Chương 51: Chapter 50 - Rigel and Regal.

Talvik flew up behind her, landing on the bed.

"This is a problem" his voice echoed in her head.

"You don't say, you still haven't properly explained who the flux this person is. Now there's a letter sitting in my room, an angry letter""Worry not, I shall handle the situation" he ripped open the letter with a talon and pulled out the parchment, yellowed from age. Script was crammed into the edges, filling the sheet. Sentences left without proper grammar or endings, but the message was painfully clear.

"She's pissed I never went to the Mythral palace""Going there would be folly, you would be walking straight into a dragon's nest. You also lack the capability to even approach the structure" Talvik turned to face her, silvery eyes gleaming up at her.

"Remember the white bear fluxspawn? That was a strata one subguardian, what will you do against a strata two? Or a horde of strata one?" She huffed.

"Ok I get it""I'll handle it, for now forget about these notes" Talviks talons shredded through the note. One day I'll get these secrets out of you even if I have to strangle your stupid chicken neck. For now I'll sleep. … She awoke to the faint smell of tea wafting through her door. It was the fifth day since she had returned and life had mostly gone back to normal. Making her way downstairs she lounged in the living room, burning time with musings about skills and tokens.

Shelly and Edwin both kept busy, leaving her quite bored. The door blew open, Halt once again stomping in from the deluge outside. Why did Talvik have to pick such a wacko, this is the fifth day he's been outside catching lightning bolts.

"We must talk" His steps fell like thunder on the floor planks, heavy stone scraping gouges in the grain. She raised an eyebrow "Edwin is going to be pissed if you mess up his floor boards again" The monolith stopped moving. Only starting again once the stone on the bottom of his feet had been cleared. Halt made his way to stand directly before her, the giant clearly never having heard of etiquette.

The sound of crushed stone reverberated as he spoke "You are not to spend any of the tokens you acquired on Mistvale, it is not time yet." Oh I don't think so Mr "Mentor""Look Halt, as soon as the weather clears I'm going to take a ship north to the Aurendorian shipyards. Having some upgraded skills could be useful" She stared straight back at him. Halt snorted and moved his rock-laden form back to the door. Why does he always seem more happy when he's getting hit by lightning?

"He's right you know, you've been progressing fast, but there is such a thing as too fast" Edwin's rare voice called out from the kitchen table.

"Not you too, look Edwin I got a veritable mountain of tokens, I could upgrade everything in one go here and it would make us all safer for it" Nythera half-whined. The sound of shattered glass hitting the floor preceded Edwin's curses.

"Damn fluxstone acids are too strong for this glass" Edwin muttered. Edwin came to sit down across from her.

"I understand your urgency, but do you understand the risk? Very few are even in the position where they have excess tokens to spend, which is why this warning rarely reaches those who need it in time." He sipped from his favorite tea cup, recent acid burn scars snaked across his hand in several spots. Nythera sat up straight. Edwin never talks about anything beyond tea and chemicals…

"There was once two siblings, Rigel and Regal, children of a famous smith. Regal was a normal child, nothing special, Rigel however, Rigel was excellent, he excelled at every aspect of smithing, breathing the fires of the furnace like they were part of his soul" Edwin took another sip.

"Rigel advanced through his profession and skills at a breakneck pace, he was gifted tokens by his father and his skills rapidly approached and then exceeded the level of decades older smiths" Edwin leaned in and his voice quieted.

"But Regal was different, he took time, a lot more time to handle even the fundamental. Where Rigel moved past simple daggers in a month, Regal spent a year. Where Rigel spent two upgrade tokens on each skill, Regal spent none, even when he had some to spare" When did Edwin become a storyteller?

"By the time they turned 50, Regal started spending tokens, he had achieved a level of skill respectable for any smith, but nothing that made him famous. Rigel was working under the king's personal employ."

"A handful of evolution and upgrade tokens and several well-placed augment tokens had Regal making god-like blades within one year. He vastly exceeded anything Rigel was capable of and rose to become a smith that emperors fought over" Edwin took another sip of tea. Wait a second, I know that name, Regal… Edwin nodded "The Regal Blade of Varnhold comes from that very smith".

"So what, wait till I'm fifty then spend a ton of tokens at once?" Nythera asked. Edwin sighed "Wait till you understand your own skills, the fundamentals of your craft, and what you are capable of on your own. Then break those limitations with tokens." She nodded "I suppose there is some merit in that.

I am not sure entirely what I want to do with my Culverin yet, let alone everything else" Edwin pushed himself up and shuffled over to the cellar entrance "That's good, just remember, the more you understand of your own skills, the stronger the tokens effect will be on them." This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report. He was gone by the time she stood up to get more tea. I didn't know Edwin could be so… focused on anything but tea. Well I suppose his story had a point.

She made her way over to the table. And screamed. Halt was standing silent as the grave in the corner, unmoving.

"What in the blazes are you doing in here? I thought you went outside?!" She yelled at him, catching her breath.

"I was waiting, it is time we discuss what you got out of the central depot" He cocked an eyebrow… probably.

"You have not checked it yet, correct?" She nodded. She tapped on boxy and the tablet thunked onto the table.

"Mistvale Geological Report" Halt picked it up, stared, and set it back down.

"Nothing unexpected".

"What does it contain? I can't read half the script, something about metals is all I could make out" she eyed the thing, it was covered in dense, barely legible Aurendorian script.

"The island contains moderate deposits of Aetherite, trace amounts of other minerals and nothing especially useful. It is incredibly stable, even during God's Wrath, but the lack of valuable metals make it of minimal use" Halt shot her an eye.

