After feeling the cool silky-smooth fabric a little longer, I wrapped the cloak around my shoulder, replacing my old one. A part of me considered whether I might be able to enchant the new piece as I had done with my old cloak but I doubted it would work. Just from feeling the cloak, I knew it was highly magical, though a quick Identify told me just how magical.

Raven’s Shadow Rarity Epic Base Protection 3 against Piercing Damage Base Protection 3 against Slashing Damage Base Protection 1 against Blunt Damage Special Effect Enveloping Shadow: While surrounded by Darkness, you are invisible. Special Effect Traceless Shadow: While surrounded by Darkness, you don’t emit a scent and can only be heard when the noise is carried by Astral Power. Special Effect Dark Void: While surrounded by Darkness, Concealment Magic can hide your soul. Special Effect Raven’s Wing: You can fly by channelling Astral Power into the Raven’s Shadow.

For a moment, I was completely and utterly flabbergasted. Just the rarity was… daunting. Beyond that, the defensive attributes were complete and utter crap but that was to be expected. The cloak simply lacked the substance to be truly protective but it made up for that with its supporting effects. All four of them sounded potent, especially the two completely passive ones.

Some testing would be required to see what exactly constituted ‘Darkness’ for the effect, it might be that I still needed a magical shadow during the night because Moon- or starlight was enough to illuminate me in regards to the effect but if not, this might be a complete gamechanger. I could imagine a few ways to detect me while I was concealed. The obvious ways, sight, scent and sound were negated while I was in Darkness, leaving magical detection that likely targeted the Soul in some way and ways to detect magical usage, similar to the way I had detected some of the Shadow Cats back home. Their concealment magic had stood out to me, simply because I was so attuned to Darkness Magic but with this cloak, that danger was gone. There was no active magic involved, unless I had to hide from things searching for my soul, something I estimated was a difficult and high-level endeavour.

That only left the Raven’s Wing effect, something I wanted to try out immediately. Sadly, even as I started to move towards the door, I realised just how incredibly tired and exhausted I was after all that spellcasting. My Astral Power was nearly depleted, my stamina was almost gone and my mental fatigue was through the roof, even if I really, really wanted to try flying. Even my health had taken a solid hit, though nothing that couldn’t be regenerated with a good day’s sleep.

Shaking off the desire, I quickly checked my log, curious if there were any additional notifications. And, indeed, there were multiple notifications. The skill-ups were the easiest and most obvious, though impressive nonetheless. Two points to Darkness Magic, bumping it to fifty-eight, one point to Wind Magic, bringing it to thirty and two points to Death Magic, now at level twenty-three. Similarly, Darkness Rune Mastery and Wind Rune Mastery had both gone up by two, ending up at fifty-one and twenty-one, respectively. That meant I could delve into the Astral River for new Runes for both, the prospect bringing a wide smile to my face. Last, but certainly not least, I gained an insane five points in my Enchanting Skill, bringing it to sixteen, in addition to another title.

Title Gained You gained a new title: Epic Magical Creator You are the first to create an Epic magical Item in your world. That act of creation will forever strengthen magical items you create, as you forge the path for your entire world.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

It was quite obviously a variation of the Magical Creator I had gained shortly after the change, though learning that I was the actual ‘first’ to create an epic item was a surprise, at least in that first moment. Then, I realised that I had used some fairly outrageous materials, parts of an insanely powerful spirit from another world, namely Lenore, willingly given, the Void Crystal that used to be part of a dungeon and the gathered Shadow, something difficult to create and even harder to store, all coming together in a quite complicated ritual performed by a powerful spellcaster pushing the boundaries of their ability. And with Titanic Ambition and Dragon-Touched in the mix, I was fairly confident that I was the most powerful spellcaster around unless there was some massive divine chicanery going on. And even if the Gods cheated, I doubted they’d invest too much power in a single individual, simply because people were squishy.

Back on Mundus, Sigmir and I had managed to kill the leader of her Clan, despite being almost a hundred levels below him, by exploiting shitty security, attacking while he was vulnerable and abusing my magic to keep him from acting in those few, incredibly important seconds. Sure, that mostly worked because there were very few people living in the area due to the troublesome climate but even so, a good plan didn’t put all the eggs into one basket. Or too many eggs, I already had trouble gaining EXP due to my high level, so for a deity to push one of their servants this hard would be counterproductive.

Still, I had to make sure I wasn’t getting too confident. The same logic that demanded that the Gods didn’t overpower a single servant, namely that people were squishy, meant that I, too, was squishy and would likely remain so.

Sure, my physical attributes approached those I had on Mundus with nearly a hundred additional levels but that was mostly because my physical attributes had been trash, leaving me fairly vulnerable. No, even with the additional attribute points, my focus had to be concealment and attacking from afar, the classical mage, even if I was a Sorceress. Which was okay, I didn’t want to mix it up in close combat, even if I could hold my own. Mostly.

Grinning, I focused on putting one foot in front of the other, slowly making my way through the damaged house and into the basement where we had set up camp. The area we were currently in had been hit hard, leaving only a few houses intact, this being one of the best, especially with the basement providing shelter.

Opening the door, I stepped in, only to be met with an incredibly agitated Silva, who growled and snarled at nothing, while Luna was behind her, ready for combat. Neither of them relaxed when I entered, causing me to frown, uncertain of what was going on.

Suddenly, a powerful, silvery glow surrounded Luna and she stared in my direction but not quite focused on me, her eyes glowing with bright, silvery light.

“Mom?” she called out, clearly confused while Silva let out a low, somewhat threatening growl.

“Of course, who else?” I replied, only to be ignored by them. It took me a moment to realise that I was still in darkness, wearing my new cloak, so they couldn’t see me, smell me or, apparently, hear me. Even when I talked, unless I channelled Astral Power into my voice in some way. How, I had no idea but for now, it didn’t matter.

Pulling aside my cloak, I experimented a little with how much of it had to cover me, until the eyes of my daughter and hound finally focused on me, once most of the cloak didn’t cover me any longer. It looked like I didn’t have to worry about rolling around while wearing it, or making sure my feet remained covered at all times, just about a quarter of it had to be around me to trigger its effects, bringing a wide smile to my face, even while Luna looked at me with suspicion and confusion.

“It’s me, munchkin,” I assured her, watching how Silva sniffed the air, deciding that I truly was who I claimed to be and letting out an annoyed huff.

“I made a new cloak for me, it allows me to remain hidden a lot easier than before. Though; I might have to figure out some way for all of you to keep track of me, or it might be dangerous in combat,” I admitted, realising that complete and permanent concealment could be quite dangerous. I had no desire to remain invisible while bleeding out because some attacker had gotten lucky. Being unable to receive support because I was too well hidden sounded like a bad day.

“Mhm, it was weird, I could still see your presence with my Eyes, but I couldn’t see your body, not really,” Luna explained, only to shrug at her limited vocabulary.

“Let me think about it, I’m sure there’s going to be some way. But tomorrow, for now, I want to get some sleep, I’m incredibly exhausted, this was hard work,” I added, lying down on my mat after undressing, only for Luna to snuggle up to me.

Moments later, I was out like a light, dreaming of nights to come.