Imperious, Chapter 019 - Sickness and Studies (Patreon)

Anna's first instinct was to immediately hop in and try out her new skill on one of the cores in her bag. That was immediately dismissed by the more rational part of herself that noted the part of the skill description that indicated it required mana. She hadn't figured out the full scope and consequence of her condition yet and her gut told her not to look forward to it. So she made do checking out the three adjacent rooms to the workshop.

The first room she limped into was basically a small apartment, it had a bed, coffee table, kitchenette and even a sofa in one corner. There were some buckets that looked like they were for collecting water next to the kitchenette. The kitchenette itself contained what looked like a sink with no discernable way of getting the water running. There was also a small stovetop with no dials or levers or any hint of it's function save for the distinctive circular patterns engraved into a stone sheet. When she tried to use identify she felt a sharp pain in her temple and a pushing sensation that deterred her from trying again until she better understood it. Some very simple pots and pans hung above the stove and beneath it there was a small door with an obvious purpose.

This is way more modern than I expected. She thought, moving on to what she predicted was a refrigerator or food storage. She tugged on the handle and found that it took was beyond her use just yet. She'd have to settle for mushrooms for a little while longer. Sighing she dragged herself to the bed which, mercifully, didn't magically turn her away as she sat down and started pulling off her boots and breast plate. Next came her robes, leaving the part she'd dreaded the most for last.

Peeling her gauntlets off was an singular practice in agony. It felt like her skin and flesh were being ripped from the bone as she removed her first glove, tears streaming down her face as she struggled to stay conscious. When it finally came off she looked down at a horrifying sight. The skin on her fingers up to her knuckles was bright red, bloody, and torn. The tears spreading across the surface on jagged lightning-like cracks. Even after being unconscious for what felt like days, the wounds were still fresh. She coughed and instinctively pulled her elbow up to her face. When she pulled her arm away she found a splatter of slightly glowing blood in the crook of her arm.

I'm sick? She frowned, No, poisoned. She grimly remembered Pixels warning that there was no mundane medicine that could treat what came from excessive Mana use. She coughed again and turned her attention to her other glove, bracing herself before carefully removing it as well. She could have tried breaking open the gauntlets but they were too valuable to her to destroy and she frankly didn't have the confidence she could break them on her state. When the glove finally came off she felt a wave of nausea wash over her and she scrambled over to one of the buckets before dropping it, used, in the sink with disgust.

Beyond worn down, her body still aching, her health and stamina recovering slower than usual, and her knee still buckling now and then, she really had only one more option. More rest. She tore open her bag before she got on the bed again and set bottles of water, moss, mushrooms, and roots up within reach before crawling onto the most comfortable mattress shed ever felt in her life and immediately falling to sleep.

Everything after that was a blur. She had the wherewithal to eat and drink when she came to but otherwise could barely focus as what she hadn't realized was an incoming fever got worse. Brief snippets of awareness allowed her to mentally catalog the symptoms for the future while also reflecting on how her body had healed so much faster after getting her class. It still took hours to a day for minor wounds, including the arrow to the gut, while her leg and broken body had taken far longer, days that were turning into a week thanks to the mana poisoning.

In the end, she finally opened her eyes and felt the fever had passed. The ache was still there and her hands and knee still hurt, but she was otherwise brimming with energy.

Resources:
HP: 61/130 | SP: 75/75 | MT: 124/125

Her stamina was back to full but her health still had a way to go. She felt like this confirmed her theory that her vitality stat worked on her body first and then the actual numbers in stages, treating more serious wounds before recovering additional health points and then continuing with less severe wounds after reaching a threshold. Her body was basically shoring up her resources every step of the way. She grunted and glanced at her mana tolerance, it had finally dropped below the maximum. Only a point but that meant she was out of those woods at least.

