187, 2/2

Illustrious Moon sat in Maid Maria’s usual spot, while Fairy Moon sat at the head of the table. Both of them had been talking about the spell-based economy of Ar’Cosmos, where trained fae-aligned casters kept the city at a good size through cooperative casting, but they went silent as Erick stepped into the room. Both of them looked to him.

Erick’s seat was open for him, so he moved toward it, speaking into the sudden silence, “Good morning, Fairy Moon. Illustrious Moon.”

Illustrious did a minor double-take, her violet eyes blinking brightly in the morning light. “You seem… different today. Good things?”

Fairy Moon raised an eyebrow, also wondering what was going on with him, but she remained silent. Maybe he did feel a bit too good? Maybe he was showing off his newfound comfort, too much? Well, whatever.

Erick took his seat, saying, “There are many things to be happy about, Illustrious. I just hit Second Foundation, and I think I smell coffee in the air.” Erick smiled at Maid Maria, who was setting out breakfast onto plates. “Do I smell that right?”

Illustrious’s eyes went wide to hear ‘Second Foundation’.

Fairy Moon smirked at him, saying, “A welcome revelation, indeed.”

Maid Maria silently grabbed the jug of coffee and poured Erick a cup, before returning to the breakfast foods, to prepare the plates for everyone.

Erick inhaled deep the warm scent of coffee. And then he added some milk and sugar to it, smiling gently, as he said, “Second Foundation is accompanied by a spherical core, while body saturation ends when it is no longer capable of easily absorbing mana, which happened first, several hours ago. The spherical core happened only an hour ago. Everything sort of tingled when it happened, too, like a plateau had been reached, or the chiming of a gong.”

Illustrious reorganized some thoughts and stances in her mind, for she had envisioned that this meeting would be about theory of what happened after reaching Second Foundation. Now, she was readying herself to actually teach of what came after… But she still had some theory she wished to expound upon. “A spiritual echo is commonplace when the core matures at the end of spirit saturation, so it would make sense for you to feel this sensation. This echo is theorized to happen because of the rapid transition from having a set amount of facets on the core, to what is effectively infinity.”

The coffee tasted great. Erick savored the flavor as he listened to Illustrious. “I like that theory. Makes sense.” He set down his cup and let Maid Maria set his plate down in front of him. “Appreciated, Maria.” Maria acted as though she wasn’t there, which Erick supposed was normal for servants. He turned back to Illustrious. “Not to change the subject too much, but as you know, I’ve already made [Renew]. I want to tell Redflame that his current goal has already been achieved, and I want to explore the possibilities of solving, slowly, the Dragon Curse, through [Renew]. But if I am not able to do this without raising a threat against myself that I cannot contend with, then I will not do so at this time. I will let him waste his million mana fortune, and simultaneously out myself as a Wizard in what will likely be the worst possible circumstances, for I have no doubt that Redflame will instantly realize what has happened. But by that time it will already be too late. The loss of his mana fortune will cause a weakening of Ar’Cosmos, and open you all up to war with the outside. My letters stopped the war that was brewing, but it might happen anyway if I don’t come out of here with glowing recommendations against actual war.”

Maid Maria almost dropped the plate she was serving Illustrious, but Fairy Moon put her hand under the tray, preventing that minor disaster without really trying, for Fairy Moon’s eyes were locked on Illustrious, awaiting her response.

Illustrious heard and understood everything Erick had laid down at her feet. She sat straight, her amethyst horns seeming to rise in the air as she stared at Erick. She asked, “How do you envision us dragons emerging from Ar’Cosmos once we gain this [Renew]-based Wizardry you speak of?”

“I am glad that you see the full breadth of my prepared stance, Illustrious. It bodes well for working with you in the future.” Erick wanted to tell them that he was immortal, too, but he had no idea how the conversation would go if he let loose that particular bit of information. So, in that case, it was better to let them find out later who they were dealing with. “I plan to return to Spur, and to assist with Candlepoint’s growth, but my next largest goal is to terraform the Crystal Forest back into an actual forest. Livable land. Rains and grasses and trees. Rivers and lakes; how it used to be before the crystal mimics came along.

“I want help doing this.

