He wanted to try and translate the book with the moving ink and, somewhat selfishly, thought he might get caught up in something else if he headed back to Inscripticae right away. So, he didn’t.

Taking out a piece of parchment, Felix wrote down a number of random words and letters from memory and handed it to the librarian. He was hoping that choosing disjointed words from various sentences would be enough to keep the contents secret while still finding the language.

Pragmatically, he just didn’t want to be seen asking about necromancy in case it was evil, forbidden or even just frowned upon. He also didn’t have actually have any interest in necromancy beyond his natural curiosity to know everything.

A few moments passed before the librarian returned with a grim and judgmental expression on their face, “Not sure where you found a necromancy book but you should probably just sell it.”

Felix frowned and feigned innocence, “It’s a necromancy book?”

The librarian seemed to buy it, their judgmental expression quickly washing away and they just nodded, “Yeah. Necromancers are generally frowned upon so they use languages known only to them in order to communicate with each-other. I don’t have a dictionary for you so, you probably won’t be able to translate it easily. I was only able to recognize it because we know some words here and there. It’s a constant battle, trying to decipher the languages as they create them.”

Felix nodded, “Thanks. Do you happen to have more information on necromancers, their towers, tools and so on? I think I might have found an abandoned necromancer’s abode and I want to identify everything so I know what to do with it.”

The librarian nodded and seemed to accept his explanation then hurried off and retrieved a number of books for Felix, “We also have a few librarians with knowledge specializations covering necromancers if you’d like. You could also just ask the Guild of Answers if you want us to submit a specific question for you.”

Felix nodded, “Thanks. Could you return all these now? I already scanned them. Also, if there’s a necromancy specialist here now, could you send them over?”

The librarian nodded, “Of course.”

A few moments later, the stack of books on his table was gone and a completely different librarian was sitting across from Felix.

Felix waited for the librarian to sit down before pestering them, “So, I found an old necromancer’s house on my last job.”

“Ah, and you wish to identify things you have found within?”

Felix nodded, “First, there was a big battery in the basement. I thought it was just a mana battery but there was a very complicated ward in place, facing the battery.”

“Ah, it sounds like you came across a necromancer’s battery. It is a good thing you recognized the wards. If you had gotten near it without the wards, it likely would have driven you insane, depending on how full it is.”

Felix frowned, “What is it?”

“You seem to be familiar with mana batteries, are you familiar with soul gems?”

Felix nodded, “I am.”

“Good. A necromancer’s battery combines the two except it holds more than a single soul.”

“So why would it have driven me insane?”

“Instead of sanitizing and humanely binding a soul to a crystal, as soul gems are, necromancers often utilize complete souls in their rituals. It is not necessary but it simplifies the process greatly. This necessitates a store of some kind and so they will often sacrifice creatures in a ritual that binds their souls directly into the battery. Once there are multiple souls in the battery, they are locked in an eternal battle of wills. Produced from this battle are what are colloquially referred to as, The Wails of the Damned.”

Felix nodded to convey he understood, despite the fact that he quickly dismissed everything they had said, then moved on, “What about necromancer languages? I found a book written in some language I can’t read. I had the last librarian identify it based on,” Felix placed the parchment he had written some of the words onto between them, “these words.”

The librarian looked down and nodded, “Yes. The languages change over time as they are deciphered but they are intended to allow necromancers to keep their secrets which is why The System will not translate it for you.”

“I guess that would defeat the purpose of creating a secret language.”

“Precisely. I would very much like to take a look at this book if you have it with you?”

“I don’t have it on me.”

“I see. The language is most often used for when necromancer’s communicate with each-other. For educational purposes, academic texts, research notes, textbooks, they use normal language. This is so that it is possible for more people to convert to necromancy.”

“Then what secrets are hidden behind the language?”

“Meeting locations, current endeavors mostly communications. Cutting edge research as well possibly. You would have to find a communication tome of theirs and learn the language. Usually knowledge of the language is distributed through some necromancy based classes or through apprenticeship.”

“Last question, Liches?”

“What of them?”

“What are they I guess? There was an Undead Infant Lich there but I’ve also heard of Infant Liches that weren’t undead?”

They nodded, “One of the most impressive and widely known races above Legendary. I am not an expert in Liches specifically but… Are you aware of how necromancy works?”

Felix shook his head, “I have a vague notion at best.”

They sighed, “Necromancy is the art of binding a soul to a body. It’s that simple. They use corpses most often because pushing a live soul out of a body to make room for a new soul is complicated and most often messy. They most often use complete souls which requires that they are extracted from the body in a sacrificial ritual. These souls are much easier to bind to a corpse. This ritual is one of the worst kinds of torture one being can inflict on another. It is due to the torturous sacrificial ritual, for the most part, that causes necromancy to be widely frowned upon.”

“But you could theoretically be a necromancer and not do any of that?”

They nodded, “It is much easier to use corpses because they are designed to have a soul control them. They are naturally very easy to bind. It is easier to use a complete soul because the necromancer forgoes the need to construct layers and teach the soul to control the body, those functions already exist. It is possible, however, to construct souls using the constituent components of those that have died, remnants for example.”

Felix nodded along in understanding, “But, significantly harder to the point where it is rarely done?”

“Right. As for Liches vs Undead Liches, a Lich is a Soul that is strong enough to retain most of its Intelligence despite their moving between bodies. They bind their soul to a body but their soul strength pushes through and allows them to retain casting ability and more. The difference is subtle but because the Undead Lich’s soul was extracted in a ritual to create an Undead, they utilize different body binding runes and sigils. From my understanding of Liches, the difference is subtle and inconsequential most of the time, but significant enough that they function differently in possessing corpses and the stats they retain.”

“I see. You said it’s much easier to use corpses, what else would one use?”

“While not technically necromancy, Soulbinders practice the much more impressive art of binding souls to inanimate objects. Most often they create elementals or constructs. It is far more complicated and requires complicated rituals, sigils and runes to bind the souls themselves as well as a solid aptitude for Animancy.”

“Animancy?”

“Soul magic. Construction of souls, manipulation of souls, reparation of souls. Soulbinders and Soulhealers most commonly.”

Huh. I think… that might be the most enticing profession I have ever heard of. That sounds awesome.

“You’re also a librarian, correct?”

“I am.”

“Could you find me books on Soulbinding?”

They grimaced just slightly, “I can but there won’t be much. You would have better luck asking a university or taking classes to learn about them. Actually becoming one is much harder.”

“There aren’t classes to become one? Just classes to learn about them?”

“There are. If you’re asking about them though, you likely can’t get into any of them. It’s an Arcane profession and if it were easy to acquire, everyone would have it.”

“Know of any universities that have those classes off the top of your head?”

“Edras’ Academy, University of Uphiane, Namari Institute of Magical Crafts.”

Felix frowned, “Not Eramith?”

He chuckled, “Sorry, yes of course. Almost certainly Eramith as well.”

Felix nodded, “Thanks. That’s all then. I appreciate your insight.”

The librarian stood and bowed to Felix, “If you happen to have that book on you at some point in the future, I would be honored to take a look at it.”

Felix smiled and nodded then took his leave from the library and flew over to Inscripticae. Walking in he headed straight for Aldahn’s office and knocked.

“Come in.”

Felix opened the door and found Aldahn scrutinizing an amulet of some kind.

He looked up, “Ah Felix, you’re back.”

“I am.”

“You got through a shit ton of those tickets.”

Felix shrugged, “I sleep less than you do and don’t have any commitments, responsibilities or friends.”

Aldahn frowned and Felix quickly added, “By choice.”

He nodded in understanding, “Just don’t- I would consider us friends.”

Felix nodded, “Sure and probably all the other enchanters here too. We don’t go out together though or do anything outside of this.” Felix gestured around him.

Aldahn shook his head, “You’re right, I get it. Still, I’m impressed you spent so long on this. Even I get sick of it after a dekad of enchanting.”

Felix shrugged, “Never had that issue.”

Aldahn sighed, “Anyways. I’ll get you the pay for all the tickets when it comes in, you aren’t pressed for creds right now are you?”

Felix shook his head, “Take your time.”

“I also have a client I want to assign to you.”

“You mean a solo client?”

Aldahn nodded, “No shadowing, reverse or otherwise.”

Felix frowned, “You think I’m ready?”

Aldahn shrugged, “It’s a high C grade or low B grade enchantment but… well, you’ll see when you meet the client. The enchantment should be very familiar to you. Also, I’m expecting you to ask me and the others for help if needed and you’ll have to get the enchantment approved before inscribing anything. Also don’t commission the item itself before asking someone but otherwise, yeah, you’re definitely ready.”

Felix nodded, “Ok. Do I have to meet the client?”

“You don’t have to but yes. She’ll be by in three days at noon.”

“I’ll be here. Sidenote, any thoughts on Soulbinding and Soulbinders?”

Aldahn’s eyes widened as a grin formed on his face, “You trying to decide what to do after enchanting?”

“Considering it.”

“It’s… probably the most ambitious evolution. It would require you already have a very high rarity profession?”

Felix just shrugged in an attempt to give nothing away.

“Also requires a lot of experience with Animancy or at least a proven aptitude for it.”

Felix nodded, “So a decent thing to strive for then?”

Aldahn nodded, “If you can meet the requirements and think it’s interesting. I would be happy to commission a construct from you if you succeed.”

Felix chuckled, “We’ll see. Any reason I don’t see constructs around more often?”

