186, 2/2

The morning sun rose in the same window where it had set, which was the same window where the literal sliver of a moon had been all night long. Erick hadn’t slept, so he had definitely noticed that the sun and the moon rose and fell in the same part of the sky. Which had been weird.

Or maybe he was too stressed, and he was mistaken about the sun and moon (he wasn’t mistaken) but whatever! He couldn’t fix that stress right now, either. Add it to the pile.

Anyway. For his 12 hours of accretion done during the night, Erick had managed to stuff himself with maybe 4000 mana, which should have translated into 16 Stat points. He hadn’t tested himself against the counting crystal until now because he wanted to see if his numbers and estimations held. If they did, then he should be at roughly even accretion for all of his Stats.

Erick held the counting crystal in his hands, and flooded it with an estimated hundred mana.

The thing glittered, and then the numbers started flashing. When the flashing was over, Erick smiled. He wrote down his Stats on a paper to track his progress.

– –

Strength: 13

Vitality: 13

Dexterity: 13

Constitution: 12

Perception: 12

Willpower: 23

Focus: 23

Intelligence: 13

– –

Mana: 230

Mana Regen (Vit+Foc): 360

– –

His math had predicted all of that, which was great.

And yet… His math had predicted all of this, and it had taken Erick till now to realize that it would really take ten days of this, at least, before the snowballing truly started, and that meant that Erick would need to make some decisions about Redflame and [Renew] before he was ready…

Actually.

Erick went back to the numbers, to see if the calculations would come out better if he tried calculating the whole thing a different way.

Considering that he could accrete 200 mana in 5 minutes, this meant he would need a Regen rate to at least match that rate of regeneration. This meant 2400 Regen. 2400 Regen meant 120 in both Vitality and Focus, though, and Erick wasn’t 100% positive, but he was pretty sure that numbers like that were beyond Second Foundation. He should hit Second Foundation at around 65 in all of his Stats. Or something like that.

This just meant that he needed to get those triple Mana Regen and Health Regen Skills. But at the same time, he was pretty sure he needed 1000 Base Mana to Remake those skills, and he couldn’t get 1000 Base Mana without getting way past Second Foundation.

Okay.

How to cheat?

… Did he even have Health anymore? Well. No. But that was beside the point. The only reason he wanted Health in this scenario was so that he could use Blood Mana, but his Class Ability to turn Health into Mana-equivalent was likely not available, anyway.

He needed to break the lock on his Blood Mana, too, so that his Base Mana could include his Health values… But then again, how did Blood Mana work in Ar’Cosmos? Literal blood? Hmm.

Okay. So. Erick needed to get to Second Foundation, which was still days away, and then he would probably be able to do… something to fix all of his resource issues. This was a rather systemic issue, too, now that he could spare some time to actually think about it. Without the Triple Resource Skills, and without the Scion Skills, of which Erick was going for Scion of Balance this time, he would be stuck at a Max Mana of just his Willpower times ten. 100 Willpower only meant 1000 Mana, right now—

Okay. Okay.

He was going around in circles. Perhaps he was overly worried.

It was time for breakfast. Time to switch gears a bit. Erick took his letters with him as he went downstairs. He made it half way down and almost bumped into Maid Maria on her way up.

The pink dragon lady blushed as she looked up at him, then curtsied, and said, “Breakfast is served, Archmage Flatt.”

“Appreciated, Maid Maria.” Erick said, “Also— There’s no best way to say this, so I’ll just tell you: I’m sorry for almost killing you the other day.”

He had wanted to say a lot more than that. Perhaps about how unintentional murder was not something he would have done if he had been in his right mind, with all the unsaid implications fully implied. But that would have been a threat, and even though Maid Maria was one of his captors, he did not wish to cause himself anymore mental grief due to causing Maria mental grief, which would likely come back to bite him in the ass in the future, in some unforeseen way. Likely through Fairy Moon. Fairy Moon seemed rather protective of Maria, after all.

Maria went stock still as Erick’s apology caught her completely off guard. Then she breathed a bit, and curtsied again, saying, “The apology is appreciated, and so I feel I must reciprocate; I apologize for the disruption this event has caused you, Archmage Flatt. If there is some way for me to make you more comfortable, please inform me at your leisure.”

