Chapter 636 - Sofia, you look scary.

Sofia only quickly had time to glance over the messages, as the Scribe started grabbing all of her attention with system notifications.

[CLASS QUEST UPDATE!]

[Class Quest: Find the missing skills!

You picked an experimental sub-class not meant for use, three out of four skills could not be retrieved, but there are traces of their recorded locations.

UPDATE: You found one of three missing skills, two remain!

Warning: This class’s skills cannot be learned.

Hints:

• One of four skills was discovered in a labyrinth.

• One of four skills was discovered in the deepest trenches of the ocean.

• NEW! ‘Paradise Toybox’ was discovered on the warped moon. (FOUND; ESSENCE MISSING)

• ‘Singularity Edict’ was discovered in ruins of the lost epoch beneath an unholy cathedral. (LEARNED)

Sub-Class Quest progress: 2/4]

[WARNING!]

[Spell schematic is being recorded. Please do not look away.]

Of course the essence is missing… It ended up being Yvraveteth’s skill and not Aphenoreth’s. Unlucky. I just need to stare at it while you record it?

Hopefully it’s not too long, Izzaro could wake up any moment...

[Recording complete!]

[You may now learn ‘Paradise Toybox’]

Available Sub-Class Active Skills :

• [Paradise Toybox] : Create artificial realities.

[ERROR]

[Sub-Class skills slots are full. Attribute one of (2) remaining free slots to ‘False Lord’ Sub-Class in order to learn ‘Paradise Toybox’?]

Technically we have three slots since I got rid of Alith’s skill, but anyway, of course yes. Why even ask?

‘You have acquired the active : ‘Paradise Toybox (Incomplete)’

Incomplete? Oh, because I lack the essence? Alright… Now I just need to quickly copy the message in a system note. I’m sure Richard would pay good money to read this.

Annnnnd done.

I think I’ve got everything, now I just need to grab the dead god’s body and get the fuck away from this moon. I don’t think I could possibly save Remia right away, not when an admin failed at it before me…

Making as little sound as possible, Sofia walked away from the throne, and returned to the group.

“I got the spell. Let’s get to a safer room,” she told them, and just like this, they left behind the sleeping tree.

They ended up sitting in one of the palace’s better furnished rooms in the light world, where they were relatively safe and comfortably seated, if one just ignored the creeping mass of deep stalkers walking all over the windows on the outside.

“So, success, right?” Alith asked.

“Yes, but give me a second to check the spell description, I’ll explain everything I discovered, it’s quite a bit.”

“Maybe let us read the description too?”

“Yeah, of course.”

Sofia shared the system window for ‘Paradise Toybox’.

[Paradise Toybox]: Who has never dreamed of a perfect world?

Creates an artificial reality according to your will.

WARNING: Essence of Yvraveteth required for safe use.

Using this skill without the required essence will instead cost mana.

In such cases, the artificial reality will be extremely unstable and will not function as intended. 

Possible malfunctions include: Failed activation, Uninhabitable artificial reality, Permanent Blueprint alteration, Critical memory loss or alteration, Failure to return to reality, Reciprocity of state in the real world, Sudden artificial reality failure, Clones, Spontaneous Explosion, Split mind, Insanity, Uncontrolled timescale alterations, Reality Slipping Sickness, Aura corruption, Sudden Death, and more!

However, two Spell snippets can safely be used with mana only:

• Leave the Toybox: Allows the user to dismiss themselves from an artificial reality.

• Freeze the Toybox: Allows the user to temporarily stop an artificial reality’s timescale except for themselves.

Mana costs will vary depending on the artificial reality’s settings.

“Possible malfunctions… That’s… Quite the list,” Sofia commented first as she was the fastest reader.

“Yeah woah, that explains a lot about what we just went through, huh,” Alith said next, “And that must be how the system created the trials. And Joah’s class.”

“Also my guess, yes. The malfunctions do line up somewhat too, with time in trials being slower than reality, and with the reciprocity of state just meaning that you actually die in reality when you die in the trials. Blueprint alteration also happened when I did Sorrow’s ritual I think.”

“But the trials are not ‘extremely unstable’ are they?” Alith noted.

