-Margaret Mont-Bismuth-

These past three weeks have been insanely hectic: got turned into a taffy twined, had to rush back to New York to put in my two weeks notice, move into my new condominium of a two-story apartment in Rainbow Rope’s Caketopia, get conscripted into helping out with my cousin and boyfriend’s quest and learn how to use the Hybrid System of Warring Cores, and get two part time jobs as a museum educator at a museum in Ignae Automata and in Glyiria since I couldn’t find any full time ones. Luckily, it was only a thirty minute commute to either museum and getting to split my working time between the greenery of Appleville and the technic metropolis of Theta Circuit was nice. But waking up and reminding myself not to trip on the sugary rope of an extra appendage that wrapped around my left leg wasn’t that lucky on that front, I still need to get used to it.

“What the hell am I going to do today,” I muttered as I got out of bed, narrowly avoiding tripping over myself, and going to make myself some coffee. It was Friday so I didn’t have to worry about work the rest of the week: a small perk for actually bothering to do four ten hour shifts instead of five eight hour shifts between two museums that weren’t liable to call me up for a surprise shift on short notice. Awakened dreaming in the Slumbering Palaces was always an option since I did have my own personal night web and proxy pod to use now. I could also go enjoy some tropical sights again in Alihi’a’Pounga, maybe even see if there was anything interesting to do in Sins of the SteelStar since I finally used a system slot to make a connection to that Digital Realm. Geez I didn’t think I would actually have this many options for things to do when I moved here, I thought to myself, tossing a thing of blackzone coffee grounds into my coffee machine and opening up my cabinet to decide on what mana-infusion syrup I was going to use this time.

“You could always duel,” suggested my latest spirit and also GD-Summon of an asset, Titanala, from her personal space within my system slot’s connection to the Asset System of the El’Vega hub. Honestly I was still getting used to her since her system slot’s connection, Fairy Faux-Goddess, was actually had both the blessed and artifact tags: something that probably one in million for the amount of money I put into making the system slot’s connection cause Mita gave it to me do, two hundred thousand. I would have put that money elsewhere, but I couldn’t complain cause Titanala already had the potential to be a rival to Scalugon the Last with the unique digital attributes and spell processing powers she had from being a GD-Summon.

“I’d rather save up some money before I do something like that. Cause no offense, using you without draining my mandalas dry is like the opposite of saving money.”

“How about you ask your mana crystal making friend for a loan then?”  

“Sorry, but I don’t want to mooch off Minerva, you’re just going to have to wait until I get an attunement or multi-system slot made for you that doesn’t involve using a bunch of money for spellcasting.”

“I see…” replied Titanala with enough disappointment to make my psyche-summons, Jasminer, Puck, and Trickley, along with Scalugon the Last stir a bit. Shrugging as my coffee machine dinged, I grabbed a bottle of dream mana-infusion syrup and went to putting a few drops into my fresh cup of coffee; it wasn’t like I didn’t like Titanala’s badass fancy pistol, just that it was really annoying that the microflation attached to it, Fill or Kill, was thirty dollars a bullet if I went for a balanced cost ratio. I liked shopping and chatting, not shooting people with overly expensive bullets, even if those overly expensive bullets had the fun and extra potent bane of forcing the person to be spontaneous and predictable. I wouldn’t mind shooting Mita right now to get a straight answer about what the hell he is planning to do for the quest though.

Sipping on my coffee, I went to looking out my balcony window and planning as I saw a series of plague clouds rolling in. Well there goes anything Earth-side, I internally muttered with a shudder: no way was I going to risk getting one of Borolio’s diseases, especially since it was nearer. After a few more sips of my coffee, I finally decided I might as well go over Demon Candy Child’s Caketopia and either practice with the Hybrid System of Warring Cores so I can work on mutating a multi-system slot or exploring Dragon Country a bit. Hopefully I could meet up with D-John C and B-Mike C to see if they could help on the multi-system slot stuff, although D-John C was busy helping the others get used to new hybrid system while B-Mike C was working with Sous and the system assistants to get his attunement for contracting lebukhen wolves and feature for contracting black liquorice orthruses into the generation protocols. It was crazy to think we already had a feature mandala for familiars with the cake-eye-balls and now had an attunement mandala for familiars with the deviled humpty dumpties because Jean but still were expanding an actually branching into mandalas for summons.

Finishing up my coffee, I went to quickly rinse out the cup and grab my purse and handgun. With everything readied, I headed out: making my way down the stairs, waving a few of the other taffy twined who were up and about, and ducking into the teleportation pad to head over to Demon Candy Child’s Caketopia. Feeling the Astral Horizon, the Dimensional Folds, the Leylines twist around as the magics of the teleportation pads drained my mandala of some mana, I whisked myself away to Demon Candy Child’s Caketopia and Dragon Country.

“Of course everyone is busy…” I muttered to myself as I walked out into the internal block of Demon Candy Child’s Caketopia to see the enlightened gingerbread urbanites and their unenlightened counterparts all hard at work coordinating defenses and invasions. Do they ever take breaks? I mentally muttered to myself as I scanned the crowd for D-John C or B-Mike C: the entire place was even more active than the Glyirian military outpost in Capita Sweets.

“Oh, Margaret, it’s good to see you,” called out B-Mike C, finding me before I could find him. Looking over, I saw the spiky haired enlightened entity walking over to me with his four lebukhen wolves and two black liquorice orthruses in tow. 

“Mike, it’s good to see you. Umm, are you busy?”

“I’m actually free for the day, Contracted Lebuhken Wolves and Tamed Black Liquorice Orthruses have been formally placed into generation protocols.”

“Wow, that was actually really fast.”

