Kaltyr soon found that Sir Quiggly-Do the Fifth was correct—she would have figured out whether stacking multiple enchantments onto a single piece of equipment, and how many total, was possible with or without its help. As soon as the wind puppet dispersed, the girl simply stared down at her shirt and willed her Enchanting skill to activate.

Enchantment Slots

Maximum capacity: 1 Good-quality

— [Empty]

After celebrating the fact that her first Enchanting identification attempt on something other than her primary weapon was a success, Kaltyr scanned all of her clothing, finding that they all had the same slots—a maximum of one Good-quality goo. Then she turned her attention to the fifteen not-yet-enchanted spears lined up against her lean-to and attempted to identify them from where she sat.

Nothing, as she expected. The girl stood up, brushed off her cargo pants, and approached the spears, firing off her Enchanting identification with every step in order to figure out the limits of the ability. Upon stepping within one meter of the weapons, it worked…but only on one of the spears.

“The distance from which I can identify stuff with the Enchanting skill might be similar to the thing going on with Crude Mana Bolt, but instead of each Life Level adding a meter to its range, it’s the level of the skill.”

Kaltyr shrugged, then visually inspected the single spear the identification worked on. It was definitely…the shittiest of her spears. Its haft, which was just a raw sapling’s trunk like the rest of her spears, wasn’t doing all too great, unlike the rest of her spears. Its base was slightly warped and evidence of damage by bugs showed itself in the form of tiny tunnels along the handle in some places. It was safe to surmise from what she saw that the spear must have been a level 1 item, while the rest were level 2 or more, which explained why she could identify it, and why its enchantment slots were so limited. Clearly, the quality of the materials used in crafting an item played a role in determining its level.

Enchantment Slots

Maximum capacity: 1 Inferior-quality

— [Empty]

What the low-quality spear was capable of being enchanted with was an entire two degrees less than any of her clothing allowed! Clearly, the quality of an item affected how many enchantments it could sustain, and the quality of her clothing far surpassed that of her crude, primitive spear.

“And I guess that when the enchantment slots say something like ‘1 Good-quality’, it means that I can either enchant the item with a single Good-quality goo, or the same amount of goo from lower degrees that add up to it. Like, in the case of my clothing…”

Setting her mind on experimenting, Kaltyr found and picked up the remaining two phantasmal goo in her stores—the fact that the other two were destroyed upon failing to fuse them still stung a bit. She held them in her hands, squishing them, studying their qualities, hypothesizing what she would see after identifying them. The cylindrical jelly still seemed to be tougher, to an extent, than the other one, which was rectangular prism, so she knew it would be a degree higher in quality. Their colors were both tints of blue—the cylinder being a bit lighter—equating to water. Finally, she identified them.

Phantasmal Goo

Quality: Good

Affinity: Water

Phantasmal Goo

Quality: Decent

Affinity: Water

“Wow. That’s a lot simpler than I imagined, and it doesn’t even tell me the levels of the goo…but I was right.”

A smidge disappointed at being told what was already easy enough to figure out, Kaltyr looked up from the jellies, deliberating over what items were worth investing in with phantasmal goo first. The most obvious investment method was to enchant more spears, or further enchant her primary spear, to up her firepower. If she could cause more harm, she could end fights faster. However…Kaltyr did not lack damage potential. She had no problem tearing into any of the enemies she came across so far. In fact…neither did her enemies have any difficulty when rending her flesh. THAT was a problem.

She looked down at her clothing again, unsure of whether enchantments affected clothing or armor as much as they did weapons—she’d have to ask Sir Quiggly-Do the Fifth about that next time it popped up. But for now, defense was the most pressing issue. Just as she could run a beast through the heart for an instakill, any beast could slash her aorta…granted, both circumstances could only occur if their mana defenses weren’t at full power, but the point still stood.

“Clothing it is.” Kaltyr told herself as she then wondered if she could enchant her clothing while she wore it… Only one way to find out.

……

The girl wasted no time, infusing her shirt and the cylindrical jelly with mana before slapping the jelly against her arm sleeve with a satisfying squish. This time, she remembered to tightly close her eyes, and the resulting blast of light from beginning the enchantment process failed to blind her. Since her eyesight wasn’t impeded by the initial burst, Kaltyr was able to watch the magical phenomenon through more than just her Magic Sense. Just as she’d seen before, thousands of crystalline threads connected the items she chose to infuse to her hand. From those threads, which majestically sparkled and glittered like diamonds under the sunlight, her mana was siphoned against her will. Though, that wasn’t completely true; she was perfectly capable of cutting off the flow of energy, but her gut told her that doing so would not result in anything positive happening.

After the Enchanting skill finished doing its thing, the girl took off her shirt to explore its changes. She gave thanks to The System for giving her a sports-bra-like undershirt—even if it was still a bit embarrassing—and held her enchanted gear up to the sky, scrutinizing it from every direction. Soon enough, she turned it over to look at its back side, and cursed. She’d hoped that enchanting it would do something to repair it, but the holes and slashes put in it by her enemies were as big as ever.

She inspected the article of clothing for its enchantment properties.

Enchantment Slots

Maximum capacity: 1 Good-quality

— [1 Good-quality Water Affinity]

Properties:

- + 15% Movement speed in water (Movement speed bonuses affect total mobility rather than only maximum speed achievable.)

- + 5% Water Defense (Elemental defenses increase one’s defense against damage from other elements, which varies depending on the element one is attacked with. In this specific case: No change for earth, minimal change for water and air, and maximum change for fire.)

