Switching back to her Lumian body with no effort or side-effect, Sofia quickly sorted through her clothes to find something casual to wear, and seeing Pestle eye her enviously, made a small bone replica of the same long robe for her to wear.

“Let’s go. Just give me some time to find how to open the barr-”

Pestle jumped off of Sofia’s shoulder, and stabbed at a precise spot of the mana barrier surrounding the room with her claws. The entire thing crumbled, the leftover mana dispersing harmlessly into the air. “Open!”

“That works.”

Kuli’s house was a relatively simple countryside home built with quality wood, with potted plants, crocheted pillows and curtains everywhere. Looking outside, it seemed that it was in the middle of nowhere, near a calm creek at the base of a mountain, with no other buildings in sight.

North of Drakron, I think?

Kuli and Pareth were sitting at a wooden table under the shade of a large tree, sorting through a pile of paper, while Bookie was further away in the plains, running after a level 20 butterfly monster. Kuli was so busy, reading the papers with furrowed brows, that she failed to even notice Sofia approaching, unlike Pareth who greeted her with a nod.

Good morning. Nice beard.

“What are you reading?” she asked Kuli, pulling her attention away from the papers.

“Nyeh, nothing important,” Kuli answered, turning towards her, “Feeling well?”

“I don’t know if that is how I would describe it, but not bad. It’s definitely going to take a while getting accustomed to having so much mana. How about you?”

“Neh, I’ve never felt better or stronger. It’s like I regained my youth.”

“You certainly look less tired,” Sofia noticed, “thanks for letting me rest in your house while I was out. Also sorry, I ripped one of the pillows,” she apologized, tapping one of her horns.

“You can rip all the pillows if you want,” Kuli answered with a shrug, looking down under the table at the tournament master greaves she was wearing.

“Thanks for the offer but I’m fine. I’m more curious about the ‘nothing important’ you’re dealing with. Backlog of the adventurer guild’s business?”

“Ah! That would have been much less of a headache! I’ll have to deal with that later too, but no, these are… Suitors…”

“Ooooh. That many?” Sofia asked. Judging by the three piles of envelopes on the table, there were at least four or five hundred of them.

Kuli raised an eyebrow, “Poor girl. I think you are ill prepared for what is coming your way,” she said, putting the letter she had been holding on the largest of the three piles, and moving to pick one up from the second largest. Pareth stopped her before that, sliding the letter he had been reading toward her. “This one is decent?”

Pareth nodded, and grabbed another unopened envelope to read.

Kuli thanked him and got to reading the letter Pareth had handed her.

“I never expected Pareth would end up being your matchmaker,” Sofia commented.

“Nothing better than a trustworthy man to curate other men, don’t you think?”

“Dating is clearly not our field of expertise, is all,” Sofia said with a shrug, “Any promising ones so far?”

“A few. Some of them are people I’ve known, too. I never even realised they saw me like that.”

“Nice. I’m happy for you. Did not a single one try to come in person, though?”

“Neh, very few people know where to find me when I’m not at the guild,” Kuli explained, not looking up from the letter she was reading, “And those who do know not to come uninvited. Well, aside from a certain fox. She said she’d come see your city once you wake up.”

“Valeure did? There’s no city to speak of so far though… I barely got done building the foundations. Ah, right, what about Mornn?”

“She had to leave right away for urgent family matters,” Kuli said, “I don’t know more, but it did not sound like something bad, at least.”

“Hmm… Alright. I’ll leave you to it then, can I use the kitchen? I feel quite hungry.”

“Go ahead, the pantry’s pretty empty but feel free to use what’s there.”

Support creative writers by reading their stories on NovelBin, not stolen versions.

“Thanks!”

As she had very little confidence in her culinary skills when it came to anything other than grilled meat with salt, Sofia had prepared a very simple salad with what she found in Kuli’s kitchen and some leftover vegetables from her storage’s cooling box. Pestle had already devoured her portion, while Kuli and Sofia munched on theirs, one reading love letters and the other staring at a list of words.

[NEW - Fused class skill builder!]

