-Wes Chaput-
I couldn’t believe Minerva was able to set us up with this gig: a huge paycheck and working allowance just for exploring Witch Synthia and checking out the hills of fantasy, system lairs, and other towns surrounding Blackentrail. I mean I heard it was common for the better off government-paid mages to spend at least a quarter million of mandala inscriptions, magical supplies, and the likes, but I didn’t think I would be experiencing it for myself: Glyiria really was stupidly generous when it came to magic-based stipended. Although I guess when you have such a powerful blackzone-based economy that your minimum wage is twice as high as the US’s average minimum wage of thirteen dollars a hour, you can make those concessions.
“I swear, I can see the dollar signs shooting out of your eyes right now,” laughed Minerva as we made our way to the station for magi-engine-powered wagons at the south end of Blackentrail.
“I didn’t think it’d be that obvious,” I quipped before sticking the envelope full of cash back into the personal subdimension-toting ring I was wearing, another perk of this job. It was great not to have to worry about trying to maintain your own personal subdimension; honestly I have no idea how other people managed it without mandalas, that sort of Sea of Phenomena magic was way beyond me. “Besides, I mean do you see how much money they are throwing at us? I know you got extra class specialty sets and feature mandala inscriptions from them before, but this is a lot.”
“Yeah, but you already know the economics behind this, so you shouldn’t be surprised,” pointed out Minerva nonchalantly.
“True…” I replied back in understanding: most of the paycheck we were given was meant to buy mandala from Glyiria’s government co-owned mandala management companies and magical supplies from their sister companies while the allowance was for mandalas and magical supplies from Witch Synthia. So even if there was any loss to their net national income, it would be more than made up in the information gained from our surveying and reports.
“Besides, we shouldn’t be complaining right now after all they gain to help with our spellcraft,” continued the sweet tooth as she conjured up one of her newest mandala-wrought compounds. Yeah this is a downpayment I’d rather not default upon, I internally muttered to myself as I felt my trio of newly inscribed mandalas: a World Physique lesser spell specialty that helped passively ward of magics of the World System and related class specialties, a Synthesis: Anti-Luck Physique greater spell specialty made by synthesizing Black Physique and Orange Physique to deal with elemental luck along with black and orange manas in general, and a Synthesis: Anti-Black World Physique greater spell specialty made by synthesizing Black Physique with World Physique for enhanced passive protection again black mana-based World System magic, also along with black manas and the World System and related class specialties in general. With the sheer amount of beige-steel mana passively circulating through my system, I didn’t even care that I only had one extra slot mandala left that could be inscribed. Definitely worked wonders here in the Necromancers’ Imperium when you added my Synthesis: Anti-Blood Physique to the mix cause that was just another black mana I had extra defenses against; hopefully the beige-steel half would be useful in the Corpormancers’ Footholds.
But the VIP treatment that Minerva got from all her connections and past experiences with Glyiria blew my stuff out of the water again. The synthesis greater spell specialty, Heiromantic Compendium of Bolts, made with the lesser spell specialties of Hieromancer’s Compendium and Low-Attribute Bolt that served as another foundation for her to combine her two specialties of compendiums and mana bolts. The synthesis feature, Synthesis: Tome of the Sweet Tooth’s Cake-Eye-Balls, made with the features of Tome of the Sweet Tooth and Contracted Cake-Eye-Balls because Prof. Van Elise got involved. And finally a freaking 2nd generational school, Synthetic Casting School: Volume of Bolts, which was synthesized out of the previous two mandalas along with her Book of the Sun: Road Scholar’s Chapter and Synthesis Glass Library: Bolt Volume and just tied everything together with a stupidly powerful compendium for mana bolt spells. It was seriously getting hard to keep track of all her compendiums at this point.
“Hey do you think Robert is going to do anything with autonomous stuff? Like an autonomous blackzone?” I asked as I went to check our itinerary to see we were heading to an autonomous hill of fantasy called Death’s Beginning’s Quarry while Minerva worked on preparing the money for the wagon.
“It would be nice and I have heard he and the other blackzone managers are looking into getting Aux cores for them. Self-generating and self-maintaining is definitely something that Robert would prioritize with his M.O. on management… But I don’t know if they set up an ETA on them yet.”
