Chương 143: Chapter 141 - Interlude 13.1

1 Running a business was always exhausting, but it was also very rewarding thanks to the game showing with numbers how exactly she, and through her, Sam, was doing. They had multiple income streams, with the identifying locations in the city centers they had access to, the supermarkets filled with all kinds of shops, and the one and only Heavenly Forest. Currently, they had two locations for the luxury accommodations.

The first one, naturally, was in Ironwood, serving as a flagship location and one recently finished, in Brightgarden. While the building in Ironwood looked, at least to the outside observer, like every other high-rise building. Not that high-rise meant much in this medieval world, the building in Brightgarden was more of an estate, thanks to the abundant green space and fantastic view, incorporating a small forest in its territory.

It still contained the developments created by Liz, and provided high enough service that they even got several nobles spending time at their luxury hotel. Thanks to Sam's machinations, their connection to the Silvercrest family was enough to provide enough people to staff the places. Lucy even branched out and contacted some of her old friends, who she knew loved playing maid games if they wanted to take a gander at it in Magic Unbound.

Naturally, she wouldn't be stupid enough to give them too much control and information, in case they were plants from their enemies, as Katie's family had enough power to figure out her real-life connection, but still enough that the people could prove themselves. And the loyalty would be taken care of with a few periodic tests. With the help of her ravens, encryption skills, and Tim, it would be a child's play to place a few tantalizing pieces of information in their reach.

And depending on their actions, they would be promoted, or escorted out of the back door with a complimentary dagger between their floating ribs. The supermarkets were also operating with full steam. Around the ones in Ironwood, Lucy was in talks with most business owners about expanding the buildings and adding their shops to the lineup. This, in turn, inspired her to approach the leaders of the city to establish a commercial district around her supermarkets.

The talks were ongoing, but the amount of politicking and talking was doing wonders for her skill levels. While Sam could probably take on a moderately sized army, she was well on her way to doing the same in boardrooms, or at least ballrooms as medieval society wasn't really into boardrooms. These talks even granted Lucy her current favorite skill. [Soft Power: Level 15/100 (14%) (Passive) You are a power behind a throne. While you don't wield the big stick, you at least have access to one. And others know this well. When you talk, they listen. Your ability to convince people increases with skill level. But never take their words for granted as the world of politics is painted by all manner of shades of betrayal.] The moment she acquired the skill, the dance of politics became so much easier. However, in turn, many powerful nobles put her in their scope. It was all manner of excitement. Sometimes, Lucy cursed and celebrated the day when she met Sam.

As she looked through the reinforced windows of her office, courtesy of Liz and Tim, both with her own eyes and the murder of ravens at her beck and call, and smiled.

'Celebrated, most definitely!' she decided. After all, this opportunity provided her the chance to get out of a rut that she didn't even notice, get a better job, and make some ungodly amount of money. Sometimes it was really hard to believe how much gold flowed through the RMT markets. Thankfully, most of the gold they sold instantly came back through the markets and the luxury accommodations. Those rich second-generation heirs really knew how to spend.

And Lucy was ready to fulfill all their requests, as long as they could pay. She turned back to her work and frowned a little. With Tim's inclusion into their little team, the security of their enterprises shot up, and a burden was taken off her shoulders. But as soon as one problem vanished, another appeared. The constantly rising popularity of the supermarkets caused them a little trouble in the logistics department.

They could always count on the players bringing back crafting material en masse, but it wasn't anywhere close to consistent enough to be able to provide consistent and quality products to the populace at large. Metal and adjacent products were easy thanks to the vicinity of the mines and the fractures that appeared in the mines.

They only had to post the repeating request at the Merchant Association before the Association took over and gleefully exploited eager players to gather as much raw materials as they could get, then turned around and sold to the supermarkets making a tidy profit. Lucy could have gone and negotiated with them a contract to provide those materials, but after some number crunching and skulking around, she came to the conclusion that 'tricking' them would be cheaper.

