-Lucilla Kite-

Throwing another mana-infused punch, I shattered the mask of the prisma-liquowraith along with the rest of its upper body. It was a good exercise even though they were only tier 2.8 and I was glad to help Sous and Umi out. And this was so exciting! Robert had a private divergent distortion now! One that was fused into his Enigma, making it a super distortion! I mean to think he made a super distortion before me, but then again it wasn’t like I was trying to make one. I mean it not like anything was stopping me: Canada treated me nicely, my connection to the Flasaporium hub was a deserted island that was miles off the Old Frucs coastlines so I didn’t have to worry about governments on that side of things, and all the blackzone gods gave me enough requests and minor quest to build up the favors needed for one. Maybe I should try to actually make Treant Orchard a super distortion by fusing other dungeon-like distortions into it instead of just getting sub-blackzones.

“Interacting with all these new protocols is such an interesting experience,” commented Jaffa as she and Bosch helped Sous categorize all the unfamiliar protocols, protocol-hybrids, and organic magics that made up the divergent distortion’s core. Apparently they could barely interact with it due to some interaction caused by Robert’s latest Grand Key, a budget one called Rainbow Rope’s Bar Gallery’s Sublimation. Just thinking about it’s name made me laugh a little bit: to think Robert’s private divergent distortion manifested with a name like Rainbow Rope’s Bar Gallery, it definitely fit him in a roundabout way. 

“It must be,” I replied aloud as I went to move out onto one of the terraces through the door on this section of floors; ‘cake cut out’ portion. Looking out across toward Enigma proper, I noticed how many skyscrapers there were amid the thick colourful cords connecting all of them in a loose web. He really is a city person huh? I thought to myself as I pieced the puzzle together that was his private divergent distortion’s manifestation and how it revealed him as a person who saw the big city, a good drink, and connections as important things in life and how everyone was connected to form a big web or something. Or at least that was how I was going to interpret it until Robert finally woke up and I could ask him in person.

Not wanting to get hung up about something simple as that, I went back to clearing my way through this new Subdungeon, Rainbow Rope’s Caketopia, and beating up prisma-liquowraiths until they were at an acceptable level. Getting a bit bored, I decided to mix things up by breaking out spears and lances I got from Daphne in Flasaporium Hub’s Sour, Sweet, & Savory and used all the colourful licorice monsters as practice. With each jab, I ended up completely killing them because our gap in tiers were too high, especially since all these weapons were indirectly being empowered by a Grand Key, even the power-linked Lance of Branch. Although it probably didn’t help for that branch-made lance I was conjuring it through Shaman-Assassin’s Branch Lance instead of its lesser spell specialty and further empowering it. I just couldn’t help it, it was my favorite one compared to the scorpion lance from Soured Scorpius Assassinations or its spear counterpart or Scorpius’s spear form.

Hitting the lower floors, I finally got bored of using the spears and lances and went back to punching with my knuckle dusters and mana infusions. I had no clue how Daphne was able to handle Scorpius so well and make him do all the cool tricks he had: she should have been more upfront about how plain he was when he was just a facsimile with a power-linking mandala for empowerment! Pouting a little bit, I thought to Scorpius,

“I wish you could actually transform when I used you.” Unsurprisingly there was no response, probably because Daphne was using him or he was just sleeping. Shaking my head a little bit, I paused as I heard the sound of fighting and movement from down the stairs. It wasn’t Sous or Umi cause they were upstairs with the taffy twined making sure they were all settled in and dealing with the integration of the divergent distortion and they were letting delvers nearby… so it had to be some sweet tooths. Making my way toward the noise, I found myself watching Minerva, Wes, and Terrin clearing out of a group of prisma-liquowraiths.

“Oh Lucilla, it’s you,” commented Minerva as she turned to me and half-stepping back in shock.

“Yup, it’s me. Watcha doing, clearing out liquowraiths also?”

“Yeah, we just about cleared up everything below, unless more have already spawned,” answered Wes before stopping to think for a second. “Although I guess that doesn’t matter since we were just clearing out the excess ones.” 

“Nope, we shouldn’t have to worry at all,” I replied with a grin before suddenly feeling a shift in the ambient mana. Looking at the others, I realized that they didn’t notice the shift which probably meant something just changed in the Enigma again. Mentally poking Jaffa, I asked my system assistant,

“What just happened?”

“It seems the divergent distortion side of things just organically made a new variant of cheesecake knight, down to the same tier and types of drops. Both Sous and Umi are now frustrated because they were about to formalize their own variant,” answered Jaffa with a hint of excitement in her voice and she made a tiny translucent screen for me to read the name of the new variant: candied margarita cheesecake knight.

“Oh wow, so this place is going to have two types of cheesecake knights then?”

