-- Aster 10 days ago --

  I found myself making my way back to the library to see if my dumb idea was even possible. I didn't have much time left, 3 days and they were counting down fast. 'There has to be something here, some kind of record for someone trying this. If I don't find anything today I'm going to end up trying to hunt down old people, and I'd rather not do that.' I'd been searching for the last hour just mumbling to myself. "Where are you? I know there has to be something."

  I was amazed by how many books were still locked out to me, even though I was level 29, a keeper, and a quester. Makes me wonder if the rest will even unlock once I hit 30, or if there is some arbitrary rule for them to be accessed. I found some promising titles Alternate Energy Sources or What is Leveling Anyway but they were all sealed. It was starting to drive me crazy.

  'Focus Aster. We need to find something to force this, I know that leveling is just a build-up of energy, and once it reaches a certain limit it's used to rebuild the body, but I have no idea what kind of power, or how much?'

  I've been hunting for hours now, but the only books I've found are volumes on ways people killed themselves. I kept running into the same title so many times, Experiments to Die For, I decided to check it out. At this point, I was having trouble focusing anyway, and was morbidly curious.

  Finding the book's location I made my way through the library, the size of the place was only emphasized by the fact it took me 20 minutes to even reach the section the book was located, not to mention taking another 20 to even find the book.

  "I don't have time for this." I reached up with my card downloading the book and made my way to one of the tables to read it.

  Each entry was filled with a lot of diagrams, pictures, and technical explanations I did not understand. Thankfully each entry had a summary at the end of each article. The first thing in the manuscript was a disclaimer.

  Due to the sensitive nature, no names will be given.

  The images that came along with the report were fairly graphic, and a little disturbing. I shivered at the idea and turned to the next report.

  That...is a terrible way to go. I mean why would they even want to become an elemental anyway?

  I skipped around looking for anything that might be useful. It was somewhere in the middle of the book I found something.

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  'How did the crystal save him? The article clearly stated he had just leveled up so how could he do so again so soon?' I had an idea why. 'Ok. I have a lead but I don't have a group to summon a storm or even bring me to a crystal. There's got to be something else.'

  I closed the book and headed back to the nearest terminal, I only had the vaguest idea of what I was looking for, and decided to change my approach focusing on only keeper information, thinking the answer had to be there.

  I found myself just scrolling and scrolling adding more keywords. 'Maybe I'm overthinking this.' I input just 2 words: Keeper Artifacts. I was surprised when I got 5 hits, and they were simply labeled Keeper Artifacts vol. 1 - vol. 5.

  'How was it that easy?'

  It looked that volumes 4 and 5 were locked till level 30 but it might not be an issue if I could find what I was looking for in the first 3. It took some time to find the books but I was in high hopes when I started to read.

  Their was a nice breakdown of all the artifacts, and what the items did. Most of the objects had a further explanation with more information on them. There are hundreds of different items listed, some of the more interesting ones were:

  There were a lot more items in the First Volume, but none stood out. When I opened the other volumes I found they weren't lists of artifacts.

  Vol. 2 was just an entire book on vehicles, and each one didn't appear to be very practical. Vehicles on 4 rubber wheels could work in a city, but the second it was outside the walls it would easily be destroyed. They needed to be more like the trains and buses. Heavily fortified and enchanted, from what I could tell none of these were, and none of the vehicles had anything I could use.

  Vol. 3 was less of a list of existing artifacts, and more of a list of types of energy sources, and how to build them. Solar Panels, hydroelectric generators, wind turbines, nuclear power, geothermal, fission, algae solar? The list went on and on, even one talking about harvesting helium from a star. Was that even possible? None of these I would be able to use, I especially wouldn't have time to build anything remotely like this.

  After going through each book I felt...disappointed. 'Everything seems so...mundane. Why are the keepers' artifacts so simple?' The only things that had any potential for me were the stuff in the first book.

  The low-frequency radio with unlimited range seemed useful but made me wonder why there weren't more of them or if it even worked.

  The nuclear bomb sounded interesting but didn't know if I believed its claim of being able to wipe out a city. All the defenses and enchantments fortifying the location made it seem unrealistic, no matter the size of the explosion. I also didn't understand why it mentions irradiating the land. I mean radiation fades after a week or 2.

  The ray gun looked interesting. When I turned to the article I found a picture of a silver gun with a spike instead of a barrel and a green handle. 'Weird.' Let's see it says it shoots high-intensity light and can penetrate anything. Contains something called a nuclear battery, and the light is made of a combination of hard light and mirrors. I did not understand the rest of the explanation, but I might be able to use it.

  The more I looked over the descriptions the more I was confused why these were considered artifacts. I mean I could recreate most of these with my smithing, or even with a skill.

  'What is a nanite swarm?' Looking up its picture it kind of reminded me of a monster crystal.

  'Why isn't there a cheat artifact that just levels me up?'

  I let out a long sigh. "Maybe I can use one of these." I listed down some of the items I thought would be my best bet.

  'Let's see if these are even still around.'

  I spent the next couple of hours going through histories, fairy tales, memoir's, mentions, and first-hand accounts of each of the artifacts. Many of these artifacts never even had a single mention and other's were barely used, the light sword was used by a hero a long time ago, then was held as a ceremonial weapon for another 200 years, then it disappeared, was found, then disappeared, and then found again in the palm of a statue in city hall. Right now it is held in a high-security vault somewhere.

  I found information on the special forces badge, it was last seen in a museum a few cities away. It used to be used by the head of security there for a hundred years until it apparently failed and was deemed untrustworthy. The shield has been in the museum ever since. "Makes sense, no one wants a faulty shield."

  Eventually, I found 2 artifacts in the same location that might work. The ray gun was thought to be in a private collection, which happened to be located in An Le Notre, and the last seen instance of the ax was there as well.

  "Looks like once a month he opens his collection to the public." I pulled out my phone searching for the collection. I scrolled through the website quickly finding bother the gun and ax. Both were tarnished and dirty, but there was no mistaking them.

  'When is it open next? In 3 weeks. Fuck! Guess I'm breaking in.'