"Why did things turn out like this… For the first time, I had enough EXP to level up AND a gacha draw waiting for me. Two happy things happening at once — they should have multiplied my joy, given me a blissful, dreamlike moment straight out of a fantasy… So why, oh why, did things turn out like this…"①
The smile at the corner of Li Fei's lips slowly faded. Her small face was a portrait of pure misery, and under her breath she was muttering a string of lines absolutely saturated with grievance.
"Maybe… even the lowest-tier prize might still be a big help to me, right?"
Clinging to that last shred of wishful thinking, Li Fei turned a hopeful gaze toward the System Panel.
[You have obtained a Nature-Affinity Knowledge Book — Buff-type Magic — Tier 1 — Stone Skin. Use it?]
"…"
Li Fei's expression collapsed entirely. She swept a cold, dismissive glare across the panel's notification, wearing the look of someone who had been profoundly, personally insulted.
Knowledge Books were good things — Li Fei had been eyeing the vast, ocean-deep catalogue of Knowledge Books in the System Shop for a long time now.
The effect of a Knowledge Book was similar to the "divine enlightenment" trope in wuxia novels, or the "Divine Realm exchange" mechanic in infinite-flow fiction: it allowed a Transcendent to master a spell or combat technique at light speed.
There was just one prerequisite: it had to actually suit you.
Nicole's lesson seemed to drift back to her ears:
"Each of the five great schools of magic has its own distinct character."
"Life magic, for instance, covers a vast range of buff and healing spells. Chaos magic encompasses a large number of destructive, offensive spells. Death mages inspire dread through the manipulation of undead and unsettling curses. Order magic, by contrast, covers the broadest range of all — if it has any defining trait, it would be a particular mastery of 'Space' and 'Mind.'"
"And as for Nature magic — it has always been best known for summoning. Loxibrook is a Nature-aligned city, and Nature mages are more numerous and flourishing here than anywhere else."
"Of course, you must keep one thing in mind: what I've just described are only the broad general traits of each school. After all, even Chaos magic — the school most associated with destruction and ruin — is not without its buff spells. And many clerics who specialize in Life magic often hide one or two surprisingly lethal tricks up their sleeve."
...
Having learned the characteristics of all nine streams of Transcendent Knowledge, Li Fei had made her choices.
First: true to her cardinal creed of Safety First, she had no interest in close-quarters combat and immediately ruled out the Scouting and Combat disciplines. Second: while the feeling of having both wealth and numbers on your side was appealing enough, Li Fei was fundamentally drawn to a "all power unto myself" philosophy — so Tactics and Nobility were crossed off the list as well.
Choosing one path from among the five magic schools — Life, Death, Order, Chaos, and Nature — had given her considerably more trouble.
In the end, after long and careful deliberation, Li Fei had settled on Nature magic — and she had done so entirely for the summoning spells. The appeal was obvious: summon a horde of expendable meat shields to throw at the enemy, then lurk safely behind them picking off targets with a crossbow. What could possibly be more beautiful than that?
And yet this wretched system had seen fit to give her a buff spell. Not just any buff spell, either — it was Stone Skin, the one that had become enormously popular after someone discovered a rather specialized application for it, but which exactly zero people had ever found useful in actual combat!
What was she supposed to do — cast Stone Skin on herself like a distinguished mage-lady, then wade in swinging her staff like some brutish barbarian?
Absolutely not. Never.
"Fine, fine. There'll be plenty more draws later. I refuse to believe I'll pull a buff spell every single time… If that actually happens, I'll eat this stupid system right here on the spot!"
Li Fei's face was the picture of sulky displeasure, consoling herself through gritted teeth — while simultaneously, guided by the principle of never waste anything, honestly selecting "Confirm Use."
A grey book materialized before her, then split open with a thunderous crack and dissolved into a scatter of fragmented light that surged into the space between her brows.
Incantations, model architecture, spell nodes… Profound, abstruse knowledge flooded Li Fei's mind and etched itself deep into her memory.
Stone Skin (Lv1)
Spell Effect: Increases the target's Defense by 25%, while reducing Agility by 10%.
Duration: 30 minutes
Cooldown: 1 minute
Mana Cost: 8
EXP to next level: 0/100
"So this… is what a spell model feels like?"
Li Fei turned her attention inward, feeling the strange, irregular three-dimensional symbol that had taken up residence in the depths of her mind. Almost on instinct, she recited a short incantation:
"Corpus lapis."
The symbol representing the Stone Skin spell model began to tremble, then blazed with light. The mana that had been dormant within her body stirred under the model's direction, surging and cycling in accordance with a set of intricate rules — coursing through muscle and bone, blood and soul.
The pathways mana traced wove back and forth, crossing and recrossing, until at last they assembled into a complex, abstract structure — one that matched the symbol in her mind down to the last detail.
The moment the spell model completed, Li Fei's chant fell silent. She directed her intent — and a grey shimmer of mana burst outward, settling over her right arm.
Her pale skin now carried a dull grey cast. Li Fei tried flexing her right hand. The response was noticeably sluggish. She raised her left hand and prodded the grey-tinged area with a slender fingertip — it had gone somewhat hard and rough, nothing like the soft, smooth skin it usually was. The feeling in her right arm had gone a little numb.
Li Fei might not have had any firsthand experience, but she'd seen enough on the internet to put two and two together. She now fully understood why this spell had become so enormously popular in certain entertainment establishments.
"Tier-1 magic is this much of a rip-off?"
Li Fei puffed out her cheeks, exasperated.
"I wouldn't say it's completely useless. I'd say it's precisely, surgically, absolutely useless."
