I was walking back and forth on my desk. Mumbling hoots and clicks continuously left my beak. My thoughts spiralled around the same thing over and over. How could I make a storage space? But I had not a single new idea for hours on end. It was frustrating. It had to be possible. Magic could do it. Magic could do everything. I just needed to figure out how. And that was exactly my issue. My brain was overworked after the one idea that had not worked out. Another Breakthrough might help but I could not imagine one of my current Skills to get there. That left crafting an item. A ring I could put on one of my legs or an amulet of some sort were possible. But I did not know how to make it store stuff. The amount of essence an item like that would need to be infused with was not something any mundane material could ever hold. And even the magical options I had found in the Thaumonomicon were not strong enough. They could be enough to make storage twice the size of the actual physical space, maybe thrice if I stretched it. But any more and the material would be consumed in a cloud of flux.

How I knew that? I had tried. I had asked Ignas to use his essence oven and infusion altar and he had shown me to his material storage and told me to take whatever I wanted. I wondered why he just let me use it but he just said “I need to move to a place with a node anyways. No need to carry all this stuff around. Once I got this thing figured out, I am going to look for a new place. Until then, feel free to peruse my stock.”

So, I had got to work. There were some materials in raw form but those would be useless. Instead, I went for some ready-made jewellery. A simple gold ring with a green gem attached and a pendant made of silver and gold formed into a spiral. I also realized I could fill the jars with my own vis. It required me to use my new form and will my magical body to flow into them. Once enough energy had left my form I returned to normal. Doing it once with my Eldritch form, this time using vacuos instead of aer, almost completely filled one jar each with alien, void and darkness essence. Then, I took a large beaker, a small wooden chest and an ingot each of steel and a magical metal called thaumium, which was just iron alchemically infused with the aspect of magic. All those went on the pedestals around, the amulet in the middle of the infusion altar. After activating it, first the essence of void and alien, then the four items were pulled into the centre. Instead of getting the item I wanted, a cracking sounded out and only a puff of purple smoke was left of my efforts.

Ignas had panicked for a moment, but nothing much happened. Only after I told him what I was working on did he calm down, though. And he decided to help me out. Or at least he said that. Nothing actually happened yet. He was just sitting there working on his own thing. And I was frustrated, walking the circles my thoughts took through my head. I needed something stronger to hold this much magic. Thaumium worked into a ring or pendant might be enough. Only, I could not work an anvil. My shadows might be able to hold the material and tools but I had no confidence actually making something.

Other material? Sure, let me just come up with a revolution in thaumaturgy people had spent decades or maybe even centuries on researching. Thaumium was the absolute best I could get my claws on. Magical cloth or leather existed but could hold much less essence. To the point where very pure gold outclassed it. There was an entry about silverwood in the Thaumonomicon. A presumed magical tree, near white wood shining in a soft silver lustre and leaves blue as the ocean. It might work, but it was exceedingly rare. The trees I had settled in when I came to this valley for the first time were also magical, but far less so. They were called greatwood. There was enough of it in Ignas’ storage. It was not good enough. It had to be thaumium. Unless there was something even better hidden deep within the pages of the Thaumonomicon.

A slap woke me from my thoughts. I looked over at a disgruntled Ignas, hand flat on his desk.

“Can you stop pacing? It’s distracting.”

I shrunk in on myself and nodded sheepishly. I should do something else. Get my mind off this for a bit. Maybe that would allow me for a new perspective. So I left. For the first time in probably a week, I left the mansion. This time I used the door normally. Just pushing a tiny bit of mana into the correct spot made it swing open on its own. Once outside I waited for it to swing closed and tried from the other side. It opened just the same. Good, one shift less. I still avoided the outer barrier using my Skill. I had enough mana now to spend a bit.

Then I was off, flying again. It was maybe half an hour before sunset. I rose up into the sky glowing red and yellow from the low sun. A few clouds were lit up from beneath creating a golden roof lifted slightly above the valley. I took a deep breath and just enjoyed my freedom for a while. This was life. Magic was fun, but it was so limited. Mostly because I was only starting to learn while flying was my natural state.

As I looked over the valley, the towns and fields, the plains and forests, I spotted a place I had almost forgotten about. The cave where I had killed the ork patrol. My stomach turned. I was truly heartless then. They were just protecting their own. My greed for levels had ended them. In the end, I was a very greedy person. Or owl. I wanted strength and freedom and magic. I did not need to be the strongest being in the world. But I needed enough power to keep my freedom. I should look for a way to grow stronger without mindless murder.

For now, I decided to check in on the cave. It had been about a week. Had someone scouted the location and found the bodies? The answer was yes. It was immediately apparent as I closed in and spotted my traps having been dismantled. I landed in a nearby tree and scanned the surroundings. Nothing. No suspicious sounds. A few tracks were visible near the path but they were half-hidden from weather and animals. Most likely a few days old. I decided to go into the cave. Carefully, hiding in my shadows, I stepped in. Around the first bend, then the second. The cave was there, as was the node. All the bodies had been removed along with the remains of the bear’s den. Crystals were growing everywhere again, though very small on the ground. Someone had properly cleaned up.