“Then I will do that.”

Maria calmed, then asked, “Will you be joining Fairy Moon for breakfast?”

“I shall. Lead the way.”

And so she did.

Breakfast was pancakes and sausage and strong black tea.

It was all rather great. It was also eaten in silence, though, with Maid Maria eating her own breakfast in the other room. It appeared there was still friction there, but then again, how could there be anything but friction, right now?

Toward the end of the meal Erick couldn’t stand the silence anymore, so he spoke up. “Fairy Moon.” Erick asked, “How much mana do you think it would take to Remake Concentration or Discipline?”

“The power it takes to get a Point through the Script is the same power one needs to enact a smaller change in the character of oneself.”

To clarify, because he was surprised if he had understood her correctly, Erick asked, “However much mana it takes to gain a Point in one’s Status is the same amount of mana it takes to make Concentration, for 3 times Mana Regen?”

“Aye. A blessing is bought by the same measure as the manifestation of a Point. Still, though, wait till Second Foundation for such a blessing.” Fairy Moon said, “Cores are better to bless than smaller soul shards, for breaks and accidental curses are more easily cured or removed in a proper core.”

Erick blinked a bit, surprised. “Oh. Okay.”

So Erick could make these ‘minor blessings’ as soon as he gained 250 Mana; not 1000. That was surprising. He still didn’t have 250 maximum Mana, but he wasn’t days and days away from that goal, anyway. Maybe he could even have that much Mana today.

Fairy Moon seemed to see the thoughts behind his head, though, for she said, “Heed this warning, young one: The consecration of a core is more wisely done at the correct core capability. Wait till Second Foundation.”

Fair enough. “Heard and understood.”

Fairy Moon nodded, then asked, “Do you desire Illustrious return, to guide you in your Remaking of your requisite Skills, when the time ticks nigh?”

“If the nature of magic is mostly the same, then I can change my maximum Mana and Mana Regeneration on my own.”

“That minor magic is the same in every space, ever since the Script selected what was, and what was not.” Fairy Moon shrugged, making for a very human-looking sight, as she said, “A minor magnification of capability that peaks with time and trials, and a restructuring toward faster flow that does the same.”

Erick paused, and then he nodded, too. “That’s what I thought it was.” He added, “I am surprised that all it takes to make something like that is the equivalent of one Point, but that makes a lot of sense. It’s only a single Point to buy the Skill in the Open Script, anyway.”

“Concentration is but a minor magnification that grows. The ‘growing’ is important.” Fairy Moon said, “If you were to make that magic fruit in full at the initial instantiation, that would be considerably more costly. The Scions do not follow this formula, for they are greater gains than the smaller skills. I warn you to wait till you get back to Veird to align your soul with a Scion, even if you should reach Second Foundation much faster than that exodus.”

Erick decided that her advice was good, and that he would follow it. And then he put forth his letters, which were folded and set to the side until now. “Could these be mailed for me?”

Fairy Moon nodded, saying, “I will honor Illustrious Moon’s promise, if you will trust me to enact this promise.”

A sudden spike of worry lodged in the center of Erick’s brain, sending chills down his spine and across his arms.

“… I will trust you, then.” Erick refrained from frowning, and said, “I don’t want any of these people harmed, though.” Erick was suddenly, very acutely aware that he was asking for Fairy Moon to interact with his loved ones, and other people, too. He kept that panic at bay, but it was a close thing.

“I will not harm nor hamper anyone who does not deserve it, Erick.”

“You warn me all the time of various lines I should not cross. Here is one for you to ware: Do not harm my people.”

Fairy Moon raised an eyebrow. She smirked, then said, “I shall honor this request in the manner in which it was intended.”

Erick felt a rush of relief at those words. “Acceptable.”

Fairy Moon nodded.

After breakfast, Erick went back up to his room and accreted some more. He had been awake for 24 hours at this point, but he could do this for at least two more days before he needed to crash. Rozeta’s Recovery and Dexterity and Perfected Body each contributed a lot toward that capability.

