That night, Scarlet once again worked at the lock on her door with the same old knitting needle.

Though this time, rather than unlocking the door, she was locking it. She then shoved a piece of cloth into the keyhole so that even if someone did have the key, they wouldn’t be able to open it from the outside.

Even after Jamie and Jonathan had once again left the house in order to take the dress to the duke’s household, Scarlet still didn’t feel safe. The feeling of her half-brother’s hand grabbing her arm still haunted her.

She hated it. It made her miss the world of VR. The world where she could live freely without the curse that was the sensation of touch.

Shaking her head, she did her best to focus on the present.

She had decided that tonight, she was going to finally give making enchantments a try.

The ingredients needed to make the threads used for low quality enchantments were surprisingly easy to come by. It was just normal threads, some vinegar, some lemon juice and magic stones. All of them put together hardly cost a dozen coppers.

In preparation for the night, Scarlet had sneakily taken a small pot from the kitchen along with the vinegar and hid them in her room. So after dropping in a total of two hundred of those tiny magic stones that she had been gathering over the last month, and squeezing in some lemon juice, she was ready to start cooking.

With a deep breath, Scarlet used her [Mana Control] to saturate the mixture with her mana, using it to break down the magic stones as she stirred the pot. It took a little while, and around 200 of Scarlet’s available mana, but when she was done, the mixture had turned a bright red and was ready for use.

[General Skill: Alchemy has reached level 1 | Rewards: +1 Mana, +1 Artistry, +1 Magic, +1 EXP]

[2214 EXP to next level]

She then dipped several long threads into the mixture and used a small bit of mana to cause the red dye to be absorbed deep into the threads, which she then took out and laid out to dry. Using the time in order to try to recover as much mana as she could from the air for the next step.

After her [Mana Control] had reached level 50, she started being able to actively absorb mana from the air around her, with enough concentration. It increased her mana recovery from 1 mana every 4 minutes to 1 every 10 seconds, at a cost to her stamina. But stamina could quickly be restored using her [Meditation] skill, so that was okay.

By switching between [Mana Control] and [Meditation] Scarlet managed to recover her mana back to full in just one hour. After that, she turned to her enchanting threads.

Picking a short one, she attached it to her sewing needle and got to work using her [Embroidery] skill to stitch the most simple enchantment she could into a spare piece of cloth, while making sure to feed a constant amount of mana to the thread in order to work its magic.

The entire thing took only about an hour to do, but once she was done the results were… unimpressive, as she observed them with her [Magic Appraisal].

[Cloth of Extremely Minor Durability: Tier 1 durability enchantment (low quality) - very slight increase to durability]

Both Tier 1 and low quality. It hardly made any difference at all.

Well, that was fine. This was a throw away run anyways. She got what she needed out of it.

[General Skill: Embroidery has reached level 18 | Rewards: +1 Finesse, +1 Artistry, +18 EXP]

[2196 EXP to next level]

[General Skill: Enchanting has reached level 1 | Rewards: +2 Mana, +1 Finesse, +2 Intelligence, +1 Artistry, +2 Magic, +1 EXP]

[2195 EXP to next level]

Damn! The stat gains from [Enchanting] were really good. It was easily the highest grade skill that Scarlet had gotten so far. Which was what made it the perfect target for her first ‘Talent Point’.

Because enchanting could be used to imbue objects with any sort of magic that could be obtained using General Skills, a Talent Point in the [Enchanting] would bleed into all forms of General Skill magic. Not only that, it would help with things like embroidery and smithing as well, since working with the object is part of making the enchantment. There were also things like [Calculation], [Alchemy] and [Mana Control] which all went into making [Enchanting] work and would therefore be buffed by a Talent Point in it.

She had been planning for this ever since she first reached level 10, over a year and a half ago, so there was no hesitation as she slammed that Talent Point into her newly acquired [Enchanting] skill.

“...I don’t really feel that different.” Scarlet mumbled, a little disappointed by the lack of fanfare at this pivotal moment in her new life. She kind of wished that miniature fireworks would go off when she leveled up, like what would happen in the video games. But what can you do?

It didn’t really matter, as long as it worked.

Taking a longer piece of thread, Scarlet was ready for her first real attempt at [Enchanting]. So picked out the enchantment she wanted to try out the most and chose the article to be enchanted… a pair of panties.

What? They were something she didn’t have to worry about the enchantment being obvious on, because no one would ever need to see them.

This enchantment was a lot more intricate and took a lot more time and mana, requiring her to take a break to recharge in the middle of her work, but when she was done, she was happy. Both with the results, and with the levels she had gained.

[Panties of Mana Restoration: Tier 2 mana restoring enchantment (below average quality) - the wearer restores 1 mana every 60 seconds.]

