Ukila Local Time: Reasonable Morning. (January 13, 1512)

Our journey to the first of Uthica’s quest objectives goes smoothly. No random attacks by Reapers, mana-beasts or invisible dragons.

Probably helps that we’re the ones riding invisible dragons. Literally only took Uthica an hour to figure out how to extend her item over Redstone.

And not wanting to be out done, I did the same for Midnight, except I used my spell. After fixing it. And it took me more than an hour.

Point is, we both have invisible dragons!

Which… kinda feels like it defeats the point of being a dragon rider. But whatever.

I’ve also started fixing my inventory, sacrificing an Iron mana shard to do so. My attributes have been increasing in the background, and all my mental attributes are around a hundred and ninety already. My physical are much lower, since the processing requirements are so much more expensive. But a Strength of one-thirty isn’t bad.

Still haven’t figured out exactly what’s up with my weird mana regen though. There’s a drain, but my System refuses to tell me what’s causing it.

During Uthica’s reconnaissance of her first objective — a mana-rift that’s emerged in the middle of a river, pushing molten streams of rock nearly three-hundred meters into the air— I check on the Eldinsworn. Her squad is wading through the forest where we fought the Bittelers, poking and shooting every tree, rock and shrub, trying to flush us out. They’re unlikely to find us seeing as we’re already hundreds of kilometers away, but their dedication is cute.

I may let a bit of warm affection for their hard work slip through the bond, but I can’t be sure. And she doesn’t seem to react, so I don’t worry about it. I do try to pick up any of the words her squad is using though. It’d be good to know the language of our… well, they’re not exactly friendly, but maybe that can change if we understand each other properly.

Then again, maybe not. Zealots are gonna zeal.

Just don’t know if this bunch is in that category yet.

When Uthica is ready, she places one of the Pandregen’s hearts near the bottom of the mana-vent.

Then the event starts. At first only a handful of weak mana-beasts come forth. Then dozens appear at a time. Eventually, they stretch to the horizon. Well, outside of a one kilometer radius, anyway.

Lesser Cataclysm really doesn’t feel lesser when my Facet regens to full in five seconds.

“Maybe let a few of them get close,” Uthica suggests after a few minutes. “I’m getting quest progress, but I’m unable to study them properly.”

I blink at her, but start sorting out several of each type of mana-beast, tagging them not to be hit. Then I let the entire horde get within a couple hundred meters before obliterating them. Which results in some of the others dying just from the explosive deaths.

Whoops.

“Hmm. Thank you,” Uthica says as she leaps away from the fountain of molten rock to begin her studies. While she’s doing that, I channel mana into everything that can take it. Unfortunately, my Facet can only speed up so much processing at once, so a lot of the spare mana’s going to waste.

And I can’t claim them fast enough either.

At least I’ve got my auto-loot working, so we’re collecting a forest of shards.

As Uthica reaches the seventy-five percent point, I’ve rebuilt my backpack and successfully repaired my inventory. When I open it, I discover most of my possessions have indeed been destroyed. But it seems to have saved the most valuable items. All my mana shards are still there, as are…

Oh. The memory locket. Pulling it out, I stare at the small round object. I can’t help but laugh at the fact that I forgot about a memory locket. Is that irony? Or poetry?

Either way, it’s funny. Then I pull out a fractured memory crystal and laugh even harder.

My laughter is strong enough, I end up losing my balance and stumbling into the nearby molten rock. Which doesn’t do any damage, but does cling annoyingly to my Eldinsworn cloths until I force it to cool.

Ambient mana always seems to be more stubborn around vents, similar to when trying to contest another user for control.

With a thought, I prod the memory locket, and my System asks if I want to bond with it. In addition to the listed Edge, it grants me a flat processing bonus. Which has me chuckling again, though this time I remain wary of the lava.

After bonding to the Memory locket with less processing power than it grants me every minute, I send out another Cataclysm, killing the beasts that were charging mindlessly towards us.

Uthica’s no longer studying them, and is instead working on her new manipulation skills. As long as we have all these corpses, she has nigh-infinite mana, and she’s been utilizing it to the fullest. She’s progressed through the skills faster than I did when I first arrived on Akilo, shooting over from near zero to over two-hundred in all of them after less than a day’s practice.

Which prompts me to look at my own skill interface. It’s way more nuanced than my old one, yet it indicates my important proficiencies are all just over a hundred and ninety, capped to match my Intellect and Spirit. It also says my cooking is at one-hundred and two.

Take that old System!

As the event draws to a close, we both wait for a final boss to appear. But none does.

We share a look, but she shakes her head.

“Event’s finished. That’s it.”

“Well… okay then,” I say before moving to where Midnight and Redstone are perched above the river, once more basking in the sun. Smoulder pulls herself out of where she’s been playing in the heart of the molten vent, shaking off bits of flowing lava as she bounces between her platforms of fire to join us.

I scoop her up, and we head off to rest for the night before traveling to the next of Uthica’s objectives. After a decent night’s rest, where the only incident was Midnight trying to snack on Smoulder’s tail, we set off towards the next of Uthica’s objectives.

