Silas readjusted the strap over his right shoulder, holding the handles of the bag closed with his left hand. He left the bag unzipped, as he didn't want to risk Eve's laptop overheating, since he made sure it would stay awake for the file transfer to finish. The vents on the model were in the back, to push hot air away from the user, so it was simple to slip the thing into the bag vents up.

He worried if he dismissed the laptop he'd have to go through all the steps of copying the files over again, and maybe he should just do that since he seemed to have finally met with someone in charge. But he wanted the laptop ready for Eve to use so she didn't ask to use his again.

He knew he was being a bit silly, forcing Eve to use a different laptop. Eve was just a bit terrifying, though. She was programmed to be loyal to her creator, which was him, yet it also wasn't, not within her own story. Having her nanites floating around in his body was bad enough. He kept expecting to have a panic attack over the body-horror of it all, knowing he had tiny robots crawling around inside his body making Eve-knew-what changes and improvements, to eventually convert him to the sci-fi levels of super soldier enjoyed by Cole, her Professor, a character Silas made up one day when he felt like writing his own isekai story, about a genius from Earth who tunneled his way into a fantasy world, either on purpose or through experimenting with black holes, he had written intros for both and had yet to decide which he preferred.

Eventually "Professor" Cole would combine modern science and the local enchanting techniques, or rather Eve would, resulting in a character with a suit of magic armor he thought Stan Lee would approve of, as long as Silas didn't name the story something quite so obviously derivative, like Mithril Man. The suit would get upgrades as the story progressed, and— Well, it didn't matter, now. Not unless the locals used some version of runic enchanting Eve was able utilize and improve upon, which seemed highly unlikely. Although it was part of her character design, so who knows?

In any case, he didn't want Eve infecting his laptop too. What if she somehow took it over or something? Not that she needed the extra processing power, but still. It could happen. Maybe she couldn't do much to him from his laptop, but she might create a virus to hold his games hostage until he summons her again, or something. It could happen.

He was actually leaving the prison, and wasn't quite sure how he felt about it. His impending death had been pushed back a quarter, which… Was that twenty five years, maybe? A quarter of a century? A quarter of a year? Of a decade? An hour??? …The man who could apparently understand English but not speak it hadn't seemed super concerned, so probably not a quarter of an hour.

In whatever case, Silas's weird Skill said he and the rest of the city was fated to die at a different time now. The Skill had remained behind after the big nerf, when he should have lost all those random Skills he picked up by needing them hard enough, so perhaps this Skill was different, somehow? It called him a Hero and said only he could change fate, or something like that. Was just telling the locals about the upcoming danger all it took for him to change fate? That felt a bit… Whatever. He should probably still work on a plan for how he would best run away in the case of an emergency. Here be dragons, and all that implied.

Still, with his death averted until the next unknown unit of time, Silas kind of wanted a room he could hide in and shut the door. Eve wasn't wrong, he leveled up, twice even, just by getting his System to acknowledge his ability to do a handful of things. With Eve as his teacher, he might never need to leave his room again. Maybe in a room not so close to the ocean, though. Or any dungeons. Once he could sustain a character able to bring others into their own private pocket dimension, well…

Demiplane was an eighth level spell, meaning a 15th level 5E Wizard could manage the feat. To get in and out of the demiplane, Plane Shift only required a 13th level caster as a seventh level spell. He wouldn't need to sustain either character permanently, just long enough to cast their magics, assuming he could get away with such a thing. If higher beings were watching over his shoulder with a nerf bat in hand while whispering about Fate to his system, maybe he shouldn't do anything too absurd until he absolutely had to. Maybe if he did it right, they wouldn't even know where he went. Couldn't hurt to learn what the locals considered "normal," either. For all he knew every local wizard had their own demiplane.

Back outside his head, the prison seemed strange, as he walked beside the old man. The halls were quiet as usual, many prisoners sitting or lying on their blankets, staring at the wall or floor. None of them even glanced his way. It wasn't his new Skill, though, as the "ignore me" feature he hoped for wasn't included.

Obscurity Shields the mind and soul of the user, protecting from detection, scans, and attacks. Any who would cast remote magic, curses, blood magic, or other effects directed at the user must do so with direct line of sight, else the spell will fail unless they can overcome Obscurity's defenses. When triggered, incurs a significant mana cost. Unable to offer significant protection against higher tier abilities.

Easily worth the 5 SP, assuming he could figure out how to level the Skill. Eve offered to tell him how many skill ups he would need to reach level 20, the level required for the 8 SP needed to purchase his next skill, but he declined.

As it stood, the biggest defense the skill offered was how it would likely start leveling up once he was under some sort of attack. With a mental push to Interface he enabled that particular skill's level up notifications.

Thus, the prisoners weren't ignoring him because of any Skill. And the old man was no help. He refused to speak once they began walking. Silas had asked what was up, but the man only tapped two fingers against his lips, like he was puffing a fake cigarette. Eve said the guy was telling him to be quiet, but Silas liked to imagine the man could only understand other languages after smoking magic cigarettes and the effect had worn off.

The silent walk down the long stone corridor, lit only by the occasional glowing stone set into the wall, left Silas plenty of time to feel self conscious. On the one hand he knew he was underdressed in his superhero themed pajamas. On the other, this guy was basically wearing a fancy blue bathrobe with some silvery embroidery, and his long gray hair and beard seemed as unkempt as any homeless man, the two combining and hanging down to the middle of the man's chest. Forget a bird's nest, the guy could hide a rabbit warren in that thing.

