Olivia rested against one of the houses in Fri village and kept her arms folded. Out in the square of the village where she grew up, Tori stood in the center, with several of the kids all hanging and playing with the Knight.
'Why did you ask Maya to take you to this village?' The window appeared in front of her, but Olivia mostly ignored it and kept watching the fake Tori.
She had forced Maya to turn Tori back and remove the weird love command and then had tested out her power to control the world of Paths by ordering Maya to take her to Fri, where she now had Tori be tormented by all the kids.
Growing up, all the kids always talked about Tori. The Lance of Victory was most people's favorite Knight, and she was by far the most popular. In Fri, all the kids would love to get to see her, which was why Olivia made Tori let all the kids interact with her.
'This isn't actually Fri…' Maya messaged her again. 'It is just memories of it, so they're not actually meeting their hero.'
Again, Olivia stayed silent and didn't look at the blue box.
'...Are you mad at Maya? :( Did Maya do something wrong?'
Olivia's scowl grew. "I'm not exactly happy with what you did."
The blue box flashed a bit and shrank down almost as if it were shrugging. 'You were the one who said it.'
Olivia's face flushed a bit, and she hissed, smacking at the box, but her hand obviously went through it. "Only because you tricked me into saying it!"
':[ My bad. :( I thought you would be into it. :0 I'll try to keep that in mind for the future, okay? :)'
"For the future?" Olivia shuddered a bit, just thinking about working with Maya again. Maya was kind of starting to scare her. The way the system talked made it feel like it was a person, similar to how the king's core spoke, and it kept doing weird things. She meant to bring up the Determined trait to Davi and ask him more about his Loved By Mana trait but didn't have the time. "I want to ask, are you a person?"
'Hehehe, having second thoughts about trusting Maya? :0 Maya is not flesh and blood, nor was Maya ever. :] As Maya said, Maya can also only exist within the World of the Paths, and that can only be entered by you.'
"So then, are you AI? Or are you a core, like the king's core?"
'Maya is Maya. :] Maya is not like the king's core. :] Maya just wants to help you so that you can help the kin.'
Olivia's frown only grew, but she softly nodded her head. "In that case, we need to set up some ground rules for if we do anything again. Don't just randomly do stuff without asking me. What you did to Tori was… Even if I don't like her, I nearly threw up seeing her act the way she did. Just keep her normal, and make her want to help me, but nothing more."
Even if it was code and not a real person, seeing someone she knew act while not in their right mind shook her. Maya's earlier words about doing it for her because she was someone who could constrict minds really got to her. Worse yet, she was still kind of doing it. She doubted Tori would stay in the village and greet all the kids, yet here she was making the woman do just that. She told Tori to act her out; she would just be nice to the kids and speak to them all, so the woman was still in complete control for the most part and moving around, but Olivia felt icky.
She decided that when she was able to, she'd speak to Davi and also speak to the captain or someone else to see if it was possible to remove a trait. She didn't know if she needed to go to that extreme, but something about this trait wasn't normal, and getting more information on it would be good.
As if sensing her thoughts, Maya spoke up again, the box flashing new words. 'You can come into the world of the Paths whenever you want with the Determined trait, and since Maya cannot enter the real world, you won't have to worry about Maya out there. Just let Maya help you in here. The stronger you get, the better the kin can be protected. :) Would you like Maya to get rid of Tori since you feel bad about controlling her?'
"It would help, I think," Olivia admitted. "You picked her because she has the Master trait, right? Do I really need that to improve?"
'It would help a lot, but if you don't want to see Tori, we can try someone else. :] The world of Paths is like a dream. Maya can help you shape it, but Maya needs the memories and experiences you've gone through, so it'll have to pick someone in order to better teach you. Do you have any suggestions?'
Olivia thought about it for a moment and then nodded. "I know it won't be her, but I want to see her again."
Maya seemed to read her mind and could tell who she meant because the land began to change. Tori and all the kids faded away, as did Fri village, and it was all replaced by a vast forest. Olivia felt her breath hitch slightly as she saw the woman who was standing before her.
She had silvery blonde hair and a pair of eyes that looked like two moons. Her skin was fair and beautiful, and she wore a white witch outfit, along with a cloak that was draped over her shoulders. In her hands, she held a long, glass-like staff that seemed to have a mirror on the end of it. She also bore a smile that caused Olivia's heart to skip a beat.
