After the group found Samantha, Ethan wasted no time in turning back towards Alice.

“Is this your friend?”

Alice nodded. Ethan grinned at her.

“Well, in that case, congratulations. At the very least, we aren’t rescuing a corpse, the way I feared we might be. She doesn’t look like she’s in the best condition, but she’s still alive. Mental and physical trauma can be healed, with time and help, but once someone is dead there’s no way to fix it. So I can honestly say I’m very happy with this outcome.” Ethan took a look at Samantha again, before sighing. “I admit, it does look like she’s had a pretty rough time of it. With any luck she might have been unconscious during all of this, but we won’t know until she wakes up. But at least she’s alive.”

Alice felt a grin tug at her lips as she nodded. Even though Samantha had doubtlessly been through a lot in the past few days, the fact that she was still alive meant recovery was possible. In this world, if there was a class like [Psychiatrist], healing mental trauma would probably be much easier than back on Earth. As long as Alice’s plan to break Samantha’s kinetic seed worked out, Samantha should be able to get her life back on track even after this horrible run-in with the Society.

While the [Archers] kept an eye on the group’s surroundings, Ethan quickly walked over to Samantha and began inspecting her injuries. After that, he used organic seed to heal Samantha’s more egregious injuries. Alice used {Lesser Organic Vision} to watch as Samantha’s mage core grew back. Strands of flesh quickly sprung out of Samantha’s internal organs and wriggled their way into the spot where Samantha’s Mage core was supposed to be, rebuilding the Mage core the Society had cut out as Ethan’s magic tried to make Samantha’s body whole again.

Samantha’s healing treatment seemed to be going well. Her damaged skin and the various sores and cuts on her body began to heal up, and the girl was clearly recovering from the physical injuries she had suffered over the past few days. However, once Samantha’s Mage core was mostly restored, Samantha’s body immediately stopped getting better, and instead began to rapidly deteriorate. Her strange kinetic seed reappeared inside of her body as her mage core finished regenerating, and the process of healing suddenly seemed to reverse completely. Within moments, Samantha’s body began to grow weaker, and even while unconscious Samantha began coughing and shivering. Ethan frowned, then glanced at Alice, who also frowned as she observed Samantha’s body. Ethan turned to Alice again and shook his head.

“How odd. And interesting,” he said. “I’ll have to put fully healing her on hold. Sorry that I can’t fully heal her right now,” he said, giving Alice a regretful frown. At the same time, a tendril of Ethan’s organic mana wormed its way behind Samantha’s heart and destroyed the Mage core he had just regenerated. Within moments, the strange symptoms of illness that had begun spreading through Samantha’s body quickly disappeared, and her condition rapidly improved again.

“It’s not a big deal,” said Alice. “We can look at her more closely after we finish clearing out the Society base,” said Alice. She could tell that as long as Samantha’s Mage core remained missing, her body seemed to be in decent shape after Ethan’s healing. While Samantha definitely needed medical treatment, it wasn’t urgent. Ethan turned to one of the [Archers].

“There seems to be something wrong with her Mage core. I can’t figure out what it is, and I’ll take a closer look at her later. Take her out of this place and get her to a healer so they can double check my work, but make sure to tell them not to fix her Mage core for now. I’ll treat her later, and maybe I can teach my new apprentice a bit about some of the more interesting interactions between healing and organic mana. Even if she’s mostly battle oriented, it never hurts to know a bit more about healing too, right?” Ethan gave the [Archer] a friendly grin before handing the [Archer] in question Samantha. The [Archer] nodded, before heading back out of the base through the path the group had already taken.

After that, Ethan turned back to Alice, and a rainbow Perk shimmered into existence around the two of them.

“Do you have any thoughts on what the Society was doing to her?” He asked, looking at the two Samantha Mage Cores visible on the table nearby. “Honestly, if you hadn’t given me the hint that her Mage Core had a problem during our first conversation, I wouldn’t have been able to figure out why her condition deteriorated just now. I might have accidentally killed her while trying to heal her. The problems Samantha is experiencing are very unique...”

