I jotted down the notes on my most recent attempt to cure cancer. This time I had attacked the atypical cell membrane of cancer cells. It had worked, causing the cancer cells to burst and it even didn’t affect the healthy colon cells, but it did something to the DNA. I couldn’t tell what the process had done exactly, but whatever I did caused the cancer cells to die and the healthy cell’s DNA to change. The change wasn’t massive but I couldn’t know the long term effects. Subjecting a person to a full body DNA mutation was at least unethical and at most deadly.

I sighed slumping back into the chair at the small table that had been brought into the piglet’s stall. Scattered around the table were notes on various attempts to alter the cancer cells. It was proving difficult to find a perfect solution.Each attempt required strong visualization, which meant drawing diagrams, reviewing my knowledge, and truly considering the effects of each change I was making. Thus every attempt took a lot of time, usually just a day, but sometimes they would bleed into a second day.

I could easily destroy the cancer cells in a targeted way, which to some extent was useful. If I could see a person’s tumor I could destroy it. That really was the easy part. However the problem was I couldn’t get rid of all the cancer cells without damaging healthy cells around it.

Truthfully the problem didn’t stop there. I needed a magic I could use on the entire body that wouldn’t mutate or destroy healthy cells. If Earl’s cancer was a good example, and I suspected it was, cancer in this world could go much longer without killing the person. High Vitality meant you could survive having a tumor the size of a tennis ball in your abdomen without dying for years and years. The reduction in symptoms from cancer meant it was very hard to catch it early on in the disease. Thus it had time to mutate more and more until it took over more and more different types of cells, effectively becoming more and more different types of cancer.

On Earth this really didn’t happen nearly to the extent it did here. The patient would usually die way before this could happen to them. All that meant I needed a full body treatment to really fix the problem. It needed to not only destroy the cancer cells but ensure that they wouldn’t just immediately regrow. That was the problem with Dark healers, even if they had the Manipulation to get their magic to differentiate healthy and cancerous cells, the healer would treat the person only for the cancer to come back in less than a year or so. Even sooner if they received either Light or Earth healing effectively restoring the cancer.

Dark healers being able to remove cancer at all was somewhat surprising. Clearly their Manipulation was doing all the heavy lifting since they wouldn’t be able to truly understand the difference between healthy and cancerous cells. If my Manipulation was as high as theirs I suspect I could effectively power through the problem I’m currently facing. However that would take potentially hundreds of levels. After some research I had determined it took about five to six hundred combined levels and at least two hundred levels in the Dark healer class to have enough Manipulation to remove cancer.

I needed a solution that was within reach of any moderately leveled Fire healer, so I couldn’t just rely on stats to fix the problem. To my knowledge only Fire healing, or potentially Fire mages, could make permanent changes to a body template. Essentially if I wished for it I could make a Bioshift change permanent and the current condition of the patient would be “saved” for lack of a better word. Dark healers couldn’t do that, so when they “healed” cancer it would just come right back with time or when the person was healed again.

The piglet brushed up against my leg. She had grown somewhat attached to me since I spent so many hours here lately. Fortunately the testing didn’t hurt her at all. She was really just acting as a blood supply for the grafts. It didn’t hurt her when I needed to take a sample, likewise I could heal the grafts to get more cells. I was somewhat worried I might somehow infect her with the cancer, but thus far it hadn’t happened. I did, however, need to constantly apply Bioshift to the grafts to keep them alive and stop them from being rejected. Reupping Bioshift and Enhanced Metabolism once a day was more than enough.

“Spending all day in here again?” Penelope asked. I jumped at the sudden question before realizing I had been too engrossed in my thoughts to realize she had walked up.

I gave her a bit of the stink eye. “I haven’t spent all day here before.” I said, deadpan. Over the week since starting this project I had split my days between combat training and this.

This project of mine was still causing me to level far faster than I should be. Over the hours of pouring over experimental treatments I had gained 15 more Bioshifter Curist levels and 2 more species levels. The rate of leveling meant the system was definitely hinting that I was onto something epic.

In Pen’s defense you have been… consumed with this project. If I wasn’t around to control your body I think you would just stop in random places contemplating constantly. Alice added ‘helpfully’ in my mind.

