Ar'Kendrithyst

Chapter 187, 1/2

Chapter 187, 1/2

The moon slipped below the horizon and the sun rose in its place.

And Erick had not slept. He had mostly accreted, read some, and also got in some minor exercise. Well. ‘Minor’ compared to what some people back home in Spur did, like fighting monsters or racing each other across the desert while dodging monsters. Erick’s current exercise was still a lot compared to what he was used to back on Earth.

Sweat dripped from his brow and all the rest of him as he released the pullup bar and lightly landed on the stone floor, where he immediately dropped down to do fifty push ups. This was the tenth iteration of whatever sort of manic, physical activity he could think to do, and he had thought of a lot.

And none of it was stressing his limits, at all.

There was just something about gaining Strength and Vitality that made him want to move. It was mainly just pushups and squats and pullups and other calisthenics, for now. He kinda missed sparring, but he wasn’t about to do that with any of the people here. The accretion manuals didn’t mention the need for physical activity to ‘acclimate the body to its power’ or anything like that, but they did suggest that with a rise in Vitality, that one would be inclined to use that Vitality. As such, it was better to give in to that urge than to suppress it. Ophiel had supplied the pullup bar with a quick [Conjure Item], too, so there was no need to bother Maid Maria over gaining a pullup bar, either. Conjuring weights and stuff like that was beyond the [Conjure Item] spell, but things like jump ropes and balance beams and such were easy.

His necklaces barely bounced on his chest as Erick launched to his feet, for he had secured them in place with a conjured bandage that held them against his chest. It wasn’t too uncomfortable, and he had even managed to make the conjuring hydrophobic, so it didn’t get sweaty at all.

Fairy Moon’s little pink/green crystal looked quite dinky compared to the cyan-crystal encrusted Focus amulet, but they both did what they had to do, and Erick needed them on his body to benefit from their protection and their power. One protected him from the Sights of others, and the other enabled him to make a lot of gains in the last 24 hours.

Erick made a tight fist with his right hand and watched as his muscles corded underneath his skin. Sweat dripped down his chest and ran down his abs. His shoulders were nice, too. Everything was quite nice. Erick wasn’t sure if accretion or Stats or his Perfected Body pulled the most weight with regard to his physical changes, but there was something about accretion that was just… Nice.

His core was filling out nicely, but he had a while to go to get to Second Foundation, and not a lot of days before he had to make a decision about whether to tell Redflame about [Renew], or to let him find out on his own. Over his little bit of exercise time, though, he had regained over a hundred mana, so he grabbed the counting crystal cube and prepared to witness his gains. With a practiced (enough) touch, Erick threaded a hundred mana into the cube, and it started to flash.

His results appeared as flashing numbers; not an actual Status. They were easy enough to interpret into something understandable, though, even before Erick wrote those numbers down on a sheet of paper in order to track his progress. He glanced to his previous entry, first.

- -

Strength: 17

Vitality: 20

Dexterity: 18

Constitution: 17

Perception: 17

Willpower: 39

Focus: 52

Intelligence: 17

- -

Mana: 390

Mana Regen (Vit+Foc): 720

- -

That was one day ago. Erick calculated the Stats from his amulet (2 Vitality, 12 Willpower, and 25 Focus) and pulled that out of today’s numbers, separating it like the Script did. He smiled at his gains.

- -

Strength: 27

Vitality: 27+2=29

Dexterity: 28

Constitution: 27

Perception: 27

Willpower: 37+12=49

Focus: 38+25=63

Intelligence: 28

- -

Mana: 490

Mana Regen (Vit+Foc): 920

- -

He had gained about 10 stats in every category, which was completely in line with his advanced projections, thanks to his amulet. It was fantastic, allowing him to skip at least four days of accretion. But! It was not good enough. Plus 25 Focus? A smattering of smaller boosts to Willpower and a tiny boost to Vitality? Erick’s rings had granted him +31 to every Stat. It was a good amulet, though, and Erick was thankful for the enchanting books, and the materials, and the amulet itself. But it was time to make something better.

… Erick decided to go take a bath first, though, both because he would not be comfortable enchanting like this, and he needed half an hour to regenerate his mana. He happily plunged into his bathing pool and smiled as Ophiel joined him, playing around in the water like he was a very feathery fish. Yggdrasil’s [Scry] eye even bounced up and down in the minor waves, but his eye was immaterial, so he made no splashes like Ophiel did. He didn’t seem to mind.

