That next day was another typical one for their winter stay in Salcret.

Kalle and Roldy had spent the morning trying out a new exercise of their own invention; the [Esperlock] wanted to work out how far he could push his tier 1 Passive [Fort of the Mind] which granted him passive protections against mental attacks.

So, now the [Chaos Druid] was using his tier 7 Spell–[Spore of Dreams]–to put him under, then clocking how long it took him to snap out of it.

The Esper was shaking from his effort to hold on, when he suddenly slackened and fell into the dream, with his smile-muscles the only ones still working.

His head lolled, and he seemed to be seeing something breathtaking. Then he suddenly woke back up with a roar. “gyahaaaaaaaaaaaa!”

"Eleven seconds, still." Harold delivered the verdict with a wide smile. .

Kalle had started out at fifteen, but the 'Grand Leader of the Mighty One Man Conclave of Salcret' was far from satisfied. That was Oscar’s title for him. The Esper was pushing for below ten.

Kalle stopped panting and looked up with suspicion at the [Druid]. "Are you positive you're still using ten percent of your magic each cast? I could swear I am improving, but not seeing a result,"

Roldy beamed at that, despite starting to look drained himself. "I'm pretty sure I am improving too, I'm starting to get a real sense for what the dreams are showing you!"

Kalle slumped back down at that, but now looked more satisfied with their work; it meant that at least he was not wrong about improving, despite the repeating score.

Livia had been watching her guild members going at it all morning. She was taking some notes, and it was going so much faster than before. While she was working to upgrade [Basic Bookkeeping] she had to write everything in a basic cypher.

The idea was to use more advanced bookkeeping than the basic version of the Skill could keep up with, forcing it to either evolve or grow redundant, something the System did not at all approve of.

Now that she had the advanced version of the Skill, Livia could finally get back to writing normally again, and have it encrypted as soon as she stored it at the office and flexed her ability.

Being able to upgrade a Skill like that was the case for normal System users as well, but apparently it was doubly true for someone with a System Mark. It somehow made her prioritized, so as long as she guided the Skills she wouldn't have to worry about the other parts; mainly spending man hours to accumulate enough affinity-specific magic in her body and spirit.

That's right, even Skills were strictly powered by magic, not just Spells. Surprise, Casters.

Although they did not require the specific user to have any inherent magic ability at all, not from the start.

Although that was certainly developed when they started reaching a high enough level.

The System had access to a vast, unknown amount of affinity-less magic–all you needed to do to make use of it was give it a purpose–by use of your own burgeoning affinity, which was most effectively done through using the abilities granted by the System.

The gradual process made your spirit and physique both gradually develop to more efficiently start converting more and more affinity-less magic from the System,to the exact kind you needed for your granted Skills.

This meant you were far more likely to get Skill upgrades and the like if you had a mundane Class which required less conversion of the power from the System; Which had been a large part of the reason why Livia chose her Class, [Business Guild Master] in the first place.

Of course, that turned out to be somewhat redundant now that the System had decided to prioritize her for increased power usage anyway.

Livia was pretty sure she wasn't cut out to be figuring out innovative new high level magic in any case, but it was undoubtedly a missed opportunity.

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[Your Guild members are doing good, for their age and with this abysmal access to resources, but they are far too few in number.]

Livia ignored the voice.

The fellows enjoyed a quiet lunch, and then Kalle went to the back to keep working on his building up a new stack of firewood.

Livia went to sit by the side again, and Roldy was still recovering his magic pool, so him and Oscar came by to join her too.

Then later another addition came along; it was Mossy, who they still saw briefly and seldom.

He did stop by for meals each day, and was still growing like only a magic wolf could, but he clearly wasn't particularly attached to the fellowship yet.

[I'm serious, with only four members, besides you, you will have a very hard time leveling.]

"What do you mean four?"

[Well the beast clearly has potential, the Druid improved its intelligence, so really all it needs is the same level of resources as the others and it should develop into a proper member of your minion’s in time.]

Livia laughed at the reference his wording brought to mind, but that did settle the matter for her, and so she finally came to a tactile conclusion–or rather was reminded of the conclusion she had reached this morning.

"Roldy, we can't keep calling him Mossy," Kalle heard the words and stopped axing away at the logs for a minute, while both the brothers looked thoughtfully to the mosswolf, which happened to be observing them right back.

"Well I know, but I'm no good with names, apparently… Why does none of you like Mossy?"

They all gave him the same fed-up, queer look. "What, he is!"

Livia reflexively face palmed at this.

Harold just grew exasperated "Oh fine then, what, you want me to brainstorm? Ehum, Striker, Brawny, Rover, SmokeSmoke, Boulder." The three others were almost falling over laughing at this point. "Stop, please stop!"

Once they recovered Livia looked to the mosswolf and tried to picture what the creature might be thinking. "It would be one thing if he actually liked Mossy, but he clearly thinks you're an idiot."

The creature yelped at this and got a bright eyed look. "See, how smart did you make him anyway? Maybe he has his own preference,"

Now it was Livia's turn to get treated to a triple-serving of the queer, dubious look.

But the mosswolf actually seemed to connect the dots, it went to pick up a stick and loped over to the dirt where Kalle had been axing logs for years until no grass would grow.

He went to drag the thick stick in the dirt, and the group were looking on in shock. There's no fucking way it can write.

Thought both Kalle and Oscar, unbeknownst to them–in perfect unison.

As it turns out he couldn't, but the wolf had drawn what looked to Livia like an 'H'.

That struck her with some inspiration from her childhood. "How do you like Hyde?"

The mosswolf dropped the stick at this and gave them his best puppy grin. A real name.

Livia knew the name would stick, and that she would have to be constantly reminded of one of her childhood favorites, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde; and by extension Earth, but she was coming to terms with it.

That night they threw together a small celebration for their 4th official guild member, and Hyde finally stopped acting so distant.

And the day after was when Livia finally decided that she needed to come clean to the others about her guest.

[Are you sure about this?]