As the days went by, she told Sky almost all of her secrets including the fact that she had a decent grasp on the Runic language that everything was written in. The only thing she didn't tell him about was that she came from another world.
“Do you know what it says by our doors?” he asked after learning her fluency with the local language.
“That is just the light and door control, I’ve seen you use it before.”
“Well duh, I mean the other side.”
She immediately jumped up to see what he was talking about. Sure enough, on the opposite side of the door from the light and door control, there was another set of words that she had never noticed before. It looked the same as the controls that were on the podium that she used way back when.
Greetings Ancient One.
* Current Assignments
* Map
* Order Services
* Sound the Alarm
“Can you see that?” she asked.
Sky nodded his head and then pushed on a bullet point. Nothing happened when he pushed it so he tried to push another one. After he was unable to get a reaction from the screen he said “it's broken.”
She tried pushing on the top bullet point.
You have no current assignments.
<--Back
Pressing the “back” button, it returned her to the main screen.
“What does it say?” He asked.
It was then that she realized that all of the writing was in English. That shocked her quite a bit. It would make more sense for the writing to be in Common or in Runic. With it being in English that means that the system is either hooked into her mind, which was scary, or the Ancient One that is constantly referenced was from her Earth. She translated what each option said but did not elaborate on which language it was written in.
She next clicked on the map option. This brought up a bird’s eye view of the entire area within the barrier. The controls to zoom in acted similarly to how they did in her old world so she was able to navigate fairly easily. What interested her the most was every structure was connected through an underground tunnel.
At the very end of the corridor where her room was located, there was a door that led to a set of stairs. This confused her, she had been down the hallway and found a dead end. Unfortunately, it was far too late tonight for an adventure.
“Want to go on an adventure tomorrow night?” she asked, grinning at Sky.
“I’ll be here as soon as I can slip away!”
----------------------------------------
When they reached the end of the hallway the following night, she was confused. The only thing at the end of this hallway was a fancy mural. It took several minutes of studying the mural in front of her to see the hidden symbol that operated the door. Once she was able to locate it, they quickly entered the staircase and started the long trek down.
“Why are there so many stairs?” Sky whined.
“I don't mind going down, what I am worried about is going back up.”
Sky let out a groan at that thought. She made a Mental Note to herself to try to find an elevator before they had to go back up these stairs. In her excitement at seeing the stairs, she didn't look too closely at what was around them. An elevator might have existed somewhere.
At the bottom of the stairs, they entered a large armory. Several rows of immaculate armor lined the walls. There were several styles of armor represented and each style had its separate section. Several low shelving units had weapons on display. The weapons ranged from mass-produced swords that all looked alike to ornate swords with gemstones and engraving on them.
Weapons were also arranged by type. She could see battle axes, clubs, flails, swords, daggers, spears, polearms, and ranged weapons like bows and crossbows throughout the room.
Except for the guards that were always around the Nobles, she had not seen any weapons in this world. Even the weapons the guards carried were simple compared to what was found down here. She had seen practical tools that could be turned into weapons like a knife or an ax, but nothing made explicitly for combat.
She had expected Sky to be running around the room possibly trying on the armor. Curious, she asked, “Why are you not taking a closer look?”
“Mom said only guards are allowed to carry weapons. I don't want to be a guard. They have to stand in front of those stuffy Nobles and say nothing all day.”
It was hard to argue with that logic. She figured it would do more harm than good to have someone find a weapon in her room or on her person. The white dress she wore was thin enough to outline anything that shouldn't be underneath it. While she was trained to use a dagger for self-defense in her past life, she was not comfortable with the amount of risk involved with having one.
Moving on, the long underground hallway between structures was unadorned. Upon reaching underneath the medium-sized structure, rather than armor, there were crafting stations. Tools of each craft were left organized in each section. The only thing missing from each station was raw materials to process.
Making it underneath the largest structure, she followed the route she carefully mapped out. Using Visualization to check her progress at almost every turn. The hallways in the main structure were maze-like and easy to get lost in. She got very lucky before that leaving the secret room was nearly a straight shot to the door leading to the center column.
It had taken her quite a while to even locate the secret room on the map. In the end, she looked for a void in the middle of an octagon with eight doors. If she hadn't been there before, she never would have noticed it.
