Hm.

Sooo… what the fuck do I do?! If I disable the skill, I get hit with a flood of trauma and agony, but if I don't it will just continue to build up. And I get the distinct impression that it will not hold forever, and will eventually just burst like a dam.

I sit there panicking for a while, agonizing over what I should do, until my tumultuous thoughts are interrupted by a knock on the door to my room. I sit up off the bed, finally realizing that Allysa had left at some point during the stream of notifications. I called for them to enter, and the guildmaster walks in with Allysa close behind.

“What in the nine hells did you do this time?! We felt that pulse of mana from my office!” Vanhara says, eyes glowing with multiple skills as she checks the room.

“Ummm… nothing, as far as I know? I mean, my System interface got put into advanced mode, but other than that I've done nothing but sift through notifications.”

I relay all the notifications, leaving out the part about the Reaper's intervention and the resulting abilities. Allysa just sighs, as though she's gotten used to me doing ridiculous things, while Vanhara is shocked that I was able to activate the advanced mode. Apparently, you either need to know an almost exaggeratedly complex system command to activate it, or gain a complex enough ability to warrant needing additional information about everything.

I chuckle nervously as Vanhara bombards me with questions, mainly about what I got to trigger the switch from the default to advanced. I evade the question, and I can tell she knows I'm not sharing something, but eventually gives up. Vanhara huffs and walks out, muttering about aurisal nobles and their avoidance. Allysa just raises an eyebrow and waits, simply watching me and waiting for me to fold. It doesn't take long, and I explain everything this time. However, when I attempt to share the still present windows, I get a message about ‘insufficient permissions’.

We share a look and I shrug, unable to do much about it, and Allysa asks about the changes to my status. I grin and summon the window, swiping it over to her and watch with growing excitement as her eyes widen. In a separate window, hidden in a tiny transparent icon in the bottom corner of my status, is the command to activate advanced mode. I discovered this rather quickly, and sent the command over as well. I lean back and watch as Allysa tries repeatedly to speak the command, before getting it correct on her fifth try. I only understood most of the words, with a few being lost on me, and the moment the last word is spoken the icon vanishes from my own menu and Allysa bounces with glee.

As she goes through her own menu, I finally take the time to properly look over mine.

-==÷==-

Name: Lycara Mallin

Race: Aurisal (æ)

Titles: Noble, Unbroken, Reaper’s Interest

Class: Aethersmith (M)

– Concepts Understood: Death

Level: 6

Mana: Full (Sealed)

Status: Healthy, Essence Drift, Shifting Form

Domain: Unknown (Conceptual)

Body: 24 (25)

– Strength: 24

– Constitution: 25

– Dexterity: 24

Mind: 23

– Intelligence: 23

– Wisdom: 23

– Reaction: 23

Soul: 21

– Willpower: 32

– Mana: 21

– Resistance: 21

Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

Skills:

Strip Concept [34%]

Sense Concepts [45%]

Crystallize [12%]

Essentia Forging [40%]

Essentia Storage [5%]

Pain Resistance [100%]*

Recovery [28%]

Sprint [17%]

Disassociation [96%]

Lance Mastery [100%]*

Mana Reservoir [4%]

Mana Manipulation [1%]

Deathtouch [1%]

Traits:

Wild Strength

Augmented Form

Essentia Touched

Godmarked

-==÷==-

I whistle in appreciation at the sheer amount of information, as well as the two skill evolutions I need to do. Apparently testing out my new lance was enough to pass the threshold, and my eternally aching missing paw pushed [Pain Resistance] past. Reading through the new stats and status bar, I noted that the two temporary traits I had gotten had been altered to status effects. As for the stats, focusing on them showed that they were as advertised. Each one did as the name implied, and the values were the effective stats for it. The broken gender symbol was strange, but I chalked it up to being just the [Shifting Form] effect messing with it.

I checked to see if anything had changed with the descriptions of any skills or traits, but all that was added was mana costs for my skills. What was interesting though was when I tried to inspect my domain, it pulled up a tutorial window describing it.

-==÷==-

Domain

A power unique to each individual, it can manifest in nigh-endless ways.

Rank

[Conceptual] is the basic rank, meaning it holds no true power. Learn your Domain to unlock its [Manifestation].

