LIGHTNOVELONLINE Chapter 7 - So About That To-Do List...
Malwine fumed. She almost wished [Write Anywhere] could go wrong or otherwise fail more overtly, instead of just not working. At least then she'd have some data to go off on. As it stood, she was starting to run out of ideas.
Fiddling with her panels, she ended up back on her attributes. Right, 3000 more to spend. To spend on them doing absolutely nothing, but still. She dumped the unassigned points evenly, taking them all to 1370—or 13, in unfortunate reality. They'd slipped her mind after her latest level-ups.
(❗) For pushing all your attributes past where your first 10 free points could get you, you may now increase your attributes through merit!
What? But I was already past 10—past 11?—before? Oh, hell.
It was almost difficult to care enough to look into the implications. 'Through merit' was vague enough to sound like headache material if she speculated too much. This had to be beneficial, sure, but there was an emerging pattern by now. She seemed to accomplish more accidentally than when actually trying, and it frustrated her to no end. Some things would happen naturally, like panels opening when she wanted them to. The other Skills she'd used so far were the same. Sure, she'd had to think a bit before she figured [Cool Head on Your Shoulders] and [Once and Forever] out, but once she actually knew how to use a Skill, it just worked!
So why was [Write Anywhere] different? Of course part of it had to be that it used mana, but why was the mana requirement affecting the Skill functionality itself?
Before closing the panel, Malwine gave her attributes one last glance. The sight of 31 [Toll] was managing to irritate her more than the attribute values themselves ever could. Lower attributes somewhat held less weight to her, especially now that she knew it was [Toll] that had something to do with mana.
Mana, which she still couldn't figure out how to use. If [Toll] was something to be accrued by Skills like [Write Anywhere] that explicitly required her to have a Mana Source, the answer had to lay there. She had to use {Legacy} for something that would lead her [Toll]'s current value to increase, which would in turn allow her to use the [Write Anywhere] Skill.
Malwine tried to focus on the actions she found herself wanting to take when the Skill failed to activate. The instincts were there—had been since she got the Skill. Imagining 'hello, world' written on the nearest bar of the crib, on the worst penmanship she could envision, was enough to get the Skill loaded, but it would collapse there. She could feel a part of herself grasping, as if scrapping an empty pot, and nothing would happen.
She was seething, more from her earlier considerations on failure than even the issues with this Skill by themselves. Though she understood she was human and fallible, and part of that included not just not getting things right but flailing wildly in confusion, a part of her still hated how inadequate it made her feel, no matter the circumstances. Said part of her was apparently irrational enough for [Cool Head on Your Shoulders] to clamp down on it. Things like these were bound to happen when she had no actual idea what she was doing.
Gritting her teeth as best as she could at her current size, Malwine refocused.
{Legacy} had to somehow provide her with mana, but it hadn't. That had to be the missing step.
What was she to do? She doubted another attempt at meditation would go well. But if she recalled correctly, cultivation was about drawing energy into yourself. Could that be it? Not merely trying to clear her mind but trying to drag mana into herself—{Legacy} mana. It would line up with what she knew of how this world worked so far, with the existence of some form of cultivation, and the mana requirements.
Hm. Other things 'just work'. Perhaps she just had to try directly as opposed to through [Write Anywhere]. She tried just… willing the energy around her to come to her to see if anything would happen. When in doubt, brute force was always a good opener for new ventures.
What she had not expected was to immediately feel something, faint and brief, as if she had just jumped into a pool and somehow tried to drink the entire thing though her skin. Her entire being flinched, a pointed unease slamming against her, not unlike the pure idea of rejection filling her senses.
Right. Of course that worked. Or failed, I guess. But that's good.
That likely meant drawing energy into herself was possible, she'd just gone about it the wrong way. Malwine slapped her forehead. Of course, she had to draw it from {Legacy}. Unlike with that ill-advised attempt at just pulling power wantonly, this might actually work. But where was {Legacy}, as a Mana Source? Not where it was in the panel, but as something to tap into. If the concept alone was supposed to give her mana, she hadn't had any success so far.
Yet there clearly was mana around her. Just not the right kind. Malwine couldn't identify what surrounded her, and she didn't get any system offers for a Skill for that as she'd kind of hoped she would. But if just concepts could be Mana Sources—she couldn't think of any other description that would encompass both {Foresight} and {Legacy}—then her required type had to come into being somehow.
Half hoping she was right, half afraid it couldn't be that simple, Malwine closed her eyes and tried to dwell upon legacies. To an excessively minute degree. Concepts are open to interpretation...They existed in the crux between objective and subjective. Sure, legacy carried certain implications for Malwine, not only of the names and deeds of those gone from the world, but as a measure of what even oneself would leave behind someday.
