-Jean Tavera-
I couldn’t believe it! I was getting to meet another Robert! And I got to do it with Mita and Ester. Ever since Louella became an underling blackzone manager for Historie Pastoria Sweets, I’ve been able to delve all I want for treats and practice using my Grand Scholarship, Over-Spirit-Surge (Raccoon), without people complaining about the mess it usually causes. Feeling the mana circuitry in my arm glow with magics as the Grand Scholarship empowered my clawed gauntlets and cloaked me with not only my magecraft spirit, Binny, but also my asset, G-Pro, I swung at the cheesecake source meister-pikeman: The partially robed-and-armoured pikeman of Cheesecake Emporos-Museum didn’t stand a chance against my flying claw strikes even within its source-mana spell shield. Hehehe, and that’s how you cut the cake.
“Interesting you’re using not only Halo System casts but also hybridized Halo System cast-wulve magecraft, applying techniques common among both spirit mages and mana compositionists,” noted the charismatically astute Glyirian spellman as I continued to show off my Grand Scholarship until I could start feeling it strain from overuse. He really was right on the money about how Over-Spirit-Surge (Racoon) worked.
With Beastly Hand-Claws and Halo of Raccoons synthesizing into Synthesis: Ringed Raccoon Claws and synthesizing that with one of my Returning Spirit: Ringed Chapter (Innate) to make Synthesis: Ringed Raccoon Over-Spirit, I could act like a symbiote-styled spirit mage. And using Beastly Hand-Claws again with my Mana of Greater Wereraccoon to make Synthesis: Mana-Touched Raccoon Claws and then synthesizing that with my sub-features of Beige-Steel Mana Surge, Green Mana Surge, and White Mana Surge to make Synthesis: Mana-Touched Racoon Over-Surge, I could also act like a high mana output-styled mana compositionist. Finally by combining both of those 2nd generational synthesises together with my Golden Raccoon of Tropics attunement, I was able to have this awesome Grand Magus-grade mandala that could make use of my Advanced Halo Glyphs class specialty and have the best of both worlds! It didn’t matter that it was still a budget one with a 13 mandala formula and was not exactly refined, it was smooth as honey to me.
“I can’t believe I’m delivering these mandala inscriptions with a pair of spellmen showing off their Grand Magus-grade mandalas,” complained Mita, holding the briefcase with the mandala inscriptions that Louella got him in one hand and his oversized tomahawk with his other.
“But Ester has only shown off one of his. I want to see the other four! And the Legendary Magus-grade one, I bet it is super delicious,” I shot back, bouncing back and forth at the thought of getting to see so many cool mandalas: Ester’s Penta Lumiera De Sola Awakened was so cool with all its lasers and different forms, I couldn’t wait to see what else he had in his portfolio of mandalas.
“Perhaps another time, our job today is to help escort Mr. Orono to this Mr. Fayn Beta,” commented Ester, sadly trying to force us back on track. And I was having so much fun too. But he is right, we can’t let Louella down, I thought to myself as the Glyirian continued to talk, “I have to say this version of Mr. Fayn is quite interesting.”
“You did research on him?” asked Mita as we neared the faux-World Bridge to Cheesecake Emporos-Museum proper.
“Yes, and the distinct between our Mr. Fayn and this Mr. Fayn Beta is quite remarkable despite how similar they are, both before and after being a blackzone manager,” explained Ester, passing a set of files to Mita with a simple Tactile-Trick macro before handing me a spare set. Ooo information to chow down on, I internally laughed to myself as I read the file: he became the blackzone manager of an Enigma to one of the lesser worlds of the Earth III-D universe, ending up following in line with three Grands and three great blackzones, including Ignae Automata, and allying with both a Great House and Faction. That explains the really fancy Grand Key. Oh he makes potions also! Score!
Continuing to look at what Ester was able to learn about Robby, he listed that the doppelgänger also specialized in End Vein Phenomena and Pulmonary Cluster. So he was like Armin with mapping: sensing where the modes of transportation clustered together on every world with the End Vein Phenomena and toward each other in Pulmonary Clusters. Honestly didn’t care about that, even with the Goltinium Guild wanting me and the rest of my housemates to focus on that style of spellcraft along with delving magics.
“Perhaps you should have him help with your mapping classes,” chimed Binny, rousing from sleep to read over the files also, causing G-Pro to stir a bit since their personal spaces were now connected by Over-Spirit-Surge (Raccoon).
“I have Armin and Celeste for that, besides I only have to take one mapping class this term,” I telepathically replied with a smile, thinking about all the amazing classes and seminars that everyone at the Selstylie house had access to now that Louella was an underling blackzone manager. It was nice to be the house actually talked about on the spellman campus.
Working our way through Cheesecake Emporos-Museum, it was amazing how similar it was to Historie Pastoria Sweets, just a bit grittier and no pesky confusion or food traps. This Enigma’s versions of the cheesecake knights, the cheesecake mage-soldiers, were stronger and dropped tasty cheesecake slices, but we weren’t running into too many of them. Getting a bit bored, I asked the others, “So why aren’t we being escorted by a blackzone manager anyway?”
