Bookshelf Acquired

Upon returning to the cafe, Adonis immediately got to work as a number of people had actually already been lining up to enter the cafe. A few of his regulars that he got to know over the past week had curiously asked him about his new companion when they took notice of the exotic lion.

Phylax, the name he decided to give him, was a Shishi. The very same guardian lion that are regarded as protectors against harmful spiritual influences as well as malicious individuals in general. That was why he named him Phylax, it was a word that carried meanings such as 'Guard' and 'Protector' in Ancient Greek.

However, unlike the Shishi that were normally seen as statues near temples and such, his one resembled that of those costumes worn by the dancers who performed the lion dance during events such as Chinese New Year.

He had only ever seen the lion dance being performed once before while he was on holiday with his family, and he had to admit that it was an incredible sight to see them perform. Some people, mainly children, found them to be rather frightening, but he personally really liked them.

Other than that though, Adonis could see Phylax becoming a very recognisable mascot for the cafe. His exotic appearance not only reminded some people of those guardian statues from around Liyue, but also because his appearance could possibly have him mistaken as an adepti.

Adonis still had much to learn in regard to Liyue and its history, and Teyvat in general, but he had quickly come to learn about the adepti. In a sense, some people viewed them as beings akin to gods. They had worshippers, and they seemed to be the protectors of Liyue.

"Phylax, order for table twelve!" As soon as Adonis shouted this, the young lion dashed over quickly, causing its golden fur to jump around as it ran over. "Don't drop this now, we don't want to have our customers regret coming here after all."

Phylax gave a friendly roar as Adonis placed the platter onto Phylax's head, after doing so, Phylax quickly dashed off to its next destination in the cafe. He had come to learn of Phylax's rather incredible sense of balance, no matter how fast he ran, the platter somehow didn't ever fall off.

'Didn't really expect it, but at least I got myself a new employee of sorts.' Adonis had a hard time doing everything by himself. Taking the food out while also cooking was really time-consuming, so the fact that Phylax was this capable really amazed him. "Thank you, please come again."

As soon as he finished serving that customer, a notification soon sounded.

『Cafe Level has increased to 2』

『Maximum Weekly Points have increased to 3,000』

『Bookshelf has been unlocked』

『Cafe will undergo changes at midnight』

"Changes?" Adonis muttered curiously upon seeing this. 'I wonder what'll be different...'

In regards to the Bookshelf thing, he had been curious about it ever since he first got the system. He doubted it was anything normal, there was no way he was going to believe the system was just going to install a normal damn bookshelf into the cafe. He could just go buy one whenever he wanted, so there had to be something special about it.

He still had no idea what the points were used for aside from restocking his ingredients, but perhaps this new Bookshelf thing tonight will provide him with a new use for them, another use at least. There had to be a reason he was going to be getting so many.

'I'll just have to wait and see, thinking about it now is useless.' Adonis shrugged to himself as he began cleaning some of the dishes. He had already planned to train his Haki after work, so he'd be pretty preoccupied before midnight. "Oh, welcome back, Xiangling! Guoba!"

When Adonis heard the door ring, he naturally turned to welcome the person. True to his words though, the newcomers were none other than Xiangling and Guoba, the little panda bear having quickly run over to greet Adonis by the counter.

"Heya, Adonis!" Xiangling smiled brightly while waving as she walked on over, though she soon noticed a strange lion-like creature rushing over before stopping in front of Guoba. Guoba flinched back in surprise, but soon calmed down before seemingly getting into a conversation with the unfamiliar creature. "Wow, it's so cute! Who is this?!"

Hearing this, Phylax looked up at her before giving a small yet excited roar.

"This is Phylax, I guess you could say he's my pet, but think of him more as a friend like Guoba is to you." Adonis spoke as he watched Phylax run off with Guoba in tow. He then turned to look back at Xiangling. "So, are Chongyun and Xingqiu joining you as well today?"

"Not today, they're both occupied with something else at the moment. They did say they'll be coming in early tomorrow though, and while he wasn't too expressive about it, I could tell Chongyun was the most excited to come back! I do have someone else with me though, she should be here soo-."

Xiangling's words stopped abruptly as she soon noticed something behind Adonis, though before she could even give out a warning...

"BOO!"

Out of nowhere, what looked to be a cartoonish ghost of sorts with a rather relaxed-looking expression suddenly popped out behind Adonis and appeared directly into his view. Seeing this, Adonis merely blinked, not having flinched at all in the slightest.

"...What's a ghost from Luigi's Mansion doing here?"

Adonis somewhat unconsciously said this as he rose one eyebrow in confusion. He watched as the ghost was pulled back behind him, though he didn't get to turn around before someone else jumped out from behind.

