Saintess Summons Skeletons

Chapter 556: Puzzled

‘You have defeated [Unison of the candles - lv. 299]’

Sofia’s hand dug inside of the tall zombie’s entrails, it had collapsed by itself when the last of the candle zombies had died. She soon found what she was searching for.

“Would you look at that, another Heart of Velania mana stone. Who could have guessed? I swear, these better be useful in some way.”

Sofia stored the thing and looked around. Since she had killed all the candle zombies, there was no more light around except for her own candle she had just brought out again. Bookie had been teleported back to his own trial as soon as the fight was over, so Sofia was just there, alone on a pile of charred corpses.

Curious, she checked the logs with Mr.Scribe’s help.

“Nine thousand five hundred fifty eight!” she read out loud. “That’s crazy. What a messy fight. Well, let’s not linger, this place smells horrible. The only question is, where to?”

Sofia’s first instinct was to go check the side entrance the zombies had been all coming from, but to her surprise, they had all collapsed a few meters in. She thought it was too weird to be a coincidence, so it must have been a sign that this was not the way to go. Thus she went the only way she could go, back to the entrance.

“Oh woah. Not what I expected.”

The candle zombies were all gone, it was obvious what had happened to them, but surprisingly the giant statue of Sorrow was also nowhere to be seen, in its place was a wide and steep staircase going down.

Pareth, you hear me? It’s your turn to be summoned next, Cinthia said you’d be best for the next battle so that’s what we’re doing. I don’t know how far it is so I’ll wait for you to be done with your own challenge to proceed. Just stop moving when you’re ready.

Having given Pareth her message, Sofia also thought a few words of encouragement for Bookie, then sat down on the first steps of the stairs, looking through her status sheet to pass time.

Still 21 years old. Still stuck at level 250…

Speaking of 250, shouldn’t most of my skills have leveled up to 250 by now?

I get that they couldn’t get upgraded while I was hiding with the dagger’s title, but why are they still stuck? Just the last battle should have at least got [Spine of the black sun] a few levels, let alone everything else I’ve done since reconnecting.

Sofia felt Mr.Scribe taking control so she waited for his answer.

[My apologies, I should have informed you earlier, this is my doing.]

Sofia nodded with a hmm, this was actually a better situation than she expected. She was fully prepared to learn that she now needed to fully upgrade the skills by herself due to a system error or such thing, so the issue being a deliberate move by Mr.Scribe was a relief in comparison to that. Still, now she needed to know why that was a thing. “You’re preventing the skills from leveling?” she rhetorically asked, “You have a good reason to do that, I assume?”

[Of course. Note: we have received the skill level-up data for multiple level ups, as far as the system is concerned, our skills are leveling as intended.]

“But you’re not letting the upgrade actually happen?”

[Indeed. The technique I am preparing to raise our overall level requires a great deal of calculation on my part to make sure it is perfectly safe and tailored to our current physique. That is what has been keeping me busy.] ?Ä?????

“Oh…” Sofia did not need to be told more to realize what was going on. “The skill level ups would modify our mana circuits too much and break your calculations?”

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[Precisely. I can update the level of all of our skills right now if you wish. It would be a substantial upgrade, with notably False immortality’s fourth level and two skill soft evolutions, but I estimate that it would set back my calculations by at least two months.]

Sofia’s face contorted a bit. “That much?! And if I don’t take them, how long until it’s ready?”

[I am working on the finishing touches, everything should be ready by the time we leave this jungle, and we can go straight to level 299.]

“Oooooh, tough choice… The fourth unlife rune would be huge.”

[I shall leave you with the final choice, if you want to upgrade the skills, just say the word.]

As she read that line, Sofia felt Mr.Scribe relinquishing control to her, but she stopped him. “Wait, wait, don’t leave yet!”

“Can’t you just keep me company while I wait for Pareth?”

[Strange notion, I am technically a part of you. We are always keeping each other’s company.]

“You know what I meant. I have to wonder, now that you can speak, why are you so reluctant to do it?”

[It feels unnatural. I vehemently dislike it. In our singular-person duo, processing thoughts into speech is something you are supposed to do. You trying to take over one of my natural functions would be similarly distressing to you.]

“Like what?” Sofia asked without thinking.

[Breathe.]

Sofia read Mr.Scribe’s one word answer, not really understanding what he meant right away, then she started feeling like she was drowning.

Even though VPPV allowed her to breathe light if she wanted, it was not really automatic. Not more than regular breathing was, at least. Mr.Scribe had simply stopped doing both, to prove his point.

Sofia had to manually breathe some air which took away all her attention despite how simple and mundane the task was, heaving, out of breath in a way she hadn’t been for a long time. After a few seconds, Mr.Scribe returned things to normal.

“Alright. Fair. You have made your point. I’ll try to keep my inquiries at a minimum, then. But at least warn me when you’re making choices like withholding the skill level-ups. I think we’ll stick to your plan for now, but if the last trials prove to be too much, we’ll have to take the two month delay. And thanks for your hard work.”

[I am just happy to do my part.]

With these last words, Mr.Scribe gave Sofia control of her mana back.

“Well… Now what? Doesn’t look like Pareth is done yet. So…”

Sofia looked through her belongings, there were a few things she still needed to deal with, the newly-acquired ‘hastening’ book being the latest addition. What she fished out of the ‘for later’ pile was the jade slip given by Alkorm as thanks for passing him the letter.

It was impervious to any attempt at being Identified and Sofia had no idea what it was for exactly, so it had been sitting in her storage ever since.

It’s a pretty rock, if nothing else. A bit too thick to make for a good bookmark.

Sofia turned the jade rectangle around in her hands, handling it with delicacy between her light demon claws. There weren’t any inscriptions or markings anywhere, the jade was colorful and cleanly polished with slightly rounded angles, its green hues reflected the wavering light of Sofia’s elemental candle.

Gently sending a weak and steady flow of mana inside the stone, Sofia probed the inside of the jade slip.

As expected, there’s more to it than a simple stone. There are a lot of moving parts in there. Tons of carved enchantments too. To do that in a seamless way without breaking the jade…

Sofia picked up her Zangdar ring from the jewelry rack in her storage, the blue crystal ring was of a single piece of midenicite yet there was an enchanted gold layer inside.

I wonder how they do that. Teleporting the inner layer directly inside? But then how did they carve out the inside in the first place?

Keeping her question for later, Sofia started to randomly push and pull at the moving parts inside the jade slip with her mana. Some blocks slid, wheels turned, sometimes Sofia had to turn the jade slip around to make things fall with gravity, every so often she would hear a muted click coming from the inside and everything would fall back into its initial position.

“Failed again… Doesn’t help that I still don’t understand what the objective is.”

Clearly there was a ‘correct’ sequence of movements to avoid the click and reset, and after about twenty minutes of trying again and again, she gave up after another click.

“Did Alkorm just give me some kind of brain-teaser toy?”

Sofia stored the jade slip, it seemed Pareth had stopped moving, so she grabbed the candle and stood up, slowly starting to go down the stairs.

“Hmm… I wonder if this is just a tool to train mana control and perception, maybe? It certainly strains the senses to try to focus on and move all those minuscule parts… Still, such a bizarre gift to give without an explanation.”