'Photosynthesis: A Skill that converts sunlight into mana and vital essences. The larger the area of bare skin in sunlight the more of each is produced. Combos with Yang Revolution to allow more efficient use of Yang energies.'
It was pretty much as I had thought, a Skill that turned sunlight into energy, though it was nice that it gave bonuses to Yang Revolution as well. When I told Arya that she got rather excited since she felt her biggest weakness was her relatively small mana pool and endurance, but that was really only if she was compared to me.
Her excitement suddenly crashed when she realized that she would need to expose more skin for it to be effective. While it wasn't a problem when it was just the two of us, whenever she was out in public she wore clothes that covered as much of her as possible and now she had gotten a Skill that wanted the exact opposite.
I comforted her by saying that I would start designing something for her, I was quite good at creating functional yet skimpy armor after all. In addition, while I didn't tell her, I noted that her Archery Skill was much higher than any of her other Skills so I decided to make a prototype I'd been putting off, a surprise gift for later.
I took some time to write down a manifest of the materials I was going to need before heading out to the school's Requisitions Office. I was extremely familiar with the place as it was where I sold my silk as well as where I got the majority of my crafting materials from. They didn't have the more rare or unique materials, but they could get just about anything given sufficient time. My merits had increased significantly from beating the Hero and I was planning on spending all of them, no point in keeping something I would have much use for soon.
Satisfied with the surprised look on the clerk's face who had taken my order, I was humming as I meandered around the campus, looking for a specific person. As I was doing so I noticed a large commotion happening in front of the admin building so I strolled over to see what was up.
A satisfied smirk crossed my face as I saw a priest standing on a podium in the midst of not only angry students, but also their parents and even some staff as well. It seemed that Hiroshi had been taken into the church's custody and they were protecting him despite all the accusations and crimes that were being alleged against him. Since the local law enforcement couldn't do anything to the church it seemed that general support for them was dwindling and this priest had come to try and make amends, but wouldn't give the one thing those who'd been wronged wanted more than anything.
I was grinning as I began to turn away, it had nothing to do with me, but as I did so I saw the person I'd been looking for standing slightly away from the crowd, a grimace on his blindfolded face. He of course noticed me as I approached and before I could say anything he took the initiative. "To think that it was you who were a danger to Hiroshi and not the other way around, well it's a good thing as even I was somehow blind to his misdeeds." The third prince, Taylor Rymiz, shook his head before focusing back on me. "Regardless, the thread between you and him is not yet severed, though its state is nearly as bad as yours and your sister's Gabriel. Anyway, what can I do for you? Surely you didn't seek me out for a nice chat?"
I felt like the prince had become more cryptic and mysterious since the last time we met, but he wasn't wrong that I didn't seek him out for just a chat. "I wanted to borrow your eyes, I've got a project that I've been wanting to work on, but I can't do it unless I have your help."
Despite being unable to see his eyes, I felt he was looking at me intrigued. "I don't mind helping, but you'll owe me a favor, is that alright?"
I contemplated his deal for only a short moment before agreeing. Until I could learn the same special sense he had or some kind of replacement I could only ask him for help with this. I had to guide him to my workshop since it was within the bounds of the enchanted wards I'd set up to protect Arya, or rather, people from Arya. While there wasn't anything different for me I could tell the prince was experiencing significant discomfort before we stepped into my workshop. I'd excluded the workshop from the other wards as I needed to set up several other types of enchantments for the workshop which would cause the wards and workshop to clash and cause interference, something I'd learned the hard way.
The prince seemed amazed as he glanced around the workshop, not that I could blame him. I doubted it was like anything he'd ever seen before, and only right since the amount of modern fabrication techniques I'd incorporated wasn't small. The small area was covered in magi-tech, a word I'd borrowed since it wasn't like there was a proper word for it in this world. It always reminded me of the time Velen had raided an enemy munitions producer, though on a much smaller scale and instead of thermal batteries, or laser fabricators, I used mana and magic to power some of the features.
Thankfully the prince didn't question anything but simply looked around curiously as I pulled out several pieces of jewelry from a drawer near my enchanter's table. There were nine pieces in total, split into three groups of three each. A ring, a choker necklace, and an earring. While one wouldn't be able to tell just by looking at them there were all manner of inscriptions transcribed into them on a miniscule level, something possible thanks to Thread Manipulation and the upgraded Thread Creation.
After placing them down in a way that would allow me to transcribe the final enchantment I motioned Taylor over . "This is probably going to hurt slightly, but bear with it." Without warning any further I guided extremely small threads around his left eyeball and wrapped them around the optic nerve.