“Because this… isn’t an official visit,” answered Mita softly, looking at this place’s skyscrapers and trains.
“Wait, whaa? So no biscuit and scones then?”
“I’m afraid not,” noted Ester with a slight nod, the lenses of his Lumiera De Sola scanning the surroundings. “The other representatives from what I can tell are very keen on the current status quo.”
“Huh?”
“Robby is sick, cursed mandalas. The others are keeping him healthy with treatment but not doing anything to fix the root cause,” explained the blackzone manager with a sour as lemons expressions before continuing, “I had Wlogwa set up a meeting for us with Robby’s system assistant, Chef. That’s why we’re going to Cheesecake Wing of Stars, the Phase in Starport Cyber.”
“Why that scifi technic artificial world cluster?”
“Because it is one of the more neutral areas of this Enigma.”
“A sound decision,” mused Ester as we made our way across the Enigma proper to head to the Phase. Not exactly caring where we would be meeting Robby, I went to eat some of the slices of blackzone cheesecake; fishing through my personal subdimension, I pulled out a slice dropped by a cheesecake witch-doctor-crossbowman.
The fluffy smell and even fluffier texture made my mouth drool. Taking a spoon out, I took a spoonful and ate it gleefully: soft flavors of whipped cream and cream cheese intermingling with the soft undertone of mana, revitalizing and emerging crispness with its own undertones of airiness from the white mana and heavy stickiness from the dungeon-mana. This place definitely had some potent sweets to get my paws on, but Historie Pastoria Sweet’s own tasty treats had their own charm: homiliness and an emphasis on taste over mana infusions. The various crispnesses of mana taste was definitely enjoyable but I loved a hearty meal.
“Ahh so many cheesecakes to eat, this is pawsome,” I proclaimed with a grin on my face as I went to take out slices of cheesecake from cheesecake druid-sentinels and cheesecake warlock-saboteur and went to enjoying the earthiness of green mana mixed with ricotta and the bitterness of black mana mixed with alcohol.
“The treats produced by the Flasaporium hub do always make a great example of high cuisine don’t they? Blackzone cuisine in particular,” asked Ester with a calm smile, his elemental radiance buttering me up good. Oh my mask if only he had a class affinity for elemental charisma also.
“Yup!”
“Can we keep on task?” asked Mita as we neared the faux-World Bridge to the Phase. I nodded and polished off the slices of cheesecake to see some cheesecake mage-soldiers in our way. Looking at the sleek technic-styled armoured soldiers with oversized wrenches and handheld blasters, Ester noted they were called cheesecake technologist-technicians. Oh my mask, that’s the pawfect name!
“On it boss!” I shouted as I kicked into gear, shifting down from Over-Spirit-Surge to Synthesis: Mana-Touched Raccoon Over-Surge. As my mandalas drew in a ton of mana from the aether to refine and send out in surging waves, my clawed gauntlets shaped the mana into elongated claws.
As Ester burned down the technologist-technicians on the left with his lenses’s lasers, I went to take out the ones on the right with slicing swings that shot through air and turned them into cheesy ribbons. As for the few that got past both of us, Mita was able to handle it with his nifty tomahawk with spear-shaped bolts of eclipse and gravity mana. What a cool weapon, I didn’t know he had a 2nd generational synthesis.
“I see you have been improving your portfolio of mandalas,” commented Ester to Mita as the three of us entered Cheesecake Wing of Stars: all the sleek skyscrapers and the magical glowing black hole acting as this world’s artificial sun was a tasty sight to see for sure.
“Yeah, made it using my Synthesis: Twin-Aptitude Tearing Axes with my marks from being a spearing tribal human and faux golden enigma manager. That is a racial feature I got from my tribe’s shaman, who actually knew true magic since before the Aligning. It’s why I’m using fallen age of tides true magic, or at least learning to use it,” explained Mita as he went into a speel about how the Penobscot had connections to the fallen age of tides along with a few others as we walked along, but I didn’t really care about that stuff.
It was until after a few more minutes of walking and talking that we entered a courtyard nestled between a trio of skyscrapers. Walking into the fancy but barren courtyard, I saw the most wonderful of things: a pair of vending machines filled with soda-potions. Grabbing my wallet from my persona subdimension, I rushed over to the vending machines, unable to contain my excitement. If this setup was anything like Robert’s back in Historie Pastoria Sweets then these soda-potions would be amazing! Hehehe, tasty tasty drinks! Time to drink myself to the pint of no return, I laughed to myself as I noticed there were alcoholic options in the vending machines. Not like it was easy for me to get drunk cause of my Hearty Stomach feature. As I neared the vending machines, all the sudden I heard a sort of familiar voice from one of them,
“Mita?”
“Huh?...” I muttered with a pause as I recognized the voice as Robert’s.
“What the hell, Robby?! You’re a vending machine?” shot back Mita, staring at the vending machines as one of them suddenly started to shift into person. Okay, this is pawsome. Robert 2.0 is a vendor!
