When Nalaine came the next day, Liliei had discovered that no matter how many times she did it, destroying her limbs was always just as painful. She had went at it nearly without stop and had lost count of how many times she had done it. When she had found herself proficient enough at getting her hand back, she had started working on the rest of her body: first her arms, then her legs.

But when the Demon got inside the room, she found Liliei with a huge smile on her face.

There was quite a lot of pride in her voice as she spoke. “I did it! I got my second Ability Level.”

[Liliei Sil

Race: Mana Spirit

Level: 4

Abilities:

-Main Ability 1:

1) Tendency to be harder to notice. Ability to use mana to reinforce concealment and reduce the chance of being seen.

-Secondary Ability 1:

1) Burst of movement tends to be faster and more precise.

-Main Ability 2:

1) Increase efficiency at manipulating own mana, and allow faster reconstruction.

2) Increase ability at external mana manipulation, and allow creation of external constructs.

-Secondary Ability 2:

1) Increase perception of mana.

2) Increase the size of the mana pool.

Stats:

Own Mana Manipulation:

-Speed: 7

-Precision: 5

-Intent Potency: 2

-Perception: 2

-Mana Pool: 3

Skills: None]

She had also gotten a Level as she trained – her second ability seemingly gave her Experience from manipulating mana – which had also helped with the added Stats, but the thing that had most impact was her new Ability Level.

Ability were given by the World depending on a few things, but the most important ones had been found to be what you were good at – it reinforced your strength a lot more than it covered your weakness – and what you wanted and needed – no matter how gifted one was in swordsmanship, if he wanted to be a farmer, he would get something related to farming, on something he was talented at. As such, she was nearly guaranteed to get something that would suit her – there was hardly anyone that was really dissatisfied with their Ability – but the one she had gotten was just perfectly what she needed.

Due to that, she had been able to reinforce her body a lot more, as she proved to the stupefied Demon by giving her a long hug. The girl had a huge smile on her face as well as she returned it, and they stayed this way for a minute before Nalaine spoke and Liliei felt a little blush get to her face.

“So, when are you getting some clothes, and decency while we are at it?”

“Hmm, well,” Liliei was clearly embarrassed as she spoke, “you see, I tried putting them on, but even if it is now possible, it is quite uncomfortable, so I thought I’d work on my second Ability Level and try making some myself.”

The young Demon couldn’t help but smile seeing Liliei flustered like that. It seemed she hadn’t been bothered by it as long as she couldn’t do anything for it, but now that it was a choice, and that she had brought it up, she did get uncomfortable about it. Anyway she was happy that the young girl had been able to get her Ability…

“Wait, how did you get your ability so fast? I know it’s the first Level, but still…” As she spoke, Nalaine saw Liliei getting embarrassed and knew she was right.

She gave a chop on the girl’s head – lightly, she still wasn’t sure how much force she could bear – as she admonished her.

“You bullhead, you really went and broke your body to be able to repair it didn’t you?” Her worry was plain in her voice, and the young thief was getting even more embarrassed.

“Well, it was the faste...” She stopped speaking as Nalaine took her in a bear hug, and let herself loosen a bit.

They stayed like that for a minute before Liliei tried to take a step back and found herself blocked by Nalaine.

“I told you I would get back on you when you were more solid.”

Liliei had to wait for another few minutes before Nalaine deigned let her go. The Demon had huge smile plastered on her face.

“So what are you going to do? Still thieving or are you going for something safer?” Nalaine had often tried to convince Liliei to go in the Dungeon with her, or find an occupation where she wouldn’t risk getting caught by the guards – or risk anything really, she was a bit overprotective sometimes.

“You’re kidding, right? I mean, if I play it well, I’m sure I could use my new capacities to get even better at it. But I may eventually try to find something else to do with my time.” She had added the last sentence to pacify Nalaine a bit when she had seen the look the girl had given her.

The two spoke for a moment still before Nalaine had to go back, but only after she got the young thief to promise her that she would pass by to announce her recovery to the group. Nalaine hadn’t told them exactly what had happened, just that Liliei was ill at the moment, deciding that the girl would tell them what she wanted to be known.

When she was alone again, Liliei started trying to get a solid item of mana. She now had an Ability to help her and she immediately understood she had went about it all wrong. She had tried to use her Intent to push and force the mana how she wanted, when she should pull and weave then connect it and… there it was a… cube? More or less, with more less and less more. If asked honestly she wouldn’t be able to tell what it was since the form was too distorted. Obviously getting an Ability helped but it didn’t do everything.