“Yes… the art of Soulbinding alone is incredibly rare and prestigious. That makes true constructs even rarer than that and therefore, very expensive. Not even Krinitor’s parent’s expensive, like expensive even for a demi-god or a God.”

Felix frowned, “Really?”

“Souls. It’s so difficult to do correctly, that they take forever to make. Also, you may have already seen one, I doubt it but they don’t have to be robotic, you can have biological contructs.”

Felix’s face contorted in disgust, “That’s…”

Aldahn chuckled, “I suspect less gross than you’re thinking. Not corpses like necromancers, don’t think of flesh golems stitched together like the stories. Soulbinding is too precise, rare and impressive an art to do something so crude. Plant constructs, simulacra, partial clones, things like that.”

Felix’s eyes widened, “Simulacra? Clones? That’s possible?”

“Not true clones as far as I know, souls are unique no matter what. Also most of them are servants of the master so to speak but yeah. I don’t know that much about them. I’ve just read and heard stories is all. Plus I’ve looked into soulbinding myself a little cause…” Aldahn trailed off.

Felix nodded in understanding after realizing Aldahn didn’t intend on finishing his sentence, “I’ll be back in three days then. By the way, is Krinitor here?”

Aldahn shook his head, “He hasn’t been in for a little while.”

Felix bid Aldahn farewell then flew off to Raidran’s to see if he could find either Krinitor or either of his parents.

Flying up to the building, Felix found a door but it was closed. He shrugged and knocked on it but got no response. He knocked again but much harder, not overly concerned with damaging the door. He briefly considered creating a spell in the building that created a sound but he didn’t know how it would interact with the spatial enchantments so he refrained.

Instead he flew around to the same entrance Krinitor had used but the door didn’t just slide open like it had for Krinitor. Felix knocked on this door as well as hard as he could and waited. He got nothing.

Circling back to the entrance, he knocked one last time before he decided he would give up and surprisingly, it opened.

“Who-” Rainoth looked ready to kill someone as she opened the door but her face quickly relaxed, It’s you.”

Felix smiled as Rainoth glared.

Eventually, Rainoth relented and sighed, “Get in.”

Felix walked into the room, one he hadn’t seen the last time he was here and not one that looked like it got much use. It was empty and dark.

“No one uses this damn door anymore. I thought you were a solicitor or someone begging for us to make them something.”

Felix shrugged, “Krinitor’s been busy and I have some questions.”

She sighed, “Normally you would make an appointment.”

“How?”

She looked at him and frowned… for almost 3 minutes. She sighed, “Gimme your registration, I’ll give you access to the employee entrance.”

Felix handed it to her, “Why would you do that?”

“Because you’re an employee now. Come on, keep up.”

Felix shook his head, “I already have a job and I-”

“I know. I mean more as a walking advertisement. I also expect you to come to us first with rare materials you find. At least, after whichever god you decide to hitch yourself to.”

Felix shrugged, “Oh, I can do that. Integrated’s really that promising?”

She shrugged, “I mean, you’ve already leveled through the D grade faster than anything I’ve ever heard of outside of the top factions and big families.”

“Oh shit. Really? … Should I be worried?”

“Yes really but no, don’t worry about. Most will gonna think you were hiding your level which, isn’t uncommon.”

He nodded, “Ok thanks.”

She chuckled, “What’s your question?”

“How much do I owe you?”

She sighed, “How much do you have?”

“Almost have half an A?”

She frowned, “How much did Krinitor quote you?”

“A ‘few hundred thousand B or so’ were his exact words.”

She grimaced, “Alright just… How about 100,000 B and you officially agree to my terms.”

“I’m going to need you to be more specific on the terms.”

“If anyone asks where you got your outfit, you tell them. If anyone asks you how you like it, you… be honest with them. If you find rare materials or kill rare creatures, you come to me first, or second if you decide to join a faction. Lastly, any other clothes you need made, you come here until I can no longer keep up with your progression.”

“Couldn’t you just charge me exorbitant amounts for any future clothes then?”

She shrugged, “Sure but I’ll promise right now to give them to you free of charge, assuming you’re a good employee and provide me with plenty of materials.”

Felix nodded, “I can agree to all of that.” He offered his had to shake and opened a transaction screen with her.

“Oh also, I might get you to do some enchanting work for me in the future, assuming you stay an enchanter.” She accepted the deal before Felix could respond.

“Wait, I-”

“I’ll pay you and I’m not gonna force you to do anything you don’t have time for. What the hell do you think I’m trying to do to you? I’m not cruel.”

Felix frowned, “I’m not willing to just trust you outright either way.”

She grumbled, “Kids…” Then sighed, “Look, it’s just a verbal agreement right now anyways.”

“Right, what would a non-verbal agreement be? Are there lawyers and contracts?”

“Yes to lawyers and yes to contracts but I… What the hell do those have to do with each-other?”

What do you mean ‘what do they have-’

“Never mind. Contract?”

“Soul or System, I’d much prefer System.”

“Why?”

“Less wishy washy on the terms. For something like ‘protect me’ a soul contract is better. For something with a list of specific terms and conditions, System.”

“Ok sure, that.”

She grumbled a little then a few minutes later, Felix was staring at a System contract screen.

System Contract

A contract between Rainoth and Felix Kade.

Rainoth’s Terms:

* Felix Kade must be honest about the source of the outfits he obtained from Raidran’s.

* Felix Kade must be honest about how he likes the outfits he obtained from Raidran’s.

* Felix Kade must come to Raidran’s first with any materials he wishes to sell that are above Uncommon, assuming no overriding obligations.

* Felix Kade must go to Raidran’s for all future outfits he wishes to have made until such time as they can no longer fulfill his needs. These outfits will be provided free of charge assuming none of the other terms and conditions have been broken.

* Rainoth retains the right to commission enchanting work from Felix Kade at an agreed upon rate.

The penalty for violating any of the above terms is a fine of 1 S grade credit to be paid out over 1000 epochs.

Felix quickly read through the terms and while they seemed to be relatively fair, his face contorted in confusion at the penalty.

“1 S grade credit paid out over 1000 epochs?”

“It lets me recoup some of the costs and shouldn’t be too hard for you to pull off.”

He couldn’t really argue with that. His only issue with the contract was that it was missing his terms, so he added them.

System Contract

A contract between Rainoth and Felix Kade.

Rainoth’s Terms:

* Felix Kade must be honest about the source of the outfits he obtained from Raidran’s.

* Felix Kade must be honest about how he likes the outfits he obtained from Raidran’s.

* Felix Kade must come to Raidran’s first with any materials he wishes to sell that are above Uncommon, assuming no overriding obligations.

* Felix Kade must go to Raidran’s for all future outfits he wishes to have made until such time as they can no longer fulfill his needs. These outfits will be provided free of charge assuming none of the other terms and conditions have been broken.

* Rainoth retains the right to commission enchanting work from Felix Kade at an agreed upon rate.

The penalty for violating any of Rainoth’s terms is a fine of 1 S grade credit to be paid out over 1000 epochs.

Felix Kade’s Terms:

* Rainoth may never reveal anything about Felix including but not limited to: his actions, his possessions or his abilities to anyone, ever.

* Rainoth may not refer to Felix in any way, at all when speaking with anyone who he does not know.

Felix Kade’s terms will be enforced by The System. Any attempt to circumvent them will result in Rainoth’s terms being rendered null and void.

She grimaced, “Is this really necessary?”

“Yes.”

She grumbled for almost a minute before sighing, “Fine.”

She accepted the contract then shook her head lightly, “Anyways, wanna see your robes? They aren’t done and I don’t ever show clients unfinished work but you’re an employee now.”

Felix nodded, “Sure.”

She led him into the main chamber he had been measured in then into a back room where she walked up to a table on one side that held a multiple rolls of fabric.

“We had to change the fabrics around a little bit and they’re a little more expensive than we agreed upon but…” Rainoth started mumbling, “you aren’t paying for them anyways.”

Felix reached out and touched the fabric on the largest roll. It was a light grey fabric and it was similar to how he remembered the sample they had made. It was darker and no longer off white but rather light grey now and a little thinner overall but it was similarly soft.

Rainoth reached over to the side of the table where she picked up a simple quill and handed it to him, “Here, use this to put a basic enchantment in the cloth.”

Felix took a look at the quill and noted that it was barely even a quill. It was more like a pen with a mana conductive material in the middle. If he fed mana to the quill and wrote, it would simply use the mana as if it were ink.

Now that he had a System enforced contract protecting him, he wasn’t nearly as concerned about revealing things. He didn’t bother taking the quill and instead just formed a simple enchantment out of mana, in the air in front of him, then lowered it into the fabric. Everywhere the mana touched the fabric, he could feel it morphing and becoming mana conductive.

The enchantment simply glowed a slight red color, nothing more. With the enchantment still in the cloth, he could still feel the mana channels that had formed, or more accurately, the mana flowing through them, within the cloth. The enchantment he had made, the mana specifically, was still embedded inside and was somehow creating channels within the material. He reached out and morphed the mana embedded within the cloth using his mana control and simply had the enchantment shift from red, to orange, to yellow, to green, to blue.

“Or… you could just do that… your mana control is… impressive… for your age.”

Felix looked at her and smiled, “This stuff is awesome.”

“Yeah and prohibitively expensive, you mind getting rid of that?”

Felix complied, removing all the mana from the cloth, leaving it looking completely new again.

Looking at the cloth, Felix frowned, “This seems dangerous. Couldn’t someone modify my enchantments or ruin them just by hitting me with a blast of mana?”

