Sofia and the students stared at the infinite waterfall of blood in front of them, perpetually flowing onto itself.
“Well, it looks like this is another failure. I don’t think this is helping drain the barrier’s mana at all. If anything, it feels like the amount of ambient mana has been going up. I could make more blood but that looks pointless.”
“Why are we trapped in here in the first place, what’s the point?” En complained as she walked back and forth on the bone platform.
“That’s hard to tell at this point, I feel like someone trying to kill me or you guys could do it without too much trouble if they can set up a barrier like this without me or Pareth noticing anything. So it’s most likely not that.”
Not that killing me would be that easy as long as I have Leverle’s charm. The students though…
Shaily played with one of her sprites, pensively she mumbled to herself, “Maybe someone just wants to ruin our chances at getting tokens… All of us here are serious competitors, even Lola has started dueling a lot and almost caught up with En and me, I don’t know about Topaz but I’ve had a match against Opal and it was pretty close too…”
“I am the outlier I guess,” Topaz said from the corner she was sitting on, her legs dangling in the void, “I’m not too interested in the competition, I’d rather spend my time here learning all I can, I can’t compare with Opal anyway so it’s dumb to even try.”
Opal snuck up on her and hugged her sister from behind.
Sofia shrugged, “It would be nice if it was just about tokens. I could see someone going that far to sabotage the thing considering how tremendous the reward is, but I worry it might be a bit more nefarious than that. What if this is the ProudWall family trying to get revenge for their guy I slapped around in the arena?”
Lola had been very silent the entire time the group had been trapped, but she spoke up for Erian, “Impossible. The ProudWall family isn’t normally so petty… They worship Talent and they got their Ducal rank for their exceptional service to the Empire. The duel was strange in the first place.” Lola took a deep breath. “That one of them would insult a BrightHall teacher was a great embarrassment for the family even before you fought the match, Erian wouldn’t even come near us out of shame… I don’t want to believe they would stoop so low as to cheat in a competition like this, let alone try to pursue revenge for a fair loss!” she finished, almost shouting.
“Hey hey, calm down Lola, I believe you, alright? Is that really why Erian stopped coming to my classes? I will need to have a talk with him, he can’t be compromising his future out of shame for something he didn’t do. That said, we need to get out of here. The ambient mana is still rising and that’s becoming a bit worrying.”
“Why is it worrying?” En instantly asked.
“Well, this feels oddly familiar to something I have already experienced multiple times. The academic name of which I’ve recently learned is Siege magic. This is something you do when you need to be sure to absolutely annihilate your opponent, level a fortress with everyone inside, obliterate an army, such things. You trap your opponents inside of a barrier so they cannot escape, you gather a lot of mana over a long period of time… And you unleash a devastating strike all at once. We still have some time though, although I don’t know how long, but I can tell that the mana is still too calm for the spell to be about to resolve.”
While everyone looked noticeably more worried about their situation now, Topaz still looked calmer, even though her feet had stopped moving, she turned to look at Sofia, “You experienced that multiple times… As the caster?”
“As the target. Things happened,” Sofia answered with a shrug.
After a moment of silence, Topaz leaned back against Opal, looking at the infinite reflections of their bone platform in the barrier above, “I’m not even a summoner but if you get us out of here I’ll sign up to your class…”
“Sure, you’re welcome to join, Opal too. Also, I am pretty confident in getting us out right now.”
“What?!”
Everyone looked at Sofia like she was crazy, they had been stuck here for hours and now she was somehow confident in getting out?
“Yes. Sorry students, I really let you down this time. I had a way to get out all this time and I just completely forgot about it. I have so much stuff now, so many skills, so many options, I’m really stupid for not thinking of this before, you can insult me later if you want, but yeah, now that I see it, it’s obvious.”
Opal quickly scribbled something on her notepad, she presented it to Sofia with a kind smile. ‘Better late than never!’
Sofia laughed nervously, and started to reshape the bone platform into a small pyramid.
“Please get inside, although the way to get out should be safe, I’m worried about what we’ll find outside, so I’ll be spreading rot everywhere as soon as we’re out and potentially teleport us to the place I spoke of before if things look too dangerous.”
With little opposition from the students, she got them and the box of compressed shades inside of the pyramid before preparing herself.
I would put on an undeath rune but I’m not sure we have that much time before the siege spell resolves…
Preparing her spells, Sofia formed a big handle above the pyramid and tapped on Pareth’s bone plates. I’ll activate the third tier overlord so you can fly, if there’s anyone waiting for us outside, grab the girls and go. Don’t worry about me, I still have Leverle’s charm as a security.
“Alright, everything ready.”
This HAS to work, right?
[Ringed arms of Zar] : (Manaless state): When this ring is devoid of mana, the wearer may activate [Collapse] at any time to make the ring instantly absorb all out-of-body mana in a large area.
Wait, would it even work through the Dragon-scale armor? I will be like the storage ring and have the mana travel through my arm I guess. It’s an artifact of the deep, so now way would it not work…
Sofia controlled the bone pyramid to be near a corner of the barrier, perhaps the barrier would reform after her little stunt so it was best to get out fast.
“Here we go.”
Sofia activated the third tier of [Runeforged Overlord] and raised her hand high.
[Collapse]
The barrier shattered like a broken mirror and all the mana in a huge sphere around Sofia collapsed toward her. As she predicted, it entered the scale arm through the shoulder going through her all the way to her fist which felt like getting struck by lightning. To Sofia this was nothing. With a huge chunk of the barrier gone, she and Pareth quickly flew up, and Sofia observed her surroundings while showering the entire vicinity in Holy light and Erredian Rot.
It was still night and they were still in the same place, but the immediate surroundings were not as they once were. The mansion was gone, and the surrounding forest had been burned down, in their place was a truly enormous ritual circle carved out in the charred soil, glowing brightly with blood-red magic.
Sofia only got a glimpse of it before it was covered in rot. In the distance, on an extremity of the ritual circle stood a single tall masked figure in a gray cloak. Sofia tried to [Identify] them, but they disappeared as soon as the rot started spreading on them. The only distinctive sign she had managed to really see about the person before they were gone were two pointy ears.
An Elf?!
Sofia worriedly looked in Pareth’s direction, hoping the cloaked figure hadn't teleported to him and the students, but her mana vision quickly confirmed that no teleportation trail led to their direction. The person had teleported somewhere else, completely abandoning the siege ritual which was getting ravenously devoured by the rot.
They fled?
She hesitated for a second, did she need Pareth to teleport to her and flee to Zangdar, or was the immediate danger gone?
A second passed, then another, the ambient mana dispersed as the rot ravaged the remains of the ritual, and there was no sign of the cloaked figure coming back. In the charred forest, there were only the sounds of the spreading rot and the cold windy night.
Fuck me, what the hell was that?
Sofia recalled the creepy design of the elf’s white mask, that of a deformed face with a single round eye, it gave her shivers.
She told Pareth to stop and flew to him, her mana would soon be drained by [Runeforged Overlord], so she also quickly brought out bookie and summoned random skeletons to have some mana to absorb back after she hit zero. Landing at the border of the charred zone, watching the rot quickly devouring itself a few tens of meters away, Sofia opened the bone pyramid, a hint of worry in her heart.
“Is everyone fine?!”
The girls inside were shaken but unscathed. Finally Sofia could sigh of relief. For now, they were out of danger. Still, she monitored the mana around her like a hawk looking for the tiniest sign of spatial magic as she helped the girls out of her bone construct.
“We should be safe now, I think, the attacker left,” Sofia told the students who just stepped out of the bone pyramid.
“I- I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” Lola stuttered, pointing at the sky.
“He’s an ally, everything is alright,” Sofia reassured her.
Sofia had felt the sudden disturbance happening behind her, but she knew by instinct that it wasn’t the masked elf returning, the person who just appeared had many times more mana. She turned around to see Leverle in his white robes stepping out of a black and jagged cross-shaped tear through the sky. Slowly, he walked down, platforms of solid mana forming under his feet.
“That’s the doctor!” Topaz exclaimed, “Why is he here?”
“You know Leverle?” Sofia asked reflexively before it dawned on her that they must have seen him for Opal’s handicap. He couldn’t fix it?
“Truly your master’s apprentice. Have you lost anyone?” Leverle asked as he landed in front of the group without a sound.
Does he mean the students?
“No, everyone is unharmed, luckily.”
“Good.” He turned toward Opal, “Has your condition deteriorated?”
The girl shook her head.
“Very good. Keep leveling at a steady pace, your genome will soon fix itself. Now, care to explain all this?” he said, extending one of his weird black arms out of his robe, pointing at the wasteland of rot. “I lost track of the doll, which was surprising. Did you perhaps just meet your namesake?”
Aphenoreth?
“No, nothing like that. We got attacked. One masked person with pointy ears, probably some kind of space mage. They trapped us inside of a weird spatial skill and were preparing a siege spell with a giant ritual circle. I broke out of the trap and destroyed the thing with rot, it was the size of the entire barren zone. They teleported away then before I could [Identify] them.”
Leverle’s mask-like head rotated to the side like a clock’s hands as Sofia spoke, then it snapped back to its original position. “I understand now why the guardian paid so much. Someone powerful is after you. They knew about the doll. Did you tell anyone about it?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Then they had the means to spy on our conversation in the cathedral. No small feat, no lesser than cutting me off from the doll completely. They fled, you say? Give me a moment.” Leverle turned around, scanning the rot-covered wasteland, and teleported right where the attacker had been standing when Sofia saw them; a second later, he was back. “They covered their tracks. Unsurprising. There is not much we can do to find them. Have you memorized the siege ritual?”
“About two thirds of it.” The collapsing barrier behind me blocked my view. Still, the reading speed really helped, I can copy most of what I saw without too much trouble I think. “It might take a while if you want me to draw it, the thing was really huge.”
“Then please do so right away. It might hold important information. But first,” Leverle turned around, and another tear in space appeared in front of him, “follow me to the Cathedral.”
Sofia urged all the girls to follow Leverle and entered the fissure last as it started shrinking.
“You are safe here, students. Rest,” Leverle ordered, Sofia’s eyes needed a second to adapt to the sudden change of luminosity. Judging from the orange of the sky showing from the glass dome roof above, it was either dawn or dusk, but the cathedral’s interior was brightly lit. They had teleported right into a small but very tall hexagonal room with large stained glass artworks adorning half the walls, and towering bookshelves covering the other half. There were a few sofas and seats around clean low tables. Leverle waved a hand and the tables were suddenly covered with countless drinks and pastries. “I will have a word with your teacher.”
Leaving the flabbergasted students behind, Leverle left through a side door.
“What he said, rest here, we’ll return to the academy soon.”
“W- wait,” Shaily stopped Sofia right before she followed behind Leverle, “I don’t really get it but, are you in trouble because of us?”
“No, you got in trouble because of me. Sorry about that. Maybe I wasn’t meant to be a teacher at all…”
Sofia sighed and left, closing the door behind her. The room right next to that one was a small office, with the orange light filtering from the light white curtains, it reminded Sofia of her first meeting with Astelia at the Vasperian embassy.
“You may sit, Daughter of Sorrow. Please produce a sketch of the ritual circle as best you can. Do you have any idea about the attacker’s motive?”
“First… Are we absolutely certain that I was the target? Could the doll being cut off be an unlucky coincidence from being trapped within a spatial barrier?” Sofia asked, already bringing out a large bone plate to draw the siege ritual on.
“Highly improbable. You were undoubtedly the target, your students would have been nothing but collateral damages.”
“I see… Then I have two ideas, maybe three.”
“Did you already offend so many?”
“It wasn’t… Anyway, my first guess is the Empress. I believe she has been investigating me due to the name on my ID.”
“Delivia? She would undoubtedly send a few probes your way, you have likely interacted with several already. As much as I would like to say she is not behind this incident, she could definitely go there. That is, if she believes you a threat to the empire.”
“Well, maybe we should hope it is her, because the two remaining options are both Gods.”
“Gods?”
“The attacker looked like an elf, and I may or may not possess five of Sun’s essence. I think it almost impossible that Sun Herself would want my death, She lends one of my heroes Her blessing to this day, but perhaps an overzealous follower might think I do not deserve the essence and want it back to their Goddess.”
Sofia’s words left Leverle speechless for a bit.
“There are some decrepit elves around, perhaps one has succumbed to insanity. It is a frail possibility, but a possibility nonetheless,” Leverle carefully assessed.
“The last and more probable possibility is Scripture, the ‘God’ who gifted my sainthood. He wants me dead, that is for certain, but what bothers me is that if he had the means to pull this off when I was protected by your doll, he could have killed me a thousand times over by now.”
At Leverle’s demand for more details, Sofia explained her tumultuous relationship with Scripture and his Church.
“Quite the situation. Another God roams the land. Defeating His incarnation seems foolish, but you bear His essence. Perhaps it may be possible, if you reach my level.”
“Not level 500?”
“You fail to grasp the power differential at play. Those who reach these heights can easily contend with most of the strongest Gods and Recessed, only a select few can claim to stand above them, such as Sun or Death. But it is only a matter of numbers. Should all the level 500 band together to cleanse the Deities one by one, none would survive. They would be born anew, clean slates, assuming anyone is left to produce the essence. Scripture may prove challenging to someone at my level, but not impossible, if I trust what you say.”
“What about ‘my namesake’?”
“I do not know, and I do not wish to know.”
“Too bad. Well, I’m about done with the ritual circle. This should be mostly accurate to what I managed to see.”
Leverle grabbed the bone slate and looked it over for a good minute before setting it down on his desk.
“Unlucky. This is of no help. It could exonerate doubt from Scripture, but it might not. This is mostly mana gathering and consolidating arrays. It was in large parts meant to gather mana, to fuel whatever the center part was, but most of the center is incomplete. There is one certitude only, this sharp corner is part of a Divine rune,” he said, pointing at two lines joining at an angle near the very center of the circle.
“Because it cuts through all the smaller arrays like a wall? This angle… It does look like the lower point of Sun’s rune…”
Leverle shook his head, “That is the issue, unfortunately. Most Divine runes are very alike, either triangular or spiraled. Delivia is a follower of Talent, I cannot show you, but Talent’s rune fits as well.”
Knowledge was kind of a spiral I guess… I can see it. “Then Scripture?”
“I have never seen Scripture’s rune. It may also fit or it may not. I fear the ritual is of no help, Daughter of Sorrow. Perhaps Sorrow Herself may bless you with divine knowledge about the matter.”
“No, the ritual does help, it confirms that a God was trying to kill me, even if it’s uncertain which. I think this rules out Sun completely. So it was either the Empress and Talent, Scripture, or I have somehow walked on someone else’s shoes without even realizing.”
Leverle turned and opened the curtains, he gazed at the sun rising over the city.
“Five stones for your protection might have been too cheap after all.”
Leverle brought everyone back to the academy’s entrance.
Caleb raised his eyes from his lectern. “Oh, if it isn’t the Doc and teacher Sonia again!” His brows furrowed after his jovial greeting, “The entire group is here… Did something go wrong with the event?”
“We had some outside interference… Is Beryl available?”
Caleb shook his head, “I’m afraid not, miss Sonia, likewise, the Headmaster is away. Sir Tartaros is present, though.”
“Should we report to him?”
“Your issue happened during the event so I don’t see why not, going in this time, Doc?”
“I will,” Leverle confirmed.
Calbed nodded and pressed a few buttons hidden under the book on his lectern, a teleportation gate appeared in front of the academy gate. “Ay ay, step right in, everyone, students will be sent to their dorms while Doc and Sonia are inbound to Sir Tartaros’ lodgings.”
So this is how new students usually get in?
“Thank you, Caneb.”
“It is my pleasure.”
Sofia turned to the students before leading them through the portal, “I will come check in on you and explain things when I have it all sorted out, the academy is safe so you can rest easy.”
“We’ll be just fine,” En answered, a carefree smile on her face.
“T- Thank you, for getting us out of there,” Lola added, and the others approved.
Sofia entered the portal after the students, she stood next to Leverle in what seemed to be an underground chamber with large pillars all around the circular room. Saint Tartaros was sitting cross-legged on the ground at the very center of the barren room, his eyes closed. The clothes he wore were different than usual, his current attire was one very familiar to Sofia, a simple white uniform with a red belt.
Does this guy…?
Sofia thought about grabbing her black belt from her storage but she felt that now wasn’t the time.
Tartaros spoke, his eyes still closed, “Will you finally fight me, Death Guard?”
“I am afraid not,” Leverle answered monotonously.
“A pity. Then will the girl fight me?”
I would die before I could blink. Go fight Erredis or something. “If you wait for me to catch up to you, I will.”
“I shall wait, then.”
How polite of you…
Sofia was about to talk back and explain the reason they came to see him, but Tartaros spoke again first.
“Don’t waste your saliva, I already know. We will arrange for such things not to happen again in the context of the competition, but you are expected to deal with your personal issues through your own strength.”
He knows? It would have been nice to help, if not for me at least for the students…
“I see, thank you very much. Is there anything you can tell me about the attacker?”
“They were beneath my interest.”
Alright then…
“Can we do something to compensate the students? They lost the opportunity to earn tokens…”
“They will not be penalized for the Academy’s error. Strength will assess them and distribute the regular rewards accordingly.”
“Thank you very much, Saint Tartaros.”
Sofia glanced at Leverle, lost as to where to take the conversation from there. The doctor took a few steps toward the saint. “Are you not worried? This will interfere with the goal of the competition.”
The goal of the competition? That really does not sound like ‘Awarding a priceless sword to the best student to celebrate the academy’s success’. There is something more to it, then. It was weird that the prize was so good in the first place.
Tartaros finally opened his eyes, “No. This much is well within our expectations. The fish is observing, undoubtedly. These interruptions are no issue, quite the contrary, danger will only create more pressure to bite.”
Fish, bite… They’re luring something? Someone? Then the sword is bait? That is some high-quality bait…
Leverle’s head rotated on its axis slowly as he spoke, “You play with fire. I was tasked to protect Sorrow’s Daughter. If your plan compromises her safety, I will have to step in.”
“I would like nothing more, Death Guard,” Tartaros answered with a smirk, “The more chaos the better.”
That does not sound good…
“Lunatic monster. You better not be lying. Was the attack part of your plan?”
“We knew of the possibility, but it was not our doing. The teachers may be set pieces, but they are no sacrificial pawn. Neither are the students. Luckily teacher Vakaria was not so weak that I needed to intervene, that would have indeed been an issue, the link cannot die, after all, or the fish might be too scared to swim up.”
Wait, alright… ‘We’ is Tartaros’ faction, which has to be at least himself, Beligenus, and the Emperor, if they organized the competition as bait for something. They knew I might be attacked but it was not them. Then does that not mean it cannot be the Empress?
The attack was probably from Scripture, then. And if they knew about it, it means they know more about my past than they let on.
I don’t know why he would wait until now to attack but there might be a reason. Probably the same reason he never attacked me directly after the orphanage…
I just need to find Scripture’s rune to confirm it would fit.
And ‘The link’ must be one of my students, probably not the twins, I guess, if it is one link. They somehow give confidence to ‘the fish’ so that they might show up?
