Storage

'Hell yeah! Summoning finally leveled up again!'

Spring had given way to summer, and it was now June. Allen basked in a feeling of achievement as he continued washing his family's laundry in a large tub by stomping on it.

Golden lines were glowing at the bottom of the log on the front cover of his grimoire.

<The Skill XP of Strengthening has reached 100,000/100,000.

Strengthening has reached Lvl. 4.

Summoning has reached Lvl. 4.

Expansion has reached Lvl. 3.

You have obtained Storage.>

'There's so much information again... But before anything else, let's look at my Status! I can't wait to see what's changed!'

___

Name: Allen

Age: 7

Class: Summoner

Level: 6

HP: 115 (165) + 50

MP: 154 (220) + 100

Attack: 56 (80) + 50

Endurance: 56 (80)

Agility: 108 (155)

Intelligence: 161 (230)

Luck: 108 (155) + 100

Skills: Summoning {4}, Creation {4}, Synthesis {4}, Strengthening {4}, Expansion {3}, Storage, Deletion, Sword Mastery {3}, Throwing {3}

XP: 0/6,000

Skill Levels

Summoning: 4

Creation: 4

Synthesis: 4

Strengthening: 4

Skill Experience

Creation: 256/1,000,000

Synthesis: 120/1,000,000

Strengthening: 0/1,000,000

Creatable Summons

Insect: E, F, G, H

Beast: E, F, G, H

Bird: E, F, G

Grass: E, F

???: E

Holder

Insect:

Beast: F x 10

Bird:

Grass: F x 20

???:

___

'Storage looks like a new skill. Hold on, it doesn't have levels? It's not listed under Skill Experience either... Does that mean it can't be developed?'

The first thing that caught Allen's eye was his brand-new skill. He continued his analysis as he moved onto hanging up the laundry in the yard.

'All right, I can check out what Storage does afterward. What's next?...Oh! I really did get access to Rank E Summons from Summoning leveling up!

There's a new "???" which I'll probably have to figure out the combination for again.'

Allen now had a lot more MP than when he first gained access to Rank F Summons. He expected the experimental process to go a lot faster this time.

'Gosh, how long has it been since Summoning last leveled up? Whoa, a year and ten months?! That's Hell Mode for you. And the higher the level, the more it's gonna take.'

Next, Allen checked the pages in his grimoire with card holders.

'Nice, now I can store a total of forty cards!'

The more cards he held, the more buffs he would receive. And now the number that he could keep on hand had just jumped up from thirty to forty.

Rank H cards provided +1 buffs, Rank G provided +2, and Rank F provided +5. Extrapolating off of this, it seemed reasonable to expect Rank E cards to provide even stronger buffs. Allen could foresee these higher ranked Summons and the ten new card slots boosting his Status quite significantly.

'Whoo! Would I be able to beat father in arm wrestling now? I'm so glad this level up came before great boar hunting season starts. I gotta find a good time to challenge him again. Would it make for a fun surprise to do it the day before the first hunt of the year?'

Allen could not help but do a little jig as he carried another armful of laundry over to the clotheslines for drying.

'All right, I think all there's left to do is figure out Storage and analyze the Rank E Summons. Which should I start with? Well, my MP's all empty, as it always is after leveling up a skill, so that leaves me with the former.'

By this time, Allen had finished hanging up all the laundry, which meant his hands were now free.

'Store!' Allen mentally commanded.

Because he had no idea how to use the new skill, Allen tried chanting internally for it. His grimoire was quite closely linked with his thoughts, so in most cases, he could just mentally will something and the book would respond. And sure enough, the grimoire flipped open, this time to a page that had not been accessible before.

'Hm? It's got a...hole? The heck's this for?'

Smack dab in the middle of the page was a hole thirty centimeters tall and wide. Strangely, it was clearly deeper than the thickness of the book itself. In fact, the bottom was not even visible.

'Do I...put things in here?'

Allen thought a bit about what to put inside before eventually going with a random twig from the ground. For all he knew, this could be a hyperdimensional pocket that would swallow everything it came into contact with. He slowly and gingerly brought the twig close to the grimoire...and saw its tip going inside with no resistance whatsoever.

'Interesting. And if I pull it back out... Yep, there's the whole twig.'

Next, Allen dropped one of his throwing stones into the hole. It disappeared completely from sight.

'I'm a bit scared, but let's try putting my hand inside... Whoa, a list of what's inside the hole appears directly in my mind!'

After this, Allen proceeded to conduct various tests with the Storage page.

As always, he then summed up his findings.

___

10 x Stone

1 x Tree more than a meter tall (Grass F Aroma tree)

20 days of firewood (300 kg)

Water (1L)

___

'Does this thing actually have infinite capacity?'

The observations that Allen made blew his mind, to put it mildly. As it turned out, he was able to store whatever and however much of it he wanted, as long as it could fit within a thirty-by-thirty-centimeter opening.

Throughout all his testing, he never found himself out of capacity and not once did what he put inside disappear to make room.

He was in the middle of putting back all the firewood that he had borrowed, still deep in his thoughts, when Theresia called out from inside the house, "Alleeen, it's time for lunch!"

"Yes, mother!" Allen replied thoughtlessly.

'Oh wow, it's already lunchtime. I didn't notice the time flying. Okay, but seriously, why am I getting this ability now? I must be missing something.'

Allen's findings had left him feeling a vague sense of something being off. Back when he was a gamer, he had learned about carrying capacity and what a large factor it was in the playing experience of a game.