“No. This isn’t affinized yet but once we finish forming the entire outfit, we’ll have you provide a small soul seed and we’ll affinize the entire thing to your soul.”

Felix nodded, “I can do that myself once it’s complete.”

She frowned, “We’ll talk about it when it’s done.”

Felix shrugged then examined the other materials on the desk as well, a black material that was much thicker and heavier as well as a darker blue cloth that felt extremely light and comfortable.

Once he had gone through them all, she led him out of the room and back into the main chamber.

“You need anything else?”

Felix looked around, “Are we the only ones here?”

She cocked a questioning brow, “Yes. Kordran’s out and Krinitor’s busy with other clients.”

He nodded, “I have a rare material that I want you to make me something from.”

She smiled, “Already? This is turning out to have been an excellent decision.”

Felix pulled out a couple of Endycor’s scales and held them out to her. She squinted and looked at them then stumbled backwards a step with wide eyes, “This was the fucking worst decision I have ever made. Who are you?”

He just chuckled, “This is why my terms were necessary, among other things.”

She groaned and fell into the couch behind her, rubbing her face, “This isn’t enough to actually make anything from.”

Felix placed the scales on the table then-

“Oh great dragon mother, please don’t tell me you have a Dragon’s corpse in your spatial storage?”

Felix chuckled and dumped all the scales he had collected onto the table, “No corpse but I can get more.”

“What exactly do you want me to make out of Dragon scales?”

“Pants. Or actually, shorts.”

“What the hell for?”

Felix activated his rings, surrounding his body with streams of crimson and golden white that disappeared a few moments later revealing his Persona’s body. Looking down, he was still wearing the scraps of clothing he had bought in Atalus and they had been basically shredded down to scraps. The fact that they were still holding on at all was a miracle.

She groaned again, “What the fuck is this?”

“I got some cool rings back in the integration and they let me do this. I haven’t totally figured it all out yet but… it’s been fun.”

“I’m gonna need a lot more scales to make anything for that.”

Felix nodded, “Want to take measurements now then I’ll reveal more secrets afterwards?”

She grumbled and quickly measured him then tentatively picked up one of the Dragon scales examining it.

Felix reverted to his normal form and opened his Pocket Home against one of the walls. He beckoned Nova out and asked her if she could make more scales for him.

She meowed then walked over and started spitting out Dragon scales.

“What the fuck is that and why is it cursed?”

“This is Nova, my familiar. Was a matter sprite, now a matter spirit.”

“How is it doing that.”

“Can’t all matter sprites do that? She transforms matter so I just had her do exactly that. Transform matter and replicate existing objects.”

Rainoth looked at him like he disgusted her, “If all matter sprites could do that, don’t you think they would be used in every shop ever to duplicate every rare material in existence?”

Felix shrugged, “Fair point. I don’t know how she does it then. Or rather, I don’t know why other matter sprites wouldn’t be able to do that.”

Rainoth sighed, “Some do. It’s just really slow. They also require a lot of matter that is closely related to the matter they’re creating, which kind of defeats the whole point.”

Felix frowned, “Huh. I had her duplicate some phoenix cells and she just ate rocks to do it. Took her a few hours.”

Rainoth’s face contorted even further, “Phoenix? You… what?”

Felix looked over and had Nova transform into a phoenix which she was ecstatic to do. She took off and flew around the room then landed on Felix’s shoulder and cooed.

Rainoth looked dumbfounded for a few moments then coughed a little, “Alright I need more scales and some phoenix feathers as payment.”

“You said free of charge.”

“Contract says you have to come to me first.”

“If I wish to sell the material.”

She grumbled, “Are you saying no or just being a pain in my ass?”

“The latter.”

She swore at him a few times before disappearing to retrieve something. Felix had Nova create more scales for her and she returned with food, for Nova. She fed Nova piles of scrap materials so she could continue producing scales then feathers afterwards.

Rainoth promised him the shorts would be done soon and she would give them to him secretly when he came back to pick up the robes. He didn’t have anything else he needed from her so he headed out and flew over to Over Capacity with Nova nestled in his robes.

Menan recognized Felix and a smile formed on his face, “Here to clean me out of more garbage tier batteries?”

“Not this time. I need 2 Very Fast B grade Special batteries and 5 Instant B grade Rare batteries.”

Menan laughed out loud, “Complete other end. The’ell you need all that for?”

“My familiar is running out of mana and I got a charm that I can fit 5 batteries into.”

Menan frowned as he found and placed two gems into the machines behind him, “Ye know ye might run inna problems’ith combining batteries. Yer charm ain’t fit to take batts this big.”

“What do you mean, problems?”

“Ever wonder why people don’t just buy a’bunch o-smaller batteries ‘stead of payin’ way more fer larger ones?”

“I assumed they did.”

He chuckled, “Depends. Yer makin an item’at only has room fer 1 batt, you need the biggest ye can get. All batts ’ave flaws. The mana stored in em usually get’s a bit o’attunement ’om the flaws. Yer mix the mana from multiple batteries, ye might not have a’good time.”

“So the charm has functions to normalize mana then?”

“Yup. Issue is, it ain’t designed to andle batts this big, this much mana.”

Felix nodded, “Gotcha. Well, I’d like them anyways and I’ll use them for something else if I encounter problems. Can’t have the charm for that long anyways.”

Menan snorted, “I think yer might be puttin the largest batts I ever seen in a charm.”

Felix shrugged, “I like to live on the edge.”

Menan chuckled.

Felix examined the machines further, just remembering their technique as much as he could for later as they worked.

[B - Special] Mana Battery (12,000,000/12,000,000)

[Normal][Very Fast]

A battery containing mana.

[B - Rare] Mana Battery (8,000,000/8,000,000)

[Normal][Instant]

A battery containing mana.

The B grade Special batteries for Grim and Nova cost him 100,000 B each. The B grade Rare batteries were incredibly cheap by comparison at just 10 B each. After his discount, the batch cost him 180,045 B which was well worth it in his opinion.

He swapped out the batteries in his charm, storing the others in his Soul Space for the time being and fed one of the Special batteries to Grim. He kept the other for himself until he had time to explain how to use it to Nova.

Checking his status screen, Felix gawked at his mana pool which had just gone up by 40 million.

Holy shit I have so much mana. What the fuck.

You need to find a way to keep it when you finally hit C grade.

Yeah, maybe I can move the batteries into my body or something? I also still need to figure out why my mana pool is tied to my intelligence. It doesn’t make sense.

Flying back to Inscripticae, Felix found an empty meeting room and placed Nova on the table. Then, he took her battery out of his Soul Space and presented it to her and told her not to eat it. First, he made sure it was full then he did his best to explain to her that this would replace her pile of corpses. He visualized the balls going into it and to demonstrate, he did just that. He took a ball of mana and visibly fed it into the battery.

She seemed to understand but Felix couldn’t be sure. He was pretty sure she understood not to break it down so, he tentatively handed it to her and it promptly vanished.

He handed her some innocuous and incredibly inefficient spells he inscribed on the spot then had her cast them for him from her new battery. A disco of lights poured out of her mouth for a few minutes then Felix had her return the battery to him.

It had depleted by a few hundred thousand as expected. Next, he returned the battery to her and also handed her a disposable battery. Checking once again, she promptly used the disposable to fill the battery back up.

Well, that was easier than I expected.

Satisfied that she understood he placed her back in his robes and walked into the workshop storage room where he headed into his Pocket Home and resumed his work on the Mana Computer.

He first spent time to verify the entire thing as thoroughly as he could and found a number of transistors he had to manually replace. Once that was done, he went back to slowly growing his computer except this time, instead of doubling its size, which was becoming problematic, he settled on increasing it by 10% at a time.

He compressed the anima in his soul space until he had enough then coated the outside of the computer in the anima and finally filled that layer with mana. He was only adding 10% at a time which made the outside layer very thin and therefore less error prone. There was very little that was ever far from the computer itself so all the anima had a solid template to work off of close by.

It took him about an hour each time to increase its size by 10% then verify everything. By the end of the three days, during which he also trained for two hours each day, the computer had grown to be a little bigger than a softball.

Verification had very quickly become easier as it grew then, progressively harder once he had hit about the size of a golf ball. Complex functions that used every transistor were hard to come up with. The massive secondary benefit of having it suffused with anima though was that it was trivial for him to program the transistors, provide input to the system and even read output back from it. He could also read the output of individual transistors which made debugging much simpler.

Just 5 minutes before the allotted meeting time, Felix stowed the computer for the time being and headed out to meet the client. Nova was still asleep and seemed to be doing some organizing so he left her in the Pocket Home and headed out into the lobby where he found Aldahn.

“Perfect timing. She just arrived a couple minutes ago.”

Felix nodded, “Perfect.”

Aldahn led him to one of the meeting rooms and opened the door for him.

Inside the room, Felix saw a female Elf with a tight bun of chestnut colored hair wearing a set of dark navy leather that made Felix think of a royal guard. Her posture was perfect and the inclination of her head had Felix worried he wasn’t going to like her very much.

[C] Elendra (Lvl ?)

Sitting down across from the woman, Felix smiled.

She immediately got into it, her head still inclined such that she had to look down slightly to speak to him even though they were a similar height, “I seek a dueling coat. I require that it protects me from piercing and slashing attacks with a focus on piercing. It should keep itself out of my way and yet, at the same time, not hinder my movement in any way. It must not assist me in the duels as that is forbidden, simply protect me from being hit. Is that clear?”

Felix nodded, “Yes.”

