Since Corn couldn’t eat inside the pool, he had to swim down, punch in part of the password and rise up to grab a bite. When his mana reserves were full, he would swim down.

He gobbled down more of the weapons than he had to. There was no way that he was wasting this opportunity to binge eat. Let his Hunger grow and his Desire with it.

The fairy dismissed the orc and all four of them went back to the water.

Corn punched the last character of the password. The keypad beeped, but the door remained close.

Whoops, did he accidentally punch in the wrong password? After all, the oaths he made were not specific about failing once.

[Why isn’t it opening?] asked the fairy.

Corn did his best to seem concerned, even banging at the door. But of course, the door wouldn’t open. The other three made the same efforts as he did but with no result. Eventually they decided to re-enter the password.

Corn happily obliged. Though it was strange that pushing mana into a key was actually straining his mana node. He realized it was getting stronger and was better than any of his exercises with ice mana. Finally he punched in the last character.

The keypad beeped and the door opened. It was a pity, but it was risky to pull the same trick twice.

They entered.

The barrier on the doorway pushed away all the water from their clothes and clearly maintained breathable air in the vault. The floor, the ceiling and the walls were made with superior grade mana made rock. Corn gave it a quick lick and found the sweet flavor exhilarating.

Awwhh, it was inedible.

The vault had shelves stocked with handmade books (probably replete with spell circles and knowledge of Magic). A vast array of weapons, armour, curios were stacked around the room, all of them exquisitely tasting mana made objects. The vault itself was bigger on the inside than it was on the outside. It contained many secrets no doubt. In short, it would have been paradise, if the oaths didn’t prevent him from even touching a single thing.

He sighed.

The others were no doubt looking for the object that would pay their lawyers. There were even sculptures plastered on the side of the vault, scenes of WarCode fucking a large litany of women. All of them with gorgeously sculpted faces and voluptuous breasts. Interestingly, one of the women draped on WarCode’s arms did look familiar.

“Hey-” started Corn, but was interrupted by the fairy.

[Don’t you dare, bug boy.]

“That’s you, isn’t it?” whispered Corn.

[Shhhhhhhh. They’ll hear.] She screamed inside his head.

‘Then why don’t you read my thoughts. Then I won’t tell them,’ thought Corn, probing her.

He walked towards them.

“I’ve cast a barrier of silence. You can speak,” she said.

Maybe she really couldn’t hear his thoughts.

“You’re not calling me bug boy?”

“No one can know, ‘bug boy’. No one,” the fairy’s face puckered.

“No problem. Just help me borrow a couple of books on Magic from the book case.” There was no oath on her preventing her from taking anything.

“Extortion? For all your hatred of the hobgoblins, you certainly behave like a Branched. Maybe if you reveal your secrets, I’ll reveal yours also,” mocked the fairy, rubbing her hands.

“First of, what’s a ‘Branched’ and secondly, what secrets?”

She was bluffing, definitely bluffing.

“Your secrets? The fact that you can’t connect to the System. There a lot of secrets behind that.” The fairy smiled.

She was still bluffing. Corn smiled and asked, “Really? What are they?”

The two of them stared at each other, until the fairy frowned. Corn gave her open smile, flashing rows of his spindly teeth.

“Damn you, I wish I was good enough to read your mind. Ahhh, fuck that idiot. He just had to depict me naked with him. Me!! A fairy of the Court, second only to angels of Iterra, fucking a vampire, being black mailed by whatever it is you are bug boy. Ahhhhhh!!” she cried pulling clumps of her short hair in frustration.

“So, the books?”

“Do you know what they are worth?” asked the fairy.

“They’re priceless.”

“Exactly. You can keep the books alright, but you have to promise me that you will do everything you can to save WarCode.”

“I’m not going to lose my lives to-”

“Everything within your power.”

“Alright.”

The fairy flew to a shelf and managed to pull out sheaves of oath paper. As usual they shone with the power of another Stat in his third vision.

“These things are everywhere,” remarked Corn.

“Meh, it’s pretty useful for deals. Even higher leveled beings and rich bastards hate losing a Race counter. It’s not perfect but it’s better than nothing.”

Having taken it out, the two of them began to write down a deal. Corn tried to ensure that there was no loss to him and as long as he did his best he would get the books. Of course the fairy didn’t want to hand a single book over unless WarCode was safe. After squabbling a bit, they managed to reach a comprise that offered few books to Corn if he did his absolute best (a very tricky term to define) and more books if WarCode got out.

Corn was no scholar or lawyer and he had a feeling that the fairy abused that lack of experience to the extreme. But he was losing absolutely nothing, and stood to gain only if he acted.

The fairy removed the barrier of silence just as Care and Alt had retrieved the treasure.

It was a large lamp. Corn could see Alt using Speed to carry it. It was shaped like a hexagonal cage with a black metal framework and patterned glass covering the gaps. Through the glass he could see the wick inside the lamp. The pattern, the shape, it all looked very familiar. Where had he seen this before?

“Can you believe it? It’s a Funeral Lamp. It must be hundreds of years old,” said Care.

A funeral lamp? Like the one that sucked the soul of the Rock clan’s dwarf elder?

“Can it be used to save-” Corn didn’t finish the sentence.

Care winced, “Yes, it can. According to the oath, since we have the lamp, we have to help you. But it depends on you.”

[We don’t have time. If we can’t secure those lawyers now, there’s a chance the prosecution might buy them off. There’s no guarantee that you can save the ghost, it might not work. But if you don’t let them sell the lamp, you don’t get any of those books. Not one. There’s no way you are going to be a Mage.]

