I kept on observing as the [Aurumons] explore their surroundings for a while, watching them walk around just as a 2D stick-man would, curiously poking every new thing they found with their stubby arms or legs, while [Kenny] hovered around them like some sort of elder, protective, brother.
Obviously, the [Aurumons] hadn’t stopped multiplying this entire time, and were now already in the dozens, while showing no signs of slowing down their reproduction; they had yet to fuse into more advanced forms simply because I told them not to, because I could clearly tell that I could only summon them in their base form cost-wise, so I needed for them to stay that way, at least until they reached a number where that wouldn’t be a problem anymore.
But seeing them now, already closing in on the 50s, that last point would very soon stop being a problem.
“Keep an eye on them, I got to go back now”, my presence in my inner world relayed to [Buddy]’s.
And with a little bit of effort, a bit more focus, followed by the sensation of being pulled, I was back in my body.
Which coincidentally ended up being the instant when Sheeno was staring intently at my face, with a hand raised as if ready to strike me.
“What are you doing?” I asked with a bit of apprehension, only now realizing how little I could feel of the outside world while focusing on the one on the inside.
“Deciding whether it was the case to slap you back into consciousness”, she replied, and finally lowered her hand.
“Well, don’t”, I simply said.
“Sure”, was her only response while giving a little shrug.
Then she surprised me by giving me a quick kiss on the lips, just before standing up.
“Did you do something while you were meditating?’ Sheeno asked after I was once more in control of my blushing face.
“I made a new [familiar]. Want to meet them?”
“Sure”, she gave another shrug, but had a strange smile on her face this time.
I was a little afraid that the [Spell] wouldn’t work normally, due to how it was made, but as soon as I tried casting it I could feel it in my mind that I had full control over how many I could summon, and even which one.
I decided to keep it simple, and called forth only one, chosen at random among the hundreds that were running around my world.
A black vortex spat out an [Aurumon], who stumbled for a second before turning around and giving me a salute.
“Oh, that's cute! But what does it do?” Sheeno asked once she saw the little guy.
“Just watch”, I said mysteriously.
And so we watched, and waited… and waited, but the [Aurumon] was just standing there, swinging its arms excitedly from time to time.
“What exactly am I supposed to be on the lookout for?” My companion asked after a while.
While Sheeno couldn’t tell what was wrong, due to this being her first experience with this creature, I could instead tell that it wasn’t absorbing as much energy as it was in my inner world.
“I guess that makes sense: My [World Within] functions as a physical reality where my [Core] resides, which means that it’s filled with every type of energy I have, and absorb. Since the [Aurumons] absorb said energy through my will, they are aided in doing so only while inside me, while instead having a difficult time absorbing passively here in the outside.”
I checked my [Mana regeneration], and I couldn’t tell if the [Aurumons] inside me were impacting it in any way, so I couldn’t understand where the difficulty was coming from, if they consumed so little, to begin with.
That is, until [Buddy] pointed out the fact that my [World Within] was benefitting much more directly from my connection to the [Abyss], through my [Deep Source], than I was.
Which wasn’t fair, but I probably wasn’t in a position where I could argue what was actually ‘fair’, being a ‘cheat-like existence’ and all that jazz.
It was at that moment that I slapped a palm to my forehead.
“What happened?” Sheeno asked me, interrupting her observation of [Aurumon].
“Nothing, I just forgot something significant that was meant to make this work to begin with”, and so saying I brought up the [Matrix] for [Aurumon] and added a ring for multiple [Syphons], of various natures, to its structure. Finalizing the [Spell-Weaving] I saw the metallic skin on the little guy I had summoned ripple a bit, almost as if it was made of jello, and once it was done the [Aurumon] was now sporting a tiny purple crystal in the middle of its chest; checking its description I saw that nothing had changed, so I chalked it up to it being a visual representation of the difference, with the actual changes in utility being minor enough that it didn’t deserve a footnote by the [System].
