Another misshapen crystal fell from Dyani’s hand, bouncing once before dissolving into motes of light.
“Shatter this,” she swore, jumping to her feet and pacing the small underground cavern.
“A few weeks ago, you couldn’t get a skill to work more than a few seconds. You’ve had that Crystallize Mana core a day, and you’ve already made a stable version. Take the win.”
“I know, I know. It’s just so frustrating.”
“Did you have a chance to check out the library for books on enchanting?”
Dyani had. She’d been relying on sneaking into her old school’s library until Pikawon mentioned there was a public library in the green district. The last time she’d gone to that district, she’d received a few suspicious looks due to her appearance, but nowadays, she had enough money to buy a decent set of clothing that escaped anyone’s ire, even if it was still plain compared to some of the richer residents.
While the Jules Memorial Library was free to the public, the park it was located within had a fee. After reluctantly paying it and staring down every tree and flower on her way to get her money’s worth, Dyani entered the library.
The building was white marble, with narrow columns and niches with statues of women in clothing better suited to a bedroom than outside in the growing autumn chill. The library was topped with a metal and glass dome through which she could see more trees and flowers.
Despite being filled with them, Dyani didn’t open a single book while she visited. Instead, she took advantage of a surprising resource.
Public Connection Available: Jules Memorial Library
Accept?
The public interface, which belonged to the building, rather than an individual, had copies of every publicly available book in the library. There were volumes that could only be accessed with the right credentials, at certain levels, or by paying an exorbitant fee, which didn’t appear to be accessible through the interface at all, but those weren’t what Dyani was looking for anyway.
Unfortunately, she wasn’t able to maintain access to any of the information once she left the library, and when she asked a librarian about checking books out, she was directed to a window where employees used magic to transcribe a book’s contents onto prepared parchment before binding them into a personal copy.
After buying Crystallize Mana, she couldn’t afford a single copy, but the cost was so exorbitant that even before that, she could’ve only purchased a few, not that she would’ve. Dyani was an avid reader when she had the time, but couldn’t imagine any four books being as valuable as a useful Skill.
She did her best to skim A Guide to Practical Runecraft: Volume 1, but she was only retaining a quarter of the information at best, and that was largely due to her interface’s Identify function being able to assimilate basic information about specific runes.
That had given her an idea.
* A Guide to Practical Runecraft: Volume 1 (Common):
* Condition: Very Good
* Description: A boring book about runes and how very great and amazing they are.
The information in her interface’s description of the skill was clearly coming from her own mind, so she tried to edit it more directly. At first, she had to will every word in the book to appear in the description, but the process became much easier as she reached into the Identify function and slowly fed it some of her unallocated experience.
It hurt to know she was moving back from the very cusp of her next advancement, but the results were promising.
She used her Status screen to keep track of the amount of experience she was spending.
At 3% of the amount required to advance, the information flowed more naturally. She just had to keep the desire to transfer it over in the back of her mind while she read. At 5% she just had to skim, without worrying about reading comprehension. Dyani stopped feeding the function at 9%, when she started getting diminishing returns. At that point, she just had to run her eyes over each page for a second or two before moving on.
With some careful muttering, gestures, and pure stubbornness, she managed to add another line on her default identification screen for each book’s contents, which was collapsed by default, so she wasn’t overwhelmed when she called it up.
Dyani managed to record Volumes 1, 2, and half of 3 before a tolling bell indicated the library was closing for the night. Since she’d spent the majority of time today feeding and manipulating her interface, she was confident she could record at least a dozen books next time.
Back in their base, Dyani gave Pikawon a sheepish look.
“I did go to the library, I even managed to make my interface record a couple books. I just..haven’t read them yet.”
“Having an interface isn’t a substitute for having a brain. Just because it knows something, doesn’t mean you do.”
“I know, I know. They’re just so boring.”
After spending so much time studying skill structures, runecrafting was a bit of a let down. Her talent did nothing to help her understand the runes, even those that she’d studied within skills.
Runecrafting worked on an entirely different paradigm than skills. Instead of modifiers around a central rune, runecrafting relied primarily on the exact mana composition used to power to alter the effect.
After a few sections on general theory, each chapter in A Guide to Practical Runecraft focused on a single rune and the exact proportions of mana used to produce a specific effect.
Dyani didn’t care that an explosion rune gave the most optimal output with a 44% fire, 31% force, and 25% pure mana combination, or that it somehow caused rapid suffocation with a specific combination of air, death, and blood, but only when drawn on a creature’s body.
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Alright, that was really interesting, but there was no way Dyani was going to remember all those ratios, let alone be that exact when shaping skills. It wasn’t like she could use a mana measuring device within her own spirit.
She wasn’t even good at converting between mana types. She’d only managed to get enough force mana to create Mana Jump by creating a weak force mana converter and pouring in way too much mana. While she could do that again for other mana affinities, it wasn’t fast, and broke down quickly if not fully integrated into a skill.
“Can you send them to me? The books you recorded? There isn’t much to read down here, and unlike some people, I’m not picky.”
“Uhh, probably.” Dyani opened the identification window for volume 1 and tried to send it to Pikawon.
Their messaging history opened and the book’s information tried to fit into the new message section, but shuddered and glitched. She could feel that her interface wasn’t created with that amount of information transfer in mind.
“It…doesn’t…want to…fit!” It took a whisper of experience, not even a full percent, for it to finally compress enough to fit and send, but Dyani could tell that it wouldn’t be so difficult in the future.
