Magic Breaker Ch 211 - 213 (Patreon)

Chapter 211: Noble

It’s perfect. 

The house. It’s perfect. It has a garden.

Somehow, it has a garden and that garden is its own floating island just in the back of the place. Calling it a house isn’t even proper - it’s basically an estate. A noble’s holiday home, as Inu said. It has multiple bedrooms, enough for all of us, though some people still have preferences. Sylves, for example, has the biggest balcony. Opal sleeps in the attic, because that way, they can easily teleport onto the roof, and apparently, they love roofrunning.

Thatch’s bedroom is right next to the garden, giving him something to paint, and mine is right next to the staircase into the basement, so that when I drag up soot and blood from blowing myself up, I don’t spread it all over the house. Richard has kindly agreed to clean for us. 

In this kind exchange I’ve had to lend her my wonderfully enchanted cleaning rag. I still haven’t figured out the self-cleaning. It’s such a clever enchantment! Same goes for my shirts repair function, and the refilling phial. All of them are enchantments that the tower somewhat rudimentarily supplies, but that seem like an absolute nightmare for me to recreate.

Obviously, that won’t stop me from recreating them. It’ll just take time. And time is something we finally, finally have. Did the guards try to stab me the second I stepped into the fourth ring? No. Surprisingly, for once, they didn’t. 

The monolith provided an emblem for that. It branded itself right onto my shirt - a simple, stitched design on my left shoulder. Two circles, stacked within each other. Which is a precise showcase of how many circles I can access.

Seeing it, the guards let me through, and the gate didn’t repel me. Apparently it does that - the tower applies a knockback effect to anyone unauthorised going through. The guards are mostly there to prevent people from trying - and to look menacing. What’s Respitia’s government without a bit of intimidation, right?

I guess I’m lucky they don’t recognize me from when I saved Jean. Those guards for sure saw my face. But it happens to the best of us, and surely that won’t come back to bite me. Surely.

Now, I lay sprawled out on the floor of my room. It’s not super decorated yet - the nobles have taken most of the things out of there. It has a serviceable bed, a bit fancier than I need, suitable for two people. There’s a desk, and a few empty, simple bookshelves, as well as a bedside table.

Already, I’ve filled half the shelves with all my stolen books. Tomey-tome lays on the bedside table, always in reach. And, the best part:

I charge some mana into the wall next to my bed, and the stone swings open. With a small smile, I walk into the hidden passage, stepping downwards. It leads to a secret room. In which I stash my greatest valuables - my chits, my headphones, my phone, and of course the cores and my mana-maze. 

And then, walking a bit further, I charge another wall with mana, and step into my lab.

My lab. My magical, alchemy-and-enchanting lab. With a floor made from tile, and walls coated in thin sheets of mana-conductive metal. With tons of glass tubes, and beakers, and little gadgets that weren’t sold because the nobles couldn’t be bothered.

Do I have any idea about alchemy? Absolutely not. Well, almost none. I have a smidge of essence on it, a tiny wisp telling me that I can use alchemy to help me forge my vessel some more. But I’ll need to buy some formulas on it. And then, I’ll probably make healing potions, and start significantly undercutting Respitia’s income.

It’s the right thing to do. Free money is free money, after all. This way I can heal people and earn from it without actually showing my healing skills. Truly, the strategy is wonderfully sneaky.

Now, if only people on this floor didn’t look at me so awkwardly. So many of them stare - probably because there aren’t many humans here. It’s a lot clearer, too, that there are nobles here. Because… well, because of the vain things.

Every now and then, I’ll see someone walk with a cloak that is decadently embroidered in gold, holding a jeweled walking cane, when they’re just teenagers. People with fancy hats, usually attended to by guards who look far more menacing than those people themselves. Noble flobs. 

Nobles who accumulated generational wealth. Enough of it for them to be able to hire genuine climbers, people in their mid 100s, even, just to protect their kids. What a bizarre thing. And what a waste of money.

