As Alice walked out of the experiment room, she took a moment to purify her mana, and then scanned over her System notifications.

She nodded to herself. 

You have leveled up!

Careful Enchanter : 32 -> 34, Scientist 65 -> 66

With the levels she had gained from the experiments, Alice was only one level away from her next Perk in [Careful Enchanter].

There were no other interesting notifications, so Alice tossed her System notifications to the back of her mind, and a moment later, found Cecilia and asked her to bring the [Enchanter] who had successfully formed a seed over.

About ten minutes later, the man joined Alice.

“Have you made any progress in creating the enchantments we need?” asked Alice, cutting straight to the point.

“We’ve made some decent progress,” said the man. “We have three different ideas for potential enchantments. They all do slightly different things, and so I tried to build them to suit people with different magic seeds, or combinations of magic seeds. And I also tried to model them off of the materials we already know we’ll have available – that is, the tree bark and the more recently discovered spidercrab shells. I think they still need a little more field testing to work out any inefficiencies in their design, and they probably waste a lot of mana, but all of us have used various Perks to at least confirm these enchantments can work. We can always update the blueprints once we have a better idea how everything works together.”

Alice grinned even more broadly.

The [Enchanters] that she and Cecilia had been training had come through. Alice wanted to give Cecilia and her [Enchanters] a huge hug. She had been feeling stretched in ten different ways at once recently, and only after she started delegating some tasks to others had she felt even some of the weight on her shoulders start to alleviate. However, this time, Alice wanted to dance with joy.

Without needing to handle everything herself, a working model of the enchantments she needed to get into mass production had been delivered right to her, and examined using several Perks that she herself didn’t have access to.

The [Enchanter] handed Alice three different stacks of paper, each of which contained a detailed list of Perks that went into each enchantment, what each Perk did, diagrams of how to build the non-Perk components of each enchantment, and a step by step process for how to work around some Perks that might not have easy replacements.

Of course, Alice also noted that the enchantments for fixing class seeds would only work with the [Enchanter] class. Unfortunately, Cecilia’s [Enchanters] hadn’t figured out a way to generalize the class-seed fixing enchantment for all classes. But even so, having a working blueprint for any solution to the current crisis was progress. And Alice knew that the next few steps for resolving the crisis were dependent on [Enchanters], so any way to help the [Enchanters] of Illvaria would be very helpful down the line. Now that Alice had found a solution to the material crisis and a working blueprint was ready, Illvaria just needed way to mass-produce [Enchanters] with the correct magic seeds.

Alice gave the three proposed enchantments closer looks, and saw that the first diagram was an all-in-one enchantment to fix both class seeds and the System messages that got messed up after the System collapsed. It used both display and filtration mana, and also used pure mana to find the System fractal it was supposed to straighten up.

The second proposed enchantment was actually just a ring that contained an enchantment fix one’s System notifications. It seemed to be built to resolve the problem most people had after the System collapsed, of being unable to see what their Perk options did. It used only display mana, and as a result, it was much simpler and easier to produce. It also didn’t have the same class restriction that the first proposed ring did. It was also rather well-optimized to use the tree bark Alice and the others had originally come to Cyra for. It had the least useful effects, since it still left people vulnerable to having their mind and will subverted by their unfiltered class mana. But it was still incredibly useful to let people choose Perks again, and it was also much easier to manufacture than the other two blueprints.

The third and final proposed enchantment only used filtration and pure mana. It was an enchantment that would straighten out the System mana related to the [Enchanter] class, much like the first ring. Unlike the first ring, it wouldn’t let people view their status screen properly afterwards. This didn’t actually reduce the difficulty of producing the enchantment much – but Alice suspected the first ring was more designed to test the limits of her compound mana. The second and third enchantments were much more practical solutions to the current crisis, while the first, all-in-one enchantment was practically tailored to the details about her own magic seeds she had given to the [Enchanters] when discussing how the enchantments should work and what various mana types felt like.

Basically, the first enchantment diagram was an all-in-one solution enchantment that only Alice had a practical reason to make, while the second and third enchantment were real, viable solutions to the crisis.

But Alice also noticed that the first and third enchantments also had a few enchantment components that she had never seen before. Alice had only had time to dip her toes into enchantments in the past, since she had so many other priorities, but she still had passing familiar with a lot of the mana constructs used in enchanting. Now, in the diagrams, she saw several that were blatantly unfamiliar to her. Alice squinted at the unfamiliar enchanting components, frowning.

“What are these?” she asked, pointing them out in the diagram.

“This mana construct is an enchantment instruction that lets an enchantment detect things. It’s usually added via one of a number of Perks that are offered to [Enchanters] who have a pure mana seed. The most common variants of the Perk let you detect when another Mage uses magic of some sort, before activating the other enchantments – basically, it’s a Perk used to created enchanted traps for other Mages. We’re pretty sure we reconfigured it a bit, to make it detect class seeds instead. But some field testing is needed.