“Ow!” Pikawon said, pressing two fingers to the side of his head, “How did you make my whole interface fritz out?” He lifted a hand to deflect her concerned look. “I’m fine. It looks like my interface just needs some time to organize all the information.”
Dyani hadn’t intended the transfer as an attack, but that definitely gave her an idea for a future skill.
“So, do you think you could read it and tell me anything relevant? I’ll be your best friend.”
“You’re my only friend. That makes you the best by default.”
“Pikawon Billbrook, that is the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”
Pikawon rubbed his head with both hands and groaned.
“That was supposed to be sarcastic. If I’m being nice, that means I need some sleep, if I can fall asleep with the headache you just gave me.”
Dyani considered sending over the second volume right then to make a point, but she was afraid it might do some actual damage.
“I had to allocate some experience to my interface to absorb the books. Maybe try that.”
“I don’t have enough experience to start spending it on stuff like that. I’ll survive.”
He got up and pushed Dyani towards the door, only relenting when she started moving on her own.
***
Pikawon dropped the act when he heard Dyani turn the second corner. The initial message had caused him a little pain, mostly from the jumble of bright letters flashing across his vision, but just for a moment.
But he’d needed Dyani gone for another reason, the same reason he’d suggested she head to the library yesterday.
He needed to hunt.
While Dyani had casually mentioned the increased numbers of monsters on more than one occasion, she had no idea how bad it really was.
They were among the lowest level inspectors, which meant they got the routes closest to the main office, which had more traffic from people and less from monsters. Pikawon spent last night running through deeper, less traveled tunnels to find and kill all the monsters he could for one simple reason.
He didn’t want anyone higher up in the government paying attention to this place. This wasn’t the only office of sewer inspectors, and he hoped culling the local population of monsters would deflect attention away from them.
And, if he found a monster that didn’t make him sick to his stomach, it would be wasteful to leave its body to rot.
After the rush of high level experience from the Tanglepillar, Pikawon was finding it more and more difficult to ignore his cravings. Besides, he’d grown used to fighting with a partner, and Dyani was swiftly catching up with him. If he didn’t start advancing soon, she’d no longer need him.
Pikawon knew that her ultimate goal was to become a slayer like her dad, not stay down here with him, but he didn’t want to give her another reason to leave.
There were some moments, when his self control lapsed, that he imagined going out and becoming a slayer with her, but his imagination had no problem supplying what would most likely happen next.
Guards, nobles, and the Squirrel Lord himself would come crashing down, taking him away without regard for any collateral damage, this time with no hope of escape. And if anyone discovered his relationship with Dyani, that would be even worse. She’d be strongly invited to live in the palace as a polite hostage, like his family had, only she wouldn’t accept.
And when she rejected the invitation, the gloves would come off. She’d be kidnapped along with him.
Pikawon wasn’t so arrogant that he thought a few levels and attributes would make him the equal to the city lord, let alone the city lord and his minions, but it might just give him an edge he needed to escape the city unnoticed.
It took a few minutes of wandering to find his first monster. They’d long since learned to avoid the area around his base.
He identified the Plover Moss by its unusual smell, something like rainwater and hot metal, but chose to avoid it. Without a ranged attack or Dyani’s vinegar producing jug, which she’d replaced after using the first as an explosive against the False Hydra, he was ill suited to fighting it.
With a bit of mana and willpower, his inspector token marked the location. The office wouldn’t bother sending someone to kill such a weak monster, not unless there was a swarm, but he could access the location himself, and he and Dyani could take care of it tomorrow.
Next were two fungal rats gnawing on the desiccated corpse of a third, which he dispatched with a few brutal kicks, saving mana by not using a skill. The longer his mana and stamina lasted, the more he could hunt.
After collecting the mushrooms growing on their backs, he left to find his next victim. It wasn’t hard to find. Earth elementals were rarely subtle.
* Earth/Plant Elemental
* Creature Type: Monster, Elemental
* Affinities: Plant
* Description: An elemental created from the infusion of plant mana into earth. Generally takes the form of a stone animal, held together by various forms of plant matter. While damaging the plant portions is generally easier, breaking the stones is necessary to kill this monster.
The elemental took the form of some kind of ape, with arched posture and long arms that it braced against the ground to swing its body forward.
Before Pikawon could do more than activate Sundering Claw, the air hummed with…something. A sudden fierceness filled his mind, like all the instincts from his talent were concentrated into a drug.
He leapt towards the elemental, slashing at the vines that held its stone body together. When it tried to bash him, or catch him with vines he evaded and counter attacked with a snarl.
Another force traveled through the air, this one pulling instead of humming, but Pikawon’s instincts didn’t register it as a threat, so he ignored it. It did have an effect on the elemental, its movements became slower and clumsier, which he was only too happy to take advantage of.
When the elemental was nothing but vibrating stones on the ground, surrounded by shredded plant matter, Pikawon regained enough of his senses to look around for the source of the unusual magic.
He caught sight of a glowing blue figure, peeking out through a wall. They pulled back into the wall as soon as he caught them. Anger and suspicion was instantly replaced with confused recognition.
“Miss Farlight?”
Nymin Farlight floated back through the wall, crossing her arms and giving Pikawon an incredulous look.
“Goddess teach,” she whispered, a phrase that indicated surprise. Pikawon heard her thanks to his increased senses from Bestial Instincts.
“You must be my daughter’s new friend. You certainly know how to make a first impression.”
Pikawon gulped.