Shai lost herself in the art of Spellforging, even if she didn't have a skill slot open to swap. Hours slipped away as Shai got busy, attempting to master the Empower script. She had tried over a couple of hundred times, and tirelessly failed all the time, but her determination remained undeterred.

Failure meant death, and death was unacceptable.

Although she didn't find success, Shai was eager to make all the swift progress she was making in the process. A surge of exhilaration coursed through her when System Grandpa spoke into her mind.

[Congratulations! Pain Resistance has reached 100% over in E-rank. +4 Physique, Mind, Spirit.]

[You have no Evolution points remaining to evolve the skill.]

Huzzah! Shai celebrated and immediately surfed through the [System Log] to find the prompt and swapped the skill with Pain Resistance.

[The process may leave the user vulnerable and extremely fatigued, please confirm your decision.]

[Accept | Decline]

She froze for a moment and then examined her surroundings. She secured herself in a deep crevice and accepted the prompt.

[Extracting the skill, Pain Resistance (E)]

[Creating Skill Reservoir to shift swapped skill... Proceeding...}

A squeak escaped her, as Shai writhed in agony. Grandpa, you mentioned nothing about pain!

Thankfully, it only lasted about a minute and wasn't anything worse than what the Golden-tailed eagle did to her.

[Pain Resistance (E) has been shifted to Skill Reservoir successfully.]

[Pain Resistance (E) has weakened. You cannot improve Pain Resistance (E).]

Fine by me, just give me my new skill!

[Congratualtions! You have successfully swapped Spellforging (E) to your Skill slots.]

[Spellforging (E):

Mastery - 31%

Spellforging is the engineered path of Essence Weaving. It is a path as broad and mysterious as well. This skill uses the runic arts to manifest various effects which appear as miracles to observers' eyes.]

Shai read the description and deemed her decision to be correct. The other choice would have been [Stealth (E)], but compared to [Spellforging (E), just the ability to hide herself paled in comparison. While Stealth was merely a skill, Spellforging was more like a vocation, which clicked right with her.

On that note, she still hadn't cashed in the Insight of Concealment--the reward from unveiling the mysteries of the corruption. She had no clue what to do about it.

If Shai mastered the Concealment Script, she could lay it above herself to hide. Of course, it would be difficult for her to master such scripts... it was merely an example.

Shai went back to her practice. Unlike other essence-weaving arts, Spellforging required less essence and more mental fortitude—something Shai found herself somewhat proud of.

Then how strong the empathic spider would be who mastered all these scripts?

Shai shuddered, disturbingly appalled. After all, her relationship with the spiders hadn't been any bit cordial. It was almost impossible not to have a foreboding feeling.

They were sentient beings. Hunting them for mere resources just felt wrong, now that she saw the depth of their intelligence. She did have some grievances, albeit with the male ones, and with the Spider mama who tried to capture her, but Shai wasn't foolish enough to justify those as her reasons to start hunting a race that likely held dominion over this weird dungeon.

Not to mention, she was tirelessly busy with studying. Who would want to go for life and death conflict when they can learn new interesting stuff? Not me.

Back to Spellforging she went.

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Shai was ready to give her absolute best, as the subject intrigued her most profoundly in recent times. Even when her mental fortitude and cosmic energy waned at an alarming rate, Shai persisted, returning to her Spellforging after another round of meditation and replenishing snacks.

The Bloodcudding Mushrooms had been an absolute delight to her otherwise bland existence. It was not only a delicacy to her potent taste buds but also acted as a potent remedy for her dwindling mental fortitude and energy.

That is why the spiders cultivated these wondrous fungi. Shit, I shouldn't have destroyed a portion of it just to hide evidence.

The Empower script demanded the precise arrangement of eight runes intricately formed inside a symmetrical octagon. Shai did it wrong initially, mistakenly attempting to create the runes in mid-air before establishing the proper octagonal structure.

Apparently, she didn't need to carve the octagonal form in the array flag, they were already carved by machines. After growing accustomed to only carving individual runes, Shai overlooked this crucial point. Fortunately, she was quick to solve her oversight, though it only led to another round of exasperated attempts at shaping the perfect octagon in mid-air. It proved to be equally challenging, if not more so.

