Eve was over the moon. Ritual Magic was even more powerful than she had first imagined. Instant Ritual made creating new ones a snap, while Boosted Ritual ensured the power was always topped off. Permanent Ritual both kept everything cemented in place, and prevented dispels without a counter Ritual. Multi-Layer Ritual allowed flexible use preventing them from being stale static things.

Ritual of Elements allowed her Witch’s Dust to mimic the effect of elemental spells smoothly sliding the knife into any defensive gaps a creature had. Ritual of Mimicry added a boost copying elemental spells, manipulating the Elements involved, and allowing her to regain Savage Survival Mind's combat effectiveness. Combined the two Rituals demonstrated the power that was greater than one plus one.

In the same vein, Ritual of Movement, Reflex, and Acceleration synchronized to make Eve feel like she had an angel’s grace. In a brutal leap of learning, she found that Reflex didn't only pertain to combat speed. As a Ritual it also allowed her to counter things she had seen before, as long as it didn't put her at a disadvantage to do so by tapping into Eternal Memory. In essence, moving during combat felt like a perfectly choreographed piece of art, perfected by her own magic as a Witch. The OODA Loop that Witch’s Dust learned took full advantage of Reflex and Acceleration.

Ritual of Balance stabilized everything providing the glue that made everything better. Rituals of Mapmaking, Storage, and Looting automated each process so that no input was required on Eve’s part. Information flowed directly into her Map without needing to be processed first. Storage was a spatial container much like Inventory had been. Looting was a great bonus, especially inside a Dungeon. Within a dungeon, the new Ritual would shine with brilliance. Everything of value would be instantly moved to Storage without missing a penny. It was rare for the ambient mana level to create treasures outside Dungeons, but in such a case, Looting would serve its purpose at those places, too.

It was the Ritual of Obscurity, Silence, and Reflection that provided Eve with something new. As she rose in Charm, it was harder to stay unseen in a crowd. In the Wildlands there wasn’t much of a problem, but she could already understand the trouble a crowded city could bring. Obscurity solved that problem creating a look-away effect that diverted attention as if she was just another face in the crowd, nullifying the effect of Charm to a dull whisper. Silence allowed the direct manipulation of sound, and Eve was certain given time she could extend it to vibrations in general. Reflection on the other hand added a portion of any damage she suffered directly back to enemies. Since it was a stacking effect the multiplier only increases the longer a fight went on.

Well worth taking a single demoness with me when I leave. Eve thought looking over the new changes. The benefit of a truly long-life shines.

Eve spent several days exhaustively testing her new powers on the goblin population. The Green Horde had endless opponents, it honestly felt like two goblins were born for every death! Satisfied with the results gained, Eve immediately applied herself to finishing the Ritual chain to murder the Matriarch. Susan’s advice had chopped decades off the timer that had been previously calculated. Eve estimated that within the next year, everything would be finished. She was placing Rituals above, around, and below the Matriarch. It would create a cage with each effect chaining into greater impact. Given the time to prepare the battlefield, Eve was certain killing the dragon would happen.

As she finished her final experiment on goblins using her new powers, Kudzu’s request came out of the left-field, but her trust made Eve give the go-ahead on his plan. If anyone could remove all traces and transmute a corpse into food it was the alchemy legend in the making. It was a risk, but a minimal one in her estimation. The value of draconic components in Alchemy was substantial, and if he couldn’t make something worthwhile from the remains, she would eat her very pointy hat. There might also have been a tad bit of guilt for completely devouring the Junior Flood Dragon mixed in as well, but no matter. Micro-Micro Spores appeared to be an organic version of Witch’s Dust. Their organic nature was fantastic and Eve spent a few hours watching the spores dance as they enriched the swamp soil in the process of creating a peat bog. It was a mesmerizing sight made even more vivid when she looked through the mana spectrum to view the process at work.

Kind of like a fantasy screen saver, only more lethal, and controlled by a bird-hating murder plant. Par for the course really these days. Eve thought finally looking away from the sparkly colors as they danced in front of her home. Kudzu’s roots will go deep, spores will turn the earth behind to solid peat sheathing, and I will go in behind carving Rituals on the peat.

Eve nodded to herself as she floated up to the top of her Hut. It was rather fun to practice adjusting her clothing while she shifted shape. It was a new exercise that Susan had started her on for blending into a crowd if Obscurity failed. Hair, eyes, skin tone, clothing, body language, and more were part of the practice. Over time she was generating a set of profiles that could be easily shifted into with minimal thought. Her public persona would be a silver-eyed blond bombshell, but Eve was getting better at everything from a lovable waif to a gritty old biddy. The practice was split among the Child, Maiden, Mother, and Crone archetypes.

Nota assisted by cataloging each disguise generated in Eternal Memory so they were only a thought away. Each page in the Tome was like a fantastic illustrated still marking a new disguise. The touch of Primordial Dust appeared to have shifted the limitations before into a more flexible format. Eve wasn’t sure exactly where the extra mass went when she was in a child’s form, but since it worked she didn’t care. What she did care about was how the eldritch devouring apparently did not extend to the child or maiden forms, specifically her missing arm and leg. In those instances, she was able to make use of the fact that they still existed. Primordial Dust apparently only ate her, at the time, present, and future appendages. It was a strange balance that operated on the laws of insanity, Eve supposed. Immortality provided a great excuse to find things out later, probably at a time when it was critically important, and surrounded by sharp objects wielded by paranoid people. For now, she simply took the fact that being a teenager, or a child meant she didn’t need to use Witch’s Dust to form magical limbs.

