Chapter 149 – Think fast.

Just as he was about to go to sleep he was rewarded by a new title and even a trait. The title was obviously given to him because of his unhealthy sleeping schedule.

With the help of his sleeping resistance that then has evolved into an immunity, he was able to maintain himself with only short naps. While the skill had the ‘immunity’ world to it, it didn’t allow him to quite resist the temptations of sleep.

It was possible for him to stay up for about three days with no serious strain to his mind or body, but after that, he would feel quite drowsy. This skill was only at level two for now, thus Roland wondered that maybe if he maxed it out he could actually attain true sleep immunity.

While the title was a nice bonus, what he really was interested in was the second thing he received, mainly the Parallel Thinking trait. After reading through the explanation he got the general gist of it but he was unsure of how it was supposed to work.

‘Is this trait supposed to help me be better at multitasking?’

Roland was not sure how to activate this trait but while going through the explanation he tried testing it out. He tried thinking about a hard mathematical problem while also trying to recall some activities that he did the previous day.

It was a bit odd at first but he found that he was actually able to visualize all of it separately. He managed to perform this thinking exercise at the same time without having to strain his brain too much.

‘I wonder…’

With some inspiration, he pulled out two pieces of paper. This was part of the research material that he received from the Professor. One had research concerning golems while the other went into more detail about the runic programming.

His test started as he attempted to read both of these pages at once. It was difficult at first as he found it hard to spread out his gaze between the two papers. After a few minutes of straining his eyes, he was finally able to read both of them at the same time.

When he stopped he could clearly recall the information that he just went through without any holes in his memory. This realization made him lean back and chuckle, such a trait was a godsend for this situation.

With so much research material and golem-related research, he was having a hard time keeping it together. He still had to craft runic equipment for the guild while also thinking about his own shop, the house defenses, and then his family problems.

With this handy trait, he could double his research speed, maybe even triple or quadruple them. The description added a part about his intelligence stat which made the trait better. Intelligence was his best stat from them all. It was also possible that his rare class multiplier would be accounted for.

After the golem testing was concluded Roland found himself doing a whole different round of testing. He needed to know the limits that this newly gained trait would give him. First came the reading test, which brought him to about three separate texts at once.

The biggest limit when reading was concerned depended on his line of sight. It was hard to focus if the books were not close to each other. It was also a bit awkward to read at first but Roland discovered that he could also move his arms independently from each other.

While he was reading some texts he was also able to scribe down a runic scroll. The grade dropped a bit at the first try but after he got used to it, he was able to actually scribe and read at the same time.

Roland was sure that if he wanted he could create two separate runic scrolls at the same time. It was as if he had two separate heads working half of his body when he was performing this task. Luckily this trait didn’t give him something like an alternate personality, he was still only one person that could just use his brain functions at a higher rate.

It took him the whole night and ever all morning to go through figuring this thing out. He realized that even though this trait was meant for gathering more knowledge it could very well be used for battle.

His mind was able to react to more than one stimulus at the same time. It would clearly be handy during combat. While he focused on the enemy’s weapon with one part of his mind, at the same time he could look for that deceptive strike that was coming and instantly react to it when it happened.

This was easier said than done as he did not really have that much battle experience in using this trait. It could help him combat the gap that was slowly increasing between him and people with true battle classes.

While they trained themselves to have lightning-fast reflexes and react to everything within a split second thanks to practice, he could use brainpower for a similar effect. Instead of muscle memory, he would actively react to everything by being able to split his thoughts between actions and multiple opponents.

His eyes weren’t the only thing that he could separate from his body. Hearing and touch were also accessible. Taking this into account it would help him hear or feel people coming in from unexpected vantage points that he couldn’t see with his eyes.

“Hey boss, you wanted to see me? What’s with the runic launcher are we getting robbed?”

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Roland called Bernir over as he was somewhat intrigued by how flexible this new trait was. The plans were to work on the third iteration of his golem but that could wait. If he managed to master this skill he could very well triple his output.

“No, I just need to test a few things, it’s loaded with empty shells, here.”

Roland gave the slightly improved runic launcher to his assistant and then told him what he needed to do.

“You want me to aim at you and shoot as fast as I can?”

While the runic launcher still needed a crank it could shoot out large spheres of metal faster than Bernir could throw them. Roland just wanted to see if he could react in time to dodge them.

“I don’t think this is such a good idea… you have that look in your eyes, have you not been sleeping enough? How about…”

“I’m fine, I don’t need sleep, now shoot me, we are wasting time.”

While it was true that Roland had been buried in research material and he was starting to feel strained by the work, he was somewhat excited to test this new skill out. Bernir on the other hand knew that his boss was being hasty as this wasn’t the first time when something like this happened.

Roland was smart enough to place a helmet on his head and also use some body armor. He did a peculiar thing though as he didn’t face Bernir directly but turned so that he would see him out of the corner of his eye.

“Uh, boss? Shouldn’t you look at where the shots are coming from?”