[1 Active and 1 Passive builds available for ‘Saintomancer’]

[Skill builder (Active) - Target skill level:300 - Affix limit:3]

‘- Unused Affixes will be discarded -

Available prefixes (Saint):

* Eclipse (SPEC)

* Heavenly

* Relic of

Available suffixes (Necromancer):

* rattling (SPEC)

* sacrifice

* jewels

Available leftover affixes (will not be discarded):

* Restore

To think I influenced the system this much. And not a single error message this time. I have to wonder if this is Nex’s doing or the high-scribes…

Still, how in the world is ‘jewels’ a necromancer keyword?

And Restore is still there… Looks like I’m not using it this time, either. At this rate I’ll still have the damn keyword when I reach level 500!

Well. What do I do with this, now? The earring actually took two point three skill slots, but the demon form upgrade actually freed almost a full slot worth of space. So I have six point three slots left. Two of those are for the lord skills, so really I have four slots left… For two hundred levels worth of skills.

Taking more skills should be fine for the time being anyway, but space will become an issue without doubt in the future, even if I do more fusions.

So… Another active skill.

The limiting factor here are the suffixes. They’re very narrow. Hmm… Let’s proceed as I usually do.

Eclipse starts have ‘Eclipse rattling sacrifice’ and ‘Eclipse Relic of Rattling’ that sound decent. ‘Eclipse jewels’, maybe. Everything else feels like trash.

Heavenly give a lot more decent options.

‘Heavenly Eclipse sacrifice’, ‘Heavenly Relic of… anything really’ , simply ‘Heavenly jewels’ or ‘Heavenly sacrifice’ also work. The only annoying things is how little of a guess I have about what these all could do.

‘Relic of’ and ‘Heavenly’ can be swapped around when put together without changing the meaning much, so there’s that. ‘Relic of Restore sacrifice’ certainly sounds interesting.

This feels harder than usual…

Probably because it doesn’t feel like I am lacking much of anything anymore.

My defenses are incredible, and I can work on the bolt for offense… Another direct attack spell could be fine but the keywords this time around really aren’t suited for that, so… If anything I would need some kind of utility skill to help with my city-building project.

‘Relic of restore sacrifice’ for some kind of invoked healing artefact maybe? Would lessen the need for healers?

Ah… But I have the philosopher’s stone already. I can just make healing water with it.

I don’t want to use rattling I think. I just can’t see what the end result would be. So I think…

Heavenly sacrifice has a good ring to it… But sacrifice… What is sacrificed? Who? For what?

Should I just leave it up to chance and get like ‘Heavenly jewels’?

I kind of like that. Heavenly jewels make me think of divine essence, so it could actually have good synergy with VPPV. Yeah, it’s settled. I want some kind of heavenly jewels. The issue is, there are many decent combinations even with just that.

‘Heavenly Eclipse jewels’?

‘Relic of Heavenly jewels’?

‘Heavenly sacrifice jewels’?

‘Heavenly jewels rattling’?

Hmmm… That last one sounds a bit dirty…

Alright. I think I’ve decided. Really I don’t see how this could go wrong.

[You have selected : Relic of - Heavenly - jewels. Are you sure?]

Fully sure. Get on with it! Sofia thought with excitement.

The completed skill arrived almost instantly.

You have acquired the active skill : ‘Abereth of Greed’

It’s a doubled-locked skill?!

♢ [Abereth of Greed] ♢ :

This curse is now yours to bear.

Summon or recall the Abereth of Greed.

The Abereth cannot be escaped.

Inserting the mana jewel of the recently deceased inside of the Abereth of Greed grants it power.

Powers gained depend on the ‘jewel’s previous owner and the Abareth’s current owner.

Powers gained by the Abereth of Greed can be discarded, but the jewels will be destroyed.

Jewel slots : 5 (4+Skill level).

Current owner:

* Sofia Aphenoreth : Aura of just deserts

Current jewels:

* Name unknown (Pre system, data missing): Aura of stillness

* Name unknown (Pre system, date missing): Aura of silence

* Amon Ledeos (Lvl 322, Necromancer): Aura of undeath

* Empty

* Empty

Aura range is always equal to the owner’s.