“Excellent. It should also be fashionable and comfortable with quality materials. Cost is no issue.”

Felix frowned, “I need a budget otherwis-”

“I said it is no issue.”

Felix sighed and shrugged, “Alright I’ll just put it down at 1000 S then. I think I might be able to get my hands on some Arachnid Silk, I’ll talk to our contacts.”

She balked at him then coughed and blanked her expression, “I do not trust you to spend that much. I should only trust you with up to a 100B I think. However… should your work impress I will surely come back with a much larger budget next time.”

This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

Felix nodded knowingly, “Oh, of course. Anything else?”

“Yes. The coat cannot deflect or otherwise move a blade in any way. It must stop it and must do so within a hair of my actual body. Duels are fast and they are close. It is possible I could avoid a strike on my own even if the blade gets within an inch of my flesh.”

“That’s going to use a lot of mana to stop it instantly.”

She nodded, “Of course. Don’t bother with having it charge itself as the dueling chambers all have mana recharge stations for equipment.”

As they got into the specifics more, Felix realized the coat’s enchantment would be largely similar to Felix’s cloak, just less versatile. He hadn’t decided yet on whether or not to use the same tiling enchantment but the basic concepts were the same. He was also going to have to acquire mana batteries shaped like buttons because he had no idea how else he would be able to power it without having it look ridiculous.

Felix quoted her just 2 dekads which he thought was reasonable considering he would have to wait for a tailor to make him a coat to enchant.

He thought about convincing Rainoth to make him something simple but this job was so far below her capabilities that it would have been a waste of time for everyone involved. She also didn’t exactly work quickly.

Instead, Felix sorted through the tailors in the city using his map to filter them down until he found one that he deemed appropriate. On his way there, he started designing the basic enchantment in his mind. He decided to go with the same tiling style as before because the large downside of bludgeoning attacks wasn’t really applicable to a coat dedicated to stopping rapiers.

He got to the tailors and introduced himself then they talked briefly about materials, style and so on. Once Felix had a general idea of what he wanted, he consulted a few other tailors, none of which contradicted the first so he decided it was probably a solid idea.

Heading back to Inscripticae, Felix inscribed his initial design, a direct modification of his own enchantment, and began testing it. First he determined how much less efficient it would be when compared to a standard enchantment. With only piercing attacks considered, it wasn’t more than 10% less efficient which was more than acceptable in Felix’s eyes.

The other advantage to this style of enchantment, especially in this application, was that the distribution of mana was dead simple. It would also have no issues with instantly drawing a ton of mana at once to stop a blade quickly.

He then worked on the instantaneous part and found it difficult to have the tiles react fast enough so, he decided to cheat. Instead of having the tiles react and stop the blade instantly, there was instead a layer to the enchantment that could detect incoming attacks early. It would then start drawing mana from the batteries to pre-saturate the enchantment for when the real enchantment activated.

The hard part was having it refund the mana if the strike didn’t reach the threshold where it needed to be stopped. It took some very fine tuning and Felix had to design an entire second set of enchantments to distribute and recharge the batteries with the refunded mana that would end up on the inside of the coat but, he finally got it working the way he wanted. He also had to have the second set normalize everything because of the concerns of combining mana from multiple batteries.

He inscribed a sample of the enchantments on either side of a large metal plate he used for testing and used a test battery from the storage room with Instant draw to power it. He placed the prototype in the design room then dragged Aldahn over to give it a once over.

“This seems… a little over complicated.”

Felix slumped his shoulders, “I mean, it works… You have a better enchantment in mind?”

Aldahn chuckled and shook his head, “Don’t get me wrong, it’s great. I just don’t think this is worth what she’s paying. This enchantment is way too good for…” Aldahn quickly read through the specifications for the coat Felix had written out on the board, “yeah that coat is C grade Rare at best? This enchantment would be suitable for B grade Rare, assuming the batteries were big enough.”

Felix’s expression brightened, “Oh, so it’s fine then?”

Aldahn shrugged, “Sure, she’s just getting the best damn deal of her life. This is gonna end up being a C grade Legendary coat at least.”

Felix smiled, “I’m ok with that, are you?”

“Hey, it’s your labor. As long as the bill of materials is appropriate, I don’t care what you charge for your own work. The profit for us is the same, right? Plus, this makes us look really good too.”

Felix nodded, “Perfect. Wanna give me your notes on the enchantment itself?”

Aldahn nodded and ran Felix through some of the issues. He also simulated strikes from someone in the C and low B grade so Felix could see how it performed.

While it did stop most of them, it didn’t quite fully stop some the fastest and strongest strikes. Aldahn didn’t directly tell him how to fix it but he gave him some leads. He also approved the coat specifications but gave some alternative options he likely would have chosen so Felix could look into them.

Heading back into the workshop, Felix tried to figure out how to perfectly stop the strike and eventually decided he was going to have to create an actual physical barrier of some kind. He settled on tiny Mana Shields because that’s what he knew best and created an entirely new layer to the enchantment.

In the end there were three and a half layers, one that detected incoming strikes early and pre-saturated the entire enchantment with mana. The second slowed the strike as much as possible, potentially stopping it, if it passed a threshold of a couple millimeters from the wearer’s flesh. The second layer also lightly pushed the coat into the wearer so it wasn’t hanging so far out that it prematurely stopped a strike that would otherwise have done no damage. Essentially it allowed the coat to dodge a strike if possible and stop it if necessary.

The last layer constructed a Mana Shield right at the tip of the blade that was just half an inch in diameter. Any leftover force in the strike after the second layer had tried to stop it, was handled by the Mana Shield.

He finalized the enchantment, cleaned it up and inscribed it onto a test sheet then placed it in the design room. While he waited for people to show up, he worked on his mana computer. Ezaldor showed up first and had some tips for keeping the threshold accurate that Felix noted down for the next revision.

After that it was Edemari and Fralyna who mostly just approved the design. They had some questions but Felix was able to answer them all and otherwise, they didn’t offer anything Aldahn and Ezaldor hadn’t already told him.

Lastly Inorim actually showed up at some point and had some excellent advice for the underside of the enchantment, the distribution layer that would make it much simpler around the batteries.

With everyone’s approval in hand, Felix headed to the tailor he had liked best and commissioned the actual coat. He asked about Aldahn’s choices for materials and ended swapping to one of them simply because the tailor had it in house and he could finish the coat in a couple days rather than a dekad.

Felix didn’t bother waiting in the shop for the tailor to finish and so he headed back to Inscripticae where he trained for two hours then continued his work with the mana computer. He actually skipped his daily training on the second day because he was so close to his target size for the computer, he just wanted to finish it.

Before he did anything with it though, he still had to verify it. He quickly performed the two hours of training he had skipped then bathed in the weird liquid lake surrounding his Pocket Home. He had hesitated at first but decided he didn’t have time to find an actual bath house.

Ultimately, he hadn’t experienced any adverse effects from touching it and it didn’t really smell so he decided it was probably fine and didn’t think much of it.

Flying to the tailor’s, Felix starting thinking through everything else he wanted to accomplish. Top of his mind was still the computer which, once verified, he would consider actually using. He also still had to analyze the portal spell form he had memorized from Orav which wouldn’t take long he had just had higher priorities until now. He also wanted to figure out how his charm worked, just analyze it a little further in case there were nodes, channels or patterns he could steal. Lastly, he wanted to figure out his mana pool and why it was tied to intelligence.

He arrived just as the tailor was finishing up the coat and had to wait a couple hours for it to be complete. The coat looked good, in Felix’s opinion. It was a similar dark navy as she had been wearing but the tailor had also added a collar, some straps around the wrist and waist and other small modifications that made it more form fitting.

While Felix waited, he pulled something out of his Soul Space that he had been meaning to look at but hadn’t gotten around to until now.

He pinched, stretched and examined the hat he had gotten from the Mana Planet job and identified it once again.

[D - Mythic] Mysterious Hat

[Hat]

The appearance of the hat changes based on the person wearing it.

A useless tag and a description that says a whole lot of nothing.

He sighed, Fuck it.

He carefully lifted the hat and dropped it onto his head. He immediately realized what a bad idea that had been not because there seemed to be any kind of curse, but because he didn’t have a mirror in front of him.

Walking through the tailor’s shop, Felix found a mirror and looked up at the hat. Instead of a worn and rough grey looking hat he saw what looked like a very standard Wizard’s hat. It was a very dark blue color that looked almost purple in the right light and had a leather strap around the middle with a shiny brass buckle. On the hat, there were bright white spots that slightly glowed with white lines connecting them to form what looked like constellations.

Lastly, and the most out of place in Felix’s mind, there were metal loops and gems hanging from the brim of the hat all the way around it. They didn’t interfere with his ability to see but they jingled and jangled and were mildly annoying.

Felix sighed and tossed the hat back into his Soul Space then sat back down in the lobby to wait out the rest of the time until the coat was done. As soon as he sat down, he heard a slight jingling sound and reaching up, he felt the hat, on his head.

What the…

He pulled it off and stowed it in his Soul Space then actively watched it, but two hours passed and nothing happened. It remained in his Soul Space.

Felix shook his head and decided he might have gone crazy then walked over to the tailor and retrieved the coat from him. He offered his hand to pay the tailor and they happily accepted the quoted 15 B.

Just as he was leaving the shop, the tailor called out, “Nice hat by the way.”

Felix’s hands shot up to his head and sure enough, the hat had returned itself to his head.

