-Minerva Poppers-

Staring down, I looked at the tier 4.0 enchanted contract along with the Grand Scholarship mandala inscription that Mr. Von Holtzem made for me, Modified Scholarship of Moral Glyphs (Low-Attribute), and a mandala-Sea of Phenomena-Lesser Trascendation hybrid facsimile with mana generation and three artificial-tunings built into them for artificial Trascendations, Art of Trascendations. With this I would be able to permanently bond to all three of my Saint’s Tesseract-Wells, although doing it via artificial-tunings wouldn’t give me as strong as an effect than with object-bindings or service-sharings but they were much cheaper and took up less space in your portfolio of mandalas for a reason. Looking back up at Ras and Terrin’s sister, Jezebel, I asked,

“Are you sure this is okay?”

“Yes, it’s perfectly fine, you’ve been doing great with helping collect information about the worlds that Historie Pastoria Sweets is connected to along with helping Glyirian officials and nobles learn about American culture and the state of the Enigma. And with the fact you already have enough money in your Glyirian bank account and my brother is embroiled in a quest that involved turning Historie Pastoria Sweets into a super distortion, I and the other officials overseeing your contract have decided to present this offer,” explained Jezebel with a simple smile and nod, giving off her signature manalogical aura that even I could sense without trying before sipping her cup of tea.

“So I just accept this contract and help Ras and the others with the quest and accept three requests from you or the Glyirian to do whatever you want as long as its legal and non-life threatening and then I get everything I need now?” I could understand helping with the quest, I was already planning to do that, but the request portion of the enchanted contract was making me hesitant. Even with its parameters, they could make me do a lot of immoral stuff and the duration of the enchanted contract being three years meant they had a large window to decide the favors. I’d rather not commit a technically legal atrocity...

“It’s only a tier 4.0 enchanted contract, they wouldn’t try to push you to do anything unsavory,” pointed out my asset, Claerea, astutely from the back of my head before going silent. It was only tier 4.0, nothing like the major tier 7.0 ones that I’ve heard Robert has to deal with, but even a tier 4.0 enchanted contract could have dire consequences if someone like me tried to break one of them.

“Yes and if we don’t make those requests within the timeframe agreed upon, our ability to do so will lapse until you enter with another contract to extend the timeframe,” answered the Glyirian noblewomen, completely obvious to my asset’s quick remark to also reassure me.

“I would have preferred object-bindings, but that would have taken a facsimile and composite facsimile instead of just one,” I noted as I went over the enchanted contract again.

“That’s understandable, but they are much more expensive and artificial-tunings still provide you the will colour attunement from their sigillum tags and the generator nuance status designation from their status amplification.” A 0.375 in ouros will colour attunement and 12 generator nuance status designations with only 3 being allotted once I bonded to all of them: the stratum 3 baseline of Trascendations aren’t just for show at all. Setting her cup down, Jezebel continued, “Regardless, since you have three of the artificial Trascendations, creating a fourth should be much easier for you, especially with the aid of the Glyirian government, and then you can aim for an object-binding facsimile or mandala.”

“I’m taking that’s you saying I should sign up for another enchanted contract.”

“Simply put, yes. As your friend and mentor for being a generator, I think it would fit you, especially will you now be able to properly access a will colour attunement without the use of a variantal advanced class specialty.” 

“Well, I’ll decide when I get to that bridge later,” I replied, finally taking the pen and signing the bridge: I didn’t mind helping about Glyiria, but this was something I had actually had to second guess myself about. Squaring everything away, I went to take in the mandala inscription and facsimile before binding to the artificial Trascendations in my possession. By the time I was done, I felt euphoric with mana and could tell I had become tier 2.8 from expanding my portfolio of mandalas so much at once. Let’s hope this wasn’t an one off occasion, I thought to myself, remembering how often mass inscribing and portfolio of mandala expansions ended up less returns after multiple times and increased likelihood of something bad happening: Robert was a prime example of the later issue with his current state of being.

