Panic.
Well-honed as her aim was, Malwine found herself facing the worst-case scenario.
The book was gone.
Approximately ten seconds later, [Remote Reading] finally landed on it.
Malwine gulped, her pulse still through the roof. She didn’t recall it ever getting this bad since whenever the widow saw a cop in town. She was young again, for fuck’s sake. Considerably so. She hadn’t even really noticed her heart could do this.
“Are you well?”
Bernie’s expression was as unreadable as always, but Malwine could have sworn a hint of worry had managed to sneak through.
“Yes, Bernie,” Malwine nodded stiffly. “I am quite well.”
“Are you certain?”
“Yes, Bernie.”
It appeared this reading session would have to take place under the safety of her blankets. It took her a moment to realize she’d left several pieces of fruit behind in her plate—no, those were so good!—but Malwine was already committed to the bit. Whether Bernie left the room now or later, she had to stay down.
But she still allowed herself to mourn all that fruit.
> For reasons obvious to all, you should never invest your level-up points in Circulation. It would be wasted on you. And while keeping them in your
Malwine put significant effort into not deciding to put her next points into Circulation out of spite. Please. A dumb book can’t get the best of me.
Maybe she wasn’t as calm as she insisted she was.
> While the base form of Adaptability is known for increasing the frequency of Skill evolutions, understand the difference is negligible. You will still have the opportunity to evolve your Skills even if you differentiate, so there is nothing to be gained by putting it off. Under ideal circumstances, you may be allowed access to a tutor on your liege’s employ that can ensure you differentiate Adaptability into Mannerisms, which provides exceptional benefits relying on the interdependence of
>
> Perception should always be brought to the thousands, but unless you were chosen for a position that at minimum dabbles in spycraft, you should not focus on it. Much of that which Perception is good for relies on Circulation, as far too many things are influenced by mana, so even if you were to increase it to a significant point, all results you attain will be intrinsically inferior.
By now, Malwine had brought up an empty panel, and started taking notes. Adaptability’s related to that thing about Skill evolutions, huh? It sounded promising, that Malwine didn’t see herself intentionally veering from her balanced build yet… Right up until she remembered her trial for Katrina had thrown everything into disarray. Fine, fine. Balance shall be no more.
For now.
As for Perception, the section told her little. The author’s tendency to mention things then go ‘but it wouldn’t be useful for you!’ before changing the subject was irritating her. It might have been slightly less annoying for them not to be mentioned at all.
Shaking her head, Malwine continued reading.
> If you were granted a
Buy a harvestable to reveal? Why wouldn’t they just pick them up themselves?, Malwine was well aware of the irony of her thoughts, given how she’d only ever gotten harvestables because Adelheid stole them, but buying harvestables still sounded like a waste of money.
Still, Malwine found herself wondering whether people treating harvestables as some type of gambling avenue had actually been a problem two-thousand years ago or so. Reminds me of, something-something tulips? Damn, I can’t recall.
> Charisma and Presence are, on the other hand, essential. The former is the backbone of all interactive
>
> Presence can work to balance or aid Charisma, but it is an attribute best utilized by those that intend to focus on public speaking. Voice or Oration are excellent differentiations for it, depending on the tasks your position requires of you, with the first being the most casual of the two, better fit for those who mingle. The second should be your choice if you have been ordered to assume a leadership position among the common courtiers.
>
> Lastly, on the unlikely scenario that you have been tasked with serving as a noble’s personal aide in court on a permanent basis, you may wish to ask your liege if they would have any subordinate willing to impart on you the basics of Mien. As it is not a differentiation meant strictly for nobles, you may be allowed to learn it. However, if your liege does not have you taught, do not seek it, for without permission, it is not something you would have right to.