What is happening. Shouldn’t this be impossible? It was in my Soul Space, right? How the hell… Grim, are you pranking me?

What, no! No it should not be possible, I have no idea what’s happening. Let’s just keep an eye out to see if it’s actually eating your brain or something.

Should we destroy it? Send it into a star or something?

Only if it gets worse.

Felix nodded and reached up to remove the hat but it was gone. There was nothing on his head. He frowned and looked around but couldn’t see anything out of place.

Grim nudged him mentally, Check your Soul Space, I don’t think it liked the talk of destroying it.

Are you saying it was reading my mind?

Maybe? It looks like it’s cowering in your Soul Space.

Looking inwards, sure enough the hat was basically trembling in the corner of his Soul Space.

Good hat…

It calmed down a little and Felix shook his head to clear it from the whole experience then flew back to Inscripticae to finish the coat.

With the enchantment finalized and the coat in hand, Felix quickly adjusted the enchantment to the actual dimensions of the coat then got to work. All he had to do was inscribe the enchantment with the appropriate quill. It took an annoyingly long time but it had to be done and it was the last step left before the finishing touches.

The quill he used actually sewed a glowing thread into the coat’s fabric, which was interesting enough on its own. Once the thread was in place though, he drenched the whole thing in a bath of the appropriate finisher and the glow vanished, leaving the enchantment completely invisible and embedded.

Felix had been testing everything with the spare batteries he had but for the final product, he needed specially shaped batteries.

Heading over to Over Capacity, Menan greeted him, “Back so soon?”

“Enchanting job. I need 10 B grade Uncommon batteries, Instant draw. Any chance you could shape them like buttons?”

Menan frowned, “Uh… yeah. I’m gonna hav’to file down some bigger gems to do it so it’ll cost ye 10 times as much and… they ain’t gonna match but I’ll get the colors as close I can.”

Felix nodded, “Perfect, thanks.”

Menan shrugged and retrieved a set of suitable gemstones then brought them over to a gem grinder where he flattened them out. Then, he drilled out four holes in the center and finally polished them.

The power tools were fascinating to Felix and he made sure to analyze and memorize as much as he could. They acted very similarly to power tools on earth just, powered by mana and functioned using spells and enchantments.

Placing the shaped and polished buttons into the machines one by one, Felix focused all his attention on them. Instead of functioning the way they normally did, Felix immediately noticed the machines adapting to the shape of the buttons. When they infused mana into the gems in waves, the amplitude of the waves were far bigger on the sides of the button then much finer on the tops and bottoms.

Menan handed the first finished battery to Felix and he looked it over.

[B - Uncommon] Mana Battery Button (6,000,000/6,000,000)

[Button Shaped][Instant]

A battery containing mana.

The buttons were a fiery orange and yellow color but otherwise looked just like buttons.

With all the batteries done, Felix paid Menan the cost of the ten batteries minus his lifetime discount which came out to 9 B.

Felix flew back to Inscripticae and used some of the extra thread the tailor had given him to attach the buttons. He also looped in some mana conductive threads which then attached the batteries to the mana normalization and distribution array enchantment on the underside.

Placing the coat on the dummy in the workshop, Felix tested it out and was very happy with the result. He had managed to finish it almost a dekad early so he put it in the design room for the time being.

[C - Legendary] Dueling Coat

[Coat][Enchanted]

This dueling coat was enchanted to block piercing based attacks from any direction within a couple millimeters of the wearer’s body. It is unlikely any piercing strike will be able to overcome it’s defenses from within the C grade.

Damn. Aldahn said ‘at least C grade Legendary’ and I was kind of hoping for more.

I assume it’s because of the base materials of the coat.

Yeah, probably. Got a lot of levels out of that though so, definitely worthwhile.

In total, Felix had gained 68 profession levels from working on the coat. Checking his stats screen, he allocated all his free points into Intelligence and watched it finally break 100,000, just barely.

Well that was… uneventful.

You want to celebrate it?

No. I don’t know why, I just feel like I was expecting more is all.

Back in the workshop, Felix started running down his todo list, starting with the items he could cross off the fastest.

Entering his Soul Garden, Felix brought up the teleport spell that Orav had used in front of him and he started analyzing it.

There were some similarities to the portal spell form he had been using. The nodes were similar but still distinct and the general structure was reminiscent. Unfortunately, he didn’t know enough about spell forms to know if that was by necessity or because Orav’s was a refinement of the one he was already working with. His initial assessment put Orav’s spell form at just 25 spell levels instead of the 30 it took him to cast Erolan’s portal spell form.

Once he was certain, he exited his Soul Space and quickly replaced the portal spell form mold he had created with the new, simpler spell form.

With that done, he pulled his charm off his body and started examining it. He was approaching C grade fairly quickly and he really did not want to lose access to 40 million mana. He was planning on looking into separating his mana capacity from his Intelligence but until he did, he was hoping to at least learn something from the charm.

It only took him a half hour to fully map out the charm and he did in fact learn something. The channels within the charm and the way it connected the batteries was completely novel to Felix. It formed a network that balanced the draw from the batteries naturally, normalized them a little then coalesced all the mana before normalizing it all one last time. All of this was done without nodes.

The channels themselves simply formed almost a fractal or a vortex and somehow, this pattern was what did all the work.

The geometric pattern the channels formed inspired Felix to start thinking of other patterns that would have similar functions without the need for nodes at all. It was a system without significant failure points. It was simply a network of channels, no nodes necessary and it seemed to accomplish its goal perfectly.

With the patterns stored away in his head for later, Felix finally turned to the item he had been procrastinating on, the computer.

He had reached his goal size in terms of physical size and number of transistors. He even spent an entire day verifying it again but found nothing. It was finished and theoretically, functional. He had been putting it off because it was daunting and dangerous, what he needed to do next.

With the other two items on his todo list, he had really just been pushing off the computer. While he needed to do them eventually, the computer was always in the back of his mind, not literally just yet, but the task before him was ever present.

Any insight on how I might go about this, from your memories or any of the books I’ve scanned?

Sorry, I’ve got nothing. You’re just going to have to go for it. I’ve read your thoughts, your best idea, it seems like it could work.

Felix sighed, Yeah. It would be nice to know a good healer that could undo what I’m about to do if something goes wrong.

It would be nice to have a backup body as well, unfortunately, I don’t know if anyone but you could undo what you are about to do.

Yeah. That is both reassuring that this is the right path and incredibly concerning that I might be ruining myself.

Sorry.

Alright, nothing left but to go for it.

Felix headed into his Pocket Home because he knew no one would be able to fix him if he screwed up and if he died, he didn’t want anyone to be able to find him. He had Nova sit outside and wait for him then sat down near the sapling, that was a couple inches taller than it had been, and pulled out the computer he had been working on.

It was now the exact size of his brain, which was the goal, but not because he intended on replacing his brain but rather, he wanted to attach the computer to it. Fusing them together into one singular entity.

He started by vey carefully shifting the computer in the fourth dimension then moving it into his mana pool. His mana pool was just a pocket of mana that sat alongside his body, just shifted slightly. Placing the computer right where his brain would be, he carefully fused his soul to the anima used to create the computer.

The last step of the process was the part where irreversible things could start to happen.

Felix made sure the computer was pressed right up against his brain, perfectly overlapping it in the fourth dimension, then focused in on the anima that now connected them. He carefully honed in on the experiences within the anima.

The experience of his brain, how it functioned, the experience of the computer, how to build it, how to program it, how to connect it, how to read from it and write to it. Lastly, he mixed in some of the experiences and feelings from his own core soul. The desire to grow stronger, to be smarter, to think things through, the feeling of having perfect memory and the satisfaction of using it, the will to live and finally, the desire to control.

There was no big explosion or significant pain. In fact, as he finished, he wasn’t even sure anything was happening. Theoretically his brain and the computer would slowly connect themselves together and become more integrated over time but this was based on a lot of guessing and assumptions. There was no research or previous tests or even experiments he could run to verify anything.

It was impossible to do what he was doing for anyone but him. He could have created another computer and attached it to a monkey but his soul was the only one that had the mana senses and control to correctly read and write from the computer. Trying to fuse that to a monkey would likely also wipe out its soul which was not ideal. Even bonded creatures like Nova ran the same risk because he would need to put so much of his soul at such a high density, both he and Grim were certain it would have obliterated her.

So all that was left was for Felix to wait. Wait for something to happen, any sign to show that it had worked. He took a couple of deep breaths to calm himself then got up and walked out of his Pocket Home.

He looked around the storage room then felt Nova outside in the workshop in an out of character act of defiance. Felix walked out and looked for her, finding her in the design room with Aldahn.

Watching from the door, Felix saw Aldahn playing with Nova. Much like a real pet, he had a small chunk of some material in his hands and he was playing keep away with Nova in her scaled kitten form.

He noticed and acknowledged Felix as he entered with a slight nod then turned back to Nova.

Considering it was the middle of the night, Felix felt comfortable asking Aldahn something he had been wondering about for a while.

“Hey Aldahn, could I ask you something in your office?”

Aldahn looked at Felix then nodded and shrugged, “Sure.”

He tossed the chunk of material into the air and Nova immediately caught it then followed them over to his office.

Once inside, Felix waited until the door was closed then he pulled out Grim from his soul space, for the first time in a very long time.

“What do you see when I show you this?” Felix held Grim out in front of him.

“Oh, it’s Dark Magic.”

Felix frowned, “Dark Magic?”

Aldahn immediately shook his head, “No not Dark Magic, Dark Magic.”