When we arrive at the cascading diamondfall, I have to take a moment to appreciate the pure splendor of the sight before us. There are waves, upon waves of diamonds being shot into the air, which then follow the physics I once called normal, falling down in a great shower of diamonds. Only to roll down the slope of the crater to tumble back into the mana vent, and be ejected once more.

“Well, I’ll admit. I haven’t seen that before,” Uthica says, Redstone snorting as he settles back onto his rear legs, as if to undercut Uthica’s words.

Midnight snorts right back, then breathes out a wave of nearly invisible Twilight mana.

It intercepts the falling diamonds, and what was already a spectacular sight becomes…

If a waterfall and a rainbow could combine their beauty, then imbue the majesty of a sunrise into it… I think it’d still fail to describe the aching beauty Midnight created in a single moment. A beauty I don’t think I could’ve appreciated as a mortal.

And then Redstone huffs out several of his namesake, ruining it.

The diamondfall remains, but the illusion Midnight wove shatters. And my dragon is already turning to fight Redstone.

Thanks to Uthica, I know that this is part of their personal dynamic, and I vacate his back

Smoulder hesitates, and I can feel her own anger at Redstone for destroying the illusion. Which surprises me. It… didn’t embody heat or fire in any way.

As she joins me, I realize she’s feeling a sense of loss and confusion. So I reach down, and pick her up snuggling her and giving her head-scritches even as Midnight tackles Redstone. A fight he would’ve lost easily a day ago.

But after all the mana I’ve been feeding him, they’re on nearly even footing. Redstone’s growth is limited, since Uthica doesn’t want to take him as an actual pet, but my System doesn’t need me to go that far to give Midnight benefits. I won’t be able to boost him past Peak-Iron, but that’s still much stronger than he was when he agreed to fly me around.

Wasn’t even part of our deal.

There’s a weak shake in the ground as Redstone tackles Midnight through a bank of diamonds that were piling up near the edge of the crater.

We ignore them, Uthica moving down to set up the next Pandregen heart as I continue to console Smoulder.

Wanting to test herself, Uthica has me remain on standby for this wave, so I use my time to restore most of my equipment. Though I realize it’s all still Iron-rank. Thankfully, it seems my System salvaged several upgrade patterns. And I discover that I have enough of them, I may be able to create a couple of my own. By dedicating years of processing time to the task.

Or… thirteen hours of all my Facet per year…

That can’t be right.

But I run through the math again, making sure to put it in my notebook. And… yeah, I can get roughly a year’s worth of processing done in thirteen and a half hours. Assuming I don’t run into limits. Which I probably will.

Still, the locket’s already increased my processing power by nearly twenty percent. If I can find more stuff like that… or… I can upgrade it to Copper, can’t I?

As another wave of monsters fall to a new set of spell traps Uthica has deployed, I open up my equipment upgrade interface. Now that I have the hang of it, it’s a big upgrade over the old one. And it didn’t even need any resources to get working properly.

Upgrading the locket looks like it will require a pattern I don’t have yet. Which is… unfortunate. But I can upgrade my aunt Sharon’s jacket. And… actually I can upgrade all my gear. There’s even some flexibility. I could swap the existing modifiers. And if I wanted to dedicate the insane ten million mana and ten years to each piece, I could convert everything to full-Edge equipment. And then not be able to upgrade anything to Copper.

Since I can make that change at any time, I decide to hold off and only do standard linear upgrades on all my equipment, simply because the costs to do so are low. Low enough that they’re finished upgrading by the time Uthica’s finished killing the last of the mana-beasts. Some sort of fox like ambusher hiding in the diamonds.

The mana-beasts seem to stop rushing in madly once they’re a couple hundred meters from the heart. A distance they’ve only been allowed to reach because Uthica is still testing new spells. Her current spell, a little silk grasshopper construct, leaps into one of the small piles of diamonds. A second later, one of the hidden fox-things explodes.

“What even was that?” I ask, squinting at where the grasshopper disappeared.

“I believe the System called them Knin ambushers,” Uthica replies, frowning at another pile and releasing a much simpler looking bolt of fire.

“I meant the spell,” I say as her bolt transmutes part way to it’s target, changing into a small bird that arcs downward and drills a hole through the not-so-hidden Knin. “And… you know, maybe I should just be learning more about spells from you period.”

“I would be glad to teach you what I can,” Uthica replies, inclining her head slightly. I direct my automatic functions to processing more attributes, then join her.

She’s using runes I taught her and incorporating them into new spells. And while I can’t copy her spells exactly, since she’s getting assistance from her System, I can infer enough to repair most of my own.

Plus, I add the dart-bird fireball, cause it’s cool. Especially once I use Entropic Shift to make it into an ice dart-bird. Thankfully, Entropic Shift works with minimal issue, though it requires processing power to add the the alternate version. And now that I’m looking deeper, I discover that each version takes a small amount of storage within my soul.

It’s practically nothing compared to a skill though, even after the repacking the Seed did. It does bring up a concern though. How do I get more storage?

A quick inspection reveals that my increasing mental attributes are actually tied to the size of my soul-scape. And some of the physical. It’s… all a very interwoven mess, really.

But then, everything always is.

Hmm. Maybe it’s time I put effort into a more perfect Pause.

Nothing like being able to put life on hold to sort out the mess.