LSRO: Chapter 67 - Statistical (Patreon)

Sometimes we need to sit down and see how far things have come. This is one of those days for Quinn

Enjoy!

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Chapter 67

Statistical

Quinn wasn't the most patient person in the world, or, as it turned out the universe. After another couple of days spent practicing her skills, rebuilding and reconstructing her newly learned Mental Barrier, working at the check-in desk, and refining her understanding of all the details in the four chaotic magic books. She felt like she was back at university studying.

She found herself sitting in her office, wondering why the armor wasn't ready for them to head down to the filtration chamber yet. They barely left a scratch on them after coming back from the Dibilian homeworld. She didn't understand why it was taking so long for the chaos-resistant armor to be completed, at least for this task.

She sighed and ran her hand through her ponytail, tugging it down, twirling it in her fingers, until she realized that she was exercising an extremely old bad habit. Aradie hooted in her ear.

"Yeah, I know you're concerned. So am I. I really..."

But the owl hooted again.

"Oh, you're concerned about me," Quinn said. "No, I'm fine. I'm just bored. Like, really bored."

Aradie leaned far away enough that Quinn could get a good look at her, and she swore the owl was giving her an extremely level side-eye.

"Look, I don't get it, okay?" Quinn threw her hands up. "We gave them the armor back in tip-top condition, all things considered. Fine, mine had a rip in it, but I'm sure magic can mend it. I just want to get this done. We have so much to do that needs more power."

They really did. Looking at the list of things that they needed to accomplish, was enough to make her head spin. Aradie let out a very low hoot this time.

"You want me to find something else to occupy my time instead of complaining about how much time it's taking?" Quinn rolled her eyes. "Thank you so much for your wisdom."

Aradie lifted off her shoulder and went to perch on the back of the couch, shooting her a wounded look.

"I'm sorry. I'm testy."

You certainly are, the Library piped up.

"Well, well, well," Quinn said. "It's nice to see you. What, for the first time in the last three days?"

Don't blame me. I've been helping get your armor fixed, the thing that you're extremely irate about now.

"Thanks," Quinn said. "So does that mean I can go get it?"

Not yet. Do something more constructive with your time.

Quinn twirled in her chair, realizing the Library wasn't going to give her anything else. "Fine." She said out loud and reached forward to access the console from her desk and pulled up some of the statistics from the Library.

Library Re-open Duration: 239 hours.

Quinn blinked. So almost a full ten days. She frowned, at the time. The standard twenty-four hours per day being relevant here in the Library always got to her. But maybe there were reasons Earth ended up going with that format after all. That was a whole other can of worms she had no time to deal with right now.

She scrolled down a little bit further, waving at the display with her hand. It functioned similarly to a tablet.

"3,782 books returned," she frowned. That didn't seem like so many. That meant there were still 14,960 books remaining. She cringed. It felt like they'd barely made progress. But, she guessed, maybe some people still didn't believe the Library was open. It wasn't like the mana presence in the universe had changed yet.

She went through the rest of the information. 341 of those 3,782 books couldn't be checked in, because Siliqua and Hirish had not yet completed their task. That was another thing to add to Quinn's list. She needed to talk to them. It was a bit worrisome that after ten days of the Library being open, they still weren't able to just return every book.

Hirish and Siliqua seemed to think this would be something that they could resolve fairly quickly. Although given their lifespans, ten days was probably the blink of an eye.

Quinn sighed. They had drawers out in the check-in desk, lined with the same substance as the satchels that they had used for the Chaos books they retrieved from the Debilian homeworld. It performed the same function, even though these weren't drenched in Chaos sludge, it was to prevent any potential leakage into the system. Just in case.

Making sure the proximity of the books didn't accidentally exacerbate anything was a good idea, but it was still irritating that she couldn't return those books to their appropriate areas yet.

So, technically only 3,441 had been actually returned.

Quinn frowned at the number. "Well, let's just have a look, let's break that down. What about the branches? How close are we to opening the branches?" She asked the system directly.

1637 books are relegated to the General Magic Library. Of these, some 850 are intermediate or higher level volumes.

Quinn frowned at the numbers. "Okay... that leaves 1804 books that are split up between the requirements for the other branches."

Would you like to list these branches out?

Yes or No?

Quinn motioned toward the Yes answer and a listing appeared directly before her eyes.

Requirements for Library Branch openings. Defined by relevant book count only.