Soon enough they reached a closed metal door. The old man muttered something and circled one hand around counterclockwise, holding his fingers in an unusual pattern. This continued for about a minute, until the door rippled like a drop of water landing in still water. The dude poked his head through the door, waving back for Silas to follow, then slipped all the way through.

After a moment's hesitation Silas followed, though a part of him was tempted to just turn around and go back to his cell.

Walking through the door felt as if he stepped through a layer of pudding. It clung to him, reaching every nook and cranny of his flesh in a way that was uncomfortable, yet once he cleared the door he felt refreshed, as if he just took an extremely thorough bath. After checking to make sure no bits of door stuck to his pajamas he noticed a guard sitting behind a desk, who didn't seem to care about them walking through a door, reading some book.

"I don't think they can see you two," Eve said. "Odds are this guy is breaking you out of jail, Silas. He's probably related to those students who summoned you, then. Same color robes, right? Or is it a different blue."

It was the same blue, just with the silvery thread mixed in.

Silas needed his mind more in the moment. In his defense it had been a busy day and it wasn't even— He had no idea what time it was, and there he went not paying attention again. He looked back, but the ripple in the door had stilled. No going back now.

They slipped through another two doors on their way out of the jail. The final room seemed to be a small waiting area. At the reception desk sat a pretty woman with bright green hair and eyes, her golden brown skin only visible at her hands and face, as everything else hid behind a fluffy yellow sweater, aside from her very feminine shape.

If Silas wanted to break out of jail he would have made an effort to break out of jail. Off the top of his head he came up with a number of low power solutions to dig or sneak out, maybe even teleport or portal out, depending how certain game features translated into his new reality.

He should go over there and explain to the pretty lady that this old dude just walked him out of the cells. His heart sped up. She really was quite pretty. Her whole day would probably be ruined, not to mention his, if he went over there. And he'd have to explain things, which, if he had to deal with a stranger anyway, would be easier to deal with the old man who apparently wanted to deal with him instead of the pretty lady whose day he would ruin. …Unless the old man wanted to deal with Silas. He would need to keep his guard up, against the wizard. Good plan, Silas.

"Hey Silas?" asked Eve.

He raised an eyebrow. No need to talk, she would know he could hear her.

"The gentleman with magic and probably some answers is leaving."

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

He hurried to catch up.

"Need to test something real quick," she added. After another eyebrow raise she continued, "Go ahead and dismiss me. You can summon me back right after."

He did. Her illusory image…blinked away for the barest moment.

Skill Gained: Eve! +1 XP! Skill Eve reached Level 19! +18 XP!

"What did you do, Eve," Silas whispered out harshly, causing the old man to spin and pretend to puff a cigarette again. Yup, the poor guy had no idea what Silas was saying and needed another smoke break to get his translation buff back.

The cat woman smirked and spun, donning a bright yellow sundress.

"Simple! My nanites each created a dormant copy with instructions to wake when the 'original' vanished. Now I run on regular fuel, not your mana, so you can have me around and not lose out on a summon slot. Isn't it wonderful!"

Regular fuel? Right. She converted, well, the body's waste excrement into power.

Silas wanted to be annoyed, but he had not enjoyed using a camping toilet, no matter the necessity.

Oh, and he had notes about her building a micro-fusion reactor core in the Professor's chest.

"Eve," he muttered once the old wizard stepped through the front door, "if you try to build a reactor core in my chest, so help me, I will find a way to get rid of my new Eve Skill."

She rolled her eyes. "Silas, dear. I don't test in production. Which is you, my creator, just so we're clear on that point. You can trust me. I'm not going to risk your safety. And, as for whatever your Skill might say, well, I'm fairly certain your Bond-created system is just scrambling to make sense of something it doesn't understand. Just think of how much better your system will be when you choose to let me into the laptop." She placed an illusory finger against his lips, a finger he felt as if it were real. "…No no. Just think on it and tell me when you're ready. I'm a patient girl. I can wait." She winked and puffed away in a cloud of smoke.

"I need to save my processing cycles to run linguistic algorithms," her disembodied voice explained.

Silas scowled and checked the Help info on his latest skill.

Eve Governing Attribute: Vitality

How comforting. Eve wasn't written as an evil character, just a bit overbearing. Probably worth the effort of dealing with her, for all she brought to the table. There was no denying she was going to be useful. She respected her creator and acted in his best interests, as she saw fit.

It would probably be fine.

With a deep breath he stood up straight and burst through the rippling door.

Status Silas Aegis 11y 3s 18d 10h L12 (332/364 XP) H: 13.0/13 (19/day rest) S: 13.0/13 (19/min rest) M: 17.0/17 (-3) (20% eff.) AP: 4 STR: 13 WIL: 20 AGI: 13 WIT: 20 END: 13 SPI: 20 VIT: 19 AFF: 20 PER: 19 CHA: 10 SP: 0 Gaming 29 Mana Sense 29 Pain Resistance 29 Programming 29 Sight Reading 29 Eve 19 Gaming Necessities 19 Interface 19 Pestilence Resistance 19 Piano 19 Poison Resistance 19 Sleep Resistance 19 Help 13 Mana Magnet 10 Bargaining 9 Chemistry 9 Summon Character 9 Countdown to the End 3 Obscurity 1