There is also a bit of a status thing with nobles, where apparently they let their fledgling authorities hang freely sometimes, using them to make others kneel whenever it pleased them. Something that’s usually seen as rude in the same way that identifying others is rude. So, of course, it was really only a matter of time before something happened. 

While I’m out on a casual stroll, hood up, headphones on, heading to a shop to buy me some sweet treats, a noble casually walks by. I don’t even spare him a glance, and only notice him when his authority brushes against me. “Out of the way, peasant,” he says with a calm sneer, trying to bump into my shoulder.

Of course, I step out of the way, not letting him touch me. But, as he walks by, his authority still settles on my shoulders, seeking to press me down. And, almost instantly, he cuts himself on the razorblade necklace that is my defiance. 

I see the guy wince, and then, he stops. In the middle of the street. Wind pulling at his extravagant cloak, he turns to me and points his cane. “You! How dare you!” 

Blinking, I take off my headphones, staring at him blankly. “Sorry, what did you say?”

And, of course, he takes that as a challenge. “Peasant! You dare rise against my authority? I’ll have you made an example of!” he steps in, sweeping at my legs with the cane. And, internally, I sigh. How troublesome. 

Nonetheless, I rally my mana and get ready to cause some problems.

- - -

The noble kneels in the dirty street. I didn’t even poke him that hard. Just a regular [Selection]-[Suppression] combo, but he just folded instantly. Are his stats that shit? Is he made of paper? Did I somehow break something about him?

The young master puts his gloves hands to his legs, staring at them in horror. “My own body betrays me,” he whispers dramatically. Then, with grave force, he punches one of his legs. “Move, damn you! Do not bring shame to me!”

One of his guards moves in to help him up, but he shakes off their hand, yelling something. I turn around, and start to leave, when he yells at me. “You! Stop right there! Guards, take that hooligan!”

A small frown plays on my lips as I turn around, looking at his mercenaries. There’s two of them, one feryran with a scar across his eye and dark hair, and a scithian woman with pale-pink, rounded wings. They look at me, and I look at them. Very slowly, I drag my hand through my hair.

“Are we really doing this?” I ask.

The guy gives me a small shrug and a crooked smile. “Sorry, handsome,” he says. “I hate hurting cute stuff like you, but a job’s a job.” 

The woman elbows him in the ribs. “Stop flirting on the job.”

“Oof,” he gasps, then chuckles. “C’mon, you know I’m right.”

She rolls. “A beautiful target is still a target.”

I stare at them, and blink. Then, I drop the [Suppression] on the noble. Unfortunately, he’d just been leaning forward, and so, the sudden shift in capabilities has him knee himself in the face, then fall into a puddle. I stare, and the male guard winces.

“Yikes,” he says. “That must smart.” Then, he turns to me. “Really your doing?”

I blink. “He kneed himself in the face.”

“Liar!” The noble accuses me, sopping wet now. “You ensorcelled me, you cretin!” He points accusingly, his white gloves stained a dull grey by the dirty street-water. I stare as he rambles on. “You defile the name of the Tellemont family! You besmirch my honor, wanderer, vagrant! I will pay you back this grievance a thousandfold. Guards, teach that honorless cur a lesson!”

The guy shrugs. “I’d ask you out for drinks,” he says. “But I think you’d decline if I beat you up now.” Then, he drags a hand through his long, black hair, and steps forward. “Nothing personal,” he says.

For a single heartbeat, I don’t say anything. Then, I smile, and the words that leave my mouth are simple. They’re a promise to my loyalty to myself, to my own comfort. “Please don’t touch me,” I say politely. “I’m really picky about my personal space.”

At that, the scithian woman frowns, flaps her wings, and suddenly gets real close. 

Well, I warned her.

Chapter 212: Waves

I hold no weapon as they approach. I don’t even bother to do much of anything. Instead, I just stare them down. Normal climbers. The kind who took a year or five to get up here, maybe longer. Have they been through what I’ve been through, I wonder?