"Hey," Evelyn casually flipped her hair and winked. "It's been a while."
Olivia gulped and tried to force herself to calm down. Perhaps she had a bigger crush on the woman before her than she first thought. "M-Maya." She said sternly. "Don't do anything weird to her, okay. I want her to act how she should."
':) You only met this woman once, and Maya knows nothing about her either, so there really isn't anything to go off of. Maya has based her off the memories and thoughts you hold, so if she says or does anything weird, it is your fault. :( Please don't blame Maya again.'
Olivia took another calming breath and stepped forward. "M-Miss Evelyn." She looked the woman in the eyes. "I know this sounds weird, but you're actually part of my dreams, and I'd really like it if you could help me grow stronger. Please?"
"Sure." Evelyn shrugged. "Why not?"
"She agreed so easily!"
'The silver-haired beauty from your memories was a kind soul who went out of her way to help you and save people.' Maya explained. 'So to you, she is someone who would drop everything and help you, without a second thought.'
Evelyn's smile grew, and she leaned on her staff. "Let's see what we're working with." Evelyn flicked her finger, and a new box appeared before Olivia, showing her stats.
'Blood Core: Grade C+, Mana: Grade D+, Endurance: Grade C+, Strength: C+, Efficiency: Grade C+, Resistance: Grade S-.'
Olivia's eyes went wide when she read her stats. "They've gone up! I have an S-grade skill now!"
Her old ones had been Mana: Grade D, Endurance: Grade C, Strength: C+, Efficiency: Grade C, and Resistance: Grade A+. Mana, Endurance, Efficiency, and Resistance had all gone up by one point. Strength and her Core were still the same level, but her Resistance was now S-, making it her first ever S-grade skill. Davi's had been E1, so he was now only three spots ahead of her now in terms of Resistance. Her other stats were still crap, but at least she now had proof that she had grown since the test. All her hard work was finally paying off.
Sadly, Evelyn didn't look impressed. "Your stats are still low." The witch explained. "Most squires have at least one S-grade skill, but it's usually something like Endurance, Strength, or Efficiency. High endurance lets you take hits, high Strength lets you hit hard, and high Efficiency lets you spam spells while barely cutting into your mana. Speaking of mana, your Mana stat is extremely low. Mana is easily the second most important trait. The more mana you have, the more you can fuel the other stats. We need to get Mana to at least S+, preferably E1, as soon as possible. Your Core is also at an extremely low level. That needs to go up as well. Let's see your schools."
Evelyn flicked her hand again and brought up the list of the magic schools. Unlike her stats, Olivia was disappointed to see that her school Grades hadn't changed at all.
'Alteration: Grade B-, Destruction: Grade C, Enchantment: Grade C, Conjuration: Grade B, Illusion: Grade D-, Restoration: Grade D.'
Again, Evelyn frowned as she looked them over. "Your schools are low as well. The higher grade a school is, the less mana it will cost and the stronger it will be. If your grade is extremely high, it'll be possible to cast Row level spells at the level of another mage's Vil level if they're weaker than you. It can also be possible to cast spells rapidly, even with a low Efficiency stat, so long as your school grade is high enough. The stats are all made to work together and improve one another throughout their categories. Your Enchantment is also extremely low; what a shame."
"To be honest, I've never actually thought about Enchantment magic," Olivia admitted, a little sheepishly. "I don't think I have any good spells that fall into that category either."
Again, Evelyn swiped her hand, and this time, Olivia found herself looking at a list of all her spells. 'Row Blood Knife, Row Blood Scythe, Row Blood Chain, Row Blood Rope, Row Blood Shield, Row Blood Barrier, Row Blood Cloak, Row Blood Hawk, Row Blood Rabbit, Row Blood Bolt, Row Blood Beam, Row Blood Slash, Row Blood Cube, Row Blood Ball, Row Blood Wheel, Row Blood Flower, Row Blood Map, Row Blood Heal, Row Blood Mend, Row Blood Recover.'
