Yeah, I don’t know either. I could shoot for the stars and try and figure out how to forge a new skill – the affinity seems good enough I might be able to make something fun…but if the skills on offer are an indication of what’s to come, I think I’ll pass.
New question, so far it seems like some of my skills can sort of synergize and help level each other. Any of these look like something that might help?
You think I can combine it with my eye skill Ishner? Want to volunteer for a pair of clothes?
Mmmmmm I think I’m going to choose outfit summing for now. What does the paper say?
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Imagine a style. Picture an entire vibe upon which someone may present themselves. Bold, mysterious, just a little bit daring. Try for living colours, a new age vibe. Feel that style deep within you then turn to your model.
Look deeply upon the person you wish to stylize and imagine the style bursting out of them. Look upon all their sides – make them spin if you must. Everywhere you see, imagine the style exists upon them and indeed has always existed.
You may have to disable sight or perspective-based skills for this skill to function. This skill is incredibly simple and yet hard to get just right. Don’t focus on details and learn to let the clothes make themselves. Don’t doubt yourself or get lost in the minutia.
You have to believe hard enough to trick your model as well. Speak with them if you must – have them relax and accept your changes. Have them agree with your choices – convince them they want this if you must. If you try to use it in a baseless scuffle to force your opponent into a garment that weakens them you’re bound to come against resistance. That’s not what we are here for and you will find no help from the guild in weaponizing this cornerstone.
If your model’s existing outfit contrasts with the style you desire, picture the old either turning into or disappearing to make way for the new.
Finally, if you wish to practice upon yourself, the same steps must be done in a mirror. A good tip is to stand between a pair of mirrors to properly reach your back.
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Alright then. I’ll try it out a few times before deciding if it's worth swapping.
Next task is to send an email to the cute goddess.
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Hello, I hope today is finding you well.
List of questions:
What would it take to be able to move the sign about? I want to pull stuff out inside my house and it would be convenient if I could stick stuff in my inventory then move it to new locations.
Am I safe to trade my blood on the fae exchange? Is there a chance of getting hurt by doing that?
Are there any spaces for sale with infinity flames floating around?
It’s been a few days, do you have anything you need from me?
Thank you for your time,
Sam
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The response appears the moment I hit send. It's as if the goddess already had a response typed up for everything. Kind of weird?
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Moving “the sign” is annoying. Pretend it’s a load bearing sign. The entire space feeds into it.
I can do it as many times as needed but it’s a lot of effort and I value my time for something minor like this. Maybe 10 T2 pearls minimum. Its not something that can be set up to move automatically within your budget. I could outfit you with a second mobile system for cheaper than making that one mobile…but those are reserved for heroes and are equally expensive. I only have one and still haven’t found a new hero after you turned me down. I’m starting to get stressed – L is bugging me to do my job even though I should have weeks left till the deadline.
Trading blood. Why? Listen, the defenses on your space are relativeivly robust even after you weakened them by moving the space…but I wouldn’t go poking holes in them just for fun. Do you know what an elder god could do with a drop of your blood? Ascendant vampires? The special separation should keep you out of minor problems like the pranks a regular fae might try but I would not risk it. What if the fae gifts it to a higher being?
I can’t see any spaces with that specific of a requirement just laying around. Could buy a bunch of flames and fill one, or get a friend to custom build a space but both would be more expensive than just buying some flames. I’ll keep an eye out and contact you if a cheap one appears.
I do have a minor job to give you. Some armor needs fixing and the ███ count me doing it as intervention with equivalent counter interference. Please pay off your minor debt before taking on more work. I don’t need the pearls, but they do act as a show of your sincerity.
Thanks.
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I stare at the response for a good solid moment.
Yep. Godess seems stressed. She’s usually much nicer than this – I have been slacking on my debt but in my defense I have plenty of time… I’m not going to hold it against her. All my requests were just convenience based wants.
If she wasn’t still kind of intimidating I’d invite her to my barbeque.