Well. If they’re donating their abilities, who am I to refuse?

The woman darts at me with surprising speed, her feet sliding forward on pink paths. My [Observation] finds them instantly. [Selection] latches on to her movement skill, and then I shatter it. 

[Deconstruction 27 > 28]

“Huh, neat,” I hum to myself, thinking over the structure of the skill as the woman stumbles. Just as her face is approaching the ground, and she gets ready for impact, I [Suppress] her. She goes stiff as a board, and lands face-first on the cobblestones.

A moment later, mana buzzes behind my back.

[Observation 27 > 28]

For once, being blind is nice. It makes me listen a lot more to those quiet impulses, and I create a row of three solid mana-shields while taking a step forward. Behind me, the hidden feryran smashes through the shields easily, but by then, I’m out of his range, and he clicks his tongue.

“Troublesome,” he says. “How’d you spot me? I’m sneaky.”

His fists are cloaked in a grey mist, and I feel my mana roil in disgust at it. I tilt my head in curiosity. “Is that a dispelling skill?” I ask.

The handsome guy gives me a crooked smile again, as if he’s proud but embarrassed at the same time. “Yeah, it is. That’s what made me take this job - a tutor for it.”

“Nice, thanks for the donation,” I say.

In a battle of counterspelling, the one who does so first loses. My own anti-magic crashes against his - and the grey mist falls away in flakes that disperse in the wind. For a moment his eyes go from his fists, then to me in horror, and I nod in satisfaction.

A clean dissection. I’ve got all the parts of the skill. He shifts his stance, aiming to disppear again - but I know how to find him, so I can target his stealth skill.

[Selection 32 > 33]

It breaks. I learn.

[Obfuscation 12 > 14]

[Annexation 11 > 12]

“Hm,” I hum. “Neat. Let me try-” 

I cloak myself in [Obfuscation], then oscillate the mana field around me in the same way he did. It thins out my signature, making me blend in with the background even to magical senses. What a clever little trick. It pairs really rather well with my suppression loops.

The man’s eyes go wide, and I feel his authority spread out as he looks for me - only to cut itself on my defiance. He hisses for a moment, and gives a small flinch, just long enough for me to sweep the ground out from under him with a mana orb crashing into his leg, and a [Suppression]. Then he falls on his face.

A moment later, the woman’s wrist wraps around my ankle.

Instantly, I’m filled with disgust. Why the fuck is she touching me, why is she touching me, why-

Kuro snaps downwards. My cloak of shadows wraps around her hand with a dozen insectoid fangs, leaving a myriad tiny bite wounds on her. Then, I see a hint of black spreading in her arm, and her skin turns pale.

“No poison!” I politely inform my companion, who quickly withdraws. I slip from the woman’s weakened grasp, then lean down and break the magical toxin apart before it properly takes root. Then, I stare at the hand that touched me, the unrepentant woman, and kick her wrist. There’s a small snap as a bone breaks. 

“Ah! Fuck!” the woman hisses in pain. Mana bleeds out of me at a prodigious rate, from my multiple instances of [Suppression], but it’s nothing too much. It makes me curious.

I kneel in front of the woman’s face, undoing my cloaking. “Hey,” I say quietly. “I told you not to touch me. You owe me now. What’s your highest level skill?” I ask.

She flinches. “I don’t have to tell you anything!”

Mana coalesces between my fingers. A knife of it, and I hold it up to her right eye, the tip just a finger’s width away from stabbing her. “I’m petty, ma’am,” I say politely. “So please answer.”

“Tw- twenty-four!” she provides instantly. I frown, then inspect her.

[Pathmaker, lv. 125]

Hm. That’s… kind of sad. No skills past the second threshold. That’d explain why mine are stronger. With a satisfied nod, I rise to my feet again, and the young noble himself tries to charge at me for a moment. I reach out and press him into a [Suppression] hold.

