Chronicles of the True Wizard

Finally done with the sword, Fralyna dragged Felix into the design room where Edemari was.

Fralyna tilted her head towards the door, “Come on, let’s go out to dinner.”

Felix almost immediately declined, “No thank you.”

Fralyna looked at him with a smile, “It’s tradition. I’m the main enchanter on the finished product so I pay.”

Edemari hopped to her feet, “I’m in.”

Fralyna hopped up a little in joy, “Great, we’ll grab Krinitor on our way out.”

Felix was about to protest but Fralyna looked at him with a stern expression that kind of threw him off, “It’ll be a couple hours at most. Unless you want to come dancing with Mari and I after…”

Felix sneered, “Definitely not.”

Both Edemari and Fralyna chuckled, “Fair enough.”

Felix cocked his head, “What about Aldahn?”

Fralyna shrugged, “Oh he always says no.”

Felix followed them down and while Fralyna grabbed Krinitor, Felix knocked on Aldahn’s door then opened it when he got permission to enter.

“Fralyna is dragging me to a dinner because apparently it’s tradition… She told me you always say no… figured I should ask anyways?”

Aldahn nodded, “I do… usually say no. Answer is the same this time as well. I appreciate the invite though.”

“Sure.” Felix smiled then closed his door and followed the others out to the front of the shop.

Fralyna said something to Edemari that Felix didn’t quite catch and she just nodded. Once by one, the others hopped down off the edge and to the ground. Felix followed them with confusion and found he fell gracefully to the ground without the need to cast a spell at all.

Ironically, he had rarely actually been on the ground in Telviras and though it was kind of dark because of all the shadows cast by the buildings around them, it wasn’t unpleasant. It was still immaculate with no garbage or dirt as far as he could see.

Most of the ground between the buildings was taken up by a road that was almost exclusively filled by people walking, running and generally moving at various speeds. As it was in the sky, they seemed to all just be aware enough to not cause a ton of accidents which surprised Felix only because he knew that’s how it would be on earth. He knew stats made a big difference but still, seeing nothing directing traffic at intersections was a bit of a culture shock to Felix.

They didn’t head into the streets though, instead they all followed Edemari below the building that held Inscripticae. Felix hadn’t even considered that there would be something below the building until now but it was so obvious in hindsight that Felix audibly groaned.

They walked through a large opening and into a massive area that was certainly spatially expanded. It reminded Felix of the library because the level they were on was only one of a huge number he could see below them.

He followed Edemari into a small room that he only realized was an elevator when they started descending. She led them through, what Felix now realized, was a parking lot, to her vehicle.

Edemari hopped into the driver’s seat of what looked to Felix like a speedboat. It was easily big enough for all of them and the resemblances to a boat, only continued. Felix hopped into the cabin that had some seats but was mostly flat and saw that Fralyna had decided to remain standing. The floor was carpeted and the seats swiveled.

The biggest difference he saw was the lack of a motor hanging off the back. When Edemari started the vehicle somehow, a process he was certain didn’t make use of a traditional key, he saw the alternative to the motor at the back.

There were a series of tubes that jutted out just slightly from the back of the vehicle that looked like exhaust to Felix, were it not for the fact that they were more like rocket thrusters. Looking back at them, he saw a series of flames shooting out behind them. The vehicle didn’t lift into the air but instead, Edemari looked back at him and smiled, then they took off.

It was ridiculously loud and obnoxious but sounded nothing like a car he had come to know. Instead it was like a rocket. They flew off into a large spiral ramp and followed it all the way up to the surface where they immediately accelerated.

Felix had no idea what the top speed of the vehicle was but he wasn’t surprised when she ascended up to the blue speedway above them. He wasn’t sure if this was faster than Shade’s Wrath’s vehicle and it was hard to tell because this one had no enchanted protections from sound or wind. Whether or not it actually was, it felt significantly faster.

Edemari seemed to know where they were going and she zipped through a series of portal spires in what Felix thought was completely random order. Checking his map, they were in fact heading more or less diagonally, she just seemed to have a penchant for not flying in a straight line.

Edemari called out over her shoulder as they flew, “You ever fly in something like this before?”

Felix correctly assumed she was talking to him so he walked up behind her chair so they didn’t have to yell as loudly over the wind and vehicle, “Sort of. Adventuring party had a vehicle that flew fas-… not sure but, same speedway. Theirs was more…”

Fralyna yelled out, “Elegant?”

Felix nodded a little reluctantly, “Yeah.”

Fralyna leaned in as well, “I’ve been telling her she needs to get a normal mana vehicle but…”

Edemari laughed maniacally, “Where’s the fun in that? Also, this is mana based.”

Felix frowned.

Edemari shrugged, “Sometimes. I can switch between burning fuel or mana. Still uses mana to keep it smooth and steady but… I just can’t let go of the smell, the feeling. Enchantments that simulate them just aren’t the same.”

Fralyna shook her head, “Yeah but it’s also less ridiculous.”

Edemari shrugged, “My husband used to love these things. I hated them. After he passed, I grew to love them too. Thankfully he’s gone so he won’t hear me say this, but he was totally right.”

Felix was taken about at how almost sacrilegious and nonchalant she was but he just assumed it had been a while.

Edemari drove them over to a large mostly black building. Felix wasn’t sure if it was made of glass and was dark inside or made of obsidian.

Edemari shot down through the flyways and into the parking area below the building, causing Felix to wonder if there were parking areas beneath every building. The parking area was just as black as the building above as Edemari flew in and into a very specific spot rather than the first available. Felix thought about questioning her but didn’t have the time as she and Fralyna rushed off to the elevator leaving him and Krinitor to catch up.

Felix was expecting the elevator to open up onto the street but instead, it opened up to reveal a large room that was mostly white and green. The floors were some kind of marble like stone except instead of black or brown veins, the veins were all shades of a dark green emerald. The walls and bar to Felix’s right were entirely white along with just about everything else that was constructed.

The green came mostly from the trees, vines, shrubs and ferns all over the inside of the building. Every single surface other than the floor was draped with verdant foliage that lightly rustled as they walked in.