Erick got out of the bath after only ten minutes, dried himself off with a quick toweling, and put on some comfortable clothes. Then he went to the enchanting table. He had an idea for something truly special, but that could wait for later. For now, he just wanted to speed up his timetable till Second Foundation, which, according to what he was seeing in his core, and according to his Stats…

He might achieve Second Foundation at 65 in every Stat?

Second Foundation only happened when body saturation and spirit saturation were complete, and currently, his spirit saturation, as measured by the sphericality of his core, was pretty far off. Instead of a sphere, it still resembled a rather fat diamond.

Erick had absolutely no way to judge his body saturation, though. Apparently that topped off faster than spherical-core formation, though, so perhaps he was almost done with his body? Who knew.

He could certainly focus accretion for his core if he wanted, and make this thing go a bit faster, but there was no need to have a lopsided accretion at this juncture, and Erick felt that a good body would do him wonders in the coming… Forever?

Fuck.

He was planning on Forever, wasn’t he? Sheesh.

Eternity.

Damn that was a big word. Hopefully he got to actually experience some of that.

But anyway! Erick solidified his current stance of a balanced approach to accretion. He would get there when he got there, and when he did, his Second Foundation would be solid. And to that end, while Erick wasn’t willing to imbalance his accretion for short term gains, he was willing to ‘cheat’ with enchantments.

Ophiel helped Erick snip off some platinum from the block of the stuff and then shape it into something round and flat. Erick put the proto-amulet in the cradle he had made before, and then he got to work marking it up with chalk. That took another ten minutes. And then he was ready.

Ophiel turned the machine with practiced precision while Erick focused on carving out the inscription; this time in all capital letters, and with some extra words at the end that circled back around to the start. The goal was to have an endless flow. He had also changed the wording around so that it was more balanced when twisted into a ring-shape.

‘FOCUS ON THE FLOW SO IT FILLS YOU FULL SO YOU’

It was a mantra, repeated and circular, and it took 200 mana to inscribe on one side.

Erick then put the amulet in a second cradle that he had already made with Ophiel hours ago; a thing that would hold the amulet on its side, allowing him to inscribe the edge. Ophiel turned that machine this time, too, while Erick deftly carved the same inscription on that edge.

When he was done, Erick inspected his work. It was… decent. The words on the edge lined up with the words on the front surface, and the design had been mutated from a design in Inferno Maw’s books that was an example of a moderately advanced Stat enchantment. Erick expected to achieve about 75% of what the enchantment could actually do, though he would be fine with a 50% success. But! He was currently low on mana again.

So Erick went to the enchanting books for a little while, to read as he waited to regenerate to full.

According to the books, Erick’s newest design should work better than his previous attempt.

… Erick almost added a [Renew] rune to the center of the design, though, which would introduce all sorts of oddities to the amulet’s functions. Potentially fantastic oddities! But still oddities. And really… Now wasn’t the time for such wild experimentation. Erick was on a deadline, of sorts. Redflame was going to try for [Renew] in about five or six days. Erick couldn’t be wasting too much mana on possible wastes of time; not yet, anyway. He didn’t even want to practice with all the esoteric enchanting materials, either, for those too might end up being a waste of time.

… He was just worrying, is all. Erick went back to his amulet and made sure it was properly fitted to the cradle, and that it was flat, and that it was ready for enchanting. It was.

Erick stood before his creation, and centered himself. His mana was nearly full, which meant he had about 480 mana, which was more than enough for an enchant like this. So he stood, and lifted up his left hand to hover above the amulet, while with his right, he grabbed the inscription scalpel—

He stopped himself. The previous amulet still rested on his chest. He had almost forgotten. You weren’t supposed to wear any enchanted objects when you enchanted anything, for they could taint your creation. So Erick took off the crystal-encrusted amulet and Fairy Moon’s amulet (which he didn’t do that first time! Oddly enough. He probably fucked up there, too, somehow) and set them both aside, far away on his bed. As the power of his amulets broke away from his aura Erick felt momentarily weak and exposed, which was likely a combination of both the loss of Stats, and the loss of the obfuscation effect from Fairy Moon’s necklace.

Which was fine, for now. He was in his room, inside Fairy Moon’s manor. No one was spying on him except for known forces.

Erick went back to his workstation. He repositioned himself with one hand over the amulet and the other holding the knife with the blade against the thick part of his other palm.