[Lightning Mage, lv. 74]

I tilt my head. His authority must be… inherited or claimed. Did they really have him kill someone with an authority? Ah, maybe that’s what happens to criminals. They get sacrificed so some noble brat can claim some more power. Kind of pathetic.

Holding him in place, I just sigh. “Pick your battles,” I reply.

“I won’t ever forget your face!” he tells me.

That annoys me, so I walk up to him. That makes him scared. I let go of my knife, keeping it hovering just in front of his throat as I go through his pockets. “What are you doing?!" he demands.

Absent-mindedly, I dispel another attack from the male guard to break through my hold. “Getting paid for keeping you alive.”

His authority lashes out, but defiance quickly leaves another cut. He hisses, and I finally find his purse. Then, I take out two gold chits. Nothing much to someone like him, but more than enough to pay for my sweets-run and some more alchemy ingredients. “Alright,” I say. “I’ll be off.”

“Hold!” he calls. “What- What is your name?!”

I tilt my head, then smile. “Ion,” I reply. 

His face goes pale, then red from rage. He screams something, but I put my headphones back on, and walk away. The sweets shop awaits me, and I’m running low on social energy already. The dagger only flakes away to nothing once I’m a couple dozen steps away. Good improvement on my range.

[Solidification 29 > 30]

[Level Up! 98 > 99]

- - -

Popping a piece of candy in my mouth, I hum as I pour over the pages of my tome. When walking home, I made sure to wear a new mask, this one a bit more sleek, covering only half my face, with a small feathery embellishment and made from solidified mana. Just to make sure I wouldn’t get instant consequences for my actions. They’ll come, I’m sure, but not yet.

Instead, I coax more secrets from tomey-tome. Word by word flows into my mind, accompanied by one sketch after another. I hum, having just about finished the very first of its lessons, though not the proper first chapter. I’m really only beginning to piece together the intricacies of what it’s teaching me - but it’s a mana based technique.

Something to handle vast quantities of mana, in fact. The kind of quantities that would usually tear someone apart. How interesting. Almost as if it were meant for me. A small smile spreads on my lips, and I mentally thank Warden again. He really is more soft-hearted than he lets on.

I breathe in deep for a moment, digesting the gains from my recent adventure. The motions of the woman-guard fit into this, too. Paths. Channels. And what the tome tells me - waves.

To treat my vessel as the ocean, and the mana my body emits as waves. Humming softly, I loosen up slightly on my suppression, allowing just a bit of mana to leak from my vessel. It’s a negligible loss, and it happens in the same way that most people passively emit mana. Will this make me more sneaky, then, I wonder? Looking more ordinary, at least… Tuning my mana releases could let me emulate different levels of strength. 

[Obfuscation 14 > 15]

Ah, but I’m getting ahead of myself. With a gentle calm, I pull my mind back, focusing on the emissions of mana leaking from my body. Steadily, pulse by pulse. I colour them in faintly, letting my [Observation] make use of them, and I can feel my mana brush across the floor beneath me like waves crashing on a beach.

Humming softly, I follow the instructions listed, using the leaking mana as a way to vent pressure. Slowly but surely, I can feel my vessel straining less to contain it. It’s a bit flexible, letting it expand and contract with the waves, almost like a heartbeat.

My vessel is the ocean, and waves are just the natural consequence of disturbances. This way, I can disperse tensions of my mana, and get a more uniform control over it. Curious. A little like a pressure cooker needing a small vent, just so it doesn’t explode when the pressure grows too great?

But the water from waves always returns to the ocean.

Gently, I pull on the waves leaking from my vessel. The mana reacts sluggishly, not wanting to inverse its flow. I hum softly, and pull harder - and then I slip.

My focus passes too far to the mana outside my vessel, and the inside rages. Instantly, my mana bubbles and boils, happily pushing against my attunement loop, raging against its cage. My vessel strains and creaks, and I turn inward again, just before it cracks. [Suppression] comes down on my mana pool again, and the roaring rage quiets.

