The two traversed the massive superhighway that was the guts of the ship. Spending a few hours walking on pipes, going down side passageways to see if Nyoka could navigate from there, and trying to remain unnoticed. The last bit was easily achieved as far as Catherine could tell. There was no surveillance, or anyone watching over the mechanical transports.

Catherine felt like she should find it odd, but really didn’t with the current track record of how the organization operated. As far as she could tell this place was fully automatic, machines transport all the goods where they need to go without any input from a person and by the sheer size of this place it would be hard for any normal person to traverse it on foot unless they knew where they were going.

None of the gates were labeled, the labels themselves having faded with time, and most gates lead to dead ends, places on the ship Nyoka had no idea even existed, portals they couldn’t use, or loading docks with heavy security. Combined with all of this, unless you were prepared, you’d eventually wonder around aimlessly till you died of starvation or gave up and left.

This was not a problem for Catherine, while she did need to eat she still had a small ship worth’s of fluid stored inside her that would last weeks. She also didn’t need to rest so she could travel this place aimlessly until she got results. The problem was Nyoka. Catherine had started to notice the girl was slowing down, and every time she glanced back at her she’d be gripping her stomach before noticing Catherine was watching her and would pick up the pace and act like nothing was wrong.

She assumed she wasn’t saying anything, out of fear she’d be killed for the inconvenience. Which, to be fair under normal circumstances that would be the case. If Catherine could brute force her way to her dungeon and a vessel off this ship, she would, and it pissed her off every time she thought about why she couldn’t. She was confidant now that she got the leash destroyed, she could avoid or deal with someone like Rose, but what if an angel showed up again? Or even someone like Lucy. Delvin mentioned a spirit shouldn’t have that much control over my own body but…

Shaking the thought out of her head she remembered all of the other things Delvin had given her, and with the current state of Nyoka now might be a good time to use some of it. Coming up on a gate, this one seeming to be barely used compared to the others, Catherine leaped up inside and took a seat up against the wall. A short while later Nyoka slowly crawled up, stopping halfway when she noticed Catherine was sitting.

“Uh, what are you…”

“We are taking a break, I have some stuff to read. So get some sleep.” Catherine said, pushing two books out of her chest that came from her inventory. ‘Introduction to magic’ and ‘Introduction to skills’ were the two books, the few among many books she obtained from the imp.

Nyoka pulled herself up and crocked her head to the side “Where did you get the books?”

“None of your business, now sleep. You slowing down is getting annoying”

Nyoka nodded silently, going to the wall opposite of Catherine and laying down, doubting she could fall asleep on the harsh floor but any rest she could get was welcome.

Catherine nodded to herself upon confirming the thief was laying down and opened the first book, the one she was most interested in, ‘Introduction to Magic.’ The book’s contents went over the basics of magic, how everything was made up of mana, how it was in the air, the ground, and the elements it governs. It went over how few intelligent creatures could bend magic to their will, to gather it and mold it to their will to perform different feats called magic or spells.

The elements were fire, water, earth, air, light, and dark. What you could use depends on what affinities you have and your species. Species like angels, for example, could theoretically use all of the elements minus dark. While with other races it was rare for them to have more then two, and some species like most beastmen only able to use one element. Some unfortunate species are unable to use any magic, particularly most insectoid species, and mostly rely on skills.

Another interesting note that there has been some outliers or special cases, particularly when crossbreeding is involved or a random mutation, that allows species not usually adept with magic to gain magical abilities. The sole exception to this would be males from the human species, the book saying that no matter what, if the specimen is majority male human, they cannot use magic. The book going so far to have a note at the bottom suggesting that if a male human was reading this it is best they stop here and move to a skill book.

Catherine perked up at this, the book didn’t say why this was, nor did she have any clue herself. If she shapeshifted into a male human, she could still use her magic just fine, and she ate enough males in her short lifespan to know they did carry mana. She shrugged, deciding not to care. At the end of the day it did not affect her at all, if anything she found it funny the organization even bothered with them. Having entire ships filled with them and staffed. The phrase ‘cannon fodder’ popped into her mind but the captain of that ship was human…anyways.

Continuing reading the book described casting magic, which was apparently really simple as long as you had the internal mana supply to cast it. If you wanted to cast a spell you bring that spells image into your mind, supply it with mana, and bingo. If your spell was clear enough and supplied with the significant amount of mana it would go off. You could also get focuses that would precast what ever they had programmed in them, and the process to cast bigger spells was a tad bit different, the book suggesting to go to a school to learn them or purchasing another, more advanced book. But besides that, as long as your had the supply and significant mana the sky’s the limit.

Catherine frowned, setting the book down and raising her open palm. After a second a small ball of flame appeared in her hand, the same spell she had used countless times to clean up the black goop back in the dungeon. Right now she could only use fire, but as the book suggested she shouldn’t be limited to just this ‘fireball’ spell. She dismissed the fireball, the small flame dissipating in the air as she focused again.

She wanted something she could use to stop ice from having such a huge effect on her, she thought of what Delvin suggested. A skill that allows you to control the internal body temperature, if she had fire magic, did she really need a skill for that? She focused, trying to picture herself getting hotter but there was no noticeable change she could feel. She then raised a hand, trying to summon a flame in her open palm. Picturing it she felt what she assumed to be mana leaving her body, and a flame fitting her palm lit up, flickering in the slight wind.

The flame was different then the fireball, she didn’t feel like she could chuck it and it would explode. Instead, this flame just generated heat like a fire would. Catherine could feel her palm heating up as she held it and nodded to herself. She dismissed the flame, then tried to do the same process inside her. She opened up a bubble in her gut and tried to summon the flame there, and after a brief moment she felt the flame appear inside her.

She confirmed it was in side her by making her body transparent, happy to see the flame sitting where a normal stomach would be she fixed her body’s color and sat down. Feeling her body heat up as she sat there, she nodded. It worked, she figured she could melt her body if it was ever frozen but she could already feel the downsides of leaving herself like this.

Her innards started to bubble, the top of her head losing form as the bubbles of steam escaped. She also felt herself losing mass as the flame burned away at her. She frowned, stopping the flame inside her but was still steaming. She added cooler liquid from within her storage to her body, cooling herself down as she decided to move on to the next book, wondering if the skill version Delvin suggested had that kind of downside.