For example, some games had a fixed number of inventory slots, allowing the player to carry only, say, ten or twenty items before having to unload them at a bank or storage facility in order to carry things again.

Other games assigned each item a weight and only allowed players to carry items that added up to a certain combined weight value, adjusting this based on player class or level. Conversely, there were also games that simply gave players completely unrestricted inventory from the very start of the game.

What was bothering Allen, in light of all the above scenarios, was that he was receiving this almost god-tier Storage function at such an awkward time.

If he had received it back when he turned one year old and first came into his own as a Summoner, then he would have been able to simply accept it. On the other hand, if he never received it at all, he would understand that too.

Yet, he had received it when his Summoning reached Lvl. 4, a number that did not carry any immediately understandable significance.

Because Allen had fallen back into his thoughts again, Theresia called him once more. He hurriedly headed inside to help her with preparing the meal. While his hands moved, his mind resumed its speculations.

In games, players received important items right before they needed them.

These were all things that, without them, the player would be unable to progress in the game, with some examples being keys, flying carpets, and boats. Games gave out what was needed when it was needed. That was how game developers influenced players to play the way they wanted.

'There's got to be a reason for this... A reason why the Storage function is relevant to me now.'

There was no doubt of this in Allen's mind. After all, the person who gave him this skill was the God of Creation of this world.

***

The next day, Allen was once again analyzing his skills while doing the laundry. He was staring at his grimoire, which floated next to him, as he continued stomping away inside the large barrel.

'All right, my MP is full. Time to take a look at these Rank E Summons.

'Insect and Beast are the only two kinds I can Create outright. Might as well start with Insect. Create: Insect E!'

Allen attempted to Create a Rank E card the same way he had been Creating all the other cards to date. However, nothing happened. Normally, this was the point where a card would appear before him in a flash of light.

'What? Why? Do I not have enough MP? My MP is 233 now, though!'

The memory from several years ago of when he did not have sufficient MP to use Creation Lvl. 2 resurfaced in Allen's mind. However, he was sure he had more than enough MP now. He looked over at the log on his grimoire, sure that the issue this time lay somewhere else. Sure enough, the explanation was written out clearly in silver text.

<You do not have enough Rank E magic stones to Create an Insect E card.>

"What?!" Allen unconsciously exclaimed out loud. He was so surprised he almost fell out of the bucket. 'Magic stones?! I need magic stones to Create all the Summons that are Rank E and above?!'

Allen remembered the Rank E magic stones stored in the nursery. He quickly slipped inside the house, being careful not to wake Myulla up from her afternoon nap, and pried up the floorboard to reveal the space where the family kept their valuables.

Sure enough, right next to a bag full of silver coins—containing 342 silver that he had earned selling the meat from all the albaherons he caught last year—there were several magic stones. Around the size of the tip of his pinky, these had come from horned rabbits.

Just like most other magic stones, these looked almost entirely spherical. As an aside, albaheron magic stones were about the size of the first joint of Allen's thumb, and great boar magic stones were about as big as a ping-pong ball.

Allen returned outside and resumed stomping on the laundry. With the magic stones in his grip, he attempted to activate Creation once again.

'Please let it work this time. Create: Insect E!'

Again, nothing happened. Allen checked his grimoire in slight exasperation and found the same line about not having enough magic stones.

'I have magic sto— Wait, are you telling me...?!'

In a flash of insight, Allen opened his grimoire up to the Storage page and threw all his magic stones inside.

'This should do it. Third time's the charm. Create: Insect E!'

This time, a card bearing an illustration of an insect finally appeared before his eyes.

'Yes! That did the trick! I see, so this is what Storage is for. So, my Rank E Summon is a butterfly.'

Allen saw no need to put it off, so he decided to try Summoning it immediately. The card disappeared in a flash of light, and Insect E appeared.

"Wait, what?! You're way too bi— Return!"

The instant he laid eyes on the gigantic butterfly measuring over a meter tall, Allen immediately Unsummoned it in a fluster. He could tell that it looked like a swallowtail butterfly from the quick glimpse he caught, but that was it.

'Damn, so Rank E Summons can be that big? That's a problem. So, I can't casually call them out and analyze them in our front yard anymore, what with there always being someone home. Does this mean the higher the rank, the bigger the Summons will get?'

With no other choice, Allen decided to leave Insect E alone for now and Create a Beast E card.

'Whoa, this is a saber-toothed tiger! We jumped straight from dog to saber-toothed tiger? Talk about a power-up! All right, now that I have an Insect card and a Beast card, I guess it's time to move onto Synthesizing. Let's see what we get.'

Allen opened up the Synthesis page in his grimoire and found it different from how he remembered it. Previously, the left page of the spread had two impressions for him to put in the cards he was Synthesizing together and the right page had a single impression where the Synthesized card would appear.

Now, however, the left page had three impressions. The two at the top were perfect fits for Summoning cards, but the size of the one at the bottom made it clear it was for something else.

'Uh-oh, are you telling me that Synthesis needs magic stones too? I already used two of them just now.'

A sense of foreboding filled Allen's heart. However, he still placed the Insect E and Beast E cards into the impressions on the left page and mentally willed the grimoire to Synthesize a Bird E card. The rank was different, but the general process should still have been the same.

However, nothing happened. So he placed a magic stone into the third impression.

'Synthesize!'

This time, a new card did indeed appear.

'All right, that confirms it: I really do need a magic stone each time I Synthesize. Ugh, this sucks. I'm going to need a lot of magic stones, then.'

It was now clear that both Creation and Synthesis required magic stones. Bird cards only required one round of Synthesis, but Grass cards required two rounds.