Still, soon they had to look into properly setting up a crafter branch for the company because more and more crafters were coming to sign up with them. Lucy made a note to herself to talk about it with Sam, because while she was admittedly great at administration, she simply didn't have Sam's knack for finding the exactly right people.

'Super sus, but as long as money comes in, I don't really care… much.' Life was good. Exhausting but good. Her streams were steadily gaining followers, making her a nice sum of money just through the ads, not to mention the subs and other donations. The pay from AFK was also worth mentioning. Liz's new home was finally feeling like she actually lived there instead of existing. She had every room decorated and set up how she liked it.

There was no trace of her mother's garish taste, nor remnants of her days when she had to survive on cup noodles. Everything was brand new and that, above everything else, provided her with a serene calm that she hadn't felt in a long time. Her mother was still sending her messages every once in a while, ranging from begging for her to come back to her to curse her out for leaving. Including criticizing her choice of clothes she would wear in her streams, her makeup, and even her creations.

Seeing as her mother probably never touched a game, her insults were rather stupid and Liz was pretty sure that the woman blindly copied them from the hate comments she would sometimes get on the video site where she posted the more interesting or funnier clips from her streams. Now that there was an actual distance between her and her mother, these insults hurt much less than when she lived practically next to her.

She was simply tempted to block the woman, but she feared that would spur her to do something stupid. Her mother was still wealthy, which afforded her tools that Liz had no idea about. Instead, she set up a filter, with Tim's help, their in-house assassin-slash-security specialist, that would collect all her messages and warn her if certain keywords showed up.

Her attention currently was divided between crafting upgrades for the buildings that the AFK company operated out of, mostly quality-of-life stuff that most people didn't even notice but massively improved the whole ambiance of the buildings. The testing for the first elevator was going well, and she had already several orders lined up as soon as the testing cleared it. She would probably work with the Silvercrest family first, on account of them being their company's biggest supporters.

She couldn't wait to level up her skills. One of the newest ones, the one she got when they finished installing the elevator and gained experience every time somebody installed something that she had created was the most exciting one. [Crystal Architect: Level 9/100 (49%) (Passive) You have branched into the field of architecture with your crystalline creations. The skill increases the structural integrity of all of your crystalline creations by 1% per skill level, as well as for a further 1% per skill level if the creation is built into a building.] She could see how the skill would be a powerhouse if she managed to level it up. Sadly, to do it faster, she would need to start working on automatic manufacturing, because only she could work with the crystals at this moment. Liz already started on it, but it was mostly stuck at the programming stage.

Her level was too low to set up exact commands for the crystals to follow. When not in the game, she was busy studying low-level programming to see if she could just copy the entire thing into the game. Tim was an excellent help in this area, and when he had time, the assassin would join Liz in her workshop and help her brainstorm or simply hang out and help by handing her stuff. It was… nice. The house was the same as always.

Small garden, with a small plot for her father's herb garden and the apple tree that her late grandfather planted when she was born. Nowadays, it was tall and thick enough that it provided enough shade in the summer that anybody could spend their days comfortably under it. As Clarissa moved through the garden path, she patted the thick trunk of the tree in greeting. Soon, she was in front of the door and pressed the doorbell. She had a key, but she felt a little lazy. Plus…

"Sister!" The door slammed open and her younger sister, clad in simple clothes, hair pulled in a ponytail, that indicated she was studying, stood there with a grin on her face. Clarissa simply opened her arms and the younger girl slammed into her. For a short moment she luxuriated in the feeling of sisterly love before gently pushing the younger girl away and giving her a quick once-over. She looked healthy if a little tired, but that was expected from anyone who was studying for their first degree.

"Hey, sis! How are you?" She grabbed her hand, dragging her into the house while starting to tell her tale.

"Oh, I'm super! The last exam was super easy and then they said that…" Clarissa simply let the chatter wash over her as she listened to her sister talk with a small but content smile on her face. A few minutes later, she was seated in the living room with her sister snuggling up to her, a grin on her face, while her father and mother sat opposite of them, also sporting smiles. The table was filled with snacks, and they were all holding drinks.

"So, Clarissa, how have you been?" asked her mother.