“In time, in my perfect future, I envision all of Veird being habitable once again. Maybe not every corner. Maybe only 50%. But the Crystal Forest will absolutely be a green forest full of cities and waterways and people.” Erick summed it up, “Your people need places to live once they are relieved of their curse. I need powerful people to prevent belligerents from bringing war against me and mine. If you desire, you can decide to become a part of ‘mine’. It will be mutually-assured protection, as long as both sides decide that the other side is worth continued protection.”

Illustrious gained a sharp edge to her eyes as she gazed upon Erick, weighing her possible future paths. “Would you assist us against the wrought, and Kirginatharp?”

“The wrought are going to take back Ar’Kendrithyst. That is going to happen, and I am going to help them do that, too. You can learn to live beside them.” Erick said, “It is my hope that there will be less need for violence and more opportunity to talk openly, now that the main problem of the Shades is gone. But, I imagine you have many Forgotten magics tucked away in this land, so that will likely be an issue to deal with, but it will be an issue dealt with through words, and not through violence.” Erick said, “In regards to Kirginatharp, unless I am mistaken, then the Dragon Curse doesn’t work on those who are transformed, so the Headmaster will have no innate reason to pursue you outside of revenge and other vendettas. Please inform me now, if I am wrong about this.”

“… You are not wrong about Kirginatharp’s motivations, but you underestimate the severity of his vendettas. So putting that aside, as it could… We, theoretically, could talk out our differences, in some theoretical framework of… Something.” Illustrious breathed deep, then said, “I don’t believe that such a reconciliation is possible for that man has directly murdered thousands of our people, and directly murdered fourteen members of my immediate family. But putting that aside, since it is, as you say, a conflict born of hate, instead of from magical compulsion… The wrought are a much more severe threat. The wrought are very thorough with regards to ripping out Forgotten Magic from this world, and if you know any of those magics, then they will use their Mind Mages to rip that knowledge out of your head, and you will never know it was done. If that doesn’t work, they kill you.” Illustrious wrestled with some inner turmoil for a moment, then said, “I did not want to bring this up with you, Erick, but with this line of questioning, I must.

“There is absolutely no way that you have not been negatively affected by the Mind Mages working for the wrought. A subtle twisting. A minor forgetting. Their power is insidious and omnipresent. The originals adhere to their code as they should, and so we might be able to deal with them. But I would never walk into a Mind Mage meeting of wrought or otherwise without an active bulwark of mental and spiritual defenses.”

Erick said, “I am glad that you are willing to entertain the idea of solving the vendettas between Ar’Cosmos and Kirginatharp— In some theoretical world where the underlying problem of the Dragon Curse has been solved, of course.” Erick went on to say, “In regard to your concerns about the wrought and the Mind Mages, though: I have learned quite recently, and first hand, that I need to have better mental protections, so your worries are not unfounded. But with House Fae’s over willingness to bewitch people with Fae Magic, could it be that you are seeing your own faults laid bare, and not an actual fault of the Mind Mages?”

Illustrious, thankfully, did not get mad at the aspersions Erick cast upon her character, probably because Erick had thrown his own experiences with House Fae’s nature in her face at the same time. She just went silent, her emotions twisting from fury to hope to terror and deep, deep embarrassment that Erick had somehow discovered what they did to people to enact justice in this land. And yet, there was a vast shade of acceptance that what she did was right and necessary for the good of… Ar’Cosmos or else specific people, Erick supposed.

He had guessed about all of that, but apparently he had been on the mark.

He moved past it, since he, himself, had Blessed people as a form of ‘justice’. Who was he to judge, except a victim of what he had done to other people? Now that was a ball of problems to work through some other day; not right now.

Erick continued, “I do not know of the exact nature of all the Forgotten Campaigns that the wrought have committed since Veird’s conception, but I do feel that you are overly conflating the Mind Mages with the wrought. I have recently learned that Kromolok and his second in command have merely adopted the powers of the Mind Mages, and are not beholden to their rules. Uchena claimed that they are the ones that keep the Mind Mages in check, and that they are not part of that culture at all. And in addition to this: I am almost 100% positive that the Mind Mages have a very strict culture that is exactly what it appears to be. You likely already know all this, though.”

Illustrious instantly found her footing. “That is what they want you to believe, and so you believe what they tell you.”

