Chương 119: 118 - Light and Rocks

Alexandra stepped over the corpse of the troll chieftain. For the first time since forever, she was perfectly healthy. No curse. No injury. No hangover. She still missed a finger and a small amount of lifeforce, but it didn't stop her from deploying her abilities to their fullest extent, and it showed. This dungeon had become too easy. She pulled out her journal, eager to check on her progress.

Daily quests summary: One Quest Completed -> +10 exp, +1 INT Daily Quest Streak: 75 -> 76 Manyfold Style Training Quest Completed x 7 -> 1, 400 contribution points Manyfold Style 2 -> 3 Manyfold Style Training Quest Completed x 2 -> 600 contribution points Even in this favorable environment, she hadn't been able to stop her skill from leveling. These gains brought her total balance to 2, 702 contribution points, a little past the halfway point to her first common skill purchase.

Alexandra dispelled her journal and started making her way up the dungeon. She was still a bit miffed that the contribution point shop didn't offer more than skills and skill levels. No experience, no attributes, no achievements. Maybe they'd come with her perk evolving. That said, those weren't necessarily better than skills. She was, after all, gaining attribute points every day, so she couldn't complain. The dungeon's gates opened onto the base camp. Nobody was present this night.

Alexandra sat beside a fireplace and stoked the embers. The sound of cracking wood filled the silence. She ate a piece of dry meat she'd taken from the Iron Library, and drank her fill of water. Last time she'd wandered off into the night, she'd gotten lost in the forest. She wasn't planning on making the same mistake twice. Alexandra had come prepared with tasks to keep her occupied till the morning light could guide her home.

Knowing the expensive price tag the system put on common skills, she felt silly for ignoring the few skill quests she had on her list. Active Skill Quests: Diving Summon Lesser Fiend Cleaning Swimming Mana Persuasion Admittedly, the last two were new additions. Summon Lesser Fiend was tricky, asking her to make a deal with the demon Valudipan. She wasn't as opposed to it as when she first got the quest. Setting the sacrifice of Esmera aside, her dealings with Augustus had only benefited her.

"I shouldn't think like that," she whispered. It had benefited her, but the cost was too high. That said, Augustus ruled over blood, while Valudipan was the master of tides. Perhaps the latter wouldn't be that bloody. She frowned. It was still a demon, and she would be remiss to forget that. Alexandra shook her head. Anyway, that's something I can consider later. For now, she had plenty of options that didn't necessitate signing her morals away. For example: Light. Light – Common: Summon an orb of light.

Each level increases your control over the orb's brightness. Light: Manually cast an orb of light (0/1) Now that she had her mana back, it was time to get started on this skill quest. She stood up and moved away from the fireplace to a place where the heat and light wouldn't distract her. Then, she grabbed a thread of mana and started shaping it. Coming from Earth, Alexandra had a vague idea of how science defined light: photons or something. She wasn't a scientist. She didn't need to be one.

She threw all her preconceived notions out of the window and focused on what she wanted light to be. Light was the opposite of darkness, the way she saw the world. She let these feelings guide her hand, and weaved the first thread with another. Light was warm. It wasn't always true, but it didn't matter. To Alexandra, light was warm. It was the fire burning a few paces away. It was the safety of her room. The threads reacted. Her mana core was also light.

It was technically invisible, but she always imagined her mana as blue, shining threads of light. Light was power. Light was magical. Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site. She pulled another thread from her core. For an instant, it resisted. But light was flexible. It bent, reflected, and sneaked through the tiniest gaps to get to her. The thread loosened. She knitted it into her spell. This made her think about her bloodline. The sun fed her.

Her Solar Core held the energy captive. Wasn't the sun the prime source of light in this world? She felt her Solar Core thrum, resonate with her thoughts. It was breathing, in and out. She pinched her mana threads and let her weave unravel. Then there was light. Light: Manually cast an orb of light (1/1) Mana Manipulation 9 -> 10"Fuck!" She hadn't meant to level Mana Manipulation up. She'd hoped to complete its Training Quest once or twice before it happened.

That was a few hundred contribution points down the drain. The orb of light hovered in front of her eyes, its dull warmth melting her frustrations. She quickly got to experiment with how much control she had over the brightness. It wasn't much, but it was there. For now, the best she could do was to keep it at about the same level as her fireplace. Not bad. She checked the Training Quest. Light Training Quest: Keep Light active for ten hours (0/10) Alexandra sighed.

