Chương 77: 144 - Possible

"Erm," the man behind the receptionist's desk said.

"I'm sorry, you aren't trying to claim this quest? You've finished it?" Saffra sighed.

"That's eight Quicksilver Stingers lying there, isn't it?" The tanned man blinked dumbly at the metallic tips spread across the unfolded cloth on his desk. He seemed to [Inspect] them a second time, not that the core ability could be fooled. Or can it? Vivi thought distractedly. Maybe certain thief or rogue skills? Never saw anything like that in the game, though.

"They are what you say they are, no denying that," the man replied slowly.

"But I can't verify how recently they were harvested. Per the quest stipulation, they need to be fresh, and Quicksilver Scorpions are, ah… very rare. You two were here not an hour ago, I believe?" No amount of politeness could mask the implication. Saffra folded her arms and glared.

"They're fresh, which someone can and will verify. And if I'm lying, then you have my name and registration number. It'd be an awfully stupid con to try to pull for twenty-six silver." Skepticism lingered in the receptionist's expression, but the logic in Saffra's argument at least broke through the hesitation.

"Of course, miss. My apologies." He grabbed a stamp, dipped it in a thin layer of red ink, and pressed the design into the paper. After setting the parchment atop a small stack of other completed quests, he counted coins into a pouch, cinched the drawstring, and handed the payment to Saffra.

"Thank you," she said.

"Have a good day." She spun on a heel and stalked off, cat tail swishing in annoyance. Since it had been for the best if Saffra took solo credit, Vivi had stood to the side as the girl turned the quest in. Such a simple mission wouldn't move the needle much when it came to her next promotion, but the effort wasn't meaningless for an hour's work.

"Ugh," Saffra muttered as they walked out of the guild.

"Half the reason I want my gold-rank badge already is so that people start taking me more seriously. If it'd been an adult who turned that in, the receptionist would've just been impressed. Maybe asked how I finished so fast, but he wouldn't have been suspicious."

"That did seem rather disrespectful," Vivi offered diplomatically. Saffra sniffed.

"Then again, I also thought this badge would help, but it clearly doesn't." She tapped the silver piece of metal.

"Still, gold is high enough they wouldn't brush me off." A sigh.

"Anyway." Saffra pulled open the coin pouch, counted out half into her palm, and drew the string closed again. She thrust the bag toward Vivi.

"Here. One splinter of your staff is worth half the High King's vault, so silver means nothing to you, but you did most of the work." She looked away, one hand rubbing the back of her neck.

"I'm pretty sure a normal apprentice wouldn't keep any of it, but since I don't think you'd say yes to that, we'll go half and half." Vivi hesitated. Saffra was right—the instinct to refuse was immediate. Vivi didn't want to accept any portion of the coin. Nevertheless, Vivi reluctantly took the pouch and tossed it into her inventory.

One of the bigger instances of her putting her foot in her mouth had been with the Morningstar bounty back at Prismarche, and even if that situation had involved a much more tangible reason for Saffra to be upset, Vivi would simply go along with what the girl wanted.

"What's our escape strategy?" Saffra asked, clearly trying to move past the bit of awkwardness.

"Not much in the way of alleys around here." Vivi scanned the wide gaps between sandstone facades, their shaded connecting paths offering little cover.

"Ah, whatever. We'll probably never come back. Let's just step around the corner and go." After doing just that, Vivi whisked away her apprentice with a [Greater Warp] and brought them back to the manor. They materialized in the sitting room that Winston had set aside for the purpose. Saffra barely even wobbled at the transition. Come to think of it, by this point, she has more experience with spatial magic than most archmages do. An absurd thought hit her.

It's not going to cause developmental issues if a kid is constantly teleporting, right? Like drinking coffee too early?

"Now," Saffra said with interest, unhooking the Chalice of Withered Plenty from the belt at her hip. She peered inside while sloshing the container about, then handed it to Vivi.

"You think you're gonna get a skill?"

"It's a five-level marker, so odds are high. Up to the heavens in the end." Vivi paused at the phrase she'd used.

'Up to the heavens.' She shook her head to clear it.