No sooner was I done thinking that, that the [Aurumon] pulled itself apart from the middle, splitting itself into two identical copies, both with round black eyes and a tiny purple crystal in their chest.
“Oh wow! Can it keep on doing that?” The freezing warrior asked, finally having gotten to see what my new [familiar] could do.
“That, and much more”, I said, while prompting the [Aurumon] to try fusing back into one.
I was quite interested to see what it would look like, since this would be my first time seeing it too.
The two golden minions looked at one another, and then slammed their foreheads together with a much duller thud than expected, which was soon followed by their chests, gem first, doing the same. Then their skin liquefied once more and the fusion started in full. Four arms went back to being two, same with the legs, and while there was only one head again, it looked much more squared now, almost as if it was wearing some kind of helmet that covered the side and top of the head, and to finish the look, hands grew out of its stubby arms, looking like flat plates arranged to generally look like grabby mittens.
“Ok, that looked weird, but I have to admit that the result is better than what they were before”, Sheeno commented after enjoying the show, without knowing how right she actually was.
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And I knew, because I had immediately used [Gaze] on it when its transformation was over.
2 Aurumon instances fused into a [Lesser Brawler].
Fuse it with identical results to increase its rank.
Almost exactly what I wanted, and as if the little guy could feel my excitement it started boxing the air right there and then, looking much more impressive now that it stood at one and a half times its original height.
“Oooh, he looks feisty now! That’s adorable”, Sheeno said once the golden [familiar] started showing off.
Before I could respond in any way, out of the back of the brawler popper out another clone of the original [Aurumon].
“Uh, so that’s how that works: Not as good in increasing its numbers as I imagined, but can still become easily overwhelming.”
I let the brawler show off for a while, and once Sheeno had her fill, I fused the newly spawned [Aurumon] with the one that had come out a short while ago.
The previous process was repeated anew, but this time the result was different.
2 Aurumon instances fused into a [Lesser Gunner].
Fuse it with identical results to increase its rank.
Well, that’s a man with blasters that I could almost call Giga, but not quite. It sported a round helmet this time, that kept exposed only the front of its face, oblong protrusions on its arms that ended with a hole, and small boot-like bits added to its feet, showing the same increase in size as the brawler had, but not its thickness.
It immediately started showing off by pretending to shoot something in the distance, utilizing a suspiciously familiar pose to do so.
“Is this one specialized in ranged attacks?” Sheeno asked while still watching the newest little guy, seemingly finding them a pleasant distraction from the usual. But soon her mood did a 180, “wait, does that mean that you could, given enough time, summon your own small army, complete with every role!?”
“It’s not even restricted to being ‘small’, since identical roles could fuse again with one another and get an even superior version out of it, a process can be replicated multiple times for higher quality results”, I replied, grinning ear to ear.
Sheeno was not grinning, instead, she looked quite troubled.
“Does that mean that you could [Adventure] alone?” She asked in an uncharacteristically small voice.
“Psshh! As if! These guys need time to be set up, and summoning too many at a time, or sufficiently evolved ones, simply isn’t efficient enough to warrant the initial cost, and they will be constantly eating at my [Mana Pool] until I dismiss them. Also, they will never replace the quality of someone as skilled as you, no matter the quantity”, I didn’t even say that to make Sheeno feel better about herself, because to me it was absurd that she would think that I could replace her in any way, so I had to squash that line of thinking right down.
She was my rock, and I as sure as hell wasn’t ever going to let go of her.
“Yes. Of course. You’re right, sorry, I was being silly, but seeing you create the beginning of your private army rattled me more than the other weird things you normally do”, Sheeno admitted with a self-deprecating smile.
“Hey!” I suddenly shouted, surprising Sheeno enough to make her look at me, which was exactly my intent. “No self-deprecating here, that’s my thing.”
She stared at me for a second longer before snorting, but it soon became a full-bellied laugh.
“Hey, I was being serious….” I interjected with mock offense.
