Today’s workout session was a bit different. Renee was still burning me out, but after yesterday’s healing session, I seemed to almost have a lot more mental energy than I had before. Maybe it was because of ranking up, or maybe it was because my speed had improved to fair and my durability to good. I was very happy about both and intended to finally try and fix my stunted state after I’d gotten my attributes to at least human standard, good.

And by ranking up, I mean, whatever happened with Charlie had ranked me up yet again. Of course, it was tough, but it was only a single person getting healed. Was it giving me advancement for each injury? Healing her had wiped me out, but it hadn’t been nearly as bad as fixing the potion, and I guess my life affinity had helped there even more than usual. Then again, Angel had said that the first five levels would be relatively easy, but she implied that it would take weeks, not days, and the next five ranks might take years or decades unless we delved rifts.

And yes, I know that we used ‘levels’ and ‘ranks’ interchangeably, and sometimes said ‘class’ instead of vocation. I don’t know why, but I suspect it was pre-crash terminology that just sort of drifted into the vocabulary despite Silhouette insisting on the terms ‘vocation’, and ‘ranks’.

Honestly, rank was kind of a stupid term. The problem is, it applied to too many things like your military rank, your noble rank… it was just too damned generic. I think, if what Renee had said about the Grays was true, they had to know that English was an incredibly contextual language. I had no idea if other nations had survived with their language intact, but it might have been an attempt to make silhouette seem… cuddly. Like it was always a comfortable part of the culture. Or maybe they were just assholes that liked to confuse things.

“Am I ready for fighting training?” I asked, “I am not good at it. And by not good, I mean, the last time I got into a fight with someone, she beat me like a drum.”

“That doesn’t matter. I’m not teaching you how to fight.”

“You aren’t?” I looked in surprise at the two sticks I’d converted into makeshift swords by carving a handle on them and stripping off the bark that she was handling.

She looked at them, “For homemade training weapons, these are really good. Surprisingly durable.”

I nodded, “The tools thing, I think. I carved the handles and stripped the bark off first with a knife while using improvised fieldcraft, and then mended any imperfections… and they became basic clubs instead of crude clubs!” I was a little excited at that. Everything before then had been crude, so basic was a huge step up, and dramatically enhanced the durability and maybe the damage. I still couldn’t read whatever labels silhouette-recognized materials and items possessed, but I could feel the delicate layer of energy pressed into the item by my abilities.

She nodded and tossed back one of the rods. “The plus side is, if you do decide to take improvised weaponry, clubs are considered both blunt and improvised.”

I caught it and sort of held it loosely. “I am back to two points again. I am still trying to decide what to take, although I noticed my list hasn’t changed. I thought that improvised meant crafting without tools, but I am guessing it actually means turning things into what they are not generally designed for.”

“Did you get more slots?”

I nodded, “Yeah, I got a utility and a magic slot.”

“Did that trait you got from the potions, adapt spellform, cost a magic slot?”

I shook my head, “Nope, although the one from healing Charlie, anatomy, did cost a utility slot. I still can’t really figure out why some traits cost slots and some don’t.”

Renee smiled, “It’s like that it’s because mender is designed to work with those traits. Mender probably isn’t a healer without your life affinity, so it’s possible that instead of free traits, it’s designed to emphasize trained traits and traitstones that involve material modifications, and then replace free vocation traits with traits specialized to your type of mending knowledge.”

“Should I get Deep Scan?”

She sighed. “That’s a hard question. I know that Charlie is looking for identify or scan for you as a traitstone, but those are super popular, and it will probably still claim a slot, magic for scan, or utility for identify. I also know that while deep scan sounds like scan, it might not be that similar.”

“But, having a scan skill might be terribly important to you. If you’d been able to look at her conditions, would it have made things easier?”

I nodded, “A little easier, and probably a lot faster, although I was able to use recognize while I was cleaning off the scars… but a bed and a lot of scars to direct my efforts might not always be an option. It would also be nice to be able to identify substances and the stuff I make, but as you said… we don’t know what it actually does.”

I nodded, “Tentatively, I am thinking deep scan, because it uses my life affinity, and thus it’s probably overpowered compared to scan, and maybe ahh… inattention. I still want loot, but inattention sort of screams that the vocation is intended to stay near, but not in, combat. I want to get it trained up before I have to use it, and staying alive is probably more important than looting… Plus Angel and I can both help process bodies and rewards, so things should already be fast.”

