Malwine had simplified her Skills panel as best as she could, categorizing them and listing them alongside Traits and Aspects.
He hadn’t commented on her omission of Skill levels—and she wasn’t about to question it, because she wasn’t in the mood to come up with fake numbers she could cover her maxed Skills up with. “Does anything change, depending on where we start?”
“If you have no preference, we can start by trying to determine how your
“…Can we just go over them one by one instead?”
Veit failed to conceal a nascent grin—as he’d calmed down, he’d gone right back to trying to get a rise out of her. She supposed that was fair, considering she would have loved to get right back to that as well. “In order, then—just don’t expect me to have something to say about every single one of them. Your category bears only one Skill I recognize—one I would presume you got from a Skill book, did you not?”
She saw no harm in being honest there, though she’d expected Veit to immediately push her on her alleged Forger Skill—maybe he wanted to put some distance between himself and the topic, if briefly. “I got [Shieldwork] from one of the books Bernie brought out for Matilda’s party, a while back.”
Veit nodded. “I recall that event. [Shieldwork] is not a bad Skill, but as with all Skills obtained that way, you will want to evolve it as soon as you can. Known qualities make one predictable, and every standardized Skill out there has known counters.”
Huh. Malwine hadn’t known that was expected. To her, Skill books had felt like easy additions to her repertoire, and she hadn’t exactly considered the ramifications of that. She felt like an idiot, in hindsight.
“To be clear, I am not incapable of finding you something for that budding Forger Class of yours,” Veit eyed her—he’d clearly misunderstood her pensiveness. Then again, if he brought that up one more time, Malwine would just start assuming he did not, in fact, know what he was going to get her for her Forger Class. “But much else needs to be said. Can you show me that shield Skill?”
“I gave this double [Write Anywhere] when I made it, and it can only use one at a time,” Malwine explained. “I’d have to dismiss it and bring it back—[Toll]’s halfway full already, so I’d rather not.”
“You must have, what, a hundred capacity there?” Veit mused.
Malwine volunteered the value purely to prove him wrong. “195.”
His eyebrows went up. “Are you putting everything into Circulation?”
“Maybe.”
The forester just shook his head. “You give me so many reasons for concern, that I’ve yet to truly address all save a few of them… very well. I shall fetch your real self, if that’s fine by you.”
“Alright,” Malwine nodded, and her eyes reopened within her room. She wasn’t expecting Anna Franziska today, so at least she had that going for her.
Funny how I meant to spend more time on trials, and instead, here I am, doing… whatever it is we’re doing at this point.
The telltale kite materialized in the middle of the room, and a certain forester slipped in. “Do you need to bring anything? I suspect this will take a while.”
She actually felt the soft shift in the air before she’d even finished opening her mouth. Uh oh.
“Ooh, pretty colors,” Adelheid noted. “Did you come to fill in your part on the census, finally?”
“I filled his part in already, Adelheid,” Malwine assured her little sister. She struggled to suppress her imminent laughter at the look on Veit’s face. “I’ve convinced this old man to help me with some of my Skills, if you don’t mind. I’ll be back later.”
“That’s fine,” Adelheid said, nodding along. Truly, the girl was too precious. “I’m going to explore in the meantime, then. Franziska’s sick so we haven’t been able to do much together.”
“Aw,” Malwine reached over to pat her little sister’s shoulder. “Take care.”
“You too.”
With that, Adelheid disappeared.
Malwine smiled, shaking her head. She sighed wistfully, meeting Veit’s gaze. “Teleporting toddlers, amiright?”
“Do you two have no adult support—or supervision—in here at all?” Veit appeared outraged, his recent moodiness entirely supplanted by clear confusion. “That’s a normal girl, is it not?”
“It probably depends on your definition of normal, but if you mean, whether she’s really a child that age, then yes.”
“And you did not seem surprised in the slightest,” the forester’s eyes narrowed. “I will not judge or tattle on this, but you need to be aware of something—you have the responsibility to set a good example. How you treat me—or your older relatives—may be one thing, but I would hope that you know better than to misbehave when you are with a child who might look up to you.”
“I try,” Malwine shot back. “And no, I don’t need to bring anything, but I would prefer to be back by dinnertime.”
Malwine examined her hand, waving it around. Knowing her shield was there didn’t make detecting it any easier.
