Chương 36: 36 loop 1 part 16

The Keeper watched me wipe my mouth with the back of my hand. Then, I yawned. Then my stomach growled.

"What did you see?" she asked again.

"Nothing immediately catastrophic." I straightened up. The vertigo from the spell was mostly gone, replaced by a general exhaustion. Despite a long night's rest, I still felt like I'd run a marathon.

"The school's still there. Nobody's dying. I think everything's fine." She was quiet. The golem's head tilted in what looked like mechanical consideration.

"You're certain," she said.

"Reasonably so."

"That's not the same as certain."

"No, but it'd be more effort than it's worth to get there." She nodded. Somehow, the dust that had been on her golem body was gone, and her gold boots caught the dim light of the study. Now that I was seeing it with more alert eyes, the golem body was ridiculous. It was roughly my height, built from the same grey stone as the workshop frames. It had joints that didn't quite line up and shoulders slightly too wide for the head sitting on top of them.

The gold boots were the centerpiece, polished to a shine that nothing else on the body had earned. It looked like someone had built a scarecrow out of masonry and then given it royal footwear. I turned my attention to my uncle, whose chest was still moving. The relief was overwhelming. Like being told summer break had come early. The dragon wasn't coming today. Sure, maybe it'd come later in the week, but that was a problem for future me. Problems I didn't have to worry about now were my favorite kind of problems.

Without the dragon, all I had were a couple of issues to deal with. And those had solutions. My situation was practically cozy in comparison to the last time through. I canceled [Float] and fell into the nearest chair. It groaned, but it held, and I sprawled in relaxation, my head soft against the plush seat. I stared at the ceiling, letting out a long sigh. I did absolutely nothing for a glorious minute. The most relaxing thing I'd done since waking up. Then, my stomach made a sound like a dying Frollart.

"Was that you?" the Keeper asked.

"It's an old chair," I said. I knew how to fix this problem immediately. Like I said. Things were cozy. I lazily raised my wand." [Ex Nihilo Caseum]." A beautiful golden wheel of cheese condensed from thin air and dropped into my hand. Warm, solid, and smelling like vindication. Vindication! A year of wasted research. I almost wanted to be mad at all the effort I'd put into it. But no. I was just happy.

A little miffed that my earlier casts had been thrown away and I hadn't even gotten to smell that sweet, cheesy smell. But now. I took a bite. An aggressively large chomp. It was perfect. Sharp, crumbly, flooding my mouth with a sensation I could hardly begin to describe. I kept eating. More than anything, this was a step toward my ideal life. Infinite food, infinite variety, with no waiting. I had never loved a spell more. The Keeper watched me. A ticking noise came from her golden body.

"That is not a meal," she said.

"You know what a meal is? Can you even eat?"

"No, but that is still not a meal."

"No, it's a wheel of cheese." I took another bite.

"Still delicious, though."

"You need protein, fiber, carbohydrates, fats. Vitamins. I worry about your dietary needs if you're content just eating a wheel of cheese."

"Wheel implies completeness."

"Does it?" she asked.

"Implications are everything." She was quiet, and I could tell I was annoying her. It was my favorite state for other people to be in. She said nothing.

"Is it good?" she asked.

"Yes," I said. She didn't say anything after that. I kept eating.

"I've been in here for a very long time," the Keeper said.

"And I no longer wish to be." The Keeper walked toward the door. I had nothing better to do, so I watched her go. Besides, it was funny. An ancient consciousness learning to operate a stone golem with weird-ass gold boots was objectively more interesting than a ceiling. Though not quite as interesting as a nap. She reached the threshold of the room, but the second a gold boot touched the air over it, the ward hit her like a bomb.

A pulse of force came from everything, everywhere, all at once, and the golem went back hard. Boots losing contact with the floor, arms flailing wide. She crashed into the bookshelves behind her and books went flying. Loose volumes exploded outward. Some slapped against the floor like heavy raindrops. One sailed past my ear. Others rattled against the back of my chair hard enough to rock it. A few moments later, the study had settled. The Keeper stood in the wreckage of a shelf, surrounded by scattered books.

Despite the rough treatment, her golem body seemed fine, and her posture was unchanged. Love what you're reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.

"Are you okay?"

"No. The ward is treating me as if I were still trapped inside my book. I had thought that if I had a body, I would be free to leave. But it seems as if it has been locked to my soul." The pause afterward lasted longer than usual.

"I had not anticipated this particular outcome." I surveyed the damage to the room. I tried hard not to laugh. No, that's a lie. I didn't try at all. I laughed hard and then ate some cheese.

"I need the things in that workshop," she said.

"Doesn't seem like you're going to be getting there anytime soon. I just want to acknowledge that." She ignored me and continued.

"I need mana batteries and the golem tools. Whatever the queen left in both rooms that is still functional. You will bring them to me." I was about to protest, but she moved toward me.

"Your uncle's mana channels are severely depleted. Left untreated, I do not believe he is long for this world. There are methods of accelerating that recovery that I would be inclined to assist you with. Should you help me again." I sat up straight.

"You can fix him?"

"I can assist in his recovery. For a price."

"But you can do something."