Renee looked a little embarrassed, “Oh, about that. We might be waiting a little longer to delve.”

“Oh?”

She nodded, “Angel reminded Charlie what a vindictive bitch Aster is, and Roger, the guard in the shrine? Was in the pocket of the local gangs, and was known for selling talents to the local procurers. We think she’s likely to have sent out someone after you, so they decided they want to move up the lake to Saint Mary. That’s probably a good idea, because there are a lot more low-ranked rifts near there, and by low-ranked, I meant that they cap out at rare, right in our preferred range.”

I clutched my head, “Ugh, I don’t mean to be such an inconvenience.”

She shook her head, “You aren’t going to be. You don’t seem to understand… Charlie, me, and Angel have been together since only a few weeks after the crash, and we’ve only been hardcore delving for the last few years. Even Lilah’s been with us a few years. A week here and there, and shifting to better hunting grounds, is truly no big deal.”

“That being said, though, your potion trick is going to help pay for the trip.”

I nodded and smiled, “Finally.”

“Hmm?”

“I have been sitting here feeling like I was draining stupid levels of resources and offering nothing in return. I was brainstorming ways I could help the team pay for the delays, maybe repairing stuff from the dump, or even begging you to take me monster hunting or something.”

I smiled a little, “Still, if it’s going to be a few weeks until we can delve, That means I have time to get more ranks and points. You kind of helped me decide which way to go.”

“Which way are you going?”

I grinned evilly, “Deep Scan, and Preserve Patterns.”

“Okay, I sort of understand deep scan, but why preserve patterns? What is it?”

I thought about it for a second. “I was trying to fix your shield, but I realized that whatever I did would wreck the enchantment patterns. While I was fixing that potion, I could see a sort of pattern in it, which didn’t decay in a fluid medium. I am betting that preserve pattern will let me restore your shield with its enchantment intact, and it might also be another way of getting money.”

She shook her head. “No, it isn’t.”

“Huh?”

“Enchantments don’t work that way. I mean, they might for you, but when an item hits zero durability it is wrecked and has to be re-forged by a smith or rebuilt by some other crafter. Any enchantments have to be re-applied by an enchanter, runesmith, or someone that has gotten those traits.”

“And if it does work that way?”

She scowled, “Angel’s pretty good at working the black market, that’s how we will sell potions, but enchanted items tend to be fairly unique and are marked with the maker’s name. If we start selling off fully restored enchanted items, an entirely new set of bad guys would be gunning for the source. On the one hand, if it kept the original maker’s name, people would remember a broken magic item… and if it appends your name instead, suddenly the hunters have an identity to track, and believe me, a good bounty hunter has the traits to find you by your name alone.”

I nodded and cemented my selections. “Well, at any rate, the traits should help me make better potions.”

I quickly checked my list.

Thaniel Kushman Grimm

Vocation: Rank 4 Mender(basic) (40%)

Path: Troubleshooter

Health: good

Durability: good

Reflex: good

Speed: fair

Will: great

Acuity: great

____________________

Combat Trait slots: 2

endurance

Utility trait slots: 3

anatomy

improved mend

running

Improvised Fieldcraft

Deep Scan

Magical Trait slots: 4

sexual empathy

recognize

adapt spellform

Preserve Patterns

Free points available: 0

____________________

Affinity: Life

Mana: ∞ (Life affinity override)

Find this and other great novels on the author's preferred platform. Support original creators!

Essence: ∞ (Life affinity override)

____________________

Current conditions:

stunted growth

Tailored Y-gene decimation retrovirus (permanent remission)

____________________

Awards:

Knucklehead

She sighed, “I was hoping you’d pick a combat option.”

“Why? You said that you can train traits, right?”

She nodded, “Good point. Okay, we aren’t training you to fight right now. I am training you to not get hit. With luck, enough of this will earn you a dodge or block trait.” she looked a little pissed off again, but that was starting to seem like her standard state, so I prepared to get beaten to a pulp.

***

She was still having me do burnouts. However, this time, I was getting bruised to hell, running around until my legs felt like they would fall off, and getting knocked all over the yard every time we sparred with sticks. After four evolutions of this, though, checking the node around my wrist finally made me shout in triumph!

“What?” she said, pausing for a moment. I realized that she was tired too. I mean, I was a terrible fighter, but she’d been training me in situational awareness and individual maneuvers for blocking and dodging rather than any sort of a straight-up style. She said that styles could be analyzed and anticipated, but that as a utility, my best bet was to try and stay mobile, be ready for attacks from any angle, and know how to block, parry, and dodge correctly.