"Mistvale's value is not in the ground, the lumber were used as far back as the Aurendorians, but I suspect you got the islands bounty regardless" She sighed and tapped on [Aetherian Ingot] just enough to have one pop out. The table ground under the weight as the blue ingot materialized.

"Aetherian, how many ingots did you get?"

"Fifty" He nodded "That is likely the entire remaining yield of Aetherite from Mistvale, I would expect any new sources to be incredibly hard to reach. Keep it safe for now, that metal is worth more than people know, which is why no one should know" Halt gestured for her to continue.

"I did get a mountain of tokens, over fifty upgrade and fusion tokens" she said, unwillingly to messily dump them all over the kitchen table. Halt reached up towards his stony chin.

"Use them as you see fit, but remember Edwins' tale. Wait before using any on yourself until you are certain you know what you want a skill to become". She clicked on [Sparks] and [Shards] and a veritable rain of coinage fell onto the table. I wonder how much of Marco's beer I could buy with this? A few barrels on the ship for emergencies could be nice.

"Use it well, this is all from Mistvale's dungeons, where they lay now I do not know" Halt nodded. She shoveled the bounty back into Boxy, careful not to spill a single coin. Oh? Did I accidentally click something else? One of the many, many rings she had taken was on the table, buried underneath a pile of sparks.

"Whoops, I haven't mentioned it yet, but there were a ton of rings in there, hundreds of them" She reached to pick it up. Halt's hand shot out like a viper, grabbing her wrist in a vice.

"Did you click on this ring? To pull it out of the armory?" What the flux?

"No I don't remember it, but I must have, right?" She said with a note of apprehension. Halt gingerly picked up the ring and dropped it in Boxy.

"Do not, under any circumstance, put on any of those rings. Get them examined by Borris, carefully, when you can""Is there something wrong with them?" she dropped the last of the sparks in, one by one, watching them vanish into the void.

"I don't know" Halt proceeded over to the door, as usual going out to catch lightning..

"Wait, there was one more thing" Nythera hesitated. Halt turned around.

"Shells, huge shells, I couldn't fit them in Boxy and I definitely couldn't fit them into my Culverin""Boxy?" Halt started "Nevermind that, what color were they?"

"Blue-grey, the same coloring as Aetherian ingots mixed with something else. And every inch was covered in runic script, tiny letters, but it didn't seem to be any version of Aurendorian that I could read" Halts eyed widened.

"I did not think there would still be Stormcaller shells left over" Halt laughed and the sound of stone smashing against stone spread through the living room.

"You are far from being able to make use of such armaments, if you evolve your Culverin towards size several more times it might be possible to make use of them, forget about it for now" Halt opened the door and strode into the storm.

"What a weirdo" she muttered, shoving Boxy back into her cloak. I bet Shelly is doing something more interesting. At least I can go show-off my new skills. It took her under a minute to become a tack under Shelly's boot. Shelly was working on her massive map of the Flux-sea when Nythera barged in.

"Give me the Mistvale work you did, my maps of the interior are poor" Shelly gestured. Nythera bopped Shelly on the head with her map. She scowled "Look Nyth, I know you got better, but have to chart these maps. Your new ferry system is going to need maps like these."

"I know, I know, oh by the way, have you gotten any Ley-insights?" Nythera dodged out of her fiery temper.

"Nothing more than an unseen mountain or two, my Cartography is only level fifteen" She stopped, and looked up from her work "Say, Nythera have you considered what an Evolution token could do to the skill?"

"Make my lines prettier?" She shrugged"Map-making is one thing, but map-making with the system is entirely different, it guides you" Shelly stood up and pointed at a spot on Myrraval on the far east.

"I did not know these mountains were here, but the system did, and it guided me to place them here on this map. The system has the knowledge of the world and it's willing to impart some small piece of that onto me" She stared straight at Nythera.

"So what if I could strengthen that connection?"

"Can tokens do that?" Nythera rubbed the back of her neck. Wait, is this not exactly what Halt and Edwin were talking about before? Imagining what your skill is supposed to become?

"I don't know, but I want to try it. Some kind of System-linked Cartography could help reveal numerous things I cannot see yet" Shelly had a glint of something in her eye. Greed? Dreams? A hunger for knowledge? I should channel what I want for a skill into its upgrade, but most of the time I don't even know what I want …

"Shelly, lets upgrade a skill right now" She reached into her cloak and tapped on [Evolution token] and [Augment Token].

"Are you crazy? Didn't Edwin give you a whole speech on how you shouldn't just go upgrading and changing all your skills?" Shelly stuttered and caught a glimmering metal coin flying through the air. She opened her hands to behold an evolution token.

"Are you mad? I can't take this from you, your my queen! You need this more than I do" Shelly tried to shove the token back at Nythera. Nythera held up her hand in refusal "I am doing this for myself, surely seeing a display of a skill changing according to someone's wishes can help inform my own process" She held up another piece of glinting metal "Besides I'll be doing my own transformation here".

"Fine, but if Edwin scolds you, don't come whining to me" Shelly started her skill evolution process, a grin betraying her excitement. Nythera connected the augment token straight to Seekers of the lost. Seeker of the Lost (lvl 1) (0/2 tokens) For every level, increase comprehension speed of languages and artifacts from extinct peoples by 1%. I know exactly what I want from this skill. Rather than hope for it, I'm going to picture what it becomes. Seeker of Heritage Seeker of Ruin Seeker of Desolation That's it!

It has to be!