CH.518 Alice’s Birthday
Yes. It is my fusion girl's birthday, and that means I’m spending the full day exclusively with her.
I made her breakfast in bed, naturally, and from there, it was whatever Alice wanted to do.
She didn’t ask for too much, just a casual monster hunting trip with me. Which I had no reason to refuse, so I asked Unika to check the guild communicator for any interesting news. They might know if there is a high ranked monster we could take care of.
While we waited for that information, Alice and I got down from HomeBase and headed for Alewatch. It was just a short trip, so we flew with our skills.
Luckily for us, the townspeople didn’t know about the special day, so we were allowed to pass with minimal remarks.
The visit to Alice’s home, well her old home, was as nice as always. I generally visit once a week, on Sunday, just to have some tea and chat with Christina about things going on with TinaWood.
Her parents naturally congratulated Alice, before asking if they should give their gift to her now or later.
“Are you coming for the birthday lunch?” Alice asked her parents.
“Are we invited?” Christina responded, trying to sound smug.
“Well, now you aren’t.” Alice joked, before answering honestly. “Of course you are. We’ll have someone pick you up.”
We spent a bit more time just chatting, but then I got a call from Unika and she told us about a small pack of B-rank monster we could deal with before lunch, so we had to head out so we would make it on time.
Once we arrived, I got one of the gifts I had for Alice out of Storage. I didn’t plan to give it to her until a bit later, but I think now is fine, considering what we are doing.
“Alice. Before we go, take this.” I told her, as I handed over the new swordstaff.
It was a semi-secret project, which means everyone except Alice knew about it. And as far as a swordstaff goes, it isn’t amazing, I mean it didn’t reach legendary level, but it is still quite nice.
It was made entirely out of star titanium, because we have easy access to it. And it was the first part of my plan on making Alice the ultimate swordstaff.
But that plan is for later, let’s go over this weapon first.
Star Titanium Swordstaff |
Durability 7000/7000 |
Mana 0/5500 |
Penetration 90% - Attacks with this swordstaff ignore 90% of the target's defenses. |
Magic Boost 55% - Power of spells cast using this swordstaff are boosted by 55% |
Stardust Repair - By filling the sword with Stardust, the sword will repair itself. |
Special: Magical Slash - By filling the swordstaff with sufficient attribute mana, a Magical Slash spell matching the attribute may be instantly casted without any chant. |
Description: A swordstaff made of a legendary metal. Extremely well made, but lacks the final push to turn it into a legendary weapon. As the blade is made of Star Titanium, the sword will repair itself if it is filled with Stardust. Because of the spell circle carved into the sword, by supplying sufficient mana, the sword will automatically cast the Magical Slash spell matching the attribute of the mana supplied. |
As I said, it is fairly nice. Should we have spent just a bit more time on it? Maybe, but we didn’t, so this is what we have.
“An early gift!” Alice called out.
“It is already your birthday, so I don't think it can be early.” I told her.
“It is still the first gift I got today, so it counts as early.”
“As long as you are happy.” I told her. “Happy birthday and hope you enjoy the weapon.”
Alice didn’t respond, instead just flying towards the monsters. She quickly took care of the B-ranks with the combination of melee and magic attacks. I then collected them, so we could report that we took care of them.
I took care of that part as quickly as I could, so we could return to HomeBase for lunch.
On HomeBase, our dinner was what Alice wanted to eat, and she asked for some behemoth steaks. So a few days ago, I used HomeBase to spawn a behemoth. We took it down, Cailie purified the miasma off of it so it was safe to eat, and then today we are eating it.
No, we don’t dry age monster meat. It doesn’t make it better. Well, with some low ranking monsters it can, but with anything high ranked, you want to eat it as fresh as possible, because what makes the monster meat delicious is the mana held inside the meat.
High ranked monsters hold more mana per … cubic centimeter of meat. But as the meat ages, the mana leaves the meat, leaving it tasting not nearly as good as it is right off the bat.
