Might as Well

Sam spent a few minutes staring at the screen, then with a chuckle, while still laying on the sinfully soft-furred body of Lucky, he dismissed it and took a look at the more detailed result of the ritual.

Even with the bone-deep exhaustion creeping through his body, he couldn’t help but feel extremely excited and happy. Lucky was whole and healthy and seemingly had been ‘rebuilt’ bigger, better, and stronger.

That, however, meant he felt like a wrung-out blanket... again.

[Due to overdrawing your mana, you have been struck by Mana Exhaustion!]

[Mana Exhaustion: Physical abilities -90%, Mana Control -90%, Mana Regeneration -90%, Using mana could result in all manner of other negative effects. Duration: 99 hours 45 minutes]

[You successfully finished the Familiar Evolution Ritual!]

[Journeyman Runecarver is now Level 10!]

[Thanks to your successful string of rituals, you gained the sub-skill Ritual Sense!]

[Ritual Sense: Level MAX (MAX%) (Passive) Thanks to your control of mana, as well as your knowledge of rituals and runes, any ritual you attempt is much more stable and less likely to fail.]

[Efficiency is now Level 10!]

[Multitasking is now Level 63!]

[You successfully stood up to the effects of the ritual. You gained the skill, Shadow Resistance!]

[Shadow Resistance: Level 0/100 (0%) (Passive) Thanks to spending so much time near the shadows, you successfully developed resistance against their effects. Each level increases the resistance by 1%.]

[Advanced Breathing Technique is now Level 4!]

[Mana Breathing is now Level 4!]

[Calm Heart is now Level 35!]

Going over the results, Sam was a little unhappy about his crafting subskill. While the decrease in the chance that a ritual may fail sounded great on paper, he knew from practice that it could also be lowered by a little care and research.

So, while it was a great sub-skill for somebody who had just begun to dabble with rituals, for him it was practically useless. The rest were nice, especially since he finally developed a resistance to one of his most used elements. There were a lot of anti-magic skills that rebounded the spells to their caster, so probably it would come in handy when he was finally forced to properly fight against players.

Finished with his thoughts, he returned his attention to the screen before him.

[Thanks to drawing on your mana exhaustively and extensively while maintaining several spells during a ritual, you broke through with the skill Mana Synergy!]

[Mana Synergy is now Level 10!]

[You learned the skill Mana Resonance!]

[Mana Resonance: Level 0/10 (0%) (Passive) Your control over your skills using mana is such that when using one or more at the same time, they resonate with each other. When in battle, this resonance allows you to cast those skills and spells for less mana. Mana cost during battle decreases by 2% for each skill level. When using two or more mana skills simultaneously outside of battle, the cost of their use is reduced by an additional 1% per skill level, and you receive 10% more experience points in training per skill level.]

[Mana Well is now Level 4!]

[Mana Tempered Body is now Level 16!]

[Mana Manipulation is now Level 15!]

[Spirit Link is now Level 25!]

[Spirit Connection is now Level 1!]

Looking at the Mana Resonance skill, Sam for a moment was flabbergasted as his inherited memories had nothing on the skill. It either meant that he was treading new water or people who had the skill managed to keep it secret. ‘Probably the second one…’ he mused as he began calculating how the new skill would affect him. ‘And of course, I thought that Mana Synergy didn’t have anywhere to go. This means that Mana Resonance is probably not the last step… How interesting!’

Being done with his own notifications, he turned to the more interesting notifications related to Lucky.

[Lucky has successfully evolved from Juvenile Shadow Spirit Wolf into Runic Shadow Spirit Wolf!]

[Animalist Mana Control and Animalistic Shadow Control have merged into one skill!]

[Lucky gained the skill Shadow Mana Control!]

[Shadow Mana Control: Level Max (Passive) Thanks to observing you, your companion developed a very precise control of their mana compared to their relatives found in the wild.]

[Shadow Spirit Body has been upgraded to Shadow Spirit Body II!]

[Shadow Spirit Body II: Level Max (Passive) The body of the wolf is part shadows and part spirit, which makes it extremely malleable. The two natures mix perfectly in its body, granting the wolf extreme control over them as well as increasing the amount of mana they have access to.]

[The runes present on Lucky’s body allowed Lucky to learn two new skills!]

[Runic Weapon: Level Max (Passive) The wolf’s claws and teeth are clad in runes that grant him a certain amount of ability to pierce through the impenetrable. Grants a 13% chance to do True Damage with the claws and teeth.]

[Runic Strike: Level 0/20 (Active) Lucky gains the ability to channel mana into the runes of his claws and teeth to enhance the damage they do. The damage type depends on the type of mana he channels into it. Current natures are available to use: no attribute, shadow, or spirit.]

[Lucky Aura has evolved into Chaotic Aura!]

