Upon awakening, Kaltyr spared no attention for anything else before attempting to cast the bubble spell… At least, she wouldn’t have spared anything but the bubble spell her attention were it not for the fact that her hunger seemed to have a negative impact on her control over mana. It seemed that avoiding eating very often, despite physically exerting herself through mortal combat against wild beasts, came back to bite her in the ass. The lass had been put off from eating due to the lack of flavors she could incorporate into her meals. She knew nothing of spices, garnishes, seasonings, condiments, or any other flavorings to make her mealtimes more pleasant. She had a few sources of neutral-tasting foods like seeds and plant roots, but they were only good for their nutritional value, not providing many calories at all. For calories, all she had were bland meats. Fish and boar flesh. Without the skills to make those meats tasty, she preferred just not eating at all.

Which brought Kaltyr to the verge of suffering mana backlash from beginning to cast the bubble spell on an empty stomach. Not wanting to accidentally kill herself, she scoured the area around her clearing, picking and smelling any and all plants on her search for anything remotely close to spices without consideration for toxins. She didn’t care enough to worry about being poisoned, wanting to fill her stomach with something resembling tasty food and get to practicing spellcasting as quickly as possible. When the girl finally stumbled upon some herbs that at least smelled nice, she hurried back to her clearing, where she prepared a slice of boar flesh on a stick. She set up a spit of sorts above the firepit, lit the thing with a match because damn was she hungry, and lastly spread the nice-smelling herb’s remains atop the meat. That was all she knew how to do. After waiting an unbearably long time for the boar meat to cook, Kaltyr finally took a bite out of her meal and munched on some seeds, following those down with a swig of water from her flask.

She finally received the Cooking skill for that, which she’d been wondering about since the first time she roasted a fish on a stick.

Having finally filled her stomach and cleansed herself of the Very Hungry Effect, Kaltyr seated herself in the lotus position and began channeling her mana. She moved the appropriate amount of magical power from her soul to the base of her neck, where the process started. She imagined gills residing within her neck and passed the mana through them, “filtering the energy”, leading to the three streams of mana to comprise of bubbles, then enter her mouth through the throat and exit through the lips, where they collided. Centimeters from her face, blocking her vision a little, a bubble formed, slowly growing and darkening until its clear surface became a light blue and the spell was complete.

Kaltyr had finally cast a somewhat complicated spell, and her elation surged through the figurative roof. Then…she began panicking, because the bubble spell just floated there, in front of her face, very slowly dimming in color. The fish ghost had shot its spell at her as soon as it completed the casting process, but her bubble stuck to her face! Frightened, the girl nearly swung at the bubble with her hand, but stopped herself at the last second. She didn’t know if touching the spell would cause it to explode, or something, and didn’t risk it. Instead, she spent a few moments observing the bubble until she noticed that it connected to her face through a strand of mana extending from her lips. All she had to do from there was cut the flow of mana to the spell and step back, watching as it descended to the ground at a snail’s pace and popped against the grass. An almost liquid-like substance spilled from the spell explosion, but seemingly had no effect on the grass besides scattering the nearby magical essence.

Kaltyr winced at the sight of the popping, recalling how it felt to be on the receiving end of it. However, far more importantly, IT WORKED! She danced a jig for a minute before coming to her senses, remembering that, at least with how she cast the spell, it couldn’t be used offensively very effectively. What was she going to do? Hide in a tree far above her opponent so they couldn’t sense her magical signature, drop the bubble onto them, and wait half a day for it to hit? Of course not. Thus, the girl jumped straight into even more experimentation…and figured out the problem on her first attempt. As she’d done it—solely casting the spell with no actions after the fact—nothing was propelling the bubble. It didn’t have any kind of in-built propulsion system, so she needed to push it forward with her mana. She could do so from her face, or she could connect a mana thread from her hand to the bubble so that it stuck, then move around freely until the spell either dissipated into nothing but harmless ambient energy or use a small blast of mana from her palm to push it forward as a projectile. After properly casting the spell onto a poor tree a few meters away and celebrating, the lass checked her notifications to find the name of the spell: Bubble Pain Splash. She wondered how the spell’s actual name could possibly sound more lame than what she’d been calling it in her head.

