Matt was in his apartment nerding out about the potential that the system could have. [Help] just looked annoyed.
"Of course it's magic! Technology can't just let you open a map that'll show you every important location around you!"
"Uh, it can. It's called a phone app."
[Help] just looked more annoyed.
"Shut up! That's not the point anyway! Whatever, who cares! Send me back already! I don't want to talk to you!"
"Hold on, you still didn't answer my question yet. How do I use this?"
"Just say 'Use!', what else did you expect?! Send me back!"
Matt felt a bit dumb, but in his defense, it could've been like 'activate!' or 'spend!' or something. He deactivated the [Help] skill and sent her back to wherever she goes. He looked down at the crystal in his hand and held it up before shouting.
"Use!"
[Skill Shard used.]
[Skill Wheel Unlocked]
The crystal quickly started to glow brighter until it was like the sun was in Matt's apartment. Then the world around him started to change. Stars were forming in his apartment, and the walls, floor, and ceiling were starting to look like the night sky.
The stars started to gather together and what seemed to be a galaxy began to form in front of him. But it was taking on a strange shape. It was like a wheel-shaped galaxy. There were many notches and words forming on the wheel.
'Woah, this looks kinda crazy.'
The galaxy wheel finally finished forming, and it seemed to have millions of words on it, one in each section of the wheel. The words were blurred though, and so he couldn't figure out what they said.
'Wait, how can I even make out the individual sections? It's like I can see every part of it at once even though it's so big.'
He noticed an arrow that was pointing down, hovering over one of the blurred words. The final thing he noticed was a big sparkling button at the bottom of the wheel that read: "Spin!"
'What is this, a pay-to-win game?!'
Although it was weird, he was still excited to get his skill. It must come from this wheel somehow.
'Well, guess I'll spin it.'
With that thought, he pressed the large button and the wheel instantly started spinning incredibly quickly. The arrow made a loud chime every time it passed a word, which made it kind of annoying.
The wheel started to slow down, and Matt started leaning forward in anticipation. He was finally going to get a skill, and he was super hyped to find out what it was.
Now that the wheel was spinning more slowly, the words near the arrow unblurred, probably to build suspense. He still could only see the words a couple of sections before and after the selection arrow. He quickly made note of some of the names that flew by.
'Lunar Regeneration, Replenishment, Concrete Transmutation, Suspension, wow these all sound pretty good!'
The wheel finally began to finish spinning. It slowed, and came to a complete stop. Matt nervously and with anticipation, looked at what it landed on. At the same time, the system sent a notification.
[Skill Learned: Mind Palace]
Matt stared at the result, instantly interested but also a bit confused.
'Mind Palace? Isn't that a technique people use to remember stuff? Is there more to it since it's a system skill?'
He thought about what this could mean but decided it would be best to just test it out. As he thought this, the wheel slowly faded away, and the stars around the room were gone.
'Well here goes nothing. Mind Palace!'
In an instant, he was in a grassy field, with a blue sky. Strangely, the grass was also blue. There were white clouds in the sky, and it looked very beautiful.
'Uh, what is this?'
He looked around but didn't see anything else. It was just grass and sky all the way into the horizon. Matt was really tempted to activate [Help] again, but he realized that he really is relying on her too much. He had a brain for a reason and he was starting to get a bit tired of her constant yelling.
'Ok, I'll try to figure out how this works on my own and I'll just let her rest for now. If I really can't figure it out, I'll bring her out tomorrow.'
He started walking in a random direction, curious as to how far the space would go. But no matter how long he walked for, he didn't find an end.
'Ok, so, it doesn't seem like there's a limit to this place. Now I wonder, when people talk about mind palaces it's usually for storing information. Maybe I can try that?'
He tried to recall one of the quantum theory books he had read earlier, seeing if anything would happen. To his surprise, a book appeared in his hands.
[Intro to Quantum Physics]
'I kinda didn't expect that to work.'
He looked at the cover and the outside of the book. It looked pretty authentic. When he opened the book, he realized something was strange. It was too perfectly written. He had barely remembered half of what he had read, but it was all in there.
'Wait, so does this kind of work like photographic memory!?'
He set the book down in the grass, and then he tried to remember one of the other books that he really had a hard time grasping. He had barely understood or remembered any of it. The book suddenly appeared in his hand.
[3 Controversial Quantum Theories]
When he opened it he noticed how it was all there. He was shocked.
'So I just need to glance at the pages of a book and I can store it here?'
As he thought that, he noticed how halfway through, the pages became blank. The book was completely blank the entire second half.
'Oh, I forgot I didn't finish this one. So if I didn't look at the pages, it won't save.'
He put the book down and then sat in the grass to think.
'This power seems kinda OP? But also, is that all this power can do? It's kinda lame.'
He looked around at the grass and sky. It was like a perfect place. He could imagine some rich CEO paying a ton of money to vacation here, if there was a house or something of course.
'I have to admit, at least it's pretty relaxing.'
As he sat in the grass looking up at the sky, he suddenly had a weird idea. He thought it was strange how physical it was here. If it was just for storing information, it would've just been a void with text. But he actually made physical books appear. He decided to test his idea.