"Can't complain. Work's going well and I'm making decent money, as you know…" Her mother frowned a little but said nothing. They still couldn't really accept that she eschewed traditional jobs for gaming. Not that they voiced those concerns, as her parents admitted to her that they were worried because they knew how fickle the gaming industry could be. So, she didn't take it personally. Plus, with how Magic Unbound was going, she could foresee a rather stable line of work for at least a few years.

And if the game failed, well, there were always new games coming out. And if that didn't work out, in her own opinion, she was pretty enough to stream, so Clarissa wasn't too worried about her future.

"I heard about the game you're playing," continued her father.

"Magic Unbound, was it? It's all over the news. Even my colleagues are talking about it." Her sister giggled.

"She is not only playing the game but dominating." At her parents' questioning look, she shrugged.

"That would be a strong statement, but I do alright. Plus, as a healer, I don't do much damage. I just keep my party members alive."

"Pssh! I saw some clips with you in action, sis! It was awesome!" Her sister bragged in her stead with a big grin.

"Really? Can we see?" came from her mother and she saw a mischievous glint in her eyes. Letting out a despondent sigh she nodded.

"Yes! I'll get it set up!" her sister cheered, jumping up from the position toward the screen in the living room where soon they were enjoying Clarissa's non-classified escapades. It was rather embarrassing, but as she watched the smile and excitement on her parents' faces, as well as saw her sister jumping around doing weird karate moves belying her age, she decided it was worth it. Finished with the videos, her father turned to her.

"Do you think we should try it out?"

"I really need to move…" Dan murmured as he looked out of his dormitory window. Outside, in the park in front of the building, two groups were in conflict, yelling at each other, looking like it was coming very close to an all-out brawl. About what? About Magic Unbound, naturally. The situation at the university had escalated again. The smaller guilds had been gobbled up by the bigger guilds, leaving only a few insular groups behind who refused even to entertain the idea.

They were mostly crafters or people with enough social (or financial) credit that would deter the eager guild recruiters. Even some of the teachers were getting on it, favoring certain guilds and so on. It was maddening to Dan, who simply wanted to proceed with his experiments. Thankfully, his own professor was of the same mind. The older man admitted to Dan that he also enjoyed the game, but kept it secret so that the idiots wouldn't approach them. His age worked well to camouflage his interest.

But even the elderly professor couldn't protect him from all those people eager to recruit him to win brownie points from their crushes or impress rich people or any other idiotic thing. Even the fact that he told people he was actually contracted to a group didn't stop them. After it got out that he lent some money to his friend, people decided that he must be really rich in the game, and as most people spent time schmoozing and networking in the game, they wanted to attach themselves to a moneybag.

Thankfully, they didn't actually know much about the group he belonged to - mostly the name only - because he was pretty sure Sam or Lucy would throttle him if the idiots found their contact information and university students flooded the company with inane requests. Ignoring the group outside of the building, now with several girls sending judging glares at a guy while another girl stood next to him, holding him back by his arm, he returned to the computer in front of him.

Thanks to his 'work' with AFK, he could finally afford to buy something better than the one he got from his parents. It could even run some of the basic simulation software. This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience. His research was going well, and the experience with fire in the game provided invaluable inspiration. His teacher was of the opinion that if the tests went well, then he would have his degree basically in his hand.

Dan, wanting very much to be done with university life, took that statement to his heart and any time he spent outside of the game was dedicated to his research. Plasma waited for no man (or woman)! He was broken out of his thoughts by a gentle knock on the door. He quickly put away the papers into his vault, closed it, double-checked that he had closed it, and then made sure that he was clean in the small mirror on the wall. Opening the door, he beheld his date.

She was pretty, no question about it, with a tight blouse that accentuated her assets and jeans that might as well have been painted on her. Wavy brown hair framed her face and intelligent blue eyes. Because, based on the conversations they had she was wicked smart too. A math major, but Dan wouldn't hold it against her. He was almost seventy percent sure she was another honeypot scheme to get him to divulge information about his group and contract. But well…

"Ready to go?" she asked with a grin on her face and a small spring in her step.