Erick asked, “Could your actual problems with the Mind Mages be that they live and function under the auspices of Kirginatharp, and the wrought?”

According to Illustrious’s face, Erick had hit the mark again.

“… There are some deep diplomatic concerns due to their current allegiances, and the fact that they will and have gone out on Forgotten Campaigns with the wrought, and Kirginatharp, and with all the churches of all the gods.” Illustrious felt as though she was talking to a child with the power to change the world, and she wasn’t quite sure how to handle Erick. She tried, “I feel you are grasping at pieces of the problem and failing to understand the whole. There can be no real peace in this ongoing war, between any of our sides.”

Erick countered, “An odd thing to say, considering that Inferno Maw has already expressed his wishes to end the Dragon Curse and also the war with Kirginatharp. Rozeta just wants the world to be stable and for there to be a lot of mana production, and the wrought follow her example. If Ar’Cosmos fell into line and—” Erick stopped himself and reconsidered his goals this morning. He wasn’t ready for this large of a conversation right now, but he had felt the need to see where Illustrious was at, and he had done that. Erick went on, saying, “Anyway. This breakfast smells divine, and peace talks are a large topic. I just bring up the subject because I want you to know that I want peace and prosperity, and to get away from all these wars I am finding myself drawn into, and yet I don’t want to solve any of these problems with more violence than strictly necessary. That’s my stance.” He added, “Also, all of that goes out the window if I am ever mind controlled by anyone here ever again. And so, with that warning now out there, and with all my own goals currently listed, we come to this question: How will Ar’Cosmos react to my proposals of entering into official alliances to defend ourselves against the wrought and Kirginatharp, when the time comes? What does such an alliance look like?”

Yes, Erick had just gone around in circles, going from talking of peace to talking of ‘what does war look like if we are on the same side’.

Illustrious didn’t seem to appreciate the circling of the conversation, though. She accused, “You’re trying to play all sides against each other.”

“… That is an unkind way to label my attempt at trying to create a lasting peace, for a lasting peace is also achieved through mutual defense, though, I admit, that too much defense might lead to a world war, which is another thing I do not want.”

Illustrious just stared at him, considering.

Erick continued, “Perhaps you fear that the sides are so uneven that nothing can be done to protect Ar’Cosmos from everyone else, so here’s a smaller scenario that leads to the larger: I create a [Renew] amulet that gradually transforms the half-dragon wearing it into a Paradoxed dragon of Carnage, or Fae, or Death, or maybe even Elemental Benevolence if I manage such a thing. There are likely not many such amulets, and your three houses control the only stock. Let’s say 15 amulets, total, evenly split. Each one can transform one person over the course of a month. I am pulling these numbers out of thick air, of course, but they are based on Redflame’s predictions on how such a [Renew] amulet would function, based on his ideas of how such a thing would work. What happens in ten years, in twenty?”

Illustrious stuck her fork into her omelet, distracting herself from the sudden need that welled up within her very soul. She lightly said, “I will have to think on this.”

Erick nodded, then he refilled his coffee, saying, “It’s a big thought.”

Fairy Moon hadn’t spoken a single word. All she did was eat breakfast and watch the show.

It was a lovely breakfast.

Erick stayed to lighter topics, like food and popular culture, and soon enough, Illustrious’s mood lightened considerably. Both of them knew what he was doing, but Illustrious played along because it was necessary for her own sanity, and for the good of Ar’Cosmos.

Afterward, Erick and Illustrious moved to the accretion room, down the hallway.

Now that Erick was at Second Foundation, they could actually discuss things such as spell-in-soul creation. That specific topic was accompanied by the temporary loan of four accretion manuals. Over the course of two hours, Illustrious’s falsely-good mood turned true. She relaxed, for she spoke of things she could easily handle, instead of about worldly politics which she wasn’t comfortable touching right now, and not with Erick as he was.

Accretion and spellwork were safe topics, too, just like food and culture.

Spell creation got a whole half hour dedicated to it.

The whole idea of manual spell-in-soul creation (what the Script did automatically) was basically about shaping a spell in one’s aura, ‘freezing’ that spell into a pseudo-solid ‘soul crystal’, and then absorbing that Soul Magic into one’s core without causing any cascading complications. It was, quite honestly, one of the most dangerous Soul Magics out there, for it wasn’t a simple Blessing that affected the whole, or a Curse that did the same. It was the creation of an individual, separate soul-bit, that could cast a magic all on its own, producing desired outcomes with proper inputs.