I’m starting to think I also don’t get paid enough for my position…
“I will take your word for it,” Leverle answered in his unchanging monotonous tone after a moment of silence, “tell Delivia to leave her and her relatives alone, then. Do not make my task harder for nothing, I have enough to deal with.”
This pretty much confirms without a doubt that the woman behind Tartaros during the duel was the Empress… Both she and the ProudWalls worship Talent. She used them to probe me.
“The Empress’ actions are unrelated to the plan. Take that up to her by yourself, Death Guard.”
Yeah, that confirms it in my mind, the elf had to be one of Scripture’s pawns. I really don’t see which other God would try going after me if not Talent for the Empress. Scripture might be growing in power if he can afford such an attack now but couldn’t before. That’s a bit worrying. I need to get stronger faster.
“Unhelpful as always,” Leverle complained, he turned back to Sofia, “I did all I could, Vakaria. I will head back to the cathedral. Shall I bring you to your lodgings within the academy?”
You did plenty! I got so much more information from this than I expected.
To think the entire competition is just a front to bait someone with the sword…
“I can go back by myself, thank you very much for your help, Leverle. I still have a few things I would like to ask Sir Tartaros, if he will.”
“You are free to discuss with the lunatic yourself, in this case. Warn me in advance before you leave the city next time. Good luck, Daughter of Sorrow.” Done with his farewells, Leverle opened the same black fissure he had used before to teleport and stepped in, leaving Sofia alone with the Saint of Strength.
“May I?” Sofia asked the Saint who silently observed her.
“Sit.”
Sure…
Sofia walked to face the Saint directly and sat in the same position as him. Since Tartaros said nothing, she took the initiative to speak first.
“Is the Empress investigating me because of my name?”
“That is so.”
“Alright. Then, if the sword is bait for some unknown person, are you not really going to be giving it to the winner of the competition?”
“We are. Strength does not deceive.”
Good.
“Would that not put the winner at risk?”
“It would. But we will have caught the fish by then. After that, should the wielder be worthy, the sword will defend itself.”
“Can I know more about ‘the fish’? It feels a lot like me and my students are part of the bait, and I really dislike that.”
“The entire Academy is part of the bait. One of your students in particular, but you may not learn more, lest your knowledge risk compromising the plan.”
“Fine. I get it. I am a weak little level 249 in the end, am I not? Thank you for your time. As thanks, let me make you privy to a little secret, since your allies wanted to know so badly,” Sofia said with a large smile. In her hands appeared a tablet made of blue crystal, “It’s a gift from my adoptive father. You already know his name. What do you think? Very cute, isn’t it? Be careful when you tell the Empress, it wouldn’t be good for your plans if you were to suddenly disappear, I assume.”
Tartaros’ expression did not change, but after spending a few seconds absent-mindedly fixating on the midenicite tablet, he closed his eyes.
“I shall see to it that Delivia no longer bothers you,” he started after a long silence, “But no matter what, the plan and your place in it must stay unchanged. You might thank me for it later. I look forward to our eventual duel, Sofia Vakariazrehafin Aphenoreth.”
After Tartaros teleported Sofia out of his room, he reflexively looked behind his back, he knew there was nothing there, he could feel the empty space and the undisturbed mana, but he was inexplicably compelled to look.
There was nothing but the usual rounded wall and columns.
With a deep sigh of relief, he uncrossed his legs and fell back, letting his heavy body slump to the floor.
The Saint of Strength silently stared at the ceiling.
Sofia had been teleported directly inside of her closed room.
“So much for a strong barrier around my room…”
She shivered. I can’t believe I did that. One of these days my big mouth is going to get me killed.
Should I go find the students?
No, best to let them sleep this trip off, I’ll go check in on them tomorrow.
Pareth looked at Sofia and Sofia looked back at him.
“What now?”
Sofia did not expect an answer but she actually got one, Pareth summoned his weapon of light in the form of a small dagger, and mimicked cutting his wrist.
Still not going to talk? Well, this is already better than before.
“Train the venerable physique? It is quite far from completion… Let’s do that then… But before, why not choose a new classless skill? Since I have a free slot? I can still forget [Identify] for the teleportation later as well. Any recommendations?”
Pareth seemed to hesitate, or that’s how Sofia interpreted his stillness, at least. Eventually he raised a hand, and his weapon of light changed into a small round-ish rock.
Rock? I’m surprised that it even qualifies as a weapon for your skill, but you did use that giant pair of scissors once, so… I don’t get what you mean, though.
Pareth came closer, showing the ‘rock’ in his hand to Sofia. Under the mastery of his skill, the rock became smoother and smoother until it was a perfectly round ball.
Oh, I get it now. The pearl thing, uh? I did think about it. I searched about it in the academy library too, but found nothing on that skill. My main issue is still about how large of a pearl we are talking about, and where does it come from?
“Hey, don’t look at me like that, I know you don’t know either, still…”
[Crystalized] : Your body will slowly produce mana pearls (Growth speed linked to mana regeneration), which can be used as ritual fuel or eaten to provide a temporary 100% bonus to thinking speed.
“Ah, whatever. Surely it can’t be too bad.”
You have acquired the classless skill : ‘[Crystalized]’
Sofia felt a surge of heat rise within her chest, looking down, she saw the runes from [Runeforged Overlord] shifting around, making space for a new mana circuit around the top of her sternum. Her skin around this spot took a strange blue hue like the Exidians’ skin, it had clear borders and spread slightly in all directions with root-like tendrils. It contrasted a lot with her skin, but all in all was not too bad, the center part only being about as large as a gold coin and the thin tendrils about the length of half a finger at their longest.
“It kind of looks like a badly poisoned wound… Well, at least it’s not too weird of a spot. The pearl shouldn’t be too large considering the size of the spot, what’s left is to see how long it takes to grow now.”
With that and the bonus from March of the Envoy, I’ll be thinking three times the speed, pretty nice. Could be four times if these are multiplicative but somehow I doubt that.
Sofia scrolled through her system logs and status.
I should add a new skill category.
Name : Sofia Aphenoreth
Age : 21
Class : [Saintomancer]
Level : 249
Health : 80 980 / 80 980 (20k + (20/level - 4k) + 60k)
Stamina : 8552 / 21 047 (20 067 + (20/level - 4k))
Mana : 416 047 / 417 100 (319 100 + (2k/level- 400k))
Main Specialization : [Eclipse Skeleton]
Alteration chance : 100%
Secondary Specialization : [Heat Death]
Active Skills (8 / 8)
[Spine of the Black Sun] - Level 209
[Summon Blood] - Level 207
[Maiden Banshee] - Level 249 (Lv.249)
[Graveyard of the righteous] - Level 211
[False immortality] - Level 3
[Skull Choir] - Level 213
[Reign over shadows]
[Saintess’ madness] - Level 1
Passive Skills (7 / 8)
[Blessing of the Deep] - (2/4)
[Vakariazrehafin of Sorrow]
[Exalted Exoskeleton]
[Venerable physique of the primeval void] - Second step Light forging realm
[Bone dominus] - Level 2
[Erredian Rot]
[Runeforged Overlord] - Level 249
Classless Skills (7 / 7)
[Dreams Of a Demon which Gods Envy - March of the Envoy]
[Identify] - Level 2
[Mana manipulation]
[Radiance] - Level 71
[Quintessential]
[One with Suffering]
[Crystalized]
Special Skills (1)
[The Book of Skeletons]
Wildcast Skills (4)
[Angel’s Bolt Exploding ver.]
[Angel’s Bolt Piercing ver.]
[Heal Undead / Holy light]
[Summon Elemental Sprite]
Summoned heroes (4 / 4)
Lv.249 Pareth (Holy Boneplate Mauleur Eclipse Skeleton) Lv.249 Alith (Alith) Lv.249 Book of Skeletons (Book) Lv.249 Ihuarah (Heartless Shade)[Mark of Aphenoreth]
A few skills have leveled up, nothing noteworthy. What I’m really waiting for is the third level of [Bone dominus]. It leveled up during the fight against Victory and I have been using it non-stop, it should go up soon. [False immortality] too.
Let’s progress with VPPV, still only at 112 drops but I should be able to make it much faster now that I mostly get how it works. Let’s go until tomorrow morning.
[Venerable physique of the primeval void] - Second step of the Light forging realm :
Your blood becomes light (1100 / 126 441 drops converted)
It took a while, but I have a consistent one drop every fifty seconds now. Still not good enough, but at least I could get through it, I just need a hundred days…
She looked up at Pareth, who had been dutifully guarding her all this time.
“Aren’t you bored?”
No answer, uh.
“Say, Mr. Scribe, does Pareth have his own Scribe? If not, shouldn’t he? Why does he not have a complete status sheet like everyone else?”
Again, nobody answered her.
“Well damn. I’ll make one myself then. The book said, to open a new empty document… Think about the word File, then New, then Data Array…”
Holy shit it works! Who is the absolute madman who ever found that out?
Let me write up a nice Status sheet for you Pareth!
Name : Pareth
Age : 3(?)
Class : [Holy Eclipse Skeleton]
Level : 249
Health : 995 100 / 995 100 (2 905 692 With sanctified grounds and halo)
Stamina : 403 399 / 403 399 (1 177 925 With sanctified grounds and halo)
Mana : 49 800 / 49 800 (200*level)
Active Skills (6)
[Sanctified grounds]
[Flying shields of light]
[Chains of the four seals]
[Gravity well]
[Purification]
[Greater Heal]
Passive Skills (6)
[Stellar corona]
[Shapeless weapon of light]
[Shapeless armor of light]
[Higher magical damage negation]
[Space magic resilience]
[Displacement skills immunity]
Special skills (5)
[Bone Density Up +200%]
[Silent Bones +200%]
[Teleport to Sofia]
[Negate hits of less than 10% Max Health]
[Quadruple Damage Against Undead]
Summoner skills (5)
[Blessing of the Deep]
[Soul link]
[Shared senses]
[Bone Dominus : Blessed Construct]
[Runeforged Overlord Aura]
Enchantments (3)
[Generosity of Sun]
[Avian magic : Fighting sense]
[Avian magic : Air steps]
[Blessing of bloating]
[Mark of Aphenoreth]
[Best Skeleton ]
“There you go! I think I didn’t forget anything. It turns out you have almost as much stuff going on as I do when it’s laid out like this. What do you think?”
If Pareth thought anything, he did not show it, but Sofia was happy either way.
Now imagine how messy a level 500’s status page must be.
Done being sidetracked by her system interface, Sofia left her room. The teachers’ tower was empty. The corridors were the same, devoid of life, for the most part, with only the cleaning personnel lazily mopping around. Walking past the library, she stopped and turned back. There was only one clerk in the library instead of the usual six, a relatively old-looking level 199 Exidian man with round glasses.
“Hi! Can you help me find a book about Divine runes? Is there something like that?”
“Oh, I recognize you, new teacher, right? We have literature about divine runes, yes, but if you’re looking for the makeup of a rune in particular, then we don’t have it.”
“Is there any reason why?”
“Drawing a divine rune is like calling out to the God themself, one should not use them carelessly,” the old librarian explained, “We usually do not record them so as to avoid upsetting Them. I do know a few I could share, though, as some Gods do not mind, Sun, for example, is very well-known, since the elves like to wear the rune as jewelry.”
“I am looking for Scripture’s rune specifically, is that something you know of?”
The librarian stroked his beard. “I have heard of that God, a few decades ago, but… No, I have never come across His rune. Your best bet is probably to ask one of His high-priests, the Saint or the Oracle if you can find one.”
“I am the Saint.”
“Oh. And He has never communicated His rune to you? That is quite a bad sign…”
“Scripture has been trying to get rid of me, actually.”
“No wonder, then, luckily for you, there are protections for Saints provided by the system, so ditching a Saint shouldn’t be that easy especially for a God long past their prime like Scripture. For the rune though, I cannot help you. But if what you said is true, that might be for the better. Just being near Scripture’s rune would open a channel between Him and you, although a weak one, but who knows what terrible things that might bring. You are better off never seeing it.”
“What if I only see it in the Spiritual plane? That’s further from the Gods’ plane, right? So it should be safer.”
“Hmmmmm… It might be safer, yes, though I still would not risk it if I were you. Perhaps if you could reach the plane of the Recessed… But that is a place hardly ever entered by mortals.”
Sofia left the library soon after. She summoned Zangdar’s ring and the Book of Skeletons and held them next to one another.
“A high-priest, right? I’m going to need a trustworthy source of mana. Probably not going to happen anytime soon...”
Walking through the empty student dormitories, Sofia managed to learn from a janitor that her students had left with Tartaros a few hours prior.
I don’t want to bother Leverle again so soon… And I really don’t want to keep training VPPV right now…
Sofia left the Academy. Caleb was busy reading the same book in front of the gate.
“Hey Caneb!”
“Miss Sonia, leaving so soon?”
“I was thinking I could relax a little. Would you happen to know about the best restaurants and shops in the city? You have been here a while after all.”
“Oh of course. What’s your budget?”
“I have more gold than I know what to do with.”
Azurian’s antiquities. That’s the place.
In a street lined with shops of all kinds, this one looked like any other next to it. But Caleb had been adamant that Sofia would find her happiness there.
Doesn’t look like anything special. Maybe he was having a laugh at my expense. Let’s not judge the book by its cover though. Sofia opened the lacquered wooden door of the small shop.
[Hero - Lv. 358]
Shocked by the unexpected spectacle, Sofia lost herself looking at the shirtless human hero’s rippling muscles as he struggled to finish one push-up with a dainty small horned lady sitting on his back.
[Mage - Lv.400+]
Sofia took a step back outside of the shop and closed the door. That… Is definitely not what I expected to find in an antiquities shop. She wondered what she should do, thinking that maybe it was better to come back at a later time, but the door opened from inside.
It was the small lady who greeted Sofia, “Hi, sorry about that, welcome to Azurian’s, he’s the guy I was helping exercise. Are you looking for anything in particular? Not every day we find more humans around here.”
The human hero was nowhere to be seen in the shop.
“Hey… I’m- No, I don’t know what I want exactly, I just wanted to look around… And you don’t look exactly human.”
“Oh, yeah, because I’m not, I’m a one of ‘em big flying lizards, you know, the kind you scale to make armor out of,” the girl winked, “Everyone in my family ends up looking like humans though. Come in, do look around, we have plenty of ol’ crap for sale or barter.”
I figured.
Sofia followed after the girl, she quickly glanced around the shop. “You wouldn’t happen to be Phillip’s daughter by chance?”
The girl turned back, her arms crossed, she looked up at Sofia, “That’s my old man, yeah. What are you, a Dragon hunter? My scales ain’t for sale, they ain’t even hard yet, just so you know.”
“No, no, I’m just here on a recommendation from Caleb Whitehound of Brighthall, I’m also a teacher there… I just happened to meet Phillip before, he helped me with something in exchange for new lingering magic to study. I never expected to find his daughter here.”
“Really? It ain’t no secret that I’m here often tho, since I’m going out with that guy. Well, I’ll take your word for it, not like you could have stolen that scale on your arm by yourself, you must be worth a pretty something if someone trusted you with that.”
“It got it in a fair trade between me and Erredis,” Sofia casually explained.
“The motherfuckin Moon Lord? You joking?”
Sofia extended her hand, summoned a small loaf of bread from her storage, and quickly showered it with holy light in front of the Dragon’s eyes. The bread was covered with rot and quickly consumed.
“Well, fuck, I wanna be able to do that too. You got some fine credentials uh, I wasn’t sure considering your level but I guess we might be able to do some good trading here.”
The human hero showed up again, fully clothed this time, coming down from the stairs in the back of the small shop, “Someone you know, Lina?”
The girl turned back, “Nah, but she knows my father as well as the fucken moon lord, can you believe this shit?”
The man blinked several times, he came down and extended a hand to Sofia. The handshake was a bit awkward because of the black powder left from the rot-consumed bread, but it didn't seem to bother him. “Hi. Sorry about Lina’s foul mouth, I have been trying to fix it but well… Anyway, I’m Azurian, welcome to my shop, I sell the random stuff I find in dungeons here.”
“That’s an interesting way to make money, I guess. Some of the items here do look interesting,” Sofia said, looking at a shelf covered in old books and bones.
“This? Lina found that recently, actually, a bunch of stuff tucked away in an old castle, a lich who broke their phylactery, we think. There’s some interesting stuff in the grimoires, we brought the bones there just for show since there wasn't much loot, there’s a locked chest, too, with a few baubles inside, not too sure what. I can sell you the whole thing for 5k.”
“You didn’t open the chest?” Sofia looked at the man suspiciously.
“No, it’s heavily-heavily cursed and we don’t want to bother, honestly.”
Couldn’t a Dragon easily handle that? Sofia thought then told them.
Lina sighed, “I’m a bit bad when it comes to precise stuff like that, I’d probably break what’s inside before I successfully absorb the curses’ mana…”
Azurian placed a hand on Lina’s shoulder and brought her closer to him, “It’s alright, you’ll get there,” he told her, then he addressed Sofia again, “Lina is still getting used to her human form, Dragons live at a different scale, normally.”
I guess so, Erredis was huge…
“I’ll probably buy the chest and the things, then, if you let me have a look first,” Sofia started, “And I’m curious now, how old are you, can I ask that? I thought you would both be quite old at first considering your level but I’m not so sure anymore…”
“Ah, I can get that, it’s fine to ask, I’m, uuh, forty-one years old? If you count both lives. I was summoned here pretty young. Lina just turned twenty-six. Right, you’re a Saintess, summoned anyone from my world? I’m always curious to meet other isekai’d heroes.”
“Isekaied?” Sofia asked, a confused look on her face. Is that a Draconic word or something?
“Oh, right, sorry, just forget about it,” Azurian backed out, uncomfortably putting a hand behind his neck, “I’ll get censored left and right if I try to say too much, not worth the hassle. I’m surprised this even got through the scribes.”
“I see… Well, I did summon someone from the human heroes’ world, yes, but I can already guess she was not from the same time as you.”
“That’s quite alright, I’d love to meet them if I have the occasion. You want the loot from the dead lich, then? You can have a look but don’t break anything, the policy for books is you can only [Identify] them, no reading before buying.”
“Alright, thanks. I’ll tell her about this place, she’ll come if she wants.”
Sofia walked up to the shelf and started identifying everything, almost salivating.
Did Caleb know they had this stuff?!
[Book of the four-HeadDead] : A necromancy grimoire by the hands of Master Lich Tetrapopulos about his research on the grafting of additional heads to zombies.
If this is applicable to skeletons… Also, no item level or grades today?
[On becoming a healthy lich] : Diary of Master Lich Tetrapopulos detailing the process of turning oneself into an undead skeleton without the intermediary step of becoming dead.
I’m not really interested in becoming a skeleton myself but that should be an interesting read nonetheless.
[Curses, the most misunderstood school of magic] : An essay from an unknown author about the nature of curses.
That actually looks interesting.
[Commander’s guide to military formations] : A book that somehow survived through the ages, it recounts the exploits of a human commander guiding his outnumbered troops to victory through clever use of terrain and positioning.