[General Skill: Embroidery has reached level 19 | Rewards: +1 Finesse, +1 Artistry, +19 EXP]

[2176 EXP to next level]

[General Skill: Embroidery has reached level 20 | Rewards: +1 Finesse, +1 Artistry, +20 EXP]

[2156 EXP to next level]

[General Skill: Enchanting has reached level 2 | Rewards: +2 Mana, +1 Finesse, +2 Intelligence, +1 Artistry, +2 Magic, +2 EXP]

[2154 EXP to next level]

…

[General Skill: Enchanting has reached level 12 | Rewards: +2 Mana, +1 Finesse, +2 Intelligence, +1 Artistry, +2 Magic, +12 EXP]

[2079 EXP to next level]

Passive mana regeneration! Regeneration that wouldn’t require her focus or cost her stamina!

If she could stack this up with a few more like it on her other clothes, or with higher rank copies, it would be a game changer. No longer would she constantly be held back by her limited mana pool. She could train her [Mana Control] and [Magic Appraisal] as hard as she wanted without fear of running herself dry.

Not only that, she had grown 2 levels in [Embroidery] and 11 whole levels in [Enchanting] in a single shot, showing the absolute power of the Talent Point at work. Though having the corresponding skills like [Embroidery], [Mana Control], [Magic Appraisal] and [Calculations] at a decent level, and her inheritance from her mother, probably helped increase its initial growth too.

This was good. This was so GOOD!

She still had five more hours before people would start to wake up, and enough magic thread to enchant twelve more pieces of clothing. If she worked fast, she could get two, maybe three done that night.

She had no time to lose!

In order to get their bonuses, to help with her mana expenditures, Scarlet quickly put on her new magic panties.

“...Uh…” Scarlet said as the feeling of magic entering into her down below started to make herself known. The feel of mana was not like any sort of feeling that could be described by the words that relate to touch, so Scarlet didn’t really know how to describe it, but… It kind of made her feel like she needed to pee. “Well… this is going to take... some getting used to.”

She was still definitely going to wear them. If she had been willing to wear that bikini armor set for half a month because of how good its stats were, she was more than prepared to wear this.

Shaking her head to get rid of all distractions, Scarlet returned to work to make her first enchanted set. 

She worked all throughout the night, giving it her undivided attention… and forgot to meditate, resulting in her being even more of a zombie the next day.

---

 

Two weeks had passed since Scarlet had spent her first Talent Point in [Enchanting], and she had used all of her remaining magic threads, as well as another batch of twenty she made after sneaking out of the house at night to gather all the magic stones she could get her hands on.

She had grown another 4 levels in [Alchemy], as well as 7 in [Embroidery], 6 levels in [Mana Control], 3 levels in [Magic Appraisal], and a whopping 38 levels in [Enchanting], bringing it up to level 50. 

With how many skill levels she had grown, she was only just shy of reaching level 18, something which she thought would take months.

Not only that, she had a full set of some pretty good enchanted clothes as a result of it all.

[Panties of Mana Restoration IV: Tier 3 mana restoring enchantment (average quality) - the wearer restores 1 mana every 15 seconds.]

[Blouse of Mana Restoration II: Tier 3 mana restoring enchantment (average quality) - the wearer restores 1 mana every 15 seconds.]

[Dress of Mana Restoration III: Tier 3 mana restoring enchantment (average quality) - the wearer restores 1 mana every 15 seconds.]

[Leggings of Mana Restoration III: Tier 3 mana restoring enchantment (average quality) - the wearer restores 1 mana every 15 seconds.]

[Right Sock of Mana Restoration II: Tier 3 mana restoring enchantment (average quality) - the wearer restores 1 mana every 15 seconds.]

[Left Sock of Mana Restoration II: Tier 3 mana restoring enchantment (average quality) - the wearer restores 1 mana every 15 seconds.]

[Sash of Mana Restoration III: Tier 3 mana restoring enchantment (average quality) - the wearer restores 1 mana every 15 seconds.]

At her current level, she would have been able to put three Tier 2 enchantments on a single item, but by instead focusing all her enchantments into a single type, she could produce Tier 3 results. And with all these items combined, her mana regeneration had gone through the roof, with her passively regenerating almost 1 mana every 2 seconds.

Now, she only had one problem.

“You know… this is kind of tiring.” Scarlet said as she sat on her bed in the early hours of the morning, staring at the ball of mana the size of her head that she had created right in front of her and which she was able to fuel without her mana even being drained faster than she could regenerate it. 

She had access to a steady amount of mana, but using it still cost her stamina to use it. She could restore her stamina using her [Meditation] skill, but she couldn’t exert herself while meditating. 

What she needed was a type of healing or support magic that could quickly turn her excess mana into stamina.

Healing magic was definitely now chief on her to do list, now that she had her mana worries squared away for the next while, until spells started to cost 1000 mana a pop.

Actually, she wanted to start learning as much magic as she could in general, in order to grow levels and make the best use of her Talent Point in [Enchanting], since it would be helping her grow levels in all of her General Magic skills.

Plus, if she started to learn magic now, she could pick the elements she was most interested in and they would help to determine what kind of Bond she got when she turned 5, something that would be extremely important in the future, since she didn’t want to be stuck with something like a rat.