[Chaotic Aura: Level Max (Passive) Those who are in the same party as Lucky receive a buff to their luck. The size of the increase depends on their luck. Those who are deemed an enemy by Lucky (Warning: This can be the owner too!) have a bigger chance of gaining negative status effects.]

Sam stared at the deluge of information, then snorted. He reached up with his arm, still shaking a little from exhaustion, and mussed the fur on top of Lucky’s head. “Apparently you are veeery close to becoming a chaos gremlin…”

The giant wolf let out a cheerful bark and leaned into his hand. Thus, he was reduced to patting and giving scratches to his newly evolved familiar. Not that he minded…

The surge of increase in his mana and health points was welcome and would be a nice surprise to his enemies, though, with his current debuff, he couldn’t really test it out.

Slowly but surely, he gathered himself, and leaning on Lucky’s body, Sam heaved himself into a standing position. Taking a look at the slightly trashed ritual room, he raised an arm and intoned.

“Clean!”

Instantly, he felt a tinge in his arms as his magic sluggishly answered his call, but in the end, none of the feared side effects appeared, and the slightly charred but still intact ritual circle. However, the moment the spell activated, the circle vanished into thin air, leaving behind a bare stone surface.

Nodding to himself, he checked the room once more to see if he left behind anything and when he found nothing, Sam turned to Lucky, who was still standing next to him. He could practically feel the giant wolf’s heartbeat.

“Lucky, we can play later, but for now, get back to my shadow!”

The big wolf let out a small rumble of disappointment, and it took Sam several seconds to figure out that the freshly transformed wolf was whining, actually.

Finished with the whining, Lucky, instead of jumping, simply melted into the ground silently, becoming one with his shadow.

Finally, he collected the three ostrich-egg-sized shadow eggs left behind by the ritual.

As soon as they were in his inventory, his notification screen lit up.

[You acquired 3x Lesser Shadow Familiar Eggs!]

Smiling silently, he turned toward the door, already having an idea of what to do with them.

Leaving the Association building was a little weird. He entered in the morning and left in the afternoon, with the very distinct afternoon colors painting the city in hues of red, orange, and purple.

The woman sitting at the desk in the corridor changed. Though her attitude was very similar to the one he had met when entering the building.

Sam was quickly ushered out of the building, which was still full of crowds of players still clamoring for this and that. With his hood up and mask activated, he navigated the crowd with a tired expression.

His first stop was a restaurant, eating a hearty meal, and trying to recharge his in-game body with nutrients. After paying, he simply walked back to the company headquarters through several back alleys and entered the building through a hidden entrance. He wanted to make sure that his artifact-granted face wouldn’t be associated with the company.

They were making a lot of money, so more than likely people were observing and investigating them.

From his inherited memories, he knew that not only players but NPCs would also be interested in money-making methods. The company, Future Unknown, created a world that wasn’t static and wouldn’t only change because the players did something.

There were several player made businesses that went out of business because a local NPC had a better foundation and simply copied their idea. Or a local strongman took the business from them. The game wasn’t just about players competing against other players.

They were in a living, breathing world, where every action has consequences. And while sometimes those consequences were a dragon eating you or a lich reanimating your dead body to use as a jester, sometimes it was the NPCs jacking up prices because they noticed that a large segment of the population loved that item.

Walking up the stairs, he considered his next steps. With the Mana Exhaustion debuff on him, questing was out of the question, but he had several other things to do. Like networking.

He could also continue his studies while improving his relationship with the nice librarian lady. He suspected, if he kept at it, he could unlock some juicy questline. Sadly, none of his inherited memories could tell him about that, as by the time the other Sam got interested in the library the librarians closed down the system super hard, and getting a library card was akin to winning the lottery.

Apparently, the librarians hated how the theorycrafters and guilds raided their domains. There were even rumors of several guilds going bankrupt after paying late dues.

Walking up to his friend’s office, he tilted his head sideways questioningly, and the secretary busy with some kind of paperwork simply glanced at him and nodded. Sam smiled at the highly competent woman and knocked on the door.

Hearing the quiet ‘Come in!’ he pushed the door open, only to see Lucy behind the desk and Katie sitting, still in her knight armor on one of the chairs. Both of them turned toward him as he stepped inside and closed the door.

He smirked.

“You may be wondering why I called you in here!”

Lucy sent him a deadpan look, while Katie just squeaked in confusion.

“What do you want, Sam?” Lucy spoke up, slightly annoyed, but Sam saw that her eyes were twinkling with suppressed humor.

“It’s not what I want, but what I got for you. But first, did she…” he spoke, motioning vaguely towards the silent berserker.

Lucy nodded with a happy smile.

“Yes, she is officially part of the company,’ hidden from the beaming Katie was the question from Lucy about why they needed the berserker.