Taylor had tensed and flinched slightly but seemed otherwise unfazed by the strange intrusion. "What a strange sensation. What is it you plan to do?"
I simply smiled and activated Essence Sharing while using Life Magic, a technique I'd learned during a session with Arya. It allowed me to share my senses besides touch and pleasure and it was the main reason I thought of creating the magic items before me. There was a strange sensation as my left eye's vision faded before my sight returned in a bizarre fashion. I could see three hundred and sixty degrees around the prince, though everything was an outline and there was no color save for a myriad of threads that webbed and stretched across everything. Green, yellow, red, purple, black, white, and other colors crisscrossed everywhere I looked and I had a hard time focusing and keeping the technique active as I tried to fully process everything while still having my normal vision in my right eye.
It took me a few minutes to collect myself before I was able to actually get on with the work I wanted. "Prince, can you indicate to me which thread connects me to Arya?"
The prince nodded as the vision in my left eye seemed to shift before focusing on a twisting white black thread. "This one here. It should be easy to recognize since it is unique amongst all the threads I've seen before."
He wasn't wrong it truly was different from the other threads I could see and it was much thicker as well, but that was of little consequence as I focused on the thread and on two sets of jewelry in front of me, inscribing miniscule inscriptions with a special thread I created just for this purpose and manipulated with Thread Manipulation as it was too small for me to use my hands on. I was sweating and breathing intensely as I focused on three different tasks at once. This was likely the hardest project I'd ever worked on, but I felt it was the most important.
It took me nearly an hour before I was able to finish and by the end I was feeling extremely drained. I still had two more sets to finish but I needed to take a quick break. I released my control on everything as my vision returned to normal and the threads retreated from Taylor's eye as I backed up and slid down the wall sitting down.
Taylor was just fine as he was simply providing me the means to see, so he didn't actually have to do any work. He approached the enchanter's table and examined the work I'd just done. "Interesting." he said casually as he ran his hands across a few pieces before suddenly stopping. "Marvelous. Not only did you create a new enchantment, but it ties into the thread that connects the two of you." He shook his head a moment later. "What is the point of this enchantment? It looks like rubbish to me, not that I'm an expert or anything."
"Instantaneous long distance communication."
Taylor could only turn his head as he focused upon me. "I don't understand, how does it work?"
I smiled. I didn't mind telling him as I doubted anyone would be able to recreate it unless they had my Skills, and access to someone like Taylor, or could see the strange Threads themselves. "It's simple. The ring acts as an anchor to the thread which allows the choker to send vibrations through it and along the thread that is then picked up by the other person's earring, transmitting the voice into their ear."
I'd essentially designed it after a cell phone, but since this world lacked satellites or other means of transmitting data across vast distances I could only try this method, something I'd spent countless nights scouring Seshat's Library for knowledge to do so. I honestly didn't even know if it would work, but I was hopeful that it would since the theory behind it was sound, probably. The only variable that was hard to account for was the Thread, as I wasn't able to find any information on Weavers or the Thread itself.
Regardless I wanted to finish them up as they would prove indispensable not only in battle, but to reassure Marian that I was fine, as well as letting me know she was okay. One of the features I hadn't let the prince know about was the ability for me to use Essence Sharing through the thread as well. While normally not that great of a feature, the base point of Essence Sharing was to freely move around mana and vital essence, in other words, if Marian or Arya were injured I could share my lifeforce with them, hopefully letting them cling to life until they could get healed. In addition, I could share mana, something I had an abundance of but was unable to properly utilize since my Domain, the area in which a mage can exert their magical influence, was so small, though I had the unique benefit of making it larger via connected threads.
The prince asked a few more questions but was unable to completely grasp the concept, something that was normal since mobile communication was something that had only been around in Velen's time for a few hundred years, and this world was far behind that at least in terms of technology, though magic was able to replicate things that modern world had much easier, and without the worry of pollution, so that was bonus.
Once he was satisfied I decided to get back to work and finish the the inscriptions for the last two sets, a task that was just as hard as at it had been doing the first one, though towards the end of the third hour, it became somewhat easier as I had gotten used to focusing on multiple different tasks so it was less straining. I had slowed down since I wanted to make sure that I didn't make a mistake since it wasn't easy to correct them and in the end it took me a total of five hours to complete the project. I collected the jewelry and told the prince to contact Marian if he needed me for something and guided him out of the wards. I'd do my best to help, though there were obviously some things I wouldn't do no matter what, I only owed him a favor, not a one-time absolute command or anything.
There was still some more work that I wanted to get done, but I decided that I'd do it tomorrow, I had already done work that was far beyond my normal, so I decided to go and take a bath while I waited for Arya to return so I could give her the jewelry I'd prepared for her.
