-Ras Von Leoia-
To think Robert’s primary spirit halo was following the footsteps of his system assistant, going as far as creating a system slots facsimile just showed how many outliers he had amongst his spirits: Sous, Umi, Neo Draceld Z, and to an extent Daisy. And unsurprisingly it was starting to rub off on me with how I interacted with Pattissoria and Editon, although dealing with Neo Draceld Z did help me notice and handle the nuance of the energetic spirits. At least Draceld doesn’t seem to be the type of demigoddess that would try to sabotage us through our spirits and familiars… Especially right now since she is still recovering from being killed, I noted as I made my way over to System Assistant’s Caketopia, watching as Umi experimented with her simulated body and skeleton of a conjuration along the way.
“To think a fellow spirit would create and use a facsimile in such a fashion. It is truly fascinating!” roared Editon in laughter from the back of my head.
“It is, but I’m starting to think it is par for the course when it comes to Robert’s spirits. I don’t think I would be too surprised if his cat familiars followed suit,” I telepathically replied before shifting the topic, “So, do you have anything interesting to report?”
“Ester’s family are still enjoying themselves at the Noble Gin but are currently planning to move their vacation to the Old Fashioned once we have everything secured again. As for Ester, he is working with Terrin and Jezebel on starting the first trade routes through Blackentrail to the Humble Witches’ Union. And for Draceld! She should be reviving herself tomorrow.”
“She still hasn’t revived herself yet? It’s been a week already.” A quick feeling of my mandalas and system slots confirmed the report. What was taking her so long?
“It is because the foul magic that slayed her was from a recursive mage and forbidden magic to boot! To think a spirit-in-arms of mine would be inflicted with a hex of sentience-infused post-mortem disease.”
“A recursive mage being anti-Vraglixian, how is that not surprising?” I muttered over my connection to Editon, shuddering to think we were dealing with pinnacles of mages with connections to the ninth damned will, counter, but also understanding it wasn’t surprising. Recursive mages didn’t just make for great wardens of criminal mages but also potent counters against sentients and even magi-sentients and partial-magi-sentients who were predominantly of the enlightened race categories. Not to mention they were known to be of an opinionated stock, often to the point it was polarizing.
“Don’t worry, we’ll keep an eye on Neo Draceld Z for you, and I’ll keep an eye on both these SteelStar Supremacist and Glory Daze people for you,” chimed in Pattissoria, reminding me these incidents weren’t just isolated incidents: we were dealing the SteelStar Supremacists in Starport Cyber as evident by the attack on the Old Fashioned and the Glory Daze in Mercury-Gardenia going by the reports from the sweet tooths exploring the Back Continent. And between Sous and Umi and our relationship with Cheesecake Emporos-Museum due to Robert’s alt-rhi of a doppelgänger, things were definitely going to get worse: so much of our stuff was already in line with the Vraglixian Blossom Rebellion without having any actual connection to them. We’re going to have to be careful though, if what Mita is saying about Robby is true, he already has connections to them, I thought to myself before getting interrupted by Umi,
“You done talking with your spirits?”
“How could you tell?” I asked, surprised that the primary spirit halo was able to pick that up, I think she actually was the first barring Uncle Ester.
“I am a spirit, I know what it looks like. Now how am I supposed to get another conjuration?”
“Empower the connection with another system slot, it shouldn’t be too hard if you aren’t trying to make a multi-system slot in the process. The Hybrid System of Flowers has a lot of trial and error to learn it, but we have people researching it.”
“That’s annoying.”
“I know it is, but this system is using the facsimile, account, integrated, and bound part of its typing in ways I didn’t know was possible,” I replied with a sigh, wishing I had managed to start classes on Hybrid Systems back at Noira University before I was turned into Robert’s first underling blackzone manager. If it wasn’t for the Tabitha and Lyria, we wouldn’t have figured out you get access to your account with the second system slot and the derivative Hybrid Systems with the third one while everything else was through learning and tutelage. Or the fact you could only have two flowers active at once, along with up to three adornments and up to four boutonnieres and corsages, but that was information that Johari gave us.
“Thank you for keeping an eye on Umi for me,” commented Sous telepathically as I entered System Assistant’s Caketopia.
“I don’t see why you couldn’t be helping her out instead.”
“I haven’t had much to research the Hybrid System of Flowers and having a body now is taking time to get used to.”
“Are biological functions too much for you?”
