Kaltyr stopped foraging for her missing phantasmal goo and lifted her head. The wind picked up unnaturally, and strong gusts whipped her hair around. For a few moments, she wondered if it was a coincidence, but then the air seemed to…solidify. All the winds from every direction collided in a single spot some ways above the girl, forming a familiar figure.

[It has been less than a single day and I am back again. Continue to surprise me, please.]

The nigh transparent, and slightly green, figure of Sir Quiggly-Do the Fifth floated down to Kaltyr as it spoke directly into her mind. The strong winds ceased flowing upon its formation, but weak air currents persisted around its “body”.

“Y-yeah, I didn’t expect to see you either…”

Kaltyr furrowed her brows in contemplation as it dawned on her that the wind puppet had just given her two more hints about the world. She first focused on the one that affected her more directly.

“Uh, Sir Quiggly-Do the Fifth…the puppets you’ve made to communicate with me were, uh, a hint about magic in Manic, right?”

As she expected, it did not respond with an answer, instead waiting for her to finish her thoughts. It strictly followed the oh-so-mysterious rules that governed what it could and could not say.

“Your first puppet you made from the river water, the second from the ground, the third from light, and this one from the wind. That’s your hint regarding elemental affinities. Water, earth, light, and wind. There’s probably also fire, I’ll bet. And if there’s light, then there’s darkness.”

The wind puppet crossed its stubby arms and nodded its head—which, despite being featureless, Kaltyr swore was smiling at her.

[Correct. There are six magical elements. Fire, earth, light, wind, water, and darkness.]

The lass nodded along as Sir Quiggly-Do the Fifth listed the elements, and imagined an image to represent each of them. With fire, obviously a raging inferno. Naturally earth was everything she stood on. For light, the sun—which she still had yet to find in the sky. Wind, a tornado. For water, the river she frequented, and dark—

“Wait.”

Kaltyr stood up off the ground and put up a hand, not asking the wind puppet to wait, but instead indicating that she was thinking about something.

“Fire is red. I think earth is orange. Light is yellow. Wind is—“ she looked up at the puppet to ascertain whether she was correct, “—is definitely green. Water is obviously blue. And darkness is, uh, purple?”

She arched her eyebrow at Sir Quiggly-Do the Fifth, but, again, it did not response. Patiently waiting for her to piece the puzzle together.

“The colors that the hours of the day have…are based off the elements? Why? How does that involve magic? Are fish more powerful during the Blue Hours because of a water affinity, or something?”

Kaltyr’s voice contained a hint of urgency and she was under the impression that she just learned something big. Something so integral to how magic functioned that it would affect everything she did from then on. For example, if what she speculated were true, then she’d have to be far more careful out in the wild, because if she attacked an already strong beast during the Colored Hours that it was most powerful…

[The Colored Hours are, in fact, related to the elements. As to why that is, the answer is unrelated to you and you will very likely never learn it. You will have to discover how the Colored Hours are linked to the elements on your own, but that does not mean that it is a big deal. Lastly, not necessarily.]

“Oh.”

Deflating like a balloon, Kaltyr could only utter the single word of recognition. She mentally chastised herself for overthinking the implications of what color the sky took. In fact, since the puppet said the link between the sky and the elements was unimportant, she had fewer magical phenomena to worry about.

“Then, uh…next topic.”

Blushing slightly at getting overexcited about something irrelevant, she wracked her brain trying to remember the other possibly important piece of information that she wanted to address. She’d begun with the fact that Sir Quiggly-Do the Fifth’s puppets were hints toward the magical elements before jumping to how the elements were related to the color of the sky…

“Oh yeah! You said if I keep up the pace of my progress that I’d succeed in my mission. What mission? As far as I recall, my only task here on Manic is to ‘survive’. Is there more to it than that?”

The puppet’s words regarding her “mission” prompted the memory from when she first read The System Wishes You Good Fucking Luck to surface. It stated something along the lines of, “Your only real mission is to survive, and although you won’t be punished for living a boring life, you definitely want to live an interesting one.” Thus, how would Kaltyr be any closer to, err, surviving, if she was already doing that? Did the puppet just mean that she was doing so well that she’d only die of old age? Or was it regarding the “living an interesting life” part? But there wasn’t stated to be an end goal besides not being boring, and that lasted until the end of her life. So…was Sir Quiggly-Do the Fifth hinting that dying gloriously in battle, or something, was the best way to go? Kind of a scary thought.

