In the early morning I went out to train a bit and clear my head. I was amazed how long I was able to keep up a high level of concentration.

Before I went to the enchanter, I stopped by the shoe shop. I had planned to come here yesterday, but hadn't found the time. The new shoes really fit perfectly. I kept the ones I had worn these last two weeks as a spare. Earning actual gold coins would really help me out. The amount of money I had available right now was a bit sparse.

With improved footwear I went to work and spent another day on the same components.

Scribe has increased to level 14.

Some time in the late afternoon a soldier came by and delivered an order to Mr. Heart. After reading the letter Mr. Heart was very unhappy.

"I don't have time for something like this. I have to work on a very important order right now."

"I am sorry sir, but this is very important to the security of the surrounding area. The archivist refuses to take part in anything that might question his neutrality and you are the only other enchanter around who has the necessary skills."

"It is signed by the mayor as well as the prince, there is no way I can refuse this. Except... I know someone who is quite adept in plucking constructs apart."

He gave me a glance.

"Shalyne here also has the necessary skills. She is working for me right now, so I will send her in my stead. There is no issue with that, right?"

"I am not authorized to decide on that. If you write me a letter with your evaluation, I can deliver it to my superior. I will return with their decision, but you will have to prepare to go yourself, unless your request gets approval."

The soldier left and Mr. Heart handed me the letter.

"This is the worst possible time for a mission like this. It is well paid, but I can't delay the work on Lord Quays order."

I read the letter. It stated that the subjugation force had discovered a strange monolith in the forest that could empower beasts. Mr. Heart's job was to disable it and if possible discover further information about it.

"It's unfortunate that this came up now, but I have to teach you some things about proper dismantling of constructs. The way you destroyed that first scroll is far too dangerous to use on anything of a larger size..."

At that he began to instruct me. The right way to disable constructs was to unplug the power cells one by one until it couldn't explode anymore. Only then should the remaining parts be disenchanted.

One danger of such tasks were possible traps laid out with just the objective of attacking anyone who began to mindlessly disable parts of it. The absolute best constructs even had fail safes in case some areas stopped working and might even reconstruct parts of themselves, although Mr. Heart doubted anything aside from the archive would have that complexity.

So I had to watch out for anything that could strike out in a way that didn't serve the constructs main purpose. And then there was the possibility that the collapsing construct might just produce an unintended outburst of energy when its functions changed.

All in all it was a dangerous and unpredictable task that he would be glad to push on me. I might have declined, but the reward was even higher than what I could have earned in the same time by creating components. 25 gold were hard for me to refuse.

As for the part of finding out more information about the monolith, I was told that I shouldn't bother wasting too much time, even the greatest scribes had trouble understanding the more complex constructs. He himself also didn't believe he would be able to decipher much.

Finally he handed me a book on deconstruction and traps, which I was supposed to read at home.

I didn't want to read it immediately upon leaving as the night was long enough. Instead I headed to Silvia's house, hoping that she would be in this time. I was in luck and she opened the door for me.

We headed to the usual place and began to talk.

“I've been practicing a lot. You will be surprised how strong my spells have become.”

“Then go ahead and show me.”

Her progress was really remarkable. But something irritated me about the way she held her right hand when conjuring the fireballs. As if she was hiding something. Just when she was busy hurling it away I stepped close to her and took a quick look at the hand in a different angle. Her palm was singed.

She caught me looking at her hand and hid it away.

“Show me that.”

“It's nothing.”

I didn't take no for an answer and just grabbed her hand with my left, and pulled her fingers away from the palm with the right. She was only offering a token resistance, so I easily revealed the palm. The burn was very local right in the center and didn't spread out far from there. This couldn't have been caused by a fireball and the way she hid it told me it had to do with me in some way, which basically meant it was caused by sorcery.

I stretched my senses inside the wound, pushing aside her natural resistance. The energy flow at the inside of her palm was disrupted and the wound stretched a few centimeters inside, although it was much worse on the surface than deeper towards her arm.

Something tickled in my mind when I was looking at her arm and I became engrossed by it. I pulled Silvia to the ground along with me and sat down. I began to compare the healthy flesh next to the wound with the burned flesh. I took a look at the way the energy naturally flowed through her body. What constituted natural? I took a comparing look inside myself. The swirling chaos laughed at me. No wonder I had never realized there were ways the energy normally flowed inside the body.