"Sure. Let me close up…" he replied with a small smile. Then he offered his arm to her, and she grabbed it with a grin.

"My, what a gentleman…" He just grinned harder as she 'accidentally' felt his muscles up.

'Ugh, I'm so weak…' Katie watched with a blank face and suppressed smile as her father stared with a furrowed brow at the projected screens while they were eating their dinner. Her brother was also carefully schooling his expression but Katie could sense that was also entertained by their father's behavior. Currently, he was 'happy' with the process of manufacturing antidotes and preparing for the fracture. Katie just loved watching him, while imagining what kind of face he would make when reality came knocking.

For once in her lifetime, she was glad for the training she received about concealing her feelings because without it she would be laughing and rolling on the floor twenty-four-seven. Occasionally her father or one of his flunkies attempted to get more information from her, but she just repeated the same information (after some concessions) that she got from Sam, mixing in a few tantalizing bits that would make sure that her father would keep on task.

As long as he was focused on this venture, she could play in peace with her team. Her team… They were pretty great. Clarissa was always up for some gossiping and exchanging ideas about the game, Dan was pretty hot and smart enough to not talk like all those muscleheads in her school who thought that having muscles exempted them from having a functioning brain. And there was Sam. Katie honestly was terrified when Sam called her up. She expected a lot of things.

Sam admitting that her father paid him to kick her out, blackmailing her with her identity or even doing something salacious, but the speech she received was like a cold shower. Still, in the end, she came away with something more than she began, and her respect toward Sam just grew. The man was an enigma. Her finely honed bullshit senses went haywire every time he weaved something mysterious under their noses, and she suspected the small number of secrets he shared with the team were only the tip of the iceberg.

As she calmly and elegantly combed her hair, she grinned at the thought. She really lucked out with him coming across her being accosted by those idiots. That grin immediately fell off her face as soon as she remembered her newest annoyance. Isabella… That annoying woman somehow found her in the game, and she must prepare for the strike that would be coming. She was pretty sure that the other woman was already on her way to prepare a trap for her.

She had several ideas, but after putting her notes together, she would ask Lucy and Liz for some help. Lucy was a wiz at planning, and Liz had all those awesome gadgets. It shouldn't be hard to put together a glitter cannon, right? Katie wasn't really worried about Isabella's feminine wiles working on Sam, as the guy clearly had much better taste than an annoying cow. She looked down at her chest and frowned; it was just not fair.

Still, maybe she should share a few pictures about her enemy in pigtails and missing teeth?

'Workable idea, but that would mean she could do the same to me… hmm.' She mused as she continued her self-care routine.

'What could I do with milk?'

"Computer, bring up files for Cow-deterrent, please!" she called out calmly, not stopping her actions. Instantly a holographic screen popped up over her desk and the built-in VI started scrolling through files before bringing up the requested ones. She looked through them with a thoughtful look before a grin appeared on her face.

"Computer, open file number seventy-two." The file opened, and as she read her own notes, the grin on her face grew another size.

'Oh yes, it's all coming together!'

"Captain! How are we doing?"

"Young miss, we are ready to strike!" reported the captain, clad in armor and with grim determination. Lucrecia gave the man a serious nod and with her loyal maid behind her back, looked over the preparations. The city of Ironwood contained several dark guilds, black markets, and flatly an inhuman amount of illegal activity. Thanks to her education, she knew that one couldn't really eradicate them, but striking back when one of them got too big for their britches was alright.

At least according to her father's lessons. On her side was Fortuna, now the size of a small pony after the training her father put the wolf through, with big enough teeth and claws that some of the soldiers were glancing enviously at it while shaking their heads at their own implements. The location they were currently in was a small house, occupied by the guards who escorted her.

Naturally, she could have sent the guards out to deal with those immoral criminals, but her beloved was out in the world actively working toward his own goals, so Lucrecia felt that she should do the same. Though she suspected her parents had sent a few hidden protectors in case anything happened. Shrugging a little, she refocused on the table in front of her as Fortuna stalked around the room, keeping an eye out for trouble.

