Saintess Summons Skeletons

Sofia quit the spectator rooms as the Ark concluded, a smile on her face, having regained some much needed wealth. It was only a few stones, far from enough to buy another top-tier item, but it would be good emergency funds.

I never doubted, but still… What a crazy fight. Avatar of mana… Could I have even beaten that?

I suppose Lilith was dangerous in a different way, she clearly had the advantage in terms of sheer firepower but the avatar wasn’t weak either and had pretty much infinite mana to burn…

I just hope the reward she got was worth the effort.

It was interesting to see that they’re already replacing the missing master items with new ones. I wish I could have seen the description for that paper fan, such a strange-looking item. I guess Asty will be able to share her logs.

But if I had to guess she’s going to buy that wooden ring she found early on. The way she was looking at it!

And Alith should have had no issue getting that other one. Too bad she won’t be able to buy the belt…

Aaaaah… Anyway, there’s some time until they are back.

Checklist time!

Iwa is working on the security measures so that’s fine for now, Arege is done, leveling cube is getting there. I just need some time to harvest and compress the few million tonnes of bones I’m still missing…

Ah right, the report!

After coming back from the Arege Union, Sofia had sent Crowie to check up on Chino from a distance, to make sure she was still safe, and to decide if now was a good moment to visit.

The crow had come back right in the middle of the grand finale, so Sofia hadn’t yet examined his report, which Crowie had somehow drawn himself on a piece of paper.

She grabbed the paper next to her and summoned the undead Crow in question whose summon had timed-out.

“Alright, Crowie… I appreciate you taking the time to draw me this, but your skills with an ink pen are, uh… Good for a bird? You need more training.”

“Caww!”

“Uh-huh? Don’t act all surprised and help me understand what your drawing means,” Sofia said, tracing her fingers along a mess of wobbly lines, “I assume this here is Chino?”

Crowie’s head moved up and down in confirmation.

“Alright, then what’s that she’s holding? A box?”

Crowie looked a bit offended at Sofia’s guess, jumping off of the seat’s armrest and walking on the floor up to a bookshelf, poking a book three times with his beak.

“Oh. She’s reading books?”

Crowie stared back at Sofia, unmoving.

“What, that’s not it? Writing books? Studying?”

“Studying?” Sofia repeated, seeing Crowie react, “And I’m assuming this on the side is a scribbled-over house? Not studying at home… Did you have to track her down to a school? How would you even pull that off? I only gave you the address I got from–”

“CAAAW!” Crowie interrupted, looking quite proud of himself.

“Fine, you tracked her down, then…”

Sofia had to go through a bit more struggle and enlist Bookie’s help to understand that Chino was studying at a magic academy not far from her adoptive parents’ territory, and that Crowie suggested visiting two weeks later as it was the end of the school year.

As for exactly how Crowie had gathered all of this information, another proud Ca-caw was all that Sofia got from him.

After that, since Erredis was for some reason still not back, having not showed up to watch the grand finale, Sofia decided to ask around for information. Her first choice was to ask Zoth, who was resting in Love’s temple that neared completion, and surprisingly the saint Kleptra had an answer. The Phageid had apparently invaded not just Veliadren and the moon this time, but also some of the neighboring planets. While Cerberus beta was under heavy control of the system and had stayed mostly untouched, the other planets had to be cleaned, and a small group of Dragons and Kleptras had taken the job.

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

With this new information in mind, Sofia returned to her library. She still needed to study enchantments some more for her arm, but having already read more than a thousand books on the subject and still being a long way off from burning through all the stock she had gathered, especially after bringing back Sorrow’s library, she was a bit burnt out on reading for now.

I need more time to digest all of that knowledge…

That doesn’t leave me with much to do unless I want to go on another expedition.

Then… Working on my skills it is!

So, what lady Suhen suggested… Reworking the spine into a passive… Well it’s already an active toggle, it shouldn't be too hard.

Sofia spent the next three days locked up in her palace’s library, fully disconnected from the outside world as she fiddled with the [Spine of the Black Sun]’s mana circuits. It wasn’t her first time manually reworking her spells. Having extensive experience with altering her bone armor before as well as the angel bolts, and [Radiant World Mirror] providing an immense boost to her capacity to alter mana circuits made the entire process quite smooth once she knew how she wanted to proceed.

In the end the passive was practically the same spell, just that it was always on and in the Atlatl form by default, making her scepter a permanent middle finger to anyone who looked. The base mana cost per second also dropped from 100 to 80 mana per second from Sofia optimizing the circuits, which was like a drop in the ocean now, but still an improvement, and this improvement saved her a whole 0.1 skill slots in the change.

“A small gain for the time it all took me. Alith and Asty should be here in about a week now so I still have more time… Summon blood… Yeah no, this one is going to take at least a month to rework if I even manage to do anything with it. I guess Summon self is next on the chopping block.”

Sofia scratched her horns, reading over her entire skill list several times.

[Runeforged Overlord]:

You have become one with runes of power.

This skill has three tiers of power, you may freely switch between them at any time.

The effects and cost of subsequent tiers are added together when active simultaneously.

In your field aura, all undead and yourself gain the following effects:

___

Tier 1 (Always active) :

Become unwilling to attack this skill’s user.

+50% Speed (Skill level*10)

___

Tier 2 (0.5 (0.25)% max mana per second) :

+50% Stamina substats (Skill level*10)

___

Tier 3 (2 (1)% max mana per second) :

Successful attacks inflict a short lasting [Confusion]

Reduce all incoming damage by 20%

Omnidirectional free flight & Acceleration resistance

+250% Stamina substats (Skill level*50)

“Hrmmm…. Now that I think about it I was giving a fuck-ton of free stats to that weird undead in the dungeon. I need to be more mindful about activating this when I’m up against other undead… That’s not great, though. A toggle to make the effect switch between myself and my aura maybe… Alternatively I can fuse it into my aura with the latest change to my blessing and forget about it.”

After giving it some more thought and reviewing the mana pathways of her different skills in her blueprint, Sofia came up with a rather unexpected idea.

“It’s a big risk. Do I dare to fiddle with [Forced genius body] with how much time it's saving me? The circuit matches for a fusion are there, and the final result should converse almost all of the functions of both. But there’s a large level of uncertainty, and it’ll almost for sure end up double-locked after that, so if I miss, there’s no correcting it…”

For once in her life, Sofia decided to ask for a secondary opinion before committing to a definitive spellkit-altering decision. Thinking this, she mentally scolded herself for this undue self-criticism, as she had actually sought Beligenus’ advice before in creating [DODGE-ME], so it was the second time.

Am I being too harsh on myself?

Sofia transposed herself to the effigy she had left in her room of the demon king’s castle.

Hopefully lady Suhen is around…

“I see you have been slacking,” Suhen commented with a snort, a hand on Sofia’s back, “But at least there is some result. How was it reworking that skill, did it take months as you expected?” she asked with a mocking smile.

“... It took three days…”

“That is what talent and experience looks like. The hardest part should always be the plan, not its execution. Now I could lock you up in a cave for a century or two to teach you proper mana circuitry interaction and that would fix your main remaining issue, but I suppose we are a bit short on time.”

“Ideally I want to ascend in the next five years.”

Suhen laughed. “Perhaps no one has ever gotten a better shot at it than you will, but you must know it is almost impossible. You would have to take painful shortcuts to get there. Very painful.”

“That has never stopped me.”

“Good. That is certainly the mentality you need… Now your fusion idea… The runes are an integral part of your blueprint, so…”