I did consider making a dry age cabinet that would be filled to the brim with mana, so that we could ‘mana age’ the meat, hopefully making it even better, but that got pushed to the side.
But I think I’ll make one soon-ish, so we can test it out.
Other than the steaks, we also had some thin cut pieces of meat. As well as plenty of sides, like my new favorite archetype for Mystik Woking, Naturia.
Be it Naturia Pumpkin, Naturia Bamboo Shoot or Naturia Beans, all of them came out amazing after their dip in the Wok.
After lunch, it was time for some gifts. Yes I already gave Alice one gift, but I had another one for her.
But I’ll save that for last. First, what other people made for her.
Unlike me, Alice didn’t receive a big gift for the dhampir students. She did get some hand-made accessories and the like, but nothing worth noting.
From Wilma, other than the weapon she collaborated with me, Stina and Elma on, Wilma also made a new set of armor for Alice, which Alice then proceeded to turn into a magical girl outfit for herself. The one Wilma made this time was specifically designed to defend against magic, reaching a crazy high magic resistance of 99%, thanks to the inclusion of Metallizing Parasite - Lunatite.
Sadly that does mean that the armor came with the Lunatite problem of slowly draining the wearer's HP, but since Alice can quick-swap into it with her skill, it shouldn’t be too bad.
The Card Beasts had a different kind of gift. That of a live monster. Specifically a wild cat. … yeah. It is just an E-rank cat monster. It is larger than your average house cat, but not like a lynx or anything.
But they brought it for a very good reason. That reason being one of Alice’s monsters, Fusionist. Because they wanted Alice to fuse her Fusionist with the wild cat, getting herself a ‘permanent summon’.
Alice did so, gaining a winged cat out of the deal, and apparently she even got the Taming skill, despite never actually taming anything.
Cailie didn’t have quite as much for Alice. She gave Alice a personalized flower planting. Basically a super decorated flower bed. I liked it, and while Alice did seem to appreciate the effort, I’m not sure if it was her favorite gift.
Lua didn’t seem to give Alice anything, just whispered something into her ear, while she might have passed Alice a piece of paper. I was quite interested in what it is, but I won’t snoop, since it clearly isn’t something I need to know. But based on Alice’s blush, I can imagine what was said, and I do get an idea what Lua might have said.
Janina, after having her true body visit to drop off the item, gave Alice a beautiful head veil. It was also enchanted with an invisibility/undetectability spell, so as long as you supplied magic to it, it would make the wearer invisible for anyone who didn’t have a very high level detection skill.
While Alice tested it, I couldn’t see her at all, even with both Mana Vision and Miasma Vision active at the same time. I couldn’t even see any difference in the atmospheric mana and miasma amounts, so it really was a nice item.
Then her parents. Some might say they didn’t have as great of a gift as other people did, but Alice may argue. Because she got a handwritten copy of Alexander Watchman’s diary. Which is an object that is generally only allowed to be read by the head of the Watchman family, which Alice is not, and will likely never be.
But she now owns her own copy, so she can read it whenever she wants.
Last was me.
My gift was an orichalcum tiara, kind of styled after Sailor Moon’s tiara. Can I call it a tiara? I’ll call it a tiara.
That in itself wasn’t special, what made it special was the magic stone I embedded into it. It was an A-rank stone, and unlike every other stone I’ve given out, this one was 100% made by me. No help from any of my monsters, nor from anyone else.
It was my show of dedication to Alice, as well as my true promise to marry her. Yes, it took ages for me to make it, but like I promised her when I gave her the stone I made with Dark Sage, I did give her a stone I made all on my own.
The tiara could also deploy a powerful magic barrier. A more powerful one if you purposefully activated it, but it could do it automatically if it sensed danger. Because having a pretty tiara is nice, but having it actually have a use is a bit nicer.
As the evening came, Alice and I enjoyed ourselves in our bedroom, this time just the two of us. A night with just two of us sharing the bed is rare nowadays, but it does feel good to be able to dedicate myself only to her.