The next day started just like before, though Roge could feel himself becoming more and more used to his new body as the days went on. He even felt comfortable enough to add in his chores for the day onto his [Quests] list.

  As he got dressed, however, looking at one of his plain tan shirts, a thought wouldn’t leave him alone until he experimented some more.

  ‘Okay… so that won’t work.’ There was no ability on the shirt that he could synergise [Color] and [Pigment] with. He was at least expecting something like ‘[Fabric]’ or something.

  To help settle his frustration, Roge continued on with his plan, grabbing a quick to-go style breakfast and waving at his wolf friend as he headed out.

  “Busy day!” Roge couldn’t hear anything else Fred said after that, walking quickly towards his local library. ‘Southern Library’ was vastly unoriginal, but at the very least they didn’t have it on a sign in front of the building, just a sign with glasses and an open book painted onto it. He’d not even needed to know that the library existed beforehand, his [Quests] system leading him to it with the vague ‘get me to the closest library on my route to work’ inputted into it. ‘At least GPS is still a thing here…’

  Once inside, Roge felt a bit lost, his tail drooping as he looked around. *Normally* when he went to a library, they had a computer set up to find a specific book or topic. This one had nothing like that, just the various shelves and the front desk. A glasses wearing elf manned the desk at that time, his large, muscular frame looking slightly out of place as he looked up to inspect the dragon. His skin was even almost human, making Roge feel slightly envious of him. “Need anything?”

  “Yeah uh… I’m needing something to explain item ranks…?” he asked liltingly, Roge feeling somewhat uncomfortable with the stranger’s full focus. The elf sighed as he looked through an open book on the desk, Roge only catching glimpses of various categories and book titles.

  “Aisle 22B,” the librarian sighed, writing that information down on a piece of paper and handing it to the dragon. “Don’t grab anything from the ‘Lilting’ series. His books are being heavily disputed right now.” With that, he was apparently dismissed, the elf going back to writing something in another book on the desk.

  Looking up at the signs made navigating the library easy, envying the system over however the library he was used to did it. Because libraries tended to grow or shrink over time, their organization of the shelves themselves sometimes made looking for a particular section hard. He found the section he was looking for quickly in the massive library, heading up to the second floor, going down aisle 2, and finding section B. Unfortunately, the hard part now came, Roge groaning as he looked at all of the *unlabeled* books.