Felix’s face contorted even further, “What? Wait… What? You just said the same thing twice.”

Aldahn sighed in understanding, “Damn, stupid System translation. Ancient Magic, Forgotten Magic, Hidden Magic, Magic hidden in the shadows of time? Not Evil Magic or anything like that.”

Felix nodded, “Ancient Magic sounds the most accurate to me.”

Aldahn cocked his head back and forth indicating sort of, “Most people’s understanding of the magic is hidden, secret, forgotten, lost in the dark, hard to find. Which why we call it Dark Magic. I suspect your language doesn’t have quite the right words so The System translates to the closest word it can find that conveys a similar meaning.”

“I guess Dark Magic makes some sense with context.”

“See, you just used a different word for me right there, but I suspect you said the same thing with different intent just now, right?”

Felix nodded, “That is… frustrating.”

Aldahn chuckled, “One of the biggest flaws of The System we’ve come across. It wipes out the need for languages but the translation is imperfect. Any translation is just flawed by nature. No two languages will ever map one to one. So, something is always lost.”

“It could just convey the meaning directly into our heads though, right?”

“It could. The System used to avoid that more though and it’s been translating everything… since the start I think. Obviously it doesn’t translate codes or languages where the intention is to hide meaning but…”

“What would Evil Magic be then?”

Aldahn shrugged, “There is no inherently Evil Magic. Everyone understands that… Other than a few particularly zealous gods… Necromancy is naturally a little worrisome but it’s not inherently Evil. You can be a necromancer and do it humanely without causing pain or sacrificing anyone. It’s taboo, but not evil. No one is going to hunt you down and kill you just because you chose the class and practice it. Well… except some gods, but living in Telviras and other neutral locations, you’d be perfectly safe.”

Felix nodded, “Yeah, just talked to a necromancy expert at the library in fact.”

Aldahn’s eyes rolled upwards, deep in thought, “I guess… depending on your morals, you could consider blood rituals inherently evil but… I don’t know that that’s a specific kind of magic more like… a technique…”

“I see. But this book, can you identify it? Am I at risk of being attacked for having it? Am I at risk of having it stolen?”

Aldahn shrugged, “I just see Tome. Maybe if someone had more knowledge of what it was they’d want to steal it? I would be… surprised if anyone was that dedicated to researching it that they would do that. More likely they would offer you increasingly exorbitant offers until you lent it to them.”

Felix let go of Grim and he floated in the air in between them. Grim opened himself up and faced Aldahn then clearly wrote something Felix couldn’t see on his pages.

Aldahn’s eyes widened, “Oh, it’s sapio-sentient… That’s… You’re probably still fine… I’d worry more about the cursed familiar honestly.”

Felix winced, “Oh… that bad?”

“Well… no one’s gonna want to steal it but, people might avoid you or decide Nova was better off dead.”

“Gotcha, thanks. Last question, a few times now I’ve wanted to cast certain spells but before I even get them off, something happens and… it’s like they go off instantly before I have the chance to actually cast them myself… does makes sense?”

Aldahn shrugged, “I think so? I’m not a caster but… I’ve never heard of anything like that. I don’t know. Maybe The System just really likes you? It’s not unheard of for The System to favor certain individuals. It’s very rare though.”

Felix frowned, “Yeah maybe.”

“Oh by the way, I was looking for you. That’s how I found Nova chilling in the storage closet and… never mind. We’ve got a new job.”

Felix nodded then let his confusion leak onto his face, “Ok, so…”

“It’s the biggest job I’ve ever been contracted to do, as an adventurer or an enchanter. It’s gonna be an all hands on deck kind of situation. Well, not all hands. I already know Krinitor is too busy right now, because he just got a huge job from a long time client himself but, we’ll definitely need everyone else.”

Felix nodded appreciatively, “That big?”

Aldahn nodded slowly, “Yeah. We’re gonna meet with the client together in just over 2 dekads. I’m going to be letting everyone know as I find them so no one makes other commitments.”

“Any idea how long it will take?”

“No idea. All I know is how much they’re ready to pay for it and a general idea of the level of enchantment they need. They only gave me a basic idea and I already know… it’s gonna be a lot of work.”

“Which is…”

“Their budget is somewhere between 1S and 1SS depending on how much we need. Enchantment has to be at least A grade Legendary, ideally higher.”

Felix scoffed, “No offense but… Is Inscripticae really the best shop to be handling this job?”

Aldahn chuckled, “That’s what I said but they specifically wanted us. Something about a personal recommendation.”

This sounds… something is up…

“Alright. I’ll be here… by the way, I should let you know, I have somewhere I have to be in 111 days. I’ll let you know my plans closer to the date.” Felix offered a slightly guilty smile.

“That shouldn’t be an issue with this job. Worst case you can leave early. Thanks for letting me know.”

Felix nodded and exited the office, Grim floating behind him and Nova riding on Grim’s cover.

Alright so I’ve got just over 2 dekads to kill.

That you do.

I think first things first, I should clean out my Soul Space.

Grim chuckled in Felix’s mind, Good call. It is getting kind of messy in there.

Felix just scoffed because his soul space was barely 5% full.

He touched and stowed Grim in his Soul Space then shoved Nova into his robes and flew off to Luther’s.

He found the giant toad sitting behind the counter in his shop, seemingly discussing something with tiny fairy like creatures. As Felix entered, the fairies vanished leaving just the two of them in the shop, alone.

“Ah, the new kid in Shade’s Wrath. What can I get for you today?”

“Actually, I was hoping you would buy some things from me.”

Luther’s eyes waggled, “Oh, is that so?”

First, Felix offered Luther the books he had gotten in the tutorial as well as his old E grade quills. Luther offered him a meager amount for all of them, but the toad was clearly not impressed. Felix had expected that and honestly, he was just hoping to get anything for any of it. It had no value to him anymore so he would just throw any of it away if Luther didn’t buy it from him.

After that there was the random crap he had picked up in the world event that he didn’t need or have a use for.

The bigger ticket items were his old charm, experiment 12, the plate armor from Erolan’s experiment storage room, and something he hadn’t expected to be worth much.

“I can offer 10 B for the charm. This suit of armor is… interesting.”

“I couldn’t actually identify it, can you?”

Luther answered by sharing the identification with him.

[D - Cursed] Bonded Plate

[Armor][Cursed]

This plate armor creates an unbreakable bond with its wearer. Once equipped, the armor will begin to gradually tighten until it eventually sinks beneath their flesh and merges with it. It will continue to offer the wearer the full protection of plate armor but will remain forever bonded to them.

In order to be removed once fully bonded, the armor must be removed surgically with high grade cutting equipment.

This armor does not grow in protection and will only ever offer A [D - Legendary] level Plate Armor protection. It does not however, count as equipped armor once fully bonded for the effects of skills and classes that have such a requirement.

“Wait a second, that’s not necessarily a bad thing.”

Luther nodded, “Great stuff for some pugilist or barbarian classes that require no armor to function.”

Felix winced, “But it has to be surgically removed once they get to C grade…”

“Not necessarily,” Luther croaked, “It is possible, in some rare circumstances, that the armor will count as a part of the wearer’s body and evolve along with their race. Assuming they are eligible for a [C - Legendary] or above race.”

So considering I won’t ever have to upgrade my race again, not really usable for me.

Grim shrugged, You could probably remove it without surgery though.

Yeah… I’m already too close to C grade to worry about this I think.

Agreed.

Felix nodded, “So, to the right buyer, it would be worth a lot is what you’re saying?”

Luther laughed which was a deep and rumbling croak, “Yes. I believe I could find a buyer for this and I’d be willing to offer… 0.25 A?”

Holy shit.

“Wow. You also said this was valuable?”

Luther nodded as he looked at the book Felix was pointing to.

[E - Rare] Eramith & Edelis: Enchanting Basics

A book written by a collection of master enchanters detailing the basics of enchanting intended for their personal apprentices. This version was later edited for general consumption by The Edelis Enchanting Department of The Eramith Academy.

Luther shrugged his massive front legs, “It’s decently rare to find Eramith anything outside of the school itself. I could probably offer you…”

Before he even said a number, Felix’s instincts tickled at him. His soul was aware of something he wasn’t and it was telling him Luther was hiding something. It threw him off a little and he had to shut his eyes to process it.

“100 B?”

Felix finally managed to come back to his senses and he just nodded, “Actually, I’ll keep the book.” With his finger still on the book’s cover, he stowed it in his Soul Space.

Luther didn’t seem happy about that but he didn’t say anything on the matter.

“So, how about 0.35 A for everything here?”

Luther laughed raucously for a minute straight before collecting himself, “No. No chance in hell I’m paying that much for this junk. I’ll give you 0.25 A and I won’t charge you the cleaning fee for taking everything else.”

Felix frowned, “Oh come on, you get to sell both of these yourself, you’ll find the right buyer and you’ll make a handsome profit. 0.3 A?”

Luther groaned which was a deep, rumbling sound, “Fine.”

A transfer screen appeared and Felix accepted, receiving 300k B.

He bid Luther farewell and headed back to Inscripticae with a much cleaner Soul Space.

He immediately flew into the storage closet and entered his Pocket Home. Inside, he briefly checked on the sapling that seemed to be doing fine then dropped off Nova and Grim and flew up to the top of his tower.

There had been an option in the upgrade podium that he had seen a while back but hadn’t felt the need to bother with until now. He also had plenty of mana accumulated in the mana engine and battery below so he had more than enough to pay for it.