I have been mostly letting the paladin skeletons do whatever they wanted but that is knowledge I could use. Not five thousand gold worth of knowledge though.
[Nameless book] : This book contains 28 unlabelled rituals schematics without any explanation. Try at your own risk.
That’s… Kind of exciting, honestly. I’m sure Zerei would love to have a look at this one too.
That’s it for the books, there’s also two wands, a dilapidated robe, the chest and most importantly, the skeleton!
[Bones of a twice-dead lich] : The remains of Master Lich Tetrapopulos, the old skeleton is mostly intact despite a few of the smaller bones missing.
Must have originally been a dwarf or something like that, that’s a small skeleton.
I’m definitely buying this! Are you hungry, Bookie? We’ve found a skeleton-summoning skeleton to add to your pages!!!
Sofia brought back a lot of random stuff from Azurian’s shop, it barely made a dent in her gold reserves, so much that she was starting to wonder whether Sun might actually be annoyed at her for taking it. Not that it would have survived anyway, but still, before the deep whale destroyed everything, she had technically stolen it.
She stopped in front of the academy.
“Back already? You’ve only been gone a few hours, teacher Sonia, were my recommendations not to your liking?” the dog man asked with a bright smug smile.
“No, it was good, a bit too good, even. You have some flair, Senior Caneb, I must admit it.”
“Glad to hear it from you, well, get in,” he invited her, showing her the gate.
“Wait, before that. Would you happen to know of a good place to test destructive spells? Is there a room like that within the academy?”
“Not quite within, no, but deep beneath, surely. That is outside of the barrier, but you can go all out there. Make your way to the arena, but instead of entering it, keep going forward, then take every stairs down that you see until you reach the cube. Very easy!”
“The cube?”
“You’ll understand,” he confirmed, nodding to himself.
“Alright, thanks. Have a nice day.”
Sofia phased through the gate and followed Caleb’s instructions. Since the Academy’s corridors were mostly empty, she rushed through at dangerous speeds and made her way down to the deepest part of the academy’s underground. A weird lift took her straight through the barrier and down several kilometers into the ground. The lift took quite some time to descend and the air gradually got hotter and hotter as she went deeper.
Finally it stopped! Is it over?
The doors opened, revealing a small glass cabin overlooking a giant ‘cube’. To be exact, a cube-shaped cavern, glowing with flowing magma on the sides. A short old-looking Exidian man with a cane approached Sofia from the side, he was under level 100.
“Come to try out a boomin spell or two? I’ve seen yer mug in the teacher book, go right ahead,” he said after observing her face for a second, pointing at the door leading to nothing on the side of the cabin.
“Is it safe? What if one of my spells reaches this cabin? It’s pretty high but not out of reach.”
“Dun worry, tis all quite safe ya? Headmaster himself comes here to try new magic, walls carved through a natural mana leyline and reinforced so much, tell ye what, I’ll eat mah cane if you can scratch ‘em.”
That’s not exactly what I asked but sure then…
Sofia headed through the door.
The reason she had sought out this place was quite simple: she needed to use the ring of Zar’s [Collapse] to absorb the curses of the necromancer’s chest after activating them, but it was currently still full of mana. To activate it again, she was going to train the piercing Angel’s bolt some more, which would drain the ring’s remaining mana to give the bolts more power.
The magma flowing down the walls gathers in this vortex at the center… Is the city built on a volcano? It looked quite flat. Maybe it’s that thing with a mana leyline? I’m not sure I’ve ever heard of those before… More reading ahead, it seems. But first!
Sofia landed on a spot far away from the several magma rivers coursing through the ground, and she dumped out all of the bones she had just bought, then summoned the book of skeletons. Have a nice meal.
The bones were devoured by the book, and a new page took shape showcasing the drawing of a short skeleton holding a book and an ornate cup overflowing with a misty black liquid. Hiding the mana cost with her hand, Sofia had a good look at the drawing.
Now that I can see the full skeleton, that’s a bit thin for a male dwarf. She slowly slid her hand to reveal the mana cost. There wasn’t one.
No cost? What do you mean no cost?
Is something wrong, Bookie?
The page freed itself from the book and split into two down the middle.
What’s going on now?
Before Sofia were two new pages, one with the small necromancer and only the goblet; this one had a cost of 100,000, while the other still had no mana cost, and on it, the necromancer held a book strangely similar to Bookie.
Oh, I think I understand where this is going.
So you want me to choose? Is the left one the original and the right one… The skeleton holding you?
I feel like I'm not being given enough information right now. This is a bit like picking a blessing, isn't it? So it can be either a regular summon or yourself? That's a bit of an unexpectedly tough choice. I cannot get both, can I?
Sofia sighed and picked the page with the book.
You happy now?
The book shuddered, and the page Sofia chose reattached itself while the other one disappeared in a puff of smoke.
I guess this means yes. What now?
Floating in front of Sofia, the book presented its new page, which she ripped off. The mist started flowing, and in front of her formed the small skeleton of the necromancer. It instantly felt more lively than the usual mist skeletons. It looked around, then at Sofia, and held out a hand as if waiting to receive something.
[Solar Book of Skeletons - Lv. 249]
Health : 24900/24900
Mist : 99%
Lifetime : 14932s/14940s
Well, that has the merit of being quite clear. I guess Bookie was always a necromancer. You want the actual book, right? There you go.
The small skeleton grabbed the book and walked up to Sofia with a skip in its steps. Somehow, she could tell it was proud.
I'm not exactly sure what the benefits of this are, but hey, if you're happy, I'm happy for you. One good thing, I guess, is I can now see exactly how much mist is left, although I could already kind of guess. But it's nice to be able to put a number on it.
The skeleton turned its head, looked at Sofia, and handed the book back to her, insisting for her to take it.
You changed your mind quickly.
The skeleton shook its head, and the book opened by itself. Sofia understood the new changes; maybe there were more, but at the very least, one thing was obvious—the mana cost of the skeletons had changed. The book had opened at the page of the High-Priest, and instead of the usual 50000, the indicated cost was only 45000. Sofia checked every page, and they all showed the same 10% discount.
“Hey, this isn't bad. It's not what I expected, but I'll take it.”
Looking at the small skeleton, she asked, “Does it also reduce the mist cost?”
And the skeleton nodded in response.
“Nice, too bad I'm still a few tens of thousand mana points short of what's needed to summon the ingot monster. Do you have any more surprises for me?”
The small skeletal nodded again, gesturing for Sofia to flip the book so that she held it upside down.
“And then?”
Not sure what to do, she opened the book again and noticed there were fewer pages than usual. The first one was Crowie's page, showing the picture of the small skeleton with a crow on its shoulder. Turning to the next page, there was the picture of the small skeleton with a helmet and holding a bow.
“That should be the page of the bow soldier. I think I understand now.”
The next page in the book should have been the one with 50 crows, but instead, what showed up was a picture of the small skeleton with a broom.
“So it's only the pages with a single skeleton on it?”
Sofia flipped to the last two pages, which were normally the ones with the ingot monster and the quartz giant. On one, the small skeleton became huge and encased in a larger, thicker skeleton, while on the other, the depiction had become much smaller, with twig-like wings, and looking ferocious. With a chuckle, Sofia gave the book back to the skeleton, which he grabbed, then let go. It moved by itself and hovered behind his skull.
If the book is Bookie, and the skeleton is Bookie, I’m going to start having naming issues.
“Can you summon stuff by yourself?”
Once again, the skeleton nodded.
“All right, summon the elven caretaker then. I want to see you with a broom.”
Without the skeleton doing anything, the page ripped itself from the book and turned into mist, which very quickly collapsed on itself and became a broom in the skeleton’s hands.
[Solar Book of Caretaker Skeletons - Lv. 249]
Health : 12450/12450
Mist : 98%
Lifetime : 14725s/14940s
That's cute. Wait, you actually lose health? Is that because of this fusion in particular? Does that happen every time? Well, only one way to find out. “Summon the bow soldier now,”she told the broom-brandishing skeleton.
Once again, a page ripped by itself, and an instant later, Bookie’s new form was now fitted with a small spiked helmet as well as two more arms above his original set, holding the broom, a bow, and with a quiver filled with bone arrows attached to his waist.
[Solar Book of Caretaking Soldier Skeletons - Lv. 249]
Health : 24900/24900
Mist : 97%
Lifetime : 14711s/14940s
“Oh! The health is back to normal. Can we add more?” she asked.
Not only did Bookie acquiesce once again, but the book flew to Sofia once again, opening at the page of the sandworm. It showed Bookie’s upper body sprouting out of the sandworm’s back. The sandworm was much smaller than usual, as if scaled down to Bookie’s size.
“Sure, go for it!”
The result was exactly as Sofia expected, she lost 90000 mana for the summoning, and the four-armed ‘Solar Book-Worm of Caretaking Soldier Skeletons’ now slithered happily around Sofia, waving its broom as if fighting imaginary enemies. Its stats had also changed quite a lot.
Health : 249000/249000
Mist : 54%
Lifetime : 14623s/14940s
Oh yeah, this is fun. I think I like that a lot more than a regular old necromancer skeleton.
“You were always a member, but now it feels a bit more real. Welcome to the team, Bookie.”
Bookie brandished his broom high in the air in celebration.
Sofia sat down on the ground, and Pareth did the same. She brought out the rest of the necromancers’ stuff and looked through it.
“What do you guys think? The robe is beyond saving, but I guess I can take it to the clothier; he might find that interesting. The wands are also rotten, so really it's only about the books and the cursed chest.”
Wait, actually, maybe we can do something with that…
Sofia told Bookie to summon the engineer skeleton and had him break down the wands into their components. They broke down into three piles, one of rotten wood, one of gold powder, and one a small stack of cylindrical red gems.
Those were hiding inside?
[Kuvaldr Amber] : Fossilized resin of the Kuvaldr tree. Useful as a catalyst to reduce projectile spread. Once powdered, it is also considered a delicacy by some races.
People will really eat anything huh.
Well that's it for this, I will read the books later. Let's get started with the chest, I just need to empty the ring first.
Sofia quickly threw a small piercing bolt at the cavern wall to test its hardness. She did not even make a dent into it. The mana inside the Ring was also still plentiful. Since she was going to cast a lot of bolts to empty the ring anyway, she decided to train them. In particular, what she aimed for was to find a way to charge the bolts faster. When she had seen the Angel use them, both times his charging process had been much faster than hers, and even with the scepter doubling her channeling speed, 2000 mana per second was starting to become too slow. The higher-level enemies wouldn't stand still for her to charge the bolts forever.
Holding her scepter to absorb the inevitable backlash that would happen whenever she failed a cast, she started tinkering with the piercing bolt’s mana patterns as she cast it, hoping to find ways to charge it faster.
A few hours and a lot of bolts thrown at the walls later, she made a breakthrough much faster than she had anticipated. What she had done was quite simple; she had cast the spell several times with and without the scepter and tried to observe the minute difference between the two to understand how the scepter did what it did. Like this, she understood how the scepter managed to hasten the channeling. It was a surprisingly dirty solution.
So it just copies that starting part and then merges it with my spell later down the line. And that works?
If it's so easy, can I not just do that myself? If I double it on my side, then will the scepter copy the doubled version too? Seems like it would. So I would jump to channeling 4000 mana per second just like that.
Sofia was pretty sure that her theory would work. It was easier said than done, though, and the bolt exploded in her face every time she tried to alter it like that. She tried a lot of different ways, but the spell was never stable. This would be another thing she needed to spend more time on later. But the good thing was the ring did not care that the spells were failures; it boosted them all the same, which gave her a hard time with her healing but eventually emptied it, so she could now try to open the necromancer’s chest.
Just to be safe, I should put on a rune or two.
With everything ready, Sofia created an elevated bone platform in the cubic cavern, just in case the use of the ring near the walls might interfere with the ‘mana leyline’ the old Exidian had talked about. There, she stood as far as she could from the chest, so that it would still be in the ring of Zar’s range, and had one of the graveyard skeletons open it.
Sofia activated the ring as soon as she saw mana erupting from the chest. It was not as much mana this time, and she barely felt it course through her arm and to the ring.
The chest was now opened and with apparently no more tricks to it.
That was easy enough; I didn’t even need the runes. Let's see what this wanted to protect like this.
Red silk cloth enveloped the contents of the chest. Sofia took it out and unfolded it, revealing three small items: a silvery brooch, a thin mithrium ring, and an ornate goblet like the one Sofia had seen on Bookie’s illustration of the necromancer, carved in very dark wood and covered in small shiny red gems; it was very well preserved.
The first thing Sofia grabbed was the ring.
No way, mithrium? This much is probably worth about the same price I bought the whole thing, isn't it? It looks enchanted too!
On the ring were small runes Sofia did not recognize; it looked nothing like the modern rune system popularized by the avians, but mana was already moving around them before she even put it on, so it was obviously of a magical nature.
Go on, Sir Scribe, and give me the advanced [Identify] analysis straight away, just use the mana.
Sofia read the description of the ring and was so surprised her mouth lay agape.
[Ring of the fallen legion]: This mithrium ring was made for a Lich’s lover in hope that they could walk among their legions of undead without worry. Nearby undead are more likely to be neutral toward the wearer of the ring. The wearer of the ring may spend mana to influence nearby undead. The cost and efficacy will depend on the intelligence and strength of the undead as well as the nature of the influence being exerted.
This is just [Lead the Dead]! It’s a [Lead the Dead] ring!
So, just like [Angel’s bolt], [Lead the Dead] was magic that already existed and that the system just copied! And well, [Erredian Rot] is like this too.
Do I have other skills like that? This is an interesting discovery, not too terribly useful considering [Runeforged Overlord] already dissuades undead monsters from attacking me, but I guess it’s worth wearing. Also it’s a few grams of mithrium, so if I ever need some I know where to find it.
Next Sofia grabbed the brooch, it was a wavy pattern made of silver, that Sofia did not think represented anything in particular.
[Bard’s brooch of facial concealment] : This silver brooch absorbs the light reflecting from your face, obscuring your likeness to observers with regular vision. Will overheat if worn for too long, must be placed in an unobstructed area near your head for optimal efficiency.
I can see how that would be useful to a necromancer. I probably won't be using that one much.
Sofia stored the brooch and grabbed the goblet next. It was surprisingly heavy for its size and covered in the same esoteric runes like the mithril ring. In Sofia's hand, it looked like a small cup, which made her giggle as she remembered it looking quite large in the necromancer's hand on Bookie’s page.
Let's hope this one is a bit more useful.
[The Overflowing Chalice]: This Chalice of dubious origin is decorated with 48 blood rubies which are entirely useless to its functions. When fed mana or otherwise placed in a mana-rich environment, this chalice will produce endless amounts of dangerous freezing mist. This does not affect the Undead.
Oh! I’m not undead but I should be immune to this thanks to VPPV. I don’t really think I could use this in a fight but I can see how that would be useful to protect a fortress full of undead. That might be a good thing to bring into dungeons too, like a less destructive rot that also spreads by itself.
Sofia filled the chalice with mana and a thin layer of mist started flowing from it, dripping down to the ground and spreading in all directions until it met the rivers of magma and couldn’t go any further.
The mist feels fresh, I guess. The ground is covered in a thin layer of ice already, I imagine this could fill up an entire room quite fast if there were no magma rivers…
Sofia was decent at calculating the volume of fluids with all the mucking around she had done with [Summon Blood], so she already had a good idea of how fast the chalice produced mist, but she wanted to be sure, since gas wasn’t quite the same. She created a bone cube large of about one meter and held the chalice above it, the cube was filled with dense mist in about ten seconds.
About a hundred liters a second, as I thought. It’s really quite fast. Also eats through a lot of mana, a few thousand points a second. Quite the gluttonous artifact.
Searching for some meat in her storage ring, Sofia threw the first chunk of flesh she found into the cube and watched it become an ice block under her eyes.
Colder than it looks. What happens when I store the Chalice?
The source of the mist now gone, it quickly lost its cold nature and dispersed.
Well, more random things in my storage ring, I guess. Worth more money than I paid by far, but not as exciting as I’d hoped. The best part so far was the upgrade for Bookie.
Unsatisfied, Sofia started throwing bolts at the walls again, thinking she had nothing to do until the end of the week anyway. Later, she stopped and returned to speak with her students who were done being evaluated by Tartaros. She explained very briefly why she had been the cause of their group being attacked by a space mage. All was fine until Shaily brought up something that Sofia had completely forgotten about. She only had two days left until her first public class.
Sofia spent the next two days working on her venerable physique one drop at a time. The competition's first event ended, and the rankings would soon be published, but first, it was time for her first public class. She made her way to the backside of the amphitheater where the class would be held, and Beryl was there, waiting for her, notepad in hand.
“Good, you’re here on time,” she welcomed her.
“Yes, though I'm a bit lost, honestly. I am still unsure about how I should go about this. Will there even be anyone here to listen to me?”
“Oh, I would not worry about that. Your name has been making rounds, especially since your demonstration in the arena.”
“Ah, right. That happened. I wonder what kind of people that will bring… The Headmaster mentioned an entrance fee?”
“Yes, but since this is your first time, there is no entrance fee. This will bring more people. Depending on the popularity, we will decide on how much to charge next time. The number of seats is limited, so the more popular, the more expensive the places will be. You get to keep 80 percent of the fees, and the academy takes the rest. So it's in both of our interests that we make this work well. Do you have any idea what the contents of today will be?”
“Absolutely not. This could go in a hundred different ways. I think I will improvise depending on how many people there are and what they want to see. How long should I stay in there?”
Beryl wrote something on her notepad, then stored it. “It's fine; you are looking good. I have no doubt you will manage to make this interesting. If you can just show some interesting new magic, it would already be enough to make some of the students come back next time, so the bar is quite low. Length is up to you; technically, you have all day, so 14 hours maximum, but most public classes last for around 4 to 6. Just don't make it too short. This time is fine since it is free, but when people pay, they have higher expectations. That being said, if it is interesting enough, like the headmaster’s lectures, even half an hour can do.”
“I see. Thank you, Miss Deathmarch.”
“It's my pleasure, Teacher Vakaria. Now, head inside. Gerard will outfit you with the sound artifact and tell you when to enter. Have a good class,” Beryl told Sofia before leaving.
Making her way through a narrow corridor, Sofia arrived backstage. It turned out she recognized Gerard; he was the librarian who had helped her with her questions on divine runes. He gave a small pin to attach near her neck, designed to amplify her voice. Then he explained that there was another one for the public that he could carry around for her if she needed to. She politely declined his help, saying she had skeletons for that.
“I will be in the public, then. If you have any technical issues, just give me a sign,” the white-bearded old librarian told her. “The public is mostly settled; you can go in whenever you are ready. The path to the scene is right this way,” he added, pointing at a path separated from the room by a heavy curtain before leaving through the back door.
Pareth appeared near Sofia, and she also summoned Bookie’s new form to accompany her.
“Alright, let's go.”
Sofia had purposely been restricting her mana senses to avoid spoiling herself with the surprise of how many people would be there waiting for her. She felt her nerves bundle up as she walked down the corridor to the stage, remembering her speech to the elven army in the trial.
