Between monster fighting and filling her chest with increasingly ridiculous numbers of skill cores, Dyani didn’t have a lot of free time, but she used some of what she had to find and copy down some of her favorite novels from the Jules Memorial Library.
She got home and enjoyed one of the increasingly uncommon dinners with her mother before excusing herself to her room to finish up the final few adjustments to the skill she was creating from the Feverish and Lukewarm Chill Flesh. It had taken her longer to create a functional version than her copies of Jump and Crystallize Mana, largely because she was designing a new skill based on disparate elements of the two shards, rather than an adapted copy of a single skill.
Before she got to work, Dyani spotted her father’s letter to her on her nightstand and decided to make a copy of it in her interface, just like she had with the books from the library. It was much shorter, so it shouldn’t be difficult, but it was also far more important that she had a record of it, in case the original was lost or destroyed.
Her interface had some initial trouble with the formatting, putting each sentence on its own line, but before she could correct it, she noticed a pattern.
To Nymin and Dyani Farlight,
I love you more than anything my Wisp and little Acorn.
No need to mourn over me.
Hopefully you’ll never read this, but it would be really embarrassing if I died and the guild had to tell you I didn’t bother preparing anything.
Everything should be prepared for you to live in comfort for the rest of your life in my family’s estates.
Restrain yourselves from killing my mom, Nymin, no matter how frustrating she gets.
I’ve left something specifically for you, Acorn.
This cuirass evolved into an artifact during a tough battle with a Morphos Djinn, who (unfortunately for a fire user like me) transmuted it into living wood.
Artifacts can be tricky to use, but they grow with you, so it’s best to bind them young.
No pressure to use it if you turn out with a fire talent like me, or something else problematic.
Can’t write more, since the team’s ready to leave to fight some big vine monster, so I’ll add more later.
Eventually I’ll manage to convince them that there’s more to life than running from fight to fight.
-Rotto.
PS: Dyani, Read your favorite book one more time for me.
Even that part that you hate can teach you a bit about how the world really is.
If she excluded the salutation, the signature, and everything after it, the first letter of each sentence spelled out a word.
Inheritance.
She doubted she would’ve ever noticed if she didn’t have the improved pattern recognition from increasing her Mind attribute. Her mind raced as she considered the possible meanings, coming to a singular conclusion.
“I have to find that book.”
She pulled up the books she’d transcribed from the library, discarding them one by one as ones she’d discovered after her father’s death. She needed books they’d read together.
She rushed out of her room to see her mother floating towards the front door.
“Mom!” Nymin jumped, as if she’d been caught, but Dyani was too focused on her current task to think about that. “Where are the books that dad used to read to me?”
“Books? Oh, I’m not sure, acorn. I’m not sure we still have them.” Dyani’s heart sank. “If we do, I imagine they’re in my room under all the junk.”
“Thanks, mom. Love you.” Dyani bolted to her mother’s bedroom door, using Mana Jump to propel herself forward, not registering the shock on Nymin’s face.
***
It turned out that Nymin’s suspicions were right. After an hour of searching, Dyani wasn’t able to find a single novel under all her father’s old loot. The next morning, she rose early to return the the library and copy down any children’s books she recognized.
Despite her resolution to avoid paying the fee to enter the park where the library was situated, she was becoming a regular. Hopefully the money went towards something useful.
Impatient at the rate her interface was able to absorb information, Dyani recklessly poured all the experience she’d gathered since advancing into the function. It was a surprising amount, since increasing her skill and ability at skill creation gave experience much like mastering any other skill or profession. It was less than monster fighting, but since she was doing both, she’d gathered nearly a quarter of the experience needed for her next advancement
She could practically smell the smoke coming from the overcharged interface as it worked to process everything she’d given it. A pinching pain radiated from the back of her head as her current interface window blinked out of existence.
Dyani waited for the pain to stop and her interface to come back online, but even after the pain subsided, she couldn’t open an identification window for the book she was looking at. The circle in the corner of her vision had reappeared, but when opened it to display the five pointed star that represented her interface’s functions, the section for Identify was grayed out, just like the two that had started that way. When she tried to open it, she got this message.
Identify is unavailable.
Skill function is undergoing evolution.
Evolution progress: unknown.
“Function evolution?” she said a little too loudly, drawing the ire of a nearby librarian. Dyani wasn’t sure how evolution was different from the improvements Identify had shown after feeding it experience, but she guessed any changes would be significant.
If Dyani had any more experience, she would’ve added more to the process to see what happened. It was probably good that she didn’t. Maybe Pikawon would know something about it.
He didn’t.
“You shouldn’t even be able to give experience to specific working functions. Your dead functions are one thing, but most people just allocate a percentage of their experience to their interface as a whole to generally improve efficiency.”
After some consideration, he had a theory.