Veit, for his part, was busy swirling around a cloud of shards of glass as he mimicked her movements. They alternated between a mosaic of colors and transparency. “Do you understand, now? Versatility and control go hand in hand.”
He wasn’t wrong—for Malwine, her shields might as well have disappeared after she set them in place. She could change their size after the fact, but she’d recognized by now that it was closer to her replacing the original for another than truly changing it around. “If you know about [Shieldwork], you have to know it just does spheres.”
“I am aware of that,” the forester acknowledge, raising a hand. The shards followed, hovering before him—until he closed his fists, at which point they shifted into a curved shield that seemed tailored to his current position. “Sometimes you do not need spheres, though.”
“Way to rub it in,” Malwine grumbled. She couldn’t match his ridiculous display of making shields through {Mosaic} control alone—not as she was—but she still considered his insistence on this more than a bit bothersome. “It’s not a fair comparison. I have a Skill that’s set up to follow specific rules, while you have high Affinity values from being older than god.”
“Going after my age every time you don’t like what I say isn’t doing you any favors.”
“Please, the joke never gets old—unlike you,” Malwine seriously considered making an immature gesture, only barely holding herself back. “Still, while I get your point, there isn’t much I can do about the limitation.”
“Have you ever evolved a Skill?” Veit asked, dismissing the colorful shards. “I would genuinely not put it past you, at this point.”
“I haven’t, actually,” she pouted. Malwine still recalled the message she’d gotten the first time she used [Enforced Longevity]—not only had the Skill been too low level to evolve, but the synergy with [Unpacifiable] that had seemingly triggered its near-evolution in the first place had ultimately been meaningless. As one of the Skills she’d started with—maxed from the start—[Unpacifiable] was barred from evolutions by default.
“I’ll explain, then. Evolving Skills is about pushing them. While the Skills themselves might have limitations, you have more than one Skill, and you have your Affinities,” Veit noted. “Dismiss all current shields.”
Malwine did as he asked.
“Now,” he started, raising a hand with his index finger pointing up. She was more than certain that he just did it for the theatrics—he’d slipped and used his abilities without moving more than once by now. All of a sudden, a box-like mosaic enveloped her. “Shield yourself.”
Her glare certainly made it past the colored glass, because it the forester laughed. [Shieldwork] flashed with the glow of {Foresight} for but a moment, stopping just short of the boundary he’d outlined.
And then the box shrank. Malwine’s eyes widened, the instinct to dismiss her double rearing its head before she remembered she was very much truly here right now. “Hey!”
Her shield bent, and it struck her then that she’d always used shields to block things. She’d never actually tested their strength as a whole. Slowly, her shield grew smaller, forcing her to almost kneel. Only the awareness that he must have been holding back kept her from freaking out then and there.
“I’m hardly pressing—stand your ground.”
“Easy for you to say when you’re not the one trying to jump four hundred levels!”
“That is a gross misrepresentation of this,” her teacher sighed. “Reading everything you can and having as many Skills as you can are both good steps—for a start. But you need to understand the extent of what you can do, learn its rules so that you may know what would be necessary to break them.”
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
Buddy, you don’t know how many rules I’ve broken so far! Neither did she, but the number was certainly higher than zero. She imagined the citrine of {Legacy} rising, bolstering {Foresight} as a Source. Her main Affinity was still nearly twice as strong, and while the effects were nothing miraculous, she felt her grip on the shield around herself strengthen.
The shield bent further as Veit’s box shrunk, until she feared it might burst. She couldn’t help but smile as she watched it remain solid, though. “Hm, you were right. So external pressure means it can become a squircle instead of a circle.”
“What?”
“Beveled cube?” Malwine corrected herself, or at least tried to. “Don’t give me that look—none of the books I read told me what to call this. But I see what you meant now. I can’t make anything other than spheres, but other factors can change the shape of it.”
“I shan’t even question where your logic starts and ends,” Veit snapped his fingers, and the box shattered into nothingness. “Imagine you had an ability to… summon yards of fabric at will… but they will catch alight the moment you bring them forth,” he seemed to be struggling to come up with an example on the spot, but he kept going—his logic was certainly proving even less topical than her own. “You could get over such a drawback by always summoning them within a tub of cold water. Do that often enough, and the Skill will evolve accordingly. It can be a double-edged blade, though—you could just as easily add a requirement of water, in this scenario.”