Light-filled aura expanded from Erick’s skin like a cloying fog, but with swirls of power here and there drifting away like steam flowing in an unseen breeze. With a concentrated thought Erick brought his aura under complete control, forming a solid layer of light around his skin—

Flick went the knife. Ophiel whined, but Erick beamed nothing but calm and certainty, and Ophiel picked up what he was putting down. Ophiel calmed. Yggdrasil’s [Scry] eye just stared at the ceremony of it all, trying to understand exactly what was happening, as for the second time in as many days blood pooled on the thick part of Erick’s palm, and yet did not drip.

White light concentrated into that blood, turning it iridescent white, turning it from something real, into something Real, making it a part of Erick’s enchanting ceremony.

Erick put down the knife. With that now-free hand, he enveloped the amulet in his aura. The amulet began to glitter as Erick primed it even further. And then blood began to drop.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

Drops of white magic fell onto the aura-enveloped amulet, vanishing completely, that power transferring into the letters, filling them up with gentle cyan glows. Erick was still focused on Focus, after all, and cyan was the color of regenerating mana.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

Cyan crystals grew from the inscriptions, filling out the first circle of words with tiny prominences of power, and then flowing into the second circle. A ring of cyan crystals began to rise up from the edges of the crystal.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

Erick was down 300 mana by now; almost a hundred mana more than what he had put into the prototype. This newest version was still sucking in mana and growing crystals, and did not seem to be stopping anytime soon.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

400 mana gone, soaked into the new amulet. Sweat trickled into Erick’s eyes, lightly stinging him, but he focused onto the amulet. The crystal growths had formed something odd. Erick ignored the oddness for now, and poured drop after drop of magic into the—

A drop of magic failed to enter the amulet. It sat on the surface. The whole thing flashed over in a bright, cyan instant. Erick closed off his flow of mana and blood and felt lightheaded, but a quick tap of healing from Ophiel made him feel better. Not fully better, but good enough. He wasn’t actually low on blood, though; he was sitting on an empty mana tank.

With a sigh, Erick sat down, closed his eyes, and Rested for a moment. A minute later he opened his eyes and looked at what he had created.

The overall shape of the amulet was a disk, about 6 centimeters in diameter and a centimeter thick. It was, in actuality, a rather big hunk of platinum. And now it was about doubled in size, due to sharp cyan crystals extending directly out from those edge inscriptions like a blue radiance, with four prominent points equally spaced around the rim. The inscriptions in the center added to that design, radiating outward in a similarly 4-pointed splash.

It was the F in each word that started the splash, Erick saw. He also saw that some of the crystals did not match up exactly with those Fs. In that moment, Erick realized he had likely messed up a bit by not workshopping his design a bit more. If he had had a perfectly balanced inscription, then perhaps he could have kept adding mana to the thing, making it better…

But he was already out of mana, anyway. This was as good as it was going to get, for now.

… And now that Erick looked at his work a bit more, the whole thing reminded him a bit of his Crystal Star, actually, but larger, and very blue. The extra points from all the smaller prominences made him think of a blue sun, though; not a moon at all. That was the oddity that had distracted him earlier. The whole thing looked like a pale reminder of the Crystal Star.

Whatever.

Erick strung a necklace through the back of his new amulet and put it on his chest, directly over his co—

Hot.

And yet cold.

That was what Erick felt as the amulet fully joined with his aura. He let it happen, breathing out the temporary discomfort for the imaginary heat and cold were already abating. Soon, he felt normal.

Ten minutes later he had enough mana to test himself with the counting crystal.

Erick’s eyes went wide as the numbers started blinking. He wrote down his new numbers while saying to Ophiel and Yggdrasil, “That worked out a lot better than expected.”

- -

Strength: 27

Vitality: 27+15=42

Dexterity: 28+4=32

Constitution: 27

Perception: 27

Willpower: 37+19=56

Focus: 38+59=97

Intelligence: 28

- -

Mana: 560

Mana Regen (Vit+Foc): 1390

- -

Ophiel twittered. Yggdrasil moved his eye to inspect the amulet on Erick’s chest. Erick lifted up the amulet a bit so the big guy could get a look, while he said, “I got about 80 points yesterday. Today, I should get 130-ish… Minus the two hours it took to do this and also test myself.”

Yggdrasil looked up at him, almost questioningly; about what, Erick could not say. He missed being able to talk to the big guy, and for some reason, direct telepathy didn’t reach all the way in here.

Erick said, “I’ll see you again in person, soon, Yggdrasil. I’ll be able to answer all your questions then, but until then, stay safe out there, okay?”

Yggdrasil’s eye bounced a little in recognition, and in answer, like he was saying ‘okay’ back.

