214 – Void Interfacing

Saffra blanched, even though she hadn’t [Inspected] the item yet.

The robes were dark with purple accents—much like Lady Vivi’s own preferred getup, when she wasn’t hiding the legendary armor’s design with an illusion. Where Lady Vivi’s robes had organic and flowing accents, though, these ones were more geometric and deliberately placed. Cleaner, more professional, not too dissimilar from her Institute uniform.

Interestingly, the bits of dark purple seemed to almost sparkle. It was a very faint effect, but still visible.

“You’re making me another set of gear?” Saffra asked, unable to keep the dismay from her voice—which probably wasn’t the proper reaction to have, but she couldn’t help herself.

“Of course. Your current armor is sixty levels out of date. There’s no reason not to upgrade.”

Saffra’s first impulse was to retort ‘it’s hardly out of date,’ but on reconsideration, she had to bite her tongue. Adventurers tended to upgrade their gear as often as possible, given that it was one of the most effective ways to improve one’s combat ability. The only restrictions were budget and circumstances—whether upgrades were possible. Which they obviously were, here.

The reason a new set felt so weird, she supposed, was because of how recently she’d gotten her previous. Upgrading after climbing fifty levels was normal, but that made for a solid pace on a yearly timeframe. Monthly, it was ridiculous. Before the Chalice had begun draining her experience, she’d been putting on rank at an unheard-of rate. Even slowed down as of late, levels were streaming in.

So, yeah: Lady Vivi wasn’t wrong. An equipment refresh was appropriate, if not outright due.

“But don’t you have better things to be working on?” Saffra asked faintly.

“Compared to researching void energy and helping my apprentice? No. Besides, most of the breakthrough came from our craftsmen. My involvement was”—she paused—“tangential this time.”

Saffra wondered if that was the truth. From what she’d seen and heard, void energy and related topics were a Sorceress-tier problem. She’d heard on multiple occasions Vanguard’s craftsmen bemoaning how utterly impossible it was to work with the substance. Saffra had even overheard the stoic jewelcrafter Ulden grumbling about it.

“And now that Vanguard’s vault is open, I didn’t have to hunt down the materials myself,” Lady Vivi added. “We had plenty of good stuff stored away. Not that I would have minded taking a day to get everything in order. It just wasn’t that major of a project.” She waggled the cloth as if to draw Saffra’s attention back. “I can tell you haven’t [Inspected] it yet. Go ahead. It’s interesting.”

Saffra swallowed, braced herself, and appraised the item. A name appeared, but her eyes instantly darted to the ‘Transcendent’ label beneath it. The word both didn’t faze her, and left her reeling at the same time. She was already wearing four pieces of Transcendent gear, and the Sorceress’s next project would hardly be a downgrade, so she couldn’t say she was shocked. That said… Transcendent armor. At level 440. She wanted to scrub her eyes and check again.

The enchantments had to be the important part, though, and the sense of surrealism grew as she went down the list reading each of them. [Effortless Weaving]—she remembered that one from her previous chest piece. [Fount of Mana IX], not one, but two ranks higher than before. [Sorcerous Might XII], the same deal. [Arcanic Deflection] had disappeared, presumably because even the Sorceress could only fit so many enchantments onto a single piece of gear.

At the end was the fruit of Vanguard’s efforts, undoubtedly the source of what Lady Vivi had called ‘interesting.’ The woman probably hadn’t given a second thought to the other impossible advancements she’d made, the mundane enchantments.

“[Void Dispersal II],” Saffra read slowly, “and [Voidborn Alacrity II]?”

“Only second tier right now,” Lady Vivi said with a nearly imperceptible wrinkle of her nose. “It’s still a prototype. Lots of progress left to make, just like with your spells. The amazing part is that we’ve gotten the System to accept void effects at all, though.”

Saffra had picked up that much. “How’d you manage it?”

A pause. “The answer is somewhat technical. I’ll explain, but—”

Saffra had already started shaking her head. “Never mind.” She would rather her brain didn’t explode as it tried to comprehend magic and craftsmanship fifteen hundred levels beyond her. “So it works the same as your sword? But it’s an enchantment?”

“Exactly. The important thing is that it works on top of the gear’s natural resistances. I went with cloth this time instead of leather, as you can see, it’s better for mages—I was being paranoid when I focused on defense for you. So, durability isn’t its strong suit to begin with, but you’d be surprised just how much effort it takes to cut through. And like with void energy as a whole, it applies to all phenomena, mundane or otherwise. If you fall off a cliff and land body-first, the robes will eat the brunt of the impact.”

Saffra blinked. That was neat.

“The effect is limited, of course,” Lady Vivi went on, “given the low level and enchantment tier, but it’s very promising as a result. [Voidborn Alacrity II] is the enchantment you’ll care more about, I think. It speeds up casting with void-type spells.”

Saffra straightened with interest. “How much so?”

“You’ll have to do your own experiments. The boost was trivial on me. It’s low-level gear.”

“Right. Any amount would be great, though.” She’d been struggling with [Nullification Pulse]’s hefty cast time not more than fifteen minutes ago, after all. In fact, that might’ve been what had prompted Lady Vivi to share the robes early.

[Effortless Weaving] also gave a bonus to cast speed, but it affected all spells, and thus provided much less benefit. A specialized enchantment would be far more noticeable.

“Doesn’t all void stuff take fuel?” Saffra asked after mulling things over. She was hardly keeping up with Lady Vivi’s research, but they talked about these topics here and there, especially since Saffra was pursuing a specialty in void magic—though she was focused more on practical applications than theory.

