Chapter 949 - Consensual backstabbing

Sofia returned to the entrance of the inner vault, looking up at the sundress. To organize her thoughts here, she would just follow her usual decision process, beginning with a surface-level elimination round. She already had her first impressions, but needed a second pass to make sure.

“The sundress is a pointless item. I need power, and this is not it.”

Shaking her head, she moved on to the wooden cube.

“Intriguing but the description is too vague. And if decoding the magic inside would have taken Anna a few months, how many centuries would it take me? I am curious, but it is a definite skip.”

“The chalice… Makes it to the second round.”

Sofia skipped the question mark case since it was already empty.

“The kiln… Pointless. Melting asterite is impressive… But aside from trying to sell it to an Ascended craftsman it’s not great. I would rather have something I can use myself. Eliminated.”

“... The mana-impervious gold… It might be a lot better than Mithril for precision enchantment purposes… But I’m still far from the level where I would have a need for such advanced materials, even with Delicate’s help. Not worth taking.”

Next was the bone wand.

“Anna’s wand. Well, at first glance I thought it was sure to be powerful. And it probably is… But does the goddess of mana really need a powerful weapon? Certainly the third key is quite sharp but… Its other functions are clearly not those of a weapon meant to kill. It being bone is not actually doing a lot for me. Do I want it? Absolutely. Do I need it? I would rather upgrade my scepter. Next…”

Sofia walked up to the next three display cases.

“The alien triangle and the deep orb… Those are both just maps with places to go, basically. Nice as that sounds, I am not lacking in things to do or places to explore. So no. And the soul sphere felt dangerous even to Anna. I would not even know what to do with it, no reason to take risks.”

The pants seemed too impractical, in addition to being ugly, so Sofia did not even deliberate before skipping them again, and stopping in front of the [Small tail scale of the sky leviathan].

“Could I eat it? I suppose Death might be able to tell me. If I was to become a second demon lord, would it mean I get to have an essence of each Recessed like he does? Because that would certainly be worth the risk. But from what I know a lot of the weaker Recessed are already quite strained from having given one. Giving a second to someone who is not even their direct Apostle might be asking for too much. Aaaah… It’s too dangerous either way. Just the fumes of a tiny teardrop from the other leviathan was already…”

With a disappointed sigh, Sofia turned around, finding herself face to face with the outrageous mannequin wearing the [Succubus armor].

“... I could still… I could wear it under my armor… Nobody has to know… I would bet a lot on it giving a massive charisma boost, if nothing else. I can always use more of that.”

Sofia stared at the two mithrium clamps used to maintain the upper part of the ‘armor’ in place, she scrunched her nose. “Forget it. I still want to have some dignity…”

Scratching her arm, Sofia walked right past the Dark Epoch’s ‘holy relic’ [Galaxite Ring].

“And lastly here, the [Ancient root berry]. Strong contender. So for the main section, only the berry and the [Thirsting chalice] are really decent options. Now the skill shards.”

“Fire is not my thing so no. Frost does not have enough information, and could come without a toggle, so I would not impose that on Pareth either. True lightning… I don’t like it but it's still worth considering. Opaline water is useless, I’d rather have the chalice if anything. Special operative and ancestral recall are gambles, but good, so they stay. Leviathan’s folly… As starved as I am for blueprint space, the potential risk here compared to the potential reward… If it was a certain five skill slots or more, then it might be worth considering, but as it is, am I risking my life for a potential 1 skill slot return? When the shard itself will consume some space? No chance.”

“And last is true exp… Which has potential so to the second round it goes.”

[Thirsting chalice]

[Ancient root berry]

[Skill shard: True lightning]

[Skill shard: Special Operative]

[Skill shard: Ancestral recall]

[Skill shard: TRUE EXP]

“It’s a much shorter list already. Now what can I still find strong arguments against…”

Walking in circles inside the vault, Sofia continued to debate with herself.

“Chalice is a nice novelty but ultimately its worth depends on the liquids produced. Its strength also edges on whether I would dare to use the Lords’ essences with it, and what the result of that would be. Gambling on top of gambling. That is a lot of uncertainty. I think… If I was not so pressed for power, I would definitely choose this. Maybe next time…”

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“Berry… Hmm. If it is too much stats, my blueprint might be too weak to accept it, and I will just die. Maybe I could eat small pieces over time? But there are chances that would not work, or with lesser overall efficacy. And then it would be just a small boost… Well, to begin with, getting majorly Health or raw Stamina from this would be pretty pointless. I can only really be satisfied if I get mana or its sub-stats, with stamina sub-stats being just decent. Certainly the stats would be probably getting multiplied through the remaining filters, so there is a lot of long term value… On the other hand, Pareth could use it well… But since he already has such a ridiculous amount of health, even a big increase to someone else might not be worth much to him. I’m still… I’ll keep this as the best choice for now.”