The voice in the back of Kaltyr’s mind told her she was overthinking it, but…was it definitely so?

[A slip of the tongue. You are overthinking, Kaltyr. Simply continue to be interesting.]

“Yeah, of course that was it.”

She scratched the back of her head and sighed. Considering how Sir Quiggly-Do the Fifth responded that time, thinking about that particular subject would do her no good. Had it been a mystery she was supposed to solve, Kaltyr knew the puppet would have either stayed silent or egged her on, attempting to get her to think deeper on the matter. She ultimately dropped the subject, disappointed and curious. Maybe Sir Quiggly-Do the Fifth actually had “a slip of the tongue”.

Unsure of what else to say, Kaltyr pursed her lips and tapped her fingers against her knee, awkwardly shifting her eyes in a way that indicated she was waiting for something to happen.

[Oh, that is right, Kaltyr. I almost forgot what I came here for because you spoke before I could.]

Sir Quiggly-Do the Fifth began, slightly jabbing the girl with its words.

[To begin with, allow me to congratulate you on your speedy progress. You are truly ahead of the expectations placed onto you.]

Although the fact that her progress in Manic was beyond “the expectations” was pleasantly reassuring, hearing that there were expectations at all made her slightly uncomfortable. It had her thinking, “What else is going on in the backgrounds that I’m not aware of?”

[Secondly, I came to explain the situation regarding the phantasmal goo that just disappeared.]

Oh yeah, I was doing something with the jellies before Sir Quiggly-Do the Fifth appeared.

[What you did was attempt to fuse two phantasmal goo in order to create one of a higher quality. It is wonderful that you discovered that possibility so quickly.]

Kaltyr pursed her lips in a frown. “Attempt? I failed? Is that why they disappeared?” Her questions were tinged with frustration, but she did her best to hold it back. It was likely the case that the puppet had nothing to do with her circumstances and was simply a messenger. Releasing her bitterness on it was probably the least productive thing she could do, because it also seemed to be the case that the puppet had the option to just not assist her. Besides…it had been pretty helpful to her, and responding with negativity would be unjust.

[Correct. The chance that an Enchanter’s phantasmal goo will be destroyed upon attempting to fuse them is rather large, but still less than half. Unfortunately, your first attempt was a failure. On the bright side, each attempt, regardless of success, still earns you experience for the Enchanting skill.]

The girl crossed her arms and glanced down at the grass, where she had been searching for the goo she lost, which was actually destroyed. Gone. It didn’t feel good to know that an item she was looking forward to using was wasted. Had she known that the attempt would end in failure, she could have enchanted two separate spears, or potentially enchanted her primary weapon further…which brought her to her next question.

“So, can I further en—”

[One moment, Kaltyr. I have not finished. Do you not want to know the qualifications for fusing goo and their qualities?]

Kaltyr considered interjecting by stating that she already figured out the qualifications, but held her tongue and settled for an angry pout. She, in fact, didn’t know the different levels of goo qualities. Plus, who knew? She might have missed something regarding what was required to fuse the jellies.

[If you wish to fuse phantasmal goo, all goo must have identical colors, be of the same quality, and be within five levels of each other. You will be able to see most of this information in text form if you examine any phantasmal goo at or below your Enchanting level.]

Though she hadn’t tried examining the goo with her Enchanting skill, it seemed she’d already figured out what was necessary to fuse goo. However, Kaltyr bit down on her tongue a little harder and maintained her cool. She had to learn patience. Patience was a virtue that would definitely serve her well when she finally rediscovered civilization.

[Now, regarding the degrees of quality: Inferior-quality, Decent-quality, Good-Quality, Perfect-quality, and Complete-quality, from worst to best in that order.]

Immediately, Kaltyr opened her mouth to comment on what she just heard.

“The second best quality is called ‘Perfect’? Why isn’t that the top one? Why is ‘Complete’ better? That doesn’t make sense.”

And just as quickly, the wind puppet leaned forward and snappily responded.

[Oh, but it does make sense, Kaltyr, because how the phantasmal goo quality hierarchy of degrees was named is one of the many ways that Manic reflects the idea that perfection is an illusion, perfection is unobtainable, and there is always more above perfection.]