I'm really not good with crowds…
Somehow, she both hoped and feared that the room would be empty at the same time. But the thought was fleeting as she could already hear the chatter coming from the room ahead. Taking the final steps of the corridor, she stepped into the light and discovered the large amphitheater reserved for her class—it was almost full.
Holy crap, am I this popular? This is like 300 people!
The chatter stopped as she entered. With a quick glance, she recognized a few faces—all of her students were there, including the two human princesses. There were also Alith, Saria, Cinthia, and Astelia sitting in a corner with a bunch of snacks. But more surprisingly, Sofia recognized one of the few high-level people as one of Death Church’s priests, and there was also a familiar inconspicuous Exidian lady sitting by herself in the back row.
The Empress?
Doing a double take, Sofia [Identify]ed the lady, seeing that she showed up as a level 82 mage, which felt all kinds of wrong, but she didn't have free time to spend wondering about that. Sending some mana to turn on the voice amplifier artifact, she announced the start of her class.
“Hello, everyone. Thank you for coming to my first public class at Brighthall. I am Sofia Vakaria, teacher of summoner combat strategies, necromancer, and saintess of a mad god, among other things. These two are my main summoned Heroes, Pareth and Bookie; they do a lot of the fighting for me. I'm sure you have a lot of questions already, so I will be starting this class by answering a few questions.“
Sofia gave the voice amplifier artifact for the public to Bookie and sent him to the first person who raised their hand to ask a question. The level 60 student was surprised to see the small skeleton running at him, but he rapidly understood what was going on when he was presented with the artifact.
“Hi, uh, how can you be a Saintess and a Necromancer at the same time? Do you have multiple classes?” the Exidian student asked, uncomfortably speaking near the artifact Bookie held up in front of his face.
Of course, that’s what they start with…
“No,” Sofia answered. “You can only have one class at a time. That being said, my class is the result of trying to have two classes at once. I was chosen as a saint at the same time I became a necromancer, and due to an error in the system, the two classes ended up fusing together, for better or worse, which is the reason my heroes are all undead. The class name is ‘Saintomancer,’ and it’s just as weird as the name suggests.”
Already, shocked murmurs spread through the audience. ‘Wait, you can fuse classes?!’ ‘Do you think we can do that?’ ‘I want a fused class too!’ ‘Saintomancer? That’s so ugly…’
“I hear some of you are getting ideas already; I personally would not recommend trying this. I was lucky that things worked out well in the end, but the start was rough, and my future skills are still very unpredictable. And honestly, I am not sure you could reproduce this without a similar divine intervention. You’re free to try, though; just don’t piss off your scribe. Next question?”
Sofia glanced at ‘the Empress’ again, who was staring intently at her.
I really shouldn’t look in that direction.
Sofia let Bookie choose whoever he wanted for the next question; the skeleton ran through the seat rows and stopped in front of another student.
“Are you in a relationship?”
Bookie hastily pulled back the artifact and slapped the student, leaving a red bony hand mark on his face, provoking a few laughs after a moment of shock.
Sofia raised an eyebrow. Oh, he’s level 199; he’ll be fine. Try not to kill anyone, Bookie, please. “No. Serious questions only, please.”
Bookie walked to the next person with a raised hand. They were a young-looking civilian girl with braids who had been writing down stuff every time anyone spoke up.
“Hi teacher, why did you become a teacher at Brighthall and what do you want to accomplish in the future?”
Does she work for one of those newspaper things like they do in Red Winds?
Sofia took a few seconds to think about her answer. Seeing some people getting bored already, Pareth activated his armor, giving them some light to focus on.
“I came to Brighthall for a vacation. I have been fighting non-stop for two years and needed some time off to work on my skills and strategies. Teaching some promising people on the side to help make their life better is just a nice bonus in my eyes. As for my objectives… I have a God to kill, mainly,” Sofia seriously answered, nodding to herself, “And I won’t be accepting any questions on the subject,” she added as the voices in the public became much louder.
“T- Thank you for your answers…”
Unprompted, Bookie directly walked up to another woman, a level 156 Exidian student this time, who sighed as she was relieved to finally be able to lower her hand; she had been waiting from the first question.
“Hello, Teacher Vakaria, I saw your duel against Marquess ProudWall. Can you tell us how you made all of his spells disappear? Did you teleport them away? I couldn’t understand how it worked at all.”
“This I will not explain in detail, but it's the effect of my second specialization,” Sofia answered, “You should all strive to perform better than expected during the trials; the rewards are well worth it, specializations being the main draw.”
This, again, caused chatter to spread among the public. Some were asking the others what specializations were, while some were shocked that she had two of them, and some again argued that she needed at least that if she wanted to claim something as ridiculous as the ambition to fight a God.
You’ve seen nothing yet. “How about I show it off a few times for those who weren’t there at the duel? Anyone who wants to, come down and throw a few attack spells at me.”
Sofia expected at least a few people to come down, but it seemed Pareth and the sudden appearance of his huge sword of light dissuaded most of them. Sofia’s friends weren’t interested, very busy watching the spectacle while munching on snacks, with even Dopple slowly slurping up a shirt. While the students all looked at each other, each not wanting to be the idiot who goes on stage to see all their spells be effortlessly countered in front of their friends, someone stood up.
The conversations among the students started again, ‘Hey, who’s that?’ ‘Dunno but she’s hot’ ‘Brother have you not seen the teacher?’ ‘I’m not so into beige skin’, they stopped speaking when Bookie approached them with a hand raised.
Meanwhile, oblivious to that conversation, Sofia was having a mental breakdown, cursing internally.
NOT YOU!
Her thoughts screamed as ‘The Empress’ slowly walked down the rows of seats and made her way to the stage.
The woman stepped onto the stage. She was elegant and sophisticated, wearing a sleek, form-fitting deep blue and silver uniform that exuded a sense of authority. Her horns were quite short compared to most other Exidians, and her fine white hair was tied in a high ponytail behind her head. Stopping a few meters away from Sofia, she bowed with an arm across her chest.
“Elizabeth Fraus,” she introduced herself, “I am honored to be of help, Teacher Vakaria.”
What do you want?! Sofia's mind screamed while she answered politely in return, “Thank you for coming down to help, Elizabeth. Since you are a mage, please send a few attack spells my way.”
‘Elizabeth’ nodded and took a few steps back. She raised a hand and warned Sofia, “I will attack now.”
A weird fluid-like ball of light shot from the woman's hand and flew toward Sofia in an unsteady trajectory. On high alert, Sofia activated [Heat Death] when it drew near, and for about 150 mana, the ball of light was dispelled.
That's it? Was I mistaken? Maybe she's really not the empress?
Sofia quickly dismissed the thought. Even if the woman was the empress, right now, in front of three hundred people, she was a level 82 mage, and her cover would be blown if she did anything out of the ordinary.
A second ball of light came, larger and faster than the first. Sofia dispelled it again; it had cost 1500 mana this time. Realistically, this was about all someone at level 82 should be capable of, but the woman kept going uninterrupted, and the next weird ball came, same as before, but this time with nine more following in quick succession.
That is way too much mana for your level! Sofia thought, but it seemed nobody in the public noticed anything. That was quite weird, and as the woman prepared the next attack, Sofia felt Pareth’s consciousness tug at hers and switched to his vision. From his point of view, the woman was still launching tiny attacks like the first one.
Some kind of illusion?
Seeing the magic at work from two different angles, Sofia recognized this kind of visual illusion magic and its kind of mana patterns. It was almost impossible to detect when you were oblivious to its presence, but once you knew and were looking for it, it was plain as day. She had already seen this somewhere else, during the opening ceremony in the Grand Hall when the scenery had temporarily changed to that of an island in the sky.
Of course she was there! So the illusion back then was her work! No wonder she could disguise herself like this and no one could recognize her.
Sofia was trying her best to control her facial expression, not to show any surprise, and continued to dispel all the magic the woman threw at her with a focused expression. The spells ramped up, costing 20, then 30, then 40 000 mana to dispel, and Sofia was starting to panic slightly as her mana disappeared in chunks. She only had about a hundred and fifty thousand left when the attacks stopped, and the empress started counting something on her hands.
From Pareth’s view, the woman was still throwing very weak balls of light in different trajectories or quick succession to demonstrate Sofia’s abilities to the public.
Then a tiny scepter appeared in the woman’s hands. Sofia seriously thought about fleeing, but the attack was instantaneous, so fast that not even Pareth had time to teleport. She activated [Heat Death] purely on instinct, and the concentrated beam of light aiming her way disappeared as fast as it had come.
Mana: 1 / 417 100
Holy fucking shit, she counted my mana to leave me at zero?!
Sofia threw a wary glance at the woman, who smiled back at her. The empress bowed again, “My apologies, Teacher. It seems I have run out of mana, so I have no choice but to stop. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to help; it was very instructive.”
“You're welcome. Thank you. You may return to your seat,” Sofia answered elegantly, trying to suppress the fear in her voice. Her real thoughts were more along the lines of ‘Please get lost already’. As she watched the woman climb the stairs back to her seat, she almost had a heart attack. At the very top of the stairs, the doors to the amphitheater had opened ‘by themselves’. A lot of the higher-leveled students turned around to see what had opened the doors, and the empress herself looked up curiously. But nobody saw anything wrong; the empress kept walking, and the students turned back to look at Sofia, at most whispering a hushed ‘weird’ to themselves.
To Sofia, however, the situation was more than just a bit weird as she observed a globulous iridescent creature looking like a cluster of grapes from hell trying to squeeze itself through the door frame.
Her mind whirring, Sofia only saw three ways to proceed forward. Either she accepted looking like a lunatic and evacuated the room, trying to convince everyone that an invisible monster was lurking here and putting everyone in danger. Or she invented some excuse to end the class early. And lastly, she could also keep going and act like everything was alright.
The creature finally managed to get through the door, and with its five spindly legs, it crawled into the amphitheater, its body unfolding until it was about four meters tall. It looked like a tall upright stick on five legs with a bundle of grapes dangling from the top.
“T- This is the kind of power you can expect from getting a specialization. If you want to have good future growth, both getting one and picking the right one are very important. So no matter what, remember to always give it your all during the trials. N- Now I will take a few more questions, and then I will showcase some neat things you can do with necromancy or summoning classes in general, as long as you use some creativity,” Sofia announced to the public, but her eyes were fixated on the creature, which was now slowly advancing through a row of seats.
It walked right through the students, and they did not notice anything. Suddenly it stopped in front of an empty seat, and its stick-like body bent slightly to rest on the seat’s edge.
IT FUCKING SAT DOWN!!!
Sofia was starting to wonder if she was going crazy or if the Empress was still playing visual tricks on her. Clearly, it was none of that. Not only did she still see the creature through Pareth’s eyes, but she also finally noticed the insistent and worried stares she was receiving from Alith in the corner. This further hammered down the fact that, yes, there was a creature from the Deep currently sitting in the academy's amphitheater, and it was supposedly listening to her lecture.
At least it's not a parasite…
As promised, Sofia answered a few more questions. By the time she was done, she couldn't remember anything she had just said as she was too focused on observing the iridescent being. However, in time, she was able to put it out of her mind and focus on her lecture instead. She demonstrated the many ways one could use bones. The class lasted for three hours in total and ended spectacularly with a duel between Pareth and a group of two level 200 and one level 150 students, which Pareth won in perfect Sofia style: without losing any health.
There was no trace of the iridescent creature anymore. It had left the same way it came, about half an hour before the end of class after sitting perfectly still for exactly two hours. Similarly, ‘Elizabeth Fraus’ had disappeared at some point in the middle without Sofia even noticing.
With her nerves right about to give out, she announced the end of class with a sigh of relief, receiving mild applause. She told the public to come back next time for her lecture on the theme of making the best of the system’s tools and errors.
The librarian was already waiting backstage to retrieve the voice amplifier.
“You did well; it was very entertaining and informative,” he complimented her.
“Thank you… I was very nervous, but I do think I pulled through.”
“Yes, yes, I believe the seats will be tightly packed next time. Students always like teachers who incorporate a lot of practical demonstrations like you did. Your stress was visible, but it is expected for a first-timer. You will learn to mostly manage it after a few more months; everyone does. But it’s hard to really get rid of it.”
Sofia gave the man a polite laugh in return and continued the small talk. The librarian gave her more tips on how to manage her anxiety, blissfully unaware that stage fright was only the tip of the iceberg in terms of what had caused Sofia’s stress that day. He eventually excused himself to give her some space.
After taking a long break by herself in the staff toilets, Sofia trudged back to her room.
Alith was waiting in front of her door.
“Hey! Good work Sof. You look like you haven’t slept for a month,” Alith greeted her.
“Oh, it’s been longer than that.”
Alith followed Sofia inside, immediately her attention turned to the bone statues, “Hey, you're getting better at those,” she complimented. “Who's this one supposed to be, an unfinished product?” she asked while picking up one of them.
“Oh, that's meant to be Ihuarah. See the hole? It's just difficult to capture his appearance, especially from memory.”
“I mean, he is monochromatic, so at least you got that right… The issue is the pose, I think. Ihuarah’s not the kind to stay in a neutral position like this. It's lacking panache if you know what I mean.”
“Well, I, uh… Yeah, you're not wrong. Speaking of which, we still have no news from him. I can see he’s still alive, but that's it.”
“You can always switch places with him, no? That's one way to get news,” Alith suggested.
“What if the timing is inconvenient for him, though?”
“I'm sure he wouldn't mind. But I guess there is no real reason to do it right now. Have you been monitoring his kill feed?”
“No, I have that turned off most of the time, yours too. I just find it distracting.”
Alith nodded, “Yeah, I am the same, though maybe we should stop doing that since it's our only means of long-distance communication.”
“True… Well, let's have a look at what Ihuarah’s been fighting…”
Sofia scrolled through a bunch of notifications. Ihuarah seemed to have been fighting mostly jungle animals for a while, and then it had become a long stretch of killing ‘Ochiarans,’ which both Sofia and Alith had never heard of, with the latest kills in date being against stronger monsters.
‘You have defeated [Damned Ochiaran - lv. 225]’
‘You have defeated [Damned Ochiaran - lv. 245]’
‘You have defeated [Damned Ochiaran - lv. 208]’
‘You have defeated [Turgescent Soul Ochiaran - lv. 259]’
‘You have defeated [Keeper of Limbo - lv. 278]’
Sofia pointed at the last two kills in the list, “These are from four days ago, maybe the boss of whatever dungeon he was exploring? He hasn't been fighting anything since then, it seems.”
“So much fighting, and we can’t even repay our level debt…” Alith complained.
“Debt is whatever honestly. We always stay stuck for a while before the filter anyway, so it's not like it really is slowing us down.”
“Well, yeah, true,” Alith agreed as she sat down on one of Sofia’s bone chairs, “and we’re not getting any more debt for the next filter. By the way, I learned from one of the teachers that we cannot get a specialization point from the third trial.”
“Really? That's kind of a letdown,” Sofia complained as she sat on the opposite chair.
“Yeah, really. As usual, it's hard to get too much information on the trial itself without the censor interfering, but I managed to get some. Wanna hear it, Sof?”
“Of course I want to. Why do you even ask? I don't know about you, but when this school year ends, I'm going straight for the trial.”
“You say that as if I was not going to go with you… Anyway, here is the information I managed to piece together; first of all, this trial happens entirely ‘in the real world,’ so no fake Magic world, and that's a big deal.”
“So the resources we bring with us actually matter, is what you’re getting at?” Sofia asked.
Alith bent forward, an excited gleam in her eyes, “Yes, but not only that, it also means we get to keep whatever we find on the way!”
“Oh, that's a very good point. Then maybe we should invest in better spatial storage items? I have plenty of space in my ring, but not that much considering all the crap that's in there, and your own ring is rather small, no?”
“It's good enough for now, but it's not huge. I can buy a better one, but I was thinking we should just go and ask the guy who makes them directly, don't you think?”
“So we pay a quick visit to old man TLDR before the trial, noted. It's a good idea anyway since I want to see if he can upgrade Pareth more. Anything else?”
Alith nodded again, “Yeah, and this is where it gets really interesting, both for you and for me, and I'm going to need your help with that. Apparently, you can get some hidden benefits by wagering a divine essence; depending on the God, you get different results.”
“Oh! I’ve got plenty of choices, then, even some… Unusual ones.” If the system even accepts them.
“Yeah, unusual like the thing that came to listen to your public class right?”
“Exactly right, but how do you want me to help with this? I don't think I could give you one of the essences I have even if I wanted to. Do you want to get one from Domination somehow? We might manage to take down the mutated apostles with enough planning…”
Alith frowned, “Didn't you have a quest to return those or something, Sof? I’m not trying to sabotage you here.”
“It was more a request than a formal quest but yeah. If not that then how?”
“Well, you see, I’ve heard from Saria that a certain uncle had resurfaced recently. I was thinking…”
Sofia looked at Alith like she was crazy. “I really don’t think this is a good idea…” she started, and before she could close her mouth, more words came out by themselves. “I, on the other hand, believe this to be a most entertaining proposal!” she continued.
Alith suddenly clutched her head, screaming in pain. She fell off her chair, and Sofia barely managed to catch her before she hit the ground, yelling mentally at Pareth to heal her.
Fuck off Orator! If you do anything to Alith, you can stuff your quest where the sun never shines for all I care!
“Is that all the trust I inspire in you, still? A dagger to my heart, truly,” the Orator said through Sofia’s mouth amidst Alith’s screams. Sofia lost control of her right arm and could only watch herself flick at Alith’s forehead. The short girl’s screams died down as her body limped in Sofia’s arms.
‘The hero : ‘Alith’ has succumbed.’
“Alith!”
“Will you calm down already? Such a needless commotion,” Orator added through Dopple’s voice before being chastised by that same voice, “You dog-ass bastard killed my wearer! I will end yo-”
The world seemed to slow down to a standstill in Sofia’s room. Her emotions in turmoil she could hear a sigh in her own voice. “Always so dramatic. This old one gave the girl exactly what she wanted, did he not? She was the sole cause of these happenings. Now if only you would stop yammering and started working on bringing her back before her soul fades for good. I shall not be held responsible for your failings, Inquisitor’s protegee or not.”
Sofia’s memory of the last twenty five or so hours were blurry at best. After dragging the lifeless body of Alith near the window, she had been channeling [Maiden Banshee] without a second of rest. People came to knock on her door after a while, surely because of the class she missed, but she did not even notice them. Pareth spent the entire time holding her, while Bookie had summoned itself on his own and Participated in the war effort by summoning skeletons and killing them off to transfer his mana to Sofia through [Heat Death].
Eventually, long after Alith’s corpse had gone cold, the skill worth 100 000 000 of cumulated mana points had resolved without fanfare. In Sofia’s numb arms, Alith slowly opened her eyes, “Sof…? Sorry, I think I passed out…” she mumbled, “It’s… Kind of cold in here, isn’t it…? Hey, why are you crying?”
Sofia looked down at Alith, tears streaming down her face. She let out a choked laugh, a mix of relief and exhaustion. "You passed out? I thought I lost you!" Sofia confessed, her voice shaky. She wiped away her tears, managing a small smile, "You fucking idiot witch.”