Malwine herself was now gone from the world she was born to, but her things were still there. She was fairly certain she'd willed them to Yoyo, and if he didn't want them, he had access to something she'd compiled about libraries for such purposes. Places where her books, documents, even her own writings would be appreciated, perhaps even help somebody else with their own work now that she no longer could. The past version of Malwine might have shot through life like she'd live forever, but she hadn't been deluded enough to have never considered the alternative.
[Write Anything] didn't need to be related to {Legacy} at all, but there was a convenient parallel to be exploited there. Wherever her great-grandmother was, she too must have left something behind. Whether it would be waiting for Malwine out there or was lost forever, wasn't currently relevant. If focusing on the concept the Mana Source represented was the key, then she could simply accept that she'd have to leave her mark as she had back there.
[Toll] 0 → 1
A momentary thrill coursed through her, and she visualized the first—if shallow—words she could think of.
MALWINE WAS HERE ♡
The letters burned into the wood, small enough to hopefully never be found, and the sensation faded as soon as it was done.
Your [Write Anywhere] Skill has improved! 0 → 1
+5 to all
It worked. Also, that's quite rude… Not wrong, though.
The sight of that net 0.05 gain to some attributes was still somewhat of a sour note, even if free attribute points were something she could welcome. So 'through merit' counts just doing things.
She supposed she couldn't quite complain about being called ignorant when, strictly speaking, she was.
For once, Malwine hadn't run into a frustrating wall with her attempts. It was almost suspicious, but again, she guessed she might just be trying to look for reasons to worry. The Skill leveling was the best of news in any case.
Now [Blank Panel] was usable to her. Unlike [Write Anywhere] itself, the panel didn't seem to cost anything to create or maintain. It just sort of showed up and that was it.
It took some effort to channel mana again, but it seemed her actions didn't even have to be related to what she was thinking of to get {Legacy} mana. So long as the mana was there, the Skill would activate, though Malwine found she had to move immediately, or what she had channeled would dissipate. [Toll] went up whenever she succeeded, but it wasn't a mana pool. Maybe it tracks the mana I channel?
Malwine was too elated by the advent of her to-do list to experiment with anything else, though she did take the time to do some organizing rather than submit to the urge to just write everything in a stream-of-thought sort of way… mostly.
Hm, immediate things. Short term, long term. Something else. What's between short term and mid—Okay, I walked into that one.
As of right now, she still had 4 hours left before she presumably had to start worrying about things like food and sleep. She would spend the rest of that time testing things. Maybe now that she understood how to get mana running, she could cultivate? It was worth a shot. If nothing else, she might get more free attributes.
In the short term, she wanted to know where her mother was. Though she'd settle for any reasonable caretaker, really. Being stuck on a crib with nothing external happening was getting old.
Mid-term, there were things she wanted to learn. She was still curious about what the 'inherent' things on her status represented, as well as however Aspects were supposed to be developed for her Skills. She wanted to put 'figure cursebreaking out' there, but combating a Mythic curse sounded like it would take more effort than she could manage anytime soon, especially while young. She might have to leave it for when she was older, or at least until she could ask for help—for all she knew, it might be unwise to reveal she was cursed, so she had to take her time there.
But it would remain a priority.
As for the long term, Malwine still wanted those other Skills her great-grandmother had, and included them as such on her list—'Self Defense, Mental Defense, Enhanced Memory, and Meditation'—to remember them down the line.
Last of all were things she knew had to get done, but wouldn't fit any timetable. The first was 'Fight Dad', of course, though she also included an incredibly important task under that extra 'Someday' section.
'Find out: What the hell does Normal rarity mean?'
[Toll] 1 → 3
Your Control of {Legacy} has improved! 0 → 1
There was still space on the panel, with how small she'd made the text, but she couldn't immediately think of anything else.
Now that she had—and was glad for—finally having this list to lessen the chances of something of relevance slipping her mind, Malwine started to live in fear of what she might have forgotten to note prior to gaining access to this list.
It passed as soon as she steered her thoughts towards the improvement to her Control. She didn't know how Acclimation or Control would affect her going forward, only that they likely had something to do with her Mana Sources. They had to be separate from her attributes for a reason.
Speaking of her attributes, this venture had also brought her the knowledge that Perception, Adaptability, and Circulation were the
If it was three per category, then Strength, Endurance, and Stamina would obviously be the ones, leaving Charisma, Luck, and Presence to be under
She ate the [Toll] cost just to stick 'Attribute training!!!' to her list, nevermind that she'd initially intended for cultivation to be the center of her next attempts.