Erick grabbed Fairy Moon’s necklace and put that one on, too. And when nothing happened between either his new monstrosity of an amulet and Fairy Moon’s tiny pink/green crystal, he smiled; No resonance issues.

It was time for another break.

It was time for breakfast.

His new amulet bounced against his chest as he took the stairs two at a time, and Erick was thankful that his provided shirts were of good quality, for the amulet was very pointy. It was pretty damned fancy, though. Probably too fancy. He’d only be wearing it around the house, he decided, so this much bling was probably fine.

Erick walked into the dining room right as Fairy Moon and Maid Maria walked in from a corridor on the other side. Both of them looked at the new shininess on his chest. Both of them had also seen the old amulet, too, but this new one was much bigger.

Erick began, “Good morning. Time for breakfast?”

Fairy Moon narrowed her eyes at Erick’s amulet, then she looked at him. “Yes. Maid Maria was just on her way up to alert you, but I see that is not necessary. I ask, though… Does this day feel auspicious to anyone else?”

Erick instantly smiled and brightly said, “Nope!” shutting down all other options.

Fairy Moon and Maid Maria looked at him, questioningly.

And then Fairy Moon said, “Very well then.” She said to Maid Maria, “I will be having the sausage, pancakes, eggs, and steak.”

Maid Maria curtsied. She asked, “And for you, Archmage Flatt?”

“White rice and fried chicken and assorted vegetables. I’d call it a stir-fry, but I don’t think you know that phrase.” It wasn’t the ‘breakfast’ option, but Erick had been awake for a while, and he felt like having dinner right now.

Maria curtsied again, then turned around and went to fetch the food.

Erick sat down at his usual spot.

Fairy Moon took her spot, and she began, “Are you sure you don’t want the day to be detailed?”

“I’m not sure your meaning, exactly, but I am at another breakthrough with my accretion, and I do not desire a distraction.”

Fairy Moon narrowed her eyes, then decided she knew better. She plucked a pure white staff-sized bit of wood from the air, and set it on the table between them. Yggdrasil hopped from Erick’s shoulder and alighted on the branch like he knew it, personally. Which he did.

It was a twig from Yggdrasil.

Erick frowned. “Explain?”

“I asked Yggdrasil for a branch and he broke one off and now here it is for your enchanting education.” Fairy Moon said, “Do with it what you will, though I suggest you start experimenting with the manawood I provided for your purposes before you break open this white wood.”

Yggdrasil’s eye spun in recognition. He seemed… Happy? Clearly, yes. He was happy.

So Erick ignored what he was going to say to Fairy Moon, and instead told Yggdrasil, “I will be sure to use it well, Yggdrasil. I appreciate this.”

Yggdrasil bounced up and down again in acknowledgment, and then he nuzzled into Erick's shoulder. He was still immaterial though, so Erick felt nothing except good, distant thoughts of joy.

Maid Maria returned with the food a moment later.

And then she joined them for breakfast, sitting across from Erick, while Fairy Moon sat at the head of the table. Though the conversation that morning was stiff with Maria barely saying anything, Erick couldn’t help but smile a little that she had finally decided to join them for a meal. Like, sure, these people were his kidnappers, but Erick was getting over it. As long as they didn’t do anything else to him, or to his people, this was fine.

Despite how he had arrived in Ar’Cosmos, now that he was here, he was learning a lot, and unlike how the Script could be stripped from him the moment he crossed that final line, making magic himself meant that it could never be taken from him, again.

After breakfast Erick went back to accretion.

12 hours later, Erick had gained around 8 more Points in every Stat, and according to the books, he was either at the very end of his First Foundation, or in the middle. The cutoff point for everyone was different, but the normal cutoff was somewhere between 20 in every Stat, or 50, or 75, according to how much power the body and spirit were accustomed to before one began accretion.

Erick was used to 87 in everything except for Willpower and Focus, which had been at 227. With a core that was still rather like a flat-ish, faceted computer mouse than a true spherical core, Erick suspected that it might be a long while before he achieved spirit saturation.

Another 12 hours after that, the morning sun had risen once again, Erick had gained around 9 points in every Stat, and he once again ate breakfast with Fairy Moon and Maid Maria. Both of them eyed him the whole time, Maid Maria with concern, and Fairy Moon with judgment, because Erick almost nodded off right on top of his omelet. No one actually said anything about his obvious sleep deprivation, though.

And Erick gave no comments, either.