'Photosynthesis: A Skill that converts sunlight into mana and vital essences. The larger the area of bare skin in sunlight the more of each is produced. Combos with Yang Revolution to allow more efficient use of Yang energies.'
It was pretty much as I had thought, a Skill that turned sunlight into energy, though it was nice that it gave bonuses to Yang Revolution as well. When I told Arya that she got rather excited since she felt her biggest weakness was her relatively small mana pool and endurance, but that was really only if she was compared to me.
Her excitement suddenly crashed when she realized that she would need to expose more skin for it to be effective. While it wasn't a problem when it was just the two of us, whenever she was out in public she wore clothes that covered as much of her as possible and now she had gotten a Skill that wanted the exact opposite.
I comforted her by saying that I would start designing something for her, I was quite good at creating functional yet skimpy armor after all. In addition, while I didn't tell her, I noted that her Archery Skill was much higher than any of her other Skills so I decided to make a prototype I'd been putting off, a surprise gift for later.
I took some time to write down a manifest of the materials I was going to need before heading out to the school's Requisitions Office. I was extremely familiar with the place as it was where I sold my silk as well as where I got the majority of my crafting materials from. They didn't have the more rare or unique materials, but they could get just about anything given sufficient time. My merits had increased significantly from beating the Hero and I was planning on spending all of them, no point in keeping something I would have much use for soon.
Satisfied with the surprised look on the clerk's face who had taken my order, I was humming as I meandered around the campus, looking for a specific person. As I was doing so I noticed a large commotion happening in front of the admin building so I strolled over to see what was up.
A satisfied smirk crossed my face as I saw a priest standing on a podium in the midst of not only angry students, but also their parents and even some staff as well. It seemed that Hiroshi had been taken into the church's custody and they were protecting him despite all the accusations and crimes that were being alleged against him. Since the local law enforcement couldn't do anything to the church it seemed that general support for them was dwindling and this priest had come to try and make amends, but wouldn't give the one thing those who'd been wronged wanted more than anything.
I was grinning as I began to turn away, it had nothing to do with me, but as I did so I saw the person I'd been looking for standing slightly away from the crowd, a grimace on his blindfolded face. He of course noticed me as I approached and before I could say anything he took the initiative. "To think that it was you who were a danger to Hiroshi and not the other way around, well it's a good thing as even I was somehow blind to his misdeeds." The third prince, Taylor Rymiz, shook his head before focusing back on me. "Regardless, the thread between you and him is not yet severed, though its state is nearly as bad as yours and your sister's Gabriel. Anyway, what can I do for you? Surely you didn't seek me out for a nice chat?"
I felt like the prince had become more cryptic and mysterious since the last time we met, but he wasn't wrong that I didn't seek him out for just a chat. "I wanted to borrow your eyes, I've got a project that I've been wanting to work on, but I can't do it unless I have your help."
Despite being unable to see his eyes, I felt he was looking at me intrigued. "I don't mind helping, but you'll owe me a favor, is that alright?"
I contemplated his deal for only a short moment before agreeing. Until I could learn the same special sense he had or some kind of replacement I could only ask him for help with this. I had to guide him to my workshop since it was within the bounds of the enchanted wards I'd set up to protect Arya, or rather, people from Arya. While there wasn't anything different for me I could tell the prince was experiencing significant discomfort before we stepped into my workshop. I'd excluded the workshop from the other wards as I needed to set up several other types of enchantments for the workshop which would cause the wards and workshop to clash and cause interference, something I'd learned the hard way.
The prince seemed amazed as he glanced around the workshop, not that I could blame him. I doubted it was like anything he'd ever seen before, and only right since the amount of modern fabrication techniques I'd incorporated wasn't small. The small area was covered in magi-tech, a word I'd borrowed since it wasn't like there was a proper word for it in this world. It always reminded me of the time Velen had raided an enemy munitions producer, though on a much smaller scale and instead of thermal batteries, or laser fabricators, I used mana and magic to power some of the features.
Thankfully the prince didn't question anything but simply looked around curiously as I pulled out several pieces of jewelry from a drawer near my enchanter's table. There were nine pieces in total, split into three groups of three each. A ring, a choker necklace, and an earring. While one wouldn't be able to tell just by looking at them there were all manner of inscriptions transcribed into them on a miniscule level, something possible thanks to Thread Manipulation and the upgraded Thread Creation.
After placing them down in a way that would allow me to transcribe the final enchantment I motioned Taylor over . "This is probably going to hurt slightly, but bear with it." Without warning any further I guided extremely small threads around his left eyeball and wrapped them around the optic nerve.