Feeling out my new powers under the watchful eye of Jezebel as she finished her tea and snacks, I focused on how everything felt with all the new metrics: a saint pinnacle point, another pure magus path magus qualification, +1 to low-attribute colour attunement, +0.375 to orous will colour attunement, and 12 generator nuance status designations. With just these metrics and increase in tier alone I could already tell my ability to generate, refine, and shape mana had been improved by a notable amount. Of course I would have to get used to managing and maintaining permanently bonded artificials now and my Saint’s Tesseract-Wells were an unique start to that since they were Trascendations that required a saint pinnacle mage but gave will colour attunement to ouros and not divine.

After a few tentative conjuring and dispellings of my three artificial sigillum Trascendations, I moved onto feeling out their wear and tears: gaining a sense of just how broken they could become now and what would be to need to repair them from zero to hundred if need be. I guess the rumours are true, you can really abuse permanently bonded artificials but you shouldn’t rely on that, I noted as I realized just how monumental a full restoration would be and that semi-regular preventative maintenance and reactive repairing would be much more reasonable. 

“How does it feel?” asked Jezebel as I went to drawing in manalogical components to form a small portion of ouros will mana and then mixing it in with low-attribute manas.

“Interesting, it feels like my spellcraft can have a lot more depth to me and my mana generation abilities have actually increased in volume by a large sum even though the facsimile doesn't actually give that much.”

“It’s likely because you are nearing excel ranked in low-attribute colour attunement and can generate mana crystals with ease now.” 

“Yeah, that’s probably why.” Drawing on the power of one of my new artificials, I went to compress the mana and alter its composition: drawing in matter from other layers of reality as the mana solidified and hardened into a glassy mana crystal with a faint glow. Even with the three Saint’s Tesseract-Wells being only artificial-tuned, I could probably actually attempt to make mana bolt with mana crystals instead of pure mana. A more physical option would be more useful, although I’ll have to test how cost effective it is.

“Not very high quality, but still impressive nonetheless. Do you think you can make a living off making them?”

“Probably, but not as much if I continued delving,” I answered before pausing to think: making mana crystals was a much more stable profession, not to mention safer and worked better with my job as a librarian. Not to mention it wasn’t like I could still keep delving as a hobby, and it wasn’t like delving was the only way to raise your tier or expand your portfolio of mandalas. I already managed to circumvent the high start up cost of becoming a mana crystal crafter.

“Well that’s the nature of delving in a profitable blackzone.”

“Speaking of blackzones… what your stance on Historie Pastoria Sweets, I’ve been seeing a few Glyirians actually be disgruntled about the fact. I thought Glyirian culture was pro-blackzone and pro-delving?”

“Yes, but there are factions within our nation that are very puritanical about the nature of blackzones. Some think we should only cultivate and encourage blackzones, and some even more narrow to think we should only do that for Enigmas and Witch’s Nests. There are also other groups that are pro or against the various types of dungeon-like distortions.”

“That’s surprising, but I guess it makes sense, no one culture or nation is truly homogenous. America has a lot of similar groups, hating or advocating different types of blackzones and their subtypes,” I noted with a nod, thinking about all the rallies outside of the Endless Strip from people who hate blackzones and divergent distortions, of course those rallies usually were just ignored because a vast majority of protestors didn’t even have citizenships for the Endless Strip. 

“Yes, but luckily the other factions and blocs can’t build enough traction to be the raging serpent and we’ll make sure to keep it that way. With Historie Pastoria Sweet continuing to grow as both a valuable ally and resource, the Von Holtzem house should be able secure it with the help of the Van Florence house, my own house, and a few others.”

“So we have a lot more support than what we expected, that’s good to hear.” Focusing back on creating more mana crystals, the two of us went to idly chatting about the state of Historie Pastoria Sweets. With the quest having started almost a week ago now, everyone was getting busy since it really did involve everyone, including the new taffy twined and enlightened gingerbread urbanites. The biggest issue right now wasn’t actually introducing everyone to the Hybrid System of Warring Cores but what came after it: making sure everyone could progress in it and be proficient with it.

The Hybrid System of Flowers had already made things awkward enough, but now we are handling two different hybrid systems on top of the Obscurus System of the Flasaporium Hub; with most people around empowering their system casting and system-based spellcraft with attunement, we were running into the issue of having attunements with connections to the six primary special locales within the first eight non-synthesis non-anachronistic ones. So while we had easy access to Halo, Game, and Asset Systems via Alihi’a’Pounga, Sins of the SteelStar, and the Endless Strip, we still had to get all the witch-cursed and contracted existences to system slot’s connections and attunements for Adventure, Psyche, and Reaper Systems. 