It was messy. It was detailed and convoluted to the point of math, and in that math, Erick saw some of what they taught at Oceanside, but only in the broadest of strokes. Soul-spell creation was Soul Magic of the highest order, and perhaps one of the riskiest Soul Magics that one could ever attempt. It was on the level of self-summoning Necromancy, also known as lichdom.

And the Script did this all the time, automatically, for everyone Matriculated into the system.

At the end of it all, Erick decided, “I certainly won’t be messing with that right now.”

Illustrious laughed lightly. “This is why most people with cores manually make their magic using their auras. Much simpler.”

“I can see that.” Erick closed the book on soul-spell creation, and said, “Let’s move on to ritual casting. How does one cast spells larger than a 500 mana per second limit?”

“A much easier topic, to be sure.” Illustrious picked up a different manual, saying, “Everything about that is in here, but with us broaching that topic I must first tell you of mana maximums and cores, and the risks with holding too much mana inside oneself.”

“Ah. Yeah. That was a concern, too.” Erick said, “I was told by Rozeta that I would have no maximum, eventually. I do still seem to have a maximum, though, which is based on my Stats.”

Illustrious nodded. “Now that you’re at Second Foundation, all the mana you purposefully accrete into your core will be able to do one of three things; either heal your core from damage, increase your Stats, or over-charge you with mana. For the purposes of ritual casting, we’re mostly concerned with the last option; overcharging your core with mana, and thus building up a larger mana pool than you would otherwise have. Generally, ten times your current max, as listed on your Status, is a safe amount to overcharge without risking loss of the Script. If you want even more mana than that, you should increase your Willpower and raise your new cap. Raising your Willpower will be a lot tougher now that you’re at your natural spirit saturation, though… There’s some math involved but we can skip over that.

“You mentioned Redflame’s million mana fortune back at breakfast, and this is how he got that mana. He’s been forcefully packing himself with mana and then holding onto that mana for a long time. He’s been off the Script for a long while due to that fortune.”

“Okay. That’s… Likely a lot more complicated than you say it is, but it’s easy enough to understand.”

Illustrious smiled. “Most things are easier to explain than to do; yes.”

Erick asked, “So ritual casting, for a ten-thousand mana cost spell? How would you do this?”

“Every ritual spell is different, but they all follow one of two guidelines; there are rules for soul spells, and rules for manual casting.

“Manual casting is perhaps the easiest to understand so we can start there. For that, all you must do is manually fill your aura with your magic and hold it all there, primed to go, until the spell matrix is filled and ready to go. That is the entirety of understanding manual ritual casting. But! There are a lot of caveats to that.

“Manual spellcasting on Veird is limited to tier 1, normally, or tier 2 for bloodline-aspect spellwork, but even those tier 2 bloodline spells rarely get above 500 mana cost. Therefore there is no real worry about the 500 MPS limitation, except to limit yourself to 500 mana cast per second.

“This tier limitation is heavily enforced by the Script itself, but this fact is less true here in Ar’Cosmos. Tier 2 is possible in this land, or tier 3 for bloodline spellwork.

“But here’s the thing: You can ritually cast ten 500 mana [Fireball]s if you wish, making a [Grand Fireball] equivalent spell, even using the limitations of the Script and personal mana limitations. With ritual magic, you can cast practically anything you wish to cast as long as you know what you’re doing.” Illustrious smiled a little, then began, “Now… Ritually casting a soulbound spell, already inside your core and put there by the Script, with mana costs in the thousands, is a much more complicated thing. Using the spells the Script puts inside of you allows you to effectively ‘bypass’ the tier limitations, but you still have all the other limitations of 500 mana per second through your core.

“Ritual magic is an entire branch of magic and it gets complicated, but a lot of it is in the books I gave you. And so! To start, you…”

– – – –

Erick sat on his accretion pillow, breathing in and out as he accreted.