“Hahaha. Yeah, ha, sure. Sorry, hehe, I promise that I’m done, but still: Thank you, I needed that”, Sheeno finally took control of herself.
“It wasn’t even that funny, I don’t know why you would laugh so hard at it”, I replied truthfully.
While I was happy that it helped in rapidly getting her out of her funk, I was being honest when I said that I didn’t know why it had worked so well.
“Can’t you read my [Aura] and see it yourself?” Sheeno asked me, while assuming her signature pose with cocked hips and crossed arms.
“… you know that I don’t want to actively use it on you”, I finally replied after squinting at her.
“Good, the mind of a woman is a complex and scary thing, her whiles even more so, and it should remain that way!” She declared, turning her nose up in the air.
“You done?” I asked, nonplussed.
“Almost-“, Sheeno tried to reply with anything but yes, so I decided to interrupt her with an incentive.
“If you stop it right now, I’ll work on your dragon knuckles next”, I proposed.
She immediately closed her mouth with an audible clack, and promptly sat down on the spot, launching me soon after an expectant look.
“Ok, I guess. It’s back to work for me then”, I replied, slightly off my game by how fast Sheeno had complied.
With a wave of my hand both brawler and gunner were sent into my inner world, together with the two new normal copies of [Aurumon], and I was most pleased to find that their [Mana cost] completely disappeared along with their physical presence, without further impact my regeneration in any noticeable way either.
“Guess every single one of them affects me for less than a thousandth of a percentage, which will only matter less and less as I grow stronger”.
With thoughts of letting them fuse on their own, but holding off just for now, I finally went to the sack that held most of the actually useful materials that I had bought.
It was ‘crafting time’.
* * *
{SHEENO’S POV}
Sheeno Fyratta was a prideful woman, and she could easily admit it.
Born as the [First Princess] to the [Fire Throne], she had received the best education and resources that money and authority could provide, resulting in her only having to look forwards, because she always left her peers in the dust.
She was [Anomalous] and [Aberrant], two qualities that made her life generally harder, but also made her that much stronger. She obviously wouldn’t have inherited the throne with her [Affinities], but she wasn’t interested in it in the first place, so when she was [Banished] by her younger brother it was almost freeing, if one were to ignore the constant pursuit from the zealots of the [Demi-God of Purity], since she was finally able to decide her path on her own.
And her new path had brought her to Darwin.
At first, she just thought of him as simply an amusing distraction, but after he had so easily resolved the sabotage by [Purity]’s on her ship, she had to look at him with new eyes, especially since he didn’t even seem to realize how impressive what he did was.
By working together, she quickly found herself growing closer to him than she ever thought possible, and the decision to actually start a relationship was incentivized by how obviously smitten he was with her.
He was headstrong, impulsive, and troubled, but if you were to dig enough into his self-imposed harsh exterior you would soon find a gooey inside that couldn’t wait to be kind, trusting, and loving.
So, why would she even ask if he would ever leave her behind? Because, for just a moment, after having been repeatedly confronted by the vastness of his potential, and his seemingly limitless growth, she had started to doubt herself.
Sheeno Fyratta was a prideful woman; emphasis on the ‘was’.
Now, after that stupid mistake, and the comforting words of her lover, she couldn’t stop at anything to improve herself to the point where she would once more be able to proudly stand beside her mate, and feel like she was helping him at least as much as she felt he was helping her.
Leaving Darwin to play at making a weapon specifically suited for her, something that even her father had balked at doing something so costly until she was strong enough to deserve it, she decided to do what her mate had been doing until he shower her his literally new army: Improve her [Spells] and [Skills].
Her ‘build’, as Darwin would call it, was created by the best minds of her kingdom when she had come of age and had been introduced into the [System]. It wasn’t perfect, nothing ever was, but it had been more than good enough for her, especially after she had ideated her ‘ultimate move’ on her own.
Well, no more.
Sheeno Fyratta was a prideful woman, and she would be so once more.
Starting by improving her reliability in a fight.