“Well, back to work it seems,” she said with a light sigh.

It took three days before she could get something that could be accepted as clothing, if you didn’t look at it from too close, really. Nalaine had visited once to see how she was doing, but nothing else had happened. She allowed herself another day to get something just higher than barely passable. The method of getting the constructs not to look like mana but like real clothes had had fortunately been provided to her by her Ability, else she would never have had the idea to twist the mana and press it like that. Anyway she was now wearing perfectly plain, if a little rough, shirt and pants that more or less looked like simple gray cloth. Her shoes were just as plain, if not even more, basically a harder part with a fabric-like part in a way that kept it more or less from slipping off.

“Well, I’m far from the beautiful clothes that I want, but I’ll do with what I have for now. For now, I can finally go out.”

As she started moving toward the hole in the ground, she made herself the reflexion that speaking alone was also a proof that she had been there far too long. And as such, she didn’t hesitate as she got to the hole, and jumped straight toward the small part of the second floor that was still there. She was pretty confident that her body could handle the shock at the moment, and it didn’t betray her. She landed – rather clumsily since she wasn’t used doing acrobatics with her current body – and stayed there a second, first to get her balance back and second to allow herself a small triumphant smile before getting further down to the first floor.

She looked up to the hole and thought that with her current clumsiness going up was going to be a pain. But for now, she admonished herself, she was down, and glad to be there. So first thing first, going to say hello to the Nalaine and the group, before the Demon got the idea to drag her there.

The small community was living in the remnant of a house that hadn’t been too destroyed. They had cleared the place of the rubble and built some shacks with wood they had gotten who knew where. The whole structure had been solidified with the help of the oldest of the group, who was at the time the closest they had to a mage.

The result was surprisingly quite solid, and had resisted pretty well since it had been built a few turns before. She walked calmly in direction of the building, attentive to her surrounding. ‘Anytime now’ she thought and effectively, a second later she heard the cheerful voice.

“Lei! You’re back!”

Accompanying the sound was the appearance of Kshirn, a 5 turns old Beastkin. She was one of the youngest of the group and as such was practically always there. The child liked Liliei quite a lot and she reciprocated it. She was only two turns older, but the girl had seemingly made her something of a goal – which she wasn’t sure was a good life choice, but there was still time for her to find a better suited path.

The child got near Liliei and jumped at her, which she reacted to by taking a small step on the side and catching her in the air, changing the frontal collision – which she was pretty sure she would have gotten through, but precautions… – into a rotating movement she dissipated in two turns. She had barely been able not to fall while doing so, which would have been quite embarrassing.

“How are you doing, you little punk? Still trying to learn magic with Nalaine?”

The girl had been awestruck when she had seen a high Leveled mage one turn before and absolutely wanted to learn magic, which was a bit unfortunate since Beastkin were reputed for their low ability at magic. Still Nalaine hadn’t been able to say no when faced with the combo of the reddish wolf ears, large round eyes, with the tail slowly wagging behind, and thus had tried to teach magic to the girl, without much success.

“Yes!” She exclaimed full of energy, before deflating a little, “But it’s still not working.”

Liliei could hear the disappointment in her voice and she ruffled Kshirn’s hairs – the small air of contentment that passed on her face was really cute – before comforting her.

“Don’t worry too much, it’s not really easy, but you should be able to do it.”

They both started moving toward the central part of the building, that had been created inside the old house. A door had been added – well, a piece of cloth that hung over the hole, but it did its job – and Liliei entered the place with Kshirn just behind her. The inside was quite spacious all considered, the part of the stone house that had been destroyed originally had been replaced with wood or left like that in the case of the interior walls. There were two large couches that Liliei had always wondered where the group had gotten, and on one of them three people were seated.

First was Tren, he was a half Dwarf-half Beastkin – the Beast characteristics weren’t much visible but let guessing at some feline race. He was rather short and well built, even if a bit thinner than he should, and had short black hair. He was younger than her by half a turn but was already quite responsible.

Asleep beside Tren was another of the younger ones, Ilim an Elf that was roughly the same age as Kshirn. He was slim even for his race, and had shoulder-length white-blond hair. He had pale blue eyes that weren’t visible now.

Finally, on the left was Mirane a Human a little older and taller than Liliei. She had short brown hair and green eyes, and had a perpetual frown on her face.

“Hey, how’s it going?” asked Liliei after a second.

