The demon named Frox was dragged away as the situation de-escalated. Riniox called for the mercenaries to stand down as the King did likewise for the royal troops. There was still tension in the air, weapons had been brandished on both sides, but the Queen seemed perfectly comfortable remaining close to Jack and the mercenaries.
"Well, that was quite something!" the Queen said energetically, adrenaline clearly running through her body after the brief but frantic experience. "A demon spy in our midst. I wonder how long he's been there."
"Gerart has been in our service for close to fifteen years my dear." The King rumbled as he stroked his short beard. "Do you suppose he was a spy the whole time? Or has Gerart been killed and replaced?"
The Queen shrugged. "Well, I suppose we'll find out soon, won't we?" Then she turned back to Jack. "Well, that magic seems rather convenient after all. I think I'll have you use it on all our attendants now." She called the next servant up, the maid who had ridden in the carriage with the royalty.
Jack performed the ritual several more times, but everyone that followed appeared to be who they were supposed to be. The Queen honestly seemed to be a bit disappointed at the lack of more hidden spies. Only when all of the servants and the ten guards escorting them had been granted statuses and checked did the Queen step forward. It had been over an hour at this point and neither side had given the call for the troops to rest. Everyone remained on standby as the Queen approached Jack.
"You may begin." The Queen spoke imperiously, an eager twinkle in her eye.
Jack used the [Status Granting] skill, the words and actions familiar to him at this point. He had performed these actions time and time again, committing them to memory. The explanations of magic had given him more insight into the spell too. He could tell how each movement or word brought the spell to fruition. In fact, he suddenly felt like he could alter part of the ritual, changing up his actions and words to grant a status to multiple people at the same time. He very nearly started doing so before catching himself. To suddenly change the ritual while casting it on the Queen? Well, that would probably get him killed.
Jack completed the ritual in the normal way and a screen appeared in front of the Queen. She glanced at it, nodded, then closed it and stepped aside for her husband's turn. Jack held up a hand to interrupt. "Just a sec." The monarchs frowned as Jack quickly opened his own screen, keyboard still attached to type something into his status sheet. He paused however as he saw a new skill on his screen. [Multi-Status Granting]. In addition, the [Status Granting] skill now read, [Status Granting lv.2].
Jack felt terror slip into his mind. A new system skill and a skill level indicator? Jack hadn't discussed those concepts with Deis yet, was it possible that the god could see him right now? Was it possible that Deis had overheard the conversations he had had with the bore-bots and Jeler? If so, Jack could be in serious trouble. His mind was racing and he could feel the steam in his body build up pressure.
He was so distracted by his rising panic that he almost missed the text that emerged on his screen. [Was this how you wanted it?] A message? Was it the butterflies making changes? Another message appeared, [Sorry, didn't mean to scare you. It's me! Your favorite dead guy! Turns out eating one of those butterflies lets you peek at screens and what's going on around them.]
Jack was stunned. The messages disappeared as quickly as they formed, leaving no evidence of the conversation. Plexion had somehow found a way to edit the screens. He had...eaten one of the butterflies? Why? How? More importantly, Plexion had changed this system without him knowing. The skill level was something he had been working on, and he agreed with the assessment of his skill using the ritual. Even adding a new skill though...Jack felt like he could perform the skill but hadn't tried yet. The timing was terrible though, Jack was dealing with the terrifying Queen and her jumpy soldiers.
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He decided to ignore the new information and turned back to the waiting King. "Sorry about that, we can start now."
The King and Queen were looking at him with interest, clearly curious as to what just happened. However, they allowed Jack to continue with the ritual. His movements, words, and flow of mana all came easily. He felt more efficient, more stable as he performed each familiar action. The difference wasn't large, but there was a change. This was the closest Jack had come to feeling a true difference in skill level so far. Observing the others try to learn things at different levels of success had given him insight, but actually experiencing himself get better at something was profound.
The ritual concluded the same way it had every time and a screen appeared in front of the King. He looked at it and nodded in satisfaction. He scrolled through the skill lists for a moment, seeming surprised at all of the inclusions before closing the screen.
The formal part over, Riniox stepped forward and bowed politely to the Queen. "Your Majesty, will you be staying with us tonight? We have prepared a dwelling for you and your staff if you wish."
The Queen tapped her chin thoughtfully. "We will stay for the evening at the very least. There is much to discuss." She turned to the priests in attendance. "I expect you to begin the process of granting statuses to my soldiers." With that, she turned away from them without waiting for a response and gestured for Riniox to lead her entourage to their dwelling. The carriage containing the demon imposter was brought as well and Jack wondered what kind of interrogation they were going to put the man through.
Jack approached the priests and offered his assistance to giving status screen to the remaining soldiers. There were close to two hundred of them that needed the ritual performed and only six priests. They gladly accepted his offer, the other members of Lexen's former group and some mercenaries tagging along in case of an altercation. Jack decided to test his [Multi-Status Granting] skill, asking permission before he did so. He didn't want any of the soldiers to be caught off guard and attack. The armored troops were very understanding and even apologetic. The situation earlier had been potentially catastrophic, but Riniox and Jeler had quickly responded to the threat and neutralized it. The soldiers were impressed and asked Jeler for a spar later on, much to the catman's embarrassment at the attention.
The [Multi-Status Granting] skill worked on a very similar level to its single target version. It granted a status to people, but Jack could now specify a group that he wanted to grant to. Picking five soldiers for the moment, Jack began casting. The most significant change was the amount of mana being used, Jack judged that he was using more mana than if he cast the ritual for one person at a time. That being said, the casting time for this ritual was about the same as a single cast of [Status Granting] so it was more time-efficient at the very least.
Some of the movements and phrasings were different, but the overall tonality of the ritual was there. Jack felt completely in control of his actions for the majority of the cast, but there were moments where he lapsed, feeling lost as to the next step. Almost like a routine he had grown used to suddenly faltered and fell away. In those moments, the skill seemed to catch him and help him complete the step, carrying him through the spell's requirements.
Jack idly thought about his past considerations of skills and skill levels. A magic system could so easily turn people into puppets, all the abilities they acquired forcing them into predetermined movements and actions. Complete optimization, removing free will entirely. He didn't feel that now, the system skill seemed to be guiding him along, showing him the path to take in order to complete the cast but not forcing him. If Jack had wanted to, he could have altered the spell, even changing it back into its single target form or implementing some other change. But the reality was that having a skill would help you find the optimal way to do something. Or if not optimal, then at least the way to get it done.
The spell finished and five blue screens appeared in front of the soldiers, one for every person. Jack checked them over and found them all to be correctly assigned to the right people. The cast was a success, Jack figured he could only do one or two more groups before running out of mana, but the priests told him that it was a big time saver. They likely wouldn't be able to finish the small army by the end of the day anyway, each of them hoping to keep some man in reserve in case of an emergency.
Jack was a little nervous about handing out this many statuses at once, but couldn't really stop it from happening. Deis had told him to give the priests [Chosen of the Status] and they wanted to hand out more statuses. He might as well be helpful and assist them in their work. After he got done with this, he wanted to check in with Pexion, check on the queen and imposter demon, watch Jeler spar with some soldiers, and examine his skill list. There was so much to do!