I taste a little bit of iron in my mouth from the small mistake I made. Must’ve messed up a few of my insides. Whoops. Nothing a quick healing spell can’t fix.

Then, smiling, I turn back to the technique. The waves have already dissipated into thin nothingness. So, I sigh softly, and then ease up on the suppression again, letting a hint of my mana leaking out.

Let’s give it another go.

Chapter 213: Repaid Repair

Another week passes relatively quietly. Jean gets set up with his healing station, and Norman uses a skill he gained to uphold contracts and make people promise their silence. 

They also paid off a few city guards. Which, as I’ve learned, are called the Purekeepers, or Pures for short. I think that’s a good name for any of Respitia’s followers, to be honest.

My control over my mana slips for a second, and one of the waves turns into a tsunami, racing through my skin and giving me some internal bleeding. Nothing a quick [Restoration] can’t fix up.

In fact, next to practicing with my new techniques, and exploring the enchantments and alchemy, that’s what I’ve been doing. Working on Delfine’s healing spell. It is by far the most complex piece of healing I’ve seen yet, which makes sense. Her skill level is probably in its 40s or 50s. Shocking that I was able to break it so easily, but such is the pain of pattern recognition.

Respitia’s skills all follow a similar kind of framework. They’re very, how do I put this… Very fragile, I guess. She probably made them so that the patterns would quickly fall apart and make them harder for anyone to learn, but that makes them easier to break. And Delfine assimilated a lot of those teaching onto her own starting skill.

I’m sure that she started with a healing skill, now, because there is a pattern in the skill that wasn’t there for anything else I’ve seen from Respitia, and it doesn’t seem like her handiwork at all. Rather than grandiose but fragile, quick acting patterns, it’s a lot more calm and quiet. Instead of complexity, it favours solid simplicity. A spell that was meant to work on prevention as much as healing, I think, seeing as it has minor barrier-like components.

Isolating it took me some time, since my sample size wasn’t too big, but I didn’t lose any more limbs to testing. Just a few skin-deep lacerations. Now, though, I think I have Respitia’s part and Delfine’s part of the skill separated. It’s almost annoying seeing something so unique be covered up by Respitia’s generic-ish design.

But it’s still there, and my [Annexation] helps me learn its purpose. Quiet whispers of intuition tell me the purpose of certain parts of the spell, and I discard its protective aspects. Then, I compare the little loop-hooks that make it last longer with Jean’s spell, and nod to myself. Similar. 

What I end up adapting for myself isn’t any of that - it’s in the central crest, the part that determines how the skill operates. Right now, mine scans and restores biological functions, supercharging the metabolism. Jean’s is far more gentle, and basically prevents wounds from getting worse by themselves. Anti-decay, in a way, and good against necrosis.

Delfine’s spell, at the basicmost, looks into someone’s past. Not just their code, but their past, full on. I guess that’s what makes her an oracle - there seems to be some cross-pollination with her other starting skill there. It’s a useful tidbit, but I don’t need to change my scanning mechanism, not really. 

What’s more interesting is the second layer, right around the core. Its reconstruction-mechanism. There is a strangely complex thing there, that allows an overwriting of current things with things from the past. Can I insert arbitrary instructions for bodies to grow?

I was relying on people’s DNA to fix them up until now, following along a blueprint, but Delfine’s spell doesn’t need that. It has a direct mana-to-biomass conversion. The complexity of it is horrifying, and I don’t even know how to start modifying it. So, I don’t.

Instead, I just graft it into my own spell. Rather than a single restoration node, it’s now split across three methods of rebuilding a body. The resulting spell is a fucking monstrosity. It’s so nuts that casting it takes me two full days of dedicated practice before I manage for the first time.

To work properly, the spell cycles methods. My scan, which I borrowed from the Tower, applies first, checking for a full blueprint, combining it with my intuition of how things should work and a good bit of reliance on the way skills interface with intention. Then, Jean’s skill applies a soothing effect, a lingering effect, and a pain-dulling effect. And finally, the restoration process starts.