The node was still there. I considered absorbing it for a moment but decided against it. This was a large minor node, or maybe a small medium one. Its aspects were earth and fire. While fire was interesting, as it was a primal aspect I did not have yet, I did not want even more earth. I had read up on nodes now and knew how to drain some of it's vis into myself using a wand. This would not break the node and let me gain some of its power. For that, I would first need a wand, which I did not bring with me and second it would need to be full. Otherwise, the vis would just get stored in it instead of going into my soul. It was also extremely slow. And while it could improve my mana enrichment even when that was above the node, it would only go slower. I really lucked out surviving my first few contacts with mana. It made me a lot stronger than I should be right now.

It was fully night when I left the cave again. The perfect time for a little hunt. Just some food, nothing too spectacular. But it felt good. Just as good as spreading my wings. Eating my own prey, the fruits of my labour. This was what I should be doing. I spent the night just enjoying myself. Not even hunting for extra food, but for fun. I avoided killing after I had filled my belly. Hour upon hour I snuck up on mice, rats, moles and a family of foxes, landing in a way I could easily kill them but always halting the final strike. My playing was not appreciated as much by my victims. I did not care. They lived, they could get past it.

Only once the sky started to light up did I have another meal. And then I returned to Ignas’ mansion. I did not feel very inspired and decided to spend the day resting in a thicket nearby. The same place I had used to spy on him. This way, another night passed. I even received a notification. A very welcome one.

~ding~ You have reached level 14. Attribute point allocated.

At long last, another race level. I was doing owl things again and it showed immediately. Checking my status, the point went into Dexterity. A welcome increase.

Species: Great Eagle Owl (fledgeling)

Age: 0

Name: Fio

Gender: female

Status: sapient, healthy, mana enriched (major)

Level: 14

Class: [Assassin lvl 45], -

Strength: 15

Constitution: 12

Dexterity: 22

Perception: 22

Intelligence: 30

Wisdom: 26

AP: 0

Skills:

Racial:

Utility: [Owl Senses lvl 5], [Preening lvl 3], [Owl Stomach lvl 4], [Soundless Flight lvl 4]

Offensive: [Solid Grip lvl 4], [Intimidating Screech lvl 4], [Owl’s Shadow lvl 6], [Aerial Combat lvl 4]

General:

[Maths lvl 4], [Identify lvl 4]

Assassin:

[Sneak lvl 5], [Surprise Attack lvl 4], [Mingling lvl 3], [Eldritch Shift lvl 5]

[Preening] and [Mingling] were my only Skills not ready to Breakthrough. [Mingling] I could understand, I barely used. But even though I used it every morning, [Preening] had not levelled. Maybe I needed to do something special? It was not too important. I could see neither of these two evolve a storage function. For the others, there was a bit of promise. For one, [Owl’s Shadow] might be able to do something like hiding objects in darkness. But getting another Breakthrough soon was unlikely, especially since I did not know when it would happen.

That left two ideas I wanted to look at. [Solid Grip] could maybe help carry stuff around. It did not sound impossible to create some kind of pocket space I could access through my talons. The concept of holding onto something tightly fit the idea of carrying around equipment or loot. The other one was [Owl Stomach]. I had two stomachs after all. One for normal food processing and a second one functioning more like a pocket to carry around anything I could not digest, like bones, fur and feathers. Expanding that might let me create a storage space connected to my physical self. I had a basis already, it might actually work. That would be my approach if whatever help Ignas had promised me turned out to be a fluke. I was not expecting much by now, it had been a whole day and night before I left and he had only worked on his own research. Maybe he just forgot?

Just as I thought about trying to Breakthrough on my Skill right then and there, I spotted someone. A group of people, orks, moved along the dirt road towards Ignas’ mansion. They had an ox-pulled cart with them, a coachman sitting up front. On the sides two orks each walked along, a fifth followed behind. They were equipped like guards. Simple leather armour with metal plates protecting their vitals. Everyone had two axes on their hips. Two orks, one on each side carried a strung bow and a quiver, the other three held spears at the ready. They were leisurely scanning the surroundings. The coachman himself was wearing a simple robe, not dissimilar from a thaumaturge’s. He clearly was not one himself though. My senses spotted very little magical equipment besides his clothing which only seemed to be toughened magical silk. The same one I knew how to make. I could make. Probably. I might need a bit of practice for the actual process. But I read about it. It was nothing special.

I was hoping they were connected to the help Ignas had promised me so I decided to get back to the mansion. It was still very early in the day, noon would be in an hour or two. Maybe I had to wake up the thaumaturge? I hurried over to the barrier. This time I did not even bother with landing. Instead, I sent out a wave of shadows and shifted mid-flight inside the barrier. The orks had seen that, as I heard from their exclamations, but I did not care. I was Ignas’ guest. He could explain my presence. After I woke him up.