24 hours later Erick had gained around 24 points to every Stat. He was finally starting to feel like his old self again, and not just his old self back before he was kidnapped to Ar’Cosmos; he was starting to feel like his old self back on Earth, where everything was so much easier and all his worries were over silly, small things like filing paperwork.

Accretion had some sort of calming, centering effect. It was more subtle than when he [Renew]ed himself, and it was more encompassing than his old way of cycling; of just stirring the mana inside his core to work out the kinks inside.

He felt…

Better.

- -

Strength: 68

Vitality: 69+15=84

Dexterity: 69+4=73

Constitution: 68

Perception: 68

Willpower: 79+19=98

Focus: 79+59=138

Intelligence: 69

- -

Mana: 980

Mana Regen (Vit+Foc): 2220

- -

He did not share his exact gains over breakfast, but he did not need to.

When Erick tried to put a spoonful of sugar into his tea and ended up putting sugar onto his omelet instead, Fairy Moon had seen all she needed to see. Maid Maria had too, but she just winced, and kept silent.

Fairy Moon frowned at him, saying, “Erick Flatt. You can barely bother to keep your eyes open! I insist you sleep and soon. The world can wait a while—”

And suddenly Erick was wide awake. “You are NOT forcing me to sleep again, Fairy Moon. You hear me! I will sleep when the time is right and right now I have to be ready to either tell Redflame that I already made [Renew] and deal with the shitstorm that follows, or I have to let him find out for himself, and still deal with that shitstorm.” Erick forced himself to calm down, then said, “And so I need to be ready for that. I will sleep later.” He stabbed a fork into his sugar-covered omelet. “Sugar omelet is fine.”

Fairy Moon sat back in her chair, her eyes a little wide and full of surprise. “Fair is fair. Your choices are your choices.”

Maid Maria, though, instantly looked from Fairy Moon to Erick, and then back, worried over something that she was not putting into words. Erick looked to her— And that seemed to be enough to break whatever dam she had built. She said, “You have to tell him. If you don’t tell him then he’s going to waste a fortune in mana—”

“Maria.” Fairy Moon looked to her, then softly said, “This is Erick’s Path.”

Maria went completely silent and proper at the small recrimination.

But Erick wanted to know. “What do you mean, waste it?”

Fairy Moon resumed eating her meal, giving Maria a definite ‘you’re on your own now’ sort of look.

It took Maria a minute to start talking, saying, “Redflame’s mana means… Our… Redflame doesn’t actually need to—” She gathered her wits, and calmly explained, “He could use that mana to assist with the removal of the Curse from a hundred people. Or to expand Ar’Cosmos to house a hundred more people, or to create a new layer of the city, or— The true tale is that Redflame is a good man, who does not deserve to have a fortune in power wasted on something already created. He deserves to know the truth.”

Erick thought for a long moment about his response…

He almost nodded off after taking too long to think.

So he said, “I have heard your complaint. I will think about this and… Likely ask for something in return from you for telling him so he doesn’t waste his mana. Or something. I don’t know.”

Maria sat a bit straighter, and then purposefully calmer. She gave a slow nod.

Fairy Moon looked on from the sidelines, silent.

Erick looked to Fairy Moon, and added, “Or maybe I’ll ask for something from Fairy Moon, instead.”

And now Fairy Moon was invested. She smirked, asking, “What do you desire?”

“… I will get back to you on that later, as well.”

Fairy Moon grinned, and then went back to eating breakfast. Maid Maria and Erick resumed eating, too, and there was no more conversation.

Afterward, Erick accreted once, took off his necklace and took a quick bath, and then hopped into bed. He slept for the first time in days, but he slept perhaps more poorly than he had slept ever since coming to Veird, and experiencing the casual power of Stats. He woke up twice and accreted both times, but only hours had passed between wakings. His third attempt at sleep lasted ten hours, and when he awoke the moon hung outside his room, and his head throbbed with a dull ache.

A midnight journey to the kitchen was just what he needed to set himself right, though.

Erick had three days left till Redflame would use up his ‘fortune in mana’, which, if anything like a war was going to happen between Ar’Cosmos and the rest of the world, perhaps Erick needed to let Redflame waste that mana. But then again…

That would just cause a lot of deaths, wouldn’t it?

Yeah. If people thought Ar’Cosmos was weak, they would attack.

Erick got back to accreting while he thought.

In the morning, he joined Fairy Moon and Maid Maria for breakfast, and laid out his demands, “In exchange for preventing Redflame from spending a fortune in mana to accomplish nothing, I want all untoward influences you have cast upon me, Fairy Moon, to be removed. And I want higher-level enchanting manuals and accretion manuals.”