“The mural room is up ahead.”
“I hope you really know where you are going because I’m lost. I don't think I could even get back on my own.”
As expected, after opening two more doors, she came to the area with the mural room. After inspecting the square room from the outside, she located the very faint and hidden “open” symbol.
“Do you want to wait here or go in with me?” she asked as the wall was sliding open.
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“Don't you dare leave me alone in here!.”
“Have you decided if you want to try to get magic or not?”
“What if something goes wrong? What if I don't get Illusion like you did? What if they find me out and take me away? I don’t want the bad men to take me!” was his emotional response.
“I will take that as a no then. Alright, come on in and don't touch anything.”
She walked to the center of the room and sat down next to the crystal. Studying the crystal while the outside light was still shining, she didn't note anything special about it. It looked like a floor tile before it was touched.
Touching the crystal once turned it on. After touching it a second time, she was transported to her mindscape dig site. She already knew what she was going to unearth and quickly got to work on the Cloaking aspect.
Excavation integrity calculating…
100%
Congratulations, with your attention to detail and speed, a bonus of 9% synchronization has been added to this aspect at the start for a total of 10%
To return for more aspects, you must have a total of 24% synchronization for illusion.
Rather than immediately being kicked out of her mindscape, she was left inside of it. Confused, she brought up her Magic screen to see what could have gone wrong.
[Magic]
Type
%
Aspect
Illusion
24%
Illusion
100%
Disguise Self
Illusion
98%
Decoy
Illusion
10%
Cloaking
She had wasted so much time trying to find a way to return to the crystal that she was already at the threshold for another aspect. Unsure of which to choose, she narrowed it down to Shadow Blade or Enchant. Her heart wanted enchanting badly but she was still worried that outside reagents would be required that she did not have access to. In the end, she chose Shadow Blade. While she did not have any plans to use it on anyone, it would be convenient to always have a knife around if she wanted to cut something.
Excavation integrity calculating…
100%
Congratulations, with your attention to detail and speed, a bonus of 10% synchronization has been added to this aspect at the start for a total of 11%
To return for more aspects, you must have a total of 32% synchronization for illusion.
This time, she was immediately dropped out of her mindscape after her excavation. Looking down, she touched the crystal one more time to see what would happen.
Greetings Ancient One.
You must have a minimum of 50% synchronization with your last magic obtained to choose another.
Come back when you have grown more.
That was exciting news. She had a new thing to daydream about it seems. Based on her calculations, she needed at least one more aspect of illusion before she would be able to unlock another school of magic.
“Did you get it?”
“Yep! I had the chance to get two more so I picked Cloaking and Shadow Blade.”
Their trip back to their rooms was uneventful until they made it to the corridor containing their rooms. She could hear talking in the distance.
Whispering to Sky she said “I am going to use Cloaking on us. It takes lots of mana so it won't last long. We need to hurry.”
She had done the obligatory show and tell with Sky on their walk back. Cloaking herself was fairly easy but when she extended the cloak to Sky, her mana dropped fast. After the experimenting she did on the way back, she was down to 20% of her mana left.
“Okay when I take your hand, we run as fast as possible to your room.”
The adults in the hallway appeared to be having a midnight tryst and both were leaning against the same wall. They were able to easily run around them and the quiet door opening did not alert them. Thankfully they had gone quite a ways down the hallway to have their extracurricular activities. She was able to drop Sky off at his room and sneak to her room before her mana pool hit 0.
Level
24
Age
5 1/2
Experience
(29690/30000)
Health
210/210
Mana
5/700
Stat Points
115
Skill Points
4
Strength
16
Constitution
21
Dexterity
18
Intelligence
74
Wisdom
70
[Traits] [Skills] [Magic]
[Basic Skills]
Acting
30
Climbing
18
Drawing
10
Language - Common
MAX
Mathematics
20
Meditation
20
Running
13
Writing
15
[Novice Skills]
Sneak
20
Visualization
28
[Advanced Skills]
Mental Notes
8
Language - Runic
9
[Magic]
Type
%
Aspect
Illusion
25%
Illusion
100%
Disguise Self
Illusion
98%
Decoy
Illusion
10%
Cloaking
Illusion
11%
Shadow Blade