Horticulture: 283/720

Culinary Arts: 229/282

Crafting: 312/730

Alchemical/Medicinal: 111/384

Combat: 472/837

Academy: 397/785

Total: 1804 Books/Tomes/Codex

Quinn sat back and stared at the statistics in front of her. She'd never really liked statistics as a subject. It really wasn't her sort of thing, but she had to admit it looked impressive, especially that culinary arts only needed another 53 books. If they got it under 50, she felt that would call for a refined list they could then specifically target.

Cook would probably love to have that branch open first. After all the wonderful cinnamon donuts he'd made her, she had to admit to having a very, very soft spot for Cook. Not to mention it looked like that branch in particular would be the easiest to open.

"Well, that's the Library portion taken care of." She flicked through stuff again, back and forth, double-checking the amounts. Another three books had been returned since she started looking, but they all belonged in the general magic area.

It was obvious that the amount of books being returned had slowed considerably in the last few days. Still, it wasn't a bad outcome. Three hundred and seventy-odd books a day, that was pretty good on average, but that average would be going down shortly. With almost 15,000 books left, they couldn't afford for it to slow down yet. She sighed. "Yet another thing we will address after I go down to the filtration chamber."

Aradie sat on the edge of her desk now, casting Quinn furtive glances.

At some stage during Quinn's statistical analysis of the Library returns, the bird moved closer again.

"Come on, sit back on my shoulder. I wasn't angry at you, remember? You were angry at me." A little warbled hoot came out as if Aradie was saying, well, can you blame me? Which, really, Quinn couldn't.

"Personal statistics page," Quinn made sure to be specific in the command so she didn't pull up age-old statistics from the Library itself. Sometimes knowing how old the Library was made everything that was happening feel overwhelming, whether or not she used her newly acquired mental abilities to even herself out.

When she pulled up her statistics, Quinn raised an eyebrow at them. "

Name: Quinn

Age: Irrelevant

Heritage: Earth, Sector 12942

Species: Librarian

Energy Capacity: 912/912

Mana Levels: 1085/1085

Alignment: 101%

Affinities: 1722*

Tome Knowledge: 8

Affinity Level: 9

Determination: Rising

*As far as the Library can determine

Quinn frowned at the human portion of her species being missing now. That seemed oddly timed.

She took a deep breath, didn't let it get to her, and moved on. Or at least, she tried to. Maybe the system was glitching because the Library had been doing a lot of glitching,... She just didn't have time to pursue anything else right now except for the bloody filtration system.

"Focus, Quinn. Focus." She slapped her cheeks lightly and moved on.

She crossed her arms and muttered at the asterixed portion of the readout. "As far as the Library can determine, what does that mean? Is that because I will continue to have all affinities even as they become available and expand? Is the Library just completely about to break down?"

I'm not completely about to break down, stop thinking so loudly.

"Sorry." Quinn wished she already had the mental conversation directing to a state of it being muscle memory.

As I mentioned, you're unique. We'll figure it out after we have more power and the filtration system is out of danger.

"I know. Sometimes this is just frustrating." But the Library didn't seem to have anything else to add to that. Quinn sighed and decided to check another thing.

She checked the Library energy levels.

Library Energy Levels:

Critical Energy Levels: 6,882 of 10,000.

That was like two energy units per book that were actually returned to the system. It didn't count the books they couldn't yet input because of their categories. They were getting close to the next level of power with which they should be able to do so much more.

Suddenly, Misha popped into view right in front of her desk. "Quinn, the garments are almost ready. Could you come, please, and bring whomever you are taking on this journey with you, please?"

Quinn didn't have to be told twice even if she'd almost jumped out of her chair in fright when the supervisory golem appeared.

As Misha popped back out of vision, Quinn walked out into the Library, gathered Malakai, Lynx, and Eric as well, and herded them toward the storage room.

Pushing all thoughts of the statistics she'd just been over and of her own personal stats page aside, Quinn focused on the storage workshop.

Eflin and Dale were hammering out the last of something on one of the workbenches. Quinn would not have chosen the names Eflin and Dale, but she thought it prudent to let Misha name some of the golems.

It took some convincing and explaining that Misha was sort of their direct family. The golem had practically side eyed Quinn, but eventually relented.

Quinn wasn't certain she'd do that again. Eflin and Dale, however, appeared to like the names for the most part. They had little quirks about them, ways they nodded, especially a sweet and shy way for Eflin. Eflin was probably Quinn's favorite supply golem.

She turned to Misha, gesturing toward the work bench. "I thought you said they were almost done."

"Oh, they are. They're just ironing out the last one for Malakai." Misha replied, with no inflection at all.

"Fantastic. So, what do we do? Why has it taken so long?" Quinn asked, finally.