Fairy Moon spoke seriously, “The first is impossible, for it would require removing the past and we are not doing this, ever. But! Take pleasure in knowing that nothing untoward is on you, save for the restriction against returning to your Other Self. Of that, know this: I required you to rise to the peak of your power before you birth the solution to Sundering, and neither I, nor you, will imperil those plans. If you demand I decide to forgo this future then you are not as benevolent as you would believe, and mayhaps we may need to rethink this entire revolution.” And then she turned dismissive, saying, “But the books are an acceptable request for the paltry pleasantry of saving Redflame some minor misfortune.”

Erick frowned, but all of that had been expected. So he asked the question that he truly wanted answered, “If Redflame knew of my nature, would he try to bend me to his own goals?”

“I would put up a resistance to such requests and Redflame might honor my asking. It might not matter, though.” Fairy Moon said, “If House Carnage captures you then run to Redflame. Don’t let Bright Smile snag you.”

Maria shuddered at the name ‘Bright Smile’. Bright Smile was the current head of House Carnage, and she was the only one Erick had not met yet. There seemed to be something between Maria and Bright Smile, specifically, but Erick barely knew anything about any of the people around him. He did not know nearly enough about Maria to know what her problem was.

And so, because Erick had to know, he asked, “What is wrong with Bright Smile?”

Fairy Moon said nothing. She just went right back to eating breakfast. After a moment of continued silence, it became clear that Fairy Moon wouldn’t speak about other people when those people were not around.

So Maid Maria answered, “Some dragons take to Carnage really well. Bright Smile is one of those. If you fell to her hands, she would enact a world war with your power. She’s tried to do similar things with other Wizards but none of them had had… They all died before her desired spells could be cast.”

Ahh.

So.

Bright Smile was the real threat of Ar’Cosmos, then? Seemed plausible. On the surface, anyway. Erick didn’t know nearly enough about this place, at all.

Erick glanced to Fairy Moon.

Fairy Moon set down her fork, and just stared at her food. The food was unimportant. It was just the thing that happened to be in her line of sight as she gazed off into nothing. Erick felt some sort of recognition in her empty gaze, and then it clicked. She didn’t want to participate in the Fate that was forming all around them. She already had a history with Bright Smile, because of course she did; Bright Smile was the head of house Carnage, and she had been for the last century and a half. It would have been impossible for Fairy Moon to not have a history with a person like that.

So while Fairy Moon wasn’t willing to speak now…

Erick recognized what was going on. Talk of war. The threat of a Wizard of great power falling into the hands of House Carnage. It was obvious.

He would need to kill this person he had never met before. He would need to kill Bright Smile. Or else she would capture him and use his power to wage war on the world.

Fuck.

- - - -

After accreting a few times and while in the middle of planning his next enchantment, Erick decided to backtrack on his previous thoughts.

There might not be any reason to kill Bright Smile.

Erick had never heard of her before now, so her exploits were likely not that interesting. Erick did not doubt that Bright Smile was a terror inside Ar’Cosmos, though, for House Carnage worked security inside Ar’Cosmos, therefore the head of House Carnage likely had to be a certain kind of way. She needed to be truly feared enough to make all the dragons of the world scared of her, after all. Even Fairy Moon had warned Erick off of Bright Smile.

But fuck that noise! Like, obviously he would take their advice under advisement, but Erick had Blessed Shades before. How bad could a single dragon be? Erick was trying to make a better world, and there was no ‘better world’ without redemption included. This was just another test of the Worldly Path, and he was going to pass it with flying colors—

Knock knock.

It was midday. Erick set aside his book, went to the door, saw who it was on the other side, and opened it, saying, “Hello, Maid Maria.”

Maria curtsied with one hand, while her other held a box of books by its handle. “Your advanced enchanting books have arrived.” She set the box down in front of Erick. “Unfortunately, your accretion manuals are a more restricted item. Illustrious Moon will arrive tomorrow morning with those, but, if you will pardon the rudeness of this question, Illustrious wishes to know how far you are, and what topics you wish to know, specifically.”

No harm in telling her? Yeah. No harm in telling her.

Erick said, “Stats are around 75 according to the counting crystal. According to my estimates I am 85% of the way to Second Foundation.”

Maria’s eyes briefly widened, and then she controlled herself, curtsied again, and said, “Then I will inform Illustrious of this development, and she will likely wish to speak to you over breakfast. If this is amenable… Do you have any requests for breakfast? Or for dinner tonight?”

