Vivi had little problem tucking away the giant ball of condensed voidglass. With a wave of her staff and a high-tier spatial manipulation spell, the sphere vanished into a portable section of space she had carved out for the purpose. Notably, not her inventory. She tried that first, but while capacity and allowances like size and weight scaled with level, even twenty-one hundred wasn't enough to stuff an entire compacted void invasion into her pocket.
Or perhaps the material's otherworldly nature was to blame. The System seemed reluctant to interact with voidglass, even more so than she would have assumed. She wondered whether that meant attempts to utilize voidglass as crafting material would meet similar pushback. At a minimum, she had a [Void Resistance I] skill that suggested some amount of Void-and-System intermingling existed.
That done, she flitted down to thank the Guard Captain for his help. She'd expected to wait most of the day, but he'd organized the project in less than an hour—he'd gone above and beyond. He met her thanks with his usual politeness.
Now that her errand was finished, she regrouped with Saffra then [Blinked] the two of them away. They spent most of the training session at the Icevein Craters since Saffra's strongest subset of spells was fire-types, but she also brought the girl to a volcanic area further to the east. Best to test her against a variety of monsters.
When the hunt had wound down and they were preparing to warp back home, Saffra asked with obvious hesitance in her tone, "Isn't this going to be a… problem, Lady Vivi?"
"You'll need to be more specific."
"I just leveled ten times. Ten. And we didn't even push that hard."
"Yes…?"
"Most people don't level that fast," Saffra pointed out dubiously.
"I'm well aware of that," came Vivi's own dry response. She might have 'memory problems,' and her sense of scale might be off—even when deliberately trying to compensate—but she knew that the speed of Saffra's growth was unprecedented. Their arrangement might be truly novel, the first instance in history where a master seventeen hundred levels higher was purposefully raising her apprentice's level as fast as possible. 'Power-leveling,' to borrow a phrase, though she should probably minimize how often she thought about the world in those terms.
"So… won't I have… issues?" Saffra insisted. "Like, how long will it even take me to reach mithril at this pace? There's gotta be problems that come with progressing like I am. Or… don't you think?"
The idea had brushed Vivi's mind before, but she hadn't given it much serious contemplation. She was quiet as she mulled the question over.
"Not that I'm complaining about leveling too fast," Saffra assured Vivi, her tone making it clear how offensive the idea was. Like 'making too much coin' or 'walking around in too perfect health.' "Just." She struggled for a second, hands making meaningless gestures. "You know."
"You don't want to be a mithril rank who barely has a grasp on the spells she learned a few weeks ago." An amusing image popped into Vivi's head. "Like a baby deer growing up all at once. Lots of fumbling around. It's not just about having abilities, but enough experience in how to use them."
"Yeah."
"I see where you're coming from, but I don't think it's a good reason to slow down. There might be some growing pains you deal with that most people don't, but the stat bonuses will make up for them. They'll help you improve faster in nearly every aspect of magecraft. Larger mana pool means more spells before you tire, which means more practice, and not just more, but also better practice. Working with higher-tier spells will help you understand deeper fundamentals of magecraft inherently locked away from you because of your level."
"I… yeah." She didn't sound totally convinced. "You would know best. And again, really not trying to sound entitled. But there's no way I'll be able to expand my grimoire at the same speed I'm leveling. Haven't even fully gotten [Flash Freeze] down, and I'm, once again, ten levels higher. In a two-hour practice session. At this rate, I'll have the saddest grimoire of any mithril ever."
Vivi hummed, not entirely unsympathetic to the girl's plight. "Things will slow down by themselves. We won't keep this pace forever. And a higher level means picking up spells easier, so that gap will close too. No matter the situation, this is the fastest you'll improve. Both by level and fundamentally."
Saffra might end up weaker for her rank than some others, but Vivi was convinced this was the best path forward; her apprentice would benefit in the long run from a quick ascension, not only in the short term. There just might be an awkward intermediary stage where she hadn't grown into her strength yet.
Saffra nodded slowly. She seemed somewhat reassured. Vivi could see how being 'weak' for her level wasn't an appealing concept, but 'weak for mithril' would still be many, many times more powerful than 'strong for silver.' And honestly, it wasn't a total guarantee that Saffra would turn out to be 'weak for her rank' in the first place.
Vivi would think on the topic more, but she doubted she would change her mind.
With their training expedition finished, Vivi warped herself and Saffra back to the manor. They enjoyed a late lunch prepared by the White Gloves. Afterward, she teleported to Vanguard's common room, arriving with a pop of displaced air. Her attention fell on the obvious point of interest.
