Renata's eyes were glowing with excitement, she never even remotely considered that she would have access to a place like this, especially at her age. The whole area seemed unending, there were hallways that seemed to stretch so far that they had horizons, some of the shelves were so tall they had their own stairwells. Anything you could think of was here, besides people, it was full of things but Renata could not spot a single person among them. She didn't have much time to think about what she really desired before a message appeared in front of her eyes
Welcome!
You currently have *1280* System Points or SP. To spend SP you must find an item of equal or less value than your current total of SP. To find an item you desire you may picture it in your mind and it will be brought to you. You may leave by saying the words "Leave System Vault", any SP that you have remaining after your purchase(s) will be kept until your next visit to the System Vault.
The message eased all of Renata's fears as she now knew how to leave and that she wouldn't lose all of her points if she chose to buy a cheap item. Renata had to think about what she needed so she sat down on the smooth floor and crossed her legs, an operation she had found more difficult now that she was a girl who wore dresses and skirts, it had never occurred to her how insecure you could feel when there is a direct line of sight between the outside world and your underwear, it was unsettling even when there was no one around. 'On second thought, I don't think being a girl is okay, this sucks. I used to be able to do anything without having to worry about how I appear, now this. I can't believe this gets worse, I just hope demons don't have to go through all the usual biological bullshit that normal humans do, ugh'.
It has become a common theme in Renata's day for her to dread the future, the idea of her tail becoming noticeable and her horns getting tall enough to be seen through her hair. The many issues that being a girl simply brought about and above all the looming fate she had, being trapped in a dungeon when she became ten for however long gaining twenty five levels took. Because of all of this it was hard for her to focus, she had gotten into the habit of sitting down to do breathing exercises just to ease her stress before any decision.
After a few hours went by Renata had managed to come up with what seemed to be the best item for her to purchase in her current state and it was an enchanters tool set. Making all the tools needed for enchanting would take Renata months at least and that was assuming that she could find all the materials, some of which would likely be really rare. Renata thought about an enchanters tool set and pictured what she knew them to be like from Zagon and before long a box appeared in front of her. Inside the box were many different chalks, dyes, dusts, papers, channeling rods and various other random materials, trinkets and vials that were all used in the crafting of enchantments. Renata squinted her eyes at the materials in the box as she recognized each of them and remembered their uses. 'This can't be right, with only this level of tools I could only just about make common tier enchantments'. After looking through the contents for a few seconds Renata had a further message appear before her.
Replenishing Enchanters Set (Common)
This replenishing enchanters set contains all of the tools and reagents needed for the creation of any and all enchantments up to and including the *Common* tier. All consumables and tools bound to this set can be replenished and repaired by pouring 10,000 mana into the mana gem located at the bottom of the box the set is kept in. This set may be upgraded with a *Crafters Set Token Tier 1* which may be acquired from the system vault.
Cost : 1000 SP
'This thing is really expensive. It would take almost all of my points and I can only use it to make common tier enchantments, but that ability to totally replenish it's contents with only mana is just broken, especially with my abilities. I wonder how much those tokens cost, I assume there must be quite a few tiers because it mentions the first tier of upgrade token'. Renata pictured tokens while thinking of the name *crafter set token* and before long six different coins appeared in front of her.
Crafters Set Token Tier 1
Used to upgrade a System Vault replenishing crafters set from Tier 1 to Tier 2, granting it the functionality to be used in the creation of uncommon tier products.
Cost : 100 SP
Renata could afford the first upgrade and she would have some left over points but only getting to the uncommon tier was a disappointment, it limited the types of enchantments she could make by quite a bit. The tiers of the other tokens revealed the ordering and naming of the rarities of items that could be made, it went *Common - Uncommon - Rare - Epic - Legendary - Transcendent - Divine*. The price of the tokens increased by rather large amounts at the end tiers, it was 100 - 500 - 1000 - 2500 - 5000 - 10,000. 'This isn't great, I really wanted to create a dimensional storage enchantment but the lowest tier of them is Rare, and even they can't hold much at all, but it would hold my tools, money and small valuables. Maybe I could buy a storage item from here too? I seems like a waste but I suppose I won't be able to make rare enchantments for a while, spell tapping is a rare type of magic that doesn't require time forging mana pathways to work. I don't think I will be able to create any of my spells beyond tier seven for quite a few years, it would be best to work from the ground up where pathways are concerned'. Renata pictured a weak dimensional storage item in her mind and it quickly materialized in her hands.