She seemed to truly be warming up to him.

Erick smiled softly at that thought, then said, “I like pancakes, bacon, and lots of cactus syrup— Oh. And coffee. Do you guys have coffee here, yet?”

Maria said, “I am sure I will be able to find some by tomorrow morning. As for dinner?”

“Whatever you feel like making will be great, Maria, I am sure. So I’ll take that.” He added, “But potatoes, if you got ‘em.”

Maria seemed to blush a bit as Erick used her name, without her title. She curtsied again, muttered how ‘It will be done’, and then she rushed away, down the stairs and out of sight. Erick ignored whatever that was and had Ophiel grab the box of books and move it into the room.

As Erick pulled out the first book, he felt a minor joy.

Every single book was absolutely packed with dense writing and denser ideas, and even some pesky math, but Erick read through them like he was reading one of Teressa’s adventuring novels. Quick, painless, and a bit of a joy, if Teressa’s facial features were enough to go by. Erick had never actually read any of those books himself, but maybe he should, now that he thought about it. Might learn something fun. Erick smiled as he read. Finally getting his Intelligence back was more of a comfort to him than he realized it would be.

Math still wasn’t fun, though.

… But Erick did sort of like the architectural and engineering aspects of magic item creation, and other things like that. Math was fun for those things, he supposed.

Dinner that night was great.

Fairy Moon seemed to love the small potatoes that Maria had included with the meal, so Maria spoke of how the next dinner would include more potatoes, and more potato-based options. Erick spoke of those options, and then of the history of the potato plant, which was part of the nightshade family, which was actually highly poisonous.

Fairy Moon seemed to get a particular kick out of the idea of generations of farmers cultivating potatoes to make them what they were today.

- - - -

Erick messed up the next tier of his amulet, causing the amulet to grow so fast and deep that it split the platinum in half, breaking the thing wide open and wasting an hour of accretion time. The problem was that he had tried to include the rune for [Renew], and something overloaded. His goal was the creation of an amulet that automatically accreted the wearer’s mana, based on their excess production, but the runic system he had devised was way too complicated, and probably wrong.

He was on the right track, though, but he could not afford to waste more mana or time trying again.

Normal accretion would have to suffice, for now. It should be enough. He felt he was getting close to a breaking point… He almost wasted more mana to use the counting crystal, to check himself, but he did not. He accreted that mana instead.

- - - -

The green-sliver moon gently passed beyond the horizon and the sky began to shift from dark and full of stars, to something less dark, and gently purple. The people in the city beyond Fairy Moon Manor’s walls began to come out of their homes, to go to work, or to go to school in the cases of the young ones. Erick hadn’t really studied all of those happenings, far below his tower, but he had noticed that they were probably real people. Their goings and comings were too varied to mark them as anything but real.

He couldn’t really tell from this distance, of course, and he might not even be able to tell if they were truly real even if he was up close and personal with any of them, for such was the power of Fae Magic. But he had noticed a few of the farmers at the fields down below were occasionally [Grow]ing different foods, and one lady who always wore a great big hat seemed to have a variety of hats that she changed out every day. Today, she was wearing some sort of spiky headdress that was larger than all of the hats her friends wore. Erick suspected she was a hatter with a store nearby, because her and her friends always ate at the same table every morning, gaggling with each other all the while, and always really early, too.

Their laughs did not always reach all the way up to Erick’s tower, but it was a close thing.

Erick came out of his most recent accretion to the sounds of that distant laughter. He blinked a bit, heard the laughter again, and then put all that out of his mind, and went back to accretion—

He stopped as a spike of something… not unpleasant, rippled through his entire body. It was a change. Something had changed.

… Erick suspected he knew what was going on, but he had to be sure. So he let his aura envelop his body with mana, once again pushing out all the ambient mana that happened to get in, and then he let that power fall through his body, into his core. And yup. Something had changed. Erick kept at it, cataloging the change.

As his aura had dripped droplets of white mana through his skin, that power had been soaking into his flesh, his bones, and every part of him, before eventually finding its way to his mana veins, to flow as though it was blood, to his core. But now, that power passed through his flesh and bones, immediately hitting his mana veins. All that power flowed directly to his core.

The thousand-faceted gem that was his core soaked in his mana, the facets moving and multiplying like someone turning up the number of polygons on a computer-generated sphere. The shadowy space around his core where all his veins connected was rapidly though gently filling with the growing gem that contained his soul.