“I don’t think so, the admins must have altered the spell a lot, Anna was the God of Mana after all so if anyone could have pulled off successfully modifying a spell from the Deep it was probably her,” Sofia guessed.

“Agreed, well, you’d better not try regular activations until you kill Scripture. Wouldn’t want to see you turn into a giant tree.”

Bookie seemed shocked by Alith saying that, and he grabbed Sofia’s arm, “You can’t use it, Sofia! I don’t want Sofia to be a tree!”

“Don’t worry Bookie, I don’t think I want to try, considering all the possible ways it could turn out, better safe than sorry. But I think the way Izzaro and the people here turned out had a lot more to do with them drinking Ormoncleth’s blood than with the spell itself…”

“You mean the queen?” Alith asked.

“Yeah, about that… Remember how we had that discussion about whether she was the real deal or just a marked one like me? Look at the message that was inscribed on the throne…”

“Oh that pretty much settles it,” Alith said after reading the message. “It’s surprising that the lords would choose to just become humans. A bit as if we decided to try becoming ants, I guess? What’s ‘it’, though?”

“Well, Orator told me back when we got stranded in the Deep, that they were tired of, huh… Scattering their will, is how I think he said it? And I can imagine that, especially for Ormoncleth, if they see everything at all times as I think they do, I don’t know about you, but that sounds tiring. But the ‘it’, no idea. Maybe the cataclysm that erased the lost epoch. Probably that, actually, since Remia seemed to think it was going to happen again.”

“Well shit. Hopefully not. Whatever happened back then killed even the gods… But well, at least we know why there are relics from the lost epoch featuring the lords now. By the way, didn’t that tethered count say the queen was the tenth lord or something like that?”

“He did, but I don’t think the ‘human lords’ from back then were all actual lords of the deep. Six of them were likely just regular humans copying the title. I learned a bit about that from one of the palace guards in the fake world actually. He seemed to think that if his skill with the blade was a bit better, he could have become a lord himself. That says a lot… Hmm, now that I think about it… That was probably the guy who cut your arm.”

“... He was good with the blade alright… I’d describe his face if it hadn’t been all blurry…”

The discussion continued for a short while, with Sofia explaining the rest of what she knew about the situation, and some debate about how to best use the ‘skill snippets’ from Sofia’s new skill. Needless to say, Sofia was now really hoping the next trial was in a fake world. Just how much would she be able to break the trial given the ability to freeze time?

The skill also gave Sofia some hope that she would be able to use it to free Remia once she killed Scripture and got Orator’s essence. After all, if the incomplete spell could already alter the fake realities created by the system, perhaps the full spell was capable of more, despite the awfully short description Mr.Scribe gave it.

This done, the group did not linger in the palace much longer. They were not about to make the same mistake as before and travel through the deepling infested surface, instead Sofia summoned the digger Kidjikkiks.

Making slow progress to avoid any possibility of ending up in an infested underground part of the city or to surface at the wrong place, the Kidjikkiks dug under the Palace and the streets until they were under Oviron’s spire, or what remained of it.

“Sofia…” Bookie complained, grabbing her leg as the Kidjikkiks were starting to dig upwards, “Look…” he said, pointing at the stone wall of the tunnel. It was subtle, but thanks to Bookie pointing it out, everyone noticed the pattern hidden in the stone’s grain: eyes.

“That’s a bit creepy,” Alith commented.

“It’s just a sign we’re getting there. It’s the body of a dead god we’re after, tainted remains, according to gluttony’s description.”

“Did Speed’s corpse do that too?” Alith asked.

“No idea. Speed’s domain was already full of eye patterns everywhere so I doubt I could have told if the corpse created more.”

The Kidjikkiks dug up carefully until they reached a hard layer, the building’s foundations, after which Sofia dismissed them and started digging herself, carving away at the foundations with the admin dagger.

Midway through she had to stop. Her senses were tingling.

“Is something wrong?” Alith asked from below.

Sofia looked down.

“No. Something is right,” she answered. “Very right!”

The others looked up at her in incomprehension.

“I feel bones,” she revealed with a scarily wide smile.