  With a swipe at the useless screen, Roge started near the beginning of the section, hoping he could find something useful before he needed to head out.

  ~~~

  He barely made his self imposed time limit, having found so many books that were either too academic or literal children’s books. The one he found was a good in between, though the title made him laugh every time he read it. ‘Item Ranks for Dummies’. From what he could skim, he knew it was a good pick, grabbing it and heading back to the front.

  “Checking out?” With a nod, the large elf squinted at Roge before using some enchanted machine to print out…

  “A library card?” Roge asked, growing even more surprised as his [Inspect] came up with nothing but question marks. The librarian ignored him, swiping the card over Roge’s book before placing it on an inscribed metal plate.

  “There. Return it in a week or pay for an extension.” A quest notification popped up at that, though Roge swiped it away without looking to look over the card. What looked to be plastic seemed to actually be made of wood, the dragon’s face perfectly printed onto it along with his information and residency address. He wasn’t sure how comfortable he was with people being able to get that information from him, but the strange look from the elf made him leave the library with a quick pace.

  Stuffing both the book and card into his inventory, the items slotting in correctly for once, he made a quick stop at the paint store to get more and smaller jars of paint. He wanted to confirm his theories on the [Color] ability, feeling slightly nervous if his guess was completely off. In all the excitement of using his abilities and the frustration from the error message, he realized upon waking that the messages hadn’t *actually* confirmed anything with how vague they were. Besides, he was interested to see how it worked if his theory was right.

  The first part of his shift went by quickly, Roge grinning as each of the plants got even taller from his magic. Moving to his modified tobacco plants, his grin got even bigger, the dragon having to stop himself from dancing at what he saw.

  He’d been worried that he’d need to grow a whole new plant to get rid of the Magically Sated status, but he was glad to be proven wrong. Even the peppermint plants weren’t showing any signs that they were worse for wear, Roge making sure he sent out his dragonbreath right before pulling the coin out just in case. He was expecting a lot from the peppermint plants, now that he knew he could get rid of negative abilities using [Detox].

  Placing the coin into the first tobacco plant’s [Inspect] screen, Roge was surprised when the plant started to glow a faint white color, same as the [Detox] coins. He waited a few seconds to see if anything else would happen, though nothing did as the glow started to fade.

  Roge wasn’t sure how he felt about all of the popups, looking at them one by one without dismissing them. Sure, he was glad for the unexpected upgrade to the plant, though he still couldn’t look at what the ability *said*. And now that he gained a rank up on [Ability Hoard], the increased difficulty for putting in abilities should be mitigated. But he still didn’t like it, even if he could understand. Just being able to put every single ability he could find into the same plant wouldn’t be feasible or fair. He still couldn’t shake off the feeling of disappointment, moving on to alter the other plants in the same way.

  Once the four ‘purified’ plants were done, ‘Whatever that means,’ Roge moved on to the next one in the line, taking out the [Color] and [Pigment] coins from his inventory. Seeing no need to wait on his new experiment, he pushed the red [Pigment] coin in first, focusing really hard on where he wanted it placed in the list.

  Nodding at the last part, Roge looked at the strange black and white [Color] coin, hoping that because it was a rank 0 coin, he could still add it. At the very least, the first coin he put in worked how he thought it would, all of the colors of the plant being replaced by varying shades of red. The leaves looked the most odd, being almost a blood red in color. Crossing his fingers, he focused hard once again on placement, excitement blooming through him as the coin was accepted and the plant started shining with a red light.

  Scratching his head in confusion, his claw bumping up against his horns for a moment, Roge decided to look at the purified plant once again, as well as pull up the screen for [Inspect] while he was at it.

  Feeling himself starting to get a headache, Roge swiped the screens away with an irritated grimace. ‘More things I have to keep track of? Ranking up an effect inside a skill?’ At the very least he didn’t have to put points into anything, something he’d dreaded in games he’d played before. ‘Just a standard upgrade when you use it. Hard work means more power.’ Taking a look at the magical plants one last time, mostly to make sure they were all still doing okay, he headed over to the workstation to get started on the day’s orders, stuffing the processed leaves into his inventory to sort out the magical ones.

  Feeling a bit guilty about working on personal projects during work time, he got started on the day’s orders first, excitement flowing through him as he did so. ‘Magical cigarettes. Wonder wha- ow! Stupid tail!’

  ~~~

  Thankfully, the orders Roge had to fill out were minimal for that day, the dragon getting them done within a couple hours. As he was stretching his back, Madam Madrid sauntered into the workroom, Roge giving her a questioning look. “What? You think I’m not going to be here to see what you make, boy?”

  “That’s… fair,” he grumbled, pulling out the magical leaves and setting them up to grind. “These are only the first step, though. I improved them further-“ He cut himself off with a smile as the orc woman rushed into the greenhouse, cranking the machine to get the tobacco to the right consistency. By the time she returned, he was already rolling a few, putting them into one of their standard wooden boxes. He would have called it a pack, the rectangular shape and pulling the cigarettes from the top making it look like one, but the wood apparently made it a ‘box’ in the system’s mind.

  “That’s… incredible!” she exclaimed, giving Roge an assessing eye as he finished up the box. “Though I’m not sure if I can pay you enough for that work. Mages usually cost so much…”

  “Hmm. Maybe hire an apprentice to do this part of the work?” Roge asked, pulling up the box in his [Inspect] window.

  “Thought so,” Roge grumbled, handing the box over and letting Madam Madrid inspect it. “Besides removing [Carcinogenic], the product is pretty much the same.”

  “Well, those other plants should make something new. You’re going to do the [Detox] thing to the red plant before harvesting, right boy?” Madam Madrid’s words made the dragon perk up, pulling out the paints he’d gotten from the store that morning.

  “That’s the plan. Think we can get more [Detox] plants?”

  “I like the way you think, boy.” With a pat on the back, Madam Madrid let Roge get to his work, the jingling of coins occasionally being heard as she worked the front counter.