Inside-Outside-In

Shae

Merrin only trained with Shae twice more after she had gotten her space sub-skill to Level 1. She gave Shae some advice and goals, and left the physics book in her possession. Begrudgingly, Shae made sure she thoroughly studied it. It had been a lot more interesting this time around with magic involved.

The two of them, plus Zena and Elna, had a nice dinner together before they left.

Shae had wondered why Merrin hadn’t just jumped through the rift and then teleported back to Tamyre so that she would have access to a new world, but the response she got was, “I had little idea of what was on the other side, nor did I care. And what if someone was waiting there to kill anything that came through like I was on my side of the rift?”

Two months since they had graduated. Shae was steadily getting closer to her reunion with Victoria.

During those months, one of the missions they had accepted was to hunt down a trio of people who had stolen tons of money and objects from people. They had been at it for several decades, and countless people wanted them dead. A new law had even been passed to make it harder for their crimes to be repeated.

She handled the mission better than her graduation one, but it still wasn’t easy. She found it ironic that having serious fights against other people was now something she hated. Spars and such were still fine, though.

Her Status now looked like this:

—

Shae Williams

Level: 94

 

Points: 0

Body: 130
Dexterity: 134
Flow: 141

Health: 394 / 394
Stamina: 398 / 398
Mana: 414 / 414

 

Skills:
[Adaptation]

 

[Adaptation] Sub-skills: (Main: [Space]. Change available.)
[Healing]: Level 24

[Mental]: Level 16

[Pain]: Level 21

[Space]: Level 19

 

[Acid]: <1%

[Earth]: 38%

[Fire]: 22%
[Flesh]: 11%

[Ice]: 7%

[Light]: 63%
[Lightning]: 54%

[Plant]: 53%
[Poison]: 1%
[Psychic]: 53%

[Sound]: 5%

[Water]: 39%
[Wind]: 76%

—

She had moved the Main sub-skill indicator higher to tidy her Status up a little more.

The next change had been to clean up the percentages, rounding them down to the nearest whole number. Now that her space magic was leveling, she no longer cared to see the tenths of percents in every single sub-skill.

Finally, she separated her sub-skills by the ones that were leveling and the rest that hadn’t been fully adapted yet.

She was near Level 100, but other than that being sort of a personal milestone, she wasn’t particularly excited about it. Level 250 is when people gained their next Skill. Nothing happened at 100.

Shae, like the rest of her teammates, had been leveling at an increasingly-slow pace. This was normal.

It occurred to her that people who had reached the level of power necessary to become ageless would continue to level indefinitely, but that actually wasn't the case.

People very gradually leveled up as time passed, no matter what they did. If they lived an ordinary life, they would reach Level 250 in their middle ages, at which point, their lifespan would extend somewhat.

From there, the automatic leveling slowed down significantly, and most people living peaceful lives would never even reach Level 300 before dying of old age.

The automatic leveling, though slowed, did still occur, though. At Level 500 is when it stopped. All levels beyond that point were purely a result of people’s hard work. That was also the point at which they became ageless, meaning they had the time.

But just as was happening to Shae right now, the higher a person’s level was, the more difficult it was to raise it beyond that.

Besides her main level, her sub-skill levels were also slowing down. Her space magic was still faster than before she had reunited with Merrin, though. Now that she could create space mana herself, it felt like a gentle breeze compared to before.

She couldn’t use it on her body like she had been doing before to increase it faster, however. That was only the case for resistances, or in her case, her sub-skills’ Passives. Once they were fully adapted, they then had to increase in level like an ordinary Skill.

Most of her other sub-skills that weren’t at Level 1 yet had increased. Her training with her team, besides just being good practice in general, was raising them.

She was even helping to raise their resistances as well, though it was only a little bit at a time. Of her four sub-skills that were currently leveling, [Space] was the only one she could directly use on someone else, which would achieve much better results than the ones that had yet to fully adapt.

[Mental] and [Pain] both only affected herself, and there was no resistance to [Healing], nor would people want it if it did exist.

She had been disappointed by her [Flesh] sub-skill. Currently, it could only do cosmetic changes. That meant she could temporarily do small things such as change her hair or skin color. She still had high hopes for the adapted version of the skill, though, so she worked on it occasionally.

I want that long tongue, damn it!

Since that night in the village when she had gotten absolutely wasted, she hadn’t touched alcohol again. She was considering it again, but only as something casual. She wasn’t interested in becoming a drunken mess like Konial frequently was.

