After that I looked the book up on this platform called 'Pdf drive' self-proclaimed largest e-book library in the world. You provide the title, author, or even the ISBN code and given that they have the book in their system, you can download it. They have an absolutely HUGE collection that ranges from fiction novels to course textbooks to whatever else people read these days.
A major money saver depending on your needs. And the funny thing is, I actually learned about it through Tik tok; it was featured in a video about what they don't want people to know.
So say what you will about that app, thing comes in clutch sometimes. I was able to download the book as a PDF and save it onto a flash-drive which I then took to a local FedEx and printed with a bit of finetuning to make it like a book.
The final price had me wincing internally as it was for a book , there goes my hard earned pocket money but it was worth it to proceed with this experiment.
I got on my bus and was feeling excited to actually try this new feature. I don't waste any time getting started when I get back home.
Aligning the pages in order is easy, if a bit time consuming, and once done with that I staple all of them together carefully aligning them.
I wait for the notification and even try flipping through it, but nothing happens. It figures. As I expected this result since stapling pages doesn't make them a book but I still wanted to try it this way. Just in case you know. That's I learned book binding tips from those videos before.
I pull out the staples and toss the black and white cover page into the wastebin, don't need that anymore. Grabbing the fully-colored and laminated – on one side – sheet I'd made; I get to work. This piece consists of the cover, allotted space for the spine, and the back of the book in one long sheet which I go about gluing to the loose pages. One thing I realized was that books have distinct exteriors. Even with paperbacks, the pages inside the book are different from the material making the cover; where the pages are simple paper, the exterior is usually thicker and has a slight layer of lamination.
I assume this is for protection and maybe even aesthetics but it makes it so you can tell them apart by sight and feel this way. The same can't be said for pages stapled together. So when the test earlier failed, I got a feeling the lackluster exterior was the reason why. Something I can test as soon as this glue is dry.
Ten minutes later and I pick up the finished product and 'Voila'.
[Skill-book: Understanding the Industrial Revolution obtained. Do you wish to learn it?]
Fuck yeah.
Love it when things go according to plan. I immediately accepted to learn it and information that was not there before seamlessly added to my database, that is my brain in a few seconds and my brain integrated all the knowledge in real time.
I learned one more thing that this skill didn't have a level.That makes sense It was just knowledge, how efficiently I can use it depends on my INT and WIS stats. I was sure there was no one smarter than me in my school, at least. But skills like Art and craft, drawing must have levels, we will see.
But the work doesn't stop with one successful test. No sir, it's the opposite actually.
I
I've proven I can make skill-books so now the focus switches to making them efficiently which also translates to 'I need a printer.' We have one at home, a "HP" brand that's cheap but has printing and scanning features and meets the family's needs. And by needs I mean the once in a blue moon when I have to print something for school project or my parents need to print some important document. Very low frequency usage and it's ink cartridges are small but it is perfect for my small household.
Unfortunately, if I intend to make a habit of printing books I'm going to need a different printer which is something I've started researching now. Laser and inkjet printers seem to be the two broadest categories and each have their own benefits. Laser works best for high frequency printing, where you'll be printing lots of pages for a long period of time. It can also do color but if you want really high quality pictures then inkjet is best. Since only the title needs color I'm leaning more towards laser.
The production of the book exterior was the next problem. I could either laminate it or try printing on another type of paper, something thicker like construction paper or whatever. Different paper type would be easiest but I don't know if it would be good enough so I looked for alerternative options for cheap lamination.
Turns out you can buy pre-laminated paper at stationary stores but the downside is that laser printers don't work well with them. So luckily there are DIY lamination kits, I could buy a roll of the stuff and apply it as needed. I'd just print the necessary papers, self-laminate the exterior, and then glue in the pages and boom! Skill-book ready for learning.
It occurs to me that if I had money then all this effort should not be necessary so I came to a conclusion: I need money.
All this comes at a price which is almost all my savings and now I am broke another reason I need to find a way to make money; the printer, toner, and paper won't buy themselves after all.
Neither will the books but I can procure them from certain sites that are spdoing social service. I swear to buy all books with money once I had it.
However for now, I need money and a somewhat reliable method to keep it coming. I want to be self dependent and own a car as soon as I turn eighteen.
I had some ideas to make it for a while now, I had memories of Dead Lucas who died in the year 2025 and In my world it's 2015. But I can't really use my knowledge of the future, trust me, I checked. This is a parallel world and they are not exactly the same, some things are same but not everything. For example, dead Luke would have invested in Bitcoin. But There is no Bitcoin in this world. There is crypto but that Lucas was not knowledgeable about any other investment ideas.
I got perfect memory 'after' increasing my INT but before that upgrade I was still a regular schmuck with regular memory so I didn't exactly remember anything from dead Lucas memories that will make me rich. So, after thinking a lot I got the idea to build games, mobile games, nothing too complicated. Something that can be done alone by me. Something that Lucas used to play and was familiar with design and mechanics of the game. Something that is not present in this world. Most importantly It will not stand out too much.
That's how I decided to get computer related skills. Should be easy for me to figure out. Not to brag but 10 INT made me very smart. One thing to note is that different people are smart and have aptitude for different things but the 'gamer' made me have 10 INT in everything, practically I am a genius in everything so I was confident that I will learn programming skills in record time and make enough money to not worry about it. I am not a particularly money hungry person but just wanted enough to not care about basic needs.
While I'm working out the how, I should also think about the what.
Anyway If all goes according to plan, I'm going to be like a rich kid in a candy shop. So many options in front of me that I could end up learning stuff that I don't really need like farming, plumbing, woodworking, etc or not learning the stuff that would benefit me most.
I don't want that problem so it's best if I have a plan before reaching that point, a way to maximize my gains and steadily build on them. Maybe I could consolidate my foundation in terms of critical thinking skills and high school level knowledge to help with subjects I pick up later on?
Eh, I'll think about this further.