Chapter 145: Connections
“Shame,” I sigh and shrug, keeping my cloak on. For a few moments, the steady drip of the water from Kuro onto the stony floor is the only sound in the small room.
Anna huffs again as she finally turns away, her glare subsiding. “Ask for something else.”
“Have you managed to steal from anyone-”
“No,” she answers, throwing her hands up in frustration. “No! And it’s not happening. No noble would be stupid enough to come down here, carrying a token, and let themselves be robbed by some shitty thief!”
Times like this I miss Norman. He could’ve stolen a token for me. Maybe. Probably… Surely!
Instead, I just nod at her. “Alright. Then what?”
She gives me a long sigh, leaning against the wall, glancing towards the bundle of blankets in the corner of the room. “Look,” she says slowly. “I’ll… repay you. Somehow. Please, you just gotta…”
“Yes, yes,” I wave her off. “I’ll keep healing him. Whether you pay me back or not.” I say quietly, kneeling next to the feeble body of her brother. He’s been sick, for a good long while now, and it has run him ragged. As per the usual, I inspect him.
[Feryran lv. 0]
Still no level. Even as he battles the illness. So, a soft sigh leaves my lips. I hover my hands over him, and soon, two skills activate in tandem. Quickly, the red of the fever that holds him dissipates, and the mana inside him settles.
There’s no virus I can properly heal. It’s not that kind of sickness, after all. It’s his vessel - it’s cracked. He tried to cast too early and injured it. So, all I can do is knit his body back together, undoing the damage he suffered, and [Suppress] the leaking mana from his core. I apply solid needles of my own mana like acupuncture, making them as thin as possible - the mana leaking from them keeping my suppression active and holding his own mana at bay.
“Alright,” I say with a small sigh, leaning back a bit. “Stable again,” I tell Anna. Instantly, she gives a sigh of relief.
“I owe you, once again,” she says, though the words lose their usual heat.
Waving her off, I shake my head. “You’re fine. Don’t risk your life for me.”
“Won’t,” she assures me quietly, looking to the side. Her silver hair scrapes against the stones of the building, and I nod once more. “Thanks, Yuki.”
I nod again, then open the door to the outside. “See you soon, Anna. You know where to find me.”
As I walk out into the rain, I think it’s funny. My most profitable skill, easily, is healing. I could sell that to the nobles and get a token to climb a monolith instantly. Hecc, I could even get tokens for the others… but I can’t do it. Because this is Respitia’s city, and she would instantly find me if she knew.
So, I have to hide it. Instead, I sell enchantments that are pitiful compared to what I can make, and slowly work on my projects. My vessel grows stronger, and with it, I gain more mana. The stats are multipliers of our “base” value, as I’ve found out, because vesselsmithing improves the base quality of my vessel.
Which is excellent, in that my mana keeps growing steadily as I improve that ethereal organ… and bad, because more mana means more pressure inside me. Which forces my other stats to grow to keep up, but also puts me under strain. Even now, I maintain multiple suppression loops alongside my [Observation]. And, of course, another part of mine tinkers with the remnants of skills in my archive.
It’s funny what an intricate web of debts comes with a city like this. There are people who have lived here for far longer than I. Anna, for one, keeps many grudges, holding them inside her heart like a to-do list. Raven has a list of other gangs they’re on good and bad terms with.
Slowly, with my hand in my pocket, I walk through the city. Kuro keeps the rain off me, and I work hard to keep my mana inside, taking in the loud sounds of rain and wind. It’s biting cold, and it eats into my limbs, but I don’t mind that. Instead, it feels almost relieving. The cold suits me.
Step by step, I trudge across wet cobblestone, the mana-infused rain partially freezing over into sleet. When things get too bad, I keep myself in place with solidified mana. It’s the same as always - I walk slowly, but inevitably, to my destination.