“Nothing interesting happened, except for you getting ill. By the way, what did you catch to make you unable to move for that long?”

It was Tren that had spoken, with a slightly worried tone, and Liliei thought for a bit. She trusted them but there was an irrational fear that they would reject her. She however only hesitated for a few seconds before telling what had happened. The reactions were varied but positive. Khsirn was awed and seemed to find it incredibly great, Tren was a bit worried how it would affect her in her job. Mirane was relieved that she was alright, and Ilim was still asleep. They talked for a moment before Liliei decided that she would try to see how her condition affected her directly on the job.

She left them with a promise she would come back in the evening when everyone was there. She passed by her house, taking a small pouch with a few coins with her. Her goal was to see how she fared with her new body when stealing, but let’s start slow, and then ramp up. She went to the outer border of the city and found herself sighing loudly when she got to the bottom of the stairs. Right the stairs, this was so going to be great.

Five minutes later she was up on the first floor, surprised how well it had gone. She only had one moment where she nearly tripped, which was quite good considering she was still adapting, but more than that, she didn’t feel tired. Usually she would have to rest for a minute or two when she got there, but now she didn’t feel any exhaustion, except maybe a little twinge of mental fatigue that hadn’t been there when she had started. This change, she liked. Before one of her weakness was her endurance: she could run pretty fast but not for very long.

Well ideally she shouldn’t have to run at all, but she wasn’t quite to that point right now, so she used what she could. Her destination was the same point she had last went to, since the food stalls were the thing she had most ease taking from – the vendors were often distracted, speaking with their clients.

Still she was quite early, it was only ten o’clock so she had four hours until the noon rush, so she diverted her course. Another point of interest for her on the first floor was near the center of the city. It was another market, but with less food stalls, and more items that could be used by adventurers. Most sold nothing of great quality, but for the new ones that hadn’t enough money to get something from the specialized shops, they could be quite useful.

When she got there, the place was pretty much empty, which was usual since most of the Dungeon divers going early would already have gone in, and the later wave was still not here. She profited to browse the shops, looking for something interesting. The shopkeepers didn’t give her much attention, but she knew that, were she to try anything, that would change, so she just looked at the wares.

All the ones selling weapons didn’t interest her – her current knife was enough for her uses – but most of the others were appealing to her. She quickly passed over the ones that sold rings – she had had enough rings for quite some time – and looked at the rest. There was one that sold enchanted necklaces. They were obviously pretty small enchants, probably made by an apprentice with a low Ability, but she still spent some time looking, appraising them when they seemed interesting.

[Enchanted iron necklace

A simple necklace that has been lightly enchanted.

If worn:

– Slight speed increase]

It wasn’t anything grand, but would still be of help for low leveled adventurers that hadn’t enough to buy better. However for her it wouldn’t be of much use. She continued to browse everything slowly, not really wanting to buy anything and more passing time. One of the shop was selling small mana stones – congregated mana that solidified and was sometimes found inside some of the monsters. She didn’t really knew what use they had, but had heard the biggest could sell for quite a sum however those were too small.

She had looked at nearly half the stalls when something caught her eyes.

[Enchanted Chorin wristband.

A small wristband that has been enchanted.

If worn:

– Increase lightly the control of mana.]

It seemed the enchantment was quite acceptable, so it was surprising that it would be here, but when she looked at it, she understood.

“How much for this?” She asked the Shopkeeper, a black haired Dwarf that seemingly had never heard that he was supposed to smile to his customers as he had been glowering at her.

The moment she asked, his expression became just a little less unfriendly.

“That’s five silver, the idiot that made this didn’t think that one had to wear it.”

It was very cheap for such a good enchanted item, but like he said, the thing was way too small. It would be able to fit around her wrist, if barely, but there would be no way of getting it there. However, for her… She took out five silvers from her pouch and gave it to the Dwarf, taking the bracelet.

“Thanks mister!” Liliei smiled at him before going away. It would soon be noon so she started going in the direction of the other market. While she was walking in one of the small alley, she stopped and took out the wristband. It was too small for her hand to be able to fit in, so she concentrated a moment, modifying her hand to thin and elongate until she could get it to pass, and then left her body take back its original shape.

Now that the item was on her, she could feel the enchantment slowly take effect, and knew that after something like ten minutes, she would feel it taking effect.

She was about to start moving again when she felt a hand on her shoulder, with an iron grip. And from behind her she heard someone speak in a stern.

“I think we should have a little talk, young girl.”