"Aiya, that wasn't the kind of reaction I was hoping for... and what's Luigi's Mansion?" The voice belonging to this newcomer sounded as she tilted her head, arms crossed while her eyes closed upon sighing. "I'm Hu Tao, the current director for the Wangshend Funeral Parlor. Responsible for... well, trifling matters having to do with mortality,"

In front of him was a girl probably around his age, perhaps a year or two older than him with long brown hair that was tied into twin tails. She mainly wore a black form of attire, though the most eye-catching thing in his opinion was the porkpie hat she had on that looked to have a wooden talisman of sorts attached to the front.

And he had to say, she had one of the most unique-looking eyes he had ever seen, only being beaten by Tet from No Game No Life. Her eyes looked to have little sakura flowers or something in her pupils, it was a strange sight, to say the least.

'Wait, did she say haiyaa or aiya? Uncle Roger flashbacks in my head right now...'

Shaking his head slightly, Adonis refocused.

"I'm Adonis Mercy, a pleasure to meet you." Adonis smiled as he introduced himself, extending his hand forwards for a shake, to which the girl accepted with a giggle. "Wangsheng, huh? I suppose that means that you surely know Zhongli."

"Of course, that Zhongli can be quite the pain sometimes... especially when it comes to Mora." Hu Tao shook her head while saying that last part, earning a blink of confusion from Adonis. "In any case, feel more than free to contact me whenever you wish to talk about your big day in the future! Soon or later, everyone becomes a client of ours."

Hearing this, Xiangling looked at Hu Tao before shouting. "H-Hu Tao, please stop this...!"

'Yeah, kinda already experienced what it was like to die, not looking to relive it any time soon.' Adonis deadpanned as he heard the words. Considering who this girl was, he more than understood what she was referring to. 'Man, I feel like my cafe is a beacon for interesting individuals...'

If only he knew...

●●●●●●●●●●●●●●

After he finished with work for the day, as he had already planned, he immediately went to train in the use of Haki. The fortunate cheat about the system was that it seemed to provide him with the knowledge of how to use and develop his powers, the knowledge was in a way injected into his brain.

Thus, any form of doubt when it came to the methods of training Haki were void, the system was pretty much his guide. Anyway, for the past few hours, he had decided to first focus solely on developing his Observation Haki.

To train this Haki, the method that Rayleigh utilised to rain Luffy was the most effective. That being that he'd be blindfolded and told to dodge incoming attacks, the passing criteria being that one hundred successful dodges were needed.

The thing was, Adonis didn't have Rayleigh here. He didn't want to try anything risky just yet, so Adonis opted to instead use a multitude of logs tied with powerful ropes that would then swing at him like a pendulum, obviously coming from multiple different directions.

The issue was that he couldn't sense any kind of malicious intent, the logs weren't sentient after all. Unlike humans and animals, they possessed no malice when they swung to strike him, that's what was making it so much harder for Adonis to get used to.

He honestly wasn't sure how many times he had been hit now due to a failed dodge, but at least it wasn't that painful due to the improved physique the system initially gave him upon entering this world. Otherwise, he'd definitely be majorly bruised.

In any case, the same exact training continued on for hours until Adonis eventually stopped once noticing that it was almost time, almost time for the supposed changes to occur in the cafe. After making his way back to the city, he quickly returned to the cafe.

"It's probably a bit past midnight now..." Adonis walked up to the cafe door as he glanced up at the moon. Since it was so dark, the streets were obviously quite empty, with only a few exceptions here and there. "I wonder if the changes have already been made..."

That was soon answered when he opened the door.

"Holy shit...!"

Adonis had to refrain from yelling too loudly as his eyes almost bugged out, and this reaction was quite justified as when he entered the cafe, the changes that the system talked about were greater than he first thought.

Looking around, he noticed that the cafe now had a second floor occupying the previously tall empty space above, with a beautiful curved staircase at one of the corners of the building leading up to the second floor. Speaking of the second floor, it also had a small balcony area that overlooked the first floor.

The next difference was that there was what looked to be a lounge area replacing one-half of the cafe that previously had tables set up, Adonis could only assume that those tables were now present on the floor above with even more tables available.

Back to the lounge area, it had a number of couches as well as what looked to be a multitude of bean bags of varying colours sprawled all across the carpeted floor of that section of the cafe. If anything, Adonis had to compare it to those reading areas in public libraries.

Of course, the couches and the bean bags weren't the only things there, there was also a large white and black bookshelf of sorts that had what looked to be a small monitor attached at the centre of it. On each separate section of the shelf, there were secured stands with blank rectangular cards from what he could tell.