“It’s more than biological functions… The possession of a body requires skills I am unaccustomed to as a sous chef,” explained Sous wearily as Umi went to focus on trying to use one of her faux-system slots to forge a connection and merge it to her first connection and empower it.
Seeing no reason not to do the same, I decided to follow suit: I was a tier 3.4 blackzone manager nowadays, I had system slots to spare and the Hybrid System of Flowers was something we likely to make extensive use of. Focusing on my system slot’s connection to Mercury-Gardenia and the Hybrid System of Flowers, I coaxed one of my free system slots to give up its own potential and link up to the connection. Feeling everything lock into place, I watched as the crimson rain flowers sticking out of my chest glowed slightly as magenta rain flowers made their appearance.
“Florapedia” I chanted, activating one of the Hybrid System’s simpler system calls that was known even by the oblivious denizens of Mercury-Gardenia. With a small trickle of information as a translucent screen visible only to me appeared, I inspected both my flowers: crimson rain flower for clean kill with a conjuration of a short bow and magenta rain flower for prepared with a conjuration of a longbow. Well this is going to be interesting, I mentally chimed to myself, thinking about how frustrating it would be to switch between weapons until I opened up the menu to my account to find the ability to rapidly swap between weapons and even have conjurations float when not in use.
“Yes! Fishing rod!” laughed Umi as she completed her own second connection and conjured up a simple looking fishing rod as strange flowers with pale blue iridescent tendril-like petals mixed with her white roses. Using Florapedia again, I inspected the primary spirit halo’s latest abilities: white rose for mourning loss of youth with conjuration of a skeleton companion and candetimble for exciting possibility with a conjuration of a cross-system fishing rod. Candetimble? Cross-system fishing rod?
“Do you know what a candetimble is?” I asked, not just to Umi but also Pattissoria. Before my system assistant could reply, Umi already answered with a nod,
“It’s a rare flower from Alihi’a’Pounga. I’ve hunted them before cause they have good anima halos. They have something that uses helenphorus in them to produce manaluminescence.” Helenphorus? As in the aurorian counterpart to phosphorus? Well that just made this flower a few times more interesting.
“And the cross-system fishing rod? What can it do?”
“This!” replied Umi with a wide grin as she conjured up another fishing rod that shimmered ever so slightly with wellspring dream and wonderment. “I can use a tiny bit of my other system slots’ connection. See? This is my spirit child’s daydreaming fishing rod from my Vox System one.”
“That’s… wow… that’s amazing.”
“I know, now I can practice my dual wielding of fishing rods here also.”
“How about we fight some monsters to test them out?” I suggested, feeling a bit excited also, as I conjured up both my shortbow and longbow, leaving the shortbow to float the side and back of me. It wasn’t my Bow of Glyiria or my upgraded Editon’s Bow of Glyiria, but the pair of bows were interesting assets to have nonetheless.
Luckily for the two of us, Sous managed to set up the cheesecake knights of his conquest after getting the input from everyone else: the molecular cheesecake knights, deceptively simple looking knights with affinities in elemental soul, wellspring necro, and the Obscurus System whose weapons were their own modified limbs made with enchanted bone and alloy. I couldn’t help but be a bit proud of my own suggestion for aiming for a neapolitan of affinities being accepted: it did fit so well in a variant of cheesecake knights whose physiology was based off a molecular gastronomy reduction of cheesecakes.
“I’ll take the tank position, I got my fishing rods and skeleton,” commented Umi as Sous went to summoning a cheesecake knight for us to fight, explaining how he used the baked alaska turtloid’s alcohol-producing organs as inspiration for the various attack patterns of this variant of cheesecake knight.
“That is fine by me,” I replied with a nod as I watched as the daydreaming fishing rod in her right hand started to glow more vibrant, likely from Sal possessing it. Shifting into position behind the primary spirit halo, I gripped my longbow and aimed at the cheesecake knight, making full use of the shade provided by the cake-style skyscraper to make myself left visible.
Making use of her dual fishing rods and skeleton companion, Umi went to locking down the movements of the molecular cheesecake knight before it could fire off one of its conal bursts of mana from its fists. It was obvious she was new to this style of fighting and was heavily relying on her pair of mandalas, but with Sal’s possession and her skeleton companion she was able to keep up with the tier 2.2 monster, even if only in terms of restraining it.
Taking the opportunity, I took the time to familiarize myself with my new pair of bows: swapping between them as I maneuvered back and forth. The fact that both of them conjured arrows for cheap do subsidization by the Hybrid System of Flowers was incredibly useful. And unsurprisingly with a few shots of practice with both conjuration I was able to figure out that the shortbow preferred mid range combat and faster rates of fire while the longbow preferred longer ranged combat and slower but stronger arrow shots.
