[ {Mana Circulation} (Skill Quest): Perform basic circulation through all mana cores. ]

[ Progress: 2/3 ]

[ Reward: {Mana Circulation} skill ]

Elise looked at the quest window as she took a break from her circulation practice. Five days after Hans arrived, she had finally managed to circulate through her lower core well enough to bump the progress bar up one further. Now, two days later, she was realizing that she had chosen the harder of the two options. It made sense, since she had no skills to strengthen her body, and multiple externally cast spells, but she didn’t realize how much of a difference that would make in how easy it was to use her cores.

Even after having worked on her lower core for nearly two weeks, her upper core had already been almost as flexible when she first started on it. If not for the fact that practicing more than an hour gave her a raging headache, she was certain that she would have unlocked the skill by now. She was still fairly confident she could get it by the end of the day, but for now, she needed some rest, since her head was pounding.

It was early morning in the Jungle, and far in the distance, she could hear the squawking of parrots and even further, the faint screaming of the monkeys. They had only been attacked twice at their camp, and it seemed that those two occasions were enough to teach the monsters of the Jungle not to approach. Jag was still keeping watch, but the rest could meditate in relative peace, knowing that they really weren’t in danger.

Hans and Penelope were meditating against trees on either side of Elise, but it seemed that like Elise, Maia had reached her limit on circulation, and was now twirling a long knife between her fingers, her eyes unfocused as she stared off into the distance. After a minute or so, she seemed to feel Elise’s gaze, and looked down at her.

“You get it yet?” she asked.

“Not quite,” said Elise. “I think I can get it by tonight though.”

“Cool, cool,” said Maia, leaning back as she tossed the knife in the air and caught it. “Honestly, I kinda hate circulation. I can’t wait until I cap it. Yeah, it’s useful, but it’s-” She paused as her eyes flicked to the right. “It’s just so boring. I wish I could-” She paused again, eyes flicking to the left this time. “I wish I could just have it running passively so I didn’t have to-”

Her gaze shot upward and she stabbed the ground in frustration.

“Would you stop that?” she asked, staring at Elise.

“I’m training”

“Can’t you train on Jag?”

“Jag is keeping watch,” said Hans without opening his eyes. “He can’t be getting distracted.”

“Jag, wanna switch?” said Maia. “I’ll keep watch, you help Elise.”

“I’d be happy to!” he said, turning around and stepping into the clearing.

Maia stood up and climbed the tree behind her until she reached a branch thirty feet or so up and sat down and Jag laid down where she had just been sitting. Him sitting looked very strange because he actually had two versions of “sitting.” In the first, he sat on his hind legs with his middle legs on the ground like a normal sitting pose, and his front paws dangling awkwardly in the air. In the second, both his back legs and middle legs were bent all the way, and only his front legs were extended. Due to how far his body extended behind him, this gave the impression that he was doing some weird yoga pose. It was in this second sit– the more comfortable of the two, according to him– that he sat in front of Elise, staring at her with anticipation.

“Begin,” he said. “I will try to-”

His entire head jerked to the side before he slowly turned it back to face forward.

“-resist,” he finished.

The next half hour went much the same, with Elise sending false signals with {Suggest} and Jag falling for every single one. One thing that she had learned during her days practicing this way was that Jag’s Charisma was incredibly low. Almost comically so. He basically only had the automatic bonuses gained at each evolution, and nothing more, leaving Elise with a near 700 point lead in the stat. She had a similar– though less extreme– issue when working with Penelope, which is why she preferred practicing on Maia and Hans instead. Hans’ Charisma was actually higher than hers, though only by a little, while Maia’s was only a couple hundred behind.

Unfortunately, Maia had quickly discovered that she didn’t really like being the subject of Elise’s practice. While she had agreed to help out, she was always looking for ways to get out of it like she had just then. It was a little annoying, since at this point, Jag was such an easy target that Elise gained little from it, but she couldn’t really force Maia to stay, so she was stuck with it.

System, how does Charisma work? she asked idly while Jag was recovering from her latest feint.

“Charisma influences and is influenced by numerous factors, including, but not limited to, physical appearance, social sense, vocal quality, speech skills, and personality. As for what it does, the answer is too long to be explained under my character limit. In short, it is a measure of your ‘appeal’.”

It was the same answer she had heard before, and the same answer she always heard when she asked that question, but she knew there was more to it. The System had even confirmed as much long ago when she tried to curse the plesiosaur. However, whenever she tried to ask it…

“I’m sorry. You don’t have access to that information.”

She sighed aloud as she did her next feint, making Jag think there was a bird flying at his face, causing him to dodge to the side.

“What is it?” he asked.

“Nothing,” she said. “Just the System being annoying.”

“What is it doing?”

“Refusing to answer my questions.”

“What were you asking it?”