I returned my focus to Silvia and took another look at the flow again. The channel towards her hand was disrupted, so I pulled her other hand to myself and began to compare them. Then I looked at the muscles and veins and something clicked when I took in all the details. I could somehow imagine the way it should look when it was functioning right. Using the left hand as reference, but instinctively mirroring it I began to work on her right.

It would have been too difficult to actually replicate organic material and build it the way the left hand appeared to me. I was somehow able to understand the basic structure after observing it, but was neither able to discern the minute details nor the minor building components. So I instead used a light type healing energy and imprinted it to repair the hand according to the other one.

Priestess has been obtained.

Priestess has increased to level 1.

The usual double draining effect failed to appear, since I was keeping up my outside light aura right now and didn't have to draw on it through a mixed pool. The wound slowly began to heal, the burned flesh decomposing and offering material for the reconstruction. Once the wound had healed almost completely, I turned my attention to the energy channels that overlaid the same structure. They had not been restored in the process.

Again I turned my attention to Silvia's left hand and carefully observed the way the energy was moving around. It took me a lot more effort to discern the details than when I had observed her flesh. Fortunately my senses were very sharp and after a while I felt confident enough to try it.

My observations had barely been enough. It was sufficient to copy the basic flow and rebuilt the main channel, but there were minor connections flowing out into the fingers and even splitting further apart.

Priestess has increased to level 2.

The work after that became tedious. I took a look at smaller and smaller branches. I became aware of the pattern behind it, but still had to look up the other hand for reference for almost every step. When the level I began to work on shrunk down, I became aware of physical parts that had not healed completely when compared to the other hand. So I sent in more energy to repair those. When they seemed to be almost identical to their counter part I returned to rebuilding the pathways. Would they heal naturally just like the body could rebuild large parts of itself? My intuition told me yes, but I definitely wanted to find out for sure. Not with Silvia as test subject though.

Priestess has increased to level 3.

The smaller the level, the more work awaited, and at some point I just stopped. I had to realize that there was no way I could do all of that on my own. There was some point where I had to leave it to the bodies natural regeneration. Perhaps the work I had down was already over the top, but I had lost myself in it a bit too much.

I looked up into Silvia's patient face. It had grown dark around us, but I had not become aware of it, because it didn't affect me while I was busy. A bit embarrassed that I had forced her to sit outside all this time, I covered it up by admonishing her:

“You were shooting lightning?”

“Yes ma'am.”

She was looking down on the ground. I couldn't keep up the serious preaching. It wasn't necessary anyway, she was sure to have learned her lesson.

“Please try to avoid anything too dangerous from now on? You don't have to shoot from your hands...”

A small smile crept across her face.

“Now you wasted your entire evening on treating my wounds.”

“I wouldn't say wasted... It was insightful.”

She lightly hit me on the shoulder.

“You are worse than I am.”

We laughed. Then I realized that we were both shivering a bit. It was only a little fresh outside, but we hadn't moved at all for quite some time.

“Do you want some tea?”

“I'd like that.”

When we returned to her house, James was there enjoying his leisure.

Silvia: “Shalyne and I are going to warm ourselves up a bit. Do you also want some tea?”

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

James: “Sure.”

We began talking and somehow stumbled upon the topic of the mission the solder had delivered today.

James: “Silvia told me you were part of the group that scouted out the beasts in the northeast? They say prince Nelantis found some monolith. It's supposed to have something to do with their strength. A lot of us town guards and the forces of prince Nelantis will accompany the scribe Heart there in two days. You work for him, did you hear something about it?”

Me: “Yes, I might just take over for him, if he gets approval for it. Mr. Heart is very busy right now.”

They both stared at me.

Silvia: “I thought you were just an apprentice?”

Me: “My status might just be upgraded a bit.”

Silvia: “You aren't really starting out, are you?”

Damn it, I had done it again.

Silvia: “Did you even need my help or were you just pretending to?”

I feared that this might hurt the trust and friendship we had built up so far.

Me: “I admit I have some experience with sorcery, but I have never been in any real fight before. I was also weakened. Catherine was treating me and I am only now getting better.”

Silvia: “I am sorry, I didn't want to accuse you. You never told me you were sick.”

Me: “Please, don't mention it. I am glad to be well and don't want to be reminded.”

James: “Then please forgive us for bringing it up. Do you have any idea what that monolith is?”