During the times between accretion, Erick read up more on the whole process, looking for words regarding the remaking of Concentration, and all the rest. He found no specifics. All he found were instructions to spend Points over in Veird in order to gain those Skills; not even a hint that one could Remake those Skills themselves. Even the advanced books were like that, which was rather disappointing, but understandable. They were made for mass production, after all.

Erick was still disappointed to see the same lack of information freedom here in Ar’Cosmos that existed in Oceanside, and Stratagold, and every arcanaeum the world over.

Erick accreted more, he read more about accretion, and when he finally felt he had read all he could, he went over to the books on enchanting from Inferno Maw. It was a very nice change of pace.

Enchanting was vastly different from what was taught at Oceanside, and yet not at all.

This enchanting was meant to work with those who had cores. If Erick was reading this right, which he was pretty sure he was, it seemed as though he could make himself some Stat rings, or whatnot, and speed up his accretion timeframe by days, at least. Erick almost laughed at that. He should have checked out these books sooner.

– – – –

Over the course of another twelve hours, with another 18 cycles completed and accounting for breaks for lunch and dinner, Erick had probably learned all he could learn about enchanting without actually enchanting. Theory was next to useless without practice. Now, at least, he could probably hold a conversation with Inferno Maw about how to enchant for Strength, or how to make a Wand of [Force Bolt]s.

And it was almost the same as how they did it at Oceanside.

There were some major differences, though. The enchanting practices of Ar’Cosmos relied on using the language one was most comfortable using; not Ancient Script. This language was then carved into any solid thing at all; not just wrought-quality metal. And then one took one’s own mana, strung it through one’s own blood, causing ambient mana to crystallize into that blood, and then one used that blood to inscribe those solid items. Bloodline enchanting was what it was called.

Other people called it other things.

Erick had already seen bloodwork enchanting once before, back in Songli, with Blood Mage Xue and Soul Mage Elder Arilitilo. If not for the Chelation War Erick probably would have learned this stuff already, but as it was, everything that he had seen around Xue’s workshop looked like the same sort of formations inside these enchanting books. In particular, these books explained the process of making blood hold power, which was what Erick was specifically going to learn from Xue.

Mostly, the process involved a bit of body alteration to align a mana vein with a blood artery inside one’s arm, and then to cycle magic —not mana— through that mana vein while pumping out blood through that blood artery. Not the blood vein, though. You wanted your magic-rich blood to be pumping out of your body. You did not want any accidental pumping of rads into the body.

Arteries went out; veins went in.

Other than that foible, this process was basically what Erick did with channeling mana through a magic, through a hand to listen to the spell, except through his blood.

It was just…

So simple.

It made so much sense, too. Erick had already been doing something near to this when he channeled mana through his Willpower, for instance, to produce a prominence of light that was tainted with near-ultramarine colors. At that point, it was the work of a lightmask and diamond jewelry and a thin layer of [Exalted Rain] silver to trap that magic into a ring, to thus empower the wearer with a higher Willpower, through a resonance boost to the soul’s base Willpower.

Erick’s own Stat enchants did not work in Ar’Cosmos, though, because the Script made Stats work the way they worked. Without the nearness of the Script, manalight wasn’t good for anything at all. But the basic idea of ‘boosting a Stat’ held true, even here in Ar’Cosmos.

You just had to do it differently, and more ritualistically. The ritual of item creation (which included personal skill, personal knowledge, and personal willpower) was only worth about 40% of an item’s end result, though.

60% of the end result was due to the materials put into the project.

According to the book, for the creation of a proper ‘Amulet of Focus’, or something similar, Erick primarily needed a knot of old, Focus-aligned wood, or densely magical metals, or other items that resonated with him. Then he could soak those items in his own Focus-charged blood until the ritual completed. Erick’s target ‘ritual’ would only take about an hour from start to finish, but only due to the fact that he was mana limited, right now.