Right now, I use a hybrid of all three of them. First, I kick my body into gear, generating new tissue. Muscle, bone, tendon, and skin is easy. Nerves are an issue. That’s where Delfine’s skill comes in. It’s horribly expensive, but rather than relying on my body, it, in what I can only describe as somehow, synthesizes new matter entirely. I’ve been getting more efficient with my calories, but this one is wild.

Very carefully, I maneuver the spell around my body, using a dagger to cut the stump of my lost pinkie open. Blood drip-drops from the wound onto Kuro, but it gives me a clean, reasonably flat surface to work from. 

Then slowly, very, very slowly, new tissue begins to accumulate on the stump. My bone stretches outwards first, extending to where the finger would have its first joint. Then, muscles, blood vessels, and nerves stream upwards. Tendons properly wrap it all in place to give the necessary motion, and skin stretches above it.

And then, my vessel drops empty.

[Skill Mutation.]

[Biological Restoration 32 > Biological Alteration 10]

Taking a shaky breath, I waggle the new stump of my finger. This much effort, a whole week of study, just for me to grow back an inch of my limb. And yet, it works. It’s there. I poke myself with the digit, and then crinkle my nose at the weird sensation. The nerves are still a little raw, and it’ll need some time to readjust to the rest of my body. 

But it worked.

Taking a deep breath, I draw from my enchanted core. I prepared it to make sure I didn’t run out of mana halfway through. As my vessel fills, I float the knife in front of me again, and then cut my newly-made pinkie on it. A flat surface.

And I cast again.

- - -

“Hey Sylves?” I ask quietly, knocking on her door. “You there?” From behind it, I hear a soft hum, so I assume she is, but asking doesn’t hurt.

“Come on in, Snow,” she invites me happily, and I push open the door. Inside, I find the girl hovering in the air, a dress floating gently in front of her. She seems to be adjusting some part of its sizing, adding a few pieces of thread here and there with a needle. Knowing her, I’d imagine the dress is green, but I can’t exactly see, so.

Her eyes drift to me only briefly, just long enough to give me a smug look. “What brings you here, my dear?” she asks me. “Have you come with a scandalous request? A debt to repay? Perhaps a secret you simply must share? What can this faerie do for you?”

I look at her, and, of course, play along. Giving a sweeping gesture, I place my hand behind my back, and cross my legs in something in between a curtsy and a bow. “Indeed, dear fae, I have come here to repay a debt long-standing. I request your aid in this grave mission.”

“My oh my, who do you owe anything too, my dear Snow?” she chirps, placing her workpiece aside and slowly gliding closer to me. “Tell me, and I may help… if it pleases me.”

Already, I know I have her. Sylves cannot resist a mystery, or meddling. It’s in her nature. If she didn’t like me, she’d probably use this to ask for another favour out of me. Not that she needs to keep track of those - if she asks, I’ll do just about anything. We’re friends, after all.

Instead, though, I dramatically gesture at her. “My debt is to you, and you alone,” I intone.

Sylves gasps, covering her mouth with her single remaining hand. “Oh dearie me. I was unaware of our bargain! Has’t thou erased the memories from my mind? Or did we bargain while intoxicated?”

“None of those. I’d even wager you to be well aware of that burden that we share,” I say. Then, finally, as her mind works, I present her my hand. Almost reflexively, she reaches out and takes it, as if I were asking her to dance. Then, her fingers interlace with mine. And I see her short circuit.

Her eyes drift to my hand again. “One, two, three, four…” she stops counting, as her own hand trembles. “Five,” she whispers.

“Indeed.” And then, I drop all the drama, and put on a smile for her. “I’m here to get started healing your arm.”

I see as her expression shifts. Her mouth hangs open, and her eyes grow wet. “I-” she starts, then stops.

“It’s okay to cry,” I say, calmly, quietly.