Why did he ask me?

Me: “No I haven't even seen it yet and only know they want to dismantle it. Did they tell you anything else about the mission?”

James: “Not much. It will take at least a day to get there. We will have to stay out there even in the night. We have to keep a large night watch, if the beasts are as viscous as they say. I heard they even hired some additional adventurers to bolster our ranks. This mission makes me nervous.”

He was not the only one getting a bad feeling about this. I began to understand why the payment was so high. At least I shouldn't be involved in the fighting itself, if I was actually tasked with the dismantling.

We all kept silent after that, and I took that time to leave.

Silvia: “If you really have to go out there, please be safe. Now I have to worry about two people.”

Me: “I will be careful. Have a good night.”

At home I sat down next to the table and took out the book on inscription traps. It contained a few building blocks that could strike back at someone who dismantled it. There were a few warnings, that this was by far no complete list of such mechanisms, and that any scribe could invent their own defenses. It was just intended to prepare the readers mind for the possibilities. This surely was a dangerous job.

The night had far more hours than the book could keep my interest for. After the basic instructions it was down to in depth study of the building blocks, but my interest fell once I recognized the basic patterns. For a while lying down in bed was a good way to relax, but it was nothing that I could enjoy indefinitely. Boredom returned shortly. And I just couldn't take any more work related activities right now. I headed out.

The streets outside were empty, aside from a few people who were still straying around. I kept to the shadows and suppressed my aura. At times I even disappeared in the dark when I absorbed any light I would have reflected otherwise.

I stood in a tight alley when a drunk came swaggering through. I pressed myself against a dark door frame and only barely avoided contact. He sure would have gotten quite the shock. The way I could hide gave me some reassurance. As long as I checked out the situation around me I should be able to sneak through everywhere. I followed the alleys along to the outskirts of the city.

The space around here was open. I still hid myself and took my time by following along the darkest walls and corners. Suddenly I sensed a few presences coming closer and I crouched down between some bushes and a tree a bit away from the street. There wasn't necessarily any need to hide, but if I could avoid any trouble this way I would. I was also enjoying how I could avoid everyone's attention.

The first two who appeared were two men. There was nothing out of the ordinary about them, except that they were more observant than most people I had seen on the street. It didn't help them though, because they detected neither me, the girl who was following in their shadows, nor another presence that followed at an even greater distance.

This was certainly a curious situation. Enough to keep me occupied for a while. Was it worth the risk? Probably not, I followed along anyway. I waited until the last presence sneaked by. Supported by my senses I was able to make her out as an old woman. She moved really well, but with a certain effort to it. She had the most interesting presence of the four. She was very alert. Not only did she follow the others, she kept looking over her own back. If any of them could spot me, it would be her.

I stuck to her from a safe distance. I was able to keep watch of her with my aura sight and didn't need to keep within normal visible range. The approximate direction of the others was further ahead. It came to me, that there might be even more people around, who like me were able to suppress their presence really well. I strained my senses to their utmost and checked for any visible signs as well, but there was no one else I could make out. My confidence in my senses assured me that there were no others, but I continued to keep up awareness for it.

We left the city after a short time and the deforested area stretched out before us. It was much more difficult to hide here, and I considered turning around and ending my game. The imagination of my dull and empty room pushed me forward again.

I waited until the old woman had gotten out of my line of sight and then I just followed after her presence. There were a few moments when I could catch a short look of her, but for the most part I kept out of sight. Once we all entered the forest, I could only keep my distance, because I was inexperienced in silently walking through this terrain. A snapping twig could alert her, even if she couldn't detect me otherwise.

We traveled for a considerable time before the two men finally stopped moving. They mixed in with another few auras that were up ahead.

I was able to slowly catch up, but instead of getting close to the woman, I moved in an arch and closed in from the side. At first I was irritated, because I didn't see anything there. But I knew where they were and which path they had taken so I was able to find what could be the entrance to a hidden cave. It was too dark to make out from the distance, and I didn't want to get closer to the girl who was taking a look at the entrance.

It was almost a bit disappointing when the girl moved away from the entrance and nothing happened. She met up with the old woman and they carefully made their way back. I pondered what to do. The group down in the cave might be bandits, but could just as well be any kind of secret group. I had no intention of barging in there, so I also pulled away from the entrance. I climbed a tree that was close by and scouted out the area in my energy body. This way I had a better reference for the position of this place.