Still grumbling, she reached into her bag and pulled out the dagger that Hathaway — vice-president of the Thieves' Guild — had gifted her. She pressed it lightly against her arm, intending to run a quick field test of Stone Skin's defensive value.
What she had not accounted for was that she'd severely underestimated the combined effect of Sharpness Rank III and the Wither enchantment. The dagger known as Darknight slid through her arm and left a thin, clean line of red with practically no effort at all.
Li Fei: …
[Darknight]
Equipment Rating: Crescent
Attributes: Sharpness Rank III, Durability Rank II.
Enchantments: Killing Intent Concealment (Lv1), Wither (Lv1).
Wither (Lv1): Reduces the target's armor.
She stared at the system description for Darknight, then looked at the thin red line on her arm. Li Fei was silent for a long moment, biting her lower lip. Then she stamped her foot.
It's all Hathaway's fault! She could at least have warned me how dangerous this dagger is!
Next time Hathaway calls for me, I'm going to show her exactly how unhappy I am. The kind of unhappy that won't be fixed until she orders three to five bottles of "Ode to the Night" at 18,888 silver coins each.
What's that — there was an equipment description right there in the System Panel?
That's completely beside the point. Even if the star courtesan made ninety-nine mistakes, does that mean the customer bears absolutely zero responsibility for the remaining one percent?
Come to think of it — how much is this Darknight actually worth? The longsword she'd bought for 27 gold coins looked like an absolute amateur next to this dagger…
She cleaned the dagger with careful, delicate strokes, then finally tended to her wound — applying ointment and wrapping the cut neatly with a strip of gauze.
"Next up — time to take a small risk…"
Li Fei retrieved a vial of vivid blue liquid from her pack, uncorked it, and set it within easy reach.
[Type-I Mental Restoration Potion]
Potion Rating: Firefly
Effect: Alleviates the side effects caused by spell backlash.
"Corpus lapis."
Mana flowed through her body, and a layer of grey settled over her ankle.
"C—"
Without a moment's pause, Li Fei launched into the Stone Skin incantation a second time.
Nicole had warned her: mages of the low-to-mid Sequences had to wait for a spell's cooldown to expire before casting it again — otherwise, backlash was guaranteed. Only high-Sequence mages could ignore most cooldowns entirely, unleashing cascading torrents of devastating spells in the blink of an eye.
The silver lining was that backlash from low-tier spells was generally not severe — and mages with sufficient willpower could even grit their teeth through the backlash and force-cast during the cooldown period.
With the potion on hand, and Stone Skin being only a Tier-1 spell, Li Fei figured she might as well try and maybe-not-die doing it.
She had, it turned out, significantly overestimated her willpower.
The moment the first syllable of the incantation left her lips, the spell model deep in her mind began to tremble violently — warping and distorting, great bubbles of instability blooming across its surface like a pot of water boiling over.
"I can't keep going!"
Li Fei went pale. She forcibly severed the cast — but even so, she still caught a mild wave of backlash for her trouble.
Her head swam. Li Fei reached for the potion she'd prepared, raised it to her lips — and stopped.
"This potion wasn't exactly cheap… save it where you can."
She set the vial back down and massaged her temple instead. She'd meant to lie down on the bed, but the Stone Skin she'd carelessly cast on her ankle had locked up the joint — and Li Fei stumbled, legs betraying her, and face-planted directly onto the sofa with a loud thud.
"One, two, three… twenty-seven, twenty-eight."
Never mind the potion now rolling away and leaking half its contents onto the floor — Li Fei forced herself to keep thinking clearly, counting the seconds under her breath. After roughly half a minute, the side effects from the interrupted cast began to fade. Two minutes later, the spell model had stabilized completely.
"I think I've got a rough handle on how cooldowns work…"
Wincing at the sight of the now-half-empty potion, Li Fei retrieved it with a pained expression, then opened her notebook and picked up her pen to record the discoveries she'd just risked life and sanity to learn:
Force-casting during a spell's cooldown causes the spell model to require double — or more — the normal time to stabilize.
I may be able to grit through the backlash and force the cast anyway, but the consequences would likely be far worse… Best case: the spell model suffers damage. Worst case: instant brain death or spontaneous combustion.
Addendum: Stone Skin may have potential applications as a curse-type spell.
She set down her pen. With everything neatly wrapped up, Li Fei stretched — a long, luxurious stretch, her slender waist arching into a devastatingly elegant curve.
"Next time I go to the wolf den, I'll need to find a Moonlight Wolf to run some experiments on — see if this new idea of mine actually holds up."
She stood up and patted her stomach, muttering to herself: "Also — looking on the bright side: if the spell slightly numbs your senses, that means it probably has some painkilling effect as well… Food first, then class this afternoon!"
She picked up her phone and checked the time, then started playing back the video she'd just recorded.
The girl on screen had ink-black hair and wore only a thin underlayer, pale skin showing through in abundance. She had a slender, bewitchingly graceful figure. For most of the recording she was staring blankly into the middle distance, occasionally breaking into a dazed smile at nothing, or gritting her teeth and muttering to herself. She looked, frankly, not particularly bright — and absolutely, catastrophically beautiful.
Yes. That was her.
"The star courtesan really is just too adorable."
Having verified to her full satisfaction that the level-up, stat allocation, and gacha draw produced no unusual outward phenomena, Li Fei deleted the video without a moment's hesitation — permanently erasing this piece of incriminating footage, the kind that could cause the "Most Benevolent and Virtuous Empress of Grace" to suffer a complete and utter social death.
①Line adapted from White Album 2.
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