Enchanting the needle to support its Fae enchantment was far more difficult than it should be. The repetitive attacks were not making it easier on her. The snakes had woken the forest up, and now it was out to get her.
Wichita had been steadily losing mana to injuries, a little every time she fought a beast. There were too many in the forest. Like the one that was trying to eat her now. Jumping up, she brought a stone tied to her foot down on its head as the needle sneaked into one of its companions. A grating sound pierced her ears as the mouse shaped thing looked at her with its blood-red eyes.
At this point, she had grown so used to sound based attacks that she simply ignored them. The pain still got on her nerves, but they did little in the way of actual damage. The stone coming down on the beast’s head was far more effective.
The needle? Well, that particular beast was currently falling to the ground after the needle had pierced most of the veins connecting its pea sized brain to its body. There might be a lot of variance between beasts, but the brain tended to be an important part of the body. Damaging it was a good strategy as far as she was concerned.
The needle came back to her, looking at her expectantly. Wichita sighed. The enchantments on it were just about done. To her eyes they looked like fat lines of magic running throughout its length, so fat that they were starting to touch each other. Yes, she needed to get the enchantment done sooner rather than later.
Now if only the needle’s Story stopped interfering with her enchanting. Why it even did so was a mystery to her. Running a finger down the needles’ length, she imagined what she wanted to do.
Wichita had tried some of the most advanced and complicated enchantments she could think of. That didn’t work. The bloody thing’s Story would have them disappear, fail spontaneously, or just make her lose concentration. A simpler enchantment, it seemed, was a better idea.
The needle had to get into a beast’s body and then wait a few moments before it could actually start absorbing mana. That was something she could help it avoid. Then there was the lack of efficiency in getting mana from the beasts. The needle could be much, much faster if she made pathways dedicated to this. There was more than one enchantment made for this exact situation that she could just transfer from memory instead of trying to build an efficient one herself.
The third and final, enchantment, she wanted to add was one that would aid the needle when it wanted to evolve. The steel would eventually degrade from the sheer amount of mana it came in contact with. The Fae magic really did not like that one. Wichita found the enchantments just slipping off the needle when she tried to force the issue.
What a troublesome needle.
Sighing she wondered what she should do. The evolution enchantment was out of question, the Fae magic was reacting rather violently to it. Consulting her Skill, [Forgotten Melody] was not really helpful either. The needle's Story was too minor to even enter her hearing, and she did not have nearly enough time to learn how to focus. The only thing she got for her efforts was more failures and a headache.
Not to mention she still needed to be on the lookout for more beasts. If she didn’t get this done, she really might die. There were far too many beasts, and far too little of her left.
Mana thrummed through the needle as it shot out again. Another one? Wichita growled in frustration, raising the hand while clutching a piece of stone. An Arcana hitting things with rocks. To think she had to resort to such things. The lack of efficiency got to her nerves every time she had to hit something.
The mana consumed in hitting something with her dear rock was about ten times larger than it should be. But she had little control over her own body at her age, certainly not enough to prevent the loss of mana. Nor did she have other options.
Growling in frustration, she looked for whatever had gotten the needle’s attention now. A squirrel. Wichita’s heart stopped for a second as she feared that it had gotten involved with a pack creature again.
Dealing with solitary ones was still…doable. Dealing with an entire pack of creatures? With how slow the needle was at times, she might as well be killing herself. The dog-monkeys had been a nice example of that.
Of course, the logic of that was lost on the needle, who was far too eager to get any meal it could get its hands-on. Wichita sighed as she looked around, glad that there weren’t more squirrels ready to rush her. Then she let the needle go for its meal.
There probably were more squirrels elsewhere in the forest, given that it was of the same species she had hunted before. The very first beast she, well the needle, had hunted.
Looking around, she kept an eye out for the panther. That thing was still one of the more powerful beasts she had encountered in the forest. The snakes and the howling beast were the only two she could think of that were more dangerous. Now back to enchanting the needle. Wichita felt her Heart burning in insistence that she get it done, and she had to agree.
The beasts were easy to handle, but that did little when the thing that made her live was a limited resource. In the absence of ways to stabilize space, she could not refill her mana. In time, she would run out, reverting to only the Heart. Then some beast in the forest would eat it, and she would be dead.
The enchantments on the needle had gotten closer to bursting apart with its latest escapade, something she really didn’t approve of. The needle clearly didn’t care about it, but she feared. Doing it herself was just a worse option, however, given that it would consume her precious mana.
Wichita put a finger on the needle, connecting to the mana contained within them. Enchanting really wasn’t that different from mana manipulation when it came down to it, especially the way the Arcana did it. The Language of Magic was their mother tongue, even if the System would not let them speak it. And any enchantment at the Master level was in that language.
Wichita closed her eyes, letting the language flow through her. In normal circumstances she would have a preprepared blueprint to follow, something that had been tested and optimized till it was as efficient as they could make it. But it was not as if she had not practiced making her own enchantments at all.
A spiral appeared on the needle as the language decided that was what represented the enchantment she wanted. Then it went inert. The enchantment refused to have any effect on the needle.
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
A sigh propelled itself out of her body as she erased her test. Of course, the Fae magic would not let it be easy. The bloody thing just wanted her to suffer.
A stone shot through her head as she turned around to look at the offending chipmunk. The blood-red teeth it sported told her what was on its mind.
Why were all the beasts here too dumb to understand that she did not have meat? Or was meat not their end goal at all? Perhaps they wanted her mana? Well she wasn’t giving it up without a fight. The sky crackled above her as the needle shot from her hands.