“Good. Start on organizing the PMO then. I noticed talk about us on the net. I think we can expect the first saboteurs soon,” he gave her the answer. They already discussed setting up a Private Military branch for the company for the purpose of having their own security. He only asked Lucy to keep her hand in starting the process.

A Private Military Organization differed in only a few things from guilds. While guilds could hire and employ NPCs, the leadership of the guild could be only made up of players, while a PMO could have NPCs in their hierarchy. And of course, they were much more bound by the laws of the country where they were registered.

Honestly, both had their cons and pros. Because, while a PMO had to abide by more laws than a guild, that also meant they were much more supported by the local government. Especially if their leader had an in with the local aristocracy.

Like him.

“Understood,” she replied. “I hate repeating myself, but why are you here?”

Sam gave her a big smile, reached into his inventory, and pulled out two of the shadow eggs, holding one in each hand.

“A present!”

KittenKnight sat up straighter and began clapping excitedly. “Yay! Presents! I love presents!”

“Then one for the scary lady!” Sam declared grandiosely while handing over one of the eggs while slightly bowing to the berserker.

“Yay!”

Katie lunged toward the egg and grabbed it with both hands. There was a momentary pause, as she probably read her notification screen, then she beamed again as the egg began to let out shadows as if the egg was vaporizing.

Under her breath, she was clearly chanting. “Cat! Cat! Cat!”

Sam shared a look with Lucy, then turned to watch the excited girl get her first familiar.

He didn’t mind giving away the Lesser Familiar eggs, as Lesser Familiars were inherently limited in their capacity to grow. As in their evolution requirements were much harder and more complicated. Though, most of that translated into expenses which Lucy could more than likely field if she ever wanted to evolve hers.

Slowly the egg in Katie’s hand began to morph, first going gelatinous, then seemingly collapsing into itself, then instantly reforming into the shape of a tiny cat with closed eyes, sitting perfectly on the palm of Katie, who seemed to be vibrating with excitement.

The still cat, shuddered several times, then opened its big, dewy eyes and let out an incredibly cute meow.

Katie visibly melted the moment the sound left the tiny shadow animal. Lucy was visibly struggling not to coo, and even Sam had to admit that the diminutive cat was weapon grade adorable.

Then as Katie’s other hand neared the little creature to pat its head, in an instant the cat’s head enlarged from peach-sized into beach ball size with teeth that gleamed with malice and chomped on Katie’s hand.

As Sam and Lucy stared agog, Katie just exclaimed joyfully. “So, cuteeeee!” Meanwhile the small cat with the giant head continued to gnaw on her armored hand.

Then she stood up, one hand still in the mouth of the monster that was born, and began walking out of the room, probably to spread some terror.

“Thanks, boss, for the gift!” she said, right before opening the door and leaving the two of them staring after the strange girl.

After the door closed Lucy immediately turned on Sam and began yelling.

“What the hell did you bring us? Did you find some kind of horror from the beyond? Made a deal with an Elder God?”

Sam raised his one free hand in protest.

“Hey, they are simple Lesser Familiar eggs! The shape is all from her!”

Lucy took a moment to calm down slightly. “Are you sure?”

“Pretty sure. The system probably gathered enough information about her to give her a familiar that she would love.”

“Are you really sure?” she asked, stressing the word ‘really’.

Sam just shrugged. “Yeah, or that was some kind of cosmic horror beyond comprehension in the shape of a cat, given to a berserker.”

Lucy shuddered a little, then sat back into her chair with a heavy sigh. “Let’s hope you’re right…”

“Agreed,” said Sam, then he held out the other egg. “Care for a try for your own cosmic horror?”

Lucy glared at him but still reached for the egg.

There was a moment while she read the announcement with a suspicious look on her face, then once again Sam witnessed as the egg began to leak a smoke-like substance made of shadow, then became gelatinous and finally in an instant morphed into its new form.

Thankfully, it hadn’t taken up the shape of a cat. Instead, it was a bird. More specifically, a raven.

It was pitch black, with its eyes the same color as Lucy’s, gleaming with intelligence. Lucy stared at the bird with fascination and hesitantly reached out to pat it on its head, but instead of turning into a horror beyond mortal ken, it simply leaned into her hand.

Letting out a relieved sigh, Lucy sent Sam a look of gratitude.

Sam just sighed. “Raven, really? Can’t you be more stereotypical? At least Katie’s was unique…”

The woman and raven pair directed a synchronized glare at him, which was rather disturbing. Then Lucy glanced at something only she could see, more than likely a system screen, and whispered something in the raven’s ears.

The bird let out an acknowledging croak and in instant, it burst into dozens of tiny ravens that began to fly around the room. It took a few seconds for them to settle into different positions around the office, while Sam stared at Lucy, who in turn was staring at nothing.

Finally, after Sam was debating poking the woman with a stick, she spoke in an awed whisper.

“I can see everything!”