The slums flow around me steadily, and I only need to avoid three enterprising pickpockets on the way, swerving around the kids when I spot them with [Observation], or making them stumble with [Suppression]. Some of them are just newly awakened, using their skills as clumsily as I did back on the first floor. It’s juuuust in between being cute and being a bit pathetic.
My legs carry me through the narrow cobblestone roads, even as the wind pulls at my cloak. Kuro bravely shields me from the elements, keeping me largely dry, save for the water that splashes into my face. My face which I still keep hidden, alongside having taken a new name on this floor.
Yuki, as I so gracefully named the Tower when it spoke through me, is now diligently serving me as a name to give out to strangers. Ion is too well known… and Snow is something my friends call me, so. Yuki.
As Yuki, I stand in front of another door, this one in better shape than the previous ones. A building that’s actually being used and maintained. One of the very few legitimate businesses in the fifth ring, and the place I plan to spend my coins tonight: the Runewrights’.
Chapter 146: Sneaky Enchants
I open the door, and heat washes over me instantly. The entire building is enchanted, after all, consistently kept as a temperate environment. As soon as the wood creaks open, madame Shelly’s gaze bores into me, but when she recognizes my dark cloak, her expression shifts and she coos in delight.
“Aha! Yuki!” the zoof chirps, bobbing in delight, sending her straw-coloured fur bouncing. “My favourite student! Have you finally scraped up enough chits for another lesson? Oh, come in, come in, you’re wasting mana keeping the door open!”
Her voice rains in on me in an unceasing stream of noise, and I nod faintly, closing the door behind me. As usual, the Runewrights’ is largely empty. A few studious climbers sit across tables, most of them looking older and scholarly. Instead of any of those, though, the madame quickly gestures for me to join her at the counter.
“Come, come!” she urges me, and I slowly approach. “Here for another lesson, yes? Please say yes, dear. I so missed your input!” She carefully places her thin, wiry hands next to her head, the limbs extending amidst bushes of carefully braided fur, giving me an innocent grin.
“I’m not selling you my runes,” I say simply.
At that, she pouts and stomps. “Augh! What I wouldn’t give to get those out of you, Yuki! You know, madame Shelly is real trustworthy, you can share allllll your secrets with me~” she purrs.
I shake my head. “Nope.”
Again, she pouts. “Fine,” she says with an arrogant huff, averting her face and crossing her arms. “Guess I’ll charge you extra for the lesson, then!”
“No, you won’t,” I note with a smile. The older woman gives a long sigh, burying her fluffy face in her hands at my comment.
“You’re no fun!” she complains, pointing at me accusingly as I move to count out the chits, laying coin after coin down on the table.
Gently, I nod. “You tell me every time,” I reply calmly. “And yet you get happy to see me.” Strangely, I truly don’t mind her tone, even. Despite everything, her gestures, her noise, she is very careful about invading my space. She points, but never pokes at me. She huffs, but always at a respectful distance. When I start to frown even slightly at her chatting, she quiets down, without me needing to ask.
In fact, even now, she seems to realize she was getting to be too much. With a small sigh, she tones it down, instead simply picking up the coins from the counter with her scraggly limbs. “Same as usual?” she asks, simply, dropping all the extravagance and simply giving me a small smile.
As soon as she does so, a lot of the gazes fall away from us. The scholars seem to forget their annoyance as soon as the room quiets down again, focusing on their runic projects. Men, women and enbies of all shapes and sizes sit peacefully around working desks, wielding chisels and quietly discussing their craft.
I nod at madame Shelly’s question, and she quickly drops the coins into her necklace. It’s a long string wrapped around her fluffy fur, full of shells strung up on it. In fact, I’m pretty sure the necklace is her namesake, and the coins clack inside the shells for a moment before the noise abruptly vanishes.
Once again, I try to move in [Observation] to get a look at the runes, only for the older zoof to gently push my skill aside. “Mh-mh-mh!” she hums, wagging a finger at me. “That’s an enchantment that’s not for sale, Yuki-dear.”