Edemari waved and smiled at someone then walked right in, down a series of halls and chose a specific room. She opened the door and sat down followed by Fralyna then Felix and Krinitor. Walking into the room, Felix was expecting white walls and foliage, just like outside. He was mostly right for every wall except the one across from the door which was actually, a massive window.

Felix was pleasantly surprised to see a window in a spatially expanded building. It made the room they sat in seem much bigger than it actually was. Edemari and Fralyna sat on one bench and Felix sat next to Krinitor on the other.

Before they had a chance to do or say anything, a screen appeared before Felix that listed off a massive list of various dishes and drinks. He looked through and realized he had no idea what he was looking at other than likely, food.

He recognized a few words here and there like grilled, fried and salt but most of the ingredients, most of the cooking methods and definitely the names of the dishes were completely unfamiliar to him.

If he had to guess, he would say he looked very lost and Fralyna chuckling supported that fact, “I’ll order for you Felix. If you don’t like something I order, I’ll eat it. No worries.”

Felix sighed in relief and closed the menu. It took the others a few minutes to fill in their initial orders then Edemari smirked and looked at Fralyna, “Isn’t he a little young for you?”

Fralyna rolled her eyes, “You know why I did that and you know he is waayyy too young.”

Edemari waved her off, “Yeah yeah, I know. You’ve just been dragging your ass on the whole dating front for too long now.”

Krinitor leaned over and whispered to Felix, “How old are you?”

Felix thought about it for a moment, “Twenty something epochs? Mid twenties?”

How long has it been since the integration? Given my birthday… then I’d have to convert it to epochs… Ah nevermind, I don’t care.

Krinitor recoiled and just looked at him. Felix shrugged and tuned back into the other conversation, not that he cared about the topic at hand, more that he was hoping they mentioned something interesting.

“Maybe we’ll finally find someone for you later tonight when we…” Fralyna trailed off as she wiggled her shoulders.

Edemari sighed in exasperation, “You know I’m perfectly happy as is.”

Fralyna “Your husband already gave you permission. You are allowed to have some fun you know.”

Felix frowned a little in confusion.

Edemari had clearly had this same conversation many times, “I’m perfectly happy just visiting my husband.”

Felix’s frown deepened.

“Mari, he’s dead. You can’t live your whole like just visiting your dead husband. All he does is ask what’s going on with you, nothing happens there. Whenever I visit him all he asks me is when I’m gonna find you someone. You know he wants you to be happy.”

Edemari sighed, “What if I don’t want to?”

Felix couldn’t hold himself back any longer, “I’m sorry, what?”

They both looked at him then Edemari cocked an eyebrow, “What?”

“I’m sorry… You visit your dead husband and… have conversations… with him?”

Edemari snorted, “Right, I forgot. Guess we didn’t mention that part of the afterlives then, huh?”

Krinitor looked to Felix, “You hadn’t heard about the afterlives?”

Felix was just so taken aback he wasn’t sure what to say.

Fralyna picked up his slack though and responded to Krinitor, “He’s from a pretty remote planet.”

Edemari chuckled a little, “Yeah some afterlives let you visit your loved ones. There are restricted times when it happens and there’s usually a negligible cost but…” Edemari trailed off a little and almost whispered the last bit of her sentence, “…it’s worth it.”

Felix managed to come back to his senses a little, “And Fralyna, you visit him too?”

Fralyna smiled, “He is my brother.”

Felix’s eyes went wide as a few things clicked together in his head.

Fralyna smirked, “Naturally, now that he’s gone, the responsibility of calling” Fralyna elbowed Edemari, “her Mari, fell to me.”

Edemari groaned, “Both of you know I hate that nickname.”

The conversation devolved from there and Felix zoned out a little bit. He started practicing his spell formations far above their heads and cycled through all the spells he knew.

Considering it was the biggest city in the multiverse, Felix was starting to wonder how long it would take for the food to arrive. In his mind, he could think of many ways to prepare food rapidly with magic. He also knew there were ways to preserve food almost perfectly so they could have easily prepared the food ahead of time.

His thoughts were interrupted when he realized the others weren’t talking anymore. He refocused on his sight and saw the two across from him just looking up. He looked up with them and saw his spell forms so he dismissed them to see what they were seeing behind them.

As soon as he dismissed the spell forms, they both looked back down and looked around them. Felix made the connection and apparently his facial expression gave him away.

Edemari looked at him with a cocked brow, “Felix… what the hell are you doing?”

Felix shrugged, “I’m just practice casting.”

Fralyna frowned, “Practicing your casting? Why?”

Felix shrugged again and just pleaded in his mind for them to just buy the whole innocent integration kid act he was about to play, “It seemed like a good idea. I do it whenever I can. Back on my planet to get good at something, you practiced. I also workout, or… I haven’t in a little while but I did back- a bit ago.” He realized right at the end that Krinitor still didn’t know so he cut himself off.

Edemari shrugged, “Not a bad call. Just uh… maybe not offensive spells around other people?”

Fralyna giggled, “Our danger senses were going a little crazy. They’d freak out then disappear in an instant then repeat.”

That’s… I should have considered that.

All this is new to you, you’re learning.

Still… I guess a soul based danger sense wouldn’t trigger because I have no intention of casting the spells or attacking at all so only System Fuckery Danger Sense skills would trigger. I wonder if it’s intentional that they notify the user no matter what, even if I had no intention of casting…

They went back to their conversation that seemed to be focused on what their plans for the immediate future were. Felix zoned back out and gave vague generic answers when they asked him his plans. He didn’t actually want to give away his plans because they meant he would leave the shop and from what he had already gathered, going to Eramith was a big deal. As much as he appreciated them, their help and their patience with his questions, he didn’t feel anything when he lied which made it all the more believable.

Shortly afterwards, the food arrived in as spectacular a fashion as Felix had hoped. Right before them, on top of the table, a horizontal portal appeared. It sat there for a few seconds, a warning so patrons could get out of the way, then a series of dishes started to slowly fall through it. They fell so slowly, they didn’t even make a sound when they hit the table.