As we continued through fighting cheesecake knights in two-on-one fights, I felt experience build up in my system slots’ connection, ready to be allocated in different parameters and skills. It would have been nice to also collect some of the connectivity material connected to the Hybrid System of Flowers, Idios-Koinos Blossoms, or at least one of its variants, but alas we were still working on monsters that dropped that.
“I hope that was a fruitful exercise for the two of you,” proclaimed Sous as he appeared as a crystalline mote next to Umi, or at least his consciousness since his real body was at the penthouse at the top of the skyscraper.
“It was, I think this skeleton isn’t as bad as it seems,” answered Umi, twirling her twin dual fishing rods in contentment.
“Yeah, you might have a future as a necromancer,” I commented to the primary spirit halo before looking at the crystalline mote floating next to her and asking, “Is there something you need?”
“I need to warn you another anti-Vraglixian group has appeared, here. And these men possess a very hypocritical kind of flavor,” replied Sous bluntly as he continued a pair of translucent screens with remote viewing for us to see a trio of men flanked by a squad of golems, obviously conjurations like Umi’s. “Analysis sourced from our allies in Cheesecake Emporos-Museum is labelling them as the Soldiers of Clay, a group of sentient beings that would rather hoard magi-sentience for themselves and who they think is worthy, even to the detriment of those who are born magi-sentient or partial-magi-sentient.”
“Do you need us to provide backup? We aren’t in our best forms for this.” If I was in my real body, I could easily be using Editon and Editon’s Bow of Glyiria to rout the enemy or at least use my Eyes of the Blackzone to scout out their position also, but dispelling this simulated body would leave me in the adjacent layer of reality. I wouldn’t have time to enter the fray. As for Umi, even if she dispelled her own simulated body, she didn’t have Robert to provide support.
“It would be a useful spice to throw into the pot, but I have already sent the Jelly Caviar General to intercept and Louella is on the way with some of her secret spellmen housemates.”
“Then it would be best for the two of us to retreat to your penthouse. We can prepare things there.”
“Then I’ll open a pathway.” And with that, Sous’s crystalline mote disappeared as quick as it appeared. Looking over to Umi, I motioned back toward the cake-style skyscraper. I could see her hesitate for a second before relenting; she wasn’t the only one that wanted to fight, but even as a spirit she couldn’t risk one of those Soldiers of Clay being a recursive mage. Taking the lead to head to safety, I planned what I could do to empower myself for the worst case scenario. I’ll just to try for a multi-system slot, I thought to myself, formulating the process: normally you couldn’t empower a system slot’s connection with multiple other system slots in short succession or mutate multiple system slots into a single multi-system slot, but I had an Enigma with dungeon-mana reserves I could use.
“Pattissoria, how fast can you do what I’m thinking?” I asked my system assistant, entering the lobby and hurrying up the stairs.
“A few minutes, but it will take a lot of dungeon-mana reserves,” answered Pattissora with a great deal of interest in her voice, already seeing what I was planning.
“Do you need to ask Mita and Wlogwa for more dungeon-mana reserves?”
“Nope! But I’ll be sure to tell them what the expenditure was for.”
“Okay, start the process,” I replied as I felt my system assistant already going to work. Bearing the pain of exploiting the Enigma in such a way, I felt as two of my free system slots fuse into a multi-system slot that possessed pathways to my two Hidden System of Flowers system slots. With a sharp wince, I felt the newly forged multi-system slot with class specialties of Arrow Cast and Brick-Implement dedicate itself to the connection with its first connection and connecting to the Hidden System of Shrouded Flowers with its second connection: an empowerment empowering another empowerment. Fusing the two connections together, it formed an adornment of spirit rain flowers: rain flowers that glimmered in soft white and yellow lights.
Activating the adornment, I found myself conjuring up a small floating ballista that was suddenly possessed by Editon of all things. A conjuration that uses my contracted spirits, how perfect, I noted to myself as I felt Editon laugh from inside the conjuration,
“What a marvelous weapon! The enemies will know fear with my arrows of hardwork and inspiration!”
“Hopefully not today though,” I quickly replied as I continued to climb the stairs to the top of the skyscrapers. The conquest’s monster and Louella with her allies would most likely be more than enough to repel the Soldiers of Clay, but it never hurt to be prepared.