After all, the script required flawless symmetry in its formation.

It took two arduous hours of focused forging for Shai to achieve her first perfect octagon. Initially, she succeeded only two or three times out of ten attempts, but her success rate reached a fifty-fifty chance as she practised forming the runes within the octagon. It took four rounds of meditation and forging sessions.

Now, the runes she painstakingly created no longer dissipated when she moved to inscribe the next one. The octagonal shape was simply magical. If formed perfectly, with precise energy synergy coursing through its symmetrical structure, it prevented the runes' energy from dissipating too easily.

Shai managed to inscribe the fourth rune within the octagon, completing half of the script on her first try before it disintegrated into thin air. Four again on her next try. Failure. Then four again. Always failing to incorporate the fifth rune. It was either a useless half-script or a complete failure, until after dozens of tries, she managed the fifth rune.

Progress was difficult but rewarding. Unfortunately, her cosmic energy ran out at that very moment to incorporate more, leaving her drained and frustrated.

Annoyed, Shai retrieved a couple of Bloodcudding Mushrooms and gobbled them up. She brought a couple more and devoured them too, settling back into her secluded space. [Essence Eater] working fast to restore a tenth of her whole energy reserve, but that wasn't nearly enough.

Shai coiled her form and meditated, seeking to replenish her depleted energy reserves and mental fortitude. [Essence Eater] augmented this recovery process significantly, especially after consuming nourishment of high quality. After the initial boost of 10% energy, [Essence Eater] gradually slowed down the process of recovery. Nonetheless, the initial burst of 10% cosmic energy recovery within a few short seconds was no less than a lifesaver.

Her meditation practice didn't progress at the same rapid rate as Spellforging. It was already standing at 54%. Hopefully, she would need a few more hours of diligent forging to successfully form her first complete script.

After a couple of hours of meditation, Shai was back at it again. She began by forming a perfect octagon, laying the foundation for runes to be filled within. Each rune she inscribed within introduced a new variable. Any imperfection in form or energy synergy could ruin the entire structure. There was no saving it once it broke, kind of like a glass.

Her attempt at forming the fifth rune failed, underlining the increasing difficulty of each addition. It became evident that the first rune was the easiest to master, while the last presented the greatest challenge.

The addition of each rune brought forth a new level of complexity, making the task of adding more runes even more difficult.

Unbeknownst to Shai, a whole day had slipped away without her successfully forming the sixth rune. But Shai was undeterred, too focused on the art that she lost the passage of time or her current state.

Her daily routine had become a cycle: Eat, meditate, spellforge, and repeat. She remained completely true to the craft, pouring her everything into it. The result spoke for itself.

[Spellforging (E): 64% Mastery]

[Essence Weavening (E): 59% Mastery]

When she was fluent in forming the sixth rune.

[Spellforging (E): 69% Mastery]

[Advanced Meditation (E): 84% Mastery]

At the seventh round of devouring and meditation the next day.

[Spellforging (E): 74% Mastery]

After she mastered the forge of the perfect octagon.

[Spellforging (E): 81% Mastery]

[Advanced Meditation (E): 90% Mastery]

[Mental Corrosion Resistance (D): 92% Mastery]

She stopped making mistakes completely in forging a half-script

[Essence Weavening (E): 59% Mastery]

[Spellforging (E): 88% Mastery]

Finally, she succeeded in forming the seventh rune, after an unknown number of the cycle.

[You have achieved a small breakthrough. Your path has grown to Favoured Hatchling Lvl 20. +1 to all Primary Attributes, +1 Unallocated Point.]

However, reaching the final milestone proved to be a gruesome task. Shai devoured hundreds of mushrooms, delved deeper into meditation, and reached Favoured Hatchling Lvl 20. at long last, she successfully forged her first complete spell script.

[Congratulations! You have learned the spell script of Empower (Tier-I).]

[Congratulations! Spellforging(E) has reached 100% mastery. You have taken the first leap into this path. +6 Mind, Spirit.]

[Spellforging (E) has advanced to D-rank.]