He had seen Illustrious off hours ago, thanking her for her help without actually ‘thanking’ her. Erick was acutely aware of how words like ‘thank you’ were dangerous around here, and no one said those words, but ‘thank you’ was still on the tip of his tongue every time someone did something nice for him. ‘I appreciate that/what you did’ was an unexpectedly large mental switch, but he coped.

Anyway. Illustrious had helped him a lot, and he was thankful. He hoped that her intentions were true; that she wanted actual cooperation between him and Ar’Cosmos. Everything she had done after that initial meeting had been good for future relations. She was even friendly, and it didn’t seem like an act. He hoped that they could become actual friends in the future…

He hoped the same for Redflame and maybe even Inferno Maw—

Ah. Less distractions, Erick.

Focus on the accretion.

Accreting for maximum mana was different from accreting for Stat gains. It was more of a… ‘thickening’ of the core, than the enlarging/faceting that he had become accustomed to. One book called it a ‘densening’, which was a strange word for it, but that book had some really good hints at Remaking the various times-3 Skills, so Erick accepted the odd wordings as par for the course of making soul magic. Language was just an approximation for ideas and concepts, anywa—

Focus, Erick.

Erick layered dense mana into his core like the thickening of a soup that could always be thicker.

His mana did not ‘bottom out’ at all, for when one accreted for maximum mana, they stuffed themselves full from their Regeneration, not from their Mana, and they had to do it manually, which meant focusing all the time on containing the mana within, stuffing oneself way past what was natural.

And so, Erick had been focusing for the last few hours on getting this ri—

His concentration unraveled, his white aura flexing and vanishing as a rupture in his mana containment ripped across the surface of his core. Mana vented outward from his body like the spurting of a high-pressure water valve. He winced and regained his concentration, focusing on the break, forcing his aura to stitch together to stop the blowout.

It was too late, though.

His core was fine, but his extra mana was gone, vanished into the air like whitewater from a hose.

And he was done. Erick gave up the ghost and collapsed backward on his accretion pillow. That was his fifth failure and it wasn’t getting any easier. Ophiel twittered overhead, while Yggdrasil’s eye stared down at him, questioningly.

“I’m fine. Just another mana blowout.” A glance inward showed that his core was perfectly intact. “Mana without intent passes through everything without truly touching. It might have looked bad, but it wasn’t.” He looked to Ophiel. “I’ll make more of you when I can, Ophiel, but I’ll need to Remake some times-3 Skills first… Probably should do that anyway… Stuffing myself with mana wasn’t exactly helpful, but it was a bit, I guess.”

He sat back up, and collected himself. Straight back, calm breathing.

Eyes relaxed.

Hands forward. Palms up.

The idea here was to increase the capacity of one’s mana pool. Simple, in theory, but in practice it was a lot harder, as Erick had just found out. How does one make a set space of area hold more area? The trick then was compression. The books Tasar had given Erick on the subject of Remaking the minor blessing of Concentration, and the like, were filled with information on the subject. Erick probably could have Remade these triplicate-Skills using just that information. But it wasn’t till now, with Erick attempting to cram more mana into his core, to raise his maximum mana, that he finally understood the whole process. He understood what the actual goal was, with a blessing like Discipline, which increased one’s Mana pool 3 times over. Illustrious’s books laid out the process to create these blessings, fully, and using much better language than Tasar’s books had used.

For these blessings had been the same even way back in the Old Cosmology, back when every competent mage used these blessings to increase their capacity.

Reading the old magics and learning how they worked was like filling in half of a puzzle that had been missing from Tasar’s books.

This was not that surprising, though, since the Script ironed out small fluctuations and individuality when casting known magics. If Erick had even 40% of the puzzle of the Skill, Discipline, then the Script would provide the other 60%. Remaking these Skills would be like when Erick was learning Healing Magic back in Songli. All he had to do was mutate his initial healing spell in most of the correct direction and the Script filled in the rest, granting him the spell [Treat Wounds]. A bit more mutation aimed toward the goal of [Greater Treat Wounds], the Script granted Erick that spell, too, overwriting the original [Treat Wounds] with the Greater version.

Of course, such ‘mutation’ took a great deal of finesse and mana sense and knowledge, but the Script did most of the heavy lifting.

But…

With the Script not here in Ar’Cosmos, then… Well. Erick was pretty sure he was going to get this right, anyway. Healing Magic still worked here. Heck! Even [Cleanse] still worked here, though not that well, and [Cleanse] was a lot more dangerous than a bit of soul blessing.