On the table, she could see the map of the area around the house, including the dilapidated building that housed their targets. They were criminals, selling all manner of shoddy quality potions that caused a lot of deaths, as well as smuggling drugs and other potentially dangerous substances. Usually, this was taken care of by the city guards, or some powerful adventurers, but the Healer's Guild petitioned her father directly, thus the Silvercrest family had to act.

And what better way to dip her toe into keeping their family's domain safe than a routine criminal elimination operation?

"Are our targets present?"

"Yes, young miss. All of them are. They are currently holding a meeting, I believe," came the report from the man, and another man, wearing a cowl that covered their face, nodded along. She went over all the available information in her head for a few moments, then nodded.

"Captain, in your opinion, is there anything that would prevent us from executing a perfect operation?" The Captain gave her a look but then glanced at his men, who nodded or shook their heads in order. Finally, he turned back to her.

"No, young miss. We are ready to start!" he stated, standing ramrod straight. Lucrecia went over the information they gathered through their investigation and finally, she also nodded and straightened her body, looking directly in the Captain's eyes.

"Then the operation is yours, Captain," she gave the order.

"Bring me their heads!" The Captain's face looked downright vicious.

"My pleasure, young miss!"

"Oh, dear, look at her. Leading her first raid! Why, it reminds me of my youth!"

"Yes, dear."

"Look at them, following all her commands, just like I taught her!"

"Yes, dear."

"And there they go! I bet they will get everyone! It was an excellent plan!"

"Of course, dear." The parents of one Lucrecia Silvercrest stood in the shadows of a tall building looking out as their family soldiers under their daughter's command began raiding the hideout of a criminal group. They had to do a little manipulation in the background to make sure their lovely daughter would be successful, but they wanted her first experience with leading a group to be a positive one. The following ones could be failures, but this one would be a major success. Or else.

May you live in interesting times. Tim never expected that he would one day understand the ancient proverb. His work at the company was all sorts of interesting, frankly making his daily work boring in comparison. He had to plan out the security of several buildings and businesses, while also advising his own boss about security issues and deals. He even had to take care of several assassins who thought they could sneak into the company headquarters. It was pretty fun, to be honest.

Back with the Silent Step, they were always on the move, following the money and the jobs to make sure they made a profit. Here, his income was guaranteed. The expectations were clearly defined. If he did anything above it, and it actually merited it, he got a quick congratulatory message from Lucy, or even Sam, and a nice bonus landed on his account. Even his new skills reflected his mood.

[In-house Cleaning Service: Level 3/50 (78%) (Active/Passive) You are able to become one with the building and thus are considered part of the building. Any skill or spell that affects the building also affects you at 50% strength while inside the building. When activating this skill, the strength of your stealth is increased by 5% for every skill level and the skill and spells that affect the building affect you at 50% strength +1% for each skill level. Grants you the Cleaning spell.] It was a rather nice skill, especially because, thanks to Liz and Lucy, there were several skills that were constantly active in the building that basically increased several of his stats by a large margin. The Cleaning spell confused him a little, but after Lucy gave him a short manual from Sam, he was enlightened. Instantly, he threw himself into mastering the spell and he was pretty happy he managed to bring it up to Clean III.

Now people couldn't see and sense him, and with the spell, they would never know if he stopped by. An assassin's dream! In the outside world, he mostly spent his time working on paperwork for the company, while just puttering around the house. Most of his old friends were in Silent Step, as he had long lost any flimsy connection he had with anybody from high school or university. People at work were mostly like him, people keeping to themselves, so there wasn't much chance of making friends.

Thankfully, he had been getting along with Liz, or at least the woman hadn't told him to take a hike, so he would take a win where he could. He rather enjoyed watching her work, as all the adorable drones flew around, obeying her every command. So much so, that he even began dabbling in enchanting. It was slow going because he specced the character for assassination, but thanks to Sam's tutorials, he was doing well. Tim was hoping to surprise Liz with an enchanted item that he would use to ask the woman out. Maybe.

