Chapter 22 - Freedom

Enchanting was going to take a long time to practice to raise its synchronization.  She was able to get a refund on half of the synchronization sacrifice if she put at least 2% into the enchant.  If she put 3% she would only get 1% back.  She made sure to start using even numbers when practicing.  The refund on mana was even worse, she was only able to get a quarter of the mana investment she put into an enchant upon salvage.  That was if she didn’t test the enchant.  If it was tested, then there was no mana left to refund her.

The biggest problem with enchanting was how much mana it took.  She could only do very simple enchants or it would cost more mana than she had.  It took her twelve hours to regain all of her mana from zero.  As she gained wisdom over the years, the time it took to regen her mana pool had never changed.   She needed a willing or unwilling subject to practice Hypnotize or Fear so she was not able to make any progress with those aspects.

She was a little disappointed with Water Manipulation.  If she was using mostly pure water, then she was able to move it around at will with only a slight amount of drain on her mana.  As soon as she tried to move things with liquid in them, she hit her first roadblock.

Her runny porridge in the morning contained water but moving it took quite a bit more concentration and a lot more mana.  Separating the water out of the porridge was relatively simple but moving impure water saw her mana dropping too quickly to do very much of it.  Once she was able to raise the synchronization of this skill, she felt she could probably control the blood in someone’s body.  It may be useful for self-defense if she was ever held against her will or needed to disable an attacker.

She decided to allow her rash to completely clear up a week after starting her quarantine.  Leaving the room was not something she did very often during the day because she never knew when one of the doctors would show up to check on her.  The only time she felt safe to leave was at night.  As soon as she drained her mana for the night, she would begin exploring lower into the town they had found.

The below floors got larger the lower she descended into the pyramid.  She was able to finally count the floors in this section.  There were a total of ten floors that made up a total of one-eighth of the entire pyramid.  The top floor was devoted to classrooms and smaller rooms attached to those rooms for living.  The following five floors were all larger housing units with themed artwork on the walls outside of the dwellings.

The ninth through the sixth floor each shared themes of two aspects on every floor.  The ninth-floor artwork was devoted to Decoy and Shadow Blade.  Floor eight was for Disguise Self and Fear.  When she made it down to the fifth floor, the entire floor was devoted to Contracts.  She could not find any hidden doors leading to classrooms or secret research areas in any of the dwellings she inspected.  Based on the artwork she saw, they valued contracts heavily in their society.

Once she made it to the fourth floor, she found several official-looking offices.  There were ten sections on this floor.  One for each aspect and the last area looked to be a place to gather for each aspect.  There was a very large and ornate office in the back of this section that could have possibly have been where the head of Illusion was located.  This is where she came across the first door she was unable to open.

Only Masters of Illusion may enter here.

She made a note to come back after she received the Contracts aspect.  Though mastery could also mean overall synchronization.  Regardless, she wanted to see what was so special behind that door.

Making her way down to the third floor, the entire area was devoted to training.  There were fight circles and target dummies set up throughout the floor.  A large track with lanes marked on them looped around the entire floor.  There was even an area set up as a fake forest.  This training area was set up to train skills as well as the illusion aspects.

On the second floor, there was a central area set up as a market.  Stalls lined the central area that looked like a temporary merchant could rent to sell their wares.  On the outer edges of the area, permanent storefronts were brightly painted advertising their wares.  She giggled at one of the signs that said “Voted best service!” All she could think of was ‘voted by whom?’  She really missed shopping.

While the system seemed to work that the dominion was currently using, she had no doubts that many freedoms were given up to create this system where nobody goes hungry or homeless.  It was very much a system of be productive or be punished and the punishments had never been explained to her satisfaction.  It made sense that nobody wanted to explain the details of what punishment means to a child.  It was bad enough that the adults did all they could to be productive.

The final floor was part of the underground network that she had found while she was in the barracks.  It was interesting because it was only accessible through a secret door on the fourth floor near the Illusion Master’s office.  That made her think that the main building was geared more towards the general public while the medium and smaller buildings outside were for authorized personnel only.  There must be a more publicly accessible door somewhere on the tenth floor that nobody had located yet to get into the town area.

