Back at the inn-room, Sylvia had adopted a lotus position in preparation for making the mana pathways, since she figured that it would be relatively trancelike once she actually got started. However, before doing that, she figured that it’d be best to ensure that her existing pathways would be able to bear the burden of the extra flow, since she didn’t exactly know similarly mana flow was to fluid dynamics.
As such, she decided to conduct a bit of an experiment. It was actually quite simple; first she fixed a minor oversight that she realized she had. Just like how she had previously created mana pathways going into her feet but hadn’t created a valve at her heels until she found it necessary, it struck her that she had only made valves at her fingertips, completely forgoing one at the palm.
Once that was made for both hands, she could finally move on to the actual first step. This step was to draw forth 100 MP over a couple of seconds, after which she’d draw forth 1000 MP over around the same time. Lastly, she’d try to feel whether there was any difference in how the mana pathway handled the load.
The first flow felt as if she had opened a sink tap back on earth, while the second flow felt like she had turned on a high-pressure hose, but most importantly, it did not feel like the pathway experienced any difference in pressure throughout it all. All of this led her to conclude that she couldn’t rely on her basic understanding of fluid dynamics when thinking about mana flow, or at least not when it came to mana inside of her own body. Since she hadn’t experimented with it outside, she could not say anything definitive about that.
Of course, just letting the 1100 MP worth of mana dissipate into the air around her would be a big waste. As such, she tried to keep as much of it under her control as possible, which was incredibly hard with it staying outside of her body and in a medium for which she lacked an affinity. But she did manage to get it a full 5-centimeters out before it began dissolving, which was about double her last try from long ago. Looking at her hand through where she could feel the mana, it looked like the air was being heated up, with how everything was slightly distorted and wavy.
Rather than let it all dissolve immediately, she tried her best to spread it across her body like a second skin, but without letting it disappear. While just keeping it outside of the body but still within the 5-centimeter boundary was relatively easy, manually trying to cover her hand and lower arm in an even layer of it was a much tougher ask. Any minor lapse in concentration resulted in the loss of some of the mana, but as she continued the practice, she quickly noticed it steadily become slightly simpler.
By the time it felt like she barely had enough to cover her entire hand, she figured that she could practice something else with the remaining mana. Drawing inspiration from a classic anime that Frank had watched casually, Sylvia created a small disk that she split into an out and an inner section. And then began the multitasking nightmare of both controlling the mana and spinning each disk in opposite directions and at differing speeds.
She didn’t get to do that for very long before the mana had dissolved to such an extent that she didn’t feel like continuing. To her fortune, a quick look at her |External Mana Control| showed her that her effort was bearing fruit. In that relatively short period of time, her skill had grown by a full 2 levels, bringing it to level 38. This jump truly made her realize how lacking her control was, so at that moment, she decided that once she had finished the Toughness stuff, she should spend most excess mana before bed on this kind of practice.
Finally, with all of that stuff completed, she was ready to actually begin creating the pathways for Toughness. To begin the whole thing, she created a bunch of small paths that branched from the main carrier out to the skin, such that they created a relatively even triangle-grid of nodes roughly 10 centimeters from each other. This had also led her to making a couple larger branches that only served the purpose of supporting the smaller ones, though mainly in the space between her knees and shoulders. In fact, she felt like her thighs alone took up as many pathways as her shins and arms together at minimum.
If she, a couple weeks earlier, hadn’t already ensured that she could destroy the pathways, then she wouldn’t have dared to make so many pathways immediately. Especially since she wasn’t even 100% certain that she would even need that many, but she felt that it’d best to have her foundation prepared from the start, and this would give her a lot of points she could use as anchors to make the pattern as smooth as possible.
Along with drawing in a deep breath, Sylvia turned her mental focus completely to three adjacent nodes on her left forearm and arbitrarily decided on each tetrahedral having a side length of a single centimeter and a pathway thickness of about two millimeters, as she figured that that was around her limit for creating pathways efficiently.
To begin with, she made the three nodes into a proper triangle, with each side having 9 smaller nodes spread evenly along it, which would serve as anchor points. From there, she had each large node, and their two smaller adjacent nodes, sprout a pathway at roughly a 35° angle to the triangle. Once these pathways had connected, she had a single pathway grow away from their connection point, thus forming a complete tetrahedral.
All in all, it took her about 2 minutes and 10 mana to create each of the small tetrahedrals, so it took her around one hour and forty minutes to fill the triangle completely and just short of 5k mana, as she got both faster and more efficient during the creation of the 55 of them.
Feeling rather satisfied about her progress, she sent forth her mana into the newly created lattice, and a rewarding pop-up appeared in her vision.
Acquired the skill |Physical Enhancement| lv. 1.
Acquired the sub-skill of |Physical Enhancement|: |Toughness| lv. 1.