>
> Should you instead have been chosen for physical talents, there are many paths a mortal soldier can take. Although you will never compare to noble knights, let alone mage knights with Affinities, the multipliers a
Class could provide you can be exceptional by mortal standards. The category’s only disadvantage is that differentiation is rare for it, as not using them exclusively in their original functions is close to impossible.>
> Strength boosts your muscles’ capacities, as well as the damage you can deal to your opponents on the field. As with all things, Strength is irrelevant in the face of true power, but you can slay many a mortal foe with the right amount of it. Endurance, however, backs Strength in a manner not all consider, for it enhances the body’s ability to withstand the effects of overexertion, therefore enabling you to push your Strength to its greatest potential.
>
> However, the greatest of all
attributes is Stamina. Not only does it slow your [Integrity]’s decay, but it ensures you can use your Skills for longer and longer periods without incurring any penalties. A soldier’s secret weapon is Stamina, and no other attribute can match it in the long term.>
> This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
Malwine had opinions. Sure, the author wasn’t wrong in claiming Stamina could be useful, especially if this detail about it slowing [Integrity]’s decay was accurate. However, it glossed over Endurance a bit too much for her tastes.
Do the attributes have official definitions anywhere? The differentiations apparently do, but I’m starting to suspect the originals don’t. This reads like what the author thinks about them rather than a full explanation of them.
Perhaps Malwine should have pursued some lessons in the art of stating the obvious, as she concluded right after leaping off that train of thought. She’d been considerably excited upon seeing the book went over what attributes did, but much like every other part of it, the book was biased. There was no denying that.
Not being the book’s intended audience did little to assuage her irritation, as the text was patronizing enough to give her a severe case of secondhand annoyance.
Despite that, there might be some wisdom to be derived from it still—Malwine returned to the part about cultivation, focusing on the snippet that mattered the most to her.
[Circulation] speeds up the process of cultivating and absorbing enough mana to improve the stage of their core.
Malwine put in the effort to appear from the point of view of the widow in the beach, a bittersweet callback to when she’d bottlenecked at the peak of the Early Esse. A part of her had been, guiltily, thankful that she wasn’t stuck meditating as much as she’d feared she would be, but perhaps that would have been the kind of push [Meditation] could benefit from.
Whatever had led the trial to seemingly enhance her Circulation for a moment—perhaps because none of that happened in reality—had given her a glimpse of what cultivating could truly be like. {Legacy} was strong, but her limited [Toll] didn’t allow her to make the most of it.
Early Esse, Mortal Esse, and—as she'd just learned—Core Integration were the three stages she knew of, and she had been stuck in the first for as long as she had lived this life. She didn’t quite understand the weight of each—all Malwine knew was she wanted to learn of them, and of what lay beyond. The book hadn’t bothered mentioning what the stage above Core Integration was called, so it would be ‘silver-gray’ to Malwine until further notice.
Her grandparents had both been at Core Integration—though as the book stated, Malwine figured Kristian’s would apparently be called a hollow core. And of course, the rest of her family so far had all been on the Mortal Esse.
Perhaps that was as far as people could go without Affinities—as condescending as the book was, a soft wall keeping people from progressing past Mortal Esse would make sense given what she’d seen so far. Did all stages have an entry barrier of sorts?
Did Mortal Esse have one?
For close to thirteen months, Malwine had been wondering why she had yet to progress. The bottleneck didn’t feel like something that could budge with insistence alone, as instinct told her she could cultivate for weeks on end yet achieve nothing.
As for ranking up, was this something Malwine needed to do right now? No. Of course not. But she wanted to. It was a silly wish, perhaps far more influenced by her current childhood than she wished to admit, but she’d allow it to herself. Justifying her wishes, blaming them on youth, seemed like a mere clutch to avoid facing the fact that she was human, with human weaknesses. Desires did not always make sense, nor were they always opportune—they knew not of timing and logic.
Not sure I like where this is going.
It’d been quite the while since Malwine last felt like she’d learned anything—about herself or otherwise—while meditating. Cultivation might have been in some way tied to one’s vision of enlightenment, or as the book claimed, transcendence. It sounded like the type of thing that could spark debates, lead to essays and poems alike being written.