After confirming her ability to cast the Bubble Pain Splash spell skill, Kaltyr turned her attention toward the sole enchanted weapon she had in her possession. From the Question and Answer segment with Sir Quiggly-Do the Fifth, the girl gathered that her spear’s new abilities may or may not involve water-related anything. Really, she’d learned nothing about what changed in the spear when she enchanted it. Except for the fact that she could identify its enchantments when her Enchanting skill leveled up once more, she was completely clueless…which is why she began stabbing things with it. With all her basic necessities for survival taken care of, all she really had to concern herself with was getting stronger. Fighting stance. Weapon technique. Footing. Becoming accustomed to the reach her spear provided. Increasing her Life Level. All the while waiting for her spear to do something special to reveal its new abilities.

So she ventured west farther than she’d ever dared to go before, equipped with her primary weapon, the deerskin bag, some rations in the form of edible plants, and everything she carried with her at almost all times, including her water flask, pocketknife, and guidebook. She marched for nearly an hour in that single direction with assistance from her mana—periodically stopping to draw a map in the guidebook— and purposefully exposing herself by not entering Stealth Mode. Like that, the beasts took their chances and attacked, attempting to make her their next source of XP and food. At first, she was slow in reacting to sneak attacks, failing to properly dodge the first few. As expected, summoning her mana to execute Body Mana Reinforcement in time to tank every new ambush was difficult, but necessary. Kaltyr knew that she needed to actively train her reaction time and control over her mana because she wouldn’t always have a safe zone to retreat into. If when the invisible barrier fell she was caught by surprise, even a weaker beast could potentially end her if they got her in the right place. If her aorta, or any of her many large blood vessels, were punctured, she’d likely bleed to death. If she lost an arm or leg, she’d be unable to defend herself. If her eye were stabbed out… There were too many ways to take out a stronger creature while its guard was lowered and Kaltyr didn’t want to be that stronger creature killed because it was too inexperienced to react in time. Not only would that be embarrassing and unpleasant, but she had answers to search for, and she couldn’t find them if she was dead.

Several cuts and bruises later, Kaltyr’s deerskin bag was already full with the bodies of beasts who’d bitten more than they could chew and she decided to head back. One scratch ran from her forehead directly between her eyes and almost touched her upper lip—that was the closest call, so graciously gifted to her by a level 1 bug she couldn’t recognize because she so quickly flatted it with a punch. The encounter left the girl thinking about bugs and how they fit into Manic’s ecosystems. As far as she knew, bugs far outnumbered all other macroscopic life, so shouldn’t they be running the world? Why did she see so many mammals, reptiles, fish, amphibians, and birds? Wouldn’t the vast numbers of bugs wipe everything else out? Kaltyr thought about the subject until she realized that it was the same case for plants—there were so many plants everywhere, and she’d seen a few absorbing quite a bit of magical essence… The only satisfactory reason she could come up with as an explanation was what the guidebook told her regarding what could and what couldn’t refine mana. “complex living things” was how it described what lifeforms had the capability of absorbing magical essence to refine into mana. Thus, were plants and bugs not complex enough to regularly refine mana? Some definitely could, as evidenced by her own experiences, but why?