The dishes were organized and placed in front of each individual and there was just enough room between their respective mountains of food for a series of drinks to lower themselves. Felix looked at the absurd amount of food and had to readjust his expectations once again. He already knew sentients ate way more but it was still a shock, from what he had grown up with, to see this much for any individual person.

He received a selection of cutlery and thought to wash his hands but saw no one else at the table was and Krinitor even ate with his claws. At first Felix was a little put off but then he realized, there was no amount of dirt or shit on his fingers that could actually cause him to be ill in any way. So long as he couldn’t taste anything or didn’t care, it didn’t actually make a tangible difference. He mentally shrugged, so as not to look weird, and dug into the plate closest to him.

It was some sort of meat dish where he essentially speared the meat that was cooked on the rib cage and pulled it right off. It almost melted off the bone leaving a sharp rib standing off his plate behind it. He took a tentative bite and found it was gamey but the spices that were added balanced everything out a little bit.

He finished the entirety of the plate leaving behind a sharp cage of white bone that almost looked like a flower to him. He continued to cycle through and sample dishes and found that he liked most of them. He didn’t love any of it and found them all lacking in comparison to the feast Aros had prepared for him.

It simply wasn’t as mind blowing as Aros’ feast had been. There weren’t many completely novel flavors and tastes and those that were novel, weren’t delicious. They were new and they were good but they weren’t memorable. The piles of salted and spiced meat, which is what his plates mostly consisted of, were good and satisfying a craving he didn’t realize he had had but they just weren’t the same.

He was actually the first one to finish his twelve plates, each one containing a dinner fit for at least 6 back on earth. He quickly checked in on his stomach and found the last bits of it melting away and turning to energy, leaving nothing behind.

Fralyna immediately noticed him finish and checked in with him to see if he was still hungry. Though Felix didn’t actually ever really feel hungry, he suspected because of his use of mana to regenerate his energy, he said yes. He told her to choose only meat dishes this time since that was what he enjoyed the most and had her get him some new dishes to try.

He wasn’t sure if he should feel guilty that he was ordering again on someone else’s dime but his worries vanished when Krinitor ordered another set of two dozen plates. His orders were staggered by some period of time to give them room at the table to actually eat them.

Fralyna helped Felix at first and showed him what to do with the plates when he was done with them. She picked one of them up and basically tossed it at the window. He was shocked even though as soon as she started moving it, he fully expected a portal to open. Still, the action of her essentially throwing the plate at a window was a bit of a mind bender for Felix.

He disposed of the rest of his plates and waited for his next order to arrive while the others finished eating and Edemari and Fralyna talked. Felix tried each of the drinks in turn, after smelling them to ensure they weren’t alcoholic. Even if they were, he wasn’t sure alcohol would have any effect on him, but he was inclined to avoid it nonetheless simply because he didn’t like the taste.

He took only the slightest sip of each and paid very careful attention to his body but other than copious amounts of sweetener, the drinks seemed relatively harmless. Felix downed a couple of them and saved the others for after the rest of his food arrived.

Felix graciously noticed that Fralyna and Edemari both avoided asking Felix questions about the integration and intentionally steered the conversation away if Krinitor led them in that direction. He didn’t mind answering questions but he didn’t feel like he trusted Krinitor enough to tell him about his origins just yet.

Felix had shifted his practice over to only include non offensive spells and formed them in the air above him. He stuck mostly to MIhto’s more complicated spells because it was really starting to annoy him that he couldn’t cast more than two at once. Just to be extra safe, he also made sure to point all the spells at the wall.

Everyone ordered a few more rounds of food and finished off their meals then the conversation continued, much to Felix’s dismay. He actually spent a few minutes trying to enter his Soul Garden and meditate with his eyes open but he found the sensory stimulation of the room around him was too much to do so.

Luckily, the conversation didn’t last too long after the last dishes were returned. The only other thing Felix was curious about, even though he wasn’t the one paying for it, was the bill. Unfortunately it arrived via System screen so he didn’t get a chance to peek at it. He figured he could ride the wave of innocence and his integrated status to get away with just asking, “How much does a meal like this cost? This seemed like a lot of food.”

Fralyna chuckled a little, “20,000 D.”

Felix thought about it for a moment. That was a fraction of his currently available funds. It was also many orders of magnitude less than he would be paid just for shadowing Fralyna, let alone the adventuring mission he had taken.

Felix frowned, “That’s it?”

Edemari laughed out loud and Fralyna just shook her head, “People gotta eat. Can’t be too expensive if it doesn’t offer any buffs.”

Felix shrugged, “Fair enough I guess.”

They all stood and exited the room.

As they walked down the hall back to the front door, Fralyna looked over her shoulder at Felix, “You sure you don’t want to come dancing with us? We can show you all the nightlife in the city. We’re gonna go to our favorite spot that always has a live band…”

Felix fought the disgust that tried to make itself known on his face and just smiled, “No thank you.”

Fralyna fake pouted, “Alright. Can you find your own way back?”

Felix nodded and bid them farewell as they descended the elevator with Krinitor who also wasn’t dancing but… Felix wasn’t really paying attention to where he was going. He got a little turned around and it took him a minute to find the normal door but once he did, he immediately shot off towards the library.

He kept his offensive spells out of his rotation as he flew to avoid scaring the other flyers as he flew by.

Felix flight to the library was much slower than it would have been in a boat like Edemari’s but still, it didn’t take him more than an hour. He quickly found the information he was looking for, Eramith’s tuition. Apparently the tuition scaled based on the student’s grade. Each term would cost 500k credits of the grade higher than the student. For him, that was 500k C grade credits. He wanted to make sure he had enough without the scholarship because he didn’t know what percent it would cover but he was satisfied that he would have more than enough on his own.

After that, he flew back over to Inscripticae and walked into the empty workshop. He chose a random desk then immediately started assembling the Mage Armor spell he had been working on. There were about a hundred plates that didn’t quite interlock but overlapped each-other. He had started with less but he also wanted to ensure that the armor didn’t hinder his movement much in case he had to wear it around.