Shrugging, I nod. “The usual. More-”
“Yes, yes, runic hiding,” she says with a smile. “You guard your knowledge jealously, Yuki. Hopefully this time we’ll get there. Come on!”
And then, in swift motions, the zoof shuffles ahead of me, heading into one of the backrooms. Some of the other scholars give us quick glances and chuckle, recognizing my cloaked form. I’ve… something of a reputation, already, for being soft-spoken and private. Hopefully none of them try to touch me. It’d be a real shame if I had to break someone’s nose to make a point.
Shaking my head and banishing the thought, I follow madame Shelly into the back, where she leads me to a workbench, full of little enchantment projects of hers. With deft motions of her hands, the zoof picks them all aside, placing them on another place, before stopping when holding a wide disc of silver.
“Aha!” she says happily, turning the shiny piece of metal in her hands. “Do you know what that is, Yuki?” she asks.
I stare at it for a long moment, and this time, when I reach out to [Observe] it, the woman easily allows it. And despite that, I cannot make out what any of the inscriptions mean. They’re dull and blurry against my sight, seeming to shift, and entire sections of them are fully misleading.
Sighing softly, I shake my head. “I don’t know. If I had to guess, just based on the shape… probably a heating plate. Silver should be a good conductor and-”
“You’re entirely correct,” the madame beams, then holds up a finger. “But! And this is a big but, dear Yuki. You had to guess, hmmm?”
A soft smile spreads on my lips. “Yes, I still had to guess.”
“That’s because I am a tricky old lady! This recent project is, in fact, going to some nobles. Nobles, who usually employ their own enchanters. And I’ll be damned before I give away my secrets freely to some prissy prick living the high life,” she whispers with a conspiratorial grin, her fur bobbing at her snickers. “So, I obscured my runework! What do you think I did?”
An easier question. “Blurring, extraneous inscriptions intending to mislead, and a perception-interference enchantment.”
The old zoof beams at me. “Very right, Yuki. Now, how would I have done this?”
I tilt my head, thinking, then nod. “I think the blurring is achieved by a secondary layer of runes entirely hidden inside the material at varying depth.”
“Correct again,” madame Shelly nods. “How?”
Thinking it over, I can’t come up with a good solution, so I guess. “You probably pre-inscribed them, before setting to work on the top layer, then welding the plates together on the sides?”
She snaps her fingers in delight. “Wrong!” she says happily, seemingly pleased that I couldn’t figure her trick out. It’s been like this for a while. She’ll present me with some enchantment, and I have to figure out the tricks used to make it.
Not once has she enchanted in front of me or let me [Deconstruct] her skills. I don’t pay enough for that, she says. And she’s entirely correct. Giving away the blueprints of her skills would be even worse of an idea than giving me the enchantments she knows.
“I didn’t make it from two pieces of silver. I carved one set of runes deeper, then forged the top back down, making the metal fold over the runes,” she explains smugly. And I have to nod, because it’s dang clever. “That left the blurring enchantments buried inside. Which makes it hard to work on the top, doesn’t it?” she says with a smile.
“There’s a failsafe,” I instantly realize. “Some skill patterns are excluded from the blurring. You made yourself a backdoor.”
At that, the old woman grins again. “Exactly,” she says smugly. “But you can’t find it.”
“Because of the mana rejection,” I nod along. “Clever.”
“That’s what runewrighting is about, Yuki. Being smart about things. Using tricks. We live and breathe the runes we know - and you should never give our value away freely. Now, for most people, selling unaltered products is fine. Most people won’t have their designs stolen - because most people can’t enchant. What’s a cook gonna do with my stove?” she asked, then snickered. “They’ll cook. Nothing else.”
I nod along with her.
“So why hide your designs?” she asks, tilting her fluffy head.
This time, I actually think it over. “Because our runes reveal part of our skillset,” I eventually suggest.