Lesser Ring of Holding
Creates a pocket dimension and allows the depositing and withdrawal of items within the 1 meter by 1 meter space. Time does not pass inside the pocket dimension.
Cost : 150 SP
Renata could buy all three and still have some leftover points, this was a pretty easy choice. The enchantments would give her a large power and monetary edge and the ring of holding would allow her to remain out of prying eyes for a while. When she moved a finger to the cost of each item she received another message to confirm if she wanted to purchase the item. After buying all three she dropped the token into the box and got a message asking if she wanted to consume the token to upgrade the item and she pressed yes. After the upgrading was complete there were new reagents and consumables in the box and the tools became higher in quality. With the current set she was certain that she could make any uncommon enchantment she knew of. Renata was well versed in the use of storage items and after putting the ring on her finger she stored away her newly acquired tools in her personal dimension.
Renata was satisfied with her gains and was ready to leave. "Leave system vault" she said out loud only to be prompted by a final message confirming that she wished to leave, she pressed yes and she was instantly back in her room, lying down on her bed. The ceiling was dark, the room was cool and the only light came from the moon which was visible out of the corner of her window. She felt tired but the butterflies in her stomach refused to let her get any rest. So many possibilities had just opened up to her, now she could enchant items, begin down the elemental paths, create the first basic spells needed for training her body and above all she now had real hope that she would survive whatever the future had in store for her. No, she would thrive.
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The next few weeks were full of intense magical training which was broken up whenever Joan would come over to assault Renata. In her previous life Renata always found earth and air magic to be the most useful and in the right hands they could be used to create utterly awe inspiring deadly attacks that had high precision. While there were many other elements and styles that would be useful to learn Renata wished to get those two up to a decent standard first. Because of the nature of mana, you needed to adapt your pathways to each and every element you intended to use, if you didn't you would never be able to control what output your spell actually gave. It was similar to creating filters, they let through what you want and stop what your don't. To refine these filters was done mostly through repetition, for air and earth Renata merely had to constantly cast, cancel and re-cast earth manipulation and air manipulation. These two skills only took a few hours to get but they would take years to be pushed into a usable state.
Earth Manipulation {Apprentice lvl.2}
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The ability to manipulate earth in a basic way
Air Manipulation {Apprentice lvl.1}
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The ability to manipulate air in a basic way
Each day Renata only got a couple hours to practice as she was either playing with Joan, talking to people around the village or she was with Jeral. This only left an hour or two in the morning and an hour or two at night for practice. For Renata this progress was really slow but if you were to compare it to that of the average magic user it would still be an insane pace. The fact that she had limitless mana when training was just a silly concept for all to even consider. The only draw back of using spell tapping was the damage you could do to the environmental mana around you if you overused it in the same place. Renata was well aware of the limitations of the technique and was very careful not to do any harm as she knew that if she disturbed the balance too much she could create chaotic mana or worse, corrupted mana. Both types of mana could create huge issues but the latter, corrupted mana, could warp nearby wildlife, destroy entire crops or it could even attract dangerous beasts to the area.
The more Renata explored the village the more she found it rather nice, the village contained many little businesses like a bakery, a forge, an apothecary, a tailor and several other lesser places of interest like the local trading post, farmers square and construction lodge. Most homes had some form of trade, be it farming or crafting they all had their own little part in helping the heart of the village to keep it's beat going. It was pleasant to watch the village wake up in the morning from her window. She could see all of the people mulling around, some taking tools to farms, others bringing water to each of their homes. The cherry on top would be the all of the chickens and ducks waddling around, if you looked closely you could almost see them yawning in the chilly mornings.
