The 18^th floor featured a demonologist in the B-rated room.

Infernal Domain Suppression: -1 OV Domain Handicap. – 1 HP per minute.

As soon as the sarge summoned fire-spitting imps, Flora, Aito, and Golemtoasterwithnocksandconsciousness focused them down. Because Flora wanted the Infernal Resistance, the Mover did bully the summoner with minimal damage.

After a minute or two, the imps grew in size, and their rating increased to D.

Flora checked the boss's health, but it was still more than 90%. "Any theories why this is happening? Please check the timing, the number of imps we have killed, and the exact health of the boss."

"It happened 1 minute and 12 seconds into the fight. We have killed ten imps, and the boss had 92% health. That's approximately 48k HP, Milady."

"So this is the 11^th summon. It would make sense that the sarge levels his skill with use. Let's try not killing the imp." Flora baited the demon away from the summoner.

The imp had reddish scaled skin and clawed at Flora with his talons. Now and then, he flapped his leathery wings, rose above the auntie's head, and belched out a fireball.

"Snuggle attack!" Flora yelled and grabbed the imp's arm. Turning her hips, she threw him over her shoulder and pounced on the demon. "My Jiu-Jitsu is getting rusty. I need the practice." She admitted while locking up the poor monster.

*growl growl growl* Said the demon.

*beheheheheep* Aito laughed.

"Do you understand him?"

*beep* (Of course) "He said, he will report you to the demon union for harassment."

"What do you prefer, getting harassed or getting killed?" Flora hissed.

*grooowl*! (Killed!)

Flora understood that without a translation, which made it even more insulting. On the other hand, you couldn't expect a demon to be well mannered or tempered, just or grateful. Or could you? "Are demons inherently evil? Can they be redeemed?"

Flora felt Tollynollster space out, lost in the field of good and evil that some call life.

*growl grunt growl* (I'm totally evil! And a liar!)

Aspirated, Flora increased the pressure of her chokehold. That demon had too much air to spout nonsense. Poor Towoky froze. His desperate tries to untangle the paradox spilled over the link.

"Milady, the demonologist is summoning again. Exactly 25 seconds went by after the last spell."

"Alright, then we have our rhythm." Flora pressed the carotid artery of the imp, but she couldn't commit to it. It was one thing to punch someone out or hurl skills. Killing while snuggling was too close for her comfort. She sprang up and kicked the demon's head before raining spells on him until he perished. Taking a deep breath, she attacked the freshly summoned imp next.

To reduce the amount of experience for the summoner and subsequent rating increases, the team killed the D-rated demons at the end of the summoning CD.

The next hurdle was the 50% special ability, a buff for the imp. The situation worsened after the sarge enraged and summoned its first C-rated demon, a hellhound. It jumped, already enraged, out of the ritual circle.

Thankfully, Flora and Gaccu were used to heal and defend, so the team could handle it.

 

The floor boss sat on a pillow, meditating. Flora couldn't figure out their gender because of their smooth bronze face and bulky robes.

Transference Domain Suppression: -1 OV Domain Handicap. – 1 HP per minute.

"Although I want to raise the affinity, my gut feeling tells me that we should kill this boss as fast as possible. They look too peaceful to be anything other than ultra vicious."

The team started like usual: The Mover tanked, Gaccu healed, Flora dual beamed, with one Holy Beam's aggro transferring to the Mover, Aito shooting, and Woketo contemplating life and casting bolts.

The Buddahesque boss didn't move from their pillow but opened their amethyst eyes. A red line formed between them and the Mover.

"What is this skill, Aidan?"

"I assume that they cast a version of Leech, Milady. That is a skill that sucks the HP from the target to the caster. The boss gains health from the Mover."

"Holy Toaster! What a powerful mojo."

Because the boss did nothing but chilling on their pillow, the team surrounded them and attacked with everything they got: blenders, hatches, guns, knives, fists, wrenches, and skills. Flora's Acid and Philotoaster's Metal debuffs stacked to unprecedented heights.

Although the Buddha look-alike established a second connection from Gaccu to themselves, their HP sank, albeit slowly. When their health bar approached 50%, Flora and Gaccu applied shields in preparation for the special ability.

A violet light burst out of the boss's eyes, heading for Flora. It bypassed her Holy Shield and Mech-Suit and connected to her heart.

Flora still focused on the boss, and she noticed that all their debuffs had vanished. Blinking lights on her HUD redirected her gaze to her own status bar. Acid, Metal, and Bleeding tier 5 stacks had appeared.

"Oh-"

"- Dear." Flora finished the sentence in the simulation grounds. Her lifeless companions lay in a heap next to her. "I guess, Toconolly and I did a lot of damage with debuffs…"

Flora felt at the same time humiliated that her own debuffs had killed her and amused by it. "Yourself are your biggest enemy" was one of the truest sentences. Overall she was proud of her tower climb. Floor 18 was pretty far up.

"Yes, Milady. Aito identified the class. It's called Spiritweaver."

Class: Spiritweaver

Branch: Magic

Passive: + 1 Training efficiency modifier when Weave Fate is active

Active: Bonus to all of your skills applied to your weave targets.

STA: Empower Weave: Increases the transferred Health. CD: 25 sec.

AoE: Weave Pools: Transfers a chunk of all available pool values from your Weave Fate targets to you. CD: 25 sec.

DEF: Loop Status: Swaps your debuffs with the Weave Fate target's buffs. CD: 1 min.

MOV: Weave Path: Ports to a Weave Fate target. CD: 1 min.

SIG: Weave Fate: (Link) Establishes a link between a target and you. You gain health from it.