“Yes, and it seems they are already being summoned. If you want, I can lead you and the others to them to fight.”

“Yes! I want to see what these guys are like in action,” I telepathically replied before asking the others, “Hey guys, there is a new type of monster showing up, do ya want to fight some?”

“I don’t see why not, I mean it’s not like a high tier one right,” commented Wes with a sort of confident shrug. “What do you two think, Terrin, Minerva?” I could help but impressed with how calm and collected Wes was, the last time I saw him before he started training in the Corpormancers’ Footholds he was still a step behind Minerva and only an average delver, maybe slightly-above-average, for his tier but now it looked and felt like he could really take a hit and pack a punch. Bet getting to tier 2.4 because of his fancy hybrid facsimiles was a real confidence boost. Hehe, although I guess he does still sound a bit grubby for attention and support.

“I wouldn’t mind after a short break,” replied Terrin as he took out a soda-potion to drink while his sprite-spirit glided around him in lazy circles. 

“The same goes for me, I’m interested to see what else this Subdungeon has made so far,” followed up Minerva as she took out one of her Saint’s Tesseract-Wells and started to draw mana in from it. Curious and seeing now was as good a time as ever, I decided to chit chat with the three of them to see how they were doing and if anything interesting had happened with their spellcraft. Terrin was still tier 3.5 but was making strides in using his new 2nd generational mandala, Allies of Isabella (Grace), along with managing Robert while was in his spirit form using Strange Man’s Working Contract (Mirage). Wes managed to hit tier 2.4 and was working on getting better at using his two new facsimiles: a body-system slots-mandalas hybrid called Mandelic Skin of Silver Flowers that could manifest as an extra layer of muscle and skin filled to the brim with beige-steel mana and a mutant body-system slots-Sea of Phenomena hybrid called Mana-Channelling Eagle Muscles that added muscles to his back that could channel mana while also passively channel beige-steel manas. And as for Minerva, she was now tier 2.7 and was nearly done with making a budget Grand Scholarship using her extra class specialty of Moral Glyphs and Advanced Moral Glyphs.

“So you’re just getting the Grand Magus-grade just for the saint pinnacle point? Couldn’t ya just focused on a budget non-mandala counterpart instead for one? Cause aren’t ya doing this for those artificial Trascendations?” I asked as I munched on some of the fruity licorice that the prisma-liquowraiths dropped. It had just the right amount of chew to it and was bitter at all, just a random assortment of sweet and sour flavors mixed with the undertone of mana.

“I’m not going to I was interested in non-mandala options, but Trascendations were impossible for the start, Inner Trascendations were just as unfeasible unless I used a bunch of my mandalas for expanding option sets, and both facsimiles and system slots had their own downsides in access and cost. So I settled with getting a Grand Magus-grade Mandala since it was the cheapest and would be easy enough to work with the Glyirian government to get one,” explained Minerva as I had Jaffa lead us to the closest group of candied margarita cheesecake knights. 

“Huh, that’s actually pretty smart, then guess I guess you’re a librarian for a reason aren’t ya?” 

“Thanks, hopefully all this work will bear its fruits and I’ll be able to focus on gaining object-bindings and service-sharings to permanently bond with these artificial Trascendations.”

“Doesn’t my uncle already have one lined up for you?” questioned Terrin as we turned the corner to see the cheesecake knights that actually looked sort of like Robert cosplaying as a half-armoured knight with a large chalice rimmed with crystals.

“He does, an object-binding System Slots-Sea of Phenomena hybrid facsimile. He has been very considerate of my needs and found me a cheaper option on Witch Synthia that provides the object-binding along with a system slot and enhanced mana generation,” answered the sweet tooth as she conjured her cake-eye-balls and positioned them in front of us. So both of them are going to have Sea of Phenomena facsimiles for mana generation huh? Make sense, that piece of a being is manalogical so of course it would be the one of best candidates outside of mandalas for that kind of stuff! I thought with a smile as I stepped back to watch as the three of them whittled away at the cheesecake knights while dodging their bane-inflicting splash attacks that made you drunk with a simple curse. It was pretty funny to think that a cheesecake knight that was organically made by Robert’s personal divergent distortion would make use of actual curses, but it definitely fit him, especially with the fact it was based around intoxication.

“You sure you don’t want to step in and help us?” asked Wes as they finished off the first half of the candied margarita cheesecake knights.

“I guess, but I’ll just kill them all in one shot and that’s so fun,” I replied, cracking my knuckles and moving in, accidentally making some of the nearest cheesecake knights instinctively move back. “Are you in a rush or something?”

“Actually, yeah, I’m planning on meeting my alt-rhi in a bit.”

“Oh wow! I wish I had an alt-rhi. It’s like everyone is getting one nowadays except for ya know?”

“I guess?...”