[Toll] 3 → 4
Realistically, the attributes were out, as were the
Something told her Circulation would probably be the easiest for her to train, but with each use of [Write Anywhere] accruing 1 [Toll] so far, it would be risky to intentionally push it at this stage, especially since she still didn't know how long it took for accrued [Toll] to decay.
Oh, Malwine had an inkling there was one she could push easily. Perhaps even safely. Okay, debatably 'safely'. She hadn't been able to just increase attributes the first time she'd seen a certain panel, and if the gains were related to the weight of what she did, it was bound to be juicy. Endurance and Resilience had their vague similarities, but their separation made Malwine somewhat certain the latter had to be under
[Lament of a Salvation Denied]
Cast by F̵̋̽͜l̴̠̰͑̌ō̸̫̗̹͔̿ş̵̗̬̬̌̆͛̑b̵̪̩̫̽̒̕l̴͍̻̿͊̆ò̴̼̣̈̀͌m̶̧̰͙̭̌ḙ̷̓̍ of the Court of U̴̘̻͖̗͂͂n̴̙̐̎̏̏f̸̘̈̉́̏ȁ̶͎͚̲̠͐t̴̝̀͂ẖ̵̻̍̀̅ȏ̵̯́̈́̀m̶̨͔̱̍͊ā̸͎́b̷̧̥̠̖̒́̃͋ļ̴̥͕̣̌̈e̵͙͙̻̒̎͘͜ ̶̦͙̓͑F̸̨͙̳̱͌̚û̶͍͎͇͊̉t̸̳̣͕̾͝u̸̪͔̗͎̾͛r̵̦̹͋̆̊͘é̵̬̙̀s̴͍̦̃̿́͗
MAY YOU AND YOURS NEVER AGAIN KNOW A HAVEN, USURPER BERYL RĪSANIN. MAY YOUR FLOWERS NEVER BLOOM, AND MAY YOUR LAST DAY COME TOO SOON.
Malwine couldn't help but cry out. Still, she didn't make the effort to close the panel, tried to suppress the panic that told her close it, close it, close it. Her gaze bore into the unreadable text. Again, her treasured
Except [Unpacifiable] started positively wailing, the whiplash of it cutting off her plans as she all but slammed the panel shut.
[Integrity] 977 → 513
+250 Resilience for looking a Courtly curse head on
Holy shit so much [Integrity] lost… Malwine wasn't sure what [Integrity] did, but her heart was still pounding from the utter terror [Unpacifiable] had been putting off, that [Integrity] was being torn to shreds quickly enough for it to be a threat, and that it wouldn't have lasted much longer. She almost didn't want to celebrate the gains after that scare.
It definitely paid off, though, she noted. Malwine would even dare say the achievement-like notification gave her a hint about the curse, regardless of how she couldn't quite make sense of it. She'd joked at first about the curse not feeling like it came from a court of law, but courtly, that sounded like some sort of royal court. Something formal, but in a different way.
Perhaps her next panel after [Write Anywhere] leveled should be her notes on the curse, few as they were as of yet. No amount of staring had clarified any of the eldritch text to her this time around, though Malwine had to confess she hadn't been able to focus on much at all. The headache lingered, but whatever that had been, it wasn't something she'd felt consciously. Her Resilience had clearly reacted to it, but something told her there was some behind-the-scenes stuff going on, maybe to discourage her from looking into it.
…Nowhere does it say these aren't repeatable…!
Oh, she wanted to do it again, headache or not. But she wasn't going to disregard [Unpacifiable]'s warnings. She'd gotten this far and the Skill existed for a reason. She'd be throwing everything down the drain if she got herself killed over some extra attributes.
Still, she pondered the discovery. Something courtly. Don't tell me the fae courts from romance novels have escaped containment, anything but that… It was still too vague for her to reach any conclusions. A person's name, one who belongs or belonged to a specific court? The court of a kingdom?
Not knowing anything about this new world sucked. She couldn't even do some proper wild speculation on what sort of random person she could pin the blame to, let alone stand a chance at actually discovering who was responsible.
Malwine returned to her to-do list. Attribute training had gone… as intended. Trying out cultivation or further pushing her mana channeling both ran into the problem of her limited [Toll]. Granted, she was still at 4 out of 31, and so far the costs had been consistently minimal, but learning how long decay took was still prerequisite to taking any big risks there.
Again discarding and
That really did leave her with just Adaptability, because she didn't see herself as a particularly dexterous infant.
The matter of what {Legacy} meant—to her, at least—had in fact helped her with channeling mana. Whether that was a quirk of cultivation, mana itself, or both, she didn't know, but perhaps the same would be applicable to Adaptability?