Evelyn nodded her head as she read the spells over. "Knife and Scythe are both mainly Conjuration with a bit of Alteration. Your spells like shield, barrier, and cloak are also Conjuration but lean stronger on Alteration. Hawk and Rabbit fall heavily into Enchantment, while Beam, Bolt, Slash, Ball, Wheel, and Cube are all Destruction. Lastly, heal, mend, and recover are three different healing spells that are all part of Restoration. You lack any good illusion-based spells. Flower and Rabbit fall into the school, but only secondary. That's not good."
"Is it really that bad?" Olivia asked in shock.
Evelyn nodded. "As always, things aren't made equal," Evelyn stated. "This comes to stats. Obviously, not every mage will be able to follow this, but some stats and schools are simply better. At the top is Enchantment. It's then followed closely by Illusion, Restoration, Conjuration, Alteration, and then finally Destruction."
"Seriously!" Olivia asked in shock. "Destruction is all the way at the bottom? But it's the school mages use to attack each other with!"
"It's still useful." Evelyn chuckled. "All schools and stats have their use and should be cultivated, but some are more than others. You're actually quite talented, it seems. Most mages will have a school that they're no good in, possessing the E grade, and will never be able to evolve it in their life. All your schools, however, are all able to evolve. They're weak, but with some effort, you'd be able to do a lot. You can't work on everything, though, which is why it's important to get the good ones out of the way first since they're the most useful."
"And that's Enchantment?"
"Yes." Evelyn nodded again. "The higher your Enchantment, the more easily you can use it on your spells to tweak and evolve them. Enchantment is the most important school because it can allow for the creation of magical items or completely rewrite spells. Getting this to E1 is the first thing you should do. Illusion is also important. This school allows you to get out of fights completely by tricking the enemy or bewitching them. You can bluff by making it appear as if you possess an army of ten thousand when it's really just you, or make yourself appear far weaker than you are to hide. Combined with Enchantment, it becomes truly scary. Restoration is the third most important school, because if it's high enough, you can basically never die, using it to heal yourself and get rid of all injuries. Conjuration will allow you to create any shield or weapon to attack your foes, while Alteration can improve what you created, boosting it further forward. That lastly leaves Destruction, and when you already are able to make a sword that can slice through mountains, do you really need the ability to fire off beams of mana? Sure, it's helpful for settling fights quickly, but the others are more useful for staying alive in a world where you can be trampled. Destruction should be explored last, once you have the means to do battle with those above you."
Olivia listened entranced entirely as she watched Evelyn. The woman was using mana to make various symbols and words in the air to add to her demonstration.
She had never gotten a proper teacher since the school in Lotus had a shit teacher, so actually learning that some schools were more useful or could go together so well was teaching her a lot.
"Stats are much the same." Evelyn held her palm up, and a swirling ball of light appeared in it that looked like a core. "Your Core is the most important thing. Even more than schools and normal stats. This is because the Core affects the growth of how fast your spells evolve and the growth of your stats and schools. The easiest method to level up your core is to devour pills from Rossum, but if that's not manageable, then staying within dungeons or eating meals rich in mana will also help. Most people think the Core can't be improved since it can't be trained traditionally. Sadly, even here we won't be able to train it; that's something you'll have to do in the real world, but we can help you gain a better understanding of the schools and your stats to level them up and offer tips for the real world."
"That makes sense. So which stats are the best then?"
"For stats, it's simple. As I said, Core is the most important overall, but after that, it is Mana. The more mana you have, the better. It lets you increase your speed, strength, defense, and much more, as well as utilize mana-based techniques. After Mana, Efficiency is the next one you should work on. The higher this is, the more mana you can pour into something, such as spells or yourself, and it'll cost less. After that is Resistance. This is needed so you can stay in dungeons for a long time and improve your core. Then you want to work on Strength, and lastly, Endurance. These two aren't that important since you can just pour more mana into yourself to make up for them being low."
"Should Endurance really be at the bottom, though? It's how much stamina I have and how hard I can be hit, right?"
"With a good enough Restoration, you can just regenerate lost stamina and heal any damage done to your body, or use a barrier to block the attack from hitting you at all."
Olivia shook her head. "I don't know if that will work, though."
"Why not?" Evelyn frowned.
"I have blood magic," Olivia explained. She glanced down at her hand and sighed. "I can cast only three spells. Six if I use Polymorph. It's why Mana is so low. I'm not able to rapidly cast spells to get it up and train it."
