"Uhh... I should have asked her where I should go next."
Jax had walked out of the smithy after leaving l to proceed with making his armor. Now, he didn’t know what there was for him to do.
The obvious thing he could do was fight monsters and get so stones, but where was he going to find the right monsters for him? He couldn’t fight the strong ones, so he needed to learn about them beforehand.
"Hey Gemma, do you know if there is sothing like a library in this village?" he asked.
"I don’t know," Gemma said. "You should ask around. I can’t tell you even if there is one after all."
Jax sighed and walked around the village. The place was so small that he could easily go through every place in less than an hour. He didn’t want to waste the ti though, so when he found soone who looked like they had stayed in this place for a while now, he asked them for directions.
"We don’t have that," the man said. "Most people join an existing party to learn about those things. Or you could try asking the Ink Hermit. He records this information too."
"Ink Hermit?" Jax asked. "Where can I find him?"
The Ink Hermit lived on the eastern edge of the city, in a house built on a giant oak tree with spraying branches. The house was built from the ground up, with the rooms seemingly added on the branches afterward.
Jax knocked on the door and waited.
He looked around at the door, nearly 2 feet taller than him. "There’s no doorbell, right? I wonder if they are sowhere up and can’t hear ."
He knocked once again, rather loudly this ti.
"Call for them," Gemma said.
Jax was about to call out when the door opened.
The one who opened it was a taller man with long dark hair, wearing a pale yellow robe. He appeared to be in his early 30s.
"You’re a little early" the man said.
"Uhh... sorry?"
"Whatever, get inside."
He pulled Jax into the house and closed the door behind him.
Jax was taken aback by the man’s sudden action and realized that he might have mistaken him for soone else. "Sorry, but I am—"
"Don’t apologize. Sir Ink is ready for you anyway."
Jax was pulled into a room with the giant oak’s trunk passing through it. The insides of the place were populated with various kinds of furniture and rugs, with various writings on long white scrolls hung around the wall.
There were shelves all around the room, filled to the brim with books of all sorts. It looked holy.
At the end of the room was a door. The man walked up to the door and opened it. "Sir Ink, he’s here."
"Already?" a child-like voice ca from the other room. "Very well then, send him in."
"You can go in."
Before Jax could understand what was happening, he was pushed into the room with the door shut behind him. "Hey, wait!" he shouted. "I’m not who you think I am."
"You’re not?" the child-like voice ca again, and Jax turned around in search.
He found the room he was in to be filled with shelves again, with books stacked all through them. There were a few cushions on the ground to sit on, but other than that, he could see nothing else.
There was no one in the room at all.
"Hello?" Jax called out.
"Young man! Are you not the person I asked for?" the voice ca, and this ti Jax noticed the direction.
It was up.
He looked up and saw a small square hole in the ceiling, covered by a cloth veil that hid what was above it. He could see so vague shadow up there, but other than that, he could see nothing.
"I’m assuming you are the Ink Hermit," Jax said. "My apologies. I ca looking for you so I could get so information about the monsters surrounding this village, but your man outside must’ve mistaken for soone else."
"Is that so?" the hermit said. "That’s quite fascinating."
"Is it? Anyway, I’m sorry. I will go if you want to, but I was hoping you could help now that I’m here."
"That works for ," the Ink Hermit said. "But, my information cos with a price. If you cannot pay the price, you will not get any of it."
"I have so opal stones. How much do you—"
"Money is not the price here," the hermit said. "I am the Ink Hermit, the one who likes to write and record things. I have recorded everything there is to record about this world, and yet I still wish to record more."
"So what I record now is the human experience. But not just any experience, only the most unique kind. I want you to tell sothing that I will not have heard before."
Jax paused for a few seconds trying to understand what the hermit wanted. So unique experience?
"What sort of information do you want?" Jax asked.
"Any you can give . The better they are, the better my reward will be for you. But, I will only give you this one chance, so do not save the good ones thinking you will use them later."
Jax thought. What was the most unique experience he had? He had only been alive for 40 days technically, so there weren’t that many unique experiences.
The hermit should have recorded many other experiences similar to what he had, so he couldn’t just tell him whatever ca to his mind right away.
"What’s wrong? Why are you silent?"
"I’m sorry, but I need to think," Jax said.
"What is there to think?" the man asked. "Just speak of what happened to you before you ca to the Celestial Express. If the world you ca from is unique enough, then it will work too."
"I cannot," Jax said. "I erased my mory before I ca to this place."
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