She checked her hands and let out a sigh, they were whole again, mostly. White crack-like scars covered her fingers all the way to her knuckles. She let out a low sigh, “Note to self, never overuse mana again,” She muttered and shook her head, clenching her fist and flexing her fingers. At least they were only sore and a little stiff. She finally got to her feet and made her way out of the frankly hideous smelling bedroom and into the workshop. She didn’t bother getting dressed and instead made way to the only thing she could take advantage of while her mana was still cooling down.

Books, and there were a lot of them.

She stopped in front of the first set of shelves and reached only to pause and frown when she looked at the first tome and then the second. It hadn’t occurred to her but how was she supposed to read these? She tilted her head only to be surprised when she realized that the title was written in standard english. “Engraving for the Uninformed,” She read aloud and snatched it up, “An Arcanists Guide to Engraving,” she took that one, “A Clerics Guide to Engraving?” She frowned and then traced her eyes along several books that followed the first. They’re for different magic circle proficiencies, She realized and skipped over them for now. It might be neat to get some insight into other schools of magic but that could come later.

That was when she found a third book to grab, “Arcane Runes, Spells, and Magical Algorithms.” She set the other two down and snatched it up, opening it and flipping through a few pages, “These are spells,” She breathed, “These are fucking spells!” She let out a laugh and nearly started dancing before landing wrong and feeling her knee pinch in warning. She grunted and shoved it under her arm eagerly as she collected the other two books and hurried to find a desk to sit at. Excitement didn’t even begin to cover how she felt. Truth be told she’d been basically a caster wearing the mask of a warrior, her only spell being mana barrier. She barely knew a thing about magic and here she found books upon books on the subject.

She set the book on spells down first and opened it, humming to herself, Time to catch up.

–

Outside the dungeon, time had continued to march forward. It had been two weeks since Anna had entered the Lumbering Mines and Pixel had gone through every stage of grief and other emotions the system entity wasn’t used to. It had finally broken down and zipped off to check on her when it occurred to the little being that no notification had come that its own quest to guide her had failed, meaning she was still very much alive. The presence of the lesser devils of Vayagar had been a little concerning, they were well known slavers, but they were also the weakest and most minor faction among devilkind, barely even tolerated in the capital of Meggido by their authoritarian brethren.

The real concern had been the Luminous Hand, her heritage was something that Pixel suspected was quite contrary to everything they stood for and she would be a kill-on-sight target for the paladins without a doubt. Fortunately the Luminous hand seemed to be sticking the same strategy that most factions stuck to during the first three months of an integration. Turtling up and claiming minimal territory in the local area while getting a general idea of their surroundings. Once the first milestone passed the restrictions on their powers would be slightly lifted and their levels would begin to inch towards what they once were.

That said, not all members of these factions would stay in safety. Anyone under the maximum participation level of fifty would have the golden opportunity to gain experience from lower level enemies as if they were actually at the level the system had reduced them to. For many who had found themselves stuck right at the edge of the first great threshold of fifty, it was a chance some people would quite literally kill for, which was why it came as no surprise that Pixel found several lower level members of the various factions that had been sent to this area wandering the forest searching for prey. 

What Pixel hadn’t expected was a campsite set up by the Vayagar Devils right over where Pixel’s internal map told it that Anna was. It had taken a little effort to sneak around, it was hard to be stealthy when you were a literal ball of light, but eventually it found the reason for her absence. She’d found a blasted dungeon, a solo resource dungeon, one of the hardest classifications of dungeons one could experience and one that only experts dared even try. Not because it was relegated to a single participant, but because of the ‘resource’ descriptor. Entire nations fought over resource dungeons post-integration with their near endless supply of materials for early level crafting and development. What was more, once one completed such a dungeon, you claimed it for yourself or your faction. No one could enter as long as you lived.

Which explained why the Devils were camped right on top of the exit.

Pixel sighed, At least she’s still alive, it thought miserably, Troublesome girl.