Erick breathed in, then out. His thoughts were collected. His power rose, then concentrated, as he held within himself a bit of extra mana. Holding a little extra was easy, maybe only ten Mana worth, and would provide a good format for the resulting blessing to recognize and magnify.

With an airy, thick voice, Erick spoke, and the sound echoed in his soul,

“A bit of blessing to the core.

“A Discipline, made to grow.

“Holding onto something more

“a thicker, denser status quo.”

His soul rippled inside his core, as the little bit of extra mana he was holding onto suddenly sunk inward, like a balloon deflating, without actually deflating at all. Before the blessing, Erick had seen that his core was bright white and full of mana, but afterward, it was a bit less bright, but only because it wasn’t full anymore. He had only used up about 275-ish mana to Remake this Skill, out of his full capacity of about 1000 mana, but his capacity itself had been increased. Just about doubled, actually.

Eventually, that ‘doubling’ would become a tripling, as this Skill grew to full power.

Erick smiled. No blue boxes had appeared, but what he was seeing was exactly in line with what the books described as a success. One down, three left to go. With a quick hand, Erick wrote down his success to the side.

– –

Discipline

Multiply your base MP by 2

Requirements: 20 Willpower

– –

Erick asked his [Familiar]s, “You know why the Stat is called Willpower? Why the Skill is called Discipline?”

Ophiel shook his head as he cooed in questioning flutes. Yggdrasil just watched, like he always did.

Erick answered, “The Stat is called Willpower because it takes basic willpower to gather mana in the first place. The Skill is called Discipline because it takes a lot of discipline to forcefully hold onto extra mana.”

Ophiel cooed in triumphant violins, probably more happy that Erick was happy, than actually realizing what was happening. Still, though! That was an improvement. Yggdrasil tumbled his eye a bit, trying to comprehend.

Erick softly smiled at all the progress everywhere, and then he moved on to the next Skill, saying, “And now I know why Concentration, for 2, and then eventually 3 times Mana Regen, is called ‘Concentration’, as well as why Focus is called ‘Focus’. It’s because you have to Focus on the flow to forcefully increase the flow. I was already doing this a bit with my amulets, but now I have to turn that into the Skill, Concentration.”

Ophiel twittered in violins.

Yggdrasil went still, and then nodded—

Erick smiled wide at that. Yggdrasil had just completely understood him. Usually he only grasped the largest, most basic concepts when dealing with magic, but Erick got the distinct impression that he fully picked up what Erick had just put down.

Still smiling, and since he had 600-ish mana left in the now-larger tank, Erick went on to Remaking Concentration.

– –

Concentration

Multiply your base MP regen by 2

Requirements: 20 Focus

– –

The times-3 Health Regen Skill for Vitality came next; Enduring.

Erick had never been good at combining Health Cost skills with one another, or doing much with warrior-type stuff at all. But knowing what he now knew, and experiencing body-accretion himself, had helped to cement a lot of stray ideas about what ‘Health Cost’ actually meant; it meant ‘using up’ the ‘mana’ in the body in order to cause an effect.

In some of the advanced manuals from Illustrious they explained how in the Old Cosmology that the mana accreted into one’s body was useless for everything except making one physically stronger/tougher. But under the Script, in this New Cosmology, this sort of power was turned into a well of resources for the average person to use how they saw fit, which allowed the rise of true ‘archwarriors’.

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

There used to be archwarriors in the Old Cosmology, too, but they were weaklings compared to the archwarriors of the current day, mostly because the older version had to ‘use up’ their body-accretion in order to do anything worth mentioning. These days, one’s ‘body-accretion’ did not get used up, and a true warrior could go up against an archmage and actually win most of the time.

This was one of the purpose-built tenets of the Script, in order to ensure that powerful mages and Wizards never again threatened all of the universe with their unbridled power, and to give warriors a strength they never had before. Warriors were still needed, after all, because warriors were always the best forces to send against the monsters. Under the Script, and even long before that, the innate Strength of one’s arms did not get used up nearly as fast as the discrete amount of mana a mage could bring to bear.

Anyway.