“We tried very hard to think of a way to detect these ‘class seeds’ more easily, without relying on reconfiguring the instruction created by a Perk, but we kept running into problems when we were trying to make it all work together. For now, I recommend getting more [Enchanters] who have the correct Perks, and we’ll see if we can create a different version of this enchantment in the future for more mass-production,” said the [Enchanter]. Alice sighed, but nodded.

Unfortunately, Alice did NOT have the Perk the [Enchanter] had mentioned. This made Alice feel quite annoyed, although she supposed she might be able to rush the last level in her enchanting class with a few days of hard work and some luck.

She turned back towards the [Enchanter]. “Do you think it’s likely you can put the second model of enchantment into production on your own?” she asked, glancing back towards the display mana enchantment that used tree bark as its primary material.

“I could, Lady Alice,” said the man. “I can probably make twenty or thirty a day, given adequate materials and a bit of time to familiarize myself with the enchantment.”

Alice nodded. “The tree bark should start coming in soon. The monsters have been slowing down retrieval of the needed materials, but with the help of higher level [Soldiers] and [Guards] harvesting is still happening, last I heard. And the spidercrab shells will also work as a second source of materials for these enchantments. Are you ready to get enchanting once we have the materials?”

“Of course, lady Alice,” said the [Enchanter]. Alice grinned back at him.

They were ready to take another step towards solving the crisis. Finally.

Alice’s grin grew wider.

All that she needed to do now was wait for the materials from Cyra’s [Guards] and [Adventurers] to start rolling in, and then get Cecilia’s Mages to start producing enchantments from those materials. As long as nothing went wrong, after that happened, their time in Cyra would be about done.

Alice had to admit, she was kind of looking forward to returning to Metsel. Seeing Illa and reminiscing about the start of her journey had been interesting, and securing the enchanting materials here had been important. Alice had discovered things that she probably wouldn’t have come into contact with if she had remained in Metsel, kept safe from any real danger by the city walls. But Alice missed the abundance of materials, books, and friends in Metsel. Cecilia was the only ‘friend’ Alice had that had come with her to Cyra, and Alice kind of missed board game night, even if she might not have time to have board game night every week right now.

Alice sighed, thinking about the last little bits of cleanup they had to do in Cyra, and then gave the [Enchanter] another encouraging grin.

The two exchanged a few more pleasantries. Then, she returned to her room and went to sleep.

* * *

The next day, Ethan sent some [Messengers] to get the nearby monster ranches working on producing the new materials. Three of the seven monster ranches located near Cyra were more than happy to swap production, and started ordering the lowest-quality products with perks attached to them that they could get their hands on.

However, four of the monster ranches were completely unable to do so. This wasn’t because the owners were against earning more money, or unwilling to help with the current crisis. Instead, it was because the owners had vanished into thin air, and the monsters they had been raising had escaped. The [Messengers] who had gone to meet with the ranch owners also reported that some outlying farms they had come across were heavily damaged, and a few [Farmers] reported being attacked by large groups of monsters. Alice suspected it was the result of monsters growing considerably stronger and more organized, before eating the less protected [Farmers] who lived further away.

Living away from other people had always been dangerous in this world, but in the past, as long as one had a certain ability to defend  themselves or hide from monsters, it was still possible to live away from the towns and cities of the world. Managing to tough out such conditions was a good way to get levels in some Classes, assuming one could manage it without turning into monster chow. But with the collapse of the System, the sudden empowerment of monsters, and the myriad other problems assailing the world right now, the difficulty of surviving without the protection of trained [Guards] and [Soldiers] had increased considerably. Even the monster ranches that were still operating had requested Ethan’s help in hiring a few reliable [Guards] to keep them safe – and had mentioned that if they didn’t get any help, they would rather abandon their ranches and retreat to a nearby town to wait out the crisis.

Alice also heard another rather odd report from a [Guard], who reported that a few monsters had simply vanished into thin air when he was escorting a few [Adventurers] to harvest tree bark. They hadn’t camouflaged themselves, or fled from the battlefield, or anything like that. It was almost like they had simply teleported away, or disappeared off of the face of the planet.

Alice wasn’t quite sure what to make of that incident, but decided to keep an eye out for monsters that could use dimensional mana. It seemed like the most likely reason for monsters to vanish into thin air, although it was hard to guess whether it was actually some other terrifying symptom of the System’s collapse. The [Guard] didn’t have any sort of mana-sight ability, so he didn’t have much of an idea what had caused the incident, leaving Alice without much data to use.

Apart from that, nothing else of note happened that day. Alice simply got to work trying to create the enchantment models Cecilia’s mages had created for her. She used the spidercrab shells as an enchanting material.

Unfortunately, she spent several hours trying and failing to create the mana-detection instruction that the [Enchanters] had included in their blueprint. Trying to create a mana construct that sensed other mana constructs was very hard, and Alice just couldn’t quite wrap her head around what she needed to do. She could see why most people just relied on a System Perk to create this particular enchanting instruction – trying to create it felt as hard as juggling with one hand, drawing complicated art with another hand, and solving five different math equations at the same time.