Two men were inside. One she had expected—Jasper had an open offer to join Vanguard. The newcomer was a surprise, but not a large one. She'd been waiting for him for a while. The third member of Jasper and Mae's team had finally arrived.
Like Jasper, Derrick seemed somewhere in his late thirties, or maybe a bit older than that, but unlike the ranger, he was thick and well-built, on the shorter side, and solid in the way of a pile of stacked-and-mortared bricks. Although he was wearing a long-sleeved shirt and trousers, his muscles bulged through the fabric. His features were blunt and square, yet that rough-hewn appearance worked well on him. His hair was the only slightly discordant note in the ensemble: brown and shaggy, a tad unkempt, too lax for how every other part of the man suggested the stern hardness of a lifelong soldier.
Derrick had been out of Meridian when Vivi had first arrived and had taken longer to return than Mae had initially estimated. Visiting family for Peace Day, Vivi believed she remembered.
The two men spun when they sensed the influx of magic.
Vivi noted that they appeared to be… in the middle of a game of darts?
"Vivisari," Jasper said after a short delay. He looked at the projectile held between his fingers, then back to her. "Mae kicked us out," he offered in cheery explanation. "How else were we supposed to keep ourselves occupied?"
His tone of voice suggested he was being flippant about something, and Vivi didn't understand why for a second. Then she realized that he thought she would be annoyed that he and Derrick had hung up a dartboard in Vanguard's common room—they had even taken down and set aside a painting to make space. But Vivi hardly thought of the guild as sacred grounds to never be touched. In fact, Vanguard's interior would need to see major changes before long. The guild was too small. It had only been meant to host her and four friends.
"Derrick, I take it?" Vivi offered in greeting. The man seemed unsure because of her presence, though not in a nervous or anxious way. Just as anyone meeting a 'legendary figure' would be.
"Sure is," Jasper said, clapping Derrick's shoulder. His voice was playfully mocking. "Shield extraordinaire. Or rather, professional punching bag. Gets battered around so we don't have to."
Derrick raised an eyebrow at Jasper but otherwise ignored him. Vivi could tell the man had long experience tolerating the ranger. "Pleasure to meet you, Lady Sorceress. Sorry for the liberty we took here." He thumbed at the dartboard. "Comes off easy, no marks on the wall, you have my word."
Vivi waved her hand dismissively. It wasn't anything to make a small deal out of, much less a big one. Again, it was the guild's space, not hers—and while Jasper hadn't accepted the invite officially, he was one of Vanguard in all but name.
"Who's winning?" she asked.
Jasper snorted. "Let's see." He put a hand on his chest. "Ranger. Accuracy-based class." He flourished two hands at Derrick in an exaggerated way. "Makes a living getting his skull bashed in."
"I'm the one who's winning, you ass."
"Well, yes, but I play with a handicap. That means I'm always winning, even if everyone's politely pretending otherwise."
"Are you sure you want him in your guild, miss?" Derrick asked Vivi. "Nobody would blame you for having second thoughts. Heavens know I do, every other day."
"Only every other?" Jasper asked, impressed.
"I learned to lower my standards."
Vivi's lips twitched in amusement. Yes, it definitely seemed that Jasper's teammate knew how to handle him better than the alchemist did. "Miraelle is unfortunately attached to him. I'm glad to meet you, Derrick, but I'm in the middle of something. We can talk more later, about your invitation?"
Ideally with Rafael around. She was getting better at playing Guildmaster with how much she'd had to interact with people and generally take on the role of the Sorceress, but she still preferred having professionals to lean on whenever she could.
Derrick seemed stunned for some reason, probably because she'd mentioned an 'invitation,' though Jasper and Mae surely had informed him beforehand. His being in Vanguard's common room in the first place was proof of that. "Of… course, my lady. I'm honored."
She nodded, then headed for the vault. The high ceiling thankfully provided more than enough room to squeeze the ball of condensed voidglass in with all the crafting materials, though it took a few careful telekinesis spells to organize a spot.
She would need to portion the sphere out somehow, since it was obviously no use to anyone in its current state. Every craftsman would want the material shaped differently for their uses, though, and she didn't know how yet. Should go ask Mae how she wants hers, for that matter.
Winding through the guild, she made her way to the alchemy laboratory and knocked on the closed door there.
"Go away," Mae's irritated voice called from inside. "I'll never be finished if you keep bothering me every ten minutes."
Vivi hesitated. "It's me, Miraelle."
A pause, and a few seconds later, a flustered-looking Mae opened the door. "Lady Vivisari. I'm so sorry. I thought you were Jasper, but I should've known better. He would never knock."
"It's fine. Is this a bad time?"