Alright! I’ll make an effort to start pushing out pearls before dinner and test out this new brilliant plan when I get bored of that.
I’m going to need help transporting my bed. Where is thefishyminer? Oh! There you are. Alright, I’ll glue you on to this end and then when we flip the bed sideways I can help manuver it. I really appreciate the help!
…
After transferring both bedframe and new mattress to the house for tonight I glue some shelves up and place most of my tools and belongings up. It’s convenient to keep them in my inventory but this way I can look at them. I’m not a hoarder I swear!
I know I won’t be able to focus on mana crystal creation without testing my new skill out so I head to the edge of the lake and stare down at my reflection.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
I look wild. My brown hair is a mess and filled with sticks and bits of dirt I hadn’t noticed till now. I have a pair of bags under my eyes and a small collection of scrapes and bruises I swear just appeared out of nowhere.
I need a shower. When did I forget about that?
Can I use this skill to fix my hair? Or just my clothes?
I’m going to try and picture a girl who takes much better care of herself and has lots of pockets. That’s what the skill needs right?
It's hard to imagine something just appearing. Really hard – it's not like giving you guys bodies. When staring at myself I can see it not working which sows doubt. It's almost easier to imagine my clothes changing if I close my eyes but the skill specifically requires me to stare at myself.
Is it working? Is it even going work? Stop it brain. I know magic exists and I know I got the affinity for this skill. It’s going to work I just have to trust it.
Finally after ages and ages of mental arguing some mental barrier breaks. I’m being silly. Of course I can get the skill to work. Why was it so hard to get going? I can see the pockets already appeared at some point. They have probably been there since the start and then I spent ages arguing with myself for no reason.
That opens up the dam and suddenly my outfit is customizable. It’s surprisingly easy to start cleaning up everything. My clothes appear to clean themselves and my hair gets tied into a fashionable looking knot.
As if mirroring my outfit change I begin to feel more comfortable. I didn’t realize I was pushing for comfy clothing but the inside of my shirt and pants have turned ever so slightly softer against my skin.
I feel like a new person! It's almost enough to want to keep the skill just for this feeling.
Alright. This really is enough procrastination. Off to work!
…
I just spent the rest of the evening with the biggest MCC push I’ve done so far. Pearls form slightly faster while walking – as I’m moving into a new area of mana – and I’ve gotten better at keeping them stable when I do so.
And now my dear friend I can reveal the truth of the universe I have learned. The great secret hidden deep within putting in effort.
Ready?
It turns out the best way to keep focused on MCC without getting bored is to increase the difficulty.
No it really is a secret. Listen.
The monotony disappears the more I try to multitask and the more I push away from optimal quality measures. I really should aim for speed and quantity and focus on all the things that maximize those but doing that backfires and makes my grind slower as I get impatient and make mistakes. Tossing a ball up and down is kind of boring after a minute or two but juggling?
I’m skipping through the important bits. Let me start from the beginning.
I finally confirmed the first upgrade to the ability I got at T4. It’s an increased ability to filter out the types of mana I gather – mainly through a mixture of sight feel and half a dozen minor senses that only come into play when I’m part way through a pearl. Its different all over my property – the forest, the lake, the desert, the grass.
Just focusing on one to try and help paint the picture. If I walk through the forest focusing on very very specific feeling “hunter-green scraps” and tossing all others I’m able to create a T1 wood pearl. If I focus on a much rarer feeling group of “asparagus-green scraps” hunting over the entire patch of forest I can get a T1 petrified wood pearl. Another scrunchy group of jade tinted green scraps makes a vine pearl. Technically a combination of feelings makes a forest pearl but that makes it sound like forest mana is just a combination of different plant manas which is…not really true? You could call wood mana forest mana with bits of greenery dimmed and Living wood mana what happens when you remove all petrified wood from regular wood. It’s not as simple as colors mixing, it feels like all the different mana types I’m finding are all a massive interconnected web of sometimes obvious sometimes strange interactions. Some mana types basically combine into new types in certain ratios but other near identical sets sit beside each other creating a pearl that isn’t “pure” as it’s a wild combination of different incompatible types.
The other massive change is the way I’m creating all these pearls. You see, to figure out all these types I have to start compressing the mana enough for it to become visible. To filter out the type I want I then have to tease the other types out and toss them…but that means creating my “pure” pearls involves throwing out 90% or more of the gathered mana each time.
I did try making several pearls at the same time but that’s impossible. I need both hands to push together and make a single pearl.
The secret comes from my sticky skill's last upgrade. While creating a pure pearl I pull the scraps of other mana types out and glue them to my arms and chest. The scraps do disappear but gluing them to something makes them stay around much longer for some reason.
Then when I’m done my first pearl I put it in one of my new pockets. After I’m done with that, I pull off all the similar scraps I had stopped working on and start building this new pearl up. This time from a stronger starting point.
It started off barely being better than starting from scratch each time but quickly became a viable workflow.
I caught a glance of myself after walking past the lake and let me tell you. I look otherworldly. The smoky bits of mana float in all directions – some of them looking like curling streaks of lightning others like sentient worms or limbs. Most are nearly invisible but a few are strangely solid – I glued a pair of yellow spiky types to my forehead and now it looks like I have cute little horns. There's another small almost interaction with my feather skill – the more scraps I glue to myself the more that interaction builds as always…but it hasn’t done much other than keep all the wisps more stable. Trust me I tried flapping my arms – didn’t work.
The whole special effect heavy outfit is much too chaotic of a vibe and yet I’m low key in love with it. It’s better than the messy wild reflection I saw earlier.
I’m keeping it and you can’t stop me :3
I’ve also made 22 “pure” pearls of varying types and nearly 30 “wild” pearls with scraps that didn’t have enough similar types to form a single pure pearl or had combinations of scraps I thought might be pure but wern’t.
This is my collection. Gaze upon it in awe!
Wood x3
Petrified wood.
Vine
Forest x2
Calm water.
Grass x2
Glue
Still air.
Pond x2
Construction
Growth
Living wood x2
Playful winds x2
Rich water.
Mystical glen
I leave most of the rest of the scraps on before creating a collection of pure pearls and sending all the wild pearls to my debt payment box.
Two final points of interest from this mana gathering exercises have snuck in and deserve at least a mention. The first is an achievement – I’ve finally pushed through the T4 barrier for MCC and am now the proud owner of a hard to level T5 skill. All the praise is mine!
The second is an observation from my gathering efforts. Mana…is maybe nonrenewable ish? I do think my skills make more mana and maybe dump them into the surroundings – I can’t see another way enough glue mana would exist in my land for me to create a whole pearl from it…but ‘yeah’.
Environmental mana is non-renewable on a few hour timescale at least.
After creating three wood pearls, the amount of wood mana remaining in the air in the woods is miniscule and too hard to tease out of the suroundings. The second part of this observation is split between what happens when I pull mana out of the surroundings and what it is replaced with.
First off, after stripping calm water out of the area about the “lake”, the water itself has become noticeably more agitated. Dairy’s hunting efforts make much larger ripples across the top and I swear the water is finding a reason to jostle and move as if it has a mind of its own. In another area the trees seem to have reacted weirdly to me stripping wood and petrified wood out of the area – bark changing colour in the most visible of the changes but there are plenty of small almost noticeable effects my strip mining have created.
The final result is what happens after the mana was removed.
My space is now in a fae dimension or plane or whatever. That means if I remove mana from the environment the new mana that fills that vacuum…as I gathered some of the most common types, the remaining most common types became living and playful and rich and mystical. Now that I think of it that might be part of the change I was noticing in the surroundings. The more “old mana” I removed, the more fae variants filled the vacuum I left behind.
Something to keep in mind for sure.
Alright! It’s getting close to evening so if I want to explore my clothing skill a bit more before dark, I need to do that now! I’m full of a surprising amount of energy so I’m good to put off the barbeque till it gets dark anyways.
Follow me!