Alice nodded. She was a bit surprised that Ethan had such a hard time finding the problems with Samantha’s mage core, but without the ability to see magic seeds and Alice’s extensive familiarity with weird and broken magic seeds, it would indeed be hard to find out why Samantha was sick. If anything, she was more surprised by the fact that the Society of Starry Eyes had tracked down Samantha and seemed to be heading in the right direction with their research. “I expect that the Society explicitly targeted Samantha, after seeing all of this. They were probably interested in whatever error cropped up while Samantha was forming her Magic seed, and found the opportunity to kidnap her and study the anomaly,” said Alice, wincing as she looked at Samantha’s Mage cores on the table and imagined what it must have felt like to have them cut out. “I wasn’t sure before, but I can see both of her mage cores have the same weird magic seed problem Samantha originally did, and I can’t think of any other reason why they would so specifically target Samantha and continuously cut out her mage core to study. I’m not sure how they found out that she has a malformed magic seed, but it’s obvious that they were targeting her specifically because of her abnormality.”

Ethan frowned. “Perhaps they’re aware of what a malformed magic seed looks like from other cases, and kidnapped Samantha after learning of her condition? That would indicate that they’ve seen other cases, and have at least a good guess what they’re looking at…” He sighed, shaking his head. “I’ll look through the documents we’ve seized after we return to Metsel. Hopefully they’ll shed more light on what the Society was doing here.” Then, he seemed to focus on Samantha’s plight again, as he turned back to Samantha’s Mage cores on the table.

“Do you have a plan to help her? I can absolutely just leave her with no Mage Core and it seems like that’ll keep her sickness from cropping back up, but it would also mean the end of her future as a Mage. Since her family wasn’t exactly wealthy even with a Mage, they would be pretty hard hit financially, but I can definitely help you cover the issue if you have no ideas…”

Alice shook her head. “I’ve mentioned before that I had the ability to see inside of Mage Cores, but I have a few other weird abilities that come from my Perks and Achievements. One should help fix Samantha’s issue, and also remove any interest the Society might have towards her. I’ll need her permission, though, and I’ll also want your help covering it up.”

“That’s fine. We’ll talk later, once we finish dealing with the rest of the Society base,” said Ethan.

After that, the group continued wandering through the Society base. They found another Society member guarding a larger set of prisoners, this one comprised of a dozen children who were locked up in a room. Ethan almost immediately killed the Society member, before the group rescued the kids. Luckily, the Illvarian army seemed to have gotten there before anything happened to this group of children, so the ones in this room were relatively unscathed so far. After that, the group continued sweeping through the base, rescuing prisoners where they found them, administering first aid where needed, grabbing documents when available, and dealing with the last couple Society members in the base. A few of the Society members weren’t accounted for no matter where the group looked, leading Ethan to believe that they had either hidden themselves very well or had somehow escaped the encirclement of Ethan’s troops and Apprentices. It was unfortunate that a few of them escaped, but there was ultimately nothing that could be done about it. Apart from the groups of people the group rescued, there were also some prisoners who were dead, either having been torn apart or experienced some level of organ failure as a result of the experiments they had been subjected to. The number of corpses and the skeletons of former prisoners in the base numbered a horrifying amount as the group moved from room to room, and Alice also saw some mid-progress experiments she would never forget. Some of the victims of those experiments were still able to be rescued, and some… weren’t.

When they finished sweeping through the base, another hour or two had passed. Ethan quickly regrouped with the rest of the small army outside of the base, which had turned into something of a makeshift medical camp as the Illvarian forces tried to treat and accommodate the people who had been recovered from the Society base and were still alive. Ethan nodded to the [Commander] who had led most of the fight, and a rainbow Perk sprang into existence around the two before they started talking again. A few minutes later, the Perk disappeared, and Alice could hear the two speaking again.