Alright maybe she had a point, but I just did my best to ignore her. I stood and stretched, yawning, then I pocketed my notebook that held any information from Earth in it. I would never let that particular book leave my side, the other papers scattered around would be far less useful if someone were to steal them. In fact, without my notebook, I would expect them to be more detrimental than useful.

“I guess I should probably do something else though.” I grinned at Penelope.

Penelope got up on her tiptoes looking the exact opposite of innocent. “I might have found one of the passages.”

My eyes went wide, we had many alternative plans for the escape but finding a new passageway into the escape tunnels would be pretty great. “Did you now?” I asked conspiratorially even as Alice echoed the statement in my mind.

Penelope gave a sly grin and a nod. “It’s in the library, come on.” She said before opening the gate to the stall for me to exit.

We headed over to the library in relative silence not wanting to clue people into what we were doing. Arriving in the library I saw the familiar shelves of books, the vast majority I had read or at least skimmed at one point or another. It wasn’t a massive room, maybe six shelves on the lower floor and three more on a terrace up some stairs. The walls were mostly lined with shelves as well, which made for a grand total of maybe 40 shelves of books, some of which required a ladder to get to. Attached there was a small study and opposite a repository for older clerical books. In the center of the library was a table surrounded by comfortable chairs, which is where we usually had lessons with Mathis.

Penelope glanced around the large room, then began to walk around the shelves looking for something. Before I could ask what she was doing it occurred to me she was checking to see if the room was empty. I broke away to check the study then the repository of old defunct accounting books and holding reports.

Once we were sure no one was in the library Penelope motioned me toward a bookshelf in one of the corners of the library and I walked over. “I couldn’t figure out how to open it, but look at this.” Penelope pulled one of the books out in the corner of one shelfs. I glanced at the book, it was a treatise on past relations between Hakan and Ysara. I had read it quite some time ago, it was actually among the first I had read here.

I briefly considered what the book was about, and my Enhanced Memory skill brought it back to me with great clarity.

Unlike many other species that had made additional nations over the ten thousand years since civilization began, elves have stuck to their three initial nations. However many other species, humans especially, have created several nations over the years. Hakan was formed some one thousand years ago by settlers from one of the founding nations of humanity. Elves with their very low birth rates and extremely long lifespans didn’t often expand their borders at all. So when humans settled hundreds of miles from their borders Ysara took no interest.

Ysara has no other nations on its borders, as an Earthling I found that odd. However I learned that each of the 6 habitable continents of this world were all approximately circles. The center of each continent had horrible monsters that made them impossible to settle. Thus only the outer ring of each continent was populated. Ysara also had a natural border on its western border of impassable mountains, and at the time of creation there were no countries anywhere nearby to the east. Thus they had no notion of what it meant to have another country on their border.

It took only 200 years for Hakan to expand enough for its border to brush up against Ysara. That was the beginning of long running border disputes eventually sparking the first major war between Hakan and Ysara. That war was fought more or less to a standstill. Humans could field larger armies than elves, but elven armies are generally higher average level than human ones. After a few years a peace treaty was signed.

Then every hundred or so years Hakan and Ysara would go to war for a short time, but the two nations remained in relative balance. Although Hakan’s population increased faster than Ysara’s, Hakan had the nation of Kurz to their east to contend with as well. Kurz was a polyspecies nation of gnolls, lizardfolk, and humans, and generally hounded Hakan with yearly wars of expansion. So the bulk of Hakan’s military was dedicated to defending its eastern border.

Another aspect that stopped Hakan from waging major offensives against Ysara was deific intervention. It was commonly understood and well documented that only so much of the land of each founding nation can be taken through violent means before the species’ patron deities step in to stop the war. That doesn’t stop a country from changing governments or becoming a vassal state, but open warfare and genocide were generally stopped if they were perpetrated on a founding nation.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Thus Hakan had little to gain and much to lose by going to war with Ysara and in turn Ysara had little need to expand its borders. Of course Halcroft’s relatively recent actions of raiding eastern Ysara could become the spark for a new war. Especially if it is found that he abducted Ysarains to become slaves, even worse if Ysara finds out about my mother and I.

Only now did it occur to me that had Halcroft successfully mind controlled me into his puppet he could probably get away with my leading a ‘revolution’ to conquer Ysara. Since it would appear to be a civil war the gods wouldn’t get involved even if Hakan backed the rebels. Then a mind controlled version of myself would make Ysara a vassal state of Hakan. No wonder he was so pleased to have captured Ysarain royalty at first and seemed so willing to elevate me within his family.