"I'm surprised you don't get a skill every rank-up. I mean, you're closing in on the level cap." Saffra seemed briefly disoriented by the statement despite having been the one to speak it.

"Would make sense if you got a reward every time, with how high you are."

'Closing in on the level cap.' No, she'd blown past that a while ago. Though she was almost certain Rafael had figured it out by himself, he had seemed to imply she should keep the detail private. Maybe I'll tell her later. Just no point, she decided.

"Here we go." She tipped the Chalice back and drank. One unsettling, body-wracking surge of shivers later, the magical fluid digested and two screens appeared: a level-up and a skill.

Skill Earned! [Void Attunement I]: Grants a small bonus to manifesting and channeling Void effects.

"Oh. Huh."

"You got one?" Saffra leaned forward, then reined in her enthusiasm and crossed her arms.

"I-if you want to share."

"It's just like the last one," Vivi mused to the girl, thoughts occupied as she chewed over the implications. Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit. Saffra responded with a blank look.

"Last one? Am I supposed to know what that is?" Vivi's confusion briefly mirrored the girl's. Belatedly, she realized that she had never brought up [Void Resistance I]. Unlike the topic of how she'd broken what most of the world considered a fundamental limit, her new skills weren't sensitive, so she elaborated.

"I leveled up hunting in the void earlier and received a skill called [Void Resistance I]."

"Oh? Resistance. Like, an elemental one?"

"As far as I can tell."

"How does that even work? I thought void energy was… separate from the Grand System. Not compatible." Vivi hummed in disagreement.

"The whole reason I'm working with the Institute is that I know it can be controlled somehow. And at this point, I'm nearly certain we can go further than just making weapons like Caldimore's knife. There's more potential than that." Saffra stiffened at the mention of the once-duke, her cat ears flattening. Vivi could sympathize. She herself got heated when she thought about that man, but Saffra had stronger opinions on Damon Caldimore and his actions—particularly in regard to Isabella—than even Vivi did.

"I'm confident there's more to it than just harvesting monster parts to reactivate their energy fields," Vivi said to defuse the situation. Her expression shifted as the subject took hold of her.

"Like using the energy directly. Hm. Rather, I know it now. Honestly, it's irritating that someone just handed me the answer. I was solving that puzzle myself." Saffra's tension eased, if just because of how interested she was in the topic.

"What do you mean 'use the energy directly'? Like with a spell? Also, what proof?"

"Ah. The skill I just got. It's an offensive mirror to [Void Resistance]. [Void Attunement]." Given the sheer time Vivi had spent on the problem, and that the System awarded abilities to match a person's pursuits, odds were high that she would keep unlocking skills related to the void. And with the scale of the challenge ahead of her, she wouldn't turn them down.

"Specifically, it says 'a bonus to manifesting and channeling Void effects.' Which pretty much confirms it: void energy is compatible, at least to some degree, with our current understanding of magic." She sniffed again. Irrational as it was, she resented having part of the puzzle solved without her say-so. She mollified herself with the reminder that the hard part was figuring out how to wield that energy reliably—she was pretty far from that.

"I already knew it was possible, anyway," Vivi said.

"Nothing's impossible, not really." One of the reasons she loved magic so much. For some reason, Saffra hesitated.

"Is that true, though?" she asked carefully.

"Some stuff is impossible. Even you can't resurrect the dead. Or even warp without an anchor, right?" Vivi didn't take the question as pedantic; in fact, it was worth explaining to an apprentice.

"Yes and no." Most questions worth answering didn't have easy answers. Not in a field as vast and uncharted as the study of magic.

"There are different categories of 'impossible,' if or when I use that term. Some things are just confirmed to be too costly—that's a common one. For example, what tier is [Blink]?"

"Eight?"

"And what tier is [Greater Warp]?"

"Lady Vivi, even Archmage Aeris can barely cast that. I have no idea."

"Right." She cleared her throat.

"Well, it's tier eighteen." Most mages could cast a few tiers above themselves, especially given long preparation times or with external help like potions and artifacts. Tiers weren't System-enforced. They were assignments that people used to reflect difficulty and mana cost. Frankly, at the height Vivi stood, she defined the tiers of what she made. The terminology didn't mean much above level two thousand, because she was the only one casting spells of that caliber.