“I’ll do as you say, Honored Immortal,” said the [Commander] with a nod.

“Good. Keep me updated on progress if you find anything new later on,” said Ethan, before nodding. The [Commander] kept around thirty troops as they began to look over the base again. The remainder of the [Soldiers] formed around Ethan, before the group began to regroup around Ethan instead.

With the prisoners rescued, the Society members captured or killed, and Ethan having swiped almost all of the research documents, the group headed back towards Metsel.

* * *

During the walk back to Metsel, Alice finally dealt with all of the System notifications she had been ignoring during the fight and the walk through the Society base.

You have leveled up!

Kinetic Manabinder 31 -> 38, Survivor 53 -> 54, Explorer of Magic 63 -> 66

Through Training, you have increased an attribute!

Dexterity 115 -> 116, Perception 135 -> 136, Magic 159 -> 161

Through training, you have increased a skill!

Kinetic Manipulation 68 -> 69, Mana control 50 -> 51, Mana Precision 50 -> 51, Kinetic Force 47 -> 49, Projectile Awareness 29 -> 32, Divided Attention 31 -> 33, Dodge 28 -> 29

Alice took note of her level ups first, especially the two new Perk slots she had gained. However, in addition to her simple level up notifications, there was a rather more interesting notification also waiting for her.

You have gained an achievement!

Immortal’s Apprentice at the battle against the Society (Rarity: 4)

As a talented combat-specialized Mage who is apprenticed to Ethan, the Immortal of Spells and Seeds, you participated in one of the battles between Illvaria and the Society of Starry Eyes, and played a notable role in securing victory for your side. Even if you didn’t distinguish yourself as an MVP of the battle, you performed above and beyond what would be expected of you for your age group. Illvaria is watching you!

+30 Class Experience to your ‘primary’ Magic-related class (Explorer of Magic), +15% Class Experience to all Kinetic Magic related classes. The effect of the {Divided Attention} Skill is increased by approximately 50%.

Alice nodded, taking a few moments to look over the Achievement. She was happy to receive a new Achievement, because no matter how minor the bonuses were, a new Achievement didn’t cost her any Perk slots. However, the description for this Achievement was… unusual. Specifically, the Achievement referred to her as a ‘talented combat-specialized Mage, which seemed blatantly incorrect. Even if Alice was getting better at fighting, she was a researcher first and foremost, with combat being more of an afterthought based on her real world circumstances and the danger the Society potentially posed to her. She was nowhere close to being ‘combat specialized.’ For the Achievement to describe her as combat-specialized seemed… a little strange. Alice sighed, before shaking her head and dismissing the Achievement. Even if the Achievement’s word choice seemed to take Ethan’s marketing of Alice’s abilities a bit more seriously than Alice expected, at the end of the day it didn’t seem to matter. Alice filed away the oddity of this Achievement description for later, when she had more ideas to put together, and then focused on the actual benefits of the Achievement.

Levelling speed was pretty self-explanatory, but boosting the effect of the {Divided Attention} skill was a rather interesting effect. {Divided Attention} was a Skill Illa had originally advised Alice to pick up, since it gave Mages a much easier time picking up Perks that gave them more mana tendrils, and could even directly give a Mage another magic tendril if they reached a high enough level with the skill.

Previously, Alice hadn’t really been paying careful attention to her abilities after the battle, since she had practically no mana left anyway, but now that she had recovered a little bit during the march back to Metsel…

Alice tried dividing her mana tendrils out, and realized with some surprise that she could, just barely, control five mana tendrils at once instead of four now. Her control over her final mana tendril was rather tenuous, and it was nowhere near as flexible as her ‘main’ four mana tendrils. However, boosting the effect of her {Divided Attention} Skill had definitely given her the ability to control one more mana tendril than before. She might need a few more points in the Skill before she fully gained control of her new tendril, but it was still a free magic tendril.