“Well let’s hope it is soon, I know the guys at the Enigma Proxy Club would love that sort of stuff.”
“Speaking of your delving club friends, how many of them have made their way to Witch Synthia and Mercury-Gardenia?”
“Only a few of them, info-karmic retribution is pretty strong with them so can’t really tell the others about them.”
“Fair enough,” commented Minerva as she went back to reading her floating compendium after preparing the money. That’s her 2nd generational one isn’t it? I noted to myself as I went to activate my simulated body and watched as my clothes were swapped out for a flowery school uniform and blue violets and mirrorandia, a weird sort of mirror petalled flower, burst out of my chest. It was nice to know that at least 2nd generational schools were working enough for Minerva, but it was nicer to know how useful this new flower I got from the coded system slot’s connection for the Hybrid System of Flowers that Minerva managed to get for me.
Mirrorandia’s conjuration wasn’t actually a conjuration per say, becoming the entire simulated body in a sense and allowing for partial use of passive effects applied to your real body along with some general enhancement. Really fitting of the symbolism of strong sense of self and extra fitting for someone like me who has five lesser spell specialties and three greater spell specialties dedicated to passive effects, especially since all of them boosted the amount of beige-steel manas passively being circulated through my system. Who knows, maybe here my tier 2.3 self can keep with the absurdity of Minerva’s tier 2.6 boosted with her huge low-attribute colour attunement if the systems were restrictive enough to foriegn magics.
Arriving at Death’s Beginning’s Quarry, I realized why it was suggested that Minerva and I checked it out: it was a giant quarry pit covered in rifts to not only the layer of reality that acted as Witch Synthia’s tower-filled wastelands but also the black mana-aligned extraplanar world and the major manalogical layer of reality of lorem ipsum, the Pathoshelm. The entire place was a giant single kaleidoscope with how all four of its areas blended together. Cracking my knuckles in anticipation, I conjured up my blue violets’ floating buckler and asked Minerva,
“Shall we?”
“I think so,” replied Minerva as she conjured up a fleet of eight cake-eye-balls before wincing a bit. “There’s the feedback.”
“Bad enough to need to dispel them?”
“Not, just need to be careful. Getting rid of them now would just make the report harder to write later.”
“Okay, well I’ll take lead for now. Tell me if you need to swap over to your simulated body,” I noted, entering the threshold of the autonomous hill of fantasy and feeling the shift in ambient mana. Glancing over my shoulder, I saw that Minerva didn’t wince from doing the same. So either the same or less amount of restrictions here, good to know.
Winding our way down the spiralling slope of the quarry, it tooks a few minutes before the two of us found our first monster: a flying dolphin-like skeletal that had a miasma of black manas instead of flesh. As it neared, Minerva whipped out the scanning magical device that Glyiria gave to us since neither of us knew any magics to analyze monsters and the likes. Unsurprisingly, the device told us the monster gliding toward us from out of a midair rift was called a skeletal black skyswimmer. How original, I internally chuckled, directing my floating buckler to bash the monster on its head.
With a weird sort of chirping screech, the skyswimmer recoiled slightly at getting hit in the head and went shooting through the air toward me. Not even bothering to call back my conjuration, I drew beige-steel manas from my mana circuitry and infused my body with it, not getting any system-imposed difficulty or cross-karmic retribution from doing so. Using an outstretched forearm, I caught the monster’s blow head on with a dull thud.
For something that was just a tier 2 something skeleton held together with corrupted and black manas, I might as well be a metal wall. Feeling the shift in flow of mana from Minerva readying herself, I launched the monster back as best as I could. Right on cue, low-attribute mana bolts literally streaked past me and chewed through the skyswimmer’s miasma and shattered some of its bones.
“No one-shot-kill this time?” I asked as I swung my arm to direct my floating buckler to intercept the monster before it tried to rush Minerva.
“Still trying to gauge the nuances of this place. How it reacts to magic is all over the place, its hard to tell if I’m going to get hit by difficulties or feedback or even cross-karmic retribution. I think I’m also getting interference from the manalogical forces of cosmic and magos.”
“Cosmic and magos? You’re kidding right?” I mean hell, what even were the manalogical forces of cosmic and magos called? I really knew about the different karmas cause how karma was tied to mandalas and how active the will of knowledge is. This place has some seriously weird magic going on.