Such questions plagued Kaltyr’s mind even as she hacked and slashed other lifeforms, slowly making herself stronger, until she arrived back at her territory by following the marks she’d left in the trees she passed by. Suddenly, upon nearing the safe zone, the girl sensed a disturbance and mentally cheered. Some more fish, three of them, had phantabalized…and were fighting each other? Kaltyr stood at the edge of the clearing, puzzled, arms crossed, watching as the three nigh transparent glass-like ghosts shot magical essence beams at each other while performing, err, evasive maneuvers? It was difficult to tell. The phantasms appeared more like grandmas playing bu…bumper…bumper cars, to the girl, than dangerous undead. Just as the two she fought the day before were slow in positioning themselves and floating around in general, the three fish circling each other above her firepit were equally pathetic. They didn’t seem capable of predicting their target’s momentum and missed a lot of shots.

Eventually, a phantasm died, as it was being targeted by the other two and had sustained enough hits over time to drain its health. When the fish ghost dropped a jelly sphere, all Hell…relatively, broke loose. The remaining two phantasms suddenly increased in speed, though not by much, and began casting their spells more quickly, even though by only a little. They spun around each other faster, shooting beams more frequently, both aiming to obtain the phantasmal goo that fell to the grass. “Maybe they get stronger by eating the remains of other phantasms?” Kaltyr thought as she quickly lobbed her spear at one of them and charged the other, unwilling to lose out on the opportunity for more XP.

Her spear completely missed the phantasm to her left and her fist made contact with the one she ran toward, blasting it to smithereens, decorating the clearing by sending a shower of glassy sparkles everywhere—though the sparkles soon dissipated. Kaltyr was surprised by how much more power she wielded than the fish ghosts, but soon after understood the underlying reason for it. Besides, presumably, being higher-leveled than them, the phantasms didn’t seem to be capable of utilizing Body Mana Re…Body Magical Essence Reinforcement, or anything similar. They simply gathered the ambient essence around them to endlessly cast spells, seemingly without any Internal Magical Essence Manipulation outside of what was necessary to perform their spells.

With a few more quicks steps and a second superpowered punch, another phantasm perished, and Kaltyr relished in the joy of knowing she could raise her Enchanting level. Even after killing several more beasts that day, her spear had yet to give any clues as to what changed about it, irritating the girl quite a bit. Was it sharper? Lighter? Did it contain its own magical abilities? No answers presented themselves even after she’d infused the spear with mana, leaving her impatient to enchant more equipment to increase the skill level and identify her primary weapon. Even though her rational side told her it couldn’t be so, she wanted to believe that amazing results awaited her.

So Kaltyr wasted no time, gathering the three phantasmal goo and choosing what to enchant. At first she assumed that the smartest choice was to enchant her pocketknife, since it was such a useful tool, but then remembered how The System Wishes You Good Fucking Luck stated that the starter kit she was gifted wouldn’t last forever, like the invisible barrier. And since she had no way to figure out how much longer she’d have the knife, it was the best decision to not use up one of her phantasmal goo on it…because their might possibly be a way to invest them more wisely.

The idea spawned from the moment Kaltyr wondered if she could enchant her spear again. Sir Quiggly-Do the Fifth never said anything about there being a limit to how much one thing could be enchanted, thus…what if she sunk all of her enchanting jellies into her primary weapon? What kind of changes would it undergo? How powerful would she be?

But of course, the girl recognized that there must be a limit to enchanting, and that she should instead focus on what Sir Quiggly-Do the Fifth said about the quality of the goo. If she could use only so many goo on a single piece of equipment, didn’t it make sense to only use the best? But then…how did she get the higher-quality stuff? The light puppet, at the time, only told her that she could tell the quality of goo by its density, but not which way the scale went. Was the goo better if it had less mass? Or was it the opposite, and thicker goo was superior? It was easy enough to assume that denser goo would be a cut above the rest, but she couldn’t be sure until there was evidence to prove her hypothesis.

Kaltyr thought that the only way to determine what was what was by enchanting a couple of spears with phantasmal goo of differing densities, then identify which acquired better…anything, really. However, that plan required her to use up her limited resources, so she was reluctant to go through with it. She only had four goo, after all—one from the day before and three from today. Then, an instant before she decided the expenditure was worth the investigation, the girl realized something. Although the light puppet also didn’t tell her how to get higher-quality phantasmal goo, and it was safe to assume that some would drop from the phantasms she slayed at some point, she thought…couldn’t she upgrade goo by combining them?!