After creating a few hundred disguises, Eve decided it was time for lunch. One of the most wonderful things gained from killing the Junior Flood Dragon, and relocating to the center of the swamp was the ambient mana increase. Felix’s ability to manipulate space was the key. The unnatural calculation abilities that came as easily to Dungeons as breathing did to humans played a significant role. With the sapphire crystal standing outside time’s touch, Eve would take Felix over a quantum computer any day. It was impressive to note that the System seemed to have a very hands-off policy once a Dungeon was created.

In any case, without Felix, I wouldn’t even be attempting to kill the Matriarch. Eve thought as she moved through the Hut into the newly forming Garden. Rituals provide the turrets, spores provide the soldiers, and a Dungeon provides the CnC Server.

Eve knew her own limits. She was certainly powerful, but killing a dragon without taking massive losses was far out of her power rating especially being a Tier below. Setting up a Ritual wasn’t something Felix could do, but controlling one was. Her silver bullet for the Matriarch had a slight sapphire hue along with being a shameless flirt towards the newly sapient Hut.

After a short stint through the Garden for ingredients Eve prepared a simple lunch of sandwiches and rosemary tea. The meat was provided from the swamp’s bounty. Even in such an inhospitable environment, there were still birds to feast upon. Having spent time in the military, Eve didn’t question the meat too closely. As long as it didn’t come from a sentient or sapient species, she couldn’t care less. Kudzu’s ability to store the equivalent of genetic information into an alchemy recipe was awesome. Sure, it required a massive amount of experimentation with local ingredients to recreate familiar food sources. On the other hand, it made it possible to get chocolate via alchemy as long as organic material existed. Micro-Micro Spores might actually make it possible to have chocolate on a barren moon given enough time. Eve privately admitted to herself, she would definitely sleep the centuries away if she was ever in such a situation. There was no reason to subject herself to the taste-testing horrors that might arise from an incident of such devastating proportions.

With lunch handled and her stomach no longer screaming her throat had been cut, Eve decided to begin the next phase of her plan. The incredible effect that cheese had on goblins had inspired her. She kept a patch of Witch’s Dust on the hobgoblins from before. Their numbers had been reduced to only three, so it was time to take action. It wouldn’t be acceptable if their genetic linage was erased. For all, she knew the cheese thing was a mutation on the spur of the moment under threat of imminent death.

No, much better to establish control lines first. Eve thought teleporting the three hobgoblins to separate sections of the swamp. She shifted a plethora of goblin females to keep the male hobgoblins entertained. Now, with Kudzu handling feeding let’s see if we can duplicate success.

The past few days had given enough time for Jeffery to get his black-hearted hands on a massive quantity of cheeses. With the expertise of a green alchemist, the molds and methods to create cheese control lines were easily done. From there it would be a simple process to feed cheese to the hobgoblin's descendants and unlock the true power of the world’s greatest dairy product!

In theory at least.

In practice, Eve expected this to be more of a long-term project unless a miracle occurred. Even with the rapid breeding process of goblins, there was still time required to produce test subjects. When she asked if Kudzu could simply create clones through alchemy a lengthy explanation on goblin genetics ended the question. Goblins apparently were highly adaptable, according to her green ally. Introducing the ability to clone themselves into their genes would probably place Eve on several bounty lists frequented by Tier Sevens.

A very bad idea in other words.

With cloning out, it meant that good old standardized breeding had to come into play. Certainly, it would take time, but as long as the hobgoblin progenitors existed, Eve would crack the code eventually. It was only a temporary solution for Slots until the Dungeon was available once more.

In the absolute worst case, Eve would travel to find another dungeon in the world. Killing the Core of another dungeon, and replacing it with her Hut would allow Felix to take over the mana flows. It would also apparently put her on the hit list of whatever powers were in the area, but that wouldn’t matter much to Eve. No matter how long it took, the establishment of a farming Dungeon would be only a matter of effort, not luck. No reason not to duplicate an action in the past that had led to current success after all. As long as she had enough power, every problem was a nail, like a grandmother always told Eve.

Given enough time Rituals could turn any area into a death trap with enough Slots invested. From the information, Susan was able to provide, even if she killed and replaced a Core it could be smoothed over. While immortality was out, life extension was something Eve could handle. Witch’s Dust could easily repair a body. There was still minute damage that would accumulate over time that couldn’t be healed. According to calculations run by Eve, and double-checked by Felix, it wouldn’t be a problem to add a few hundred years of lifespan, though. Even better, she could in theory turn the clock back on those who already had a long life, returning them to their prime. Few and far between were the Races that didn’t suffer aging even with longevity or immortality being part of their linage.

Such a bribe could only be done under contract though, Eve wouldn’t turning herself into a Fountain of Youth without steep payment rendered firsthand. It was however something to keep in mind, since to anyone with enough power, money would have far less allure than extending their very life. Turning back the clock was impressive, as only a few of the highest Tier miracles in Alchemy could compare to Witch’s Dust. Chatting with Susan had painted a fairly good picture of what those at the highest Tiers valued. While money still had a place, rare ores, herbs, and treasures that could prevent time’s touch or reverse appearance back to youthful vitality took the top place. With the great goblin cheese experiment running, there was something critical still remaining!

Time to take a look at the spatial boxes Jeffery sent! Eve thought with glee.