“I got it!”

“Got what?”

I grinned, “I just gained the dodge trait and a point of reflexes and speed. I am up to full-on normal now!”

“Full-on normal?”

I nodded, “Yeah. Charlie said that good is the average for all of the attributes, and my speed just advanced to good rank.”

She shook her head, “No, fair is the average. Charlie has… inflated opinions of what constitutes average, which is one of the reasons we are an outstanding delve team. Still, that’s excellent. I mean, I expect awesome results from burnout training, but I forgot how fast attributes can be gained while you are using a basic vocation… another reason for starting with a basic vocation unless your attributes are already insanely high going into your first shrine.”

I nodded, “Very smart. But you know what this means, right?”

“No? Except it’s good that your survival will be easier.”

I pulled myself up to my full five feet and change of height. “What it means, is that I can start working on the bone density and formation damage, muscle damage, and organ damage from starving for so long. I set that as my goal, once I had all my attributes to at least average ranks, I would start trying to fix myself.” I had never seen it so clearly before, but now that I knew what I was looking for, I could tell where I had long-term damage from poor nutrition, and where my body had stripped away resources to keep me alive, especially while I was supposed to be in a growth spurt.

She glanced at me, where before my shriveled muscles had been replaced by thick, dense musculature over the course of only a few days. “You can’t.”

“Huh? Why not?”

She sighed. “We are already going to have a heck of a time disguising you when we go through town to get a ship. Your face could still pass for a girl’s, and you probably will always look less than aggressively masculine, but look at your hands, your wrists, and the size of your head. If you suddenly grow a foot or two there’s basically no way we will be able to disguise you as a girl and get you out of here. Disguises or not, you are going to look like a beautiful, healthy, muscular, and appealing young man.”

I thought about that. “Oh. Right. Attention-grabbing.”

She nodded, “I hope you can get inattention before we try to enter a rift, since it should help, but aggression-manipulating abilities have a very limited effect on intelligent creatures. They choose targets based on reason and observation rather than whatever has pissed them off the most or the most recently. That means that even with inattention, you will still draw a ton of attention.”

“Is that why we haven’t gone out? Not that I mind that much at the moment. I still have a long way to go until I am ready to brace crowds of people.”

She nodded, “And that’s why we aren’t rifting around here. This town is popular for higher-level rifts since there are two rares and a very rare one within an hour’s journey, but if we get you outfitted and go into a rift, which I would rather do after you are healed, The stories would be very popular on the grapevine.”

“Beyond just a guy wandering around?”

She nodded, “Very few men delve rifts, or if they do, it’s usually surrounded by high-ranked bodyguards. There are exceptions, of course, but you’d be marked as one of those exceptions, and both Charlie and I are well-known around these parts. So in a very real way, we are putting you in danger as much as you are putting us there. That’s why Sault Ste. Marie, what everyone calls Saint Mary… it’s a good set of early rifts and we have never been there, so the chance of meeting someone who knows us is pretty slim.”

“The place is actually two parts, one of which used to be in the United States, and the other one was in Ontario, Canada. There was a bridge that connected them, but it didn’t last very long, it got torn down by a great serpent barely a year after the crash. We are aiming for the Canadian side, since each one is controlled by a different warlord and the Canadian side is run by a man, Paul Lafitte, and he’s not a friend of Aster.

“I am not going to burn you out any more for right now. Once you get defensive traits, the best way to practice them is to use them, but when you are ready to learn some weapons work, we will work on that, and if you want to build your body further, well, that’s your job now, not mine.”

“For today, though, I am swapping you over to Lilah’s tender care. She can teach you a basic rune library, and a lot more about stretching your magical gift, which you will need if Charlie comes back with more powerful potions.”

I chuckled, “Just got it all figured out for me, eh?”

She sighed, “Only for right now. I promise we aren’t trying to keep you dependent, it’s just that too much dangerous shit is going on that you are ignorant of, that we only understand because we have been adventurers for so many years, and have dealt with these people before.”

“So tell me about it.”

She sighed, “Alright. As you are aware, there are close to ten women for every man. Men are like walking money machines for baby-hungry women.”

I nodded, “Yeah, I already figured that out.”