Wichita observed what it did, clutching her stone at ready to hit the chipmunks as needed. Not that it would be of much help. The way the chipmunk was trying to dodge the needle, it would make quick work of her. Just as the needle made quick work of it. The needle floated back to her, quite literally glowing with magic.
Yes, she could not delay anymore, she had to add mana pathways to it somehow. Wichita clutched the needle, erasing the enchantments already on it, controlling the mana that was released as a result. The Language of Magic appeared on the needle, transforming into wavy structures running down its length. Like little rivers that would guide the mana.
Wichita had them curl around the edges, hoping that it would guide the mana into the needle’s core. That should give more mana to the Fae enchantment, though she couldn’t be sure it worked. Then she added a spiral over the waves, cutting across them horizontally. This time the enchantment took.
That would increase speed — a stone went through her head again, taking another chunk of mana. Wichita wished she could pay more attention, but she was already doing the best she could! The needle went towards the chipmunk, not even giving the chipmunk any time to dodge.
The boost was still less than what she had wanted it to be. The extra mana it got was clearly not being utilized, and might even be running interference. Wichita did not have solution for that. The problem was likely in the layering, but layering enchantments was a difficult task. Forcing them to work together had not been part of any book she had found in the library.
If what they said was true, then the deficiencies were simply things she had to deal with. The fact that she had seen several recent additions to the city’s defenses that countered that was clearly ignorable. Not a clue that the nobles were hiding some secret from commoners. Not at all.
Sighing as another bloody chipmunk shot a stone through her head — were they trying to irritate her to death? — she let the needle fly. There was still space on the thing for a third enchantment, a small one at the needle’s edges. Perhaps something that enhanced its core in some manner. Wichita could not really think of anything else that the needle’s Story had not already rejected.
Another of the forest’s critters appeared before her while the needle was away, this time with allies. The forest’s Fae magic had discovered that she had powered up, and was now testing her. Or just telling her to not get to cocky.
The needle burst towards the crickets, having already dealt with the chipmunks. Perhaps the speed wasn’t as bad as she thought. The crickets panicked as one of their own fell faster than they could look. The needle itself looked dissatisfied as it found its victim dying before it could suck its mana. Wichita hadn’t been able to enhance that part of it’s power, and it showed.
“Just kill them, I will give you some mana later.” she said, trying to prompt the needle into acting as she stomped at the crickets. A bunch of legs slammed into her, purplish liquid dripping from their legs. Thankfully, the poison was as effective as the legs, neither of them having much effect on her.
Wichita wondered how quickly she would have died if she wasn’t a mana lifeform. The inability of the forest’s creatures to keep damage her sufficiently was one of the reasons she was alive. Perhaps the main reason.
The needle made quick work of the crickets, the beasts unable to run fast enough once they realized their attacks weren’t very useful. Wichita almost felt sorry for them. The needle stabbed into her, not showing a hint of courtesy as it began gobbling up her mana.
Another bunch of mana gone. There was just about -
Mana: 102/403
— a quarter left. Wichita wasn’t very happy about that, though she knew it was still an absurd amount of mana for someone of her level.
Now to finish the enchantment. Adding a mana eating enchantment on top of what the needle already had seemed redundant to her, but it clearly wanted it. Just about any delicate beast would die too fast for the needle to drain mana.
And she couldn’t — she pulled the needle from her arm — keep feeding the bloody thing. The needle squirmed, showing its dissatisfaction. Wichita wasn’t having it. The thing had already taken another fifteen points of mana from her, far more than some crickets were worth.
The last enchantment was easy, far too easy now. The hunger enchantment that had troubled her just a week ago took to the needle like water to a glass, slipping right in without much prompting on her part.
How strange. Perhaps the Fae enchantment made it easier? Yes, that was possible, even probable. Wichita looked up, ready to deal with whatever new thing the Fae magic had in store for her. More monsters? Perhaps the trees would come alive to attack…OH SHIT.
Wichita ducked as a massive crack in space passed above her head. The space around her fluctuated, clouding her vision as she got down on her knees, laid herself flat and then turned around. For a second, she thought she saw a cat staring into her eyes as she turned, but it dissapeared as soon as it appeared. A hallucination? Perhaps, bu she could worry about that later.
The needle sunk into her dress, where it started to passively absorb her mana again. With the enchantment she had just given it. The crack did not come anywhere near her, staying in the sky for a few seconds before disappearing. Wichita looked at the space for a few more seconds, not daring to get up. The needle did it for her, shooting up towards something.
This was strange.
A crack just as Fae magic started acting up? What were the chances it was a coincidence?Oh no, it wasn’t getting her into trouble again. Catching the disobedient little shit in her fingers, she kept it trapped. Even if doing that made it absorb her mana now. The Fae enchantment had definitely helped her place that one.
Wichita headed towards where the needle wanted to go, trying to be as sneaky as she could. The fact that she made little noise at all helped. The fact that she was made of mana and caused spacial disturbances as she walked helped a little less.
The crack had left a large amount of devastation in its wake, cutting apart trees and killing many a beast. Wichita held onto the needle as it attempted to eat the beasts. There was a lot of noise coming from a clearing in front of her. A lot of noise that sounded a bit like…talking.
A headache built inside her head as the System detected her proximity to other people and completed something that she had long prepared for. A pair of screams echoed in front of her as it confirmed what she had feared, and hoped to encounter in this forest.
The language updation is complete. Please refrain from attempting to use any other language.
[Forgotten Queen] has reached level 5.
Mana +50
There were people in front of her. The kind of people, for whom, the System had only now transmitted its ‘preferred’ language. That meant that they had either come from another age like her, or were from another world entirely.
Wichita could scarcely wait to meet them.