The first thought to come to Kaltyr’s mind was regarding how her physical defense didn’t really change, which might have been the case due to her shirt not being armor. The second thing regarded how Sir Quiggly-Do the Fifth said that the goo wouldn’t necessarily give any water-related abilities or effects…which might be true, but the odds of water-related properties sure seemed to be high. Though, she didn’t really care, and determined it be a coincidence that her shirt solely acquired properties related to water. However, once the girl thought about it… If anything, being given a mobility bonus in water might have been the best possible property to appear, because she didn’t seem to have much trouble with combat on solid ground, but what if she were thrust into a liquid environment? Combat in water, she rightly assumed, was vastly different. The odds of such a situation occurring might be small, but Kaltyr knew for sure that beasts also thrived in bodies of water, and she was planning to travel alongside a river. In the case that she was knocked or dragged into a deep pool of some kind, the +15% movement speed might tip the scale in the favor of life rather than death if she was in trouble.

Then, the lass turned her attention to the second property: +5% water defense. Had the explanation next to it not been present, she would have greatly misunderstood what it meant. With the name of the property alone, Kaltyr would have assumed that the shirt negated 5% of damage from water affinity attacks. But because of the explanation, she was able to understand that it was her defense that was water-based, meaning that depending on which element struck her, a different amount of damage would be negated…presumably. From the property’s summary, it seemed to be that while there would be no change in the amount of damage she took from earth attacks, her shirt would mitigate 5% of damage from a fire-based attack. That information probably had a lot to do with how the elements interacted with each other… Interesting.

Kaltyr retrieved the last of her phantasmal goo and performed the last experiment she had on her mind with it. She infused both the jelly and her cargo pants, then slapped the jelly onto her leg—again, with a satisfying squish. She waited for the enchanting process to end and the magical threads to fade away before identifying her latest enchanted equipment.

Enchantment Slots

Maximum capacity: 1 Good-quality

— [1 Decent-quality Water Affinity]

Properties:

- +6% Movement speed in water, natural rain, during Blue Hours, and within holy spaces of the Water God

— [Empty]

Immediately, the girl’s eyes opened wide and her mouth fell open a little. Enchantments had so much power?! She put aside the thoughts regarding how it seemed to be the case that equipment could be enchanted with multiple enchantments of lesser degrees than it allowed, and how the explanation for movement speed didn’t appear after she already saw it, and focused on the implications of her latest enchantment. Her pants gave her 6% more movement speed in bodies of water, in rain, during the Blue Hours of the day, and…in holy spaces of the Water God?! Even ignoring the fact that the enchantment implied that a God of Water existed and claimed certain spaces as their own…she could be stronger depending on the time of day?!

That little piece of information was faaar more relevant than news of any gods, to Kaltyr. To begin with, if there were gods in Manic, they might have something to do with Kaltyr’s predicament, but she doubted that she’d ever become involved with them. After all, they were gods. Being stronger during the Blue Hours of the day was far more pertinent because the lass could center all her important battles during the hours when she was strongest. That way, her odds of surviving to fight an…to live another day would increase immensely! Planning her big fights to take place during the hours she was most powerful was also just another way Kaltyr could take control of her life, which was something she lacked a lot of—i.e. her absent memories and being stranded in the wilderness.

Kaltyr fantasized about stacking every single piece of her equipment with only the best quality of goo from a single affinity, with all of their properties being those that increased her strength during one of the Colored Hours. How powerful could she become?! No wonder Sir Quiggly-Do the Fifth emphasized how important enchantments were!

Yet reality soon came flooding back as she remembered that of the three properties she’d seen, only one of them was of the type that could take effect during one of the Colored Hours, and it was only +6%. It was evident that such properties were very likely rare. Probably too rare, in fact, to have all of her equipment stacked with such useful properties. However, since it was the Decent-quality goo that gave that particular enchantment rather than the Good-quality one, which was a degree better, there was the possibility that the property for effects that activated during the Colored Hours was not necessarily more commonly found in enchantments from higher-quality goo. And since one could put more enchantments onto a single piece of equipment via using lesser degrees…

But if that was the case, and Kaltyr could get a better variety of properties by using lower-quality goo, then what was the point of there being higher degrees of quality in the first place? Why use 32 Inferior-quality phantasmal goo to get a single Complete-quality goo? Likely many more than 32, actually, because there was the chance of fusions failing and resulting in the destruction of the materials used. Especially with how Sir Quiggly-Do the Fifth stated that the rate of success for fusing Perfect-quality goo was abysmally low.

Nevertheless, Sir Quiggly-Do the Fifth did mention several times that all she had to worry about was using the best possible goo to enchant all of her stuff with, thus there had to be compelling reasons to fuse many phantasmal goo, even at the risk of destruction, to obtain the better stuff.

After only a moment, she figured it out: her shirt, which was enchanted with a Good-quality goo, was bequeathed with a total of +20% improvements between the movement speed and water defense, while the Decent-quality goo merely gave her pants a total of 6%... Even if when she added another Decent-quality goo to her pants that gave her twice the percentage in improvements than the first goo, that would still only amount to 12%, which only added to 18% with the first goo. Higher degrees of quality, in all likelihood, offered more total percentage of properties.

Kaltyr promised herself to follow Sir Quiggly-Do the Fifth’s advice to strive for better-quality jellies… Then, a small dose of panic set in as the girl remembered how her starter gear would disappear after a random amount of time, like her clearing’s invisible barrier. She just spent two phantasmal goo enchanting her clothing, and the thought that her clothes would disappear like the matches and stuff frightened her. Ignoring the fact that she might be left to fight vicious beasts whilst nude in the wilderness, if they disappeared, her enchanting jellies would have been wasted!