Magic was also a good midgame power to have. As after you overcome the mana cost, and can cast more than 5 spells a day, magic could deal serious damage to a large number of targets. Even if they tended to fall off a little late game as its damage output didn’t scale as quickly as a fighter with a powerful magic weapon or a properly stacked ranged specialist.

Problem was, she had gone through every book in the house and not one had anything on that sort of magic, or any sort beyond basic enchantments in her mother’s sewing books. And since neither her mother nor Judith ever went into town, she couldn’t ask them to buy magic books for her. The women’s relative isolation also meant that the number of magic stones available to Scarlet was also finite. The pigpen probably only had enough in it for another ten or so enchantments before there would be nothing left.

The only people who went to the city were Jamie, Jonathan and the slave camp guards.

Scarlet couldn’t ask the guards. Besides not having the courage to, she had nothing to pay them with. She could try to pay them with enchantments, but if they told her father on her, she would be stuck being forced to produce enchanted items for him day in and day out.

...Was that really so bad? I would be a good amount of EXP and would help her later when she wanted to make high level equipment for herself.

...No. She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t bring herself to do something that would make a slaver lots of money. She didn’t care what the culture of this world said, her father was the scum of the Earth and she had no idea why her mother was married to such a horrid man.

But if she didn’t want her father to profit from her abilities, there was only one thing she could do.

‘...But I don’t wanna!’

---

 

Jonathan Wright sat behind his desk in his home office, his lunch sitting on his side table as he looked over some papers for his government grants.

Ah, the beauty of being a cheap alternative to prisons. Not only did he make money off of his slaves’ labors down in the mines, but then he received payment from the government to do it.

“Father. I ran the numbers and it does seem like the Golden Bull Trading Company mishandled our account.” Jamie said as he pushed the appropriate documentation towards his father.

“Looks like your gut instinct was right then.” Jonathan said as he glanced over the numbers. 

“Are we going to start to squeeze them about it?” Jamie asked.

“Of course. A company like theirs lives and dies on its reputation. Whether this is an honest mistake or not, they would be more than ready to compensate us for the trouble they caused. We just need to make sure that compensation is appropriately related to the value of their reputation.” Jonathan huffed with a smirk, as he was reminded why he favored the boy. Though as his eyes glanced over the numbers, he spotted the entry for Maria’s Spirit Threads. “The value of Spirit Threads is going up again. Those noble ladies saw the new princess in one and now they are all rushing after in order to follow the trend.”

“...Yes. Father’s golden goose is now even more valuable.” Jamie said, bitterly.

Jonathan gave his son a look, but didn’t say anything.

Jamie was almost perfect for the job of a merchant. He had a good head for money, he was good at spotting lies, and he was more than willing to do whatever it took to turn a profit, even if some called him a monster for his methods. All good qualities for a merchant to have, and the reason why his father favored him over his older brothers when it came to inheriting the family business.

He only had one problem.

Jamie had an irrational jealousy for those with talent. Which had caused him to act out and get in trouble with his step-mother and half-sister, as well as others during his school days. He didn’t understand that jealousy was not the answer.

One should not be jealous of a wild horse for its freedom and its power. Being jealous is unproductive, and worse, unprofitable. 

No. One should not be jealous of the wild horse. One should instead seek to capture it. To take away that freedom and break that will so that its power can be used for your own agenda.

That was how one should respond to those with talent. Use their pride in that talent to trap them so that their talent can be used to make you money.

“Ex...Excuse me.” Jonathan looked up at the small voice that he hardly recognized to see the tiny form of Scarlet peeking at him from the doorway. Her mother and the maid didn’t seem to be anywhere in sight.

Had she come to see him? That would be a first. Usually he only spotted her darting out of sight as he walked through his house. The tiny girl always seemed to be afraid of him. Not that he cared. Her existence was a byproduct of the methods he used to insure his ownership over the girl’s mother. He barely even recognized the girl as his child. Merely something that’s conception had been convenient for him.

Though given her abnormal amount of talent at a young age, she’d probably fetch a pretty penny at some noble house, if they could even get over her problem of having fits of panic whenever anyone besides her mother touched her.

If not, she was still a productive seamstress and would be able to make the family money, even without any sort of marriage contracts.

“What do you want?” Jonathan said flatly, causing the girl to flinch.

She started trying to talk, but stumbled over her tongue a few times before she stopped and took a breath.

Then she did something that made Jonathan sit up and take notice.

She put her hands together in front of her and slowly drew them apart, and as she did so, an orb of light appeared in the space between her hands. It was an orb of pure mana. Small, but still a feat that meant the girl had somehow learned [Mana Control] at a high level.

When did this happen?

“Would… When father is in the city, would... you… pl… please get me a book on healing magic? I really want to study it.” Scarlet stammered as the orb of magical energy destabilized and faded away.

Jonathan looked down at the girl, while Jamie’s jaw flapped open in shock.

It would seem that he greatly underestimated how valuable this child was.

“I will see about getting you a teacher.”

“A… A teacher?”