-==÷==-

Hmm… What would my domain even be? If it's unique to me, that means it would… what, represent me in some way?

I ponder it for several more minutes before giving up, filing it away for later inquiry and flopping back on my bed. I had nothing to do, as my mana is sealed, so I can't craft, and my body is apparently changing somehow, so I probably shouldn't do much. Re-reading the status effects, I realized that they both could be accelerated by rest. So that's what I did, using a trick I found with [Disassociation] to basically disable my ‘awareness’, which for some reason counted as an emotion for the skills' purposes. Somehow.

I was asleep in seconds.

—

The next day, the [Essence Drift] effect was gone, so I could begin crafting once more. As for the [Shifting Form] effect, the only thing I noticed was the fur on my arms and waist had spread a bit, now reaching just past my elbows and just below my stomach. It was also thicker and softer, which is a welcome bonus. My claws also seemed sharper than they were yesterday, though that might just be me reading too far into it.

I return to the forge, meeting up with Allysa on the way, and arrive much faster than before. Raiding the material closet in search of more exotic items to craft with, I manage to find a tiny sliver of some kind of bone that my skills don't work on, a quarter ingot of mythril, and something that I don't even know what it is. [Inspect] only returns a blank name, with the only description reading:

-==÷==-

Crafting Material

-==÷==-

Yep. That's all it says. The thing itself appears to be some sort of goo, almost jelly-like in its consistency, and glows with a soft blue light. There's only about a vial worth of it, but from the layers of dust coating it not a single person will miss it. Having selected my materials, I decide to try something that probably won't work and funnel a bit of mana into my [Essentia Forging] skill.

To my shock and slight horror, it works. I felt [Disassociation] flare up, and I sort of took a step back from my own body. It was an incredibly disturbing sensation, as I could see my body move and start crafting, but it's as though I'm possessed.

I watched with morbid fascination as I crafted, beginning with the sliver of bone. I felt my skills come to life as they struggled to strip the concepts from the tiny, needle-sized piece of bone. It put up a surprising fight, refusing to bow to my skills, but eventually it worked, and the shard melted into a strange putty in my hand.

Next up was the mythril, and it took less than three seconds to strip it and begin molding the two together. [Essentia Forging] guided my hands as I watched, twisting the two distinct masses of essentia into a single spiral, with a good amount left over due to the differing amounts. The extra was quickly removed, and simply rolled together to create a separate conglomerate, the two materials within now one.

Juggling the extra so as for it to not solidify, the spike, which was by now obviously a needle, was hardened. The bone and mythril solidified, now a spiraling sharp object, and the top of the vial was opened, the needle dropped in, and then closed once more.

Leaving that to do… something, and still relegated to a mere spectator with [Disassociation] keeping me calm for now, I watched on in awe as my hands blurred over the extra essentia. Rapidly, a chain not dissimilar to that of a necklace took form, and it was hardened as well. Then the strange part happened; well, less strange than my skill hijacking my body, but still.

My skills trigger, stripping the entire vial, glass reshaping at my touch until it is a condensed mass around the eye of the needle, before flowing around the chain and sealing.

Finally, [Essentia Forging] stopped draining mana and relinquished control of my body back to me, and I took a deep breath as fatigue washed over me in a wave. I only just now noticed that the strange goo that the vial contained was gone, and the needle had instead gained a very soft luminescence.

I made to lean onto the table, but Allysa was there beside me right as I started to move. Shaking my shoulder, I looked up at her with bleary eyes, realizing that [Essentia Forging] had drained all of my mana.

“Hey, you alright Lycara? You seemed… off, while crafting. And what did you even make? An accessory maybe?”

Allysa said, and I turned to my newest creation.

“Note to self: never, ever use mana with my crafting skill again. It hijacks my body, makes the item, and lets go again after.”

Allysa takes her eyes off of the beautiful creation that is the needle and just stares at me, her gaze boring a hole through the back of my head.

“It. Did. What. Now? Must I remind you of what has happened the last few times something strange happened?!”

I wave her off.

“It stopped when the item was done, calm down. It basically just hyper focused me on crafting, and I just remembered that I forgot to check the concepts in the bone and goo. Damn it. Anyway, let's see what I made, shall we?”

And with a sigh and a glare that let me know the conversation was not over, we both looked at the item and inspected it.