A smile came unbidden to Erick’s face, for he knew what this was.

He had just reached body saturation; half of Second Foundation. The current crop of accretion manuals didn’t talk much about what happened past Second Foundation, but they all spoke of what accomplishing body saturation and spirit saturation felt like. This, then, was body saturation.

Now all of his gains would automatically and directly support the Stats that composed his ‘spirit’; Willpower and Focus, but also a bit of Perception and Intelligence, unless he was mistaken.

30 seconds later Erick bottomed out on mana.

Opening his eyes, Erick gazed at the sky beyond his window. Golds and blues crowded out the night sky, and the sun began to rise. A quick check with the clock told him he had at least two hours before breakfast with Illustrious. That meant around 5000 mana, or 20 more Points of growth in his spirit Stats. That might be enough to reach spirit saturation…

He wasn’t sure, but was going to try anyway.

A little over an hour later, Erick watched his core with his mana sense wide open as his core plumped up and then flexed for the last time. The polygons of the surface vanished as the cut crystal rapidly shifted into a perfect sphere, and a ripple of power flowed across the surface like the chiming of a gong. Erick shuddered as his very soul seemed to pulse and his tenuous grip on his aura suddenly failed. The sphere of white light around him broke apart, scattering his mana and his power into the room like a gust of vanishing fog.

Erick opened his eyes. He saw his core with his mana sense, and it was good.

Time was wasting, though. Illustrious would be here soon. So Erick went to the bathroom to run through his morning routine as fast as he could, though it was more like his ‘evening routine’ or some other timeframe; for his circadian rhythms were completely fucked.

He donned some decent clothes and by that time, he had regained enough mana to use the counting crystal. What he saw surprised even him.

- -

Strength: 86

Vitality: 87+15=102

Dexterity: 87+4=91

Constitution: 86

Perception: 93

Willpower: 104+19=123

Focus: 104+59=163

Intelligence: 94

- -

Mana: 1230

Mana Regen (Vit+Foc): 2650

- -

Second Foundation, for Erick, was quite a bit higher than Illustrious’s estimates of 75 in every Stat. Of course, the counting crystal was for estimation purposes only and it might have been off as much as 15%, but according to Erick’s own experiences, it seemed to be completely correct. Maybe off by a point or two. Whatever.

Erick flexed his shoulders, made a pair of fists, and then did a quick two squats to get the blood flowing. He punched the air and likely threw the punch completely wrong, but that didn’t really matter, either. He took off his amulet for this next part, because he didn’t want those spikes smacking him in the face, and then he leaned down like he was a trained contortionist and put his palms flat on the ground, keeping his legs straight the whole time. With a gentle lift, Erick raised his legs overhead, and walked around on his palms for five steps, before doing a little hand jump, twisting in the air. He almost splattered on the ground, but he caught himself, recovering to stand once again on his feet. It had been awkward and fun, because it was fun to have a nice body. He had missed this, too.

And this time, this power couldn’t be taken from him…

Though he supposed Fairy Moon’s Fairy Edicts, or whatever they were called, were still a threat… And he was rather low on mana compared to his usual numbers… And he had no Health. And his current numbers were with his amulet, which he would not be wearing much in the future—

Okay. So. Don’t get a big head, Erick, just because you cheated your way through to Second Foundation in less than a week.

Erick collected himself and his thoughts, then he spared a glance at the cyan-crystal amulet sitting on his desk along with all the other enchanting doodads and trinkets. That thing could stay here for now. With a final check, Erick mana sensed his core. It hadn’t changed. It sat beside his heart like a baseball-sized pearl, nestled inside the center of a web of shadowy mana channels that had no correlation to any physical structure inside his body. His right lung had been remade to provide space for the core, too, so its growth hadn’t actually moved anything around, at all.

And it just…

Felt good.

He kinda wondered why he felt better with a whole core, though, instead of the smaller thing he had had before. Erick hadn’t expected that particular emotional surprise, but it was welcome nonetheless. It was like he had finally arrived at some important milestone.

And now, it was time to reach for the next milestones and hopefully get home sooner, rather than later.

Erick exited his room. When he was almost all the way down to the ground floor he ran into Maid Maria coming up the other way. She startled.

Erick just smiled, and asked, “Time for breakfast?”

“You are correct, Archmage Flatt.” Maid Maria said, “Illustrious Moon is here, along with the asked-for accretion manuals.”

“Let us not keep them waiting.”

Maria curtsied then turned around, leading the way.