Syl

Chapter 141: Time Crunch

I felt like I had almost enchanted half the city and wondered what favors or deals were pulled to allow me such exclusivity. However, I did note that I didn't step a single foot into the actual inner city, so either they had arranged permanent enchantments, or my work wasn't fancy enough for their tastes.

After just over two weeks, I made considerable gains, and despite spending almost every waking hour enchanting what felt like everything, I only reached level four. This was with two guaranteed experience boosts and potentially a third if [Elven Legacy] was getting involved. Did Enchanting qualify? It was Mana and arguably Magic-related.

I was extremely worried I wouldn't hit my self-imposed deadline. I'd also need to focus more on enchanting in the evenings instead of magic. Which made buying [Rune Tracing] and [Rune Design] a no-brainer.

Now, while neither of these would directly increase my [Rune Carving] experience, I had hoped that if I made a discovery and carved it, I'd get some sort of new bonus. Something akin to my presumed spell discovery bonus. It was a long shot, but I was starting to feel desperate. I didn't want to let Greg down.

However, I also planned to try doing some more [Rune Carving] in the evenings; for that, I would need a test subject.

A small part of me cringed at spending another precious trait point, but this was the only way I could achieve this without sacrificing a lot of slime mass. My other cores were too high level at this point and would cost me a fortune of slime to constantly remake them, which is why I rejected the [Sub-Core] experience network for the first time ever. I'd add Kappa officially to the team once this enchanting journey was over for some well-earned power leveling.

I wanted to try [Rune Carving] my own slime cores. Originally, I wanted to hold off until I got [Rune Engraving], but in hindsight, perhaps that was foolish. I hadn't even confirmed if I could Enchant a "living" core, so waiting until I had the best resources and skills before trying could have ended with immense disappointment. If it worked, I could practice on Kappa, destroy the core, and reform it. Thanks to [Core Collective] reducing the time by 80%, what would have taken 8 hours would be just under 2, and by using low-level [Sub-Core] and reducing the cost by 40%, I would hopefully not hurt my slime bank too much.

Plucking the core from my body, I first gave an incrementally tighter squeeze until a small crack appeared. Mentally recording the force required to start damaging it, I allowed it to heal before beginning the next part. I slowly and cautiously brought the tool to its surface. A small part of me shuddered from remembering how close a knife was to my core when I was at my weakest, but thanks to [Core Collective], even freshly spawned, Kappa was far more durable than I was back then. I hadn't learned spherical enchantments yet, so I'd start with a simple circle overlayed to take up a hemisphere, and the obvious choice was a simple strengthening rune. It was a nerve-wracking experience, but when I carved the final stroke, the entire inscription briefly shimmered and settled on the core.

"Success?" I asked myself.

From everything I could tell, it worked, so I applied the previous amount of force to the core. No cracks appeared, but with my excitement bubbling, I kept applying force until one did.

"This potentially changes everything... The question is, will it healing destroy the enchantment? Also, will the enchantment remain, or will it be freshly smooth if I restore it from destruction? Honestly, I hope it's the latter; otherwise, I'll be stuck with a lower-rank rune forever..."

I waited for the crack to restore, but the enchantment stayed. It was strange, as arguably, the core had a chunk carved out and missing, but somehow, it could differentiate between a wound and a benefit. That left one more thing to confirm, and with a heavy heart, I crushed the core and dissolved its shards. I was immediately surprised that eating the remains of the core gave me nothing, but perhaps that would have been seen as an exploit? If it gave me no slime mass, maybe I could keep the shards in case it had another use or value?

"There was one slime type whose shards were used in potions or something... I think it was the pink one?" I tried recalling to myself.

With nothing to do but wait the requisite amount of time, I started practicing [Rune Tracing] and immediately found an unexpected hiccup; I could not make any runes above first rank with it.

"Well, shit. I guess that means no tracing rank sevens for a long time..." I muttered as I returned to the basic runes.

Greg had praised my memory as "eidetic," but honestly, I could cheat by asking one of my [Sub-Cores] to show it to me. They seemed to have no issue recalling anything I had shown them or asked them to do, frighteningly so. Greg had been most grateful that we could skip a lot of time that would've been set aside for simple memorization exercises.

I'd never watched a [Sub-Core] be formed outside of a new trait, where it would instantly compress down into the perfect orb with aid from the system, and I previously had to always be asleep for them to regrow normally. It was like watching a constant whirlpool of ever-increasing slime slowly build into a tiny piece of solid crystal. Once that initial crystal center was formed, it would uniformly swell in size until, eventually, Kappa was reborn.

"Perfectly smooth! No enchantment!" I cheered happily.

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This was the best outcome, in my opinion, and I eagerly began the next set of carvings. It was time to cram in some extra effort!

***

The morning after I finished up at the Adventurer's Guild, what awaited me was a disheveled Greg slumped over the desk, nursing his head and a mug of dark brown liquid.

"Good morning, Master Greg?" I asked curiously.

He winced and glanced at me entering. "Sorry, Sylvester... I had... Quite a night."

"Should we postpone today?"

"No... I'll recover eventually. I don't know what demonic plane that dwarven bastard got something like that from. I swear it should be outlawed; it's practically poison!"

After putting the pieces together, I smiled softly. "Someone once told me never try to outdrink a dwarf..."

"Sounds like someone far wiser than me..." Greg said with a self-deprecating chuckle.