A chillingly cold hand seemed to run its finger down her spine as goosebumps rose all over Kaltyr, and she gulped. Despite the puppet using the same, monotonous telepathic voice as always, the message felt unreasonably eerie, and she shivered.

“Nevermind.” She squeaked.

[Back to what I was saying: those are the phantasmal goo degrees of quality. As I stated before, one can interpret the quality of a goo by its density if their Enchanting skill’s level is not sufficiently high enough to identify it. Additionally, not all qualities of goo can be upgraded to the next degree with only two samples.]

Sir Quiggly-Do the Fifth paused, allowing Kaltyr a moment to let the information sink in.

[All degrees of quality require two goo to fuse except for Perfect. To make one Perfect, one must fuse four Good-quality goo.]

“Uh, okay, but—”

The lass would have had no trouble understanding it if Perfect were the highest degree of quality, however…it wasn’t.

[You are going to ask about what makes the Perfect degree so special despite there being a degree of quality above it. Allow me to explain.]

Somehow, Kaltyr could feel the featureless puppet smiling smugly at her after it interrupted again.

[Enchanters will succeed in fusing four Good-quality to make one Perfect-quality goo most of the time, as the same failure rate for the degrees below still apply at less than fifty percent. However, despite needing only two Perfect-quality goo to make one of the Complete degree, the success rate is much lower, resulting in most fusion attempts being failures.]

“I got it, I got it… That makes sense.”

A sense of defeat settled in her stomach and she endeavored to keep her mouth shut when she felt the need to interject. She should only ask questions when she needed to…

[All that being said, I cannot tell you how effective each degree of quality is. That is something you will have to learn on your own—likely from others—and all you really need to know is that it is in your best interest to enchant all your equipment with as many of the best phantasmal goo you can acquire.]

“But WHY can’t you tell me?!”

Kaltyr covered her mouth, instantly regretting the outburst.

“Uh, sorry…” She mumbled, slowly lowering her hand. “But, isn’t knowing how effective the degrees of quality are…important?”

[Yes, but you need to understand that how effective the degrees of quality are is irrelevant because you will be able to see the changes in the equipment through your Enchanting skill. Simply enchant what you have with the best phantasmal goo you can obtain and make due with whatever results you acquire. You will only be needlessly stressed if you know that the result you got from enchanting something was not the best possible result.]

Kaltyr was relieved over Sir Quiggly-Do the Fifth seemingly not minding her shouting.

“Okay, yeah I got it… That also made a lot of sense.”

The girl took in a deep breath, calming her nerves. Sir Quiggly-Do the Fifth had caught her at a bad time. Losing the phantasmal goo that she’d been looking forward to enchanting her gear with left her in a pretty bad mood. That was something she had to learn to fix, and she endeavored to better herself.

“Right. Thank you very much for the information, Sir Quiggly-Do the Fifth.” Kaltyr bowed her head as much as she could from her sitting position. “And thank you for being patient.”

[You are welcome. I believe you were previously going to ask about whether you can enchant equipment more than once?]

Kaltyr gave a small smile. “Yeah. Is it possible?”

[Indeed it is.]

Her mood brightened a little.

[But you would have figured that out on your own regardless of my intervention because it is a simple matter. Merely inspect any equipment with your Enchanting skill.]

Kaltyr’s smile disappeared and her lips pursed once more, an unamused expression taking over her face. “Really?”

[Really. Now, I will take my leave again until the next time you discover questions you are unable to answer.]

“Yeah, thanks, bye.”

[And keep in mind that enchantments are as important as every magical skill and weapon in your arsenal. Later down the line, your total strength will greatly depend on what enchantments your equipment has.]

She nodded, then half-heartedly waved away the wind puppet as it dispersed, taking the winds with it, leaving the clearing still. Kaltyr hadn’t noticed it before, but the constant movement of air that Sir Quiggly-Do the Fifth brought with it served as pleasant background noise, because after it disappeared, she was mostly left with silence. Sure, bugs and birds chirped while the occasional howl or shriek sounded in the distance, and a natural air current would sometimes rustle the trees and bushes, but…

The lack of wind produced specifically by Sir Quiggly-Do the Fifth was a reminder of the fact that she was alone.