Sofia and the students stared at the infinite waterfall of blood in front of them, perpetually flowing onto itself.
“Well, it looks like this is another failure. I don’t think this is helping drain the barrier’s mana at all. If anything, it feels like the amount of ambient mana has been going up. I could make more blood but that looks pointless.”
“Why are we trapped in here in the first place, what’s the point?” En complained as she walked back and forth on the bone platform.
“That’s hard to tell at this point, I feel like someone trying to kill me or you guys could do it without too much trouble if they can set up a barrier like this without me or Pareth noticing anything. So it’s most likely not that.”
Not that killing me would be that easy as long as I have Leverle’s charm. The students though…
Shaily played with one of her sprites, pensively she mumbled to herself, “Maybe someone just wants to ruin our chances at getting tokens… All of us here are serious competitors, even Lola has started dueling a lot and almost caught up with En and me, I don’t know about Topaz but I’ve had a match against Opal and it was pretty close too…”
“I am the outlier I guess,” Topaz said from the corner she was sitting on, her legs dangling in the void, “I’m not too interested in the competition, I’d rather spend my time here learning all I can, I can’t compare with Opal anyway so it’s dumb to even try.”
Opal snuck up on her and hugged her sister from behind.
Sofia shrugged, “It would be nice if it was just about tokens. I could see someone going that far to sabotage the thing considering how tremendous the reward is, but I worry it might be a bit more nefarious than that. What if this is the ProudWall family trying to get revenge for their guy I slapped around in the arena?”
Lola had been very silent the entire time the group had been trapped, but she spoke up for Erian, “Impossible. The ProudWall family isn’t normally so petty… They worship Talent and they got their Ducal rank for their exceptional service to the Empire. The duel was strange in the first place.” Lola took a deep breath. “That one of them would insult a BrightHall teacher was a great embarrassment for the family even before you fought the match, Erian wouldn’t even come near us out of shame… I don’t want to believe they would stoop so low as to cheat in a competition like this, let alone try to pursue revenge for a fair loss!” she finished, almost shouting.
“Hey hey, calm down Lola, I believe you, alright? Is that really why Erian stopped coming to my classes? I will need to have a talk with him, he can’t be compromising his future out of shame for something he didn’t do. That said, we need to get out of here. The ambient mana is still rising and that’s becoming a bit worrying.”
“Why is it worrying?” En instantly asked.
“Well, this feels oddly familiar to something I have already experienced multiple times. The academic name of which I’ve recently learned is Siege magic. This is something you do when you need to be sure to absolutely annihilate your opponent, level a fortress with everyone inside, obliterate an army, such things. You trap your opponents inside of a barrier so they cannot escape, you gather a lot of mana over a long period of time… And you unleash a devastating strike all at once. We still have some time though, although I don’t know how long, but I can tell that the mana is still too calm for the spell to be about to resolve.”
While everyone looked noticeably more worried about their situation now, Topaz still looked calmer, even though her feet had stopped moving, she turned to look at Sofia, “You experienced that multiple times… As the caster?”
“As the target. Things happened,” Sofia answered with a shrug.
After a moment of silence, Topaz leaned back against Opal, looking at the infinite reflections of their bone platform in the barrier above, “I’m not even a summoner but if you get us out of here I’ll sign up to your class…”
“Sure, you’re welcome to join, Opal too. Also, I am pretty confident in getting us out right now.”
“What?!”
Everyone looked at Sofia like she was crazy, they had been stuck here for hours and now she was somehow confident in getting out?
“Yes. Sorry students, I really let you down this time. I had a way to get out all this time and I just completely forgot about it. I have so much stuff now, so many skills, so many options, I’m really stupid for not thinking of this before, you can insult me later if you want, but yeah, now that I see it, it’s obvious.”
Opal quickly scribbled something on her notepad, she presented it to Sofia with a kind smile. ‘Better late than never!’
Sofia laughed nervously, and started to reshape the bone platform into a small pyramid.
“Please get inside, although the way to get out should be safe, I’m worried about what we’ll find outside, so I’ll be spreading rot everywhere as soon as we’re out and potentially teleport us to the place I spoke of before if things look too dangerous.”
With little opposition from the students, she got them and the box of compressed shades inside of the pyramid before preparing herself.
I would put on an undeath rune but I’m not sure we have that much time before the siege spell resolves…
Preparing her spells, Sofia formed a big handle above the pyramid and tapped on Pareth’s bone plates. I’ll activate the third tier overlord so you can fly, if there’s anyone waiting for us outside, grab the girls and go. Don’t worry about me, I still have Leverle’s charm as a security.
“Alright, everything ready.”
This HAS to work, right?
[Ringed arms of Zar] : (Manaless state): When this ring is devoid of mana, the wearer may activate [Collapse] at any time to make the ring instantly absorb all out-of-body mana in a large area.
Wait, would it even work through the Dragon-scale armor? I will be like the storage ring and have the mana travel through my arm I guess. It’s an artifact of the deep, so now way would it not work…
Sofia controlled the bone pyramid to be near a corner of the barrier, perhaps the barrier would reform after her little stunt so it was best to get out fast.
“Here we go.”
Sofia activated the third tier of [Runeforged Overlord] and raised her hand high.
[Collapse]
The barrier shattered like a broken mirror and all the mana in a huge sphere around Sofia collapsed toward her. As she predicted, it entered the scale arm through the shoulder going through her all the way to her fist which felt like getting struck by lightning. To Sofia this was nothing. With a huge chunk of the barrier gone, she and Pareth quickly flew up, and Sofia observed her surroundings while showering the entire vicinity in Holy light and Erredian Rot.
It was still night and they were still in the same place, but the immediate surroundings were not as they once were. The mansion was gone, and the surrounding forest had been burned down, in their place was a truly enormous ritual circle carved out in the charred soil, glowing brightly with blood-red magic.
Sofia only got a glimpse of it before it was covered in rot. In the distance, on an extremity of the ritual circle stood a single tall masked figure in a gray cloak. Sofia tried to [Identify] them, but they disappeared as soon as the rot started spreading on them. The only distinctive sign she had managed to really see about the person before they were gone were two pointy ears.
An Elf?!
Sofia worriedly looked in Pareth’s direction, hoping the cloaked figure hadn't teleported to him and the students, but her mana vision quickly confirmed that no teleportation trail led to their direction. The person had teleported somewhere else, completely abandoning the siege ritual which was getting ravenously devoured by the rot.
They fled?
She hesitated for a second, did she need Pareth to teleport to her and flee to Zangdar, or was the immediate danger gone?
A second passed, then another, the ambient mana dispersed as the rot ravaged the remains of the ritual, and there was no sign of the cloaked figure coming back. In the charred forest, there were only the sounds of the spreading rot and the cold windy night.
Fuck me, what the hell was that?
Sofia recalled the creepy design of the elf’s white mask, that of a deformed face with a single round eye, it gave her shivers.
She told Pareth to stop and flew to him, her mana would soon be drained by [Runeforged Overlord], so she also quickly brought out bookie and summoned random skeletons to have some mana to absorb back after she hit zero. Landing at the border of the charred zone, watching the rot quickly devouring itself a few tens of meters away, Sofia opened the bone pyramid, a hint of worry in her heart.
“Is everyone fine?!”
The girls inside were shaken but unscathed. Finally Sofia could sigh of relief. For now, they were out of danger. Still, she monitored the mana around her like a hawk looking for the tiniest sign of spatial magic as she helped the girls out of her bone construct.
“We should be safe now, I think, the attacker left,” Sofia told the students who just stepped out of the bone pyramid.
“I- I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” Lola stuttered, pointing at the sky.
“He’s an ally, everything is alright,” Sofia reassured her.
Sofia had felt the sudden disturbance happening behind her, but she knew by instinct that it wasn’t the masked elf returning, the person who just appeared had many times more mana. She turned around to see Leverle in his white robes stepping out of a black and jagged cross-shaped tear through the sky. Slowly, he walked down, platforms of solid mana forming under his feet.
“That’s the doctor!” Topaz exclaimed, “Why is he here?”
“You know Leverle?” Sofia asked reflexively before it dawned on her that they must have seen him for Opal’s handicap. He couldn’t fix it?
“Truly your master’s apprentice. Have you lost anyone?” Leverle asked as he landed in front of the group without a sound.
Does he mean the students?
“No, everyone is unharmed, luckily.”
“Good.” He turned toward Opal, “Has your condition deteriorated?”
The girl shook her head.
“Very good. Keep leveling at a steady pace, your genome will soon fix itself. Now, care to explain all this?” he said, extending one of his weird black arms out of his robe, pointing at the wasteland of rot. “I lost track of the doll, which was surprising. Did you perhaps just meet your namesake?”
Aphenoreth?
“No, nothing like that. We got attacked. One masked person with pointy ears, probably some kind of space mage. They trapped us inside of a weird spatial skill and were preparing a siege spell with a giant ritual circle. I broke out of the trap and destroyed the thing with rot, it was the size of the entire barren zone. They teleported away then before I could [Identify] them.”
Leverle’s mask-like head rotated to the side like a clock’s hands as Sofia spoke, then it snapped back to its original position. “I understand now why the guardian paid so much. Someone powerful is after you. They knew about the doll. Did you tell anyone about it?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Then they had the means to spy on our conversation in the cathedral. No small feat, no lesser than cutting me off from the doll completely. They fled, you say? Give me a moment.” Leverle turned around, scanning the rot-covered wasteland, and teleported right where the attacker had been standing when Sofia saw them; a second later, he was back. “They covered their tracks. Unsurprising. There is not much we can do to find them. Have you memorized the siege ritual?”
“About two thirds of it.” The collapsing barrier behind me blocked my view. Still, the reading speed really helped, I can copy most of what I saw without too much trouble I think. “It might take a while if you want me to draw it, the thing was really huge.”
“Then please do so right away. It might hold important information. But first,” Leverle turned around, and another tear in space appeared in front of him, “follow me to the Cathedral.”
Sofia urged all the girls to follow Leverle and entered the fissure last as it started shrinking.
“You are safe here, students. Rest,” Leverle ordered, Sofia’s eyes needed a second to adapt to the sudden change of luminosity. Judging from the orange of the sky showing from the glass dome roof above, it was either dawn or dusk, but the cathedral’s interior was brightly lit. They had teleported right into a small but very tall hexagonal room with large stained glass artworks adorning half the walls, and towering bookshelves covering the other half. There were a few sofas and seats around clean low tables. Leverle waved a hand and the tables were suddenly covered with countless drinks and pastries. “I will have a word with your teacher.”
Leaving the flabbergasted students behind, Leverle left through a side door.
“What he said, rest here, we’ll return to the academy soon.”
“W- wait,” Shaily stopped Sofia right before she followed behind Leverle, “I don’t really get it but, are you in trouble because of us?”
“No, you got in trouble because of me. Sorry about that. Maybe I wasn’t meant to be a teacher at all…”
Sofia sighed and left, closing the door behind her. The room right next to that one was a small office, with the orange light filtering from the light white curtains, it reminded Sofia of her first meeting with Astelia at the Vasperian embassy.
“You may sit, Daughter of Sorrow. Please produce a sketch of the ritual circle as best you can. Do you have any idea about the attacker’s motive?”
“First… Are we absolutely certain that I was the target? Could the doll being cut off be an unlucky coincidence from being trapped within a spatial barrier?” Sofia asked, already bringing out a large bone plate to draw the siege ritual on.
“Highly improbable. You were undoubtedly the target, your students would have been nothing but collateral damages.”
“I see… Then I have two ideas, maybe three.”
“Did you already offend so many?”
“It wasn’t… Anyway, my first guess is the Empress. I believe she has been investigating me due to the name on my ID.”
“Delivia? She would undoubtedly send a few probes your way, you have likely interacted with several already. As much as I would like to say she is not behind this incident, she could definitely go there. That is, if she believes you a threat to the empire.”
“Well, maybe we should hope it is her, because the two remaining options are both Gods.”
“Gods?”
“The attacker looked like an elf, and I may or may not possess five of Sun’s essence. I think it almost impossible that Sun Herself would want my death, She lends one of my heroes Her blessing to this day, but perhaps an overzealous follower might think I do not deserve the essence and want it back to their Goddess.”
Sofia’s words left Leverle speechless for a bit.
“There are some decrepit elves around, perhaps one has succumbed to insanity. It is a frail possibility, but a possibility nonetheless,” Leverle carefully assessed.
“The last and more probable possibility is Scripture, the ‘God’ who gifted my sainthood. He wants me dead, that is for certain, but what bothers me is that if he had the means to pull this off when I was protected by your doll, he could have killed me a thousand times over by now.”
At Leverle’s demand for more details, Sofia explained her tumultuous relationship with Scripture and his Church.
“Quite the situation. Another God roams the land. Defeating His incarnation seems foolish, but you bear His essence. Perhaps it may be possible, if you reach my level.”
“Not level 500?”
“You fail to grasp the power differential at play. Those who reach these heights can easily contend with most of the strongest Gods and Recessed, only a select few can claim to stand above them, such as Sun or Death. But it is only a matter of numbers. Should all the level 500 band together to cleanse the Deities one by one, none would survive. They would be born anew, clean slates, assuming anyone is left to produce the essence. Scripture may prove challenging to someone at my level, but not impossible, if I trust what you say.”
“What about ‘my namesake’?”
“I do not know, and I do not wish to know.”
“Too bad. Well, I’m about done with the ritual circle. This should be mostly accurate to what I managed to see.”
Leverle grabbed the bone slate and looked it over for a good minute before setting it down on his desk.
“Unlucky. This is of no help. It could exonerate doubt from Scripture, but it might not. This is mostly mana gathering and consolidating arrays. It was in large parts meant to gather mana, to fuel whatever the center part was, but most of the center is incomplete. There is one certitude only, this sharp corner is part of a Divine rune,” he said, pointing at two lines joining at an angle near the very center of the circle.
“Because it cuts through all the smaller arrays like a wall? This angle… It does look like the lower point of Sun’s rune…”
Leverle shook his head, “That is the issue, unfortunately. Most Divine runes are very alike, either triangular or spiraled. Delivia is a follower of Talent, I cannot show you, but Talent’s rune fits as well.”
Knowledge was kind of a spiral I guess… I can see it. “Then Scripture?”
“I have never seen Scripture’s rune. It may also fit or it may not. I fear the ritual is of no help, Daughter of Sorrow. Perhaps Sorrow Herself may bless you with divine knowledge about the matter.”
“No, the ritual does help, it confirms that a God was trying to kill me, even if it’s uncertain which. I think this rules out Sun completely. So it was either the Empress and Talent, Scripture, or I have somehow walked on someone else’s shoes without even realizing.”
Leverle turned and opened the curtains, he gazed at the sun rising over the city.
“Five stones for your protection might have been too cheap after all.”
Leverle brought everyone back to the academy’s entrance.
Caleb raised his eyes from his lectern. “Oh, if it isn’t the Doc and teacher Sonia again!” His brows furrowed after his jovial greeting, “The entire group is here… Did something go wrong with the event?”
“We had some outside interference… Is Beryl available?”
Caleb shook his head, “I’m afraid not, miss Sonia, likewise, the Headmaster is away. Sir Tartaros is present, though.”
“Should we report to him?”
“Your issue happened during the event so I don’t see why not, going in this time, Doc?”
“I will,” Leverle confirmed.
Calbed nodded and pressed a few buttons hidden under the book on his lectern, a teleportation gate appeared in front of the academy gate. “Ay ay, step right in, everyone, students will be sent to their dorms while Doc and Sonia are inbound to Sir Tartaros’ lodgings.”
So this is how new students usually get in?
“Thank you, Caneb.”
“It is my pleasure.”
Sofia turned to the students before leading them through the portal, “I will come check in on you and explain things when I have it all sorted out, the academy is safe so you can rest easy.”
“We’ll be just fine,” En answered, a carefree smile on her face.
“T- Thank you, for getting us out of there,” Lola added, and the others approved.
Sofia entered the portal after the students, she stood next to Leverle in what seemed to be an underground chamber with large pillars all around the circular room. Saint Tartaros was sitting cross-legged on the ground at the very center of the barren room, his eyes closed. The clothes he wore were different than usual, his current attire was one very familiar to Sofia, a simple white uniform with a red belt.
Does this guy…?
Sofia thought about grabbing her black belt from her storage but she felt that now wasn’t the time.
Tartaros spoke, his eyes still closed, “Will you finally fight me, Death Guard?”
“I am afraid not,” Leverle answered monotonously.
“A pity. Then will the girl fight me?”
I would die before I could blink. Go fight Erredis or something. “If you wait for me to catch up to you, I will.”
“I shall wait, then.”
How polite of you…
Sofia was about to talk back and explain the reason they came to see him, but Tartaros spoke again first.
“Don’t waste your saliva, I already know. We will arrange for such things not to happen again in the context of the competition, but you are expected to deal with your personal issues through your own strength.”
He knows? It would have been nice to help, if not for me at least for the students…
“I see, thank you very much. Is there anything you can tell me about the attacker?”
“They were beneath my interest.”
Alright then…
“Can we do something to compensate the students? They lost the opportunity to earn tokens…”
“They will not be penalized for the Academy’s error. Strength will assess them and distribute the regular rewards accordingly.”
“Thank you very much, Saint Tartaros.”
Sofia glanced at Leverle, lost as to where to take the conversation from there. The doctor took a few steps toward the saint. “Are you not worried? This will interfere with the goal of the competition.”
The goal of the competition? That really does not sound like ‘Awarding a priceless sword to the best student to celebrate the academy’s success’. There is something more to it, then. It was weird that the prize was so good in the first place.
Tartaros finally opened his eyes, “No. This much is well within our expectations. The fish is observing, undoubtedly. These interruptions are no issue, quite the contrary, danger will only create more pressure to bite.”
Fish, bite… They’re luring something? Someone? Then the sword is bait? That is some high-quality bait…
Leverle’s head rotated on its axis slowly as he spoke, “You play with fire. I was tasked to protect Sorrow’s Daughter. If your plan compromises her safety, I will have to step in.”
“I would like nothing more, Death Guard,” Tartaros answered with a smirk, “The more chaos the better.”
That does not sound good…
“Lunatic monster. You better not be lying. Was the attack part of your plan?”
“We knew of the possibility, but it was not our doing. The teachers may be set pieces, but they are no sacrificial pawn. Neither are the students. Luckily teacher Vakaria was not so weak that I needed to intervene, that would have indeed been an issue, the link cannot die, after all, or the fish might be too scared to swim up.”
Wait, alright… ‘We’ is Tartaros’ faction, which has to be at least himself, Beligenus, and the Emperor, if they organized the competition as bait for something. They knew I might be attacked but it was not them. Then does that not mean it cannot be the Empress?
The attack was probably from Scripture, then. And if they knew about it, it means they know more about my past than they let on.
I don’t know why he would wait until now to attack but there might be a reason. Probably the same reason he never attacked me directly after the orphanage…
I just need to find Scripture’s rune to confirm it would fit.
And ‘The link’ must be one of my students, probably not the twins, I guess, if it is one link. They somehow give confidence to ‘the fish’ so that they might show up?