While we waited for him to recover from his dwarven-tiered hangover, I consulted him over [Rune Tracing], hoping it would be enough to qualify for the [Apprentice] experience bonus. That was one unfortunate aspect of my solo endeavors.

By the time I reached my level, Greg had thankfully recovered enough to actually begin teaching me for real. Spherical inscriptions! He reached for one of the glass balls and began doing a rather simple light inscription.

The trick with spherical inscriptions was to balance them out. While a rank one inscription was simple and could be slapped into the center of a circle, a sphere had to be broken up "three-dimensionally." So, even a simple rune was quite a drastic difference when transitioning from circles to spheres. However, this was not without merit, as the possibilities were much greater, and you could combine either breaking up an individual rune into more parts or adding another rune to the circle and using it to balance it out.

When not following predetermined inscriptions or combinations, it was a lot of trial and error, and even if I graduated from Greg's teachings, I would likely hold off on spherical enchantments on my own core until I was more familiar with the concept. I would be perfectly happy with two circle hemisphere enchantments per core and working on greater heights later. In the future, I foresaw plenty of [Rune Tracing] to spare Kappa the explosive results of a bad spherical enchantment.

***

Somehow, another week had passed. While I had succeeded in following the blueprints and instructions for spherical inscriptions, I was starting to feel the pressure of time and that I was still far away from [Rune Carving LV 5]. I'd even stopped my magic practice, instead trying to squeeze any bit of experience possible towards enchanting.

That's not to say my non-crafting skills and traits didn't improve after all this time.

I'd been aligned to Ice for so long that it passively leveled up. I wondered if I was getting any bonus experience for aligning multiple cores.

[Mana Manipulation] was a given at this point. I'd almost expected it sooner, and while some part of me was looking forward to finally working on [Arcane Magic], I wasn't feeling up to it at present. I was surprised that enchanting was counted for [Magic Efficiency], but I wouldn't complain.

My [Sub-Cores] were clearly still working on my traits, as ordered, in the background. [EM Field] being renamed when it leveled up had confused me until I realized Gramps had said he would fix it. Speaking of my cores...

The gang had finally reached five. That horrible level that haunted me so. Kappa was still at level one, as I had given it strictly no orders and sometimes wouldn't even regenerate it until I was heading home. Part of me was terrified it would reach level two through recovery alone. I needed to save all the slime I could and get as much extra enchanting as possible...

Perhaps my anxiety was bleeding through as one day, Greg approached me with a rather concerned look on his face.

"Is everything alright, Sylvester?" He asked.

"What do you mean, Master Greg?" I asked curiously. "Is there something wrong with my work?"

"No. Your work remains astounding. But... You feel like someone about to go to war." Greg said, shaking his head.

"I'm not sure I understand?"

"Your pace is remarkable. Not once have you asked for a break. Not once have you complained about a workload; in fact, you've asked for more." Greg began answering, then sighed. "It reminds me of... People who were trying to get their affairs in order. Or... Someone being threatened."

He turned to me with an extremely serious expression on his face. "Is Johnathan or anyone from the Green estate threatening you?"

I blinked in confusion, his tone and expression demanding utter honesty. "No. I'm not being threatened. What makes you think I was?"

Greg let out a long sigh as if relieved. "I was worried he was pressuring you. It seems he's expecting his client to return in less than a month, and he asked me if there were other ways to speed up your progress. I was worried he perhaps thought my reports were inaccurate and trying to push you..."

I chuckled at the hilarity of the situation. "No. I guess that's my fault, in a way... I've got a commitment coming up, and I can't refuse it. I was trying to reach our goal before I had to leave."

Greg seemed pleased with my honesty but also confused. "We can continue your training when you return. That's certainly no reason to work yourself to death."

"I... I'm unsure how long it will take, a few months at minimum, perhaps even a year?"

"Well... I certainly wouldn't mind waiting. Johnathan, on the other hand... Might be a bit upset." Greg chuckled as he tugged at his beard. "But it's not like you're tied to his estate. I'd take a bit of heat, but nothing I couldn't handle."

"I don't want to put you through that." I immediately rejected the idea. "Is there no way we can speed things up?"

Greg let out a genuine laugh at the absurdity of my statement coming off the previous tension. "Without being wasteful with money... It would be hard. Getting you to do more complex inscriptions would be ideal."

I snapped my fingers. "What about if I buy some patents?"

Greg was tugging his beard more, his usual indicator of being deep in thought and running through the idea. "Yes... If you buy the patent for the storage inscription, we could enchant some crates and chests. Even if they will fade in half a year, plenty of merchants would jump at the chance for extra capacity!"

I pulled out my guild tag and smiled. "So, where do I pay?"

Greg chuckled and opened the door, gesturing for me to go first. "Let's go get you licensed. Then we can start the lesson immediately and have James bring some chests or crates from the warehouse."

"Sounds great. The storage bags adventurers carry around have always fascinated me."

"As it should. An adventurer created that one, according to the history books. Dimensional magic is an absolute rarity, so the ingenuity of transcribing it into an inscription that works regardless of affinity was a truly world-shattering accomplishment." Greg paused and chuckled. "I'll also request a catalog of available patents for you to borrow; you can look through it for anything that tickles your fancy."

"I'd love that. Thank you."

"No problem at all. We even have one with the adventurer patents; after all, every boy dreams of crafting and holding a magic sword!" Greg said with a happy chuckle.