“Well,” Cellestra said after a few minutes of page-turning. “I’m going to need several weapons to practice. We’d better stop by Zearis again. Damn, I should have known this. I suppose I’ll have to do with my knife for now.”

She retrieved said object from her backpack and took a good look at it, her eyes overlooking the metal as she pointed it away from her.

“I suppose any weapon works?” I asked. “That shouldn’t be an issue.”

“For now, yes. The quality won’t matter until later on. It says right here that once enchantments get more complicated, the weapon needs to have a solid internal structure or it will just break apart. In other words, as the complexity of the enchant grows, so too needs the quality of the weapon.”

“Interesting. And this complexity thing? How easy is it to make your first enchantment?”

“That’s what I’ll find out in a bit. The main issue that I’m facing is that each weapon can only be enchanted once, and if it’s done improperly, it can severely harm the weapon in the process, so I’m going to do a bit more reading before I attempt anything.”

“No harm in being prepared.”

“Exactly.”

Time passed as I worked and Cellestra read until she distracted me by humming out loud in surprise. I asked her if she’d found something interesting.

“Apparently, you can even enchant glassware. That’s so strange. I’ve never heard of anything like that.”

“Despite all the alchemy books you’ve read?”

“That’s why it’s so strange. Did Rose just not know? I highly doubt that. Makes me think there’s a reason she didn’t mention it.”

“Is it safe?”

“It’s the same as enchanting weapons. Mistakes will cause the material to become brittle, or even fall apart, but I can’t find anything about dangers.”

“Maybe your type of magic?” I suggested. “But as long as you don’t use it in large amounts it’s not an issue, right?”

“Yeah, and these enchantments, at the very least the simple ones, do not require much at all. I might just attempt to enchant a vial first.”

“What do those do anyway?”

“Anything you can imagine, apparently. This book is about learning enchanting for beginners, but to draw people in, they did list a bunch of different things that go beyond this tome’s scope. You start out with simple magic that increases the shelf-life of whatever is stored in potions, and eventually, you get to effects that increase the contents’ power, or even add different ones.”

“Very interesting. I’m very excited about all this, and so are you by the sound of it.”

“Hah,” She let out. “That obvious, eh? Yeah, it’s amazing what you can do with this. One advantage I have is that I have learned to read these magic instructions quite well, and my control when it comes to small amounts of mana is very good. It shouldn’t be difficult at all to make some progress today already.”

“I’ll stop bothering you then,” I said with a wide smile. “I still have plenty of work to do here as well.”

She smiled back as she went back to page-turning.

The spiderlings didn’t sit by idly either. They had finished creating a dome on top of our nest and were now covering the walls as best as they could to seal our home from any leakage. I might just have to test it myself for that as the skies didn’t show any sign of rain anytime soon. They were completely clear and the afternoon sun was still shining brightly.

Hours passed and I finished several walls in that time while Cellestra started doing some practice. She tried to enchant two vials, and the first one shattered and crumbled into tiny pieces onto the table. The second one didn’t suffer the same fate, and judging from her smile, the enchantment had succeeded.

That little victory came right when evening was about to hit. The light had already started to dim and darkness would be falling in soon, so her success was a great time for me to finally stop. I hadn’t noticed it earlier, but I had used up a good deal of mana and was starting to feel tired.

“Tell me,” I said as I skittered up to her. “What did you do?”

“Nothing special. Exactly what I talked about earlier. This enchant allows anything inside this vial to remain good for longer. Though it won’t work nearly as well for high-quality potions and elixirs. You use different types of glass for those. That is one thing I did, in fact, know.”

“Well, I’ve already learned a lot of new stuff from your little dive into this.”

“As did I,” She said as she wormed her legs from under the table and stood up with a stumble. “By the goddess, my legs are sleeping. I sat in the same position for too long there.”

I giggled at her shaking on her feet, trying to get the sensation back into them, smiling awkwardly at me.

“I suppose it’s time to go to sleep altogether. We still need to clean everything up and it’s going to get dark soon.”

“Yeah,” She said with a nod. “The second I can walk.”

I couldn’t help but chuckle as I took a few of the items from the table and brought them inside, stashing them away in the top drawer, which had remained empty up until now. I figured we would dedicate this to anything that had to do with Cellestra’s work.

Another trip was needed to gather everything, and by then Cellestra managed to move again, but just as quickly had laid herself down in the webs after putting away her necessities. The spiderlings had tired themselves out as well and went to sleep quite quickly, with only Amarys staying awake for the time being.

“Building a home ain’t easy,” I whispered as soon as Cellestra lay down next to me, pressing herself against me while I hugged her. “It’s starting to look like something now, though, at last.”

“It’s beautiful,” She replied softly. “It’s warm and cozy, and it’s safe with our personal guards watching over us. It’s also… quiet. I’ve grown fond of the quiet that I had back in the other forest, and now here as well.”

“True,” I replied. “As much as I sought out quiet in the past, I was never able to find it, not anywhere close. It’s so peaceful out here.”

“I’m glad you found it. Even with our lives in turmoil, I’m happy we’re still able to enjoy them.”

“As am I. Good night, Cel.”

I kissed her cheek and burrowed my face in her hair.

“Good night, Kea.”

The next day started just like any other, with us making some kind of plan for the day on our way to my parents for breakfast. We settled on hunting in the dungeon for both abilities and money. I’d allow my spiderlings to get a couple more abilities before we would burden them with stronger opponents.

I knew we could skip the third-floor boss, but in my opinion, that fight would prove to be a perfect challenge for the others.

One thing that I would like to have for the spiders would be some kind of barrier ability. Mine had helped out tremendously. All I’d seen so far were passive defense skills, which were still amazing to get, but completely nullifying attacks was preferable.

Where would I obtain something like that, though? I had not seen such an ability used against me by monsters. Well, the closest thing was the barrier used by those walking trees, but wood was inedible.

There was also the pumpkin creature that had used some kind of barrier, but killing that to obtain the ability would kind of forego its purpose. After all, the idea was to get such a spell before fighting that. In addition, my minions would have to land the killing blow to even be able to obtain the skill. For that, they would undoubtedly be put at risk.

Also, pumpkins were disgusting. I hated them with such a passion that I would feel bad for subjecting the spiderlings to eating them.

I shrugged it off. Maybe they’d enjoy it. Who was I to tell them what to like?

We got to the farm where my family was already waiting outside, seated at a brand new table. They had gotten hold of that in record time, and not only that, but they had completely new and complimenting chairs as well.

My mother waved with a smile and Elira, well, of course, she came running at me, and I simply lifted her up with my front legs as she hugged me.

“Good morning to you too,” I said with a chuckle.

“Morning, sis! How are you doing?”

“I’m doing fine. How about you?”

“I’m doing fine as well.”

“Good.” I patted her head as I approached my parents, my eyes drawn to the quality piece of furniture they were able to acquire. “And it seems you’ve done some shopping already. That is one fancy-looking table.”