Chapter 49:

When Titus went back to his experiments, Alice left him be. She might have been able to help, but she had too much to catch up on with her own projects. Before he was totally lost in his work, Alice had him give her all of his backup knives, and she set to inscribing them. They weren't anything fancy—just everlasting sharpness, durability, and repair. There wasn't enough space to do anything super impressive, and she hadn't had a flash of inspiration to make them do anything special. By the third or fourth one, she had the process down, and the rest were completed quickly.

Once she was done, Alice stood up and looked around for other things to enchant. She figured she might go outside and find a stick to try making herself a wand. If she could examine the wand that had produced the Curse of Sloth, perhaps she could mimic it, not that she had much use for it. Maybe a second one? Maybe she could try some other effect.

As she walked outside, she saw Tony still waiting and had an idea. Alice opened the door and snapped her fingers, trying to get the ant's attention, but it didn't budge. It was sitting there, waiting for Titus to tell it to move again. Reaching down, Alice touched it gently. The hard chitin felt odd on her fingertips. It wasn't the light tickling feeling of an ant crawling on her finger, as she had half expected against all reason, but rather a hard shell that felt more like plastic. An antenna twitched, but it didn't react aggressively.

With slightly shaking hands, she reached around and grabbed its middle section, lifting it off the ground. Its feet wiggled for a couple of seconds as she positioned it in front of her, wanting to put it on her hip but not feeling comfortable doing that. She slowly carried it through the door and brought the ant over to her table. She set it down, and it didn't move. She stared at her with its multifaceted eyes, only touching an antenna here and there as she moved around and examined it.

Unsurprisingly, the NPC lady didn't come to reprimand her for bringing an animal or monster into the Guild house. She just watched. Maybe it was okay because it was a companion. She didn't really know, but if she wasn't being told off, she didn't care.

Alice scrutinized the ant, looking at its six legs, each about a thumb's breadth in thickness. The antenna, the eyes, the carapace, and its mandibles were missing some of the other biological functions of an ordinary ant. There was no mouth on the bottom of its head nor any sort of gland on its thorax to shoot acid or whatever ants did.

Finished with her examination, Alice tapped the tip of her inscribing pen to the ant's carapace. "I think there's something that I can do for you, Tony," she said aloud. The ant only twitched an antenna in reply. "Just to make sure this doesn't hurt," she muttered as she went to one of its two-toed feet and lightly inscribed a very simple rune to strengthen its pinching grip. Surprisingly, the ant didn't flinch, and the lines in the carapace glowed a bright orange. Alice smiled at the little joke.

"Well, Tony, are you ready for your upgrade?"

The ant pushed its antenna. She wasn't sure if it had learned its name or whether it just knew she was doing something. Could ants even hear? Alice had no idea, but she started with the middle legs, figuring they were the least important. She began to scrawl inscriptions, traveling from the base to the front, improving its grip, then its speed and strength, along with adding durability and hardness to the carapace in small, looping lines. It was a fractal pattern of sorts.

She amused herself as she worked with the durability pattern, watching it slowly spread up the legs and across the carapace. The larger the volume, the larger the surface area, and the slower it spread. But she continued with it nonetheless, the looping stripes across its back improving its durability. She stopped giving any of the other enchantments for now, rather just leaving space for them, as the durability enchantment covered the entire ant. It took her several hours, but soon, the ant's carapace was dozens of times more durable than it had been before. She might have been able to split it with an axe with her power when she'd started, but now she doubted even Titus could injure it through purely physical might.

Stolen novel; please report.

Alice smiled in satisfaction as the orange-striped ant stared back at her impassively. She hadn't touched any of its sensory organs, not wanting to risk harming it in any lasting way. Now, Alice went back and filled in the blanks. It was like she had drawn an outline of an ant on a piece of paper and was now coloring it in. In the spots she'd left in her fractal pattern, she added inscriptions of strength and speed, improving its grip and the crushing force of its mandibles. Nothing incredibly fancy, but mostly just flexible, so the ant could do whatever it would do, just better. She didn't have any amazing inspirational ideas like the axe triggering extra momentum when it had sunk into something. Nothing that fancy, though she did give it some options for burst speeds as well on the legs as just simple speed increases.

When she was finally done, she sat back and admired her work. Titus, apparently also finished, sat on the table next to her, staring at the ant. "Do you use orange inscriptions because you named it Tony?" he asked, and Alice smiled.

"No, but that would have been funny, wouldn't it?"

Titus just rolled his eyes. "Come here, Tony," he said, patting the ground next to his chair with his foot. The ant flashed off the table, launching several feet over the edge and crashing into the one next to it, knocking it over before standing up completely unharmed and scrambling over to Titus. Its movements were jerky and exaggerated as if it were a chimpanzee in zero gravity. Alice, for a second, was worried that she had overdone it. But as the ant crossed the dozen or so steps past where it had launched itself to return to its place at Titus's side, its movements became more normal, more accustomed, just quicker, sharper, and more controlled.

"That might take some getting used to," Titus said as Alice righted the table next to them and placed the chairs back up. Luckily, nothing had broken.

"Ready for testing version two?" Alice asked Titus, and he held up a vial.

"Yeah. Have you figured out the mana problem? Anything better than just drinking mana potions?"

Alice tapped her lips. She had some ideas when inscribing Tony, but she wasn't sure how practical they were. "I have considered making something like a Faraday cage," she said eventually, "but I'd have to be inside it. I have an idea about projecting a Faraday cage around me. Still, I'm not really sure there's anything I can do besides maintain the mana I go in with. Even if I stop it from draining, which I think I can do, I won't be able to recover mana besides through mana potions."

Titus nodded. "Okay. Have you figured out how to stop it from draining mana from you?"

"Mostly, it's willpower, but I think so. It's going to take me a little bit longer to set up, but I don't know if it'll be necessary."

Titus frowned. "Why don't you figure that out while I go get us a second test subject?"

"Take Tony. Otherwise, he'll be jealous," Alice said, and Titus stood up, pushing his chair back in and giving her a wave as he walked out of the guild hall. She was hesitant to let him go by himself, but she figured if anyone knew what he was doing, it would be Titus. And if he was just picking up a stray ant on the side, he couldn't possibly go that wrong.

Ignoring that for now, Alice pulled out one of the pieces of metal she had been thinking about and started to inscribe a complicated pattern. The issue was not that the effect was so complex. Not allowing mana to pass was one of the simplest barriers that enchantment could make. But what she was doing was trying to project that barrier beyond the little amulet she was making, and that was proving more complicated. She had to start over a few times before she eventually got it: a walking Faraday cage that could hang around her neck and protect her from outside mana.

Would it stop mana-like spells? Could she fire a [Mana Bolt] through it from the inside? She had to do some testing, but she was pretty sure it would only stop the general ebb and flow of mana a weak amount. Not that it would hold up to any real force, either in or out. Hopefully, that wouldn't disrupt the barrier or affect the tides of mana outside.

Still, Alice went outside, activated her mana Faraday cage, and fired a [Mana Bolt]. She didn't notice an effect either way. Presumably, it wouldn't do anything to shield her. Still, it would let her move around without having to focus on maintaining her mana inside her. Hopefully.

She looked around, thinking of something to do. He shouldn't take too much longer. That was the hope, at least. They had to leave soon after all.