She nods along slowly. “That’s part of it, yes. You can also sell hidden runes for higher prices to people who can afford to be scammed. And, of course… you can sabotage items. Selling your greatest enemy a stove that poisons all the food they cook, well,” she smiles faintly. “That’s a good trick.”
And once again, I’m reminded not to take climbers lightly. Madame Shelly is a pleasant woman, who usually insists on sharing knowledge being a good thing. I’ve wondered for a while why she’d hide runes at all. For me, it’s because with imbuement, they’re often derivative of my skills, or other skills I've deconstructed.
Now, eventually, this’ll stop being a problem as my runework simply becomes so sophisticated people can’t mimic it anymore - but for now, they’re part of my powers. So, I’ll have to sabotage everyone else, annoyingly. All part of the stealth mission. Picking a fake name, hiding my healing, obscuring my runes.
Madame Shelly smiles, and gives me a few pages of her designs. “Here, these are some more sneaky inscriptions I’ve come up with.” A moment later, she passes me a few silver plates, and a stylus to inscribe runes with. “Go ahead and give them a try, dear.”
With slow movements I lift the metal tool, press it against the silver plate, cycle my mana, and scratch.
I feel my authority of efficiency hum gently in my ears, enhancing [Intuition] to let me know when I’m going wrong. The sensation is strong enough, sometimes, that I make small alterations to the design Shelly handed me. She opens her eyes wide in delight, every time it happens, even clapping her hands for me. “Wonderful, dear! This is why you’re my favourite student.”
[Intuition 8 > 9]
It’s also why she gives me such a ridiculous discount. That, and the fact that she likes me. So, I follow my skills, remembering the entirety of the plans she’s shown me with [Memorization]. There is a whole host of new designs swimming around my mental library, etched into the mana-network that I use to store information.
[Memorization 8 > 9]
And then, when I finish the first layer of the design, I add a second one. I build my own backdoor. I forge things closed. I used [Observation] to carve the surface layer of runes, creating an intersecting motif with things that almost have an effect, but are, in the end, utterly pointless. And as I do so, I link those principles with the ones I already understand.
My epitaph, Perpetual Pursuit, lets me work for an hour without wavering in the slightest. My mantle, architect of the ascended archive, allows me to process the data, cross-referencing it with everything else I’ve learnt, transforming parts of it into essence as I break down the principles. And finally, my authority, efficiency, quietly guiding my hand along, allowing me to learn that much faster.
After three weeks, finally, it coalesces into what I needed to learn.
[New Skill acquired!]
[Obfuscation 0 > 1]
Chapter 147: Job Evolution
My new skill settles around me, and I instantly activate it. Because I can already tell, it’s not just about runes. It incorporates what I’ve been learning for a while now, in using [Suppression] to make myself quieter, harder to notice. In [Deconstructing] Norman’s and Kuro’s stealth, and applying those lessons to my own skills.
I trigger [Obfuscation], and I can feel it settle on me, as if asking a question. It’s a faint, lingering field around me, and with a few adjustments, I make it tamp down my mana, the noise I make, my authority… and madame Shelly notices instantly. She hums as she turns and looks at me from the sides.
[Obfuscation 1 > 2]
“Hurm! Well, well, Yuki, seems like you’ve figured out quite a nice little trick, there,” she says with a smile. “I can see it stick to your runes already, too. What a versatile little skill… Say, how much for you to-”
“Not teaching it,” I say, shaking my head with a faint smile, which makes the older lady pout again.
“Fine,” she huffs. “I’ll get your secrets out of you someday, just you wait!”
“Thank you, madame Shelly,” I say quietly, giving her a small nod. The words come out sincere. She was a mentor to me, even if just for a little while. And she’ll probably be one for a little while longer.
At my sincere thanks, the zoof lights up in happiness. “Come, come! We still have some time on our lesson left, yet! Let’s see if we can wring another bit of enlightenment outta ya, Yuri. Show me that new skill of yours!”
I snicker softly, but let her enthusiasm pull me in, spending another hour or two refining my hidden runes skills. Imbuer makes it possible to distill the skill down into runic arrays, which means I can, somewhat, apply it twice.