Veit, that analogy is shit. If Malwine hadn’t already understood the matter, she might not have even guessed what he meant. No wonder you keep quoting your dad instead of coming up with your own explanations…
She dismissed the shield and pressed her back against the wall, one foot against the corner, trying to leave as little space between it and her ankles as possible. The shield she summoned around her foot—careful not allow it to go through anything else—was probably the most segmented shield she could make without some creative object arrangements.
It wasn’t that hard for Malwine to grasp the concept—but by its nature, this required trying to push the Skill against the world itself. She had to keep her thoughts from spiraling, the potential for tests feeling almost endless.
“Do you have any suggestions for [Earthless Glory]?” Malwine asked. She could only hope he’d have an actual answer for her, and not any dubious analogies.
“That is your projection Skill, is it not?”
Malwine nodded.
“Show it to me.”
She bit her tongue and crafted a panel with it instead of taking the chance to call him out on asking for such a thing after all his complaints about her being a Forger.
It wasn’t hard to do the same she’d done for Adelheid’s Skills, but she still had very much not forgotten Veit’s conceptual hatred Forgers, even if she was pushing it aside after his numerous apologies.
“That’s a surprisingly strong Skill, for having never evolved,” Veit admitted. “The weakness you must look into fixing there is the Skill limitation… an evolution that may be difficult to encourage, I confess.”
Yeah, no shit. Malwine sighed. “I guessed that much—was mostly just hoping you’d have an idea.”
He gave her an odd look. “I might,” the forester kept his eyes on her for an uncomfortably long time, clearly working through something—or considering something. “I couldn’t do that which you do, any form of outright duplication of the self. However…”
Veit closed his eyes, and a long string manifested upon his open palm, composed of interlocking shards of glass.
It looked like a snake.
“My father always said people—cultivator and mortal alike—are prone to believing abilities that involve remote actions are independent from the self. ‘There is no such thing as truly self-sustaining automata,’ he’d say—undoubtedly one of those terms he picked up from otherworlders, but I digress. He believes or believed, that every time we use an ability that creates any type of form or object subordinate to us, we are sending a piece of our very selves with it. One we only recover if and when we subsume it back.”
“I think I get what you mean,” Malwine scowled. “But [Earthless Glory] doesn’t really act independently from me. I have to control my double—I might as well be it while it’s active.”
“Do you retain awareness of your real self?”
“Vaguely?”
Veit kept his eyes on that glass snake of his. “Show me your [Multitasking] Skill’s description.”
With a sigh, Malwine did so.
“Ah. Perfect,” Veit nodded. “Your real self when you use your [Earthless Glory] and the part of you that handles those concurrent actions when you use [Multitasking] are exactly what I’m talking about. And each subdivision of the self there is lopsided in its own way. When you project yourself elsewhere, you only leave behind enough to sustain and presumably watch over yourself—and you can only multitask actions that don’t require your attention because the Skill seeks to tax you as little as possible.”
“Okay…”
“I refer to your second Skill only for reference—it is fine as it is, honestly,” Veit clarified. He raised his hand so that the crystalline snake almost touched his nose. “I cannot give you a specific suggestion here, but what you’ll want is to find a way to make [Earthless Glory] require less of you. If it cannot have nearly all of you—if you can force it to need a firmer, constant connection to your real self—you might be able to force it to allow changes after the creation of your double. Your problem seems to boil down to it being something you send off, so to speak.”
Malwine’s eyes narrowed. “I’m obviously not an expert here, but keeping an active connection with it sounds like a nice way to get detected.”
“You already keep an active connection with it—it’s simply so uneven that it amounts to little more than your double being tethered to you. Cloaking yourself is more about Control than anything else—has it not occurred to you that I’d prefer you work on those values for a reason?” the forester shook his head.
All of a sudden, Veit’s eyes widened, and Malwine could have sworn something flickered within. “I suggest you temper your expectations, in that controlling just how much you give and take with that kind of ability is not something you’ll achieve anytime soon. Both your Affinity values and your [Meditation] will serve you well there, but you’re far from the point where it’s feasible. I’m only telling you about it so you are well-informed when you inevitably ignore me and make an attempt anyway.”
By the time Malwine had started preparing the ugliest expression she could come up with in response, Veit had closed his eyes. He inhaled deeply, slowly.