It wouldn't be difficult, but it wouldn't net her many contribution points either. The skill would level up quite fast on its own. She wasn't all that disappointed. It was just a common skill, so the returns wouldn't be too high anyway. She should still be able to make a few hundred points with it. Also—she let the orb fly around her head—this was cool. She moved on to her next skill quest. Mana Persuasion – Uncommon: Improve your ability to negotiate with mana.

Each level increases the accuracy of how your intent is communicated. Each level increases your persuasiveness. Mana Persuasion: Override an enchantment with your own (0/1)"Now we're talking." The skill was uncommon. It meant that, on top of being flat-out better than a common skill, training in it would give her more points. More points meant more skills, which in turn meant more points. It was a positive cycle to get addicted to. Alexandra was, however, not ready to tackle this skill quest.

Just because she'd studied enchantment and succeeded in her previous daily didn't mean that she'd suddenly become an expert on the subject. She walked back to her fire and sat, letting the warmth of the flames brush her face. For all intents and purposes, she'd gotten around the requirements to reach the level of an apprentice in enchantment. If she didn't want torturing items to become her only way to enchant anything, she still needed practice. Lucky that she'd unlocked the perfect skill for that purpose.

Basic Enchantment – Common: Slightly improve your skill in every aspect of the enchantment process. Each level increases the effect. Every aspect meant that it would help with unlocking Mana Persuasion. She was also hopeful that it would make the Training Quests easier. Easier quests meant that she'd be able to farm them longer without her skill leveling on its own. She read the Training Quest again.

Basic Enchantment Training Quest: Enchant an item (0/1) Simple enough, though it would inevitably limit her ability to gather points with it. There wasn't much she could do about it, so she decided to consider it an investment. A few hundred contribution points from a common skill meant nothing if it could help her gather thousands from an uncommon skill. She grabbed a stray rock on the ground and focused. The mana inside the rock was sluggish. Grounded. Almost static, but not quite.

She could feel it move through the stone. It was extremely slow, but it was moving. A stone's mana wanted to persist. Few things lasted longer than stone. Even this seemingly random rock had existed since time immemorial. It was already on the ground before she'd arrived at Laika. Before she was born. Perhaps it was already there when the Iron Library built this base camp. Perhaps it was there before the dungeon appeared. But persistence wasn't the only thing she was feeling through the ambient mana.

This was a stray rock, not a stone part of a larger whole. The rock wanted to persist. But, almost paradoxically, it also wanted to end, to split into two smaller rocks, then into pebbles, until there was nothing but grains of sand. The rock was part of a cycle. It came from the earth, and it would return to the earth. In the long life of stone, a rock was closer to the end than the beginning. Alexandra felt that. She felt the acceptance. Yet, she also felt a sliver of indignation.

She felt the clash of nature that existed inside the rock, and used it her way. Why should the rock turn to sand? Was it not hard? Was it not sturdy? Was its stone friable like dry earth? Alexandra knew of rocks harder than steel. She pictured them resisting the hammering of a pickaxe, of a jackhammer, of those massive tunnelers used on Earth. She imagined the machines breaking down under the sheer power of stone. The metal bending. The motors jamming. The rocks, victorious. But not this rock, it seemed.

It was weak. She could step on it, and it would split in half. Hell, she could wait. It would probably crumble by itself under a little rain. Was it a rock or was it salt? Was it stone or was it ice, ready to melt under mild heat that even mere dirt could endure? Pathetic. To call this a rock was an insult to all rocks. It was mud. Nay! It was water. In fact, she should break it herself. Alexandra grabbed another rock. Look at how much sturdier it was. It felt smooth in her hands, not friable like the other.

She thought that, perhaps, she had picked up the weakest rock on Laika. A feat, to be sure. She raised her hand holding the stronger rock, ready to hammer it down on the other. Goodbye, little rock. Your time has come. The rocks smashed into one another. The smooth rock split in half. Basic Enchantment Training Quest: Enchant an item (1/1) -> 20 contribution points Basic Enchantment 1 -> 2 She felt the rock in her hand. It was a success. She'd started with a random rock and enchanted it into a mildly sturdier rock.

Alexandra grimaced.

"Not the most useful application." But since it was so underwhelming, maybe she could repeat the process and milk it for a few contribution points. She picked up another rock.

"Come here, you brittle little shit."