System prompts and mana channeling both seemed capable of operating in ways that merely required thought, and said thought didn't have to be formed as actual, mental words. Malwine could only guess there had to be a way to poke at her attributes, if only to learn more. Her focus remained on Adaptability. Could she increase it by dwelling upon it too?
What did it mean to be adaptable? What did it mean to adapt? Change, but prompted by something. It had to be about changing for a reason. Changing, perhaps, for a new situation, or just for something new, in general. She was starting to miss the convenience of dictionaries, and would love to hammer away at one just to stretch out each possible meaning, as much as she could.
Malwine barely knew anything about cultivation. She was incapable of attaining the level of peace required to properly meditate. Neither had been something she'd ever needed to do, with the former just something she'd read about.
Could she choose to say that was just the old Malwine, though? If she tried to convince herself that she could be a different person—grow up to be a different person—than whatever half-broken identity fueled her through her first life and the next? It made her nervous, to consider drawing a line. Yet perhaps she could just be herself, and maybe Malwine Rīsanin could manage things the nameless widow never did.
A new stage.
Would that work? Whether it may be related to Adaptability or not, it was worth at least considering the thought. She could meet a malicious panel head on with Resilience. Could she use Adaptability in a similar way, to push herself in the direction she wanted? Even as low as it was brought, Resilience had still clearly mattered.
It wasn't even just about stealing [Meditation] from Older-Beryl—I mean, drawing inspiration to get [Meditation] in honor of Older-Beryl—it was about learning something she would have previously dismissed as beyond her. Malwine had never been the type to try and force her hand, but never before had she truly had reason to.
With some amusement, Malwine smiled. What a life-changing to-do list. She tried to look… somewhere. Inwards. Cultivation, here I come! Eyes closed, she wondered if she could find that core of hers in the same way she'd been able to vaguely command the incompatible mana she hadn't even actually felt directly. Perception, maybe?
If that was the case, her Perception certainly wasn't high enough that she'd say she noticed anything, or perhaps there wasn't anything noticeable enough. She was still at an early stage, if Early Esse's naming was literal—and given the system's track record so far, that was likely.
It seemed almost difficult to draw wrong conclusions, though she knew there had to be a massive amount of nuance she was missing on account of, well, just winging it.
Her frustrations from each time something hadn't worked out were contaminating the good parts. She found it harder to be glad for what she had achieved.
She didn't think she'd done well so far, if anything it felt like things should be going worse. She couldn't reconcile that fear with reality. Even with magic being a factor, things worked out better than they should, yet she still felt a degree of hollowness, like all success was tainted by the fact that she truly had no idea how she'd achieved anything. She'd garner at least half of her discoveries so far had been entirely accidental, and she wasn't sure if, say, Luck could bear any responsibility. Something told her it in fact did not.
Too unpredictable.
But that was just life, wasn't it? She couldn't always know what to do. She wouldn't always know what to do. If anything, the opposite was likelier. She should be glad for what she managed… and accept what she could not.
It only struck her now that it didn't have to mean giving up. Yes, she was terrible at staying idle. Yes, she struggled with clearing her mind. It didn't mean she could never do those things. Not there yet… No, she couldn't… wouldn't go as far as to say she had to alter her very nature. Change wasn't about destroying oneself, adapting was about better meeting the next challenge. She didn't have to damage anything in order to do that.
Just change.
Accepting she couldn't do something didn't mean giving up on it, no. It was about accepting that she could fail. That she wouldn't always succeed. She'd grown so used to being at the top of her chosen fields that having to learn anew was harrowing.
It… The system rewarded her with a +5 for what it deemed she had achieved in ignorance, but +250 for trying to stay focused on the curse's panel.
It had given her Skills and even whatever the estimated Lifetime Skill Levels were supposed to be. It had compensated her for how she existed outside it, and likely gave her too much. From her limited experience, the entire thing seems inclined to err on the side of leniency…
Malwine was all but demanding perfection of herself, in some ways, yet the system itself, the way this world worked, clearly didn't ask anywhere near as much.
It doesn't matter if the attempt at growth is perfect or if it even achieves anything… so long as it's an honest one…
+15 Adaptability for proving your willingness to reconsider your approach
You have unlocked and slotted [Meditation]
It's about pondering, not finding new and exciting ways to fall asleep. Dwell upon a something to slowly lower accrued [Toll] and increase the current value of [Integrity], as well as maybe learn something. Effectiveness of restoration varies depending on your ability to remain focused on the subject of your meditation. Choosing scalable values as subject carries a small chance of increasing them.
Trait: None
Aspect: None
Malwine's lips parted in an approximation of a grin as she opened her eyes. Huh, is that one of the things that wouldn't work if I slow [Integrity]'s decay with [Implacable]? Guess we'll see.
But finally… cultivation time!