‘Health’ was not a real thing like mana was real, except that Health was a Real thing, made Real through the Script.

Knowing all that, Remaking Enduring was easy enough, since the power to recover lost Health shared similarities with the power to recover lost Mana. In this case, it was less about focusing on a flow, and more about ensuring that the Health inside the body came back quicker.

Erick did a little rhyme, and suddenly, his body felt energized. No blue box this time, either, but Erick remembered what Enduring should have looked like.

– –

Enduring

Multiply your base HP regen by 2

Requirements: 20 Vitality

– –

‘Health’ didn’t really exist inside Ar’Cosmos, like it did on Veird, but the energy pumping through his veins felt just like Health usually did. Eventually, when Erick gained enough experience through the use of this Skill it would level up to 10, and become a real times-3 Skill in the process, just like the other two he had already Remade.

The Skill for times-3 Max Health was called Strong.

It was pretty easy to understand the meaning of that one, too.

Strong, for Maximum Health, like Discipline, for Maximum Mana, was all about putting more of that resource into a limited container.

One rhyme later, Erick felt his body seem to dim, as all of his body-accretion seemed to diminish. It hadn’t though. All of the mana in his body had just concentrated, leaving more room for more Health. Erick wrote down what that Skill should look like too.

– –

Strong

Multiply your base HP by 2

Requirements: 20 Strength

– –

Erick sat back in his beanbag chair and breathed deep.

Those were the four basic boosting Skills; done and secured. It was good to finally do that. The journey to get to this basic point had taken Erick a long time, and the path had been unforeseen, but he had finally learned the actual meaning behind Health, along with how Mana and Health related to the spirit and the body, and how the Script organized it all in the background. Anyone with the necessary Stats could pick up Strong or Enduring or Concentration or Discipline for a single Point, but the number of people who actually knew what those Skills did had to be in the single digit percentile.

And now Erick was one of those people.

Doing this had revealed something else to Erick, that he hadn’t expected to realize.

He turned to Ophiel and Yggdrasil, and said, “I don’t think that the New Stats will ever have a boosting Skill. They’re just too abstract. Like, Willpower is the amount of Mana a person can naturally contain, while Discipline is forcing oneself to contain more. But Intelligence? What could that possibly be doing, except for the work of Clarity, but turned into a Stat…” Erick paused. “You know what? I bet that’s exactly what Melemizargo did; he took Clarity and elevated it to a Stat.”

Ophiel twittered. Yggdrasil looked lost.

Erick suddenly found himself on a roll. “Charisma was some sort of Mind Magic Ability or spell turned into a Stat, for sure, because all the Mind Mages instantly decried that as Mind Magic. That’s another mystery solved. Now… Perception has to be… [Ultrasight]?— Ah. No. Perception is Mana sense. Yup. That’s what that correlates to… But. Perhaps multiple sensory abilities? Mana sense is not actually covered in the Script, though, and that is by design… A design which Melemizargo broke, obviously. I got my mana sense almost instantly after getting Perception.

“And then we have Dexterity, which is the ability for the body to have more resources than otherwise… Or rather. It is the body’s ability to do more with less. This correlates with Intelligence, which is the ability for the spirit to do more with the same resources than otherwise. And since Intelligence is Clarity, but in a Stat, that means Dexterity is Precision, but in a Stat.

“… Maybe. I need to Remake Clarity next, but I’m pretty sure that how Clarity works is just straight-up Wizardry. Precision is likely much the same.

“But going back to the New Stats, we have Constitution, which is a flat percentage reduction to damage taken— Ah! It’s that Class Ability that Jane once told me about. Sturdy. Reduces damage taken from all sources by 25%… Or maybe Constitution is more like [Defend]? Maybe both, actually— No. Not [Defend]. [Defend] requires a tenth of one’s Health Max to use, and that use only recovers through natural regeneration.

“… All that could be wrong, but I feel like it’s correct. It’s a lot easier to make something new, like the New Stats, out of something old, like Clarity, or whatever, than it is to make something completely new.” Erick said, “Inventing a new Element takes something special, but taking an Element and shifting it into a new use takes ingenuity.”

Erick paused in thought, and then he smiled a little. Maybe he was correct, or maybe he was wrong, but he felt about 75% correct.

But there was a problem.