She nodded, “But what you might not know is that in some places, the ratio is even worse. Some women have taken up a sort of Amazon philosophy… they build their entire culture around women, and men are just slaves and utilities. The West side of Saint Mary is a bit like that. It’s technically run by a council, controlled by a woman who calls herself Cowgirl, but the East side is a bit better. Lafitte is a dog and has a harem of like a hundred women, but things are less… hazardous for men there.”

I nodded, “That actually makes sense given the circumstances.”

She nodded, “Well, not all guys are good-looking. Hell, they don’t have to be or have to take care of themselves, to sell their seed for big bucks. Right now, you are umm… really weak. Easy to control, easy to kidnap. And you are not ugly, or fat, or elderly.”

I grinned at Renee.

“What.”

“I already know all that. I just wanted to hear your response. You want me.”

She shook her head, looking pissed off, “No I don’t. And that’s exactly the attitude most guys have. “You want me because I am a man”.”

I shook my head at her, “No. you don’t want me because I am a man, you want me because I am me. And to be honest, I am hoping someday… after I don’t look like a retarded dwarf on crack, am too weak to feed myself, and can protect myself a little, I can take you up on that bet and more.”

She sighed. “Go hang out with Lilah. You clearly have to be getting healthier, because you are acting like a horny teenager.”

I nodded at Renee as I got back to my feet, feeling a lot better after mending myself, “You know I am actually a teenager, right? I am just trying to act normal.” If they were going to tease me, I was going to tease them right back. But she did let me go before I burned out to the point where using mend was a mental struggle.

When I knocked on Lilah’s door, apparently she was actually ready for me to show up. Her room was...messy, but all of the mess was shoved into the closet with the door partially closed.

She was sitting on her bed, with several books, and had a chair pulled up next to it. Unusually, she had seemed to dress up a bit, wearing her combat robes and goth make-up where she sat cross-legged on the bed, smiling slightly.

“You are here!”

I nodded, “I am here.”

She waved a hand at the chair. “Have a seat. I know you are used to thinking of me as that klutzy fire mage and happy-go-lucky goth girl, but when you are in my bedroom, I am your teacher.”

I raised an eyebrow.

She blushed, “I mean when you are here to learn magic. Not that you’d be in my bedroom for any other reason, or that I’d be your teacher if you were here for other reasons, or… wait. You know what I mean. Right now I am your magic teacher, I hope. While I am, you will refer to me as Miss MacCormack or Ma’am.”

I raised my hand as I sat down.

She shook her head, “You don’t have to raise your hand. There’s only the two of us.”

I nodded, “Are you sure you wouldn’t prefer for me to refer to you as Mistress? From what I understand, lots of mage teachers insist on that, and I am sure I wouldn’t have any trouble referring to you as Mistress Lilah.”

She blushed again and shook her head, “No… umm, no. I am not your master, and you aren’t an apprentice. Usually, the whole master thing is used by the guilds or by role-players trying to pretend that this world is a medieval fantasy where they are lords and the rest of us are peasants.”

I nodded, “Or it could be used for other reasons. But I get it. So how can I help you, Mistress Lilah?”

She was bright red. “Okay. Stop that. Seriously. Not right now. We are trying to be professional.”

I nodded, making a note to use the title when we were not being professional. She sort of deserved the embarrassment, but for right now I needed her help more than I needed vengeance. “Yes, Ma’am.”

“Okay, you do have mana, right?”

I nodded, “Apparently, like you, my life affinity has given me limitless mana, and essence, when it comes to life-aligned traits.”

“Wait, what, essence too? I knew about the mana, but I have never heard of anyone with unlimited essence for an affinity.”

I shrugged, “It’s possibly because the only trait I have that uses essence is mend, and it’s tied right into my life affinity.”

She shook her head, “No, I mean, essence is also used to determine how much damage you take from magical effects, how effectively you nullify toxins, and is part of your natural defenses against injuries caused by health damage like certain poisons and life drains. In a very real way, it’s sort of like your hit points against effects that don’t actually break, cut, or stab you, and there are traits that allow you to use essence to absorb normal damage, too. You are weird.”

“Thank you.”

“Do you have any magical traits besides sexual empathy?”

I nodded, “Yeah, but that empathy isn’t really working like I’d expected. It helped me pinpoint discomfort, but then it seemed to short out the sensation… I couldn’t tell if it felt good or bad. I mean, obviously healing Charlie hurt, but I just kept getting overwhelming buzzing sensations instead of pain or whatever.”