Taylor had tensed and flinched slightly but seemed otherwise unfazed by the strange intrusion. "What a strange sensation. What is it you plan to do?"
I simply smiled and activated Essence Sharing while using Life Magic, a technique I'd learned during a session with Arya. It allowed me to share my senses besides touch and pleasure and it was the main reason I thought of creating the magic items before me. There was a strange sensation as my left eye's vision faded before my sight returned in a bizarre fashion. I could see three hundred and sixty degrees around the prince, though everything was an outline and there was no color save for a myriad of threads that webbed and stretched across everything. Green, yellow, red, purple, black, white, and other colors crisscrossed everywhere I looked and I had a hard time focusing and keeping the technique active as I tried to fully process everything while still having my normal vision in my right eye.
It took me a few minutes to collect myself before I was able to actually get on with the work I wanted. "Prince, can you indicate to me which thread connects me to Arya?"
The prince nodded as the vision in my left eye seemed to shift before focusing on a twisting white black thread. "This one here. It should be easy to recognize since it is unique amongst all the threads I've seen before."
He wasn't wrong it truly was different from the other threads I could see and it was much thicker as well, but that was of little consequence as I focused on the thread and on two sets of jewelry in front of me, inscribing miniscule inscriptions with a special thread I created just for this purpose and manipulated with Thread Manipulation as it was too small for me to use my hands on. I was sweating and breathing intensely as I focused on three different tasks at once. This was likely the hardest project I'd ever worked on, but I felt it was the most important.
It took me nearly an hour before I was able to finish and by the end I was feeling extremely drained. I still had two more sets to finish but I needed to take a quick break. I released my control on everything as my vision returned to normal and the threads retreated from Taylor's eye as I backed up and slid down the wall sitting down.
Taylor was just fine as he was simply providing me the means to see, so he didn't actually have to do any work. He approached the enchanter's table and examined the work I'd just done. "Interesting." he said casually as he ran his hands across a few pieces before suddenly stopping. "Marvelous. Not only did you create a new enchantment, but it ties into the thread that connects the two of you." He shook his head a moment later. "What is the point of this enchantment? It looks like rubbish to me, not that I'm an expert or anything."
"Instantaneous long distance communication."
Taylor could only turn his head as he focused upon me. "I don't understand, how does it work?"
I smiled. I didn't mind telling him as I doubted anyone would be able to recreate it unless they had my Skills, and access to someone like Taylor, or could see the strange Threads themselves. "It's simple. The ring acts as an anchor to the thread which allows the choker to send vibrations through it and along the thread that is then picked up by the other person's earring, transmitting the voice into their ear."
I'd essentially designed it after a cell phone, but since this world lacked satellites or other means of transmitting data across vast distances I could only try this method, something I'd spent countless nights scouring Seshat's Library for knowledge to do so. I honestly didn't even know if it would work, but I was hopeful that it would since the theory behind it was sound, probably. The only variable that was hard to account for was the Thread, as I wasn't able to find any information on Weavers or the Thread itself.
Regardless I wanted to finish them up as they would prove indispensable not only in battle, but to reassure Marian that I was fine, as well as letting me know she was okay. One of the features I hadn't let the prince know about was the ability for me to use Essence Sharing through the thread as well. While normally not that great of a feature, the base point of Essence Sharing was to freely move around mana and vital essence, in other words, if Marian or Arya were injured I could share my lifeforce with them, hopefully letting them cling to life until they could get healed. In addition, I could share mana, something I had an abundance of but was unable to properly utilize since my Domain, the area in which a mage can exert their magical influence, was so small, though I had the unique benefit of making it larger via connected threads.
The prince asked a few more questions but was unable to completely grasp the concept, something that was normal since mobile communication was something that had only been around in Velen's time for a few hundred years, and this world was far behind that at least in terms of technology, though magic was able to replicate things that modern world had much easier, and without the worry of pollution, so that was bonus.
Once he was satisfied I decided to get back to work and finish the the inscriptions for the last two sets, a task that was just as hard as at it had been doing the first one, though towards the end of the third hour, it became somewhat easier as I had gotten used to focusing on multiple different tasks so it was less straining. I had slowed down since I wanted to make sure that I didn't make a mistake since it wasn't easy to correct them and in the end it took me a total of five hours to complete the project. I collected the jewelry and told the prince to contact Marian if he needed me for something and guided him out of the wards. I'd do my best to help, though there were obviously some things I wouldn't do no matter what, I only owed him a favor, not a one-time absolute command or anything.
There was still some more work that I wanted to get done, but I decided that I'd do it tomorrow, I had already done work that was far beyond my normal, so I decided to go and take a bath while I waited for Arya to return so I could give her the jewelry I'd prepared for her.