However, despite all the curiousness he had towards that area, his attention was entirely focused now on the things placed behind the front counter. Walking up, he noticed that they were all robots that had sleek white bodies and rounded heads with black screen faces.

The most curious thing was that all of them wore outfits very similar to his own, his work attire that is. From rough estimation from a single glance, there were around eight or so that were all lined up behind the counter.

"Woah, are these robots?" Curiously, Adonis tapped his finger against the arm of one of them, taking note that it very much felt like the tapped onto a sheet of durable metal. "I may be crazy trying this... hello? Can you understand me?"

[Greetings, owner. I am Unit-01, it's pleasure to meet you]

Adonis widened his eyes, he wasn't actually expecting a response. The previously black screen on the robot's face switched on, a blue smiling expression was formed on it. "Unit-01? Were you perhaps created by the system?"

[That is correct. It is our duty to assist you here in the cafe, let it be assisting in cooking, serving, taking orders or cleaning up. We shall try our best to assist you]

"I see, then I'll be counting on you." Adonis nodded after hearing that. He was honestly very relieved, with how the cafe now no doubt having more tables to serve, he was questioning whether or not he'd be able to keep up. With this, a lot of weight had been taken off his shoulders. "You should rest then, we'll be opening in a few hours after all."

[Very well. You should as well, sir]

"Not sure if I will have the liberty to do so." Adonis chuckled as the screen went back to being completely black. Adonis then turned to look back towards the lounge area. "Phylax is sleeping in the bedroom right now, so I might as well check out this Bookshelf thing."

Walking over curiously, the first thing Adonis did was go over towards the shelf, ignoring the couches and the bean bags for now. Once he approached, the screen automatically switched on before displaying a list of options to him.

.

『Arcade Cafe Bookshelf』

● Description: A bookshelf full of mystery. Explore the worlds of literature through the pages, or even through your very own eyes! If you are willing to dive into a world unknown, will you choose to change its fate or will you allow it to walk its destined path?

● Read Book - [Cost: 450 Mora/hr]

● Book Dive - [Cost: 5,000 Mora/hr]

.

"Wow, that's certainly a grandiose description."

Raising an eyebrow, Adonis tapped into the first option, though he was disappointed to see that nothing was listed there. He probably didn't have anything on this shelf, evident by the fact that all of these display stands had nothing showing at all on them.

"The 'Read Book' is pretty self-explanatory, but is the 'Book Dive' thing what I think it is...?" If Adonis's hunch was correct, then he had a feeling it was going to be something similar to those VRMMO concepts in novels and anime he had seen in the past. "Does that mean people will be able to literally teleport into the book? Able to 'dive' into the book?"

The description he had seen not too long ago seemed to also suggest such a possibility.

He had to admit though, the price was pretty damn high. Though, considering the fact that you could essentially be living in the contents of a storybook, the price was pretty damn reasonable, possibly cheap even. At least the cost for just reading it normally wasn't unreasonable.

"The question now is, how do I get stories?" Adonis frowned slightly in confusion as he tilted his head with crossed arms. "Ah, of course, perhaps on the actual system itself. That 'Bookshelf' option should now be available to me since the cafe is now level two."

Quickly bringing up the menu, he was proven correct when the option was now available for selection.

.

『Bookshelf Details』

● Description: A bookshelf full of mystery. Explore the worlds of literature through the pages, or even through your very own eyes! If you are willing to dive into a world unknown, will you choose to change its fate or will you allow it to walk its destined path?

● Current Books

● Book Store - [First-Time Book Draw Available]

.

"Yep, there it is." Adonis nodded upon seeing the second option. When he clicked into it, a new screen was shown displaying all kinds of stories ranging from kid's story books to novels from all around the world and more. "Holy shit, the cheapest one is fifty-thousand points?!"

When he noticed that there was a searching mechanism, he filtered it so that the listed stories went from cheapest to most expensive. The cheapest story that was on here was the very recognisable Little Red Riding Hood, a very popular fairy tale from back in his old world.

He only had a little less than six-thousand points right now, so he was nowhere near close to even being able to buy the cheapest book. 'Hold on, didn't it say I had a first-time draw thing available to me? That means I get one free book, right?'

Going back to the previous menu, Adonis was pleased to see that he was correct. Without hesitation, he tapped onto the option as a small new screen soon appeared. All it displayed was a line of text that rapidly kept changing, it was so fast that Adonis couldn't make out a single letter.

"Come on, something interesting..."

The text then soon began slowing down, allowing Adonis to recognise a few of the books as they went by. Soon enough, the text stopped changing.

『...』

『You have acquired: The Pied Piper of Hamelin - Aftermath』