–

To say that arcane magic was like doing mathematical equations was the understatement of the century. There was a reason why gaining the skill version of a spell was far more preferable, the magic circle of a spell was ludicrously complicated and the equations felt like doing calculus, chemistry, and physics while performing a handstand and singing the alphabet backwards. In short, it was a fucking headache. Still, she hadn’t live with her mother as long as she had and not picked up how to handle complex things like this and she prided herself as a student.

In short, she’d already picked up a few new spells. It turned out once you memorized a spell to the point of competence through study, the system handled the rest.

New Spell Acquired!

Mana Bolt (Common-Base)
You create a small and inefficient mass of combustible mana that can be fired at a target. Mana consumption cost is based on Will, Damage caused is based on Intellect.

New Spell Acquired!

Pathetic Illusion (Common-Base)
You create a singular stationary, soundless visual illusion that lasts for a brief period. Mana consumption cost is based on Will, Quality of the illusion is based on Intellect.

New Spell Acquired!

Heal Minor Wound (Common-Base)
You use magic to heal a small amount of tissue at a rapid pace. Mana consumption cost is based on Will, Speed and effectiveness of healing is based on Intellect.

There were more she could pick up but it took a while to get the hang of it without actively trying to practice the spell and expend mana. She was pretty sure it was supposed to be hard, at least, she found it crazy challenging, but she’d done it and she was proud of herself. More importantly she had begun to understand the structure of spells and how they worked. Runes were the operators in spells, there was a rune for mana for example that had different functions depending on where it ended up in the circle which was basically the space for the equation. It only had so much room so you couldn’t just pack a bunch of runes into a circle and go for it either.

What she did understand was that the spells provided by the system as their own sort-of-skills were intended to be the baseline. There was a lot of flexibility once you understood how the whole thing worked and you could create effects on the fly if you were good enough. Even so, there were so many factors and fights were fast and brutal that it really wasn’t wise to try. 

Back to Runes, there was the aforementioned mana rune but also directional runes, vitality runes, defensive runes, shape runes, the list went on and on. She’d managed to commit about twenty of them to memory before she’d finally had her fill of the book on spells for a while and forced herself to go get something to eat and drink. That was when she noticed something she had overlooked on the stove and refrigerator-thing. There was a rune carved into the bottom right corner of both objects and it looked very familiar. On closer inspection she realized it was a security rune and there was some kind of engraving pattern around it that she couldn’t make sense of yet.

Well if I wanna eat something more than mushrooms I guess I’m gonna have to figure out how to crack these open, she thought before begrudgingly grabbing a couple roots and mushrooms from the bag and shoving them into her mouth. It would have to do and honestly she still needed to encourage her body to keep healing if she wanted the constant aching to finally go away. Full if a bit unsatisfied, she returned to her desk and cracked open the next book. Engraving for the Uninformed was a very basic overview of what engraving was and how it worked. An engraver would etch patterns into objects or materials in order to imbue them with properties related to the engraving. 

More crucial was that the engraver used intent and their understanding of their own magical proficiency in order to perform the engraving. That meant that the etchings that she saw on engraved objects were actually simulated magic circles and that at the beginning and end of each ‘circle’ was an input and and output mana rune. This basically made the object behave as a spell in its own right. It wasn’t as easy as doing this though, lines had to be precise, kept short and narrow for space, but also wide enough to allow mana to go through easily. Balancing that was part of the artform of engraving and the difference between a shoddy engraving that degraded the item over a few weeks and a masterful engraving that could last centuries if not millenia without repairing the item.

She tried not to think too hard about possibly living that long.

It didn’t take long for her to get through pretty much the entirety of the book before finally finding the chapter on basic practice techniques. That’s when she found something that really caught her interest. “Practice plates and you,” She read aloud, “Practice plates allow a newly initiated engraver to practice their skills without wasting precious resources. They are often found in the workshops of masters who…” She trailed off and glanced around.

“I gotta find these things,” She said, and hopped to her feet.