"No. Not at all. Please come in."
Vivi suspected Mae had lied to her, because after waving her in, the woman scrambled over to a boiling cauldron and frantically went about tending to it. She clearly shouldn't have abandoned it in the first place. Vivi sighed, wishing—insane as the thought was—that Mae would treat her more like Jasper did. Vivi preferred irreverence to excessive amounts of respect, let alone borderline worship like she sometimes caught from Mae.
Vivi hesitated, wondering if she should come back later, but she didn't intend to bother the alchemist for long. She did at least wait for the potion-brewer to reach a calmer step in the process before starting their conversation, for which the elf tossed a grateful look at her halfway through.
"So, how can I help?" Mae asked, stirring the now sedate cauldron.
"I brought some high-tier voidglass back from Prismarche. It's in a difficult-to-use form right now, though. A giant… clump. I wanted to ask you how you would like it processed for any experiments you have planned."
Mae hummed as she considered. "Well, there's the obvious: I'll want a decent amount milled into powders of different coarseness. Most logical starting point when it comes to experimenting with foreign material. Flakes too. That said, creativity's the limit here. Who even says it needs to be an ingredient? Might be like silver—a cauldron of it could induce interesting effects."
"So powders and a cauldron?"
"Er, yes. Those two definitely, but I'm just thinking aloud. A small cauldron, I'm sure it's valuable."
"I'll make it as big as you need it." She gestured at the one Mae was working with as they spoke. "Like that?"
Mae opened her mouth to protest, then reconsidered. She was probably readjusting to having the Sorceress funding her ventures once again. Concerns like 'moderation' and 'reasonable expenses' no longer applied. Doubly true for a project as important as voidglass. Finally, she nodded. "Alright then. Yes, that works. But also, I should make a whole list, and that'll take some thinking. I'll get back to you as soon as I can. I'll try to keep it to the essentials, I know you're busy."
"Don't. Anything you can think of."
Another hesitation, then a soft snort. "Alright, alright. I'll go all out." A short pause. "I'm a little worried about ingesting that material, though. In small enough doses, and since I have several safety skills, it should be fine. But still."
That was a good point—one Vivi embarrassingly hadn't considered. She herself had bypassed voidglass's effects enough that she was only mildly concerned with anything weaker than a voidgod, but other people were… not her, and much more vulnerable. Something she constantly needed to remind herself about. "Wait until I'm there to watch over you, at least for the first time."
"That's probably unnecessary, especially with the precautions I'll take." Mae withdrew a red vial from her inventory and waggled it in demonstration—a dose of the Phoenix Blood Elixir that Vivi herself carried around. "But, uh, yeah. Suppose it's best to be safe when dealing with reagents harvested from another world."
"Definitely."
"Did Ulden ask for anything?"
The question came out of nowhere. She looked blankly at Mae in confusion. Mae blinked with her own befuddlement.
"Wait. Did… did Jasper not tell you? Ulden's back! I figured you went and saw him before me."
"He is?" Vivi asked, shocked. "Since when?"
"Like two hours ago." Mae laughed. "He went straight for the vault, barely finished grunting out his hellos." The elf turned sheepish. "Guess I'm not one to talk, though. Also got carried away when I found out my lab had survived. Never mind the vault."
Vivi didn't fault any of the craftsmen for their obsessions. It was what made them invaluable to Vanguard. Not that Vivi wanted to view her guild members as 'valuable' or 'not valuable,' but she also couldn't entirely avoid that utilitarian calculation. She was their guildmaster.
Though—Ulden was back? And presumably had rejoined Vanguard? Things almost never worked out that smoothly. "I thought I'd have to track him down myself. Wasn't he in his enclave in the Western Kingdom? How'd he make it all the way here?"
"Nothing motivates a jewelcrafter like a vault full of the rarest gems and metals in the world," Mae joked. "Surprised he didn't get here quicker, honestly." The levity faded and she took on a thoughtful expression. "Probably heard the rumors and immediately headed for Meridian. Or Rafael reached out. Convoy's fast, especially if the schedule lined up where you can get back-to-back tickets."
Vivi was pretty sure Rafael had mentioned messaging their members 'circumspectly,' though Ulden would be the only one to charge across the continent on his own initiative. "Well. That's good news. I should probably go greet him."
Mae bobbed her head in agreement. "I'll come up with that list. Thanks for checking in, Lady Vivisari."
"Not a problem." She raised a hand to signal she was leaving, and Mae returned a smile, though it was brief, her attention mostly occupied with the cauldron.
Somewhat apprehensive like she always was when she was about to meet someone from her 'previous life,' Vivi set off to the jewelcrafting workshop.