"Only if I receive adequate resources. This body will do for now, I suppose, but we will need plenty of mana batteries." I took stock of my mana, blinking red at the edge of my vision. It was starting to get annoying, how much my mana had drained in the past few days. God. If I wasn't careful, I was going to lose my rep as a slacker.

"And you need me to move all that shit in here," I said.

"Because that ward won't let you leave." She stared at me like I was pointing out the obvious. I was, but only because I was stalling. The end of this conversation was inevitable, and it ended with me putting in more work.

"That's a lot of moving. I'm tired. Don't make me do more work."

"You know how to use [Move] and [Float]. I am asking you to put in a pittance compared to the effort you put in last night. In comparison, I am barely asking you to work at all."

"And yet you're still asking me to work."

"That is accurate." I thought about the workshop, and the corridor I had already seen too many times today. But then I stared at my uncle. Just shallowly rising and falling. Never let it be said that I wouldn't put in effort when it mattered. I sighed.

"Fine. But after I sleep. It's time for my nap."

"Meditation would be faster." I stared at her.

"I just survived a Frollart siege, a giant Froll trying to murder my uncle and me, a terrifying ghost library, and the weirdest spell I've ever cast. And now you want me to put in more effort and meditate just when I can finally enjoy relaxing?"

"I want your uncle to recover. I have grown to enjoy his company and care a good deal about him. Do you not wish the same? If you meditate, you'll regenerate at twice the rate of sleep, and you do not currently have enough mana to do what I am asking." I opened my mouth to protest, realized the effort would be spent in vain, and closed it again.

"I hate meditating." She said nothing. When faced with effort, I did what I always did. I asked myself two questions. If I didn't put in the effort now, what would the consequences be later? And if I did put in the effort now, how much less work would I have to do as a result? Golems would provide a situation where I did a finite amount of work once, and then for the rest of my life, I'd have the experience of golems doing the work for me.

"Fine. I'll meditate. But I'm not going to be happy about it." I closed my eyes briefly.

"Of course," she said.

"But you know complaining requires effort."

"I know. I also know that meditation is the single worst activity available for a wizard to complete." Her response was sharp, and a brutal hit to my way of life.

"All meditation is," she said, "is the lazy man's way of gaining more power." I stared at her.

"That is the most manipulative thing anyone has ever said to me." I turned the chair to face away from my uncle and her, done with the conversation. I moved into a meditative pose and closed my eyes. My body, as always, had objections. My brain was furious at the sheer boredom it would be subjected to. My legs ached from the lotus position. My spine felt crooked. But I calmed my thoughts, settled my body, and breathed. Ten minutes later, the first chime arrived. I was right. I would get more passives.

I was shocked. I was about to be the most powerful mage my age. [Manifestation — Level 25: Journeyman Tier Unlocked] Prestige Unlocked: [Mana Pool 3] [Mana Pool 3 — Passive]. +150 maximum mana. Your pool expands beyond what your training predicted. The pool expanded. Like a wall being demolished, revealing a second room. My maximum jumped from 370 to 520. 130 mana was reserved for the tether, so I now had 390 usable. The number hit me harder than expected.

Most mages didn't get to 500 mana until they hit their first Expert tier, when they unlocked progression points. This was a second level of power, where a mage could put bonus points toward passives they liked the most. Most mages chose to put it toward more mana, because every 5 points in Mana Pool raised it another tier. So by the time a mage hit 100 in a skill, they could have well into the thousands of mana. The second chime came quickly after.

[Soul Magic — Level 25: Journeyman Tier Unlocked] Prestige Unlocked: [Ambient Draw] [Ambient Draw — Passive]. Passively absorb ambient mana from your surroundings at a maximum of 3% per hour. 3% per hour sounded small. But over the course of a full day, that was about 72% of my full mana pool. It felt like the universe had finally handed me a safety net. I didn't think you could unlock this passive at 25. It took almost thirty minutes for the next chime.

There was an odd buzzing noise that kept distracting me from my meditation, which I think made it take longer to achieve the next tier. [Enchantment — Level 50: Adept Tier Unlocked] Prestige Unlocked: Choose Your Path Two options appeared. [Spell Merge — Passive] Combine two spells from different schools into a single maintained effect. Cost is the sum of both. [Recursion I — Passive] Each successive cast from the same school within 3 seconds costs 5% less mana.

This passive cannot reduce a spell below 50% of its base cost. I looked at Spell Merge for a moment. It had possibilities and I felt bad for not taking it earlier. But Recursion? The math was insane. Chained casts and an escalating discount. And while it was obviously meant for Dungeon-Track mages, I could see the eventual benefit. Get a large enough mana pool, cast enough spells, and ambient mana could give me infinite cast, if I put in the effort. But the amount of work I could do in advance with that spell?

Definitely worth it. I took Recursion. More than an hour later, the fourth chime rang. [Alteration — Level 50: Adept Tier Unlocked] Prestige Unlocked: Choose Your Path [Spell Stretch — Passive] Extend the duration of all active spells by 25%. [Cascade I — Passive] After casting the same spell 3 times in quick succession, the fourth cast costs 25% less. [Spell Stretch] was damn tempting. But Cascade was broken. It was the second most broken passive I had ever seen.

And the fact that Recursion and Cascade could play off each other? There was practically no other choice. When my mana was full and I was done meditating, I opened my eyes.