The scouting only took a short time, I didn't feel safe this close to the hideout. Then I headed in the direction of the city. It didn't take very long to walk most of the way, because without anyone in my detection range I felt little need to keep the same pace as before. Before I got really close to the city I decided to stay in the forest and do some training. I went off the path that stretched between city and hideout and after I traveled a safe distance I stopped at a small clearing.

The movements of my body had gotten much more precise by now. It might have taken me much longer to reach this level of familiarity if I hadn't occupied this body in a dampened down form in virtual reality. Now I felt ready to take on advanced movements. One thing I was itching to try out was body enhancement. Orlund had only improved the capability of his eyes and ears, but I wanted to speed up my movements.

Dexterity increased speed. Of course the right technique was also very important, but that could only get one so far when the opposition was able to move at a much higher speed. Increasing Dexterity was one option, but it only increased by one per level of warrior. A good option to push it up was increasing my level as hunter, but I had shown little ability with ranged weapons so far. Of course that didn't matter, since the main reason for training in the class would have been to improve my speed, not to actually use ranged weapons. I might at least get a few quick level ups until the slow down in the leveling wasn't worth the stats anymore. I took a look at my stats.

Shalyne

Class: Sorceress Level 9, Warrior Level 8, Hunter Level 1, Priestess Level 3

Profession: Enchanter Level 4, Scribe Level 14, Gardener, Herbalist Level 2

Stats:

Strength: 14

Dexterity: 18

Vitality: 19

Endurance: 23

Intelligence: 84

Health: 187/190

Mana: 840/840

Mana Regeneration: 8.40 mana/minute (12.40 mana/minute)

My excelling stat was Intelligence, so I had a large amount of mana to play with. If instead of casting spells I used it to increase the capability of my body, I might be able to reach a level of speed close to trained Warrior/Hunter types and perhaps even short bursts above that.

The training I did still began the same way as always. It was better to get into the flow and warm up before doing anything excessive. I didn't have my sword along with me lately, so I stopped after the barehanded forms. Then the fun began.

I let my movements flow and then slowly added some energy. At a low input the effect hardly increased my maximum speed, but allowed me to do very fast movements without tiring. Then I pushed it up, and imprinted it just the way it feels when you get a rush of adrenaline and excitement.

The difference was remarkable. I could hardly follow my movements, and they became sloppy. My arms began hitting the air in very short intervals and just didn't slow down. I made sidesteps and almost toppled over because my feet were running away from me. I realized that of course I still had to keep contact with the ground and fight inertia. The best way to use the increased speed was any attack or movement that started out from my center of gravity, but didn't impact my actual position.

I was hardly satisfied with only kicks and hits while standing around, so I returned to quick steps. I had to put more emphasis in pressing against the ground than before. If I did though, I could speed up considerably.

Warrior has increased to level 9.

Moving around in this ground focused way was a way of moving I had never used before, so there was hardly any mastery to it. The speed was high, but the execution ineffective. I dashed around so quickly that I sometimes stumbled over the ground. It was still pitch black around me and I mostly evaluated the ground level by the life of grass and roots. They were not necessarily the surface, and my steps were imprecise. I was actually lucky I didn't fall on the ground and could always catch myself just before dropping.

I still had a lot of fun dashing around the clearing from one side to the other and then I finally pushed it up another notch. Instead of adrenaline, I imagined how my movements were like the wind, as if they were finished before I had even started the movement.

Sorceress has increased to level 10.

My legs were suddenly stretched to my back, my arms flung around wildly and I dove through the air. I had no control and after spinning around and after one or two somersaults I crashed into the ground. I was in an awkward position with my head and shoulders on the ground and legs arms stretched out in all directions. I felt into the different parts of my body and tried moving them. Everything was still in one piece, although there were aches here and there were I had stretched to much.

I carefully brought everything into the right position and sat up. That had been a bit much. Moving at this speed was something I had to prepare a bit better. I had no actual wounds, so I got up and tried again. This time I positioned myself on one side of the small clearing and took position like a sprinter at the starting block for a 100 meter race. But instead of one foot further back than the other, I took position like a frog.