Such an amulet would even work back on Veird, because meaning and intent went a lot further inside Ar’Cosmos than it did on Veird. Such an amulet would last quite a while before it degraded due to natural fluctuations in the mana, which constantly wore at every magic out there. It was considered extremely hard to protect against such fluctuations, but…

Erick had already perfected Permanency magic long before now. He knew how to protect enchantments so that they continued to function under normal wear and tear. How well that information translated to this Ar’Cosmos, though? He had no idea.

He kept reading, though, and kept being surprised at how enchanting worked in Ar’Cosmos.

And then Erick laughed out of minor joy when he read the various sections on ‘how to protect enchantments from natural degradation’, for he already knew everything they spoke of, and more besides. He laughed again as he realized that none of what was written here was even hinted at in the normal textbooks at Oceanside. In enchanting, perhaps more than any other way, Oceanside proved itself as inferior to Ar’Comos, by a lot.

Once again, Erick wondered how much of Kirginatharp’s teachings were malicious, versus how much were intended to protect the world from mages who knew too much. Kirginatharp’s Elites surely knew how to work magic properly, but the basic students? Not really.

None of the classes Erick had attended there had helped him with his own enchanting efforts at all. It was only when he encountered the runic systems of Enduring Forge that he had begun to make any real progress with enchanting. Now, he could even make runic webs that held onto magic indefinitely long. Staves that fired off a hundred [Fireball]s at once.

All of that stuff ran off of Script-support, though.

But with this stuff here…

Erick was pretty sure that if he tried for it, he could make amulets of All Stats that would function in any world, using the little bit of knowledge contained in these normal, Ar’Cosmos enchanting manuals and textbooks. He was also pretty sure that if Jane, or Kiri, or if anyone of his people had this sort of knowledge—

Kiri especially!

Like, holy crap. She would be so good at this stuff.

Maybe even Jane could learn proper enchanting, since apparently math was only supposed to be used to plot out how to best link up inscriptions and formations, to make sure that the kerning in inscriptions was properly done so that letters and such were all spaced properly. The entire school of enchanting is supposed to flow a lot more organically than it did in the classrooms of Oceanside. It was supposed to be more like dungeon ecology, and permanency magic. Enchanting was about controlling the flows of mana inside self-reinforcing spellwork. Math was just used to make that process work out properly.

… Maybe that’s what Oceanside’s math did? Erick still wasn’t sure what was going on there.

He would have liked to talk to Kiri about all this. She knew her stuff, and Erick trusted her.

The next twelve hours passed with another 20 cycles geared toward generalized accretion. He had likely missed a few points of progress here and there due to needing to spend mana on such annoyances like checking his Stats, but he was pretty close to accretion perfection. His Stats were pretty much exactly the gains he had expected.

– –

Strength: 17

Vitality: 18

Dexterity: 17

Constitution: 16

Perception: 16

Willpower: 28

Focus: 28

Intelligence: 17

– –

Mana: 280

Mana Regen (Vit+Foc): 460

– –

Erick had gained 35 Points since yesterday, all of which were evenly distributed.

Over the next 24 hours, Erick would regenerate a little over 11,000 mana, according to current numbers, but he would be at more like 12,000 by the end. He would need to cycle about 45 times to make use of all of that, which was eminently doable. Nearly every half hour…

“I need a clock,” Erick decided. “A clock would be better than timing this by feel.”

Though every mental hurdle was getting easier to cross as his Intelligence inched back up to where it had been, he was still far away from his ‘normal’. Even discounting the rings he always wore, Erick had been at 25 base Intelligence before this monstrous reset.

He glanced around the room, and at the golden sun beyond his window—

A sudden wave of sleepiness crashed into him, but he blinked and held it back. He frowned at his own weakness. What the shit was that? Bah. He had only been awake for like… Three days? Or something. He could last longer than this, right?

Redflame’s [Renew] attempt was only 6 days away, and Erick needed to be ready for that before it happened.

Erick took a quick bath, felt a lot better about everything, and then headed downstairs to get breakfast. On his way down the stairs, he met Maid Maria who was on her way up. She curtsied again, explaining that breakfast was ready. Erick followed behind.

Breakfast was great.

Maid Maria had made cinnamon rolls. She still ate in the other room, though, which was fine.

After breakfast, Erick asked Fairy Moon for a clock, to which she told him that it would be done. And then she handed over the reply letters from all of his people.