 

"Very nice! So, Loop Status killed me. Let me guess, Weave Fate is paid in MR/min?"

"Yes, Milady."

"I would love to have a passive heal. I adore that it simultaneously lowers the health of my opponent. However, I hate to spend MR per minute on anything other than my little darlings." Flora said while she revived her companions.

"It's a hidden class, Milady. Aito couldn't find out how to get it, only that the quest starts in a mountain village in Laug. Unfortunately, one of the champion candidates, LittleMonk VeryHumble, has this class."

"Oh, dear. This oh dear was for his name… let's add one oh-dear for his class: Oh, dear. Please search in the AH for something we can use to train Transference resistance." Flora paused. "Do you think Disturb Connection could work against it? I know it's for technological links, but maybe we could modify it for magical links… "

"May I remind you that we are on a tight schedule, Milady? We only have a few hours to complete your level 1 build and get your Magical Perception to level 100."

"Thanks, Aidan. Let's start the next scenario."

---

Flora spent the following half an hour sorting Dragon Eggs. The fertile eggs felt different than the cuckoo's eggs to her strange magical sense. (1)

In the next scenario, she had to dodge invisible beams.

It took a while until she completed the challenges and received the OV bonuses. Thanks to the time dilation, she still had enough time to port to Sports and Boards. That world consisted of games and activity areas.

---

In Pickclasso, an art district, a painting competition was scheduled from 8 to 10 o'clock. After entering the zone, every avatar automatically received a new face skin. Eyes and nose askew, Flora felt like weeping, or more correctly like the Weeping Woman. That was one of Picasso's pictures that inspired the skin.(2)

The entire zone was Picasso-themed. Flora was glad when she left the surreal area behind and entered the streets of the Blue Period. Instead of impossible stairs and displaced architecture, she only had to look at blue streets, houses, roofs, and billboards. When a haggard blue guitarist began to play haunting tunes, she started to miss the surreal stuff.

The venue was in a blue patio. After Flora paid the entrance fee of 100 VirDos she received an easel and colors (if you could call black, white, and four different shades of blue colors) and joined the other artists. They surrounded an empty space and prepared their utensils.

Right on time, a portly blue water guy with his nose on his forehead appeared. "Dear Gentleentities, our daily art competition has the topic "Drawing Magic". Our resident water mage will perform for your inspiration."

A water woman in a blue robe entered the circle in the center and waved her arms.

"I've seen better magic in the circus in real-life," Flora's neighbor complained.

While the visuals were just a woman gesturing grandly, Flora could feel the magic moving−and not on a small scale like a ball or a beam. The entire mana in the patio started to dance and weave around.

Flora was inspired and smeared shades of blue on her canvas. She liked the challenge. If one portrayed a model, one had to switch looking at the canvas and watching the model. While painting magic, she could just concentrate on her picture with her eyes and on the scene with her magical senses−no switching necessary. Hence Flora got lost in her art.

Swinging lines of blue swirled on the canvas when Flora awakened out of her art trance. She took a step back and frowned. While the magic was flowing, and she had captured that aspect well, it also was structured. The picture lacked the geometry that she loved about magic and its diagrams.

<Healing Air Breath>

The colors dried, and Flora continued. Now, she added straight lines, giving the image a cubistic touch.

Unfortunately, the time ran out too soon. Sighing, Flora handed in her painting. While she liked the current version, she would have preferred to paint a few hours more to make it perfect.

The jury was fast to judge and announced the winners directly. Flora placed third and won some A-rated art supplies. Of course, she was allowed to take the picture with her.

Just when she wanted to log back into the Metaworld, a skinny bluish guy with pointy ears stopped her.

"Excuse me, Flowing Flowers. I'd like to buy your painting. Is it for sale?"

"I guess." Flora blinked. "I'm in a bit of a hurry, dear. Can we negotiate per mail?"

The guy laughed. "Or I give you the max prize of 1000 VirDos so that we can skip any dispute."

"Alright, a pleasure doing business with you." Flora handed him the canvas and received her money.

"Not bad. Was that an elf?" Flora asked her AIs.

"Yes, Milady a Waterling elf, to be precise."

---

Flora took the portal to Sunri, the capital of Reye on the Cradle. Because Aidan had warned her that it was a technology-only zone, she didn't bring her golems. Instead, she linked a Mover without an enhanced accordion connection and divided the rest of her mana-reg between Aito's Octopussy and her mech-suit.

When Flora exited the portal, she squinted her eyes due to the sunlight reflecting from the metal surfaces. For once, there were real buildings and no domes, and all consisted of metal. The glass of the windows was the only other visible material. Thankfully, not all the surfaces were polished. Otherwise, the citizens would go blind. The smell of axle grease and the sound of gears creaking permeated the air.

Usually, Flora enjoyed this kind of atmosphere, but the magic felt stale and shackled. Her fancy rune tattoos stopped working. It was as she had lost one of her senses.

"I'm not sure whether I can train my Magical Perception here," Flora said. "Or maybe it's like walking through a dark room, and your eyes adapt to the low light? We'll try it out."

Aidan led Flora to the Mechaseum, an amphitheater for technological fights. It looked like the colosseum in Rome without any damage because they used stainless steel. Flora wouldn't be surprised if the thing expanded legs and arms and happened to be a giant robot.

The gladiator school attached to the Mechaseum offered the Remote Arms course. However, Flora had to prove first that she was a worthy candidate.

 

(1): Scenario inspired by the web fiction Path of the Dragon Mage: Exiled on Royal Roads

(2): The Weeping Woman by Picasso: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Weeping_Woman