Boosting the leap with both legs to the same level as before I found myself heading towards a tree at the other side of the clearing at a break neck speed. I turned around in mid air just in time and crashed into the trunk with my legs first. The impact flipped me over and my body spun around the tree and finally took a hard landing on the ground. This time I had suffered actual wounds. My legs hurt badly as well from the impact in the tree, as from the heavy burden of the jump itself. My back that had suffered a long scratch along the side.

I crawled into an acceptable position and began to look over my body just as I had done with Silvia. There were no broken bones, but more than a few smaller scratches. The muscles in the legs were strained. I looked everything over and was able to understand the way the muscles should look like when in perfect condition. I healed up one part after the other and soon the only thing that reminded me of my crash were my clothes.

Priestess has increased to level 4.

After I was done I had my doubts I could make much use of the highest speed that I had tested out. At least this training had pushed up my stats and abilities by a lot. There was one last thing I wanted to try out before I was done. My clothes were in a bad state anyway and as long as I didn't take a severe injury I was confident I would be able to repair it.

I took position next to a tree. This time I prepared myself better. Before I began the movement, I tried to harden the shin on my right leg. I also reinforced the entire area from my hips downwards, because such a kick wouldn't just put strain on the point of impact. When I was confident I pushed the energy down into that base and imagined the kick.

I awoke when a horrible pain shot through my throat. My eyes sprung open and all I could see was a big hairy beast biting me there. The shock ripped through my mind and was unleashed on the wolf. Its body burst open and blood sprayed on the path of flight it took. I tried to get up but almost choked when I breathed in. I held my bleeding throat with one hand and pushed my upper body into an upward position.

There were two more wolves right next to me, both just about to take bites out of my other appendages. I had no time to consider, so they both just burst into mighty flames, their insides splashing out in black smoke. The heatwave struck me, and I fell on my back. I had to hurry and treat my throat before anything else. I sent my sense in and tried to fix at least the airway and gullet.

Fortunately they were only lightly torn and patching them up took little time. It felt good when I could take proper breaths again, but now I became aware of the smell of smoke next to me. I was still bleeding from my throat, but couldn't spare the time. I held the wound as well as I could with one hand and took a look at the mess around me.

The fire that had killed the last two wolves was slowly spreading out. If I didn't act soon, this would be out of my ability to fix. I created a large amount of water and almost drained myself empty. I split it up and let it extinguish the flames. The sheer amount of water proved useful, but there were still flames flickering here and there. I drew on the reserves of two crystals and created another flood.

This time there was only one last remnant of the fire. I tried to get up to stomp it out, but it was difficult to get on my legs. When I was moving, various parts of my body ached, but they were mostly drowned out by the pain in my throat. I somehow succeeded in reaching the fire and then putting it out with a few stomps. I took another careful look around and went to a few places were still small amounts of smoke were rising up.

Only when there seemed to be no remaining fire did I sit back down. I was growing dizzy from the blood loss, so I really had to hurry up on fixing that wound. I tried to fix it, but my concentration began to fail and slipped whenever I could actually feel the effect of working on my throat. It took me a lot of willpower to somehow push through and stabilize it. I was nowhere near proud of the state it was in, but it would have to do for now.

I had to take a break after that and catch my breath. A quick look at my status showed me at 42 of 210 health. That had been a close call, but I think I was over the worst now. When I felt able to continue I began treating my throat properly and then continued to go over the rest of my body.

Priestess has increased to level 5.

In between treatments I tried to put together what had actually happened by considering the wounds themselves and my surroundings. There was a deep hit in the tree where my leg had hit. Then the force must have propelled my upper body against the tree, knocked me out and hurled me through the air to the place where the wolves had found me. My legs had apparently been protected against the impact well enough, but without the weight to support the kick, the tree had been stronger and I was the one giving in. I wondered whether better technique might be able to break through instead of lashing back at me. But even if that was the case and the leg came out on the other side with too much speed I might still fly around. I wouldn't try any further experiments for now. I had blamed Silvia for recklessness, but in the end wasn't any better myself.

When I went back home I reflected some more on my actions. I wasn't really disturbed by what happened. I had gotten used to taking some hits back in martial arts training, but the damage I had taken today was far beyond that. Still I had just concentrated on healing it and continued on as if nothing happened. Then there was the way I had dealt with the wolves. Sure, I hadn't considered the consequences of my actions and made a bad choice in my attacks. But I hadn't panicked and just done what I had to. Was I becoming callous? Maybe that was a necessity.

I cleaned myself up and finally another long night came to an end.