vial and inspected it.

'This must have turned into divine juice wine by now…' Ed thought after inadvertently catching a whiff of the intoxicating smell. While tempted to have a taste, Ed decided to keep the vial stored for future use.

With that, his examination of this particular laboratory was done.

'There is some information on the arrays used to manage the city's waterways but it's better to examine those later' Getting too caught up in one thing was a bad idea when there were so many things to handle.

While continuing to scour the palace for rooms, Ed ended up finding more information and research records from different fields.

[R-049 Research Records]

{ Records of the research performed by the researchers in room 49 }

The assessment didn't help much, but the research performed by those in room 49 pertained to architecture. The formulas that went into building any major building as the elves had done were countless.

Ed found these notes interesting and possibly useful for the orcs in Sanctuary so he made sure to nab them.

[R-057 Research Records]

[R-092 Research Records]

The rooms were plenty and they were scattered. In some areas the rooms' research even overlapped, there was some form of competition going on between the elves.

At the 100th room, Ed found a grandly decorated double door bound together by a hefty lock. One could say Edxpectiations were soaring.

Using the forge sparks to melt the lock, the grand double door started to slowly swing open. A musky smell assaulted his olfactory senses.

There were books. Lots of books, elevating high towards the ceiling which took a dome like shape. Atop the dome were windows from which shafts of light fell on empty shelves.

'This is a library!' Ed's expectations were not wasted, his common sense proved to still be present given he made the right deduction.

He ran inside with haste and couldn't help but double back. Empty shelves?

'Where are most of the books…?' Ed didn't think the elves were extravagant enough to build a grand library with only grand and no library.

Ed wasn't sure where the books had gone, but he could at least check what remained. The grand library's shelves were mostly empty towards the top, and the bottom shelves weren't exactly stacked full either. The whole place felt empty and lifeless.

He was both thankful and regretful. With little choices he didn't need to hesitate about which book he should look at first.

Thus, Ed settled for walking towards the nearest book. He flipped open the book's hard cover, a cover likely made from some monster hide, and looked at the contents solemnly.

'There are missing pages…' The book wrote about the species of monsters in the desert but many of the pages were noticeably ripped. Frowning, Ed opened up the next book.

[Elven Agricultural Findings]

'Feels light…' The situation for this book was the same. It spoke of the plant life of the floor in detail but most of the detail was lost thanks to the missing pages.

'Who would trash the library to such a point?' Ed could think of many reasons to trash a library, but in his mind none of them fit the elves. Would they break and burn books to prevent the spread of knowledge?

The elves must have surely needed for this information to be kept a secret then… right?

'I doubt it' What civilization did not want to leave a mark on history? Even without this reasoning, you would at least warn those that came after you of the calamity that befell you, right?

[Assimilation is off cooldown]

'It feels petty otherwise' Ed thought as he closed the book and placed it back on the empty shelf.

Walking and walking Ed found scorched flooring and walls.

'So they did burn them…?' Why would they need to burn their books? For… warmth?

Ed's eyes became sympathetic.

'The desert is too cold' At night, desert temperatures could drop below freezing and with no vegetation growing bountifully there was nothing else to burn but books and maybe even the research papers.

Thinking about it again, locking the research records in safes but not anything else was a bit weird. Those were just the records after all. But maybe those were the only things worth preserving, and it was possible that some dehydrated and starving elves trashed the labs searching for food or just anything to get a sip of.

It was pitifully sad.

'I'll rebuild this place…' The water was back and the records of the elves might be torn but certainly not erased. He knew this as the only entity capable of recovering those records.

Ed grabbed the book on plants and flipped through its pages a few more times. There was fascinating stuff in there. He REALLY wanted it, and that made all the difference.

[<Thought Manifestation> is in effect]

[Thought Manifestation has leveled up]

[Assimilation is on cooldown]

The knowledge on the local fauna flowed into Ed's mind in great quantities. It almost felt overwhelming. There was not this much information in those pages!

'It's more effective than when I first tried this on the orc's boulder of knowledge1' Ed thought as he silently processed the information.

'I'll have to recreate these plants' Some of them had interesting alchemical possibilities. The elves were smart enough to write down every single benefit the plants provided in that book tempting Ed successfully.

As for how he was supposed to recreate any of these… Ed had frankly no idea. By assimilating that book he mainly wanted to test out a theory.

'With mind power it is infinitely easier to activate thought manifestation' Not just that, but with assimilation at a higher level he could assimilate the entire book in spite of the missing and torn pages.

'I wonder how this works…' The thought manifestation shouldn't be able to bend reality like the dungeon and system appeared to be doing. Ed didn't think so at least.

He suspected that just like a smith might be able to instill a will into their weapons, a writer could instill feelings into their words and leave a notable presence of their records.

This book wasn't much but maybe the other books in the library had lots in store for him.

The end result was a level -1 alchemy skill