That logic held for workings above tier sixteen as well, with too few people casting them to form a proper consensus. Even legacy spells like [Flight] probably ought to be tier eleven or twelve, but had never been reclassified.

"Meaning," Vivi said, "going from short-range teleportation to long-range teleportation jumped ten tiers in complexity. But the thing is, [Greater Warp] is a limited form of long-distance transport. The only way it works is by building a bridge with a powerful, independent construct that you can link to. Massively simplifying the primary issue." She struggled to find a better metaphor.

"In a sense, it really is like a bridge. Easier to build when you have two sides to support it, right? Without that anchor point to stabilize the compression of spatial fabric, the mana cost balloons wildly. That said, theoretically, I could design a spell that works without an anchor. It would just cost all the mana on the planet and then some."

"Oh."

"That's where the infeasibility of a lot of long-range spells falls. Like [Farsight] over huge distances, and also why we need scrying tables to link to. The other class of 'impossible' is me being lazy. It means 'I don't know where to begin.'""Like resurrection?"

"That's a classic example, though that one in particular is probably both categories. Even if someone figured it out, I can only imagine ripping a soul back from the heavens, or wherever they go, would be… costly. And have consequences." That was where abusing time magic and several other disciplines fell, for that matter. Consequences.

"Though those drawbacks themselves might be solvable, with proper research," she mused.

"Like with [Greater Warp]; we found a half-solution. But those fixes also run into adding extra requirements, if not bumping up once again against the fundamental issues of 'I don't know where to begin' or 'costs more mana than exists in the world.'" Saffra's brow furrowed as she turned the explanations over.

"But then why were you so sure wielding void energy wasn't the same?"

"Because monsters were using it against us," Vivi pointed out.

"No matter what those creatures might be, the world didn't break into pieces when they were unleashing their void attacks, and as far as raw energy goes, I doubt they have more than me. So they proved that it's possible."

"Oh. That's kinda obvious, actually. Sorry." Vivi almost summoned her staff for a bonk on the head.

"Don't apologize for asking questions. They were good ones." Her gaze returned to the floating skill screen. Her thoughts drifted as she began building theories.

"But the skill is useless for now, then?" Saffra asked, snapping Vivi out of her reverie.

"Since you don't actually have void spells yet." She paused. She hadn't considered the ability from that angle. But yes, seeing how she hadn't solved how to reactivate voidglass, much less harness the extra-dimensional energy on a deeper level, her most recent skill was, in an immediate sense, pointless.

"I suppose it is," she said wryly.

"The confirmation means something, though, if just because the System thinks I'll figure it out eventually." A big problem with research was toiling away and wondering whether she could find an answer—if not at all, then in a reasonable timeframe. Not that she'd abandon a project at the first sign of difficulty, but knowing a solution existed kept the doubt at bay.

"And the skill will be valuable when it matters," she added.

"Adapting existing spells to penetrate void resistance is certainly a functional approach already, but if I could weave those monsters' own energy in, or fabricate spells that utilize the energy wholesale…" She trailed off.

"Hm. Lots of potential. Yes, I'm not disappointed in the slightest."

"That's good, then." Vivi closed out of the skill popup.

"There are preparations I need to make before my meeting with Embralyne, so I'll be busy the rest of the day, and might not see you tomorrow either. I thought about bringing you along, but if something dire really is happening in the immortal lands, whatever it might be, I want to clear the area first."

"Totally fair," Saffra said, sounding somewhat incredulous that Vivi had even considered having her come along.

"I'll take you there later. Assuming the Dragon King isn't too angry. It's a beautiful realm, you deserve to see it." Vivi would've thought the opportunity to explore the most mythical lands in the world would interest Saffra, but she seemed hesitant instead. Then again, she might've had enough excitement in the past month.

"We'll figure that out later," Vivi amended.

"Before I drop you off at the Institute, though, I need your opinion on something."

"You do?"

"Just to make sure the disguise doesn't have any obvious issues. Here." She raised her staff and incanted, "[Transmogrify]." And turned herself into a dragon.