Alice grinned to herself, before looking at her two new Perk slots.

She didn’t end up thinking too much after looking over her choices for [Kinetic Manabinder]. She had gained one new mana tendril, but the course of the fight with the Society had shown Alice just how much more flexibility and power a Kinetic Mage with more mana tendrils had. As far as she could tell, her two biggest weaknesses were the inability to deal with tightly packed mixes of friendly and hostile people, and lack of mana tendrils. Since she saw a perk that let her address one of those problems, Alice snapped it up without thinking much.

Kinetic Tendrils

Requirements: Kinetic Manabinder class level 35 or greater, Magic Stat 150 or higher, Intelligence Stat 150 or higher

Increase the number of mana tendrils you can control by 2

The amount of Mana Tendrils Alice could control suddenly increased from four to seven in the aftermath of a single battle. Even if her control over her final mana tendril was shaky, she could control six of her mana tendrils extremely fluidly and effectively, which would make her far more effective against other powerful combatants or large quantities of combatants in the future. Alice grinned to herself. Even if the Perk wasn’t particularly ‘exciting,’ sometimes the best upgrades were simple ones. And nearly doubling the number of mana tendrils she could control in the aftermath of a single battle dramatically increased her baseline combat abilities.

Then, Alice turned to the Perk from her [Explorer of Magic] Class. Unlike her first Perk choice, this one was much more complicated, because she also needed to figure out whether she wanted a new Perk or whether she wanted to combine some of her older Perks to make them into something new.

Eventually, after looking over the new Perk options for level 65, Alice settled on another Perk combination, because it seemed more valuable than the new options available to her. She spent some time fiddling with menus and trying to figure out what she needed, before she combined {Magic Proficiency} and {Mana Construct Modelling}. She hoped that the combination of the two Perks might help her make a System Magic seed, since her first attempt at making a System magic seed had gone wrong in such strange ways that she wasn’t sure what all of the problems were yet.

Mana Construct Modelling

Requirements: Explorer of Magic level 45 or higher, Unique Achievement related to the Exploration of the System

Allows you to temporarily 'break down' a complex mana construct into its constituent parts by creating a mental model of the construct in question. This will also inform you of all of the kinds of mana present in the mana construct in question. This is an extremely accurate MODEL which exists only in your thoughts. It will react to Perk analysis and projected mana manipulation accurately, but does not exist outside of your imagination.

Magic proficiency

Requirements: Explorer of Magic level 5 or higher

Grants a greater level of intuitive control over your mana and its effects on the world around you, along with improved understanding of manipulating magic in general.

Magic Proficiency had become nearly wholly useless to Alice – it had originally been a very helpful training crutch, one that she had needed to adapt to using and manipulating Magic during her time in this world. However, by now Alice had spent several months training her Magic and using it almost every day. She no longer needed the small amount of help the Perk provided her, so she had no qualms at all about sacrificing the Perk.

{Mana Construct Modelling} was a Perk Alice was slightly more hesitant to throw away, since it was still sometimes useful for helping her research new Enchantments and helping her figure out how strange and complicated mana constructs worked. However, the usefulness of the Perk was also starting to drop off, and the amount of help the Perk could provide was getting lower and lower as Alice got more and more in-depth while researching strange and obscure topics. Since that was the case, Alice hoped combining the two might provide her with a more helpful combination of the traits of both Perks, hopefully letting her take another step towards creating a working System magic seed.

Intuitive Magic Modelling (Tier 2 Perk, level 65 Explorer of Magic) (Level 5 Explorer of Magic Perk + Level 45 Explorer of Magic Perk)

Perk Costs: Magic Proficiency + Mana Construct Modeling sacrificed to create this Perk.

Note: Because this Perk will drastically alter the way you perceive the world, you must take a few hours of time to ‘update’ your perception. Until you activate this Perk and update your senses, the Perk will do nothing. It is strongly recommended you start this process before you go to sleep, as trying to process your changing senses while awake will be highly unpleasant and will seriously impact your sense of balance.