“Just about Charisma,” explained Elise. “It just gives me the same ‘appeal’ answer every time, even though I know that’s not all it does. Obviously it helps with these mental skills too, and for some reason it’s important for fey curses as well, and those all seem completely unrelated, but there has to be something that ties them together, and I can’t figure it out.”

“Ah, yes, I can imagine that’s frustrating.”

“It is,” she agreed.

“I believe that there may be someone who can help you though,” he said.

“Who?” she asked.

“An… acquaintance,” he said with a wink. “If you join us for the next… party-” He winked again. “-I believe she will be there.”

Elise noticed Hans frowning at Jag’s poor attempt at subtlety, but he didn’t say anything further reinforcing Elise’s belief that Ostra was for some reason trying to be noticed.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” she replied.

There would be another Ostra meeting soon, shortly before their mission, which Elise knew was no coincidence. She was still hesitant on going, but at this point, she knew the benefits outweighed the risks. In addition to the information she could get about their current mission, she could also try to find something about Sophie. She would just have to trust that whatever Freddy wanted from her, he wasn’t going to try to force it out of her. He had had plenty of chances to do so, and so far, had chosen not to.

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She practiced {Suggest} on Jag for another half hour all the while thinking more on how Charisma would factor into it. The System’s explanation of “appeal” was obviously not relevant, or at least if it was, it wasn’t helpful to her. There were a few other pieces to the mystery, but each one seemed to make it harder to decipher.

One such piece that had recently made her question everything was Hans’ attempt to explain how Charisma affected {Suggest}. He didn’t really understand why it was important to the skill’s power, but he did know that Charisma affected how often the skill could be used. Or at least, that’s how it was supposed to work. That rule didn’t seem to apply to Elise though. She could use it as many times as she wanted and as often as she wanted without break and without penalty. Hans was confused by that, and Elise didn’t provide him with any answers, but she had guessed the culprit: {Rune of Fate}.

So, somehow, the rune was tied in with the mystery of Charisma, which affected appeal, mental skills, and curses. The only conclusion Elise could come to was that there was some other type of energy used for all those things, and both the rune and her Charisma affected that. That made sense to her, but unfortunately, she couldn’t sense it, the System refused to acknowledge its existence, and even after those revelations about the rune, its description hadn't been updated.

At the end of the half hour, when Elise had resigned that she wouldn’t find the answer anytime soon and that she would have to wait at the very least until the Ostra meeting, she got an unexpected System message.

[ Thank you for participating in the System v7.0.0 beta test! The test is now complete. Based on user feedback, we have made the following changes

* Added 8 new background color options!

* Added 4 new text color options!

* Added Sarcasm Mode for System Assistant. Simply tell your system to “enable Sarcasm Mode” and your System Assistant will become sarcastic!

Why would anyone want that? Elise wondered before she continued reading

* Added 7 new Hidden Skill Quests to discover!

* Added more variations to information request denial messages!

* Minor bug fixes ]

[ As a thank you for all the awesome feedback, !@#$%^&*() has decided to grant all beta participants the following rewards:

Skill Quest: {Whisper}

In 24 hours, System v7.0.0 will become available to all users. Thank you for your participation. ]

Elise stared at the message for a few moments in disbelief, then silently cursed the System creators. The Skill Quest was nice, sure, but couldn’t they have just given her the skill on its own instead of making her jump through more hoops? And what was with all the changes? Or more realistically, the lack of changes. That message was a lot of words that basically boiled down to nothing. She sighed, then opened the new Skill Quest to see what the requirements were.

[ {Whisper} (Skill Quest): Whisper ]

[ Progress: 0/1 ]

[ Reward: {Whisper} skill ]

What the heck? She thought.

“Jag,” she whispered.

“Yes?” he replied, but Elise was no longer paying attention.

[ Skill Quest {Whisper} completed! ]

[ You have unlocked the skill {Whisper} ]

[ {Whisper}: Speak privately to a target within range with whom you have established a connection ]

Elise was once again left dumbfounded at the System message. Had she seriously learned a skill… that let her whisper better? What was the point? There had to be a point, right? Or was whatever organization had made the System just messing with her?

“Elise?” asked Jag.

“Oh, sorry,” she said. “I had a Skill Quest that wanted me to whisper.”

“Another Skill Quest?” he asked. “And you had to whisper?”

“Yes.”

“Did you complete it?”

“Yes. I got the {Whisper} skill.”

At that, Hans’ eyes opened, and he glanced at her with curiosity.

“You got {Whisper}?” he asked

“Yes. Is it good?”

“It’s useful,” he said. “And it will help on the mission.”

“What does it do?” she asked. “The description isn’t very helpful.”

“It lets you do this.”

While she heard his voice in her mind, his mouth didn’t move, and she knew that he hadn’t actually made any sounds.

“Oh!” she replied, also activating the skill. “It’s actually useful!”

“Yes.”