Zena leaves me feeling like that all the time, anyway. Her tongue is too good!

Come to think of it, I’m 21 now, aren’t I? I could legally drink back on Earth. Well, in either world, I don’t really care for it.

And Vicky was almost 17 when I vanished. She’ll be getting close to 18 now…

Shae had unwillingly been keeping track of the amount of time she had been away. She was currently at 10 months and 1 week. The calendar on Tamyre wasn’t exactly the same as Earth’s, so she was calculating the difference in her mind all the time.

Nearly the one-year anniversary of the day I arrived in this world. Technically, I guess it could also count as a birthday. I’ve come a long way since then…

She had been diligently practicing her space magic whenever she could. Her goal was teleportation, but she couldn’t manage it yet.

She had to mentally project her mana and herself in her desired location, and then essentially slip into her own mana and come out the other side. She actually had the process down already—Merrin had made sure of it—but she didn’t have the control to pull it off yet.

She could now move around much larger objects than the pebbles she had practiced with for so long. She could also compress or expand space, shortening or increasing how far two points were away from each other. As of right now, that extension of her Ability had a range of several meters¹9'10".

It feels good, finally being able to cast a spell in the middle of a fight and have it actually do something. [Healing], [Mental] and [Pain] are all great, but having something that doesn’t just affect myself was what I wanted.

I still need to get [Mental] up as high as I can get it, though. Casting more than one spell simultaneously takes a lot of concentration.

Shae was also curious about whether anything would happen or not when one of her sub-skills reached Level 100. Most people’s Skills gained some kind of extra aspect to them when maxed out, but her Skill was one of the weird ones that didn’t have a normal way of increasing her power and ability. Instead, she got a bunch of sub-skills that did that.

With Victoria’s eventual reshaping now happening for free, Shae no longer had to save up for it. With her newfound financial freedom, she was going to finally buy some armor. Her training set was beginning to fall apart and wouldn’t last much longer. It hadn’t been designed for prolonged use, anyway.

She was still going to keep some money in her account at the Center so Victoria could get clothes and stuff. Even if her sister decided to remain on Earth, she would still love to get her hands on some otherworldly clothing.

The armor Shae bought was basically Mercenary Trainee Armor Set 2.0. It was the next step up from being the bare minimum.

The whole set was made of rincos leather. A rinco was a type of large lizard that was common in this region. The color of the leather pieces was dull purple, which Shae thought looked odd. The leather actually started out as green, but after being treated, would turn to the unusual purple color.

Overlaid on key points of the armor were metal plates for additional protection, colored a matte black. Her new gauntlets were made of that same metal and had small spikes on the knuckles. Besides the helmet, the armor also had a piece of armor that looked like a skirt. Shae couldn’t remember the English word for it, though.²"Fauld" is the word Shae was looking for.

First vaguely feminine thing I wear, and it’s for murdering. I actually like it. This armor leaves nothing exposed.

Now that Shae’s space magic training was done and the rest was up to her, Melo spoke to the group.

“I’ve finally saved up enough money to get my cousin out of debt, with extra, because I’m sure those bastards will try to gouge me. I need to go to Gortrand.”

Zena simply replied, “Okay. When do we leave?”

He stared at her.

Shae said, “Obviously, I’ll go with, too, but is it really as bad as rumors say?”

He looked at Tria and Konial, who also both said they would come with. He chuckled. “Thank you. They’re much less likely to put pressure on five people than just one.
|
“The rumors have the right impression, but much of the information is incorrect.
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“In summary, the whole country operates on a system of using people and putting them into circumstances where it’s difficult to get out. Then there’s another layer to the system that forces them to rely on the very system that abuses them.”

“Capitalism?” Shae muttered.

“What’s that?”

“That’s how the country I grew up in operated. There’s probably some differences, but that description matches.”

“Then you understand. Anyway, I’d like to leave tomorrow if possible, so if anyone needs to take care of something, it’ll have to be done before then.”

Tria decided it was time for her to get new armor as well, so that had to be taken care of. Her’s hadn’t come from the Center, but it had still been cheap, and was becoming a patchwork of repairs as they completed more missions. Everyone else already had something decent.

Konial wondered, “How long will it take to get there? I know by carriage, it would take months—especially with the mountain range—and I don’t think you want to pay for rides for that long. Not even your knack for picking up escort missions would be enough.”

Melo smiled enigmatically. “I have something else in mind.”