Moving on to the skill shards, Sofia stopped before the true lightning shard.

“Dramatically increases electrical output. In other words, dramatically reduces the bolts’ mana cost. I would lose explosions but the piercing and skewering bolts would be better for it. And it would make the [Avatar of Zeus]. Much easier to activate and maintain as well. My issue with this, though… Without the explosions, this makes lightning damage my main source of damage always. And it would incentivise me to invest more into lightning magic. That’s already the avatar form’s biggest weakness… I do not think this is the plan here. Inquisitor’s judgement is my only way of bypassing lightning immunity. If I take this and ever unknowingly start a battle against a lightning immune enemy… I cannot.”

Sofia shook her head, arms crossed, mumbling about how it was too bad to skip the ability to power electrical devices, she turned to another skill shard.

“Special operative… Well, the only downside is the randomness and it having an unknown blueprint cost. It also does not say whether the user can pick which specialization is affected. That being said, I know where the core circuits of each of my specializations are, so implanting it as close as possible to, even if I have to ask Leverle to shift my free blueprint space around for it… That could be worthwhile if it lets me choose… Well, actually upgrading any of my specializations is good. Since it only adds a new power and does not change anything, there is little risk. At most what I lose is some blueprint space… Which is pretty bad but all the shards are the same. Strong contender.”

“Ancestral recall in comparison… Since humans are from the Fae bloodline… Well, it could be like the heart ability that I skipped before, but it could also be something else. I wonder what Pestle would think here. From what I understand the fairies’ strong point is actually their Processing. Always good to have more. But who knows what this would really do? Awakening traces of my ancestral lineage… I don’t know anything about my more recent ancestors. Even that Oleron Sellar from the trial hasn’t tried to contact me at all. Worst case scenario, if the fae lineage is too old or weak and there’s just nothing to awaken, I’ll have an implant taking space for nothing. Cannot risk that.”

This left only the TRUE EXP skill to examine up close. There Sofia deliberated for a long time. What did strengthening the blueprint mean? How bad was the conversion rate, really? How many creatures could she realistically kill? How many phageid? What about in other places? Other planets? The deep? What about an industrial scale monster farm, like her current slime farm? Could she not expand her city and breed millions of slimes to kill a day? What about hunting the eternally reviving Sunless drones from Cerberus instead? Sofia felt like the skill was ripe for loopholes to be exploited. But ultimately, it came down to two things, how bad the conversion rate really was, which she couldn’t know without picking the skill, and how long she had to profit from it.

If not for the very imminent deadlines of the Phageid attack, Scripture, and the impending cataclysm, she might have just grabbed this without looking back. But needing immediate power to crush the next trial and whatever came after, she could only reluctantly give it up.

The choice was down to two items, the [Ancient root berry], or the [Skill shard: Special Operative].

After spending another hour walking in circles, overthinking her options, Sofia made her final decision.

She used her key to unlock a display case, and grabbed the item.

Was it really the correct choice?

Still uncertain, she closed the empty display case, and left the vault.

“Sofia!” Bookie was first to react seeing her walk out.

“I see you were all having fun without me,” Sofia commented, seeing Bookie, Nex and Pestle playing with cards around a table.

“You certainly took your time in there,” Nex commented, “You went for a relatively safe choice, I see. Anything to report about what else was in there?”

“Not much but...”

Sofia recounted the appearance of Anna’s recording at the beginning and her thoughts about what the goddess said.

The revelation seemed to shake Nex a lot more than Sofia had imagined. Frowning, he stood up from the table.

“I see… Thank you for sharing this. Come, I will escort you out. I need to discuss this with the others.”

“Understandable.”

“Cake thief is leave game? Hmmpf. Pesle is win again.”

“Not fair, I wanted to win one!” Bookie complained.

“Heeheehee… Boki hundred year young for win Pesle!”

Some time later, in Ser’Extra. Pareth was sitting on the edge of Sofia’s bed, Sofia standing on the bed behind him.

She held a thick pointy item with both hands.

“Erredis said this is bound to hurt a lot. Ready?”

Pareth gave a calm thumbs up.

Sofia gathered her mana, activating all of her strength boosts, she poured all the mana she could muster into the item. With one swift motion, she stabbed the back of Pareth’s skull, where he always most keenly felt his link to her.

[Skill shard: Special Operative]:

Adds a new powerful effect to an existing specialization, highly unpredictable results.

The implant’s location will have a major impact on the produced effect and affected specialization.

Due to the fragmented blueprint lumps of an ancient ascended creature present within, the recipient may be overtaken by the creature’s will if their mental resilience is not strong enough.

The implant cannot be extracted after use.

Estimated blueprint usage: around 2 slots.

Use with extreme caution.

The skill shard pierced its way into Pareth’s blueprint and skull.