Luckily, at the end of the day, Alice’s hard work was rewarded, even if it wasn’t in quite the way Alice had been hoping for.

You have leveled up!

Careful Enchanter : 34 -> 35

Alice had a vague hope that she might figure out how to make the enchantment on her own, instead of needing a Perk to do it. However, the creation of this enchantment was just too dire and important for Alice to waste time. Since the System had offered her a chance to get the Perk she needed, she had immediately checked to see if she had the Perk she needed. Luckily, it was available

Mana Detection: REquire: Enchanter_Careful 35 level, Intelligence 100 or more, var: Magic_seed = Pure, conversion ratio = 30% or higher

Effect: Use Pure Mana to detect things in enchants. Detection costs 1 instruction slot. Use on an enchantment is hard, costs mental energy. Sleep if overuse.

Alice sighed, but had taken the Perk. After all, it wasn’t like she was likely to figure out the incredibly complex and convoluted mana construct on her own without several more days of trial and error, and she only had a few more weeks before people started to lose their mind as a result of mana poisoning, according to her estimations.

Cecilia’s [Enchanter] also took the day to familiarize himself with the tree-bark enchantment, and one of Cecilia’s other Mages successfully formed a filtration mana seed, causing the group to celebrate the second person to successfully form a magic seed.

The day after that, Alice got much further in her enchanting attempts. With the help of her new Perk, She had already understood most of the enchantment – it was just the class seed detection that had been tripping her up. Once she had the Perk in place, she thought it wouldn’t be too hard to proceed – only to run into yet another problem.

The mana detection instruction took up an entire instruction slot, and spidercrab shells only had one instruction slot to being with. To compensate, Alice had needed to add in a different material… which had required the help of another [Enchanter] who had a Perk that let two enchanting materials talk to each other and work together. With the aid of the [Enchanter], Alice was able to start cobbling together enchantments that would fix the class seed for any [Enchanter] who touched it.

Right after she completed the enchantment, Alice looked at her work, and frowned. She was a bit hesitant to actually test the enchantment after that, since it could be dangerous. {Safety Analysis} claimed that touching it wouldn’t pose a problem, but Alice just felt very nervous about the enchantment.

Before Alice could say anything, the [Enchanter] who had helped her put together the enchantment volunteered as a test subject. When he touched the spidercrab shell, contrary to Alice’s fears, nothing bad happened to him. His mana was purified properly, and his class seed absorbed it without any issues.

The enchantment was successful. At the very least, Alice was able to create the class-fixing enchantments without any issue.

All in all, it was at least good enough that it could start addressing Illvaria’s critical needs.

Alice started making as many of them as she could, before handing them over to Ethan. She managed to make six of the enchantments that day – which wasn’t as many as she had hoped for, but perhaps it was the most realistic outcome, given Alice’s total unfamiliarity with the enchantment she was trying to make and the fact that she needed the help of another [Enchanter] to put together each copy of the enchantment.

Unfortunately, since the ranches hadn’t gotten their first shipments back to Cyra yet, Alice ran out of enchanting materials after that and was forced to twiddle her thumbs for the rest of the day.

On the third day since Alice had gotten the enchanting blueprints, the first shipments of tree bark finally came in. A few more scattered spidercrab shells were also shipped into Illvaria, although the number was depressingly low.

Alice, Cecilia’s mages, and Ethan assembled in one spot, to test the implementation of the new enchantments.

Alice had already tested the first enchantment model, and had gotten it working properly. Now they just needed to test the simplified enchantments and see if they could start mass-producing them.

After a few failed attempts at making the bark rings, the [Enchanter] with the display magic seed successfully created the second enchantment. Furthermore, the Mage with the filtration magic seed finally got a chance to test whether the class purification enchantment worked as intended.

Much like the enchantments Alice had made the previous day, they were produced successfully after a few failed attempts.

So long as someone touched the spidercrab shell, it would search through someone’s body to find their [Enchanter] Class seed. Then, it would detect the exact version of [Enchanter] that someone had, take any mana clogged up around the magic seed, and then convert it all into a copy of the same mana type.

And so long as someone touched the little slab of enchanted tree bark, one would be able to see all of the Perk options they had for their next level up, and would be able to choose a fitting Perk for their future.

Both enchantments had been successfully created.

As if to celebrate the group’s success, after a few moments, Alice got a new Achievement.

You have ___ achievement!

First_Steps (I) (Rarity: 6)

You have taken the first steps towards _ solve catastrophe, and created foundation to succeed where succeeding is important.

+50% growth speed Enchanter classes, +20% growth speed all Classes, +50% growth speed healing classes. With 1_month time, var: enchanting material instructions can be increased by one (just hold item in Storage Perk to activate). Can only work on five items at a time, takes one month to finish.