Sofia entered the cold salt water of the deep ocean, the opening she had made led her right next to the Admiral’s corpse, the exact same spot she had entered the sanctuary from. Everyone else was already here, they reacted strangely to her arrival, but underwater, they couldn’t really communicate.
Alith pointed at her bracelet.
Right… Where’s all my stuff?
Sofia was still wearing the black robe and nothing else, which had her a bit worried for an instant, until she checked inside of her eye and found that somehow everything was in there, even her storage ring and the Abereth. She quickly found the communication bracelet to be able to speak underwater.
Working? She asked.
Can hear ya well! Alith answered right away, Keep the explanations for later, are you good to leave? We need to go.
What is so urgent?
Remember the creature that followed us on our way down? It’s lurking around the ship, we barely even managed to notice it. Waiting for us to come out, I bet.
Oh… To Zangdar then? Where is your ring link? Mine’s in my bedroom.
Let’s use mine, linked to a random street in Hooasow currently, your bedroom’s a better landing spot.
Sure.
Everyone put a hand on Alith’s shoulders, she activated her ring, and the sunken Defier of Fate returned to silence and darkness once more.
Alith stretched out, dripping with cold water. “Puahhhh! Some fresh air! Our Zangdar really has become a different place lately!”
Sofia wholeheartedly agreed, sitting in the short grass, “You can thank Mornn for sending us that sunstone. Rem is doing better for it, too.”
The surroundings of the floating castle which were once nothing but a barren expanse of midenicite and bone slats now boasted an actual garden with multiple different sections. In front of the castle, where they were now, was a simple green lawn with a few flowers, and a lot of Sofia’s bone contraptions lying around like multiple different Skelem summoning structures designs. On the right side of the castle was the forest of Death’s domain inspired Lumian bone trees, completely overgrown by Rem’s latent Dryad influence. The grass was red, and so were the leaves of the wooden tendrils that grew like vines all around the fake trees, and the cute six-petal pointy flowers that grew everywhere around the sleeper. The left side of the castle was now one of Alith’s multiple alchemy gardens, used to grow sensitive plants that could not handle the changing weather of the outside world very well. Lastly the back was Pareth’s own little garden, where he mainly grew mushrooms in the permanent shade of the castle.
Just then, as Sofia was reconnected to the system, she got a few notifications, that she dismissed for now.
“So… How did everyone do?” She asked.
“Shouldn’t you tell us how you did, first, you were kinda the main event, you know? Was kinda shocking to see you just like… Step through a tear in space? You couldn’t leave through the door like everyone else?”
“Oh, you actually saw that?”
“Damn right we did, you looked like Pareth struggling to fit through a door that’s too small, crouching and holding the sides and all.”
“Pfft… That is one way to describe it. Well, I got the full mirror, though I am not fully sure what the details are. It is going to take longer to explain, which is why I was asking about you all first. Oh, and the robe is my glove. The philosopher’s stone is behind, look.”
“Huh. Well it’s cute, I guess.”
“I like it! Sofia is always very beautiful!” Bookie commented running up to her.
“And you’re always so cute!” She answered, picking him up, “So, what about you, what did you get?”
“Ahah… Well…”
“CAW!”
“Crowie?”
Bookie looked up at Sofia, he seemed to look a bit sad. “Crowie and me… We… It… Uh… It was painful so I let go of the shard right away…” Bookie mumbled.
This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.
“Caaaaww…”
“Well well? It’s the first time I have seen Crowie acting so meek.” Sofia pulled Crowie to her with her aura, hugging the two small skeletons. “It’s fine, I don’t mind either way, you did your best. And Bookie still has the Bamboo power, I see. So you still got something out of the trip. I guess we’ll have to get Crowie a little something for his trouble.”
“Caw!”
“Well… We… We still got a skill… But…” Bookie said, looking up at Sofia.
Without saying anything else, he just shared a description window.
[Help]: Imprint a mark of Help. The marked person can find you when you need help.
“Wait! That’s good. That’s really good! You can already always find me so you can mark Pareth, and Crowie could mark me, or anyone else he wants. Why are you acting all sad, it’s actually really nice!”
“Really? You’re not sad we failed?”