It wasn’t a crazy idea, as far as Kaltyr saw it. If she could use magic to combine the jellies with weapons, why couldn’t she merge the jellies with other jellies? That sounded like a reasonable upgrade method. But if it were possible, why did Sir Quiggly-Do the Fifth not mention it? She determined that the light puppet probably wasn’t allowed to inform her of it without her having guessed it first, like with the various other things it didn’t directly tell her—an annoying rule. Her progress would be so much faster…

She shook the useless thoughts out of her head and grabbed a pair of phantasmal goo, a nervous smile on her face as she, again, kept them as far from her face as possible when her mana entered them. She smushed the jellies together, and…nothing. Damn. The girl tried again, wondering if there was just a chance of the skill not working, and…nothing. Double damn. She wanted to continue attempting to fuse the two jellies, but knew it would likely be useless. When they collided in her hands, it wasn’t like any kind of reaction took place. Hell, the mana didn’t even leave the goo, not having been used at all. If it was possible, then there was more to the process than she knew.

Kaltyr observed the jellies a bit—which she hadn’t done before attempting to fuse them—noting their wildly different shapes, slightly different shades of blue, and different densities. “Oh Lord. Three variables” she thought, gulping her saliva as she wondered what the issue could be. Her first guess involved their shapes. Her left hand’s phantasmal goo was cylindrical, dropped by the fish ghost slain by the other fish ghosts. Her right hand’s goo was a kind of star, having around twelve points, dropped by the first phantasm she killed. Although the girl’s first guess was the fact that their shapes differed…she realized that she could debunk that idea if any of her phantasmal goo combined with any other, because none of the goo in her current possession had even remotely similar shapes. So she moved on to the next variable.

Regarding density, the cylindrical goo seemed to have a little more than the star, because it required more force on Kaltyr’s part to squish it. Thus, she tossed the cylindrical one under her storage lean-to and picked another up. “Bingo.” The remaining two phantasmal goo were just as relatively soft as the star-shaped one while also having different shapes, and because only one of those two goo had the same color as the star, she could determine if color played a role in whether they could be combined into an upgraded version.

Kaltyr held the star-shaped phantasmal goo in her right hand and the differently-colored goo in her left, infused them, and…nothing. They bounced off each other with a satisfying “boing” sound, just like with her first two goo fusion attempts. Thus, the last jelly experiment. She dropped the left hand jelly, picked up the last one, infused it…

The lass didn’t bother closing her eyes because she doubted the fusion would work, resulting in her being blinded yet again. However, what came with Kaltyr’s inability to see was exhilaration! The flash of light produced from her Enchanting skill activating was proof that her speculation was correct, and phantasmal goo could be combined to form one of higher quality! With the results from her quick experimental trials, she now had a better understanding of the necessary requirements for upgrading goo: they were seemingly able to combine regardless of their shapes, but they needed to be of the same density/quality as well as color. Additionally, phantasmal goo probably had levels similar to her Life and skill levels that depended on the beast it dropped from and needed to be close of those levels. The truth could be different from what Kaltyr gathered and hypothesized, but surely not by much, she thought.

Then Kaltyr rubbed the blindness out of her eyes, and her ecstatic smile slowly fell apart. She scanned her lap, the nearby grass, below herself, and every other square centimeter of the clearing once she began to panic. Where did the phantasmal goo go?! The Enchanting skill activated, so surely there’d be a product waiting for her… The girl frantically searched for her missing jelly like a raccoon looking for the cotton candy it dipped into water.

[Wow, Kaltyr. I honestly did not expect your achievements to beckon me back so soon. Keep this up and you might actually succeed in your mission.]