He wasn't a hundred percent on the plan… Currently, he was heading to a nearby café where he would be meeting with one of his old guildmates who reached out to him. He saw his old friend sitting at an outdoor table, already sipping his coffee. He walked up and raised his hand in greeting.

"Hey!" The other man's head snapped up from his phone and grinned.

"Hey, man!" They shook hands then Tim ordered something to drink and sat down across each other.

"So, why did you call me?"

"Mostly to check how you are?"

"Huh?"

"You left in a big hurry so I wanted to make sure you are alright…"

"If you remember, you guys were the ones who were chasing me…" The other man shrugged.

"That's just the game, man. We won't follow the commands of a crazy demon in the real world."

"Sure, sure…"

"It's just roleplaying, man!" They argued for a while, ultimately agreeing that they wouldn't agree on the topic. Tim took a sip of his drink and spoke up.

"So, why did you actually call me here?" The other guy shifted around, looking a little squirrelly into Tim's eyes.

"Listen, we heard you got a job at Heavenly Forest and the boss was wondering if you got any information to share. You know, for old time's sake…"

"What?"

"We would compensate you for it naturally. But we got a job for a target and they are constantly there…" Tim looked at the other guy and let out a disappointed sigh. He really needed better friends.

"Is this correct?"

"Yes, sir."

"And you think what they are saying is true?"

"Yes, sir. My senses tell me he wasn't bullshitting." There was a quiet laughter in the room as Isabella's superiors took in her statement. The man he was talking to looked back at her and snorted.

"Don't be ridiculous. The man was probably trying to impress you," he claimed, his own eyes dipping well below her chin.

"We investigated the fracture and found the antidote. Plus, a lot of other guilds are planning to raid it. The government placed some really great bounties on the materials from the fracture.

'The chaos gremlin wouldn't work for an idiot. He wasn't trying to impress me, no matter how much he stared…' she thought but kept her mouth shut. They were her superiors and time and time again they proved they didn't give a rat's ass about her opinion. They only accepted her into the guild because of her connections and the people she brought with her. That much was clear. But at the time she didn't have a better option, and she loathed being a guild master.

"So, just go back to farming and prepare for the rush. There will be a fight amongst the guilds for the first clear, and I want Eternal Light to be the first one."

"Did you check up on Solar?"

"Yeah? Some pissant from a small guild. The guy doesn't matter. I don't know why you're so obsessed with him." She couldn't explain that the fact that the chaos gremlin's father hadn't bought the guy off meant that he was either super stupid or had balls of titanium. Her enemy's father was crazy about guys getting close to his precious daughter. Just the fact he was independent in the face of all that meant that the guy knew something.

Isabella stared at the idiots in front of her and let out a small sound of disgust.

"Alright, but don't come crying to me when everything goes to hell…" Only laughter was heard behind her. Sometimes, she really hated her past decisions. Reaching her room, she fumed a little, then as she calmed down, she retrieved a notebook titled 'Chaos Gremlin Attack Plan'. Isabella would leave the fracture to the idiots. She had more important things to plan for.

'Now, where can I get a glitter detector?' Brightgarden was coming right along as he stared out of the roof garden of their guild house. They even had their own Heavenly Forest. The most luxurious and mysterious hotel in the country. Naturally, he only heard about it from the net, as he didn't have the gold or real-life money to even enter, but its presence meant that their city was clearly important. Fauna Ark was coming right along.

The million little guilds that tried scamming people with low-quality or fake pets and familiars vanished as soon as they made some money, leaving mostly the bigger guilds. Stephen had his own, centered mostly around druids, rangers, and related magicians. There was one where they specialized in elemental spirits, one where they worked with golems, and one which only accepted people with flying pets.

There were rumors that there was a dark guild that settled down somewhere under the city, specializing in shadowy and poisonous animals. Thanks to AzureTiger their own administration was in a pretty good order. And while the rest of the guilds were playing catch-up, they could concentrate on developing their own guild.