“YES!” The successful construction of the lattice felt amazing, but she also realized just how long this process would take to complete. Though on the other hand, this was also a perfect way to train her |Internal Mana Control|, which had ended up almost 10 levels behind its counterpart, but this one session increased its level by 4 to level 31.
Upon looking over her creation once more, she realized that there was especially one part that she could improve, and that would be to connect all the lone pathways from each connection point. The way to connect them was quite simple, just copy the way she had gone about creating the lattice until now, just without making an additional pathway leading to nowhere. This process would also close off the ‘loops’ of the lattice, which she figured would make it stronger.
With all of that in mind, she began the process and got about halfway before she had to stop, as her companions had just gotten back home. This meant that it was time to discuss something that had been on her mind most of the day, something that was the reason for her questions to Mikhail earlier.
“So, you’re saying that we scrap the plan of us buying a stock of materials and moving back to the cavern with the others, but we instead get them to move here to the city with us? Weren’t you the one who wanted to stick around in the cavern in the first place?” The confused way Philip inquired about her intensions did make Sylvia temporarily consider whether it was a good idea or not.
“If everything goes well, then yes. After my talk with Mikhail earlier today, it sounded like beings that could shapeshift between different people forms weren’t exactly known, or at least common knowledge, and definitely not ones that’d have a proper status. As such, I think it’s relatively safe to reveal my power to the guild and such. And since that’s likely the case, there will be little reason to stay away from the town, as our worry of whether I could use my shapeshifting here was the main reason for our current plan.” Sylvia quickly explained her idea, though as she did, she felt painfully aware of how disastrous it could be if it was suddenly decided that she was some kind of monster that had to be exterminated, and how that could potentially affect her companions.
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“I guess that makes sense. We will also have much better chances of getting properly through The Withering if we stay in a place with a stable import of fresh goods.” Philip nodded at the explanation and began to build upon it, much to the confusion of Sylvia.
“The Withering; what’s that? Is it something in the same vein as Fall?” Her question caused both Philip and Enelise’s eyebrows to crease in a similar confusion to her own. “What’s this Autumn that you speak of?” “You know, the season of the year when the leaves fall from the trees and such. It’s when you really prepare for Winter.”
“Alright… I think that the Autumn that you speak of is the same as The Withering that Philip mentioned, so this Winter thing must be the word you’ve learned for The Cold. Both me and Philip have asked around, and we’ve learned that it’s currently the 17th Hephsday of The Calm, so we have just under 4 weeks to prepare for The Withering, which is about a week less than I would’ve guessed.” The tirade of unfamiliar words coming from Enelise made Sylvia feel like her eyes were glazing over, as she made a mental note to ask Enelise to explain everything once they were alone.
“Anyhow. Should I take this as you guys being on board with that plan of action?” Both of them nodded in agreement. “The only major issue left hanging is you actually telling Mikhail.” “That’s true, but I think everything will work out alright. I actually plan to tell him tomorrow if I get the chance. Actually, on the note of Mikhail, I’ve made somewhat of a deal with him.” “Oh?”
Sylvia quickly explained the previous talk and decision regarding the orcs. The mention of the actual level of orcs made the two craftsmen audibly gulp. “Well, my appreciation for us having gone to the city before you took on the orcs just grew 10-fold.” “Same, and sorry on behalf of us all for giving you the wrong information back then.” Sylvia just waved off Philip’s apology. “Apology taken, but I don’t blame you. You only tried to help to the best of your abilities.”
While the first half of the news wasn’t received all too well, the latter half was received with relieved sighs. “It’ll be great to know that they’re more secure back at the cavern.” “You also don’t have a lot of experience and knowledge about the different creatures inhabiting this world, so being able to witness a well-oiled party in action should be a pretty good learning opportunity for you.”
As evening turned to night, the group finished up and went to bed, having added another 19 panis and 34 caro to the stash. Before going to sleep, Sylvia completed the patch to satisfaction.
----
“So… I think you may need to explain the seasons and the days in the week to me. We didn’t exactly have the same names for them back where I’m from.” Enelise’s brows shot up. “Even something as widespread as that is different from where you’re from?” “Yep. And going from how you said the 17th of a specific day in a single season, we most likely also have different lengths of seasons.”
Sylvia was quite happy that Philip, who had taken a top bunk, was a heavy sleeper who didn’t wake up from them chatting this early in the morning. It certainly made it quite simple to find time to ask Enelise about this world’s calendar.
“I guess that makes sense. The seasons are quite related to mana and in some cases specific elements, so I can see why your home would be different, though from what you said yesterday, it still sounds relatively close to our seasons. It’s just so common knowledge here that it didn’t strike me to explain it to you.” Sylvia just waved off the concern. “Completely understandable, no worries at all. So, how does all of this work?”