I’m starting to think I also don’t get paid enough for my position…
“I will take your word for it,” Leverle answered in his unchanging monotonous tone after a moment of silence, “tell Delivia to leave her and her relatives alone, then. Do not make my task harder for nothing, I have enough to deal with.”
This pretty much confirms without a doubt that the woman behind Tartaros during the duel was the Empress… Both she and the ProudWalls worship Talent. She used them to probe me.
“The Empress’ actions are unrelated to the plan. Take that up to her by yourself, Death Guard.”
Yeah, that confirms it in my mind, the elf had to be one of Scripture’s pawns. I really don’t see which other God would try going after me if not Talent for the Empress. Scripture might be growing in power if he can afford such an attack now but couldn’t before. That’s a bit worrying. I need to get stronger faster.
“Unhelpful as always,” Leverle complained, he turned back to Sofia, “I did all I could, Vakaria. I will head back to the cathedral. Shall I bring you to your lodgings within the academy?”
You did plenty! I got so much more information from this than I expected.
To think the entire competition is just a front to bait someone with the sword…
“I can go back by myself, thank you very much for your help, Leverle. I still have a few things I would like to ask Sir Tartaros, if he will.”
“You are free to discuss with the lunatic yourself, in this case. Warn me in advance before you leave the city next time. Good luck, Daughter of Sorrow.” Done with his farewells, Leverle opened the same black fissure he had used before to teleport and stepped in, leaving Sofia alone with the Saint of Strength.
“May I?” Sofia asked the Saint who silently observed her.
“Sit.”
Sure…
Sofia walked to face the Saint directly and sat in the same position as him. Since Tartaros said nothing, she took the initiative to speak first.
“Is the Empress investigating me because of my name?”
“That is so.”
“Alright. Then, if the sword is bait for some unknown person, are you not really going to be giving it to the winner of the competition?”
“We are. Strength does not deceive.”
Good.
“Would that not put the winner at risk?”
“It would. But we will have caught the fish by then. After that, should the wielder be worthy, the sword will defend itself.”
“Can I know more about ‘the fish’? It feels a lot like me and my students are part of the bait, and I really dislike that.”
“The entire Academy is part of the bait. One of your students in particular, but you may not learn more, lest your knowledge risk compromising the plan.”
“Fine. I get it. I am a weak little level 249 in the end, am I not? Thank you for your time. As thanks, let me make you privy to a little secret, since your allies wanted to know so badly,” Sofia said with a large smile. In her hands appeared a tablet made of blue crystal, “It’s a gift from my adoptive father. You already know his name. What do you think? Very cute, isn’t it? Be careful when you tell the Empress, it wouldn’t be good for your plans if you were to suddenly disappear, I assume.”
Tartaros’ expression did not change, but after spending a few seconds absent-mindedly fixating on the midenicite tablet, he closed his eyes.
“I shall see to it that Delivia no longer bothers you,” he started after a long silence, “But no matter what, the plan and your place in it must stay unchanged. You might thank me for it later. I look forward to our eventual duel, Sofia Vakariazrehafin Aphenoreth.”
After Tartaros teleported Sofia out of his room, he reflexively looked behind his back, he knew there was nothing there, he could feel the empty space and the undisturbed mana, but he was inexplicably compelled to look.
There was nothing but the usual rounded wall and columns.
With a deep sigh of relief, he uncrossed his legs and fell back, letting his heavy body slump to the floor.
The Saint of Strength silently stared at the ceiling.
Sofia had been teleported directly inside of her closed room.
“So much for a strong barrier around my room…”
She shivered. I can’t believe I did that. One of these days my big mouth is going to get me killed.
Should I go find the students?
No, best to let them sleep this trip off, I’ll go check in on them tomorrow.
Pareth looked at Sofia and Sofia looked back at him.
“What now?”
Sofia did not expect an answer but she actually got one, Pareth summoned his weapon of light in the form of a small dagger, and mimicked cutting his wrist.
Still not going to talk? Well, this is already better than before.
“Train the venerable physique? It is quite far from completion… Let’s do that then… But before, why not choose a new classless skill? Since I have a free slot? I can still forget [Identify] for the teleportation later as well. Any recommendations?”
Pareth seemed to hesitate, or that’s how Sofia interpreted his stillness, at least. Eventually he raised a hand, and his weapon of light changed into a small round-ish rock.
Rock? I’m surprised that it even qualifies as a weapon for your skill, but you did use that giant pair of scissors once, so… I don’t get what you mean, though.
Pareth came closer, showing the ‘rock’ in his hand to Sofia. Under the mastery of his skill, the rock became smoother and smoother until it was a perfectly round ball.
Oh, I get it now. The pearl thing, uh? I did think about it. I searched about it in the academy library too, but found nothing on that skill. My main issue is still about how large of a pearl we are talking about, and where does it come from?
“Hey, don’t look at me like that, I know you don’t know either, still…”
[Crystalized] : Your body will slowly produce mana pearls (Growth speed linked to mana regeneration), which can be used as ritual fuel or eaten to provide a temporary 100% bonus to thinking speed.
“Ah, whatever. Surely it can’t be too bad.”
You have acquired the classless skill : ‘[Crystalized]’
Sofia felt a surge of heat rise within her chest, looking down, she saw the runes from [Runeforged Overlord] shifting around, making space for a new mana circuit around the top of her sternum. Her skin around this spot took a strange blue hue like the Exidians’ skin, it had clear borders and spread slightly in all directions with root-like tendrils. It contrasted a lot with her skin, but all in all was not too bad, the center part only being about as large as a gold coin and the thin tendrils about the length of half a finger at their longest.
“It kind of looks like a badly poisoned wound… Well, at least it’s not too weird of a spot. The pearl shouldn’t be too large considering the size of the spot, what’s left is to see how long it takes to grow now.”
With that and the bonus from March of the Envoy, I’ll be thinking three times the speed, pretty nice. Could be four times if these are multiplicative but somehow I doubt that.
Sofia scrolled through her system logs and status.
I should add a new skill category.
Name : Sofia Aphenoreth
Age : 21
Class : [Saintomancer]
Level : 249
Health : 80 980 / 80 980 (20k + (20/level - 4k) + 60k)
Stamina : 8552 / 21 047 (20 067 + (20/level - 4k))
Mana : 416 047 / 417 100 (319 100 + (2k/level- 400k))
Main Specialization : [Eclipse Skeleton]
Alteration chance : 100%
Secondary Specialization : [Heat Death]
Active Skills (8 / 8)
[Spine of the Black Sun] - Level 209
[Summon Blood] - Level 207
[Maiden Banshee] - Level 249 (Lv.249)
[Graveyard of the righteous] - Level 211
[False immortality] - Level 3
[Skull Choir] - Level 213
[Reign over shadows]
[Saintess’ madness] - Level 1
Passive Skills (7 / 8)
[Blessing of the Deep] - (2/4)
[Vakariazrehafin of Sorrow]
[Exalted Exoskeleton]
[Venerable physique of the primeval void] - Second step Light forging realm
[Bone dominus] - Level 2
[Erredian Rot]
[Runeforged Overlord] - Level 249
Classless Skills (7 / 7)
[Dreams Of a Demon which Gods Envy - March of the Envoy]
[Identify] - Level 2
[Mana manipulation]
[Radiance] - Level 71
[Quintessential]
[One with Suffering]
[Crystalized]
Special Skills (1)
[The Book of Skeletons]
Wildcast Skills (4)
[Angel’s Bolt Exploding ver.]
[Angel’s Bolt Piercing ver.]
[Heal Undead / Holy light]
[Summon Elemental Sprite]
Summoned heroes (4 / 4)
Lv.249 Pareth (Holy Boneplate Mauleur Eclipse Skeleton) Lv.249 Alith (Alith) Lv.249 Book of Skeletons (Book) Lv.249 Ihuarah (Heartless Shade)[Mark of Aphenoreth]
A few skills have leveled up, nothing noteworthy. What I’m really waiting for is the third level of [Bone dominus]. It leveled up during the fight against Victory and I have been using it non-stop, it should go up soon. [False immortality] too.
Let’s progress with VPPV, still only at 112 drops but I should be able to make it much faster now that I mostly get how it works. Let’s go until tomorrow morning.
[Venerable physique of the primeval void] - Second step of the Light forging realm :
Your blood becomes light (1100 / 126 441 drops converted)
It took a while, but I have a consistent one drop every fifty seconds now. Still not good enough, but at least I could get through it, I just need a hundred days…
She looked up at Pareth, who had been dutifully guarding her all this time.
“Aren’t you bored?”
No answer, uh.
“Say, Mr. Scribe, does Pareth have his own Scribe? If not, shouldn’t he? Why does he not have a complete status sheet like everyone else?”
Again, nobody answered her.
“Well damn. I’ll make one myself then. The book said, to open a new empty document… Think about the word File, then New, then Data Array…”
Holy shit it works! Who is the absolute madman who ever found that out?
Let me write up a nice Status sheet for you Pareth!
Name : Pareth
Age : 3(?)
Class : [Holy Eclipse Skeleton]
Level : 249
Health : 995 100 / 995 100 (2 905 692 With sanctified grounds and halo)
Stamina : 403 399 / 403 399 (1 177 925 With sanctified grounds and halo)
Mana : 49 800 / 49 800 (200*level)
Active Skills (6)
[Sanctified grounds]
[Flying shields of light]
[Chains of the four seals]
[Gravity well]
[Purification]
[Greater Heal]
Passive Skills (6)
[Stellar corona]
[Shapeless weapon of light]
[Shapeless armor of light]
[Higher magical damage negation]
[Space magic resilience]
[Displacement skills immunity]
Special skills (5)
[Bone Density Up +200%]
[Silent Bones +200%]
[Teleport to Sofia]
[Negate hits of less than 10% Max Health]
[Quadruple Damage Against Undead]
Summoner skills (5)
[Blessing of the Deep]
[Soul link]
[Shared senses]
[Bone Dominus : Blessed Construct]
[Runeforged Overlord Aura]
Enchantments (3)
[Generosity of Sun]
[Avian magic : Fighting sense]
[Avian magic : Air steps]
[Blessing of bloating]
[Mark of Aphenoreth]
[Best Skeleton ]
“There you go! I think I didn’t forget anything. It turns out you have almost as much stuff going on as I do when it’s laid out like this. What do you think?”
If Pareth thought anything, he did not show it, but Sofia was happy either way.
Now imagine how messy a level 500’s status page must be.
Done being sidetracked by her system interface, Sofia left her room. The teachers’ tower was empty. The corridors were the same, devoid of life, for the most part, with only the cleaning personnel lazily mopping around. Walking past the library, she stopped and turned back. There was only one clerk in the library instead of the usual six, a relatively old-looking level 199 Exidian man with round glasses.
“Hi! Can you help me find a book about Divine runes? Is there something like that?”
“Oh, I recognize you, new teacher, right? We have literature about divine runes, yes, but if you’re looking for the makeup of a rune in particular, then we don’t have it.”
“Is there any reason why?”
“Drawing a divine rune is like calling out to the God themself, one should not use them carelessly,” the old librarian explained, “We usually do not record them so as to avoid upsetting Them. I do know a few I could share, though, as some Gods do not mind, Sun, for example, is very well-known, since the elves like to wear the rune as jewelry.”
“I am looking for Scripture’s rune specifically, is that something you know of?”
The librarian stroked his beard. “I have heard of that God, a few decades ago, but… No, I have never come across His rune. Your best bet is probably to ask one of His high-priests, the Saint or the Oracle if you can find one.”
“I am the Saint.”
“Oh. And He has never communicated His rune to you? That is quite a bad sign…”
“Scripture has been trying to get rid of me, actually.”
“No wonder, then, luckily for you, there are protections for Saints provided by the system, so ditching a Saint shouldn’t be that easy especially for a God long past their prime like Scripture. For the rune though, I cannot help you. But if what you said is true, that might be for the better. Just being near Scripture’s rune would open a channel between Him and you, although a weak one, but who knows what terrible things that might bring. You are better off never seeing it.”
“What if I only see it in the Spiritual plane? That’s further from the Gods’ plane, right? So it should be safer.”
“Hmmmmm… It might be safer, yes, though I still would not risk it if I were you. Perhaps if you could reach the plane of the Recessed… But that is a place hardly ever entered by mortals.”
Sofia left the library soon after. She summoned Zangdar’s ring and the Book of Skeletons and held them next to one another.
“A high-priest, right? I’m going to need a trustworthy source of mana. Probably not going to happen anytime soon...”
Walking through the empty student dormitories, Sofia managed to learn from a janitor that her students had left with Tartaros a few hours prior.
I don’t want to bother Leverle again so soon… And I really don’t want to keep training VPPV right now…
Sofia left the Academy. Caleb was busy reading the same book in front of the gate.
“Hey Caneb!”
“Miss Sonia, leaving so soon?”
“I was thinking I could relax a little. Would you happen to know about the best restaurants and shops in the city? You have been here a while after all.”
“Oh of course. What’s your budget?”
“I have more gold than I know what to do with.”
Azurian’s antiquities. That’s the place.
In a street lined with shops of all kinds, this one looked like any other next to it. But Caleb had been adamant that Sofia would find her happiness there.
Doesn’t look like anything special. Maybe he was having a laugh at my expense. Let’s not judge the book by its cover though. Sofia opened the lacquered wooden door of the small shop.
[Hero - Lv. 358]
Shocked by the unexpected spectacle, Sofia lost herself looking at the shirtless human hero’s rippling muscles as he struggled to finish one push-up with a dainty small horned lady sitting on his back.
[Mage - Lv.400+]
Sofia took a step back outside of the shop and closed the door. That… Is definitely not what I expected to find in an antiquities shop. She wondered what she should do, thinking that maybe it was better to come back at a later time, but the door opened from inside.
It was the small lady who greeted Sofia, “Hi, sorry about that, welcome to Azurian’s, he’s the guy I was helping exercise. Are you looking for anything in particular? Not every day we find more humans around here.”
The human hero was nowhere to be seen in the shop.
“Hey… I’m- No, I don’t know what I want exactly, I just wanted to look around… And you don’t look exactly human.”
“Oh, yeah, because I’m not, I’m a one of ‘em big flying lizards, you know, the kind you scale to make armor out of,” the girl winked, “Everyone in my family ends up looking like humans though. Come in, do look around, we have plenty of ol’ crap for sale or barter.”
I figured.
Sofia followed after the girl, she quickly glanced around the shop. “You wouldn’t happen to be Phillip’s daughter by chance?”
The girl turned back, her arms crossed, she looked up at Sofia, “That’s my old man, yeah. What are you, a Dragon hunter? My scales ain’t for sale, they ain’t even hard yet, just so you know.”
“No, no, I’m just here on a recommendation from Caleb Whitehound of Brighthall, I’m also a teacher there… I just happened to meet Phillip before, he helped me with something in exchange for new lingering magic to study. I never expected to find his daughter here.”
“Really? It ain’t no secret that I’m here often tho, since I’m going out with that guy. Well, I’ll take your word for it, not like you could have stolen that scale on your arm by yourself, you must be worth a pretty something if someone trusted you with that.”
“It got it in a fair trade between me and Erredis,” Sofia casually explained.
“The motherfuckin Moon Lord? You joking?”
Sofia extended her hand, summoned a small loaf of bread from her storage, and quickly showered it with holy light in front of the Dragon’s eyes. The bread was covered with rot and quickly consumed.
“Well, fuck, I wanna be able to do that too. You got some fine credentials uh, I wasn’t sure considering your level but I guess we might be able to do some good trading here.”
The human hero showed up again, fully clothed this time, coming down from the stairs in the back of the small shop, “Someone you know, Lina?”
The girl turned back, “Nah, but she knows my father as well as the fucken moon lord, can you believe this shit?”
The man blinked several times, he came down and extended a hand to Sofia. The handshake was a bit awkward because of the black powder left from the rot-consumed bread, but it didn't seem to bother him. “Hi. Sorry about Lina’s foul mouth, I have been trying to fix it but well… Anyway, I’m Azurian, welcome to my shop, I sell the random stuff I find in dungeons here.”
“That’s an interesting way to make money, I guess. Some of the items here do look interesting,” Sofia said, looking at a shelf covered in old books and bones.
“This? Lina found that recently, actually, a bunch of stuff tucked away in an old castle, a lich who broke their phylactery, we think. There’s some interesting stuff in the grimoires, we brought the bones there just for show since there wasn't much loot, there’s a locked chest, too, with a few baubles inside, not too sure what. I can sell you the whole thing for 5k.”
“You didn’t open the chest?” Sofia looked at the man suspiciously.
“No, it’s heavily-heavily cursed and we don’t want to bother, honestly.”
Couldn’t a Dragon easily handle that? Sofia thought then told them.
Lina sighed, “I’m a bit bad when it comes to precise stuff like that, I’d probably break what’s inside before I successfully absorb the curses’ mana…”
Azurian placed a hand on Lina’s shoulder and brought her closer to him, “It’s alright, you’ll get there,” he told her, then he addressed Sofia again, “Lina is still getting used to her human form, Dragons live at a different scale, normally.”
I guess so, Erredis was huge…
“I’ll probably buy the chest and the things, then, if you let me have a look first,” Sofia started, “And I’m curious now, how old are you, can I ask that? I thought you would both be quite old at first considering your level but I’m not so sure anymore…”
“Ah, I can get that, it’s fine to ask, I’m, uuh, forty-one years old? If you count both lives. I was summoned here pretty young. Lina just turned twenty-six. Right, you’re a Saintess, summoned anyone from my world? I’m always curious to meet other isekai’d heroes.”
“Isekaied?” Sofia asked, a confused look on her face. Is that a Draconic word or something?
“Oh, right, sorry, just forget about it,” Azurian backed out, uncomfortably putting a hand behind his neck, “I’ll get censored left and right if I try to say too much, not worth the hassle. I’m surprised this even got through the scribes.”
“I see… Well, I did summon someone from the human heroes’ world, yes, but I can already guess she was not from the same time as you.”
“That’s quite alright, I’d love to meet them if I have the occasion. You want the loot from the dead lich, then? You can have a look but don’t break anything, the policy for books is you can only [Identify] them, no reading before buying.”
“Alright, thanks. I’ll tell her about this place, she’ll come if she wants.”
Sofia walked up to the shelf and started identifying everything, almost salivating.
Did Caleb know they had this stuff?!
[Book of the four-HeadDead] : A necromancy grimoire by the hands of Master Lich Tetrapopulos about his research on the grafting of additional heads to zombies.
If this is applicable to skeletons… Also, no item level or grades today?
[On becoming a healthy lich] : Diary of Master Lich Tetrapopulos detailing the process of turning oneself into an undead skeleton without the intermediary step of becoming dead.
I’m not really interested in becoming a skeleton myself but that should be an interesting read nonetheless.
[Curses, the most misunderstood school of magic] : An essay from an unknown author about the nature of curses.
That actually looks interesting.
[Commander’s guide to military formations] : A book that somehow survived through the ages, it recounts the exploits of a human commander guiding his outnumbered troops to victory through clever use of terrain and positioning.