Currently, they owned a rather big estate (though not as big as Heavenly Forest) with stables and other buildings housing a myriad of different animals and any area that wasn't home to said animals was used to grow things that would be turned into feed. They even had a small array of greenhouses, specifically to grow potion ingredients. His loyal pet, and lovely rabbit, was almost close to the level cap, and he was currently trying to figure out how to evolve his partner. The first time was rather easy.

He just threw in whatever reagent he could find, and bamm, giant rabbit. But now that he knew more about the entire procedure, he was practically paralyzed by the choices. Some of them were given. Troll hides for protection. A lump of earth crystal for the magic, and some smoke from one of the monsters from the swamp that could turn its body into said smoke. He wanted a giant pocket rabbit, and he would get a giant pocket rabbit.

'Maybe I should go around with a top hat and pull Slathy out when the fight begins?' he mused to himself as his eyes went over the list of materials they had access to for the umpteenth time.

'I should run this by Kim first, though…' Cold was around her, she was the cold. She was becoming ice. She ignored the growing pain as the cold seeped into her body and fully concentrated on grasping the intricate magic suffusing the surrounding air. She let out a breath, watched as it instantly turned into fog, and then froze, falling to the ground.

It took her a while to reach this stage, but after spending almost all waking moments practicing her magic, even going so far as going alone into the middle of a blizzard, she felt she had reached a very important line. Now the only question was: what was on the other side of the line? She returned to the local Magic Tower and requested a consultation with one of the ice mages.

After demonstrating her skills, quite proud of the silent casting that she had acquired through a rather grueling quest, the man just took a look at her and nodded.

"You are ready," came the statement from him, the voice almost causing her to freeze in place.

"Sit. And watch." That was all he said before she was engulfed in a storm of ice and cold, stronger than ever. But she watched and learned, and now she, in turn, reached out to the frozen air and grasped it. The feeling was indescribable. She moved the ice around as if it was an extension of her. No spells were needed. No silly spell names. Just her and the ice. She grinned, opened her eyes, and beheld the notification screen. [Thanks to your breakthrough, you gained the skill of Ice Mana Manipulation.] [Thanks to gaining Ice Mana Manipulation you lost the following skills: Ice Lance I-IV, Ice Lance Barrage, Ice Shot I-VIII, Ice Storm I-II, Ice Shield I-IV, Ice Bunker, Conjure Ice Spear I-II, Conjure Ice Armor I-IV, Summon Ice Golem I-III, Icey Aura I-III, Ice Spike I-III…] [The experience from the lost skills will be converted to experience in Ice Mana Manipulation.] [Ice Mana Manipulation is now Level 21!] [Every sub-skill belonging to the lost skills will be added to Ice Mana Manipulation!] [You can still use the skill, but thanks to your breakthrough, manipulating ice mana became much more refined for you!] [Ice Mana Manipulation: Level 21/100 (69%) (Passive/Active) You became one with the ice and the ice became one with you. You manipulate ice mana just as well as neutral mana. The ice will listen to your commands and take whatever shape you wish. However, beware, this comes with a price. Gain a 1% increase in damage and cast speed for each level in the skill for ice spells and skills. Decrease mana cost by 1% for each level in the skill for ice spells and skills. Current Spells: Ice Lance I-IV Ice Lance Barrage Ice Shot I-VIII Ice Storm I-II Ice Shield I-IV Ice Bunker Conjure Ice Spear I-II Conjure Ice Armor I-IV Summon Ice Golem I-III Icey Aura I-III Ice Spike I-III…] Grinning like a loon, she looked up from her reading and looked at the mage who started this test.

In other games she would have probably gotten a world-first announcement or something, but Magic Unbound didn't care for who was the first. A little disappointing, but she could deal. The man nodded at her and after vanishing all the ice and restoring the room to its pristine condition, he left the room without even saying goodbye. The only reason she didn't complain was because another screen popped up in front of her. [Master Jacob granted you the title of Ice Mage! [Ice Mage: You are a well-trained mage, specializing in Ice Spells! Increased reputation in the Magic Tower!] Another win for her. She couldn't really wait to show it to her friends! They would be so jealous…