“It’s hard to tell, not my expertise. Then again, neither is this Hybrid System,” replied Minerva as she launched a mana javelin from her compendium: a tight swirl of clear low-attribute and flux mana tinged with spirals of rainbow-tinged translucent red of wonderment. As the mana javelin finished the skeletal black skyswimmer, she let out a sigh of satisfaction and readjusted her glasses before continuing, “But nothing I can’t handle.”
“Well that was a new one.”
“The perks of having ten compendiums to splice together spells from.”
“How fitting for a librarian.”
“Indeed, why more fitting then your physique magics and Harold’s broadsword.”
“Speaking of Harold, how is he holding up now that he is a sweet tooth. Haven’t seen him around the library that much,” I asked as I went to try and see if the monster had a harvestable magical core. It wasn’t too surprising to see the magical core was completely shattered along with most of the bones, but luckily there was more than enough to toss into my ring’s personal subdimension. Oh yeah, I still have the ring on me, maybe I should break out the handgun.
“He’s doing just fine. Definitely making full use of the fact that his new apartment is in RV Dazzling Desserts.”
“Of course he is.”
“Hopefully he doesn’t turn into a full spell junkie, he has been treating the broadsword conjuring sub-feature he bought rather… erotically...”
“Yup, that sounds like Harold,” I chimed as I pulled out my enchanted silence handgun, just two simple enchantments for silencing and increased penetration on its muzzle. “Don’t take it weirdly though, but I think I might do the same thing, get a sub-feature for a handgun and a sub-feature for bullets.”
“So you can be erotic with conjurations also?” teased Minerva as she scanned the rift-covered horizon for more skyswimmers to fight, her cake-eye-balls mimicking.
“No, god no, I’m not in it for pleasure, that’s just a mild bonus when it does happen.”
“I know, come on, let’s find some more monsters to fight and enjoy ourselves. Oh also just so you know, I think it would be a good idea for you to do that. I’ve been actually thinking of getting an attunement for the glasses I can conjure with my own simulated body.”
“That’s good to know. Now let’s see if we can pull off a Harold” I replied with a sigh of relief, glad that Minerva was just teasing me. That got a smile out of her, which basically sealed the deal that we were going to try and enjoy the magic used in our next fight.
Heading further down toward the bottom of the quarry, we found a pair of skeletal black skyswimmers to try our hand at. Taking aim, I fired off a single shot to attract them but I wasn’t able to land a blow. Time to find out if these guys have spell shields or some other magical defenses.
“I’ll take the left if you take the right,” commented Minerva as she went to sending out small waves of tiny magic missiles through her cake-eye-balls, obviously taking the time to enjoy the rush of spellcasting now that we knew we could handle these monsters like we could the cheesecake knights.
“Deal,” I replied and I went to controlling my floating buckler to try and carroll my own target before I took another shot. I may not have the spellcraft to enjoy the rush of euphoria now that we were going for a more laid back approach, but I had other ways to get my satification.
Goading the skyswimmer into rushing me, I took potshot after potshot before it collided with me. Catching the monster head on, I felt some adrenaline as this time I was being struck with a body blow to the chest instead of my arm. Feeling myself being pushed back probably half an inch, I circulated mana through my system and had it flow out of my mana circuitry again and went to shoving the monster into the ground. Yup, these guys are definitely light weights, I noted before emptying the rest of my handgun’s clip into its skull and killing it.
“Hmmm… the interference is making things tricky to enjoy,” called out Minerva as she went to finishing off her own already battered skyswimmer with another one of her colourful mana javelins.
“Yeah, it’s a bit lackluster, but that’s what we get for trying to be like Harold.”
“It does take a special something to get a rush out of every thing of magics.”
“Maybe he has a mandala for it that he hasn’t told anyone about,” I joking suggested as I peered down toward the lower parts of the quarry, only to notice a group of canine-style kobolds milling about. It didn’t take a scanning magical device to notice they were fodder monsters or at least very low tier combat-centric entities. Looks like we found our next target already.
“Or he is just that much of an addict.”
“Probably.”
“Anyways, you thinking what I’m thinking?”
“We try our hands at those kobolds?”
“Yeah. I want to see if I can level up my mirrorandia at all.”