“Yeah, apparently when I was made with them, they were already optimized for being added to generation protocols of blackzones.” Already optimized? That’s insane especially for contracting mandalas a person was born with: all the different variables that those sort of mandalas had on top of the weird organic aspects of its inscribing should have had that be the exact opposite situation. I guess his summons were already pretty optimized… good numbers… good empowerments… good mending, I contemplated, realizing that his mandalas were actually pretty damn streamlined and user friendly.

“You think Robert and the others are going to start handing out those mandalas?” I mean some of the taffy twined were already getting angsty after learning how many mandalas that all the sweet tooths have already gotten and I couldn’t blame them. Even I was getting a bit impatient, but at least I knew how resource intensive it was to kit people out with new mandalas even with the support of a blackzone, especially when we were talking about over a hundred people.

“Probably, I would like to get a few for some of my subordinates, actually form a houndmaster platoon.”

“Don’t you already have something like that?”

“We do but it’s with kits from the system slot’s connections, not power-links to mandalas,” explained B-Mike as the two of us started to drift away from the apartment block and down to the lobby. Unsurprisingly the Subdungeon was still only populated with various types of living flans, cake-eye-balls, and gingerbread urbanites: Mita and the others really did need to pick up the pace on making more monsters to make things more diverse.

“Are power-links that important?” I asked, looking back at his small fleet of lupine summons and noting his hound from his Houndmaster kit wasn’t summoned. I mean I knew that mandalas generally were stronger than system slot’s connections when they were first starting off, but their growth was pretty much static and fixed in return.

“For the Hybrid System of Warring Cores it is. So much is dedicated to the system insurances and other ‘quality of life’ features and abilities, power-links help give you a new tool, strong or weak and sometime multiple, while also empowering both sides, even if is only by a tiny amount,” pointed out B-Mike before pausing asking back, “System talk aside, why are you here today anyway? Don’t you have work?”

“Nope, my weekends are free for me to do whatever I feel like doing to unwind and I figured I would actually go explore Dragon Country today.”

“Have you actually been to Dragon Country proper?... Like actually outside of Demon Candy Child’s Caketopia? Or the surrounding mass divergent distortion?”

“No, I haven’t, kind of the whole point of going to explore the place.”

“Well you’re in for a surprise,” commented B-Mike as he lead me down to and out of the lobby explaining along the way that Dragon Country was comprised of three superworlds, each three worlds in size, and ruled from behind the scenes by the forty dragon kings like how the high mage lords were the rulers of Witch Synthia. When I asked how he already knew about all of this, B-Mike simply replied that he did some research and exploring of his own and found that the conquest wasn’t too far away from a major city once you entered real space.

Making our way out of the relatively plain-looking mass divergent distortion, I felt the ambient mana shift as I was greeted to the sight of sprawling modern-ish city that looked like it came right out of a steampunk fantasy book or show, or I guess world. Glancing up, I saw a series of airships against the backdrop of another planet in visible distance and the faint film of dimensional miasma that I heard was common in habitable quarter-worlds with… dragons. With an ‘o’ face, I gasped,

“Holy shit are those dragons?”

“Probably, might be demi-dragons or quasi-dragons though.”

“So wait… Dragon Country is actually literal about it’s name?”

“Yeah it is, an artificial world cluster that is effectively a country of dragons,” replied B-Mike with a slight grin, flashing his elongated crystalline-coated canine. “Every type of being at that, including UMCs, drudges, and GD-Summons now.”

“Marvelous,” muttered Scalugon the Last with enough force to make me feel his excitement and interest: of course he would love an artificial world cluster full of dragons.

“Anyway, welcome to the south capital of the Zazan Empire, Lungehill,” continued B-Mike as he started to head toward the city.

“Is there anything I should know before we, you know, enter the city? Do I need my license or anything?” I questioned the enlightened gingerbread urbanite as I noticed the walls of the city, cutting it off from what looked like a series of suburbs that we were on the edge of.

“No, just act normal, this place is low magic but there is still a decent bit of magical devices and system-based magic going on because of how restrictive the systems being are.” Nodding, I focused internally on my mandalas and tried to use one of my new lesser spell specialties, Relieving Mist, and felt how strained the process was: this place was a lot more unforgiving with magic compared to Starport Cyber and Witch Synthia. Shifting the mass of calming moisture and mana between my hands, I tried to act as normal as possible and from the looks of it it was working. That or the people of Lungehill’s suburbs were used to foreigners and spellcasters. I guess when you live surrounded by dragons, your threshold for weird is on a whole other level.

Making our way to a trolley line to the city, I managed to get more information out of B-Mike about the magic situation in Dragon Country, like how they were big on using artificials via object-bindings and service-sharing and using things with the artifact tag which meant the blessed tag and status amplifications were valauble. The fact that enchantments and weaponry made from draconic materials and magics just showed how different this place was compared to Earth and probably most of the metaverse proper. That and partial manalogical sentiences were more common than fully actualized ones and jiyu-sentients were more common than magi-sentients, which made sense cause apparently the original dragon kings had most of the anchors to keep this artificial world cluster from breaking apart placed on habitable quarter-worlds. Also explained the dimensional miasma that was all over.

And of course the most surprising thing to hear was that we were actually heading toward my cousin currently was. Pausing in my tracks in confusion, I asked the enlightened entity,

“Wait… How the hell is Robert here?” I mean he’s pretty much crippled without the use of magic, and there was no one in Lungehill or anyone in Dragon Country who had a spirit contract with him. Right?

“He’s here with Percy and Harvey.”

“Percy… Wait, that Percy?”

“That Percy,” answered B-Mike with a nod as I finally pieced together that the taffy twined named Percy from the Endless Strip was actually Percy Brandle, Harvey’s younger brother. That’s why he was so familiar!