There was no fear or troubles that lasted long here, in fact the only thing that was spoken of in strict terms was the nearby forest and that was only due to the possibility of monsters wandering around. They never went far outside of the tree line and when they did the village guard quickly dealt with them before anyone in the village would even know. Joan and Renata almost always ran around the same areas each and every day, first they would run through the muddy paths between all of the villagers homes, then they would go to the farmsteads to plead with the farmers for some fruit or berries, which with the application of the standard young girl big eyes tactic almost always worked. After raiding the farmers they would head to the river and dive in, splashing, dunking and otherwise drowning each other until they were cleaner than crystal. Once the sun would begin to set they would often sit on the stone bridge that overlooked all of the farms and hills in the distance, it always brought a little smile to Renata's face when Joan would gently put her hand over her own and without even glancing at each other they both knew they were happy, the world was good and that the future was bright.
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It was always a habit of Joan to drag Renata around when she would get up in the morning and her first thought would always be to run to Renata's home where she would wait under the windowsill for Renata to wake up. She felt like she was guarding the room from anyone who would dare to be the first to see her in the morning. She was good at it too, to this day not a single person had managed to get past her and she was proud of that fact. Joan would steal gazes through the corner of the window when she felt like she wouldn't get caught. The first time she had seen the strange ball in her hands she had forgot to move away for a few seconds and almost got caught by Renata. Joan really wanted to ask what Renata was doing but if she did ask then she knew that Renata might ask how she knew and the last thing she wanted to happen was Renata stopping her from doing her silent guard duty.
In recent times Joan had spied and seen that the familiar ball had seemingly changed and that wasn't all, there were now two of them and they both different. One seemed to be like a spinning cloud while the other looked like a rock that floated above her hand. The curious thing was that they seemed to appear then promptly disappear over and over again. Joan was able to look for longer periods of time now because Renata closed her eyes when she was practicing. Joan had mulled over in her mind how she would confront Renata and ask about the weird stuff she does in the morning and after a few days she decided she would just ask. If Renata wanted to stop her from spying on her in the future she would just ignore her and keep on doing it anyway.
At the end of another day while they were both sitting in their usual spot on the bridge Joan mustered the courage she needed and asked. "Ren, what do you do in the mornings? I saw you doing that weird stuff". Renata's face blushed a bright red, she had never expected Joan to learn about her morning exercises, she was still rather unfamiliar with her new female body and honestly she wasn't able to convert her male habits to the new environment yet. Her mind raced as she began trying her best to come up with a good way to explain her somewhat lewd habits to her best friend. Thankfully before she came up with an answer that may have compromised the innocence of the young girl she was once more accosted by her friend. "I was just wondering cause those things that come out of your hands are really pretty, can I see them? Please?" Upon hearing the follow up question Renata's mind screeched to a sudden halt quicker than a train crashing into a mountain.
This was a much easier question to answer, albeit still a rather delicate issue it was not even close to being as tough to explain as what she was about to explain before. "Oh.. Well I guess, but you have to promise not to tell anyone. Okay Joan?" Joan nodded with enthusiasm and eagerly awaited what Renata would do next. Renata lifted her left hand out from under Joan's and manifested a small and weak ball of swirling air. She made sure to only use a tiny bit of mana so that it was totally safe and it wouldn't hurt Joan. Joan's eyes lit up when she saw the orb and she slowly moved her own hand to touch the swirling clouds, when her fingers made contact with the orb the clouds gently diffused and began to swirl around her hand and creep up her arm until it was stretched so thin it blended with the surrounding air and disappeared. Joan's jaw would dislocate itself if it fell any lower and her eyes were bouncing in excitement at what she had just seen. When Renata saw her she broke a sly smile while glancing at her, still gazing at the water below.
A high pitched noise pierced her ears as she suddenly began to fall towards the water with what felt like a rather heavy body attached to her. Once Renata struggled free and managed to climb back up to the dry grass on the banks of the river Joan asked her another question. "How did you do that!" Renata couldn't explain the exact way she just conjured that air to someone Joan's age, it simply wasn't possible, so she went for the easy route. "Magic."