“How did you get a Skill Quest for {Whisper}?” asked Penelope, also opening her eyes.

“I participated in the beta test for the new version of the System. It should be out in a day,” she added after seeing their questioning looks.

“I see,” said Hans. “I have heard of these betas, but I’ve never gotten into one myself. Major System updates are somewhat rare.”

“It’s a good reward,” said Penelope. “There’s no way for me to get that skill on my current track. None that I know of, at least.”

“I got it at tier 2,” called Maia from above.

“Now that you have it, field communication will be much easier,” said Hans. “We’re a lot less limited in groupings now if we need to split up.”

“Yeah,” agreed Elise. “What’s the range on it? And how do I establish a connection?”

“The maximum range is about half a mile, and you establish a connection by looking someone in the eye as you just did. Just do it to the other three, and you will be able to communicate with all of them, as long as they’re nearby.”

Elise took a minute to do exactly that, and afterward, Penelope and Hans both evidently decided they had done enough meditation and stood up to prepare to hunt again. Half an hour later, she was back in the Jungle with Hans.

Due to her seemingly infinite capacity for using {Suggest}, she had progressed in skill much faster than he thought she would, and she was already actively using it in combat. She was not yet confident enough to do as Hans had and face down an entire flock without attacking, but if she used {Magic Missile} to thin their number first, she could misdirect the rest without trouble. The previous day’s hunting had been so easy that Hans had finally decided to take her further into the woods.

“Between {Suggest} and now {Whisper}, you’re already plenty useful enough to keep on the mission,” Hans said as they flew inward. “At this point, let’s just see if we can get some power-leveling done. We won’t be able to get you to your next evolution, but a few hundred more stat points can’t hurt.”

Elise wholeheartedly agreed, and was looking forward to it. The parrots were so weak that in the entire week up until that point, she had only gained a single level. The Giant Fanged Macaques were a tier higher, the frogs were two tiers higher, and there would be some Greater Spear-Beaked Parrots deeper in, so she looked forward to actually being able to increase her strength in addition to her skill.

Surprisingly, the first monster they encountered deeper in was neither a parrot, nor a monkey, but one of the frogs.

“They are stronger than the others, but they are solitary, which in some ways, makes them weaker. I believe you can handle it.”

“Alright,” said Elise, looking at the beast.

It was the size of a hippo, and mostly just looked like a scaled-up poison dart frog with its green and black splotchy pattern. As she observed it, thinking about her plan of attack, she suddenly heard the squawking of parrots. A small flock of ten flew nearby, and upon hearing them, the frog perked up, slowly rotating its body to follow as they flew by. Suddenly, it became a blur, leaping forward and landing on a tree, impacting it so hard leaves fluttered down from the highest branches.

The parrots noticed this and veered away from it, but the frog’s tongue shot out more than a hundred feet, hitting two of the birds that had been flying too close together and pulling them into its mouth. Unlike when the birds had encountered her, they didn’t even try to avenge their fallen brethren, and turned tail and fled. The frog didn’t seem interested in chasing further, instead crawling back down the tree until it settled back on the ground, stationary.

“Are you sure I can handle that?” Elise asked, turning to Hans.

“Fairly,” he said. “It is strong, but its attacks all move in straight lines, and attacks like that are almost useless against you now, as long as you use {Suggest} properly.”

“But what if I mess up? What if it resists?”

“Your Charisma is high. You won’t mess up. Look at it. Does it look like it has enough Charisma to resist your {Suggest}?”

“...Well, it is kinda cute,” she admitted.

“Cute?” he repeated, looking back and forth between her and the frog. “What?”

“Nevermind,” said Elise. “I’ll do it. I can do it.”

With that, she flew toward the frog, making sure to advance carefully, and always put a tree between her and it. Unfortunately, she was not very good at stealth, and soon, it noticed her, and started turning to face her. She was not yet in range to use {Magic Missile} effectively, but she was just barely close enough to use {Suggest}, so when she got close enough to worry about its tongue, she hid behind a tree and used it to make it think she was flying out.

The long pink tongue shot past her tree and then another twenty feet, before reeling back. Elise flinched, and then was grossed out when she saw exactly how slimy it was, but the second it disappeared back behind the tree trunk, she used {Dart} to move forward and get to a closer tree. She repeated this twice more until she was close enough, then used {Magic Missile}. The frog had thankfully not moved, so she didn’t even need to peek from behind the tree to cast, instead just curving the missiles slightly to hit the giant, stationary target.

At the same time, she used {Suggest} to make it think she was flying out again, causing its tongue to shoot forward, which had the bonus effect of keeping it in place while {Magic Missile} peppered its side. She wasn’t sure if she hit anything important, but the frog croaked loudly, and with a mighty push, it leapt into the air, landing on a tree right in front of her, and in line of sight, and a moment later, its tongue was flying straight at her face.