“It must be your talent. What does it say about reshaping your spirit again?”
“You may alter and reshape your internal spiritual structure more easily and with reduced risk.” Dyani had long since memorized every line of her talents.
“Exactly,” Pikawon said, snapping his fingers, “It doesn’t just say skill slots, it mentions your whole spiritual structure. An interface is a mana construct connected to your spirit, which is also a kind of mana construct, so it probably counts as part of you.”
“What do you mean, my spirit is a mana construct?”
“The spirit’s made of mana.”
“No it isn't. It’s made of, you know, spirit.”
“Spirit isn’t a material, it’s a thing, an intangible, magic thing that makes you who you are, but it’s still a thing, and things are made of stuff. And the stuff in question is mana.”
Dyani thought about that.
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“I don’t like that. I don’t think that’s true.”
“Just because you don’t like something, doesn’t mean it isn’t true.”
“Well, I’m holding out for a second opinion before I change my entire understanding about the soul. That’s a lot to just take on faith from some guy that lives in the sewers.”
“I’m here because I have to be, Dyani. Let’s be honest, if your mom wasn’t up there, you’d be slumming it down here with me just to be closer to the monsters.”
“So you think I can do more with my interface because of my talent,” Dyani said, changing the subject. Pikawon wiggled his facedown hand in a ‘maybe’ gesture.
“It’s possible that your interface is more flexible because it’s inherited, or maybe having 2 broken functions gives your other functions more room to grow. But I’d lean towards the talent explanation.”
“I’m even more awesome than I realized,” Dyani said, preening.
“Don’t get too excited. Your talent says you can change things with reduced risk, not no risk, and that reduced risk might not even apply to something attached to your spirit, that isn’t a real part of it. It’s entirely possible you just broke your ability to identify items.”
“Don’t be negative,” Dyani said, dismissing his naysaying, “Even if you’re right, I can just have you identify everything.” While she could admit the risk was there, she didn’t think it was likely. All the other times she’d allocated experience to her interface, it had improved it. She doubted it would be different this time.
The only thing that worried her was that the evolution progress still just said unknown, but she figured that was because the identify function was what would provide a progress update, and it was the function being changed.
Once the pair had exhausted all their limited knowledge on interfaces and what could be happening, always arriving back to the fact that they would just have to wait and see, they moved on to more lucrative topics.
“So, when are you selling all your skills? Today? Tomorrow?” Despite the fact that Pikawon had no way to spend money, he was far more excited about the prospect than her.
“I don’t know. Don’t you think it might cause a problem? What do we do if someone shows up asking about where we got them?” Dyani wasn’t normally a timid person, but that was against physical danger. She felt far less comfortable confronting a faceless investigator.
“I think you’re underestimating how many skills run through a city this size. There are hundreds of active slayers, all killing monsters, and plenty of them have looting powers to improve what they get from monsters, including skills. Even if each of them only found a skill a week, that’s plenty to hide how many we’ll be selling.”
“Is it?” Dyani said, raising her eyebrows.
“Well, how many skills do you have?”
Dyani pulled up her status, which thankfully still worked. She’d managed to create a counter for Crystallize Distilled Mana, which registered every time she used the skill to create a skill core, just so she didn’t need to worry about keeping track herself.
* Crystallize Distilled Mana (Unique)
* Type: Conjuration
* Affinity: None
* Range: Short
* Cost: Moderate Mana
* Effect: Distills and condenses the user’s mana into single affinity mana crystals, based on its predominant affinity. Available mana affinities include: Pure, Fire, Water, Earth, Air, Light, Shadow, Life, Death, Force, Metal, and Mind.
* Skill Cores Created: 74
“Seventy four? Most of them are Mana Jump, since it’s easier to make, but I’ve got quite a few Crystallize Force Mana and few for other mana types.”
Pikawon was stunned and he looked down at his hands, moving his fingers as he did some calculations. Whatever conclusion he arrived at only increased his bewilderment.
“We might need to worry just a little bit about drawing attention.”
***
As often seemed to be the case, Dyani and Pikawon’s debate about the city’s market for skill and their possible effect on it ended up at the fact that they just didn’t know. So Dyani decided the consult the closest person they had to an expert.
Hoss was as stoic as ever as she pulled the first six or so skill cores out of her backpack, but even his unflappable demeanor cracked when she placed the last one on his counter. Arrayed before him were twenty copies of Mana Jump.
His brow furrowed even deeper after picking one up and staring at it. Dyani wasn’t sure what information he was able to glean from it, but whatever he discovered made him walk over to the door and flip the open sign to closed, lock the door, and close the blinds on the window.
He returned to his seat and gave her a long, considering look. He looked at his hands, sighed, and rubbed his forehead to banish a headache.
“What do you need?” he finally asked.
“I was hoping to sell these without attracting any attention.”