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It had been a week since she landed herself in the slammer… quarantine.  Doctor Amelia had come by to give her a check-up the day before and had commented on the fact that the rash had almost cleared up.  She had said if it cleared up completely, she would only need to stay in isolation for four days after that.

As much as Violet enjoyed all of the unsupervised time to go exploring at night, she missed human interaction quite a bit.  She couldn’t wait to tell Sky about her new aspects and which magic she ended up with.  He was still very firm on not wanting to have magic.  The unknown was just too scary for him to think about.

She was a little upset that to practice enchanting, she had to lose synchronization with her other skills as well as the majority of her mana.  It was her hope that like the other aspects, as she gained more synchronization she would be able to do things more economically.

Level 32

Age 7

Experience (49600/52800)

Health 250/250

Mana 740/740

Stat Points 155

Skill Points 6

Strength 18

Constitution 25

Dexterity 20

Intelligence 77

Wisdom 74

[Traits] [Skills] [Magic]

[Magic]

Type % Aspect

Illusion 55%

Illusion 92% Disguise Self

Illusion 95% Decoy

Illusion 95% Cloaking

Illusion 98% Shadow Blade

Illusion 86% Dazzle

Illusion 10% Fear

Illusion 1% Hypnotize

Illusion 10% Enchant

Water 1%

Water 8% Water Manipulation

One of the last things she wanted to accomplish before she got out of quarantine was adding herself to the water area. Her plan to gain access to the podiums near the central column was to enter the water area through the doorway by her secret room.  It would be a lot of walking, but it was unlikely that anyone would be standing directly next to the water door at night and she could use Cloaking to make her way invisibly to the podium.

She decided she was a little too free with privileges for the illusion area.  At the time it was only a small group of people she initially gave access to.  In hindsight, she should have added each person individually instead of making it a free for all for everyone in existence to gain access.

For the water area, she only gave herself and Sky access to opening the doors in that section.  It was reckless to keep trusting Sky so much but he had ample opportunity to tell on her and had still kept her secret.  She decided not to trust Jade at all with this section.  The girl had been acting strangely not too long before Violet had quarantined herself.  It just was not worth the risk to her.

Doctor Amelia was true to her word, Violet was set free from isolation on the fourth day after her rash had disappeared.  She also commented on how lucky Violet was to not have any sores open up and start oozing or bleeding.  Violet made sure to lay it on thick on how she was very careful not to scratch and that the cream helped her a lot.

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When she arrived back in the area with Sky and Jade, she sensed something was wrong.  Sky was frowning and Jade had a look of guilt on her face.  When Violet opened her mouth to ask what was wrong, Sky shook his head and said “not now.”  Looking at their three sets of parents gave her the answer she was dreading.  They all had a look on their face that communicated to her that she would be answering some questions when they were alone.  It was at least good news that they didn’t want to talk in front of other people.

They were not given any breaks or allowed out of an adult’s line of sight at any time while they were working.  The entire time Violet was working, she was getting more anxious.  Did they find out about her magic?  Was it just Jade who told on her or did she get Sky to talk as well?  It was going to be bad no matter which one told on her but she hoped Sky kept her magic a secret.

When it came time for dinner, the adults were all acting normal and talking about work-related discoveries.  To an outsider, nothing was wrong and everyone was going on with their lives like normal.  The pointed looks the adults were giving her told her otherwise.

She was expecting to be able to come out of quarantine and play up how lonely it was and how boring it was to be locked in a room alone with nothing to do.  It occurred to her that she never actually asked for anything to keep her mind occupied.  She wondered where they planned to have their interrogation.  The last she had known, they shared their sleeping area with quite a few other people.

After everyone in their group had finished eating, they all followed Corrin in a different direction than where their sleeping arrangements were.  Sky whispered to her as they walked, “after you got sick, they moved everybody.”

They ended up in a section that Violet had not had the chance to explore yet.  The room they all piled into was still a classroom, but it was smaller than the classrooms she had been used to seeing.  This room was large enough to house two beds with a two-foot walkway between them.  As soon as the door closed, the adults all turned to Violet.  It was her father who finally said something.  “You have some explaining to do young lady.”

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AN: And finally some consequences for oversharing with children are going to come out.  I'll try to get the next chapter out tomorrow, it just depends on how busy I am at work.