The snake started moving, slowly at first. She flinched as it slipped from his fingers, slithering on the ground. His eyes fluttered open. “Animating something, tangible or not, grows more tedious the more aware of its movements and actions you are—that’s why even a projection Skill like yours defaults to trying to turn off as much of your real senses as possible when you’re elsewhere. Right now, I am as close to being in two places at once, entirely aware of both, as I can manage. This taxes me greatly, and I have {Object-Soul} to fall back on. In this moment, I can so much as feel as this construct does, and yet…”
Wincing, the forester grunted. The snake at his feet practically exploded, and his footing seemed uneasy for a moment. Yet soon Veit gasped, and straightened as if nothing had happened. “Puppets are easier—projections are easier. I cannot stress enough how careful you have to be if and when you try to nudge that Skill’s evolution in such a direction.”
For once, Malwine could see herself actually heeding that warning—something about the idea of entirely splitting one’s consciousness seemed just viscerally wrong to her. But—nooo—I’m the weird one because of that one Forger Skill… Dammit, OBeryl.
Truly, people named Beryl seemed to always be to blame for something, as far as Malwine was concerned.
“I’ll take that advise to heart,” Malwine assured him, “Seriously.”
Her teacher did not appear convinced, but he shook his head again. “For the rest of your Skills, and your
“Which is…?”
“What in any Devil’s name do you think you could possibly need [Mental Defense] for?” Veit gave her a look. “Your circumstances aside, you are four.”
“Soon to be five, anytime now,” Malwine corrected him. The Fire was just around the corner. “It’s a matter of safety.”
“The same applies to [Enforced Longevity]. I know my sister got that very Skill when she first started to work on her
“Again, safety,” Malwine insisted.
“Any Affinity with enough Acclimation and Control is defense enough, as my father would say. They did always disagree on such matters, and I’ve made it no secret just who I agree with,” Veit grumbled, clearly thinking back at something unpleasant. “I’m guessing [The Things We Do For Family] and [Once and Forever] are Skills of your own making, especially considering the Trait of the latter.”
Malwine gesticulated vaguely. “Hey, I’ve had books and harvestables around.”
“As for [Nosy Lady], I have not encountered it, but it seems like the type of thing obscure Skill books for noblewomen would include. Show me that one first.”
She’d settled for pretending all her Unranked Skills were ‘just’ Epics.
Veit balked at the sight of the Skill description as it manifested. “What in any Devil’s name is it with your Skill descriptions?”
“Don’t look at me, I’m not the one who wrote them.”
He scoffed. “A Perception Skill. But painfully narrow in scope, to only view Affinities. [Purpose]?”
“Ah. You might want to be aware, that Aspect is far more valuable than the Skill. No one needs a specialized Skill for Affinity detection,” Veit noted, but elaborated no further. “The other two Skills, and the Aspect—if it doesn’t trouble you to display them at once.”
“I can try,” Malwine found she couldn’t recall if she’d ever tested that—while the size of her panels was limited to that of her own head for some inexplicable reason, nothing stopped her from simply manipulating the ‘font’ size.
“You have a Class in col—” Veit started—his eyes widened, and it appeared he found he suddenly had bigger concerns. When he next spoke, his voice was so soft Malwine strained to hear him. “Is [Mana Reclaimer] something you could use on other people?”
“I honestly don’t know. But I think so?” Malwine guessed. [Purpose] implies so, I think. She did always get the impression that those two Skills complimented each other, at the base of her
Veit stared at the panel for what felt like an eternity, and when he next spoke, he did so with such seriousness that Malwine did a double-take. “I think I might hate you.”
She blinked. “Okay?”
“Get out and give me time. I will contact you. Later. Do not interrupt my time alone,” Veit waved at the air before him, and one of his mosaic kites had formed before he’d even finished speaking.
He practically shoved her into it.
Malwine stumbled back into her room. It was only a small mercy that she landed on her bed, lest she end up involuntarily sitting on the floor.
Through gritted teeth, she began to prepare to shout, but the portal closed before she could voice all the choice words she had for her teacher.
Not once but more times than she could count by now, he’d absolutely flipped out and cut their conversation short without explaining anything—for all his frustration was clear, she’d have guessed hers would soon match it.
Veit, what the fuck is wrong with you?