I have been mostly letting the paladin skeletons do whatever they wanted but that is knowledge I could use. Not five thousand gold worth of knowledge though.
[Nameless book] : This book contains 28 unlabelled rituals schematics without any explanation. Try at your own risk.
That’s… Kind of exciting, honestly. I’m sure Zerei would love to have a look at this one too.
That’s it for the books, there’s also two wands, a dilapidated robe, the chest and most importantly, the skeleton!
[Bones of a twice-dead lich] : The remains of Master Lich Tetrapopulos, the old skeleton is mostly intact despite a few of the smaller bones missing.
Must have originally been a dwarf or something like that, that’s a small skeleton.
I’m definitely buying this! Are you hungry, Bookie? We’ve found a skeleton-summoning skeleton to add to your pages!!!
Sofia brought back a lot of random stuff from Azurian’s shop, it barely made a dent in her gold reserves, so much that she was starting to wonder whether Sun might actually be annoyed at her for taking it. Not that it would have survived anyway, but still, before the deep whale destroyed everything, she had technically stolen it.
She stopped in front of the academy.
“Back already? You’ve only been gone a few hours, teacher Sonia, were my recommendations not to your liking?” the dog man asked with a bright smug smile.
“No, it was good, a bit too good, even. You have some flair, Senior Caneb, I must admit it.”
“Glad to hear it from you, well, get in,” he invited her, showing her the gate.
“Wait, before that. Would you happen to know of a good place to test destructive spells? Is there a room like that within the academy?”
“Not quite within, no, but deep beneath, surely. That is outside of the barrier, but you can go all out there. Make your way to the arena, but instead of entering it, keep going forward, then take every stairs down that you see until you reach the cube. Very easy!”
“The cube?”
“You’ll understand,” he confirmed, nodding to himself.
“Alright, thanks. Have a nice day.”
Sofia phased through the gate and followed Caleb’s instructions. Since the Academy’s corridors were mostly empty, she rushed through at dangerous speeds and made her way down to the deepest part of the academy’s underground. A weird lift took her straight through the barrier and down several kilometers into the ground. The lift took quite some time to descend and the air gradually got hotter and hotter as she went deeper.
Finally it stopped! Is it over?
The doors opened, revealing a small glass cabin overlooking a giant ‘cube’. To be exact, a cube-shaped cavern, glowing with flowing magma on the sides. A short old-looking Exidian man with a cane approached Sofia from the side, he was under level 100.
“Come to try out a boomin spell or two? I’ve seen yer mug in the teacher book, go right ahead,” he said after observing her face for a second, pointing at the door leading to nothing on the side of the cabin.
“Is it safe? What if one of my spells reaches this cabin? It’s pretty high but not out of reach.”
“Dun worry, tis all quite safe ya? Headmaster himself comes here to try new magic, walls carved through a natural mana leyline and reinforced so much, tell ye what, I’ll eat mah cane if you can scratch ‘em.”
That’s not exactly what I asked but sure then…
Sofia headed through the door.
The reason she had sought out this place was quite simple: she needed to use the ring of Zar’s [Collapse] to absorb the curses of the necromancer’s chest after activating them, but it was currently still full of mana. To activate it again, she was going to train the piercing Angel’s bolt some more, which would drain the ring’s remaining mana to give the bolts more power.
The magma flowing down the walls gathers in this vortex at the center… Is the city built on a volcano? It looked quite flat. Maybe it’s that thing with a mana leyline? I’m not sure I’ve ever heard of those before… More reading ahead, it seems. But first!
Sofia landed on a spot far away from the several magma rivers coursing through the ground, and she dumped out all of the bones she had just bought, then summoned the book of skeletons. Have a nice meal.
The bones were devoured by the book, and a new page took shape showcasing the drawing of a short skeleton holding a book and an ornate cup overflowing with a misty black liquid. Hiding the mana cost with her hand, Sofia had a good look at the drawing.
Now that I can see the full skeleton, that’s a bit thin for a male dwarf. She slowly slid her hand to reveal the mana cost. There wasn’t one.
No cost? What do you mean no cost?
Is something wrong, Bookie?
The page freed itself from the book and split into two down the middle.
What’s going on now?
Before Sofia were two new pages, one with the small necromancer and only the goblet; this one had a cost of 100,000, while the other still had no mana cost, and on it, the necromancer held a book strangely similar to Bookie.
Oh, I think I understand where this is going.
So you want me to choose? Is the left one the original and the right one… The skeleton holding you?
I feel like I'm not being given enough information right now. This is a bit like picking a blessing, isn't it? So it can be either a regular summon or yourself? That's a bit of an unexpectedly tough choice. I cannot get both, can I?
Sofia sighed and picked the page with the book.
You happy now?
The book shuddered, and the page Sofia chose reattached itself while the other one disappeared in a puff of smoke.
I guess this means yes. What now?
Floating in front of Sofia, the book presented its new page, which she ripped off. The mist started flowing, and in front of her formed the small skeleton of the necromancer. It instantly felt more lively than the usual mist skeletons. It looked around, then at Sofia, and held out a hand as if waiting to receive something.
[Solar Book of Skeletons - Lv. 249]
Health : 24900/24900
Mist : 99%
Lifetime : 14932s/14940s
Well, that has the merit of being quite clear. I guess Bookie was always a necromancer. You want the actual book, right? There you go.
The small skeleton grabbed the book and walked up to Sofia with a skip in its steps. Somehow, she could tell it was proud.
I'm not exactly sure what the benefits of this are, but hey, if you're happy, I'm happy for you. One good thing, I guess, is I can now see exactly how much mist is left, although I could already kind of guess. But it's nice to be able to put a number on it.
The skeleton turned its head, looked at Sofia, and handed the book back to her, insisting for her to take it.
You changed your mind quickly.
The skeleton shook its head, and the book opened by itself. Sofia understood the new changes; maybe there were more, but at the very least, one thing was obvious—the mana cost of the skeletons had changed. The book had opened at the page of the High-Priest, and instead of the usual 50000, the indicated cost was only 45000. Sofia checked every page, and they all showed the same 10% discount.
“Hey, this isn't bad. It's not what I expected, but I'll take it.”
Looking at the small skeleton, she asked, “Does it also reduce the mist cost?”
And the skeleton nodded in response.
“Nice, too bad I'm still a few tens of thousand mana points short of what's needed to summon the ingot monster. Do you have any more surprises for me?”
The small skeletal nodded again, gesturing for Sofia to flip the book so that she held it upside down.
“And then?”
Not sure what to do, she opened the book again and noticed there were fewer pages than usual. The first one was Crowie's page, showing the picture of the small skeleton with a crow on its shoulder. Turning to the next page, there was the picture of the small skeleton with a helmet and holding a bow.
“That should be the page of the bow soldier. I think I understand now.”
The next page in the book should have been the one with 50 crows, but instead, what showed up was a picture of the small skeleton with a broom.
“So it's only the pages with a single skeleton on it?”
Sofia flipped to the last two pages, which were normally the ones with the ingot monster and the quartz giant. On one, the small skeleton became huge and encased in a larger, thicker skeleton, while on the other, the depiction had become much smaller, with twig-like wings, and looking ferocious. With a chuckle, Sofia gave the book back to the skeleton, which he grabbed, then let go. It moved by itself and hovered behind his skull.
If the book is Bookie, and the skeleton is Bookie, I’m going to start having naming issues.
“Can you summon stuff by yourself?”
Once again, the skeleton nodded.
“All right, summon the elven caretaker then. I want to see you with a broom.”
Without the skeleton doing anything, the page ripped itself from the book and turned into mist, which very quickly collapsed on itself and became a broom in the skeleton’s hands.
[Solar Book of Caretaker Skeletons - Lv. 249]
Health : 12450/12450
Mist : 98%
Lifetime : 14725s/14940s
That's cute. Wait, you actually lose health? Is that because of this fusion in particular? Does that happen every time? Well, only one way to find out. “Summon the bow soldier now,”she told the broom-brandishing skeleton.
Once again, a page ripped by itself, and an instant later, Bookie’s new form was now fitted with a small spiked helmet as well as two more arms above his original set, holding the broom, a bow, and with a quiver filled with bone arrows attached to his waist.
[Solar Book of Caretaking Soldier Skeletons - Lv. 249]
Health : 24900/24900
Mist : 97%
Lifetime : 14711s/14940s
“Oh! The health is back to normal. Can we add more?” she asked.
Not only did Bookie acquiesce once again, but the book flew to Sofia once again, opening at the page of the sandworm. It showed Bookie’s upper body sprouting out of the sandworm’s back. The sandworm was much smaller than usual, as if scaled down to Bookie’s size.
“Sure, go for it!”
The result was exactly as Sofia expected, she lost 90000 mana for the summoning, and the four-armed ‘Solar Book-Worm of Caretaking Soldier Skeletons’ now slithered happily around Sofia, waving its broom as if fighting imaginary enemies. Its stats had also changed quite a lot.
Health : 249000/249000
Mist : 54%
Lifetime : 14623s/14940s
Oh yeah, this is fun. I think I like that a lot more than a regular old necromancer skeleton.
“You were always a member, but now it feels a bit more real. Welcome to the team, Bookie.”
Bookie brandished his broom high in the air in celebration.
Sofia sat down on the ground, and Pareth did the same. She brought out the rest of the necromancers’ stuff and looked through it.
“What do you guys think? The robe is beyond saving, but I guess I can take it to the clothier; he might find that interesting. The wands are also rotten, so really it's only about the books and the cursed chest.”
Wait, actually, maybe we can do something with that…
Sofia told Bookie to summon the engineer skeleton and had him break down the wands into their components. They broke down into three piles, one of rotten wood, one of gold powder, and one a small stack of cylindrical red gems.
Those were hiding inside?
[Kuvaldr Amber] : Fossilized resin of the Kuvaldr tree. Useful as a catalyst to reduce projectile spread. Once powdered, it is also considered a delicacy by some races.
People will really eat anything huh.
Well that's it for this, I will read the books later. Let's get started with the chest, I just need to empty the ring first.
Sofia quickly threw a small piercing bolt at the cavern wall to test its hardness. She did not even make a dent into it. The mana inside the Ring was also still plentiful. Since she was going to cast a lot of bolts to empty the ring anyway, she decided to train them. In particular, what she aimed for was to find a way to charge the bolts faster. When she had seen the Angel use them, both times his charging process had been much faster than hers, and even with the scepter doubling her channeling speed, 2000 mana per second was starting to become too slow. The higher-level enemies wouldn't stand still for her to charge the bolts forever.
Holding her scepter to absorb the inevitable backlash that would happen whenever she failed a cast, she started tinkering with the piercing bolt’s mana patterns as she cast it, hoping to find ways to charge it faster.
A few hours and a lot of bolts thrown at the walls later, she made a breakthrough much faster than she had anticipated. What she had done was quite simple; she had cast the spell several times with and without the scepter and tried to observe the minute difference between the two to understand how the scepter did what it did. Like this, she understood how the scepter managed to hasten the channeling. It was a surprisingly dirty solution.
So it just copies that starting part and then merges it with my spell later down the line. And that works?
If it's so easy, can I not just do that myself? If I double it on my side, then will the scepter copy the doubled version too? Seems like it would. So I would jump to channeling 4000 mana per second just like that.
Sofia was pretty sure that her theory would work. It was easier said than done, though, and the bolt exploded in her face every time she tried to alter it like that. She tried a lot of different ways, but the spell was never stable. This would be another thing she needed to spend more time on later. But the good thing was the ring did not care that the spells were failures; it boosted them all the same, which gave her a hard time with her healing but eventually emptied it, so she could now try to open the necromancer’s chest.
Just to be safe, I should put on a rune or two.
With everything ready, Sofia created an elevated bone platform in the cubic cavern, just in case the use of the ring near the walls might interfere with the ‘mana leyline’ the old Exidian had talked about. There, she stood as far as she could from the chest, so that it would still be in the ring of Zar’s range, and had one of the graveyard skeletons open it.
Sofia activated the ring as soon as she saw mana erupting from the chest. It was not as much mana this time, and she barely felt it course through her arm and to the ring.
The chest was now opened and with apparently no more tricks to it.
That was easy enough; I didn’t even need the runes. Let's see what this wanted to protect like this.
Red silk cloth enveloped the contents of the chest. Sofia took it out and unfolded it, revealing three small items: a silvery brooch, a thin mithrium ring, and an ornate goblet like the one Sofia had seen on Bookie’s illustration of the necromancer, carved in very dark wood and covered in small shiny red gems; it was very well preserved.
The first thing Sofia grabbed was the ring.
No way, mithrium? This much is probably worth about the same price I bought the whole thing, isn't it? It looks enchanted too!
On the ring were small runes Sofia did not recognize; it looked nothing like the modern rune system popularized by the avians, but mana was already moving around them before she even put it on, so it was obviously of a magical nature.
Go on, Sir Scribe, and give me the advanced [Identify] analysis straight away, just use the mana.
Sofia read the description of the ring and was so surprised her mouth lay agape.
[Ring of the fallen legion]: This mithrium ring was made for a Lich’s lover in hope that they could walk among their legions of undead without worry. Nearby undead are more likely to be neutral toward the wearer of the ring. The wearer of the ring may spend mana to influence nearby undead. The cost and efficacy will depend on the intelligence and strength of the undead as well as the nature of the influence being exerted.
This is just [Lead the Dead]! It’s a [Lead the Dead] ring!
So, just like [Angel’s bolt], [Lead the Dead] was magic that already existed and that the system just copied! And well, [Erredian Rot] is like this too.
Do I have other skills like that? This is an interesting discovery, not too terribly useful considering [Runeforged Overlord] already dissuades undead monsters from attacking me, but I guess it’s worth wearing. Also it’s a few grams of mithrium, so if I ever need some I know where to find it.
Next Sofia grabbed the brooch, it was a wavy pattern made of silver, that Sofia did not think represented anything in particular.
[Bard’s brooch of facial concealment] : This silver brooch absorbs the light reflecting from your face, obscuring your likeness to observers with regular vision. Will overheat if worn for too long, must be placed in an unobstructed area near your head for optimal efficiency.
I can see how that would be useful to a necromancer. I probably won't be using that one much.
Sofia stored the brooch and grabbed the goblet next. It was surprisingly heavy for its size and covered in the same esoteric runes like the mithril ring. In Sofia's hand, it looked like a small cup, which made her giggle as she remembered it looking quite large in the necromancer's hand on Bookie’s page.
Let's hope this one is a bit more useful.
[The Overflowing Chalice]: This Chalice of dubious origin is decorated with 48 blood rubies which are entirely useless to its functions. When fed mana or otherwise placed in a mana-rich environment, this chalice will produce endless amounts of dangerous freezing mist. This does not affect the Undead.
Oh! I’m not undead but I should be immune to this thanks to VPPV. I don’t really think I could use this in a fight but I can see how that would be useful to protect a fortress full of undead. That might be a good thing to bring into dungeons too, like a less destructive rot that also spreads by itself.
Sofia filled the chalice with mana and a thin layer of mist started flowing from it, dripping down to the ground and spreading in all directions until it met the rivers of magma and couldn’t go any further.
The mist feels fresh, I guess. The ground is covered in a thin layer of ice already, I imagine this could fill up an entire room quite fast if there were no magma rivers…
Sofia was decent at calculating the volume of fluids with all the mucking around she had done with [Summon Blood], so she already had a good idea of how fast the chalice produced mist, but she wanted to be sure, since gas wasn’t quite the same. She created a bone cube large of about one meter and held the chalice above it, the cube was filled with dense mist in about ten seconds.
About a hundred liters a second, as I thought. It’s really quite fast. Also eats through a lot of mana, a few thousand points a second. Quite the gluttonous artifact.
Searching for some meat in her storage ring, Sofia threw the first chunk of flesh she found into the cube and watched it become an ice block under her eyes.
Colder than it looks. What happens when I store the Chalice?
The source of the mist now gone, it quickly lost its cold nature and dispersed.
Well, more random things in my storage ring, I guess. Worth more money than I paid by far, but not as exciting as I’d hoped. The best part so far was the upgrade for Bookie.
Unsatisfied, Sofia started throwing bolts at the walls again, thinking she had nothing to do until the end of the week anyway. Later, she stopped and returned to speak with her students who were done being evaluated by Tartaros. She explained very briefly why she had been the cause of their group being attacked by a space mage. All was fine until Shaily brought up something that Sofia had completely forgotten about. She only had two days left until her first public class.
Sofia spent the next two days working on her venerable physique one drop at a time. The competition's first event ended, and the rankings would soon be published, but first, it was time for her first public class. She made her way to the backside of the amphitheater where the class would be held, and Beryl was there, waiting for her, notepad in hand.
“Good, you’re here on time,” she welcomed her.
“Yes, though I'm a bit lost, honestly. I am still unsure about how I should go about this. Will there even be anyone here to listen to me?”
“Oh, I would not worry about that. Your name has been making rounds, especially since your demonstration in the arena.”
“Ah, right. That happened. I wonder what kind of people that will bring… The Headmaster mentioned an entrance fee?”
“Yes, but since this is your first time, there is no entrance fee. This will bring more people. Depending on the popularity, we will decide on how much to charge next time. The number of seats is limited, so the more popular, the more expensive the places will be. You get to keep 80 percent of the fees, and the academy takes the rest. So it's in both of our interests that we make this work well. Do you have any idea what the contents of today will be?”
“Absolutely not. This could go in a hundred different ways. I think I will improvise depending on how many people there are and what they want to see. How long should I stay in there?”
Beryl wrote something on her notepad, then stored it. “It's fine; you are looking good. I have no doubt you will manage to make this interesting. If you can just show some interesting new magic, it would already be enough to make some of the students come back next time, so the bar is quite low. Length is up to you; technically, you have all day, so 14 hours maximum, but most public classes last for around 4 to 6. Just don't make it too short. This time is fine since it is free, but when people pay, they have higher expectations. That being said, if it is interesting enough, like the headmaster’s lectures, even half an hour can do.”
“I see. Thank you, Miss Deathmarch.”
“It's my pleasure, Teacher Vakaria. Now, head inside. Gerard will outfit you with the sound artifact and tell you when to enter. Have a good class,” Beryl told Sofia before leaving.
Making her way through a narrow corridor, Sofia arrived backstage. It turned out she recognized Gerard; he was the librarian who had helped her with her questions on divine runes. He gave a small pin to attach near her neck, designed to amplify her voice. Then he explained that there was another one for the public that he could carry around for her if she needed to. She politely declined his help, saying she had skeletons for that.
“I will be in the public, then. If you have any technical issues, just give me a sign,” the white-bearded old librarian told her. “The public is mostly settled; you can go in whenever you are ready. The path to the scene is right this way,” he added, pointing at a path separated from the room by a heavy curtain before leaving through the back door.
Pareth appeared near Sofia, and she also summoned Bookie’s new form to accompany her.
“Alright, let's go.”
Sofia had purposely been restricting her mana senses to avoid spoiling herself with the surprise of how many people would be there waiting for her. She felt her nerves bundle up as she walked down the corridor to the stage, remembering her speech to the elven army in the trial.