“If we use the lamp, how likely are we to rescue her?” he asked the soul eater.

“It depends, we’d need to check out the situation first,” she said.

Corn hesitated.

[Those oaths are at cross purposes, now. If I say anything, I lose a Race counter. The choice is all yours. Guaranteed power or sentiment that might fail? Choose wisely.]

Even in the afterlife she was stuck a slave. At least Corn escaped from slavery. When the opportunity to save her was right in front of him, how could he leave her behind?

At that moment, his stomach rumbled. Hunger shrieked and cawed. As it was he could barely stand the sensation, there was a limit to the mana made objects he could steal. If he got those books now, maybe he could be satisfied.

Wasn’t he abandoning her then?

“What is the chance that the lamp works?” he asked Care.

“Calculating the statistical likelihood is difficult, all we can do is try,” she said.

“I need some time to think,” he said.

Alt looked at him suspiciously, but Care nodded and the two of them went to get a troll that could transport the Funeral Lamp without getting it wet.

“If I do this, I need the books now.”

“Ok,” said the fairy.

To save her, he would have to battle BlueEyes. Whatever that monster’s expertise was, improving his own powers would improve his chances.

She flew to the shelves and tapped on four books. “Take these and read it here.”

“But if I touch it, the oaths will cause me to lose a counter.”

“Open ‘Fundamentals of Magic’, ‘Stats 101’, ‘Magical Spells Vol. 1’ and ‘Magical Spells Vol.2’,” cried the fairy.

The four books she tapped sild out of the shelf and hovered in front of where they had been kept. The titles were embossed into the books.

“Open ‘Stats 101’ page one.”

The book opened itself and flipped to page one.

“Woah!”

“Every decent Library has such functions. Just a remainder, the moment you leave this vault the password will reset. With this I’ve already fulfilled the oath I’ve made with you.”

“But if WarCode gets out?”

“We’ll see then,” she flew out.

Corn walked to the open book. Normal writing might have been tricky since differentiating colour with his third vision was tricky at the best of times. But these letters leaked ambient mana only on the page that was open and shone clearly a mile away, the moment the book opened.

‘There are 8 Stats and there are 8 aspects of worshipping the Mother Below. In the beginning when Metsys was created, the Mother Below broke Herself into pieces so that Her children could survive. We wielded the 8 Stats, slowly growing stronger. Each Stat is an aspect of the Mother Below and imbue different abilities to their chosen wielders.

There are 8 Stats, but all Stats are defined by two things: power and control.

Power is the number you see on your Screen 3, 4, 57. It represents the amount of Stat you can access. The reserves. The battery. How many fireballs can you shoot?

Control is a percentage.’

Blah, blah, blah. He’d seen this already.

‘Usage of every Stat can be divided into three sections: framework, art and technique. Technique is the simplest, it is the usage of the Stat to achieve an end. It includes spells, divinations, curses and anything that is easily replicated by others.

Art represents the style of using a Stat with an understanding of the fundamental properties of the Stat. It changes the nature of the base reserves and often imbues a technique with ancillary properties. It is not easily replicated and often has to be taught by a teacher to their disciple.’

Hmmm, obviously the spells he learnt were techniques, but what about his ability to materialize ice? Was that also a technique? Probably. Then he had to go looking for an art.

‘Framework embodies the culmination of multiple arts. Not only does it change the base reserves, it often births different innate techniques. Basically, they are racial abilities and the reason why many of the Higher Races are so sought out.’

Awesome! He had innate techniques? How could he learn about them?

‘While control comes with experience, power comes from two sources: one is through the System, the other through Desire. Desire is a bastardized source. It is weak, fickle, poorly understood and rarely used by experienced practitioners. It is best avoided.

The System, while widely acclaimed and known by all, is incredibly intricate and not fully understood by most.

For example, Skills are…’

Rue was worried.

She sat in a worn goblin leather chair at her captain’s office. But behind the captain’s tiny desk sat a short, flabby dog kin with the face of a pug. DagWord, the Guard chief of Iridicrodium. The bitch jokes about her were endless, but in 45 years of service, she’d never changed her race.

To Rue’s right sat the source of all her worry. A fairy. No doubt the fairy actually had a real face, but if Rue looked directly at the fairy, all she saw a blurred, shifting composite of men and women of all races. So she looked away.

They were one of the most elite Chosen Races, beaten in reputation only by angels. Only the most proficient in Wisdom were chosen to be fairies. And that one reason was enough for her to be very worried.

“We want you to escort me with a package, Detective RueBee,” the fairy pointed to a bunch of metal suitcases.

Rue snorted, “It looks like your smuggling Core crystals.”

“Not at all,” the fairy smiled, “we’re smuggling 50 Freedom Counters or yellows as you people like to call them.”

“Yeah right and I’m the mayor of this city.”

The fairy opened a suitcase and held out a glowing Freedom counter.

Shit.

“You know on second thought, I change my mind. I want nothing to do with your sordid deeds. Good bye,” she said and rose up to leave.

The world went black and floating heads began to spin around her. To her dismay, she recognised most of them. She checked the mind talisman. It was uncompromised, so this had to be an illusion open to all.

“Do you recognise them?” asked the fairy. “Your charity pet projects?”

Rue sat down and said, “Ok. You got me. Where are we smuggling them to?”

The fairy grinned, multiple smiles combined into one, “Why, we’re taking them where they came from. You didn’t think some two bit don could actually own 50 of these babies. These things are priceless. And oh, those mind talismans you’ve got. I could break all five of them in the snap of a finger.”