Lilah smiled a little, “Welcome to basic traits. Even the best of them are pretty much complete shit until they get to improved, and even then, they often are only barely useful until they get to enhanced. Your own experiences would probably help too, but I understand you have never exactly been a ladies’ man.”

I nodded slowly. “I have Recognize, which helps me figure out how to repair stuff deeper than my own eyes and touch can detect. It was hugely useful for healing Charlie, but not perfect… then again, that’s probably because it’s basic.”

“Anything else? I think I know a decent way to train that one.”

“Yes, I also have Adapt Spellform and Preserve Patterns. The second one, I think, helps me preserve enchantments while I repair something, at least for now. The first one I got while I was fixing that potion, and I have NO idea what it does.”

Lilah looked excited, “Adapt spellform is super important. It’s what higher-rank spellcasters use to alter the parameters of their spells. In your case, I bet it interacts with your mend to allow you to alter the parameters on minor enchantments and expendables instead!

I nodded, “I also have Deep Scan. The thing is, according to Renee, Scan is supposed to be a magic-based trait, but mine is utility instead, which is weird.”

She nodded, “That is weird, but if it’s attached to your life affinity, it might be better for identifying living things instead. Heck, it might even allow you to access their conditions list, or maybe even other things, once you increase its power a bit. Have you tried it yet?”

I shook my head, “No, I was training, and Renee told me scanning people was considered super rude.”

She nodded, “It is. Please don’t scan me either, especially if it can read your conditions. I have some… weird ones. But let’s try it out.” she held up a light golden crystal, “Scan this.”

I looked at it and mentally activated a deep scan. “Nothing.”

She nodded, “Oh, right. Scan skills are linked into Silhouette until they are much higher. Try touching your node while you do it.”

Gem of Purity

Enchanted Quartz crystal (Citrine) manufactured by the arisen temple rift.

Silicon dioxide with less than 1% ferric hydroxide inclusions. Basic Material.

Contains the innate enchantment, ‘detect purity’ with 22 modification handlers.

It was actually pretty awesome, with both scan and recognize, I could peer deeply into the gem, and not only see its tri-crystalline structure, but also the swirling pattern of its enchantment, just like in the potion, but a lot more… rigid. I quickly described what I saw to Lilah, and she grinned.

“That is amazing. I bet Mender is like alchemist and enchanter adjacent. If we find any of those traitstones, and you have the slots, you should consider picking them up…”

I nodded, “I think mender is built around working with crafters. My gold circle gift is Improve, which I hope will allow me to boost products by a rarity, at least up until I hit my rarity cap. I can also create crude objects, but with tools and a little knowledge, they come out as basic.”

She nodded, “Most basic crafters can create basic objects, but with the right tools and better materials, they can boost their basic up to common ranks, or even higher if their crafting skill is advanced enough and they are a higher rank themselves. It sort of sounds like your crafting skill is sort of a catch-all that has a lower-quality cap for it, but that’s still awesome. A basic-level healing potion with really high quality can still heal well, and you can stack them a lot if you aren’t worried about toxicity so much.”

She held up a finger with black nail polish. “But that is all Angel. For now, this is all about mana. Anyone who has access to mana can cast a few spells, but they are fairly limited. That’s where things like Runic Libraries come into play, as well as traits like mana manipulation, mana efficiency, visualization, and spell rotes.”

I shook my head, “I don’t have any of those. I think they might be tied into caster vocations. I have a Runic Library option for my free points, but I was told that it was a waste of points, at least for the early ranks, and that you could teach me better.”

She nodded, “That’s fine. If whatever spell we construct is linked to your affinity, stuff like efficiency and manipulation might not be important, especially if you already have adapt spellform. Rotes are sort of like libraries of spells and are administrated by your node and Silhouette. Once you have a spellform crafted, a rote can let you instantly project the spellform and empower it, which speeds up spellcasting enormously.”

She flicked her fingers and a small flame appeared above her outstretched palm. “I have a basic rote, two common rotes, and an uncommon rote. Each of them takes a spell trait but can hold a number and complexity of spells based on your own acuity and will. That’s why I say Silhouette administrates it because you are using your own brain, and Silhouette just acts like a… database program or maybe a hotbar if you know the old gaming terms.”

“Visualization is hugely useful because when you are creating a spellform, it’s actually visible to you as you construct it. However, even without it you can create a spellform, it’s just not as easy and you have a much higher chance of messing it up. That’s why people with mana that don’t have a spell vocation usually only have a couple of simple spells.”