The idea that I would have become my own nation’s conqueror was a chilling one. He could have given me a slave legion of elves he had gathered from his raids. It would have taken decades but with his Vitality he had decades to live. Even if he died before his plan came to fruition he could have passed it on to me, his literally perfectly crafted successor.

My mind flashed with the memory of the Hakan Noble class description. Slavery had been a class skill. Alice, had she not removed her obedience to Halcroft, could easily have been molded to become just like him. She would have enslaved her own people at his whim.

More chills ran down my spine. I had thought of death by mind control to be just like any other death, but it was definitely far worse. I shook my head trying to clear the dark thoughts.

I returned to the matter at hand, Penelope had removed a few other books while I had been thinking, then she reached up and pushed something that was above both of our eyelines. Neither of us were particularly short for our ages, Penelope was 5’ 2” and I was just under 5’, but the shelf in question was closer to eye level for a full adult at around 5 and a half feet. I heard a clicking sound and the bookshelf shuttered then came away from the wall just a fraction of an inch.

I grabbed one of the shelves and tugged trying to pull the shelf further away, but it didn’t budge further. “I think there are more switches that you need to press before it will open.” Penelope explained. “But watch this.” She pushed the shelf back into its original position and I heard a latching sound as I assumed a lock reengaged keeping the shelf flush against the wall again. She then pressed the button again and there was the click of what I now understood was a lock unlocking and the bookshelf moved a bit from the wall again.

“So you think there are more locks that require different buttons from around the library?” I asked the obvious and rhetorical question. “How did you find this one?”

Penelope blushed and glanced away toward the nearby ladder. “I uhh…” She fidgeted for a moment. “Might have fallen from the ladder.” She cleared her throat and I did my best not to laugh at her. The fact that she had fallen wasn’t funny, but that she was being all coy about it was absolutely adorable.

“Anyway, I kicked the books trying to get my footing and the button got pushed by accident.” She continued her explanation.

I considered the bookshelf for a moment longer. “The other buttons are probably nearby.” I huffed. “I think we’ll just have to remove all the books from this shelf and each shelf attached to it.”

Penelope pouted. “That… doesn’t seem fun.”

I raised one eyebrow in her direction. “How else do you expect us to find the other buttons?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know, you always have answers to everything, I guess I was just expecting… more.”

I heard Alice snickering in the back of my mind. “Alright… well I don’t have anything more.” I looked at the books she pulled out, considering. “Be sure to keep all the books in the same order and do it one shelf at a time so we don’t leave obvious clues we were investigating.” I place the history of Hakan and Ysarian relations back into the pile where it would have been. “Hmmm, one of us should be a lookout while the other looks for the buttons.”

“Uh, yeah…” Penelope trailed off as she quickly reorganized the books she had pulled down to get them back into the right order. “Why don’t you keep watch and I’ll search.” She continued now that she wasn’t focused on the books.

I nodded at her then left to keep guard. I left the library and plopped down outside, keeping the door open just a crack so I could warn Penelope quickly. It wasn’t terribly likely anyone would come over to this part of the manor without needing to specifically come to the library, but it was still possible. Evenstill, I would look mighty suspicious sitting outside. Anyway to make us less obvious Alice? I asked.

Invisibility would be best, but that would require hours if not days producing the spell. My arm came up to support my head while my index finger tapped against my cheek. Alice was obviously considering a solution. A simple illusion would be much easier. I can make an illusionary wall that will look like the wall behind us. It will be pretty flimsy though, a keen observer will see through it and anyone can just walk right through it.

I shrugged. Better than nothing. I thought as I activated Dual Consciousness to let Alice use magic. My hand began to move on its own, drawing out a rune. It took about three minutes until there was an intricately drawn rune floating in midair. A final drain of about 200 or so mana occurred as the rune activated. Rune magic was versatile, but it was by no means inexpensive between the cost of the Dual Consciousness skill and the cost to activate the rune. Considering the cost I was slightly disappointed when a shimmering see through barrier formed around me. It slightly distorted my vision but was otherwise transparent, so it wasn’t actually obscuring us.

All done. Alice confirmed while my mouth curved into a grin.

Wait… I can see through it though. Is this even doing anything? I asked.

