Saintess Summons Skeletons

After listening to Mr.Scribe’s extended explanations, Sofia felt the need to activate her Sixth melody music because she was starting to get a headache.

“Let me try to summarize this… First we need to make a wide Mithril coffin, encase it inside of a big Midenicite block, and bury it in the mana-absorbing sand of the red desert… Just this is going to be quite the process… It’s good that I kept all the mithril when I traded with taxes.”

Since the scribe had let Sofia get control of her mana back, he could not answer, but she was only repeating the steps for herself anyway.

The midenicite is also not hard to get and the red sand desert… I might want to transfer some red sand to somewhere else, I’m not sure about staying in there for prolonged periods of time when there is still that giant sandworm to worry about.

Even the Destroyer would look tiny compared to that thing from back then.

Sofia looked through her mithril reserves in her storage ring, thinking that it was probably enough.

“When I’m buried in the sand and sealed in the coffin, the first step is to continuously flood it with my mana until there’s so much of it that it feels suffocating… Maybe we could just make the coffin a cube I could at least sit in. It would take longer to flood it, but also: comfort. Especially if I need to transform inside of it…”

It’s at times like these that it would be more practical to be Alith-sized.

“Then, once I’m drowning in my own mana, get into my demon form and quickly regenerate back to full. The mana around should still be suffocating even after I’m full, so basically I need to add another five million in there even after it’s already enough… This is to forcefully activate mana resonance despite my demon form aura being laughably weak. So far, It’s still easy.”

The next part is where it gets serious.

“After that, I should follow the ancient human mana circulation method in reverse, which should still work but will be extremely painful. Not looking forward to that… This pain should be good enough to start the process of body and soul strengthening with the warpath scriptures, which Mr.Scribe will be taking care of. At least that’s one thing I won’t have to worry about.”

Sofia was starting to worry that Mr.Scribe might be a bit too ambitious this time, the next step especially felt a bit dodgy, as it was the one inspired from the Eddarinian soul grafting method. Mr.Scribe was adamant about not wanting to get another soul mixed up with theirs, so the process was going to be slightly exotic.

“Get the admin dagger and wildcast the graveyard, exercising fine control over it to have the skeletons bring me halfway to the spiritual plane. Then… Find the outermost part of my soul, cut it off with the dagger while it’s weakened from using the warpath scriptures, and eat it…”

How does that even work? I don’t even have anything like a mouth in the spirit plane.

And I thought it was soul grafting, not soul eating.

But Mr.Scribe seemed quite certain that it was safe as long as I only cut the outer parts… Maybe I’ll still ask for a few other people’s opinions before I try this. Just in case.

“And the last part at least isn’t too bad, I just need to put the ring of Zar in my mouth right before the transformation runs out and activate it, which should be enough to act as a primitive form of mana reforging.”

And then, do it another one to three hundred times… Great.

At least the stat increase should be much better than regular system levels, so it’s not a net negative compared to regular leveling. Still, quite the involved process… It will take a while, too, since I need to empty the ring in between sessions.

“I think this will have to wait until we come back from our trip.”

It was a rainy evening in the Vasperian capital, a few hours past sundown, night was normally busy as ever for the Vampires, born at a much higher level, they needed much less sleep than humans. Still, on a rainy night like this, the streets were almost empty, the warm light of the lightstone lampposts reflecting on the wet street tiles.

Sofia walked happily holding her bone umbrella above her head.

Tall building in front of the red sign… Should be that one!

It does stand a bit higher than most other buildings around here.

Sofia unsummoned her umbrella behind her as she walked in, the lobby was a simple clean corridor leading to a mana-powered lift of the exact same kind there was in Taxes’ bank.

That door on the right looks like a resident home, so I’m guessing it’s the lift…

There were multiple buttons all labeled with the name of random services, but Sofia only needed to pay attention to the uppermost, ‘Seventh floor: The Silent Haven.’ Cinthia had invited her there wanting to relax and discuss a few things before the coming expedition.

This was, from what Cinthia had told her, a bar owned by a mute and deaf Vampire. This peculiar owner had invested in his weaknesses, paying for high grade anti-spying rituals and artifacts to secure the privacy of its guests, and gained a reputation as a comfortable place where people could come to safely discuss private matters.

The lift slowly brought Sofia up the floors, she adjusted her robe, although it was only CInthia she was meeting, she wanted to be well-dressed, for once. The trial hadn’t given her many opportunities to care about her appearance for the last year before she ended up stuck in Zangdar.

The doors of the lift opened with a ding as it reached the last floor. The bar was made of a single spacious room, decorated with lush green plants and clean steel. It was relatively empty, with only a few couches and some kind of table for games near the entrance, and the bar itself with its four seats, next to a wide window giving an unparalleled view over the entire southern side of the capital.

Oh wow. I can even see the tip of Asty’s castle from here.

Cinthia was already sitting at the bar, alone, the Vampire behind the bar shaking some weird metal cylinder.

Sofia tried to Identify him, by reflex, only to find that her magic faded away as soon as it left her body. Right, the whole privacy thing… Well. This guy has so little mana, he can’t be some kind of hidden expert. I almost want to try to see if he can hear Ormoncleth’s bell.

Calming her thoughts, Sofia nodded to the barman who had just noticed her, and nodded back at him when he bowed.

“I rented the place for the entire night,” Cinthia started as Sofia sat on the stool next to her, grabbing the wooden slate with drink names the Vampire was holding out to her.

“Nice, I like the mood of the place. I see I’m not the only one who dressed up,” Sofia commented on Cinthia’s look before turning her attention to the drinks.

Cinthia laughed awkwardly, “It’s more for the viewers than for myself, at this point. Not many of them tonight, though. Only three.”

“Let’s see… Hatred, Death and Taxes?”

“Got two,” Cinthia answered with a smile, grabbing the glass the Vampire bartender just placed in front of her.

“Ah, well. Hatred and Death are pretty much always there, so I’m guessing Sorrow?” Sofia guessed as she showed the drink she wanted to the Vampire.

“Exactly. She must be curious since we’re going to discuss Her. She and the others have been very tight-lipped about our coming trip, though. I would be lying if I said it isn’t worrying,” Cinthia confessed.

“Right… I haven’t explained much either. It’s about time I filled you in on what I know. Thinking about it, you agreed to come a bit fast.”

“Ahah… The viewers were eager for me to go, understandably so. I need to restock on tokens so it’s a perfect opportunity, too. I’m just a bit anxious, especially knowing the kind of stuff you usually get up to…”

Thinking about how she was to explain the topic, Sofia glanced at the Vampire. He was minding his own business making Sofia’s drink in a metal cylinder while looking out the window. Perhaps sensing her gaze, he glanced back at Sofia, his eyes meeting hers. He smile and turned his attention back to the window.

Cute. Sofia’s thoughts derailed for an instant before she focused back on the matter at hand.

“Erm, so… You already have some details, but since we have the entire night, I might as well give you the full story. Well, it won’t even be that long anyway, there isn’t much to it.”

“I’m listening,” Cinthia happily said before sipping on her blue drink, “The other tree also,” she added with a slight wink.

Sofia cleared her throat, “So it all starts with an ancient human empire…”