“It does. Which means it will run out eventually. But we’re talking on a scale of centuries, you’ll have outgrown it ages ago. Voidglass is extremely energy-compact.”

Lady Vivi had mentioned that before. But the possibility of degrading or depleting a voidglass reserve hadn’t been what Saffra was getting at. “I meant: where is it?” She squinted at the robes. “Do I have to carry some around like with my spells?” Her mentor had made a ring of the material to tap into; that was the source for her current casting.

“Oh, that. Yes, Malach’s solution was pretty elegant. You can’t even tell, can you? My idea was stitching a chunk of it onto the collar, maybe like a pendant design, but while that would’ve worked, Malach wanted more flexibility. And for it to be less obvious. It’s in the stitching itself.”

“The stitching itself?”

“He had me crush some of it into a powder, and it’s… glued, or whatever the right word is, into the stitching of the accent material. I don’t know the exact details.” Lady Vivi held the robes up and presented a patch of the dark purple for emphasis.

“That’s why it’s sparkly,” Saffra said in realization.

“It’s not just for the aesthetics,” Lady Vivi agreed with mild amusement. She handed over the robes, which Saffra took, though hesitantly. The material was smooth to the touch, so obviously high-quality that she winced at the reminder of how valuable the item must be. “This next part isn’t the most important thing, functionally speaking, but it’s the real breakthrough I was talking about. Try putting it into your inventory.”

Saffra obeyed. The robes vanished. She was briefly confused, but after a second, realized why it was a big deal. “Oh. It really does interact with the System.”

Lady Vivi nodded. “Just another piece of gear. It’s compatible with more than inventories, too. Jasper has a skill that lets him throw projectiles faster, and we had him test the theory. Wasn’t the most exciting proof of concept, tossing a balled-up clump of cloth across the room, but it did work.”

“I… don’t have any skills that affect objects, though,” Saffra said.

“Which is why I said you wouldn’t care. But it’s big news in a research sense. It was the last thing that the Duke had done with his dagger that we hadn’t figured out. Except we solved it fully. His worked with skills, but can’t be inventoried like ours.”

Framed like that, Saffra found the idea much more compelling. Anything that one-upped the once-Duke Caldimore was worth celebration. “Awesome.”

A sudden tidal wave of noise had her eyes shooting toward the arena.

Oh. She relaxed. Looks like a victor was decided.

Saffra hadn’t been keeping up, but now that the sound had jolted her attention back to the fight, she realized it’d gone on much longer than usual. It must have been a close one. Saffra and her competition might not be on the same level as Lady Vivi and company, where forests could be torn up within seconds, but she wasn’t bronze either. Most gold-rank and higher scraps ended fast.

“You can try it on for fit later,” Lady Vivi said. “Malach will make changes as needed, of course, though I’d be surprised if he didn’t get it right on the first try. He’s… pretty good at his job.”

“I bet,” Saffra snorted. There were only a couple Grandmasters for each crafting profession in the world, and Malach was one of them. She turned the cloth back and forth. “There isn’t a hood,” she noted. It wasn’t a complaint, just an observation. Mage robes tended to be hooded.

“Malach wanted to go with a brimmed hat instead. Apparently it’s more comfortable for your ears.”

Saffra couldn’t stop the reflexive twitch of the aforementioned cat ears. “They are, actually.” It wasn’t a big deal either way, but if she could pick, she’d go with a hat. Malach was a beastkin himself, so it made sense he’d thought through the gear’s design. Any competent tailor would have.

Her thoughts drifted, going on a tangent. A hat also meant she would get to hide her ears out in public. If she tucked her tail into her robes, that would make her just any other teenaged, red-haired mage, which did narrow her down, but not to any suspicious degree.

She didn’t have a crazy reputation yet—not as ‘the Sorceress’s Apprentice,’ at least. Her status was an open secret to anyone deliberately trying to keep up with the Sorceress’s return, of course, and rumors were spreading given how much she was seen with Lady Vivi, but technically, there had been no grand announcement to make the truth clear. She was ‘Saffra of Vanguard’ to the uninformed, not ‘Saffra the Sorceress’s Apprentice.’

With a hat to cover her ears, she could probably go around undetected in public.

Can’t believe anonymity is something I even have to worry about.

“I guess I spoiled a bit of the surprise,” Lady Vivi said, startling Saffra since she’d zoned out. “I wanted to hand you the whole set at once, but I couldn’t help myself. I’m hoping everything’s done by tonight, since you’re obviously in the middle of your matches and need them sooner rather than later.” The woman hummed. “I suppose we’re lucky for having figured it out at all. Better late than never.”

Saffra chewed on her lip. She struggled not to blurt out something stupid like ‘this is too much’ or ‘why are you doing this?’ They’d been through that dance already.

So, she said the thing she should have earlier.

“Thank you, Lady Vivi,” she mumbled, fists clenching in the robes she’d let drop to her lap.

Can’t even say it like you mean it, she chided herself, though Lady Vivi smiled—in that barely noticeable, muted way of hers.

It was just… overwhelming to be showered in treasures with such casual indifference.

“Happy to help.” Lady Vivi leaned forward in her seat to peer down at the arena. “How many of these fights do you want to watch, by the way? It’s probably helpful scoping out the competition, but practicing might be a better use of your time. And your staff is likely ready, too.”

“My staff?”

“It had a few finishing touches left, but it should be good by now. It’s pretty cool in its own right. Wanna go take a look?”