Since it’s already a skill meant - at least somewhat - for runecraft, I can actively cast it on a piece to change the runes. Distilling it into an enchantment, however, lets me apply it far more strongly. Of course, in the future I’ll do both. The additional testing nets me another level - and distilling another skill into runes finally gets my job up to the last level it needs.
[Obfuscation 2 > 3]
[Job up! Imbuer 24 > 25]
More points trickle into my vessel, and I am once more forced to strengthen my attunement loop. It’s become an almost meditative exercise, despite its difficulty, as I keep it up even while sleeping. But I push that thought aside, swiftly smiling as the job maxes out.
“Apologies, madame Shelly, but I’ll have to leave it at this for today,” I say simply.
The old zoof just laughs a little bit. “Yes, yes. Go, go. Go out there, and don’t forget to have fun with enchanting!” she says, quickly ushering me out of the backroom, and then out of the guild hall entirely, dumping me back on the frozen streets.
I snicker slightly at her antics. By now, it’s close to midnight, and I slowly stroll along the frozen streets. Flobs are rarely out at this time - the rain has turned to hail, now, and with the mana infused in it, it’d hurt if it properly hit me. Kuro takes it without problem, though, being tougher than I am.
Still, to spare them some trouble, I swiftly move along the frozen streets, occasionally anchoring myself so that gusts of wind don’t pull me off the island, and look for a ruin that is uninhabited while also shielding me from enough rain that I can comfortably make a decision on my new class.
It doesn’t take me too long to sneak into a half-fallen building, its roof barely withstanding the hail and wind as I climb in through a broken wall. Most of it is in terrible shape, but one of the corners is reasonably dry, and keeps the wind out well enough. Once I settle onto the cold stone, I take a long, slow breath.
And trigger my job evolution.
[Job Options: , , , , , , [New!] , [New!] , [New!] , [New!] , [New!] ]
With glee, I see that scrollmaker has disappeared. “Take that, stupid scrolls,” I whisper quietly. Why would I need to store casts of my skills when I have mana for days? I’m glad to see the weak job gone, probably subsumed into one of the new ones.
The same thing has happened to preserver, I notice. Though for that one, I have a hunch. It prolly got consumed by reinforcer. That seems like a pretty direct upgrade over preserving, while still having all the same capabilities. In general, I imagine that reinforcer is all about lengthening the duration of any mana-constructs I make, and strengthening them.
It’s fun to think that someday, I might be able to make near-permanent things just from mana. Maybe even a self-repairing, wonderfully soft shirt…
I shake my head to get the thought out of it. That’d take at least threadspinner, as well! For now, I cross it off my mental list of projects, and instead focus on things for the short-term. Grand array seems more straightforward in its function. It’ll probably help me make massive enchantments composed of tons of runes, like I did to trap Ezekiel.
Instiller seems like imbuer’s direct successor. A simple upgrade that allows me to even more neatly instill my skills into objects. Probably faster, more powerful. Maybe I can even do the opposite and instill an enchantment’s property into myself? Hmm. The still part would also fit the system’s proclivity for wordplays, making my enchantments quiet.
Then there’s Runic Amplifier, which seems like a fairly powerful job. It pretty directly says “make enchantments stronger” on the tin. Not even by learning more enchantments, or scribing runes more dense, but alternatively - learning additional skills that can very directly increase the power of a magical item.
And finally, core controller. This one I’d guess comes from me using a mana core a lot, in order to draw mana from other people, or hand it out to them. Many enchantments use cores at some point in their process, since they act as natural mana batteries. We even found them in that very first labyrinth Bay and I took apart. Learning how to change them, maybe even make them, could be very beneficial…
Those are all the new ones. Of course, biochanter remains a strong contender, and I do quite like the idea of threadspinner and even moonlight mage, now that I’m gathering more essence.
The only question that remains is… what to pick?