My eyes rolled. Step outside it dummy. Alice chided.

I did, passing through the translucent barrier only to see an image of the wall behind me pushed out in a sphere where I was. I knew it was still there because the image was slightly… grainy might be the best word. This close it was obvious it wasn’t real, but I had to imagine it would be harder to spot further away. Nice, good work. I thought before sitting back down into the sphere.

I only do good work. Alice thought haughtily. If I had an hour I would be able to make a much better illusion, but with the time provided this will have to do.

We sat waiting for Penelope to finish scouring the shelves. The only sound was books being stacked within the open library. After about twenty or so minutes I heard another loud click then a small banging noise then a sigh. I stepped into the library to see Penelope pulling at the hidden doorway only for it not to budge, it was out further than before though. “Found another switch?” I asked quietly.

She jumped a little before turning with a smiling shrug. “Yeah, but I think there’s still one more.” She pointed to the right side of the hidden passageway shelf. “I still have those two shelves and two more rows on the shelf above it to go.”

“Alright, keep at it.” I confirmed before turning back to my watch post. When I turned the corner the illusion was still there and I nestled into the sphere.

Another five or ten minutes later I heard footsteps approaching. I reached my arm around and snapped my fingers. “Pen, someone’s coming.” I whisper shouted before looking back to see who it was that was about to turn the corner. I heard Penelope begin to hurriedly put books back into position.

Isaac came around the corner, his missing arm causing his left sleeve to billow behind him a bit. He had his rapier at his side and was looking displeased as he approached. Halcroft had done him the ‘favor’ of taking his off-hand, so he could still fight if need be. He wasn’t allowed to have it healed, until Halcroft returned from the capital. That was for two separate reasons, firstly I wasn’t pursuing Light healing so he would have someone else do it, and secondly Helen couldn’t regenerate full limbs, she just didn’t have the Magic or Mana. So Halcroft would bring a healer back with him from the capital.

Not surprisingly we hadn’t interacted at all since he was punished, we had obviously both been avoiding each other. I had only seen him once or twice in passing. Without Halcroft here family dinners stopped happening altogether.

I considered what to do as he slowly approached. It was quite clear he was specifically coming to the library, there just wasn’t anything else in this wing he would require. Plus with Halcroft away he was in charge of any minor business around the family’s domain. He was probably coming to check on the financial archives.

Penelope and I being in the library was by no means abnormal, we often studied here even while Mathais wasn’t teaching us. I decided to have us play it off as just some casual studying. I activated Radiant Step to make one near instant movement into the library still concealed by Alice’s illusion. Better drop the illusion. I thought.

Already on it. Alice confirmed as my right hand began to move on its own.

Inside Penelope had already put away whatever stack of books she was working on, pushed the ladder away, and fully closed the concealed door. She was just sitting down with two books, one on various fire magics for me and the other on water for her.

I made one more quick radiant step to the chair opposite Penelope as Alice finished dispelling her illusion. Before I could even hear Isaac approaching we were both casually reading at the desk.

He turned the corner barely breaking his stride to give us both a look I couldn’t identify. He just kept walking toward the archive. I gave a sigh of relief as he stepped into the room. A few minutes later Isaac exited the room with a large accounting book under his arm entirely ignoring us as he left the library closing the door behind him.

We waited a long minute when Penelope was about to say something when I placed my finger over my mouth to stop her. I pulled out my notebook and wrote a quick note before turning it to her. It read: He might be listening or come back, give it 10 minutes.

We both waited in agitation for the minutes to slowly pass. I stood up after the time and walked toward the door, opening it and checking outside. No one was there. Leaving it open I turned back to Penelope. “How much more time do you need?” I asked quietly.

“Just two more rows.” She answered as she stood and walked back over to where she was working.

“Finish up then.” Instead of going back outside I stood at the doorway and listened for footsteps. A couple tense minutes later I heard another click and a gasp.

“Found it!” Penelope said happily. She quickly hit the other two buttons as I memorized each of their locations. When the last lock was disengaged the door was allowed to fall away from the wall revealing a spiral staircase heading down. Penelope glanced inside looking down. “It goes down to at least groundlevel, this must be it.”

“Good, we’ll have Farva check it later, for now we should go. We don’t want to be here if Isaac comes back.” I said in a rushed sentence. We made ourselves scarce as quickly as possible.