“Of course not! As long as you’re both happy, I don’t care about anything else.”
“Waaa Sofia…” Bookie sobbed, hugging her tighter, while Crowie just happily rubbed his beak against her face.
While Sofia gave hugs and headpats, her eyes shifted to the other two skeletons. “And what about the silent duo over her?”
Pareth just raised three fingers.
“Mark of find?” Sofia asked, which he confirmed with a nod.
He failed at freedom of identity?
That’s… A bit sad for him. He’s really trying, too. He just has an unfair disadvantage.
Did he fail specifically because he doesn’t want to reject the parts of his personality that were inherited from me and knowledge?
Actually…
I shouldn’t think that but that makes me a bit happy…
“Well, that’ll be useful I’m sure. Just imagine if you managed to mark scripture. Wait, no better, you could even mark an Alphageid next time they attack.”
Pareth kept nodding slightly, he actually looked pleased with what he got.
Sofia’s eyes darted to Pestle, who was uncharacteristically silent so far.
“Hmmrmrg… Pesle is get scam! Scamenoreth big Klepra!!! Very scam!!!!” she complained, pouting with her arms crossed.
Sofia had to exercise a great deal of self restraint to keep a straight face, then she understood what had likely happened.
“You… Pestle, did you get the full mirror?!”
“Ovibous Pesle is get mirror! We explore is for get mirror! Pesle is get Levatan hurt for get mirror! Still not get Sofia same power! So scam! Hmmpf!”
“Wait, you got the reach skill, then, right? You might still… I think what I just did to get out of the sanctuary you might also be able to do. As long as you leave a mark where you want to go first.”
“Pesle know read! Say reach. Not say is make door…”
“Did you try? My skill description doesn’t say that either.”
Resigned, Pestle left her mark of reach on top of Pareth’s skull, only having to touch it for the mark to stick, and flew to the other side of the castle.
It only took a few seconds for a pair of tiny hands to appear out of nowhere above Pareth’s head, struggling to rip space open, before the entire fairy popped out with a weak flash of red light, a stunned expression on her face.
“Just barely made it through, it looks like? But it worked, see?”
Sofia omitted mentioning that her own skill seemed capable of doing a lot more and with more ease, while Pestle sat on Pareth’s skull, mumbling about scams and debating with herself about changing Aphenoreth’s name back.
“And you?” Sofia asked Alith, who was still just sitting in the grass with a smile on her face.
“Got the grasp. I don’t know how Pestle got past that last one, but I couldn’t. Was just too much. It’s not bad, though. I like it. It was unintended but my first specialisation is actually starting to get me a lot of fire skills now that the soul level is a bit higher. If I can just grab anyone that steps into my flames even from a distance, that’s pretty neat.”
“Yeah, I sure saw your fire spells. Speaking of which, you never actually told me what your blessing’s new passive was at level 300.”
“Oh… Did I really never tell you? Huh, guess we were too busy chatting about random shit. Let me just… Here ya go. The latest of the glorious phoenix lineage… Honestly I’m slightly worried I’ll turn into an actual bird at level 400 at this rate.”
[Immortal egg] ♢ : The shell is weak, the kindling is lit, flames not yet ready to hatch.
Resistances are doubled until the egg hatches.
Hatches at level 400.
“This is… Yeah I would worry as well. Maybe you should ask Sun what this is all about. Or the system, I was thinking of trying to contact Nex soon anyway.”
Thinking this, Sofia quickly checked the notifications she had dismissed without even reading earlier.
[Class Quest: Find the missing skills!
Sub-Class Quest progress: 4/4]
[CLASS QUEST COMPLETE!]
[Class Quest reward: ‘any 1 item from Anna’s vault’ will be issued shortly by DATABASE for your contribution in restoring corrupted data]
[Contribution points in the category -Phageid- have been issued]
[As an apology for the delayed point attribution more points have been added]
[All -Phageid- Contribution points have been auto-redeemed for a ‘Sofia Special Surprise Choice Box’]
I was just expecting a few normal notifications…
What the fuck are the high-scribes drinking?
Visit and read more novel to help us update chapter quickly. Thank you so much!
Use arrow keys (or A / D) to PREV/NEXT chapter