Hoss nodded, eyes still scrunched shut.
“Twenty skills, I can do that.” He sounded like he was trying to convince himself.
“Yes…twenty.”
Hoss opened his eyes and gave her a hollow-eyed stare.
“Exactly how many do you have?”
“A few,” Dyani answered noncommittally, “But if twenty is a problem, I can go somewhere else.”
“No,” Hoss said, “You can’t.”
Connection request from Hoss Goldeye.
Accept?
Dyani accepted the request and immediately received a copy of a description of her on of her skill cores. She didn’t know how Hoss knew she had an interface. It was a skill she’d like to learn, but this wasn’t the time.
* Mana Jump (Unknown Rarity)
* Type: Mobility
* Affinity: Force
* Range: Self
* Cost: Low Mana
* Effect: Propels the user in a desired direction.
* Possible Variant of Jump (Common).
* Deviation from Standard (estimated): 62%.
It was similar to what she saw when identifying the core, besides the rarity being unknown and the parts about being a variant skill.
“I know skills. I know lots and lots of skills,” Hoss said, “Skill variants are rare, but they happen.”
“Variants?” Dyani knew only the smallest amount about skill variants, mostly that they were rare enough that nobles and collectors bought them at a premium.
Hoss nodded, leaning back in his chair while peering at another one of her skill cores.
“All skills have variations, even if their description is the same. They come from monster spirits, and all spirits, even monster spirits, are unique. Variants are just the skills that deviate so much from the standard skill that it changes the description.”
Dyani didn’t interrupt. Getting Hoss to speak was difficult, even after months of knowing him, and she didn’t want to jinx it.
“Usually, that’s at the 10% deviation mark, but it depends on what’s different and how.” Hoss looked her in the eyes, just for a moment, before obvious discomfort made him look back at the skill core.
“All skills are unique, or at least they should be.” Hoss touched each skill core in turn, sending a message with their description for each. Every one had the same, 62% deviation. Finally, he sent a different message.
Registering New Skill: Mana Jump.
Estimating Standard for ‘Mana Jump’ using twenty stored instances.
He sent over twenty new skill descriptions, each with 0% deviation from each other, and let the implications hang in the air.
“So, what I’m hearing is you can’t sell them.”
Hoss actually laughed, shocking her.
“I can sell them, just need to take precautions first. What I’m wondering is where exactly you got them.” He looked conflicted.
“But you shouldn’t tell me,” he finally said, “Can’t spill a secret I’ve never sipped.”
Dyani was growing increasingly concerned with the implications of her talent. As soon as she’d managed to crystallize her first skill, she’d know it was top tier, but Hoss’s reaction had her wondering if it was good enough that someone higher up might take notice.
If the city lord was willing to pour so much time and effort into capturing her friend to potentially breed a new species, a plan that still sounded insane to her, he would probably be willing to put in at least some effort to find someone who could print out skills.
“How will you sell them then?”
“I’ve got a contact, a shoemaker in the Red Eye District. They can use these to enchant their boots. Embedding a skill in an item will change it enough that no one should notice they started out identical. Should be a good seller too. Reliable mobility items are popular choices.”
Dyani wasn’t familiar enough with enchanting to understand how an ordinary enchanted item differed from one that used a skill, but she knew the practice was common enough that it must provide some advantages.
“What if your contact notices the same thing you did?”
Hoss smiled, and tapped the side of his nose.
“There ain’t many who know skills the way I do. I doubt he has Analyze, let alone the experience with it to see skill deviations. He doesn’t even have an interface, so anything he could learn from the Analyze skill wouldn’t have hard numbers, just feelings and impressions.”
That was enough to assuage most of Dyani’s fears, but she reached into her current Mana Jump skill and tweaked a few less important areas, just enough so it would register as slightly different. If she did something similar everytime she created a new core, hopefully that would be enough to avoid this problem in the future.
“I’ll need to speak with my contact to get you a standard price, but how does 5% sound like for a brokerage fee?”
It was Dyani’s turn to be shocked. She’d been expecting the same 60% or 75% from pawning other items, plus a little from her ostensible employee discount, not 95%
“Why so much? You’ve never given that much before.”
“You haven’t done much haggling, have you lass? You’re supposed to argue for more, not less.”
“Oh, I’ll take ninety five, I’m just wondering why it’s different.”
“Contracted sales to other businesses is less work than pawning. I don’t have to leave your skills out for someone to maybe find and argue with me about the price, just ship them out as soon as I get them. It’s 95% of net profit too, so that’s after any shipping or courier fees.”
“Fair enough,” Dyani said faintly. She wasn’t sure how much each skill would sell for. Probably less than average, since the craftsperson still needed to make money on their boots, but even 95% of a low price, multiplied by over seventy skill cores, was more money than she knew what to do with.