Evelyn hummed and then chuckled. "In that case, there is an easy solution."
"There is?" Olivia raised an eyebrow.
"Of course." Evelyn giggled. "Just heal when you're out of blood."
Olivia sighed again and shook her head. "It doesn't work that way. I can heal myself, but it uses my blood to do it. If I use my blood, I'm losing the amount I restore."
"That's only because your Restoration and affinity are so low," Evelyn explained calmly. "If you focus on one healing spell instead of the three you have and keep getting your Restoration up, you'll be able to use less blood for more healing."
"Seriously!"
"Of course." Evelyn giggled again. "It's important. During your off time, you should cast a healing spell over and over again on yourself. You likely won't notice any changes for a few days or even weeks, but eventually, Restoration, Mana, and your Efficiency should all improve a little bit. You should also work on Enchantment. Since you can't cast multiple spells, try to break a spell you don't use down. Bring its components out, shatter the code that makes it up, and rewire it. See how you can alter and change it, just like how you twisted your Hawk spell into a snake. If Enchantment gets high enough, you might be able to make a contract and tweak your healing spells up, giving something up in return for it, greatly healing you, or using your mana instead of your blood. Lastly, I recommend learning the Alchemy trait."
"Alchemy?" Olivia made a face. "Like potion making?"
"That's right." Evelyn grinned. "At the start, you'll run out of mana quickly due to how low your Mana and Efficiency are. If you learn how to make potions, I can teach you about ingredients and where you can find them to make a healing potion or a mana potion. If you have enough healing potions, you can spam cast your Rabbit spell. This will boost Enchantment, Illusion, and Alteration. Ideally, it's better to work on a spell that has only one school, but you lack any pure Enchantment or Illusions, so until you get one, the Rabbit is your best bet. With healing potions, you can recover your blood magic naturally and then cast the Rabbit spell a bunch. When you're using your healing magic on yourself, you can keep drinking mana potions to recover your mana quickly. With all of those being improved, you'll be able to grow in power rapidly, and eventually, you can cast more spells, especially since you have Polymorph, which gives you a full reset. So if you get to the point where you can cast six spells instead of just three, then when you use Polymorph, it'll go up to twelve."
"This is like minmaxing!" Olivia said excitedly. "Like in a video game or a LitRPG? You seem to know a lot about how to improve blood magic."
"Of course, after all, I had blood magic."
Olivia frowned. "Evelyn doesn't have blood magic? I don't recall what she had, but it wasn't blood magic."
Just then, the blue box shimmered and changed as Maya began to speak once more. 'Hehehe, whoops, that's Maya's bad. Since you didn't know what Evelyn's magic type was, Maya just gave her the same type of magic you use.'
Evelyn cleared her throat. "Either way, it doesn't matter." She swiped her hand, and the blue boxes faded away again. "There are three main traits you need to improve as well." Evelyn made three boxes appear, each with a trait on it. 'Determined, Polymorph, and Quick Regeneration.' "These three are your best traits," Evelyn said. "Determined will allow you to spend more time in here and view other Paths. Polymorph will allow you to stay transformed for longer and reduce the cooldown. Lastly, Quick Regeneration can eventually evolve to Hyper Regeneration and will regenerate your blood faster, which will cause you to be able to do more spells. It'd be a good idea to pick up other traits as well. I already recommended Alchemy, but getting resistance-based ones will be good as well."
"That makes sense." Olivia's eyes twinkled a bit. "This is awesome. I think I can actually use this stuff that you taught me. It's simple, and I'm kind of annoyed I didn't think of it sooner."
Evelyn shrugged, and her smile grew. "Don't feel bad. It's hard to improve when you have no teacher. Even something that seems basic is impossible to learn if you don't have the puzzle pieces laid before you. While we're here, I'll teach you a bit about alchemy. We can—" Evelyn suddenly stopped, and her smile faded.
Olivia also stopped smiling. "What is it?"
The witch suddenly gave a panicked look. "Shit."
"Seriously, what is it!"
Maya reappeared, the box flashing several times. 'Danger, danger, danger. The kin is in danger.'
"The kin?" Olivia's eyes suddenly went wide. "You mean Davi?"
'Yes!' Maya's text sprawled out across the screen. 'Davi Hawker is about to die.'