You intuitively mentally ‘model’ any form of mana within ten meters of you, whether they are complex mana constructs, forms of mana, or enchantments. You will intuitively know what kinds of mana they are made of and have an intuitive understanding of some of the simpler components of anything you model. In short, this will give you some level of understanding of what an enchantment or mana construct is, how it works, and what it does, although it won’t feed you information beyond a certain level of complexity.

After Alice saw her upgraded Perk, she felt she had probably made the right decision. She wouldn’t know until tomorrow, since she planned to ‘update’ her senses tonight, but being able to understand the composition of all nearby enchantments, as well as intuitively understanding how simple parts of enchantments worked would make learning new enchantments much easier. She wasn’t entirely sure whether this Perk would be helpful in making a System magic seed, since she couldn’t use the Perk yet, but she retained at least some hope that the Perk would be useful for more than just enchantment analysis. Of course, she still needed to actually update her senses, so she shelved her thoughts about her new Perk and resolved to investigate it more thoroughly tomorrow.

Once Alice was done dealing with her Perks, she caught up with Ethan, and after Ethan put up a Perk to deal with eavesdroppers Alice quickly discussed her plans and ideas for how to fix Samantha’s problem, and what Alice was hoping Ethan would help her with. Ethan agreed, and with a rudimentary plan for healing Samantha in place Alice felt a weight fall off of her shoulders.

When the group arrived in Metsel, most of the [Soldiers] dispersed, returning to their original squads, dealing with administrative work, or otherwise finding a place to drink themselves into oblivion or chase [Barmaids] or [Waiters]. Some groups of [Soldiers] instead got the less enjoyable task of escorting the captured Society members to prison, where they would await trial. Meanwhile, Ethan brought Alice and the unconscious Samantha back to a small mansion in the inner circle of the city. Alice assumed this was either Ethan’s house or a research base he owned, but because she was focused on Samantha she didn’t spend much time paying attention to her surroundings. The most important thing she noticed about Ethan’s property was that it was mostly uninhabited – there were a few [Maids] keeping the place clean, but the small mansion was very quiet overall.

Upon entering the house, Ethan laid Samantha down on a cot in one of the rooms. Then, Ethan placed a hand on Samantha’s head, and rainbow mana colored his eyes as he investigated Samantha. Unlike the rushed healing job at the Society Base, this time Ethan was very careful, the Perk he was using poking through Samantha’s body as Ethan tried to get an idea what was wrong with her. Finally, he turned back towards Alice.

“Even with much slower and more detailed Perks, I can’t see her magic seeds or figure out what’s wrong at all. If I hadn’t seen it myself, I would have thought she just needed her magic core healed up, and I wouldn’t have any idea that she had other problems on top of that. I must admit, I find myself increasingly curious what kind of information you can see with your specialized Achievements and Perks, Lady Alice,” said Ethan, his eyes aglow with curiosity. Finally, he sighed. “Is there anything we should do before waking her up? She might freak out or panic if we try to put her asleep after this, so if there are any medical procedures you think would help your treatment plan, let me know so I can do them now. I can’t help you much with this treatment, sadly, although since you’ve already picked up an apprentice healing license and I’m supervising you there won’t be any legal issues even if you fail to heal her. But apart from that, I can’t help here.”

Alice shook her head. “I don’t need anything from you, medically speaking. I can directly solve the problem, I just need the patient to consent to my actions first.”

“I don’t detect any problematic Perks that will backfire if I wake her up now. Are you sure you’re ready for her to be awake?”

Alice nodded.

Ethan placed his index finger on Samantha’s forehead before he sent a jolt of organic mana towards Samantha’s brain. Within a few moments, Samantha’s eyelids began to flutter. Alice took a deep breath, feeding her ideas into {Safety Analysis} one final time as she prepared to heal her friend.