Erick stared at the envelopes, not sure if they were real or not, and not knowing what to do if they were real; If the words therein were truly from the people that he wanted them to be from.

Fairy Moon said, “If you desire continued correspondence then I shall have Maid Maria set up a box beside your door, to which you may place letters and in which Maid Maria can place responses.”

“I do desire continued correspondence.” Erick took the letters. “This is appreciated.”

“Let me know if you desire more than that.” Fairy Moon stared at Erick, briefly, but with a depth that betrayed so much worry. “Your letters ended a burning that your people tried to enact on the Forest of Glaquin, which would have done nothing but make the Twisted Visions mad. This saved us all that particular fate. I had not expected that, but your Path seems to have expected this much in my place.” She said, “It is good that I am walking with you and not the other way around.”

“… Ah. Then… That’s good.”

“It is objectively good, yes.” And then Fairy Moon said perhaps the first thing that made her seem like a real person, “None of these people involved in this world deserve any of these fates, but circumstances have been unkind for a long while. I tried my best, but this reality is a lot tougher than how it used to be. Sometimes my judgment creates jeopardy instead of justice, and this appears to be one of those times.”

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Erick just sat there for a long moment.

And then he said, “According to the enchanting books I read, and everything else I have heard, I imagine life was much more fluid in the Old Cosmology.”

“Oh yes.” Fairy Moon began, “Back when everything was mana instead of half of the whole…” Her voice trailed off, as she got a far off look in her pink and green eyes. She glanced to Erick, then looked away, saying, “It was a different time. An easier time in some ways and yet a weariness in others.” Then she looked to him. “You should rest some, Erick. You are getting rather talkative in your sleepy state.”

Erick didn’t feel he was anymore talkative than he normally was, it was just that…

Maybe she would understand if he told her.

“Maybe some of my walls have come down due to sleep deprivation, but I’m normally talkative. The only reason I haven’t been talkative is because I don’t trust you, Fairy Moon. Kidnapping then mind control— The mind control I can sort of understand, because I almost killed someone, and I bet you’re used to using your Fae Magic to stop a lot of fights around here. Everyone was giving Illustrious Moon the same looks that I know I was giving you after that… episode.” Erick said, “So I guess House Fae is able to apply your fae rules against other people to keep them in line, too.

“I don’t really know about that, but it makes sense based on what I have seen.

“Anyway. I still don’t like the kidnapping and the control, and I only barely blame myself for the accidental murder that almost happened.” Erick tried, “You do understand that if you hadn’t knocked me out, and if I was able to be on my own, that I never would have attempted to murder Maria. Or anyone else nearby.”

Fairy Moon said, “The Fate you represent is bigger than your own needs, Erick. While I earlier stated that my judgment was not always just, in this instance I know what I am doing. You play at powers you cannot control, so I hope you come to accept the mantle of master you are trying to wear sooner rather than later.”

“I am not a master of anyone.” Erick wanted to sigh, but he did not. “I suppose my personal desire to simply help people doesn’t really matter, since enacting even the most basic help means changing how the world functions.”

“Exactly.” Fairy Moon said, “Personal desires are best discarded when building a perfect-Fate Future, and you, Erick Flatt, are enacting far-reaching change.”

“… It didn’t start out like that, nor did I mean for that to happen.”

Fairy Moon nodded, saying, “I believe that most heartily. Doesn’t change any facts, though.”

Erick frowned, but it was at himself.

Fairy Moon said, “Go sleep, Erick. You need it.”

“Heh.” Erick snarked, “Are you going to order me to?”

“No. We are past that, and you did not take well to instantiated instruction.” Fairy Moon said, “I might have made some miscalculations about that, somewhere between there and here.”

Erick laughed once, for that was a pretty big apology from her.

Probably.

Anyway. Breakfast was done, and so was the conversation. Fairy Moon had Maid Maria retrieve a ‘mechanical’ stone clock from some storage room and had her help Erick put it in his room. Maid Maria even set it up, and then she did a little curtsy before leaving him to his own devices.

It was a nice clock. Simple, and yet…