“Well, I’ll start with the six seasons we have. The year starts with The Cold, which is where most of the land and water freezes over and gets covered in snow, which I’ll assume your familiar with?” Sylvia nodded at assumption. “Alrighty that makes this simpler. So, this season lasts for 16 weeks with few plants being able at this time and most beasts hibernating or working hard to survive.”
“This does just sound like what I know as winter, so until I experience it myself and can confirm whether or not it is like that, I will just assume that it is, for my own sake.” “I have no clue what this Winter thing is, other than you saying it comes after Autumn, but let’s go with that.”
“Anyhow, The Cold is followed up by the hottest season, The Dry Flood, which is 4 weeks total. The first is where all the snow and ice melts, after which it’s followed by 3 weeks of extreme heat and of relatively high water scarcity.” Enelise waited to see if Sylvia was familiar with this one as well, but a quick headshake after she realized the intent made her continue.
“You then have 6 weeks of The Thundering, which is a time where you’ll barely see the sun for the storm clouds, and a number of trees, structures, and people are lost to the relentless lightning strikes.” This was followed by another head shake, so she continued.
“We finally get to the first good season where life becomes easier to live, though the worry of random creature attacks also begins to rise. This 8-week season is called The Birth and is when everything begins to grow back and spring into bloom, though many creatures are also birthed around this period.” “Yeah, we had this. We called it Spring, though The Birth does sound just as fitting.”
“Now we get to the longest season which we’re currently in, The Calm. This is a 20-week grace period before all of the underworld breaks loose once more. We are currently on the second day of the 17th week. Not a lot happens during this season, even the creatures are generally calmer and more content with hunting each other.” “This just sounds like a comfortable Summer, which fits my current experience thus far.”
“Lastly, there’s The Withering. This 6-week season is when most of nature prepares for surviving the coming half of a year, so everything withers away. It’s also the last time of the year where a large number of crops ripen, so the farmers are extra busy in this period.” “So, it really is just Autumn. Anyway, since you keep mentioning both the week number and weekday rather than a specific day of the month or season, do you guys not number your dates?”
“Quick answer, no. Why would we do such a thing? Everyone knows the week and how long one is, so this just makes everything simple; it’s not like it changes from year to year.” The genuine confusion in Enelise’s tone surprised Sylvia quite a bit. “Oh? Your seasons change on the exact same days every year?” “Yeah. Throughout the night between Triday of a season’s last week and Rasday of the following season’s first week, the most prominent elemental mana in the air shifts, which marks the change of the seasons.”
Whilst nodding in understanding, Sylvia quickly tallied up the weeks from the different seasons. “You guys have 60 weeks in a year? That’s roughly 8 more than where I’m from. If I had to take a guess about how many days are in a week, it’d be 6, since one year where I’m from is 365 days total.”
“Seriously? That’s like 200 days less than here. A week here is nine days, so 540 days in total.” Sylvia had to take a couple seconds to let that sink in; recalling how her current elven body had only stopped physically aging after reaching 24 years on the slider, so she could conclude that it took roughly 36 Earth years for an elf to reach the physical equivalent of a human’s very late teens.
“Well… that is quite a bit longer than I had expected. Regardless, nothing to do about that. Thus, would you mind explaining the weekdays here?” Enelise looked into Sylvia’s leaf-green eyes with a sympathetic gaze, likely due to the time she took earlier to take in the information. “What? I’m already used to having my common sense flipped on its head. But thanks for the sympathy nonetheless.” Her fiery-orange eyes lit up a bit as she smiled slightly. “Got it. You know, ever since you first decided to share your secret, I’ve really come to appreciate your decision to trust to that extent. In return, I promise to do my best to help you adapt to this world, even more so than I’ve already been doing.”
Sylvia could not help but smile softly at those words. “Thank you. Your promise means a lot to me. With that said, what do you say to getting back…” “EEUUAAHHH-AHH!” A sudden mix of a yawn and a stretch from Philip’s bunk from him sitting up interrupted what she was saying. “Ahh! Morning ladies; slept well?” The complete disruption of the existing atmosphere flabbergasted Sylvia, making her start to a giggle, followed shortly by Enelise doing the same. “Huh? Did I interrupt something?” Philip said, thoroughly confused at this point.
Enelise just waved her hand. “Not really. I was just about to tell Sylvia that it’d be a good idea to find a hide armorer to at least get a chestplate and a pair of gloves. Then the plan was to wake you up and get something to eat, but it would appear that we can skip directly to that step.” Philip nodded in agreement. “That sounds like a great plan. You can finish telling Sylvia about that whilst I get ready. How does that sound.” Sylvia and Enelise both expressed their agreement, and after a quick explanation about armor and equipment, the three got some breakfast, where the equipment explanation continued.