With such a high number of overlapping plates came a whole lot of nodes and fitting them all together, it was impossible for Felix to cast. It was far and away the most complicated spell he had ever even attempted to cast. Even the most complicated spells Mihto had shown him were significantly easier to wrap his mind around. This was all before he had started balancing the mana channeling to each of the plates with channels and limiters.

In Felix’s opinion, the spell was a mess. He had no idea how to make it not a mess though other than splitting it up into chunks so, he did exactly that, inscribing each one onto a series of metal plates that he pulled out of his soul space. He was starting to run low on random materials but not low enough that he had to immediately replenish, low enough that he had to make a mental note though.

He strapped the plates to his biceps, chest, back, thighs, calves and core then manually cast the helmet. Pumping mana into each of them in turn, they seemed to work. He then pumped mana into them one by one and immediately had a problem where the sections would push against each-other. He spent a few hours tuning everything before he tried walking in it.

After that he spent a few more hours tuning it while he walked around before he managed to actually run in it. He continued tinkering until he could acrobatically jump around, not quite unhindered, but free enough that he was satisfied for the time being. Once he made all the pieces fit together, the only issue he had left was that the spells themselves were super finicky.

He was using empty molds for the time being which he knew exacerbated the issue. He was having trouble holding them all steady with just his mana control but was hoping that once he actually made a final product, the spells would be more stable. As it was, they had a tendency to flicker out either entirely or partially. The mana in the spell form itself also leaked out and sometimes it kind of burst outwards instead of following the designated pathways.

This was the first time he had ever really encountered this issue but this was also a combination of the most complicated spell forms he had ever worked with. He thought about manographing the spells into his Kraken leather robes but those were cloth. Given how finicky they were now, he was worried they might not function properly when they were folded or distorted from him running and vaulting around.

He hadn’t had issues with that in the past, but he was worried it was a possibility. He decided he should probably just ask Aldahn because it was something he should know for the future.

Felix walked over to the door to Aldahn’s office, the one facing the workshop, and knocked. He waited a few moments, far longer than he ever had to, and almost knocked again when he heard two voices, both of which he recognized, coming from the office.

Felix cocked a brow and walked around the offices and into the lobby which was empty. He looked down the hall and noticed one of the meeting room doors was swung open just wide enough for a person to enter, which was not normal, so he walked over and peered inside. He almost immediately recognized the room as the one with the sword they had just enchanted so he expected to catch a glimpse of Fralyna’s client.

Instead, Felix saw the back of a small halfling man that wore dark leather armor, a man he recognized and knew for a fact, was not the client. Felix walked over into the room and walked up next to Elric who was bent over the table inspecting the sword. He was courteous and didn’t touch it but his nose did get close.

Felix walked over and grabbed the handle of the sword, lifting it into the air. Elric backed up with his superior reflexes and smiled at Felix. He opened his mouth to say something but before he could, Felix lazily swung the sword around in the air. Elric hopped a few steps back and frowned then Felix activated the main enchantment on the sword and joined Elric near the door.

Elric watched in awe as the sword perfectly replicated Felix’s swings then just floated in place, as if it was affixed to or held by an invisible statue. Felix smirked at Elric’s reaction then walked over and replaced the blade on it’s stand.

He turned back to Elric and immediately saw the door swing all the way open, Aldahn and Thezan standing in the hall. Aldahn nodded to Felix and Thezan addressed him, “Hey Felix.”

Elric walked out and into the lobby followed by Felix who addressed Thezan as they walked, “Hello. What are you guys doing here?”

Thezan smiled and gestured towards Aldahn with his head, “Had some business to take care of.”

Felix nodded, “Did you get your armor fixed?”

Thezan rolled his eyes, “Sort of.”

They arrived in the lobby where Elric hopped up to sit on the counter while Aldahn stood in the hall and Thezan leaned against the wall. Felix took a seat and Thezan continued, “I went back to my enchanter with your… suggestions. Plus, it was broken so I needed him to fix it. He took a look at your suggestions and basically ran me through all the problems they had and why they weren’t actually better. Stuff like: it’s naïve, you didn’t consider the aetheric turmoil it would cause,”

Felix’s head shot to Aldahn who just shrugged in response.

Thezan continued, “The connections you used were actually a double edged sword and in this case, you were ignoring their drawbacks. He concluded by saying it made sense you were a novice enchanter but that you were a smart kid on the right track.”

Felix’s frown only deepened the more Thezan talked, despite the back handed compliments. He made sure to make mental notes of all the things Thezan’s enchanter had mentioned so he could ask Aldahn about them afterwards.

Felix nodded slowly to feign like he understood, “So… why are you here then? If I’m clearly such a novice enchanter, why even tell me at all? Surely you could find someone more capable to finish the contract with?”

Thezan smirked, “Well… I like you, so do the others” Thezan said as he looked at Elric who nodded and smiled, “plus… do you remember that skill I said I’d tell you about one day?”

“The one that let you… read me or something like that?”

Thezan half nodded, “Sort of, but yes that one. Today is not the day I explain it to you in full but one part of it is knowing when someone is lying or nervous. Well, my enchanter was lying his ass off. Made everything up.”

Aldahn tried to hide a giggle as Felix sighed in relief.

Thezan smiled, “Anyways, needless to say I’m never going back there again. Then I thought… I need a new enchanter… who do I know that works at an enchanting shop. Anyways, you aren’t quite there yet where you can be my go to enchanter.” Thezan gestured with his hand towards Aldahn, “Your boss on the other hand… I’m not sure I’m good enough to be his client.”

Aldahn shook his head and rolled his eyes.

Felix smiled, “He’s the best enchanter I know.”

Thezan nodded, “Probably the best one I’ve met. I’m glad all this ended up happening. I may have wasted some creds but,” Thezan looked towards Aldahn, “I think it was definitely worth it in the long run. Anyone who can’t admit when they’re wrong, when they were bested or when someone else improved upon their work, is not someone I ever want to work with or employ. Disgusting trait.” Thezan’s face contorted involuntarily.

Aldahn and Elric both nodded along.

Thezan fixed his face back into a smile and continued, “You know what one of the first things Aldahn here said when we started talking?”

Felix just waited for the answer.

“That you could be a better enchanter than him in a few epochs. Possibly less.”

Felix recoiled a little in disagreement then looked at Aldahn who shrugged, “It’s possible.”

Felix looked to Aldahn and changed the subject, “Did you take a look at the armor?”

Aldahn half nodded, “Briefly.”

Felix nodded and asked the question that had been burning at him since he first examined it, “What the hell is up with his enchanter?”

Aldahn laughed out loud then controlled himself enough to answer, “My guess is that they learned to enchant by slapping different enchantments they’d found together. Unfortunately, they aren’t creative enough or experienced enough to… well, do it properly.”

Felix cocked his head and worded his next question to be as inoffensive as possible, “So Thezan was just unlucky then?”

Before Aldahn could answer, Elric chimed in, “Or is he just an idiot?”

Thezan snorted then Aldahn lowered and shook his head like he was disappointed, “No. Unfortunately it’s more common than you’d think. Not just in enchanting, though it’s especially bad in enchanting. People who pick up professions or jobs and don’t spend the time to learn them. Sometimes they just aren’t fit for the job other times they just don’t care enough. Either way, they need money and System skills can usually fill the gaps. The skills at least make it difficult to tell the difference if you aren’t an expert.”

Felix frowned a little as he thought through the implications of that fact.

So I need to be careful that if I pay someone for something, they actually know what they’re doing and they aren’t faking it with skills.

Guess so. Only if it really matters though.

Right. That kind of…

Sucks?

Yeah.

Felix looked back up to Thezan, “So you came here to upgrade your enchanter. Did you get a meeting with the broker?”

Thezan nodded, “I met with Dogran. He’s contacting the client now but he did pay us for the first… part? of the job.”

As Thezan finished his sentence, a transaction screen appeared before Felix offering him 200k B grade credits. He balked at the amount briefly before accepting the transaction and watching his available funds effectively multiply themselves by 200 billion.

Felix looked at Thezan incredulously, “I thought that was for the whole job?”

Thezan smirked, “Me too. Definitely not complaining though. He already paid for all our expenses too, no questions asked.”

Felix looked towards Aldahn, “Does this seem at all odd to you?”

Aldahn cocked his head a little, “A little but not… worryingly so. It’s probably a god or demigod that just wants things handled quickly and efficiently. As for why they chose a much lower grade team than their budget would allow… some people, gods, factions influential people, pay attention to what higher grade teams are hired for. They may not be able to find out who they were hired by, but it’s not overly difficult to tail them and find out what they were hired to do.”

The logic seemed sound to Felix so he nodded along.

Thezan shrugged, “Works out great for us.”

Felix shrugged, “Yeah, guess so… Any idea how long until the next… phase? of the contract?”

Thezan nodded, “It’ll be at least a term. Even if Dogran got back to us today, we can’t go see… there’s a waitlist, kind of. I’ll explain more then.” Thezan was obviously trying to keep the details a secret from Aldahn.

Aldahn nodded, “Ravens?” Then he looked at Felix, “You can’t see them unless there’s an auction or you get a meeting.”

Thezan looked at Aldahn a little surprised for a second then sighed dejectedly, clearly having failed, “Yeah.”

Elric just chuckled.

Felix shrugged to try and indicate it wasn’t him that told Aldahn, “Alright thanks. I guess I’ll see you then?”

Thezan nodded, “That’s all my business here.” Then he looked at Elric.

Elric hopped off the desk and looked up to Felix, “I finished up a full batch of all my poisons. want to give em a taste?” Elric offered a wide toothy smile.

Felix nodded enthusiastically, “Yes please.”

Aldahn cocked a brow and Thezan just shook his head as he left.

Felix looked over to Aldahn, “Can I borrow a meeting room?”

Aldahn shook his head, “Yes but you better do this in the workshop.”

Felix shrugged and led Elric into the shop then chose an empty desk and borrowed it’s stool.

Elric pulled another stool over and pulled a vial out of his soul space, “I watered down and lessened all the poisons so they aren’t very strong at all. They all still have the same effects though so you’ll still be able to build resistance to them.”

Elric was clearly a little scared now that he knew Felix had such a meager health pool. Felix just shrugged, “Alright.” Then, he took the vial and downed it.

He was vaguely aware of Aldahn standing across the shop behind him but he ignored him for now. Felix entered a meditation and immediately cycled through all the defenses he had prepared but hadn’t actually spread through his body yet. He manually modified his cells and experimented with various solutions.

Felix continued to down vials of various colors, smells, consistencies and tastes then describe in as much detail as he could, what it was doing, or trying to do, to his body. Elric copied everything he said down into a notebook without even looking at what he was writing and Felix found he didn’t need to focus nearly as much as he had thought.

Felix called out to Aldahn, who he could still sense standing behind him, “Enchanting cloth. Anything I need to watch out for? Be wary of?”

Aldahn knew he was talking to him based on his volume, which was wholly unnecessary but got the point across, “Just need to make sure it doesn’t actually fold over such that the enchantment makes contact with itself. As long as it doesn’t touch itself, you’ll be fine. Mostly people use mana conductive thread then embroider that using a mana insulating thread. You can also manograph but that’s not… durable, or reliable. Well, not for anything remotely complicated.”

Felix nodded, “Thanks.”

He continued downing each and every poison Elric had brought him and ultimately further solidified his previous ideas. He hadn’t actually come up with anything new but he wasn’t sure if he needed to. His existing solutions were working against each every one of them so he didn’t have any need to come up with anything new.

The only thing that he learned was that infusing his cells with mana of different attunements did hold some value, though not much. The fact that it did anything though caused Felix’s mind to wander as he thought though the implications and what he could possibly do with that information in the future.

No matter what he tried though, Felix couldn’t quite seem to digest the poisons into anything more than energy. He wasn’t disheartened though because he still wanted to do some more research into alchemy in general. The best idea he had come up with was to store some of the poisons once they were inert to his body and use them to fight other poisons. It wasn’t his favorite idea ever, but it was the most promising thing he had come up with.

It took them the entire day and half of the night for Felix to finally get through all of Elric’s poisons. Aldahn had disappeared at some point and a few of the other enchanters in the shop had stopped to watch for a few minutes as they passed by.

Elric thanked Felix a number of times and told him he would return with new concoctions at some point in the future. Felix was definitely not opposed to testing new poisons for him in the future, it was a win win for him and Elric.

Elric left the shop after hitting on Fralyna a bit then Felix got back to working on his Mage Armor spell. He tuned the spell a little more then finalized the discs with inlay material. For his first iteration, he was pretty happy with it. Once he had used an inlay, it was much less finicky and far more stable. It also didn’t eat away at his concentration and focus, which was a huge benefit for actually using it in combat.

After that, he started updating his most common spells. Using his new skill, Identify Arcane Component, Felix sifted through the nodes he knew from the books in Inscripticae, from the dungeons in the integration tutorial, the ones he had stolen from Luther’s shop and a few from the library.

Grim had sorted through all of the information from the library and unfortunately, not many spells or spell nodes existed. There were some, almost a hundred in fact, but they were very basic, inefficient and actually worse than the ones he was already using. The enchantment nodes were the same, the ones in the library paled in comparison to the ones used at Inscripticae.

Analyzing and comparing all the nodes he knew, the efficiency curves were the most important information Felix got out of his skill. They essentially plotted the efficiency of a spell node based on it’s input mana. Some nodes were very efficient at low mana inputs, some were very efficient at high mana inputs. Some nodes scaled exponentially, others scaled logarithmically towards their peak efficiency.

The nodes he had found in the tutorial, the ones he had been using all this time, were very efficient when only supplied with a small amount of mana. Universally, they started to… suck when he upcast them with more mana. Not only that, but he had stability curves as well that told him the chance of a node failing or leaking mana. For the most part, he didn’t have to worry about it but for some nodes, when they were orders of magnitude outside their standard operating inputs, they had high failure rates.

Thinking back to the first Devoured he fought in the World Event, where he had essentially had his Lightning Bolt explode and fill his arm with mana, Felix now knew why. Looking at the stability curve, the node had such a high failure rate with that much mana as input that it was almost guaranteed to leak. He made a mental note to look into using hostile mana offensively, the same way it had attacked him.

The efficiency curves also explained to him why his Lightning Bolt Spell had been so effective compared to everything else. His Electricity node was far more efficient at higher mana inputs than any of the other nodes he had.

Looking at the stability curves for his nodes, he realized why the Gust spell he had cast with liquid mana was so violent, other than the fact that he had essentially upcast it by a few hundred times. The wind node he had been using had a nearly 100% failure rate at the levels of mana he had been pushing into it at the time.

This also told him what a failure might look like. He was careful about generalizing that result though because he didn’t want to be wrong and accidentally have a node failure explode instead of being a unidirectional but relatively safe mess.

Though most of the enchantment nodes listed out in Inscripticae were tuned to be more efficient with less mana, their standard operating range was still far higher than his old nodes. They were tuned for enchantments not spells but, enchantments here used more mana than most spells in the integration, especially the tutorial.

The nodes had values for leakage, feedback and interference but Felix didn’t bother paying attention to them at the moment. All the information was recorded in his head just in case but for the moment, he just chose spells that were most efficient at 1% of his total mana and who’s efficiency scaled well if he were to upcast them. He figured with his manual mana regeneration along with his batteries, 1% was a good number.

He ended up using a lot of the spell nodes he had essentially stolen from Luther the giant toad when he had tested the spell tablets, at least whenever they were applicable.

Felix also spent some time briefly exerting his understanding of mana, spells and spell nodes using his identification skill. He pushed mana through them and identified their attunements manually then used various nodes and spells to identify it himself. None of it was better than his skill was, but it did showcase his understanding of how the skill worked, which was his intention.

Ding You have become more proficient with the Profession skill: [Arcane] Identify Arcane Component (Novice I => Initiate IV)

Though it did nothing for him now, it made him feel good and was also great set up for the future if he wanted to eventually evolve or combine the skill.

Felix didn’t have anywhere to test the spells at the moment that didn’t involve opening a portal so he instead moved on to the next thing on his list.

He was planning on heading to some planet so he could kill some monsters and gain some levels but far more importantly, so he could examine creatures with mana channels. He already had Grim sorting through planets and bestiaries then once he had a list, he would go to the Adventurer’s Guild to see if they had any open jobs on those planets for him. That way he could do multiple things at once.

Now that he had the first iteration of his Mage Armor spell in order and his combat spells upgraded, pending testing, he only had one more thing on his list of things to do. On his way out he searched the meeting rooms and found Krinitor, “That outfit you designed me, it’ll last me well into the C grade, right?”

It took Krinitor a second to process, “Yes. It would be… not the best you could get in the C grade, but close to it.”

Felix nodded, “I have 200,000 B on me now with another 200,000 coming a few months from now. Is that enough?”

Krinitor nodded, “More than.”

Felix nodded, “Alright, would you be willing to make it for me?”

Krinitor’s face lit up, “I would be honored.”

Felix smiled, “I look forward to wearing it. Combat focused, remember. Oh also, no materials that will fail if I try to use them in the D grade. You know what I mean?”

Krinitor nodded aggressively, “Of course.”

Though it would cost him a lot of money, Felix figured upgrading his armor to something in the C grade as soon as possible would be hugely beneficial to keeping himself alive. He had already confirmed that so long as it didn’t involve any System Fuckery in the materials or enchantments, the armor would work perfectly.

He also didn’t have a ton of things he wanted to spend money on. He thought about upgrading his batteries but for now, he didn’t feel the need. While he could have picked up an absolutely massive battery with his new fortune, Felix was more inclined to make the batteries himself. He didn’t find himself running out of mana just about ever so he pushed that off for now. Also the only battery he would have bothered with would have cost him nearly his entire fortune, that he was quickly starting to realize wasn’t as much as it had seemed.

The highest quality items for the C grade were already approaching A grade credits which was ridiculous to Felix. Given how many people, materials and items existed in the multiverse, he could understand why, it just seemed absurd to him. He had also confirmed that it was not worth buying common B grade armor because it would actually likely be worse than Epic or Legendary C grade armor.

It might be more durable and have more protection, but only negligibly so and the effects of the C grade armor would likely far out weight it’s downsides. The very best items of each grade were far out of reach for most people within that grade given their prices. Only people who were ridiculously rich for their grade or who had benefactors or parents with higher grades would be able to buy them. Luckily, Felix was ridiculously rich for his grade, at least at the moment and he fully intended on making use of that fact to accelerate himself as much as possible.

He flew out to the Valtrusiar school and found Mihto inside with another student, the first time Felix had ever seen anyone else in the shop. Felix nodded to him and headed into the office room where he scoured for any other books that might be hiding in there. Mihto had already given him full permission to use the office and books last time so Felix was just making sure.

He didn’t actually find anything he hadn’t already scanned so he headed back out and paid Mihto for a few hours of tutelage. Felix planned on getting through as much training as he felt he needed before he headed out on a solo mission.

Mihto actually split the course into two and had them run separate courses side by side. At first Felix was worried he was being scammed by having someone else there but he found making the course thinner had almost no effect on his training.

Mihto was excellent at watching and paying attention to both of them even though they were clearly at far different levels. Felix was still adjusting his body without any augments and the other student was working on how best to incorporate their spells.

Felix also made sure to block out all of the advice Mihto gave them because it was tailored to someone with a limited spell list and he would get advice of his own once he was there.

To make the most of his time and money, Felix ran the course until Mihto had given him a handful of adjustments then he meditated and entered his Soul Garden. There, he ran his own rendition of Mihto’s course until he felt the adjustments solidify. After that, he would return to Mihto and repeat.

It was the most focused and dedicated to the training Felix had ever been because he had a specific goal in mind and was willing to sit there until it was achieved. His progress in this time was evident and surprisingly to Felix, not surprising to Mihto. He actually seemed to expect the progress whenever Felix meditated and popped out with days worth of training.

Felix suspected he didn’t know exactly what Felix was doing but rather that he had some experience with similar techniques. He didn’t say anything specific but he started mentioning Felix adjusting his mind and resetting his instincts in his meditation. In actuality Felix was doing none of that, though he realized the wisdom in it. Instead he was just smacking his head against it, training for days on end, until he got it.

He didn’t have time to develop a new technique to realign his instincts though, at least he didn’t feel like he had time. His excitement for, potentially, finally figuring out mana channels caused him to speed through the training while trying desperately not to rush it.

The other student left after a couple hours and a new one, more novice than Felix, trained for a couple hours some time later as well. Felix only had any idea of how long he had been training because he had to pay by the hour.

By the time Mihto told him they would start using spells, Felix felt satisfied and ended his training there. He wanted to just keep going and add spells to his movements but he knew that was going to be a super complicated process so instead, he bid Mihto farewell.

He already felt like he was so much more efficient and aware of his body and how to move. Even without the spells, when Felix turned back on his energy cycling and Reaper’s Movement, though he wasn’t sure how much the latter was helping, he felt like he had super powers.

It was more than just the difference in stats and energy fueling his muscles too. Comparing himself and how he moved now to before, he could feel his muscles being activated more intently and directly. He thought back to how he had been before and was disgusted with himself at how much energy he had been wasting by engaging the wrong muscles and turning his joints in slightly the wrong way.

He also never would have guessed how much of a difference it made. It felt like a new body to him where his best guess before would have been that it would make a minor difference at best. That level of difference exhilarated him, especially when he thought forwards to how spells would amplify it even further.

For now though, he was kind of sick of waiting and that feeling had been warring with his desire to keep training for the last few hours. As soon as he saw a natural breakpoint, his excitement for mana channels won out.

Felix headed to the Adventurer’s Guild while practicing spells above his head. He focused entirely on defensive skills because he didn’t want to trigger anyone’s danger senses as he flew. He did plan on practicing his offensive spells once he found a job. He would either do it on the planet itself or just before leaving.

As he flew and practiced his spells, Grim gave him the rundown on the list he had assembled of the most promising beasts and planets.

There were a lot of promising options, more than Felix had expected. There were planets with an abundance of a specific creatures and others with a wide ecosystem holding a few weird mana creatures. Some of the creatures were just odd, a lot of them were plants, but in general Felix was pretty happy with his options.

They were also looking for creatures that were particularly strong so Felix could take a peek at their muscle structures. Grim had wisely pointed out though, that there were a number of mana channel creatures that seemed to use mana to enhance their muscles. Felix was happy with anything at this point and if it turned out that wasn’t enough, he would find a different planet with more mundane muscles and creatures.

He arrived at the Adventurer’s Guild, walked in a few dozen meters then promptly turned himself around and joined the ever-present crowd milling about the open boards around the front door. He looked towards them but saw that they were completely blank. He was about to ask the desk but after a few seconds of looking at it, a System Screen appeared in front of him.

The screen held a list of open job postings with the ability to filter and search through them. Felix ignored the screen for just a second so he could satisfy his curiosity. He looked away from the boards and the screen disappeared without being dismissed. He looked back towards them and, after a familiar few seconds, the screen reappeared.

Felix thought it was weird that it wasn’t based on intent, considering it was already using The System for the screens.

He looked through the open jobs screen and filtered it down to jobs on the list of planets he was interested in. That did use intent to a certain degree, all he had to do was think of the planet names and they would be selected, so it was very easy to use.

Felix scrolled through a number of jobs that were either too specific, too boring or just weird. He didn’t want to escort anyone or retrieve some inconsequential item. No guarding quests or quests where he had to hunt down specific people, he didn’t want to have to deal with anything that had even a remote chance of biting him in the ass later on or turning political.

He ended up settling on a job that sounded boring at first, but caught his attention because it was completely open such that any number of adventurer’s could apply. The job was essentially to go to this planet and retrieve as many corpses as possible. It mentioned some kind of competition and the range on levels was completely open but the pay was targeted at low to mid D grade.

The biggest reason Felix chose this job in specific, was that the planet it was located on was super interesting to him. If he hadn’t found a job on that planet, he was seriously considering visiting it anyways.

The fauna local to this planet, for whatever reason, had evolved in such a way that just about everything used mana in some way. Not all of them had cores or channels, but many did. Felix was certain they wouldn’t all be useful as some of them seemed to use the mana from their cores and channels for weird purposes like digestion. There was one animal in specific Grim had found that used mana to cook food once it was inside of it’s belly.

A lot of the flora used mana in some ways but nothing significant as far as Grim had found. There were some alchemical ingredients that were Uncommon at best but nothing particularly valuable.

Ideally, Felix would find enough creatures he could use to model his future Mana Channels off of that he wouldn’t need to visit anywhere else. A quest that involved killing massive swaths of enemies for rewards also perfectly aligned with that goal.

He did not sign himself up as a participant just yet but saw that he had a half day or so until the event itself. That was more than enough time for him to prepare in Telviras so he headed to the only place he knew with a room he could test spells in.

He arrived at Luther’s after almost a half hour of flying later and found the shop completely empty, save for Luther.

Luther spotted him right as he walked in, “Ah, the newcomer. Shade’s baby. What can I do for you?”

Felix ignored the condescending nickname entirely, “Any chance I could rent your testing room to test out spells of my own?”

Luther blinked his massive toad eyes a couple times then croaked before responding, “I don’t see why not. The room is free to use if you buy anything though so why not just pick something?”

Felix shrugged and grabbed, not quite the cheapest thing he could find, but something that was pretty close to it. He picked out a small orb that supposedly changed colors based on the weather. He picked it specifically so he could feed it to Nova and it only cost him a few thousand E grade credits.

Luther let him into the testing room and Felix proceeded to blast every wall in the room with a huge series of spells. He masked the diversity of his non existent spell list by pulling out various inert spell tablets every time he cast something and pretended to tinker with them in between.

He had some small adjustments to make, specifically to the channels and shaping nodes. The targeting nodes seemed to scale well with slightly more variance than before but nothing that was currently concerning him. The shaping nodes seemed to be overwhelmed so he swapped those out, something he had initially skipped because he didn’t think it would be necessary.

The channels largely needed to be redesigned as the new ones he used were much less simple and balanced the mana while distributing it. They could also handle far more mana than the old ones so his spells were less prone to fall apart.

He also tested something he had thought of when Aldahn had explained cloth enchanting to him. He had no need for it at the moment and he couldn’t see himself using it for a long time, but Felix took a relatively simple spell form and contorted it in the air. He was trying to test the viability of three dimensional spell forms.

At some point he could see himself creating spells complex enough that three dimensions actually made them either possible or just easier. For now and for a long time, he knew he would never really need to use this knowledge. It worked perfectly, as Aldahn had said it would, so Felix filed the information away in case he needed it at some point.

With all of his spells readjusted, except his mobility spells because he decided those were sufficient for now, Felix actually did fiddle with spell tablets. He had new mobility spells memorized, he just didn’t plan on using them and did not reinscribe his boots just yet.

On the spell tablets, Felix inscribed all his new spells then tucked the tablets away for now. He planned on giving them to Nova but he didn’t want to open his Pocket Home here.

Felix flew over to Inscripticae and walked over to an empty desk. He pulled out a metal disc and carefully inscribed the portal spell form using Telviras’ anchor from the back of his registration. Using his new Quill Precision skill, the process was far faster than it normally would have been for Felix. He didn’t have to move his hand nearly as slowly and could instead move at a normal pace with enough precision that he didn’t make any significant mistakes.

Felix then filled the inscribed spell with inlay material from his soul space using the vat on rails above him. Once it was filled, he fused it to the disc using the least aggressive chemical mix they had in the shop and thankfully, it didn’t destroy his low grade metal disc.

With that complete, he cleaned up after himself then ducked into the storage room and opened his Pocket Home. He found Nova napping on the Demitium chunk that now looked like someone had repeatedly smacked it with a red hot steel rod from every different direction.

Nova was napping right on the middle of it and Felix nudged them through his bond to wake up. He would have felt a little bad were it not for the fact that Nova was never actually napping, they were just focused internally on digestion.

As soon as they woke, they hopped up and down around Felix clearly displaying their excitement to see him. Felix fed them the spell tablets and they were more than smart enough to know what to do with them at this point. He did not need to explain them at all like he had the first time he had given them inscribed spells.

He also fed them the orb he had bought which they ate but were less excited about. Felix had them choose an alternate form and had to insist multiple times that they could definitely not turn into a dragon.

They settled on a Dire Wolf like form as tall as Felix’s nose that he had never seen before. Nova seemed to be mostly made of a light grey stone covered in dark grey fur. The fur looked somewhat shiny and upon closer inspection, Felix wasn’t sure if he should be calling it fur at all. It seemed to be made of a dark metal, though not one he could identify.

Felix approved of the form and quickly switched his body over to that of his Persona then they walked out of the Pocket Home together into the now very cramped storage room.

He pulled out the portal spell form disc he had created and filled it with mana, much to Nova’s interest. He held them away from it until the portal was complete then walked through, followed by Nova. He reached back and grabbed the disc from the other side and the portal simply closed when it passed through.

He found himself in a familiar room and was shortly joined by a woman with a clipboard. Felix feigned ignorance and pretended to be new to the city. He quickly rushed through the registration process but had to retry the flying test three times because he wasn’t used to the much larger and heavier body. He had to give his name and ended up just blurting out the first thing that came to mind, Arthur.

He was also happily surprised to find his voice was much deeper in his Persona, largely due to his making this body bigger than his own. He also purposefully changed his own pronunciations and intonations slightly to try and craft a different voice from his own.

He ended up getting a registration for Nova too, something he didn’t think was possible but was happy to get anyways. Nova also got a flying license and just barely got permission for the green flyways after Felix explained that they had to avoid the obstacles, not chew or jump on them.

Felix flew off back to the Adventurer’s guild with Nova in tow and registered himself quickly then signed up for the job as his Persona.

He flew off to the teleportation hub and gave them the anchor provided by the Adventurer’s Guild contract. They opened up a portal for him and he followed Nova as they stepped through. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .