Saintess Summons Skeletons

♢ [Dreams Of a Demon which Gods Envy - March of the Envoy] ♢ :

Experience gains +10%, Thinking speed +100%, Reading speed +1000%

Alternate between the states of Order and Chaos:

While immobile, walking or moving slowly, enter the Order state.

(Order - March of the Envoy)

Attacks curve around you.

Aura, Charisma, and Processing +100%

Gain the ability to walk on matter in liquid and gaseous forms.

Else, enter the Chaos state.

(Chaos - Dreams Of a Demon which Gods Envy)

Strength, Agility, and Speed +100%

Reaction speed +200%

Maximum running and flying speed +2000%

Sofia worriedly glanced down, a sigh of relief escaped her lips.

Everything looks the same.

“I really don’t know what I would have done if they had doubled in size.”

I’m in Order state now. The enhanced perception is due to the Processing I think. Even with doubled Aura I still don’t get what it does at all. I don’t really see what the Charisma does either.

“Care to help me test this thing Pareth? Just throw me a pillow or something. I don’t know what counts as an attack.”

There was a second of delay, but Pareth grabbed the pillow she was handing him, took a few steps back and threw it at her face with mild force. When the pillow was about thirty centimeters away from her, its form blurred and curved. The square pillow stretched and warped around an invisible sphere originating from Sofia’s position before shooting out on the other side and hitting the window behind the bed.

Space magic of some sort?

Sofia threw another pillow at Pareth, he understood her intentions and swung the pillow at her. Instead of hitting her shoulder, it curved and swerved around her, and once again came out on the other side. As if Pareth had swung right through her.

“What if you stop midway?”

Despite Pareth’s best effort, he couldn’t stop in the middle. The pillow would go all the way to the other side of the invisible sphere, even if he let it go mid swing.

There must be limits. What about explosions? Or Phillip’s light breath, would it curve that out? Seems unlikely. Still, nice.

Testing things in order, she then took out a mirror and observed herself.

“Oh okay. Woah. Charisma does make a big difference. My hair is so shiny! Hmm. My eyes didn’t look like that before either. And I’ve been quite pale due to VPPV but it’s like that never happened… So I lose this if I move too fast?”

Sofia ran around her room to try switching to Chaos state. All it took was a light jog and she felt a surge of power, her senses focused and narrowed, something switched inside of her. The way mana spread through her body completely changed from a smooth curvy flow to pulsating jagged angles. She stopped, and the process reversed, she felt her muscles weaken and her mind expand.

It’s not quite instant, the switch takes about half a second to a second. Doing start-stops in battle to deviate attacks last second won’t really work I guess. Two thousand percent speed though. It’s as if [Sprint] leveled up to 100 and had its effectiveness doubled, not only that, it now also applies to flight. [Way of the Fool] and [Fast reading] also got an instant upgrade to level 100 by the looks of it. The conditional experience bonus was replaced by a flat ten percent… And not falling is what became walking on everything?

How, though?

Unsure of what she expected, Sofia raised a foot and tried to step on nothing. It worked, she stepped on thin air, as if supported by an invisible hard surface. Surprised by the invisible step, she lost her balance and fell back. Pareth was there to catch her.

“Thanks.”

Of course I can fall again now, lost the original [Way of the Fool] effect. That sucks.

Unless… If I can walk on nothing…

Sofia climbed on her bed, jumped lightly and let herself fall forward onto the cushions. She focused on wanting not to fall and her plunge stopped. Her body was suspended in the air, supported by soft nothing.

Nevermind, that’s great!

“Can I float around like this?”

Despite doing her best to imagine the result she wanted, Sofia didn’t move at all.

So it’s not quite floating like Valeure, I’m really just creating false ‘stuff’ to stand or just lie on. Not too bad. Do I even need that bed anymore? I can just sleep anywhere now.

Sofia rolled around on her soft invisible bed of nothing. Focusing on wanting to fall then changing her mind, she managed to lower herself a few centimeters at a time. Down is easy, up not so much. I need to really stand up and take a few steps up. This is really ridiculous.

Dropping down to the ground, she tried to form an invisible step right above it. Like this she walked around her room in circles without touching the ground once for half an hour, fascinated by her new largely useless but very fun ability.

“It’s a pity I can’t run while I do this. That would be so much more fun… This was well worth the pain. It looks like I lost two classless slots but this is four skills in one, so I’m actually up a slot too. Maybe it’s time I learn that pearl-making classless? Thinking speed is really incredibly valuable.”

[Crystalized] ♢:

Your body will slowly produce mana pearls (Growth speed linked to mana regeneration), which can be used as ritual fuel or eaten to provide a temporary 100% bonus to thinking speed.

Sofia pouted as she re-read the skill’s description. Or maybe not…

Don’t they have a library here? If I could find more information on this, and know for sure where the pearls grow… I also need to understand what Aura is all about. Let’s put that upgraded reading speed to good use.

Like this Sofia decided to quickly bathe before going out in search of the academy’s library. Soaking in the hot water, she remembered the headmaster’s words of advice.

“Dusting my ID…”

Grabbing her storage ring from the bone stool near the tub, she took out her mithril ID and looked at it from up-close. Seeing nothing wrong, she looked for anomalies in the mana around it, but again she felt nothing out of the ordinary.

Looks perfectly normal. It’s not actually dirty either, what did he mean exactly?

Furrowing her brows, Sofia put the mithril card down on a small bone plate, and sprinkled some bone dust on it.

“I don’t get it…”

Infusing it with mana held no more result and neither did trying an advanced [Identify]ing.

Seriously, there shouldn’t be anything wrong with it, Leverle even looked at it and saw nothing special. Maybe the headmaster meant something among the stuff written on there is ‘dirty’, which is why this guy attacked me?

Because I’m not a high noble? A lot of the other teachers aren’t either…

No wait… The Mithril ID cards… Approved by the Empress…

There is no way the Empress of this huge empire wouldn’t know of the name Aphenoreth. Yet she approved this card right away. Then…

There was this random Exidian woman sitting behind Tartaros during the duel… Is it possible that the Empress herself instigated this whole thing just to sound me out?

I need to learn more about the Empress and how she looks.

I have like forty hours left until the scheduled first event of the competition tomorrow night, right?

The library.

Asking around in the corridors, Sofia quickly found the library tower, and learned that as a teacher, she had access to all the books in the first six out of seven floors for free.

I should have come here earlier.

Sofia could read fast enough that she had no need to borrow books, she could go through the thickest of them in half an hour at most, looking like a madwoman as she seemingly turned the pages one by one without stopping to read them. She paid no mind to the astonished looks from the passing students, a lot of them were directed at Pareth anyway, who, to Sofia’s surprise, had also picked up a book. I didn’t know you were interested in paintings. Too bad you weren’t here for the first trial. Aurelia was really talented.

The first really interesting book Sofia found was in the teachers’ section, titled ‘Secrets of the System - flirting with censorship’ by B. Deathmarch. It appeared a majority of the books here were written by the Academy staff themselves. This book introduced some of the hidden features of the system like the murder list, the ‘last bed compass’ or the ‘spellcasting log’, as well as some sparse details about trials, and a very short page about ‘sub-stats’.

‘

Stamina sub stats (worth 1/3 Stamina each)

Strength : Muscular power and endurance, extremely light effect on actual appearance, best stat-to-available-power conversion, especially at low levels.

Agility : Nerves speed and coordination, grants greater and more precise control over your body in general.

Speed : Temporary explosive power of the muscles, better tendons, upgraded flexibility, allows the body to better resist violent shocks and strains. Seems to reduce environmental friction in some capacity.

—

Mana sub stats (no bonus stat)

Charisma : Ability of the body to reroute mana pathways and alter its genetic material to perform better in most natural functions (slightly) and look more alike to the person’s idealized vision of themselves. This seems to be the main cause of aging slowdown as one levels up. Universally causes fertility degeneration.

Processing : Additional mana-powered brain tissue and capacity, helps with thinking speed, multitasking, mana control, pattern recognition, and memory, also seems to affect personal scribes. Hardest stat to raise naturally, high-priority.

Aura : Capacity to subconsciously gather and make use of surrounding external mana. Needs to reach an extremely high breaking-point to become even slightly useful. Best left to Dragons.

—

Luck : Little data. Seems to mostly influence system-given data and rewards.

The existence of an unspoken ‘Perception’ substat has been theorized, unproven as of yet.’