[D - Epic] Wizard’s Tower

Claim Land

Claim the land surrounding the tower as a part of the tower itself. This will add all the land and liquid in the surrounding area, as it is enclosed, and that land will be considered a part of the tower itself. Upgrades and modifications to the land and liquid claimed will appear in this management console.

Requirements:

10B Mana [21.5B | 215%]

1 B Credit (Consumed) [511,908 | 51,190,800%]

Would you like to claim the surrounding land now?

Yes.

No.

Yes.

The process was completely uneventful but looking through the console, Felix saw exactly what he had been hoping for. Before he touched anything else though, he darted out of the tower, saw Grim and Nova play sparring, and flew into the Necromancer’s tower.

He immediately headed straight into the dungeon where he looked down at the necromancer’s battery. Before touching it, he had Grim and Nova both hurry over so he could stick them in his soul space then, he broke the wards around the battery.

As far as he could tell, nothing had happened. There were no wails of the damned souls or anything. He lifted the glass and hopped down then reached forwards and touched the battery, sticking it in his Soul Space.

There was a slight risk that it affected Nova and Grim but, considering how quickly his Soul Space obliterated every other soul he had stowed, he was more worried about them being nearby when he undid the wards.

With the transfer complete, he let the two of them out and searched the rest of the tower. He found a few interesting enchantment nodes that he memorized but otherwise, he was confident there was nothing else he wanted in there.

Finally, he headed back into his own tower and up to the management console where he was ready to spend exorbitant amounts of mana.

He started by completely scrapping the necromancer’s tower. All the materials went into a material cache in the console and would be used in future to lessen the cost of other upgrades. After that, he finally flattened the entire island so it wasn’t on a slant anymore from when he had ripped it out of the side of a dormant volcano.

He then had the entirety of the island reinforced with some of the stone from the necromancer’s tower so there was no chance it would ever fall apart. He also added soil and D grade grass to the entire surface of the island as well as moved some of the mana liquid suffused ponds.

It was also slightly entertaining to Felix, to look out the window and see everything move in real time, especially watching Nova freak out and try to figure out what was happening.

Now that the layout of the island was more balanced and the island itself more stable, he looked inwards and started examining the battery in his Soul Space.

The gem itself was massive, but only physically. In terms of mana capacity, Felix wasn’t sure if there was more than a few million points of mana. Considering its size, he had expected far more. There were however, thousands of souls.

He did not have an exact number and they were a wide variety of different creatures of different levels but, it was a lot of anima.

As he tried to decide what to actually do with all of it, his mind wandered towards his current Soul Reap skill, or rather what it was currently doing for him.

Currently, it was automating the process of stripping souls down and pulling out anything that didn’t have any experiences or instincts. From there, he took out anything left of the second layer from the soul and fused that into his own.

As he thought about it more though, he realized what he was currently doing probably wasn’t the most efficient. It was efficient in terms of netting him raw stats, but it wasn’t efficiently using all of the soul or using it where it was needed most.

He decided he was going to simply harvest all of the souls. It was better than being sealed in the battery and eternally tortured, but he was going to have to change his harvesting method first.

Felix carefully removed a single soul from the battery and moved it directly into The Soul Ring. From there, he started the process he wanted most souls to go through, he dragged them along the outside of his own soul where it was completely obliterated. Then, it was compressed as much as possible and simply fused into his soul anywhere.

He currently had two layers he could add to, the second and third. The second controlled his body and acted as the link between his body and soul, it was responsible for his physical stats. The third was the layer suffusing his body.

It didn’t matter which got more anima added to them because both of them resulted in his soul being stronger and his stats going up. It would also make it so that the stats of the soul he was harvesting no longer mattered, all that mattered was its relative size or strength.

While this allowed him to use the entire soul, it also meant there was nothing left for his Persona’s soul. He wasn’t really concerned about that for the moment though and simply drew as many souls as he could into the ring and reactivated his Soul Reap skill.

Once it was done processing those souls, he moved the rest in and moved his attention over to the battery that was left behind.

The battery’s capacity was oddly small, considering it was a gemstone as wide as Felix’s shoulders. Identifying it, it had less than some of the batteries he had bought. His assumption was that it had something to do with having it used for souls as well as mana but he couldn’t be sure.

Either way, he moved it into the basement of his own tower and connected it in parallel to the other battery he was already using as a buffer. If he ever spent more time figuring out how to make and diagnose batteries he decided he would look into remaking this gemstone but until then, it would act as a passable buffer.

Heading out onto the now grassy fields of the island around his tower, Felix found Nova and Grim flying around. They both noticed him immediately and flew over when Felix requested Grim’s presence in his Memory Palace.

Want to try bringing Nova in here as well?

Felix frowned, Is that possible?

Why wouldn’t it be? I can do it and we have basically the same bond, right?

Ok, what do we do?

We just have to explain to Nova how it works. I can communicate with her myself so let me give it a try.

Felix nodded and waited while a number of expressions passed over Nova’s kitten visage. Eventually though, she closed her eyes, laid down and Felix felt a rush of emotions from her. He quickly moved himself into his Memory Palace and found Nova running around and jumping between shelves.

She ran down the aisles and into the distance then reappeared behind them as the library looped and they were in the center area. She stopped, looked at them in confusion then ran down the aisle again, not quite understanding the non-Euclidean geometry.

After a few minutes of her confusion growing, Felix caught her and dragged her over to his Soul Garden. All he had to do was hold on and will them both to go there and it happened.

The Soul Garden was much easier for her to understand and she jumped around and tried to bite things, but didn’t so much as scratch anything because Felix didn’t wish her to. He did let her splash around in the river and pond though.

He and Grim meanwhile, headed back to the library where together, they sorted through the Necromancer and Lich’s books.

While none of the books had had information on the battery from their skimming them, they had plenty of information on spells and rituals they had bought, created and performed.

Starting with the Fire Storm, while Felix thought the spell was cool, it was far too slow and clunky for his style of combat. It definitely would have been a devastating spell in a lot of circumstances but it took far too much concentration and time to actually cast. It did however, consist of many spell nodes Felix had never seen before.

He spent some time dissecting the spell into it’s constituent parts and analyzing the channels, nodes and patterns. Why certain nodes were grouped with others and why the channels were organized the way they were. The biggest benefit were the Fire and Force nodes whose efficiency curves made them far more suitable for higher mana cost spells allowing Felix’s spells to scale much better.

They also found a number of other spells but unfortunately, Felix was still lacking certain nodes he would have wanted. The other spells were interesting but a lot of them were either useless to him because they were redundant, worse than what he already had or far too clunky to be useful.

Once Felix had gotten everything he wanted from the spells, they briefly sorted through the rest of the information, some of which was useful. There was solid information on rituals, how to cast them and how they worked which was new to Felix but also not something he ever really planned to use. At least, he didn’t have any use case for rituals yet. Most of what rituals did, he could do simply by casting the spell in the air. His portal mold for example seemed to technically be a ritual.

With all the information sorted through, Felix turned his attention to his mind. Feeling out his own brain as well as the connected computer, he couldn’t actually tell if anything had happened. His stats hadn’t changed at all and he couldn’t find any effects so he assumed it would just take more time for his brain to rewire itself a little more.

In order to accelerate the process, Felix looked towards his Persona body and started picking and choosing the best modifications to move over to his own body. He figured some of them were already very stable with little to no downside and moving them over, his brain would be forced to rewire itself a little. In doing so, he was hoping he could accelerate the process of it integrating itself with the computer and having the two wire themselves together.

He started with the eyes which didn’t take nearly as long as it had on his Persona’s body because he had already experimented and designed them. They also had the largest effect compared to everything else. After that he transitioned the rest of his senses, ears, nose and tongue. They were all small increases overall but with his higher perception on his real body, he felt like he noticed them more. It was entirely possible though that was just because it was such a stark transition.

After that he also transitioned the bones and nails. The nails were a very low impact adjustment that would just make him less likely to have them break or be ripped off in the future. They also had very low risk if something went wrong and they seemed perfectly stable on his Persona’s body.

The bones were a little more experimental with more risk but they were also completely stable as far as he could tell. They carried higher risk but not enough that he was going to avoid them.

The skin and muscle modifications he had made to his Persona did have issues. The skin had had problems with being too solid and restricting movements while the muscles were too inefficient to be useful. They also carried a high risk and so Felix dismissed them for the time being and didn’t apply them to his real body.

He was happy his Persona was so useful as a testing ground in case he made a terrible mistake that was difficult to reverse. It gave his Persona value and lately, he’d started to feel an aversion to using his Persona. Ever since he suffused his real body with his own soul, it’s felt so much more comfortable and correct to him.

Switching to a different body just felt wrong.

It was instinctual too, not just a hormonal feeling in his body. His soul itself was more fond of his real body and it resulted in him feeling more comfortable overall. Now, in his Persona, his soul felt like it was being shoved into an uncomfortable suit.

He suspected he could mitigate the feeling by modifying his Persona’s soul and simply restructuring it a little. If he could make the innermost layer the one that suffused the body and affinized the anima to his own soul as much as possible, the feeling would likely disappear. He just didn’t feel the motivation at the moment to do so.

He had also considered making his Persona identical to his real body so it would be a more effective training ground but he decided against doing so. The differences between their bodies actually helped him find issues and allowed him to have 2.5 times the strength at will.

The other huge benefit, which he was hoping would mean more in the future, was that he could enter competitions and generally do things that drew a lot of attention. All of that attention would then be on his Persona and he wouldn’t feel conflicted between trying to win the competition and avoiding standing out.

For the time being, he left his Persona be and saw some nice improvements to his raw stats. His Perception, Vitality and Endurance had increased by about 5000, 2500 and 1500 respectively. As he looked over his sheet, he also admired just how many stats he had gained from killing the Lich and harvesting the Necromancer’s Battery.

Though they had been low grade souls, there had been a lot of them. It seemed that harvesting souls in general was doing wonders for his Dexterity and Vitality specifically. He understood why, because they were based on control over his body and willpower, both of which were heavily based on the soul. It was still a shock though to see just how much those souls had done for him.

Name: Felix Kade FREE 0 Innate: Ascendant Prodigy: Mana (Wizard) STR 31440 Class: [D - Legendary] Reaper (Lvl 778) DEX 116852 Race: [D - Unique] Wanderer (Lvl 735) AGI 40143 Profession: [D - Arcane] Mana Engineer (Lvl 693) PER 72968 Health: 757,770 / 757,770 VIT 75777 Mana: 51,668,030 / 51,668,030 INT 106073 Energy: 2,148,880 / 2,148,880 END 53722

Damn, my Intelligence actually got surpassed. Holy shit.

On another note, you are finally ahead of the curve on your stats. At least compared to the other class and races you were offered.

Felix did some quick math, By a lot too, right?

Sort of? You gained a lot from harvesting and it’s helping make up for your race where the increases haven’t quite matched the Infant Lich race alone.

Maybe it’s just because I suffused my body and now my soul is influencing my logical processes, but I couldn’t imagine being a body hopping Lich at this point. I like my body a lot. Hopefully I can find more modifications in the future to at least help bridge the gap.

Grim shrugged, I may be wrong, but I think in theory, you’ll end up in the same place. The most powerful body a Lich can possess is limited by what they can find. I’m sure at some point, they would have to start engineering themselves a body as well.

Maybe. That would mean they are stronger early on but then stall for a while until they spike once again much later.

Yeah, front loaded vs exponential growth.

Now that he had applied the modifications he wanted to his body, Felix took a quick look at adding mana channels to his body and fueling it with mana where he could. Unfortunately, he immediately ran into a huge setback he wasn’t expecting.

His body and his Persona’s were largely the same in terms of cell internals and he had tested the attunements to buff his Persona before the modifications. Despite that, the attunements behaved very weirdly in Felix’s actual body.

Instead of buffing his Agility in his Persona, the very same attunement caused his cells to freak out in a sense. He had no idea what was happening and even examining them with his new found control over them, he couldn’t figure it out. He tried a variety of other attunements too but they all had similar results. His cells just acted strangely like they were seizing and hitching in their normal functions.

Until he had a better idea of what was happening and a better way to diagnose things, Felix decided to put off mana channels.

Lastly, he wanted to try and figure out the weird casting that had happened with Damoth, the Lich and during his matter control practice.

He couldn’t really simulate a battle that intense again but what he could do was get frustrated at pebbles while he tried to improve his matter control. His training then also had the side benefit of increasing his matter control, hopefully.

Felix hadn’t actually gotten anywhere with matter control at all yet.

As he focused on various pebbles, he decided to lay them out in a circle around him and enter the first level of his meditation. The same meditation he had first entered when first trying to open the Arcane rarity Mana Control skill cube.

His senses blanked and Felix felt himself in an empty void with just the stones around him. To start, he mostly focused on feeling the pebbles themselves. Feeling their shape, their distance, the differences between them. He could also feel there was more to be felt but he wasn’t there yet, he couldn’t focus in enough to grasp whatever it was.

He was still feeling blobs, amorphous objects and undefined shapes but those blobs were getting every slightly smaller and more refined.

Unfortunately, it was nothing like when he learned to sense and control mana. Not only had that felt natural and comfortable but it was also familiar and fast. It was like he had done it for his entire life and he was just remembering how.

Now, it was truly like he was learning something new. Like he was working out and pushing for progress at something. It wasn’t like when he started working out though, with significant progress being made early on. With this, it was like he was already at the wall. Like he had already passed the point of diminishing returns.

Is this just the limit of what I can do now?

It’s based on how much Nova’s soul seed has integrated with yours. How much stronger she’s gotten since you integrated it.

Right. Considering how much I’ve already messed with my own soul, couldn’t I manually… push that along a little?

I don’t know. I don’t know if anyone is actually that impatient to have tried that. Actually, no I’m sure someone has tried.

Might as well give it a shot, right?

First, before Felix did anything, he juggled some mana in the air and felt out his soul. He was trying to pinpoint the feeling within his soul, or find the location in his soul that was giving him the level of mana control he had. It took him a few hours and he had to strain himself but he finally managed to isolate the sensation and found it came from almost everywhere within his soul.

Switching over to his matter senses, he strained them as much as possible then focused in on his soul and immediately realized it was almost the same. He was satisfied with that answer though because he was mostly wondering about how souls functioned. They seemed to be wholly engaged in the action rather than segmented into functions.

Focusing in on his soul bond with Nova, Felix followed and narrowed down the specific location of the bond. It was much harder than he thought it would be because when he felt Nova’s emotions, they poured into his soul. Finding where they where coming from was hard when that pour was perfectly uniform and instantaneous.

What helped was isolating how and where the communication between them happened. When they conversed in intents and feelings, he seemed to naturally push the intent or feeling into the soul seed itself.

Now that he had found it, Felix spent time analyzing it. He strained his matter senses once again and found that the seed didn’t actually do any of the controlling itself. In fact, the seed felt more like a piece of Nova’s soul that was slowly growing and blending itself into his own soul, almost like very slow dye.

Grim’s was the same but he wasn’t really getting stronger so it hadn’t really changed in size or integrated itself much.

Following from the source though, Felix realized that while Nova’s soul seed was still distinct, a miniscule portion of it had leaked into the rest of his soul. It had integrated itself somewhat, though the nature of Felix’s soul had cleansed the majority of that. He suspected that had it not, he would be mirroring her emotions. He had no idea how or why it was able to distinguish between the emotions, the connection and the matter control but he was very happy it was happening.

The best he could do for the time being though, was to hone in on the experience he found in Nova’s soul seed and very lightly in his own soul and try to amplify it. He didn’t get far but returning to his body, he had made progress.

He could now see the shapes of the pebbles as if they were drawings. Nothing precise, but slightly smoothed outlines appeared all around him. It wasn’t nearly enough to read a book through a wall or even determine any material properties, but it was noticeably better.

Unfortunately, Felix was pretty certain he would just have to wait while Nova got stronger and their soul seed grew. He couldn’t think of anything else he could do right now in that department.

Switching back over to trying to move the stones, he got nowhere. Just like last time. Despite his manual improvement of his matter senses and likely control if he had any, he couldn’t move the rocks at all.

His alternate goal of figuring out the weird instant casts also wasn’t really getting anywhere either. In his meditation, he didn’t grow frustrated, he was entirely calm and focused. He was trying to reproduce the effect under different circumstances because he didn’t want to have to get frustrated to make it happen. It was also difficult to pay attention to what was happening when he was frustrated.

Unfortunately, it seemed like that would be necessary and he didn’t see any good way of forcing himself to feel frustrated so he gave up for now. He did decide he would start paying as much attention as possible in the future so he had some direction to figure out what was happening. He was starting to think it may have been The System or something but he really hated that explanation so he avoided it for the time being.

With just over a dekad left until the client meeting, Felix decided to sit down and train. He also briefly dove into the elixirs and potions Zufaris had gotten him but unfortunately, unlike the poisons, these were almost entirely System Fuckery. The ones that weren’t, he had already replicated and they had little to no effect on him at all.

He was also waiting to look at his mana pool and figure out why it was tied to his Intelligence until after the mana computer he had created was fully functional. He was expecting it to increase his Intelligence dramatically and so he had memorized or effectively snapshotted the feeling of his current mana in a series of single use batteries as well as his memories and soul experiences.

As soon as the computer increased his Intelligence and mana capacity, he could then compare those to reality and hopefully be able to find the difference. That didn’t help him now though so he started working on his mana control and overall focus.

He lifted small weights with his mana control, cast spells as fast as he could, stretched his casting range and even practiced his aim.

Just to switch things up a little, he also spent a couple days training until he could quickly use the ambient mana to cast a spell. It wasn’t really useful unless his mana pool was corrupted or something because he regenerated mana so quickly and it required at least twice the focus if not more. It wasn’t like he could cast massive spells either, he was still restricted by the amount of aether directly around him.

He turned it into a game though, playing with Grim but more often Nova. Casting spells and sparring then taking time to heal. They cast spells at each-other, knocked rocks off a ledge, cast spells around corners, played spell tag and anything he could come up with to keep practicing and occupy Nova.

By the time the client meeting rolled around, he hadn’t actually increased the number of spells he could cast at once, he was still stuck at 15 levels. He had increased his mana control range though all the way to about 10 meters. Right at the edge, though possible, he did need more focus to cast spells.

His aim was still as good as it needed to be, no issues he could see and his casting speed possibly improved negligibly but he wasn’t entirely sure.

Unfortunately, he hadn’t had any massive jumps in Intelligence, the stat or his noticeable processing speed. Either the computer needed more time or something was wrong. Felix was erring on the former though so he let it be for the time being.

Either way, he was happy with the time he had spent and felt satisfied overall when he hopped out of his Pocket Home and back into the workshop of Inscripticae. Nova hopped out as well and Felix made sure to stow Grim in his Soul Space as they left the storage room. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .