Chapter 131 [2.57] Every Waking Moment (Part 4/4)

Time blurred for a while after that. Angelica pumped out a lot of Merlina’s Boutique and commissions, to the point that she lost track of it all, until she finally stopped to complete the last stage of the book cover. It honestly could have been done much sooner, but she’d purposefully waited before jumping on it, because the coloring stage was supposed to be the longest. And if she finished it too soon, even with an automated email, she’d be too eager about sending it off to hear the results and hopeful praise.

Originally, she had made four different variations of the final piece, with different emotions Evoked in each, with her plan being to send them off to the publisher and let them choose which one to use. There had been things like the typical joy, but also a variation of anger that got blood pumping when combined with the violence on the cover, in hopes that it would make them want to see the scene depicted and result in an impulse purchase—reduced to not spur anyone to an actual violent impulse themselves thanks to the new control she had over it.

But ultimately, she decided to just send them the plain boring original. Well, not that it was boring. She was extremely proud of how it turned out, and felt the emotions it conveyed naturally spoke for themselves. Hopefully, that would be enough. Though, if they said something was lacking after having witnessed the emotionally charged rough drafts, she would reconsider, not wanting to disappoint their expectations.

After sending the final files, she went to crash for a while, using another sleep Order since she’d gotten comfortable with them. However, this time, there was a slight malfunction. Or rather, the conditions she’d instilled had both activated while not being followed to the letter.

Angelica was woken by a text, but not at the exact moment she’d received it. Perhaps because it was only a semi-urgent matter, involving scheduling and a mildly timely response, it had waited until her next sleep cycle finished before pulling her out of her deep slumber. At first she was annoyed, since she clearly could use a bit more sleep, but after checking the message, she was grateful, not wanting to keep the sender waiting for too long.

『Greetings, Gelic and Merlina. This is Pathos from the Zenmoon Sect. My pupils passed along your number. Allow me to express my apologies for the delay and my appreciation for your patience. I’d also like you to know my sincere gratitude for Gelic’s assistance with the recent Malignant Geyser.』

『I have now returned to our Sect’s headquarters, located in Vulgrest, Palamyth. From my understanding, you have been made aware of my desire to meet with you. In roughly a day, I will have the Essence needed to pay Gelic’s Contract. So if it is convenient for you, perhaps we could get together in the next two or three days.』

『I’m unsure where you’re located, but I could come to you, or we could arrange for your travel here, whichever you would prefer. Let me know. I look forward to meeting you.』

Damn, so it was finally happening. Honestly, with Angelica’s art blur, it had somewhat slipped her mind. But that was the reason why she was so content taking a break from Demon stuff to begin with, because of the huge payday on the horizon. And what did she mean by delay? Hadn’t two weeks been the expected time? If anything, the woman was early.

And that was when Angelica finally checked the date. She had looked at it before, especially when timing her emails and Merlina’s schedule, but it hadn’t really clicked just how long it had been: two weeks on the dot from when she’d met up with Vystal and the others at Zenmoon. She’d met with her mother two days after that, meaning she’d been in isolation for roughly twelve days straight now.

It really had been a blur. Such things were commonplace during her unemployed period, with this on the low-side, even. But with how active she’d been, it felt weird to be a hermit again for such an extended period of time, having only gone outside to grab the packages at her door and that first day with the banking Demon. She hadn’t even done any shopping since her and Cherub’s food supplies were well stocked.

Well then, back to reality, she supposed. It had been a good, much needed break, and she may slip back into another right after. Really, she didn’t know what would happen next. Maybe Pathos would convince her to join Zenmoon, or maybe that bridge would be burned and she’d be back to being an isolated Summoner. