My beak opened to let out a huge yawn. It was sometime early in the afternoon and the doors opening had woken me up. As Ignas walked into the workshop carrying two plates of food, I stretched my wings and legs one by one. These last two days I had noticed myself behaving more like a human again. Unlike last time I did not panic. I just let it happen. If I could be this comfortable, why not enjoy it?

I still preened my plumage properly. It was like brushing one’s hair. A simple routine of hygiene. Ignas placed my plate on my table. He had cleared up a place for me to read and work on my own things. That was how he worded it but I had not found something to work on yet. There was just so much interesting stuff to read in the Thaumonomicon.

As the ork sat down at his workbench and started fiddling with whatever contraption he was working on, I flew over to have breakfast. Our schedule was to work almost until sunrise and then get a bit of rest until noon. By now I had read up on all the basics a [Thaumaturge] would work on in their first year or so.

Alchemy was the beginning. Breaking down objects into their essence and combining that with other things to create something new. One of the first exercises was making the magical flames floating in the workshop. They were a combination of energy, fire and light essence with a medium, for example, coloured glass dust, and somehow never stopped burning. Though they did not actually burn. They only created a source of light and heat from magical energy.

After getting the basics down one could decide which specialization to pursue. Artifice, golemancy and general thaumaturgy. Though some decided to dive deeper into alchemy as well. In the end, all these practices worked together to mark a thaumaturge as truly skilled.

For example, the arrangement of pedestals and pillars in the middle of the workshop was called an infusion altar and a part of artificing. It served to infuse essence distilled through alchemy as well as objects into one magical device or trinket. Alchemy was necessary to supply enough essence as a form of concentrate of what one wanted to infuse. General thaumaturgy was necessary to understand the ramifications of what one was doing. It also included the crafting of wands which were necessary to create an infusion altar as well as for its activation. Golemancy was the special child. It was not needed but always welcome. Unless one had some unbased fear of the golems rising against their master. Ignas seemed to have such worries. I could not imagine why else he would have chosen to avoid such useful minions.

There were a lot of things to read up on. I really wanted to just take the book with me. I had not forgotten about my plans to explore the world but if I did not stay when I found something interesting what good was exploration? To be fair, the main reason I had not left yet was the Thaumonomicon. If I could find a way to bring it with me I might just up and leave. Ignas had not even asked to have it back once. He probably did not need it. And without reading it his warp would not get worse as well. I was doing him a favour.

This was the same dodgy justifying I was doing when I was killing without thought. I would ask. I could probably trade my wand for it. I had not seen what the ork used but he probably did not have such a fancy focus.

It did not matter much unless I actually figured out how to bring this thing along. The book was big and heavy. I could maybe carry it in my talons but any attack from other raptors and I would have to drop it. That was why I had my reading focused on magical transport. Some sort of pocket dimension would be perfect right about now and with how my soul looked from the inside I was pretty certain there was a way. I only had to find it.

There was something similar. Deep into the depths of the interactions of void vis and containers. The first step was an extension to the chapter on storing distilled essence. The jars Ignas had connected to his pipe network. There was apparently a modification capable of making them bottomless. This was not an infinite storage, however. It simply created a small connection to the Empty which would allow any excess essence to leave this world instead of clogging up storage space. Useful, but it was impossible to retrieve anything.

From there I found a whole chapter on different types of mundane containers combined with void and other aspects. Adding hunger and greed to a chest would make it pull anything loose nearby into itself for example. You could combine mirrors with alienis and void to create a gateway between two spaces. This however worked only for essence and small items. Any living being would lose their soul in the transition and come out dead on the other side. I did not want to know how someone had done that particular research.

While the Thaumonomicon should have everything ever researched available it looked like I needed to get a better understanding to find what I was looking for. That meant research. Or experimentation. I had made a few notes about what could go into a storage space. First, void was absolutely necessary to extend the space. Without it, I might as well just make a simple bag to carry my stuff around. The next most important aspect was alienis. It seemed to be necessary to create a two-way gate. I had looked for a storage or safety aspect but found nothing. That was why I figured the third aspect had to be related to binding the magic to an object. Since most containers naturally held the aspect of void there mostly needed to be something related to the material. Wood for a chest, glass for a bottle, metal for a pendant. Out of those, only a pendant or maybe a small bracelet was easy enough for me to carry. I noted that down for my first major concept.

Before I got to work out the details, however, I had another idea. What if the container was my soul? Or at least somewhere in my soul? I already knew there was a direct connection to the Empty there. I also had absorbed alienis and vacuos vis and could use it for my Skills as I wished. The only problem was, nobody had actually modified their body or soul from what I read up to now. Sure, there was vis enrichment, but it was not actually changing someone. It was just an addition. More power to use for Skills. What I planned would create a separate space nothing could interfere with. Only my will would be enough to put something in or retrieve it. Maybe that was the key? Not actually changing my soul but changing a Skill? Or rather, go for a Breakthrough. I already had the perfect candidate at level four: [Eldritch Shift].

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It would not be easy but I would succeed! The book gave me no new ideas, no matter what I looked for, so I decided to start experimenting. I needed to create a space to actually store something as well as a method of getting stuff in and out. For the latter, I had a basis I could work with. The tendrils I had split off into loops when figuring out metallized and crystallized. I was planning to repurpose them as a gateway between my soul and reality to pull in whatever I wanted. The space had to be within my inner gate. Anywhere else it would reduce my flux tolerance or be a part of the physical world and thus easily susceptible to unwanted manipulation or damage.

I had a clear plan, now to realize it. I needed to return to my inner space, my soul. Only there could I separate a storage area. It should be possible to get there with [Eldritch Shift]. Only, when I actually attempted it, I could not move into myself. I saw the inner gate, I could see it without shifting after all, but there was no path to move on. I reconsidered for a moment after returning to reality but found no clear solution. So I tried again. Nothing. There was no connection. Maybe using another Skill to create a flow of mana would help?

I activated [Owl’s Shadow] and slowly had it build up more darkness around me. Then, I shifted once more. This time I noticed a burst of energy coming out of my inner gate and flow into my body to activate the Skill. Sadly, this burst also pushed aside the flow of darkness I wanted to use to go inside myself. My shift still moved me, but only within the real world. I suddenly stood horizontally in the air and fell onto the desktop. Ouch.

There had to be a better way. ‘Travel along paths unseen’ was the description, right? I had taken that to be darkness, but that was just an assumption. Maybe I could use any kind of vis to move, as long as it was connected. As long as it formed some kind of path. Then what about using one of the loops I still had sat within myself to make a pathway? They obviously had the property of channelling mana, that was a ‘path’, right?

I carefully unfurled one of the loops. This had to be quick. If I wanted to prevent metallizing myself again I had to shift as soon as the connection was established. One end held to the edge of my form, I prepared myself. Three. Two. One. Go! I pushed the other end onto my inner gate and activated [Eldritch Shift]. The path, there it was! I willed myself to move. And somehow my body moved but not in the way I expected. Everything that made up my normal body shot inside my soul. The other tendrils unfurled and hurried the process along. I panicked for a moment. Was I just killing myself?

Then I saw mana leave through some of the connections and replace what went inside. Metal, crystal and order once more started to form steel, brass and glass feathers. This time, there was nothing ‘owl’ left beside the basic shape of my body. My senses shifted, vision switching focus rapidly and smell completely disappearing. My hearing turned static, like a speaker connected with a bad cable. Then all the little discomforts disappeared. The wood pressing on my feet, the slightly cool air making me huddle in on myself and the hint of hunger I had unknowingly suppressed for the last hour or so. All of them gone. Just like that.

My vision turned clear again, hearing following shortly after. Smell did not come back, but I did not mind. It was useless anyway. And then, a notification:

~ding~ Congratulations! For advancing the Skill [Eldritch Shift] past the first Breakpoint you have gained bonus experience.

~ding~ [Assassin] reached level 45. 2 Attribute Points awarded.

Oh. That did it? But I had not gotten my storage to work. What was the Breakpoint?

Checking my status I saw my Skill had really reached level five. I looked over my Status and spotted the expected effects. Metallized, crystallized and ordered. There was however something new. Behind all of those, it said ‘outside’. What did that mean?

Outside: This individuals body is outside of this reality and has been replaced by a mana construct. On death, the normal body is restored.

Oh wow. That was an interesting effect. Did that mean I had basically a second life right now? What about my Breakthrough?

[Eldritch Shift]: Normal [Assassin]s avoid being seen by their target through physical means. Hiding in shadows has become too simple for you. You can use alienis mana from your soul to partially shift out of this realm. This can only be held for a short time. While shifted you may travel along paths unseen.

1st Breakthrough: You can shift your body outside and replace it with a set of three aspects. This effect can be reverted by shifting again or taking sufficient damage.

Hmm. I actually had two lives now. Though any situation that killed a metal body would most likely be very harmful to my real body as well. I was happy with it. Even though it was not the intended pocket dimension, it was a very powerful Skill. I dumped my Attribute Points into Intelligence bringing it up to 30, finally. Then I felt at my pool of energy. It was a little over a quarter filled. This shift had taken twice as much as a normal use of the Skill. It had also taken at least a minute. It was definitely not something to use in the middle of combat. I reactivated it and turned back into my real self. Feeling returned to my body along with a growling stomach. I was really hungry all of a sudden. Did this Skill disappear my food? What a scam! Now I had to eat again and start from scratch on getting a more convenient storage option.