I'm really not good with crowds…
Somehow, she both hoped and feared that the room would be empty at the same time. But the thought was fleeting as she could already hear the chatter coming from the room ahead. Taking the final steps of the corridor, she stepped into the light and discovered the large amphitheater reserved for her class—it was almost full.
Holy crap, am I this popular? This is like 300 people!
The chatter stopped as she entered. With a quick glance, she recognized a few faces—all of her students were there, including the two human princesses. There were also Alith, Saria, Cinthia, and Astelia sitting in a corner with a bunch of snacks. But more surprisingly, Sofia recognized one of the few high-level people as one of Death Church’s priests, and there was also a familiar inconspicuous Exidian lady sitting by herself in the back row.
The Empress?
Doing a double take, Sofia [Identify]ed the lady, seeing that she showed up as a level 82 mage, which felt all kinds of wrong, but she didn't have free time to spend wondering about that. Sending some mana to turn on the voice amplifier artifact, she announced the start of her class.
“Hello, everyone. Thank you for coming to my first public class at Brighthall. I am Sofia Vakaria, teacher of summoner combat strategies, necromancer, and saintess of a mad god, among other things. These two are my main summoned Heroes, Pareth and Bookie; they do a lot of the fighting for me. I'm sure you have a lot of questions already, so I will be starting this class by answering a few questions.“
Sofia gave the voice amplifier artifact for the public to Bookie and sent him to the first person who raised their hand to ask a question. The level 60 student was surprised to see the small skeleton running at him, but he rapidly understood what was going on when he was presented with the artifact.
“Hi, uh, how can you be a Saintess and a Necromancer at the same time? Do you have multiple classes?” the Exidian student asked, uncomfortably speaking near the artifact Bookie held up in front of his face.
Of course, that’s what they start with…
“No,” Sofia answered. “You can only have one class at a time. That being said, my class is the result of trying to have two classes at once. I was chosen as a saint at the same time I became a necromancer, and due to an error in the system, the two classes ended up fusing together, for better or worse, which is the reason my heroes are all undead. The class name is ‘Saintomancer,’ and it’s just as weird as the name suggests.”
Already, shocked murmurs spread through the audience. ‘Wait, you can fuse classes?!’ ‘Do you think we can do that?’ ‘I want a fused class too!’ ‘Saintomancer? That’s so ugly…’
“I hear some of you are getting ideas already; I personally would not recommend trying this. I was lucky that things worked out well in the end, but the start was rough, and my future skills are still very unpredictable. And honestly, I am not sure you could reproduce this without a similar divine intervention. You’re free to try, though; just don’t piss off your scribe. Next question?”
Sofia glanced at ‘the Empress’ again, who was staring intently at her.
I really shouldn’t look in that direction.
Sofia let Bookie choose whoever he wanted for the next question; the skeleton ran through the seat rows and stopped in front of another student.
“Are you in a relationship?”
Bookie hastily pulled back the artifact and slapped the student, leaving a red bony hand mark on his face, provoking a few laughs after a moment of shock.
Sofia raised an eyebrow. Oh, he’s level 199; he’ll be fine. Try not to kill anyone, Bookie, please. “No. Serious questions only, please.”
Bookie walked to the next person with a raised hand. They were a young-looking civilian girl with braids who had been writing down stuff every time anyone spoke up.
“Hi teacher, why did you become a teacher at Brighthall and what do you want to accomplish in the future?”
Does she work for one of those newspaper things like they do in Red Winds?
Sofia took a few seconds to think about her answer. Seeing some people getting bored already, Pareth activated his armor, giving them some light to focus on.
“I came to Brighthall for a vacation. I have been fighting non-stop for two years and needed some time off to work on my skills and strategies. Teaching some promising people on the side to help make their life better is just a nice bonus in my eyes. As for my objectives… I have a God to kill, mainly,” Sofia seriously answered, nodding to herself, “And I won’t be accepting any questions on the subject,” she added as the voices in the public became much louder.
“T- Thank you for your answers…”
Unprompted, Bookie directly walked up to another woman, a level 156 Exidian student this time, who sighed as she was relieved to finally be able to lower her hand; she had been waiting from the first question.
“Hello, Teacher Vakaria, I saw your duel against Marquess ProudWall. Can you tell us how you made all of his spells disappear? Did you teleport them away? I couldn’t understand how it worked at all.”
“This I will not explain in detail, but it's the effect of my second specialization,” Sofia answered, “You should all strive to perform better than expected during the trials; the rewards are well worth it, specializations being the main draw.”
This, again, caused chatter to spread among the public. Some were asking the others what specializations were, while some were shocked that she had two of them, and some again argued that she needed at least that if she wanted to claim something as ridiculous as the ambition to fight a God.
You’ve seen nothing yet. “How about I show it off a few times for those who weren’t there at the duel? Anyone who wants to, come down and throw a few attack spells at me.”
Sofia expected at least a few people to come down, but it seemed Pareth and the sudden appearance of his huge sword of light dissuaded most of them. Sofia’s friends weren’t interested, very busy watching the spectacle while munching on snacks, with even Dopple slowly slurping up a shirt. While the students all looked at each other, each not wanting to be the idiot who goes on stage to see all their spells be effortlessly countered in front of their friends, someone stood up.
The conversations among the students started again, ‘Hey, who’s that?’ ‘Dunno but she’s hot’ ‘Brother have you not seen the teacher?’ ‘I’m not so into beige skin’, they stopped speaking when Bookie approached them with a hand raised.
Meanwhile, oblivious to that conversation, Sofia was having a mental breakdown, cursing internally.
NOT YOU!
Her thoughts screamed as ‘The Empress’ slowly walked down the rows of seats and made her way to the stage.
The woman stepped onto the stage. She was elegant and sophisticated, wearing a sleek, form-fitting deep blue and silver uniform that exuded a sense of authority. Her horns were quite short compared to most other Exidians, and her fine white hair was tied in a high ponytail behind her head. Stopping a few meters away from Sofia, she bowed with an arm across her chest.
“Elizabeth Fraus,” she introduced herself, “I am honored to be of help, Teacher Vakaria.”
What do you want?! Sofia's mind screamed while she answered politely in return, “Thank you for coming down to help, Elizabeth. Since you are a mage, please send a few attack spells my way.”
‘Elizabeth’ nodded and took a few steps back. She raised a hand and warned Sofia, “I will attack now.”
A weird fluid-like ball of light shot from the woman's hand and flew toward Sofia in an unsteady trajectory. On high alert, Sofia activated [Heat Death] when it drew near, and for about 150 mana, the ball of light was dispelled.
That's it? Was I mistaken? Maybe she's really not the empress?
Sofia quickly dismissed the thought. Even if the woman was the empress, right now, in front of three hundred people, she was a level 82 mage, and her cover would be blown if she did anything out of the ordinary.
A second ball of light came, larger and faster than the first. Sofia dispelled it again; it had cost 1500 mana this time. Realistically, this was about all someone at level 82 should be capable of, but the woman kept going uninterrupted, and the next weird ball came, same as before, but this time with nine more following in quick succession.
That is way too much mana for your level! Sofia thought, but it seemed nobody in the public noticed anything. That was quite weird, and as the woman prepared the next attack, Sofia felt Pareth’s consciousness tug at hers and switched to his vision. From his point of view, the woman was still launching tiny attacks like the first one.
Some kind of illusion?
Seeing the magic at work from two different angles, Sofia recognized this kind of visual illusion magic and its kind of mana patterns. It was almost impossible to detect when you were oblivious to its presence, but once you knew and were looking for it, it was plain as day. She had already seen this somewhere else, during the opening ceremony in the Grand Hall when the scenery had temporarily changed to that of an island in the sky.
Of course she was there! So the illusion back then was her work! No wonder she could disguise herself like this and no one could recognize her.
Sofia was trying her best to control her facial expression, not to show any surprise, and continued to dispel all the magic the woman threw at her with a focused expression. The spells ramped up, costing 20, then 30, then 40 000 mana to dispel, and Sofia was starting to panic slightly as her mana disappeared in chunks. She only had about a hundred and fifty thousand left when the attacks stopped, and the empress started counting something on her hands.
From Pareth’s view, the woman was still throwing very weak balls of light in different trajectories or quick succession to demonstrate Sofia’s abilities to the public.
Then a tiny scepter appeared in the woman’s hands. Sofia seriously thought about fleeing, but the attack was instantaneous, so fast that not even Pareth had time to teleport. She activated [Heat Death] purely on instinct, and the concentrated beam of light aiming her way disappeared as fast as it had come.
Mana: 1 / 417 100
Holy fucking shit, she counted my mana to leave me at zero?!
Sofia threw a wary glance at the woman, who smiled back at her. The empress bowed again, “My apologies, Teacher. It seems I have run out of mana, so I have no choice but to stop. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to help; it was very instructive.”
“You're welcome. Thank you. You may return to your seat,” Sofia answered elegantly, trying to suppress the fear in her voice. Her real thoughts were more along the lines of ‘Please get lost already’. As she watched the woman climb the stairs back to her seat, she almost had a heart attack. At the very top of the stairs, the doors to the amphitheater had opened ‘by themselves’. A lot of the higher-leveled students turned around to see what had opened the doors, and the empress herself looked up curiously. But nobody saw anything wrong; the empress kept walking, and the students turned back to look at Sofia, at most whispering a hushed ‘weird’ to themselves.
To Sofia, however, the situation was more than just a bit weird as she observed a globulous iridescent creature looking like a cluster of grapes from hell trying to squeeze itself through the door frame.
Her mind whirring, Sofia only saw three ways to proceed forward. Either she accepted looking like a lunatic and evacuated the room, trying to convince everyone that an invisible monster was lurking here and putting everyone in danger. Or she invented some excuse to end the class early. And lastly, she could also keep going and act like everything was alright.
The creature finally managed to get through the door, and with its five spindly legs, it crawled into the amphitheater, its body unfolding until it was about four meters tall. It looked like a tall upright stick on five legs with a bundle of grapes dangling from the top.
“T- This is the kind of power you can expect from getting a specialization. If you want to have good future growth, both getting one and picking the right one are very important. So no matter what, remember to always give it your all during the trials. N- Now I will take a few more questions, and then I will showcase some neat things you can do with necromancy or summoning classes in general, as long as you use some creativity,” Sofia announced to the public, but her eyes were fixated on the creature, which was now slowly advancing through a row of seats.
It walked right through the students, and they did not notice anything. Suddenly it stopped in front of an empty seat, and its stick-like body bent slightly to rest on the seat’s edge.
IT FUCKING SAT DOWN!!!
Sofia was starting to wonder if she was going crazy or if the Empress was still playing visual tricks on her. Clearly, it was none of that. Not only did she still see the creature through Pareth’s eyes, but she also finally noticed the insistent and worried stares she was receiving from Alith in the corner. This further hammered down the fact that, yes, there was a creature from the Deep currently sitting in the academy's amphitheater, and it was supposedly listening to her lecture.
At least it's not a parasite…
As promised, Sofia answered a few more questions. By the time she was done, she couldn't remember anything she had just said as she was too focused on observing the iridescent being. However, in time, she was able to put it out of her mind and focus on her lecture instead. She demonstrated the many ways one could use bones. The class lasted for three hours in total and ended spectacularly with a duel between Pareth and a group of two level 200 and one level 150 students, which Pareth won in perfect Sofia style: without losing any health.
There was no trace of the iridescent creature anymore. It had left the same way it came, about half an hour before the end of class after sitting perfectly still for exactly two hours. Similarly, ‘Elizabeth Fraus’ had disappeared at some point in the middle without Sofia even noticing.
With her nerves right about to give out, she announced the end of class with a sigh of relief, receiving mild applause. She told the public to come back next time for her lecture on the theme of making the best of the system’s tools and errors.
The librarian was already waiting backstage to retrieve the voice amplifier.
“You did well; it was very entertaining and informative,” he complimented her.
“Thank you… I was very nervous, but I do think I pulled through.”
“Yes, yes, I believe the seats will be tightly packed next time. Students always like teachers who incorporate a lot of practical demonstrations like you did. Your stress was visible, but it is expected for a first-timer. You will learn to mostly manage it after a few more months; everyone does. But it’s hard to really get rid of it.”
Sofia gave the man a polite laugh in return and continued the small talk. The librarian gave her more tips on how to manage her anxiety, blissfully unaware that stage fright was only the tip of the iceberg in terms of what had caused Sofia’s stress that day. He eventually excused himself to give her some space.
After taking a long break by herself in the staff toilets, Sofia trudged back to her room.
Alith was waiting in front of her door.
“Hey! Good work Sof. You look like you haven’t slept for a month,” Alith greeted her.
“Oh, it’s been longer than that.”
Alith followed Sofia inside, immediately her attention turned to the bone statues, “Hey, you're getting better at those,” she complimented. “Who's this one supposed to be, an unfinished product?” she asked while picking up one of them.
“Oh, that's meant to be Ihuarah. See the hole? It's just difficult to capture his appearance, especially from memory.”
“I mean, he is monochromatic, so at least you got that right… The issue is the pose, I think. Ihuarah’s not the kind to stay in a neutral position like this. It's lacking panache if you know what I mean.”
“Well, I, uh… Yeah, you're not wrong. Speaking of which, we still have no news from him. I can see he’s still alive, but that's it.”
“You can always switch places with him, no? That's one way to get news,” Alith suggested.
“What if the timing is inconvenient for him, though?”
“I'm sure he wouldn't mind. But I guess there is no real reason to do it right now. Have you been monitoring his kill feed?”
“No, I have that turned off most of the time, yours too. I just find it distracting.”
Alith nodded, “Yeah, I am the same, though maybe we should stop doing that since it's our only means of long-distance communication.”
“True… Well, let's have a look at what Ihuarah’s been fighting…”
Sofia scrolled through a bunch of notifications. Ihuarah seemed to have been fighting mostly jungle animals for a while, and then it had become a long stretch of killing ‘Ochiarans,’ which both Sofia and Alith had never heard of, with the latest kills in date being against stronger monsters.
‘You have defeated [Damned Ochiaran - lv. 225]’
‘You have defeated [Damned Ochiaran - lv. 245]’
‘You have defeated [Damned Ochiaran - lv. 208]’
‘You have defeated [Turgescent Soul Ochiaran - lv. 259]’
‘You have defeated [Keeper of Limbo - lv. 278]’
Sofia pointed at the last two kills in the list, “These are from four days ago, maybe the boss of whatever dungeon he was exploring? He hasn't been fighting anything since then, it seems.”
“So much fighting, and we can’t even repay our level debt…” Alith complained.
“Debt is whatever honestly. We always stay stuck for a while before the filter anyway, so it's not like it really is slowing us down.”
“Well, yeah, true,” Alith agreed as she sat down on one of Sofia’s bone chairs, “and we’re not getting any more debt for the next filter. By the way, I learned from one of the teachers that we cannot get a specialization point from the third trial.”
“Really? That's kind of a letdown,” Sofia complained as she sat on the opposite chair.
“Yeah, really. As usual, it's hard to get too much information on the trial itself without the censor interfering, but I managed to get some. Wanna hear it, Sof?”
“Of course I want to. Why do you even ask? I don't know about you, but when this school year ends, I'm going straight for the trial.”
“You say that as if I was not going to go with you… Anyway, here is the information I managed to piece together; first of all, this trial happens entirely ‘in the real world,’ so no fake Magic world, and that's a big deal.”
“So the resources we bring with us actually matter, is what you’re getting at?” Sofia asked.
Alith bent forward, an excited gleam in her eyes, “Yes, but not only that, it also means we get to keep whatever we find on the way!”
“Oh, that's a very good point. Then maybe we should invest in better spatial storage items? I have plenty of space in my ring, but not that much considering all the crap that's in there, and your own ring is rather small, no?”
“It's good enough for now, but it's not huge. I can buy a better one, but I was thinking we should just go and ask the guy who makes them directly, don't you think?”
“So we pay a quick visit to old man TLDR before the trial, noted. It's a good idea anyway since I want to see if he can upgrade Pareth more. Anything else?”
Alith nodded again, “Yeah, and this is where it gets really interesting, both for you and for me, and I'm going to need your help with that. Apparently, you can get some hidden benefits by wagering a divine essence; depending on the God, you get different results.”
“Oh! I’ve got plenty of choices, then, even some… Unusual ones.” If the system even accepts them.
“Yeah, unusual like the thing that came to listen to your public class right?”
“Exactly right, but how do you want me to help with this? I don't think I could give you one of the essences I have even if I wanted to. Do you want to get one from Domination somehow? We might manage to take down the mutated apostles with enough planning…”
Alith frowned, “Didn't you have a quest to return those or something, Sof? I’m not trying to sabotage you here.”
“It was more a request than a formal quest but yeah. If not that then how?”
“Well, you see, I’ve heard from Saria that a certain uncle had resurfaced recently. I was thinking…”
Sofia looked at Alith like she was crazy. “I really don’t think this is a good idea…” she started, and before she could close her mouth, more words came out by themselves. “I, on the other hand, believe this to be a most entertaining proposal!” she continued.
Alith suddenly clutched her head, screaming in pain. She fell off her chair, and Sofia barely managed to catch her before she hit the ground, yelling mentally at Pareth to heal her.
Fuck off Orator! If you do anything to Alith, you can stuff your quest where the sun never shines for all I care!
“Is that all the trust I inspire in you, still? A dagger to my heart, truly,” the Orator said through Sofia’s mouth amidst Alith’s screams. Sofia lost control of her right arm and could only watch herself flick at Alith’s forehead. The short girl’s screams died down as her body limped in Sofia’s arms.
‘The hero : ‘Alith’ has succumbed.’
“Alith!”
“Will you calm down already? Such a needless commotion,” Orator added through Dopple’s voice before being chastised by that same voice, “You dog-ass bastard killed my wearer! I will end yo-”
The world seemed to slow down to a standstill in Sofia’s room. Her emotions in turmoil she could hear a sigh in her own voice. “Always so dramatic. This old one gave the girl exactly what she wanted, did he not? She was the sole cause of these happenings. Now if only you would stop yammering and started working on bringing her back before her soul fades for good. I shall not be held responsible for your failings, Inquisitor’s protegee or not.”
Sofia’s memory of the last twenty five or so hours were blurry at best. After dragging the lifeless body of Alith near the window, she had been channeling [Maiden Banshee] without a second of rest. People came to knock on her door after a while, surely because of the class she missed, but she did not even notice them. Pareth spent the entire time holding her, while Bookie had summoned itself on his own and Participated in the war effort by summoning skeletons and killing them off to transfer his mana to Sofia through [Heat Death].
Eventually, long after Alith’s corpse had gone cold, the skill worth 100 000 000 of cumulated mana points had resolved without fanfare. In Sofia’s numb arms, Alith slowly opened her eyes, “Sof…? Sorry, I think I passed out…” she mumbled, “It’s… Kind of cold in here, isn’t it…? Hey, why are you crying?”
Sofia looked down at Alith, tears streaming down her face. She let out a choked laugh, a mix of relief and exhaustion. "You passed out? I thought I lost you!" Sofia confessed, her voice shaky. She wiped away her tears, managing a small smile, "You fucking idiot witch.”