A heartbeat passes, then she blinks, and her tears start flowing. And still, all Sylves does is start laughing. “Can I hug you?” she asks.

Instead of answering, I step in and wrap an arm around her. She squeezes me in return and for a moment, it doesn’t seem so bad. I let her cry and laugh for a while as she holds onto me, letting her feel it.

And, eventually, she pulls back. There’s a big smile on her face, even though it’s reddened and her eyes are puffy. “Snow,” she says, already knowing it’s pointless, “you should heal yourself first.”

“I will only heal my arm after we’ve given yours back,” I say simply. I’ve already done my testing and it seems reasonably safe, so. No better time to start than right now.

“Seriously, you lost your arm because of me. It was my fault, I-”

“I will only heal my arm after you’ve got yours,” I say again. Then I shrug. “If that’s never, then it’s never. I’m fine being one-arm buddies.”

She snorts in amusement, wiping away another tear. “You’re such a fucking dork, Snow. I don’t deserve you.”

That makes me laugh, just a little. “You deserve better,” I say. “Now, let me see your shoulder.”

Sylves giggles for a moment, then pulls up her sleeve. “Asking a lady to undress-” she starts, but I boop her nose.

“Shush, you,” I say, smiling softly. “Don’t ruin it for yourself.”

The faerie has the audacity to roll her eyes at me. I feel her innate defenses on magic acting inside her drop away, as I reach out. [Suppression] targets her pain, and I summon a knife. “This might hurt a little. I can work on it when you sleep, if you’d like?” I ask.

“No, I wanna be awake,” Sylves says simply. Then, with her permission, I nod, and cut open her stump. It’s a ragged job, and whoever healed it should be killed for how shoddy a job they did, but I forgive myself. Instead, I cut back a bit more, removing all the parts that I can’t restore to full function. 

Sylves winces a bit, but she doesn’t complain. Her eyes look at me removing more parts of her, and I feel some fear. Like a skittish cat, when you comb its fur for lice or something. But she decides to trust me, to bear with it, even though I can tell she wants to run.

I do my best to make it quick, and then, once it’s done, I dispel the knife. I would have just put it aside, but instead, I break it. In part to give myself more mana, and in part to help put Sylves at ease. As she relaxes slightly, I cast my new healing spell, the full monstrosity that it is.

“Your eyes are bleeding a bit, Snow,” Sylves whispers, glancing at my stained bandages. “Your nose, too.”

“Nothing to worry about, all part of the process,” I assure her with a smile. There’s simply too much to focus on, too many pieces I need to reconstruct and too many spells to upkeep at once. My attunement loop, the painkiller, the absolutely horribly nightmarishly complex construction of this healing spell, which is probably a cognitohazard all by itself…

Really, I should try to just manifest it for people to study and watch who passes out as a test. But, instead of doing any of that, I focus, tasting a bit more iron as some of my mana leaves me a parting gift. Even as I cast, I analyze the spell, checking for where I can cut corners, where I can make changes to get it just a little more efficient.

[Biological Alteration 10 > 11]

And, all the while, Sylves watches as her bone regrows. I make it a little porous to save power - her body will fix those little issues by herself. Or, I can work them out later. Right now it’s about just getting the limb back properly, then filling it out. “Whoa,” Sylves breathes. “Creepy.”

“In a cool way?” I ask, as muscle writhes around her bone.

“The coolest,” she nods.

I smile and keep working under her watchful eye. All the while, Sylves just stares. Eventually, I have to cap it off, having drained my vessel and the core I brought along. It’s not the entire thing, but part of her upper arm is back.

Staring in shock, she rolls her shoulder. “No pain,” she breathes quietly. “Gosh, Snow, I could kiss you right now,” she says happily. 

Opal kicks in the door. “Who’s kissing who?!” 

For a moment, I stare at them. Sylves stares at them. And then, all at once, we laugh. “You’re all idiots,” I tell my friends. 

“We love you too, Snow,” Opal reminds me.

I decide to just feel happy, rather than arguing it.