Aradie nudged her with her wing, and Quinn glared at the owl for a moment. "Look, explain to me what was the big deal about getting the armor adapted. We didn't ruin it last time."

"You most certainly returned them safely." Misha beckoned Quinn over to the bench and pointed at the armor. "We had to make adjustments. You see, this is a different version of the material. It is a rubberized version that repels the water with wax as well. Sludge will not penetrate it to touch your skin in any way, in theory, anyway."

Quinn raised an eyebrow in question. "I thought you said I was impervious. Am I not? Isn't chaos not supposed effect me much?"

"That's what the scan said." Lynx butted in. "But I'm still not sure what submerging you in an entire lake of chaotic sludge is going to do for your complexion."

Quinn cringed. "Okay, noted. I take that under advisement. So basically you had to build completely new suits."

Misha nodded. "Precisely."

"Why didn't you just tell me that instead of making me wait, assuming that you were just making me wait?" Quinn managed to escape pouting, but only barely.

"And why," Misha asked, staring straight at her with those rather disconcerting moon-like eyes, "would we make you wait, Quinn?"

Quinn shrugged, realizing that she'd taken some of her itty-bitty hang-ups from Earth and brought them over here with her. "You probably wouldn't," she said carefully.

"Perfect," Misha said, and then gestured back to the garments that the golems had finished up. "What do you think?"

"These are like," Quinn laughed, "footie pajamas, that are surf suits." She was delighted. They were similar to the neoprene stuff the pro-surfers wore.

"Footie pajamas?" Misha asked, like she was tasting the word. Then she smiled that straight lined smile and continued without waiting for an answer. "They have an interior-exterior zip that will allow you to waterproof the area so no liquid gets through it all, should you fall in."

"Should I fall in? Or need to wade into it, you're saying?" Quinn asked nervously.

"Well, you shouldn't fall off the filtration device, but we do have to think of all eventualities," Misha stated.

"The thing, Quinn," Lynx piped up, "is we're not sure what your chaotic wavelength means. It could mean that if you touch it, nothing happens. It could mean that if you touch it, it magically heals you. It could also mean that if you have too much prolonged contact with it, that it takes you over and turns you evil and allows you to keep your mind, and so you'll just become an evil mastermind, which none of us really want."

"Oh," Quinn said, "well, I don't want that either."

"Excellent, so listen." He flashed that very cat like smile at her. "You need to wear this at all times, wading out to the farthest pillar and the closest pillar, which we'll show you when we get down there. Just try not to make actual direct contact with the chaotic sludge, any part of it, until we can actually get you to a point where we can run some tests and figure out just how big an impact everything has on you."

Quinn let out a nervous laugh. "Hey, I'm good. I don't want to volunteer myself as tribute to fall into a vat of sludge."

Malakai actually laughed. "Good, because I don't really want to dive in and get you back out."

"You're going to be fine anyway, Malakai." Lynx dismissed the comment with a wave of his hand. "It's just an extra precaution for you because of your unique genetic makeup,"

Quinn sighed at him. "And Eric, does he need a suit?"

"I do not require to hide from chaos," Eric said. "I process chaos very differently. And I will protect you where I can."

"You can't really fly me out of places, right? I'm not that strong." He raised both eyebrows as he looked her over.

"You know, on Earth, I would have taken offense to that. I would have assumed you were calling me fat." Quinn let the statement fall nice and flat.

Eric actually had the good grace to blush. "I do apologize. That was not my intention."

"Good." Quinn clapped her hands together, noticing that she really was hungry. "I need to grab a quick lunch, but otherwise, do we have everything?

"We have the same breathing food and repellent food. And just in case, we also have the same injury balm. So, our kits are made up." Malakai handed her a crossover bag.

"We can head down once you've eaten." Lynx said, like he was proud of remembering some of them had to eat. "You'll just have to access the console first to give them both temporary access."

"Do you want to wait until tomorrow and feel more rested?" Misha asked.

"You know what? I'm feeling great energy level wise." Quinn patted her stomach. "How about you guys?" She looked at Lynx's, Malakai, and Eric.

They all nodded.

Quinn took a deep breath. "I think we should just go down now before I have complete and utter second thoughts."

And so, looking like they were about to go and surf at a beach, with little pouches that were liquid proof, holding all their supplies, Quinn, Lynx, Malakai, and Eric headed off to eat before going to swim in chaotic sludge.

~~

Well, what do you think? Are you excited to see the Filtration chamber?

Have I totally fucked up the Library opening timetable? (I could have, no one but me has read this yet lol)

Let me know what you think!

Much love

KT