POV 3 Person
Because Cali was so absorbed in testing her theory she barely realized something she was doing, unconsciously injecting Aeter into the tome, or rather the tome was sucking out a small amount of Cali's Aeter. This was the correct way to read the tomes (comics) that Kaio had made available, when injecting the Aeter the main information would be directly absorbed by the user and giving one of the abilities that the characters in the story had.
But these skills were not limited to just the more flashy things like the optical camouflage that the Predator has and which when it was forcibly learned was translated into the user's Stats as Hide, these skills also included the handling of weapons that the characters would have being adapted to the user, for example: if a character was good at handling knives, this skill would be transcribed as competence with daggers or short swords for the user, with the information on how to best use them implanted directly into the user's subconscious. This would also be applied to other things, like in the Predator "tome" characters have to fight in the jungle, as well as camouflage, sneak and track, all these capabilities would be transferred to the user but would not be shown from the statuses, but they would feel much easier fighting in the jungle than before.
However there was a condition, these "hidden" abilities could only be unlocked if Aeter was injected and the user understood the story, if Aeter was only injected the user would only receive the ability that was best suited and this would still have the defect of requiring more Aether than necessary to activate and more time to improve it. An example of this is in Connor's case, as soon as he fired the arrow when he was in the hidden state, he was revealed, while the Predator could fire his plasma shots in hidden mode and still remain hidden.
But that wasn't the only secret that the "tomes" had, there was still one that not even Kaio knew, and that Cali was about to reveal.
'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''' '''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
KAIO POV
Hmm impressive, that's all I can say, this girl is really impressive.
'Maybe she's not reincarnated or has a divine blessing of knowledge or something like that'
[If she were a reincarnated person, this would appear in her general status, the same goes for protections or divine blessings.]
'Hoh interesting then–, OPA WAIT, are there really other people reincarnated in this world and gods?!'
[Obviously, you thought it was a unique case?]
'Well no, but finding out like this is a bit boring, it would be more interesting if one of them actually appeared, and by the way if there are gods why didn't I find any when I was reincarnated as a dungeon?'
[Gods are busy beings. You didn't expect them to always pay attention to every soul that dies, do you think?]
'No....'
While we were having this very productive conversation, I noticed something kind of strange. The tome that Cali was holding was deliberately sucking out her Aeter, but I remember that it was supposed to be placed intentionally, what's going on Sis?
'Hey Sis, why is that happening?'
[Apparently that Cali girl unconsciously unlocked the tomes' full capacity.]
'Huh?!, weren't they basically "collector's edition" hardcover comics that gave a specific ability?'
[This would be the easiest gesture to understand, but it does not express all of its capabilities. When Aeter is forcibly injected into the tome and it is leafed through, the individual receives the main abilities with an increase in Aeter consumption for activation. Whereas when Aeter is injected and the story is understood you receive the full ability plus the most efficient method of using it and hidden proficiencies in relation to the story.]
'I know all this.'
[However, when the individual does not inject Aeter but reads and is interested in the story, the tome will lightly absorb the individual's Aeter, once that individual opens the tome again in this state it will activate its full function.]
' Ok and what's this fun-!!!!!!. HEY what happened to her?!'
I yelled at Sis, while looking at what had happened to Cali. Falling on the table with the tome open, without touching it.
************************
Cali POV
'That was it'
I could say with certainty that I was definitely succeeding in translating the tomes. They told a story about a soldier and his squad on a mission in the jungle, there he meets an old friend who joins the group to recover someone from an organization superior to the two of them, but during this mission they are attacked by a creature that they They cannot identify it as it camouflages itself from the light, moves quickly and easily within the forest, staying mainly on top of the trees and eliminates the soldiers as quickly as it moves.
Although in my opinion this creature is a little arrogant and allows itself to be seen perhaps as a form of Intimidation or just to laugh at the expressions that the soldiers make. The story then shows both the creature hunting the soldiers and them trying to defend themselves from it until they reach some point in the forest where a flying machine appears to get them out of there.
I already expected it to be a story like this because of the images, but really understanding what happens is much more interesting than I expected, even more so the part of the final conflict where the creature shows that in addition to being intelligent, it can also communicate, but only repeats what the main speech (which I now found out he is and his name is Dutch) and laughs in his face before trying to blow himself up with some device. I think he would have somehow broken the Aeter connection in the creature's body to generate this explosion, how else would there be for something so violent and that would cover so much ground? (Kaio: (-_-;))
As soon as I finished doing the general translation, the strangest thing in my life happened. When I closed the tome I realized that my Aeter had decreased without explanation, the only thing I could think of was that the tome had absorbed my Aeter, since I was only focused on it while doing the translation. I thought that with this I had discovered some secret hidden in the tome, so I opened it again.
The moment I did this a bright light came out from within the tome, as if I were looking directly at the sun, and then darkness and silence.
I don't know how long this lasted but for me it was quick, in the middle of the dark I started to hear a sound. This sound quickly became stronger to the point where I understood that it was
a melody, but it wasn't similar to any melody I had never heard before, having a tense timbre and instruments that I couldn't identify. It was something like
"Tanannanan tanam tanam." Mainly coming from a stringed instrument. Soon after, all the black that surrounded me was replaced by a forest, only it wasn't like any forest I'd ever seen or been to, it was much hotter and more humid.
No!!, in fact I've already been in a forest similar to this one, more precisely I was in it now. The forest that appeared in front of me was almost the same as the Ordeal forest with the differences being that here the sun was rising, it was surrounded by water and seemed to be mainly made up of mountains, hills and hills with small places of flat terrain. Which was almost the total opposite of Ordeal, which was just flat with huge trees and small hills spread across the land.
Right after I realized this, I heard another sound along with the melody.
"Tuturututurutu", and then the source of the sound was a block of iron that was coming through the water and trees, a block of metal that I had seen before. It was the means of transportation that soldier Dutch and his men used, a kind of metal carriage that could fly that they called a helicopter.
With that I was almost certain of what had happened, as unbelievable as it was. But it was only when this helicopter stopped on a beach, and a man got out of it that there was no doubt left, I had somehow entered the tome and now I was seeing with my own eyes the story that was previously told in cartoons being developed right in the in front of me with real people, because the man who got off the flying carriage was none other than Dutch himself.