Even I need to work on solidifying my foundations, but what system do I get next, I pondered to myself, feeling my connections to the various systems: on the system slot’s connection side of things I had connections to the Halo, Game, Asset, and Obscurus Systems along with the Hybrid System of Flowers and Hybrid System of Warring Cores, and on the attunement side of things I had connections to the Halo System with my Bolts of the Origin Land and the Game System and Hybrid System of Flowers with my Flower SteelStar Enhancement. 

“Well, it’s time for me to head back to the office,” commented Jezebel, getting up from her seat. “I assume you’ll be heading back to the Enigma?”

“Yes, I think I’m going to test out some spells then go back to practicing the Hybrid System of Warring Cores,” I explained, also getting up and taking out some money to pay for my own food even though it wasn’t much.

“I heard the hybrid system is kit based, what kit did you acquire?”

“The Mage kit, it only gives a simple staff loaded with the Magic Missile, Magic Shield, and Magic Detection spells but it fits my style of spellcraft.”

“That’s good to hear. I should put in a request with the systems research department to find a suitable kit for me within the Hybrid System of Warring Cores so that I may help out.”

“That would help a lot.” Jezebel helping out again? Maybe we didn’t have to worry too much about the quest, I mentally told myself as I waved goodbye and went to grab a taxi back to Historie Pastora Sweets. It was always nice to get out and about to explore Glyiria, and Appleville was a nice place, but home was always much more comfortable. I am still going to have to see if I can plan a trip outside of Glyiria to see the rest of the Old Frucs continent, maybe even other continents on Frucs or the other five worlds of the Flasaporium hub.

Arriving in Arbor a’la Roll Cakes, I started to make my way back to the faux-World Bridge to Historie Pastoria Sweets proper before pausing. Since I was out and about, perhaps I should try to practice some spellcraft. Conjuring up my six cake-eye-balls, I sent them out to find some monsters to fight against. After about a half minute of spread out searching, I found a group of different varieties of living flans currently in symbiotic possession with tart tree elementals: their flan-like bodies glowing and being covered with a sparkle-producing silhouette of the spherical masses that were elementals.

Making my way over, I focused on preparing my first experiment of a spell, Advanced Moral Glyphs bolt; given that it used an advanced class specialty mana it would take four times as much mana as a normat mana bolt but yield eight times the power in comparison to a normal mana bolt, but that was before I had a Grand Scholarship to help with this sort of stuff. Lining up the emphasises, fundamentals, and incantations within my mandalas and Sea of Phenomena, I made the adjustments I’ve learned over trial and error and research to it from a low-attribute mana bolt to Moral Glyphs bolt to Advanced Moral Glyphs bolt. 

Readying the swirling bolt of complex warm colours in my hand, I made eye contact with the first of the possessed living flans: a living Obscurial Glyphs flan with ruddy creamy pale streaks cutting through its otherwise soft blue body. With a flick of the wrist, I sent the bolt flying and watched as it impacted with both the living flan and its tart tree elemental, exploding into a swirl of energy both rising and falling. That’s definitely more than eight time yield, I noted to myself as I pushed past the miniscule rush of euphoria and power from casting the spell to see how my mandalas were holding up. After a few seconds, I sighed and came to the conclusion that it still wasn’t something I could turn into a spell that truly was a bread and butter technique: I’d likely need a mandala, even something a weak as an artificial quasi-mandala, to help handle the load from refining and compressing an advanced class specialty mana.

Moving on, I went to try and make a mana crystal bolt and after a few tries managed to nail another living flan and its tart tree elemental, killing them instantly in a mixture of high velocity impact and extreme rate of mana emissions. I need to refine the ratios more, I mental noted to myself, feeling both proud that I had crafted a rudimentary spell that gave me a more physical line of attack but also feeling a bit frustrated cause the spell was in the same boat as the Advanced Moral Glyphs bolt. I was going to have to do a lot more research and practice to perfect them, probably even ask Terrin for some advice about mandala inscriptions.

“Everyone has to start somewhere,” I commented to no one in particular before going to pick up my loot and heading back home.