Malwine had learned of the topic through a different lense, where cultivation amounted to the occasional epiphany, and growing stronger happened to beat up the villain of the volume before power creep set up the next one.
Was her family isolated, or were there simply not that many powerful individuals around? The latter sounded doubtful. The beings Katrina had slain, as shown in her trial, were the highest rank Malwine had encountered, yet they didn’t appear that powerful. Was whoever cursed her on that unknown silver-grey stage, or beyond it? She knew gods likely existed, and all she could truly do was hope her enemy was closer to Katrina’s level than to a divinity, even if she wouldn’t know just what the latter would imply.
How strong is Beryl?, Malwine had wondered repeatedly, and though she had long since concluded she just had no way to know, she felt she might have overestimated her mother. What she’d witnessed since had cracked her image of Beryl’s power—perhaps the kills had influenced her impression of Katrina, but Malwine was starting to think Katrina might have been the strongest member of her family.
Not OBeryl, not even Kristian, but Katrina.
She thought to the obit, forming a facsimile of it on the widow’s hand. Would that I could actually make this real.
Malwine wasn’t thinking about Katrina’s hypothetical resurrection—again, her thoughts went to the widow. A part of her feared it might be a dangerous thing to wish for, to intentionally seek to create an unreality for herself when she knew all too well that while she’d seemingly stabilized things, her life was not one far from danger.
She thought herself patient—but she still wanted to explore, to learn. Time stood between here and oh so many things a child her age would not be taught, yet she needed to know. Everything from how to break the curse, to just what was up with the seablooded and seafarers, to whoever preceded OBeryl and Kristian on their respective ends of the tree.
To whoever the stranger with {Ore} was, and whether he awaited somewhere.
After a long exhale, Malwine loosened her grip on the widow’s image, on the beach. Though the hope had been there, she wasn’t surprised to see nothing had come of it. Her thoughts hadn’t aided her in breaking through to the Mortal Esse, nor had she finally coaxed an astral projection Skill into existence for her widow persona.
…That might have been for the best.
Still, it didn’t feel like Malwine had wasted her time—it’d been a nice change of pace from the ‘light’ scare she’d started her day with. At worst, she’d burned some time clearing her mind.
Dismissing [Meditation] entirely, Malwine figured she might as well go back to the book. As she visualized flipping yet another page, she found herself on the fourth chapter… and it was something about how many mortals different noble Houses tended to assign to each Class category, and the usual roles. Shouldn’t whoever forged your Classes have already told you this, then? Just who is this book meant for?
Things got worse with the fifth—it appeared to be a rant directed at the ‘unfortunate trend’ of some nobles instructing their kitchen staff to invest in Circulation. That made no sense to Malwine, either, but the author appeared to hate the mere idea with such a passion that the worsening quality of the later pages was strangely fitting.
No wonder the date’s so unclear, the whole back of it’s gone bad.
As she imagined how she would slam the book shut if she could, Malwine recalled she had yet to review whatever it had to say about
My guy, what about
That inner peace she’d attained after her brief meditation was not as sturdy as she’d thought it was, and Malwine certainly wasn’t counting that vague Dexterity mention as an explanation of anything, so she huffed under her blanket.
“Malwine? Are you truly well, child?”
Why are you still here?!
When her blanket was pulled from her, Malwine huffed again. “I wanted more fruits.”
Bernie simply blinked slowly. “Very well. I shall fetch some from the kitchens.”
Wait, just like that?, Malwine stared wide-eyed as her guardian left the room, and it struck her that she didn’t quite recall ever going out of her way to ask for things from Bernie. She usually just went with the flow, keeping to herself as much as possible in order to focus on her own affairs.
Huh. She didn’t exactly regret her petulance anymore.
Apparently, she would be getting some extra fruits after all.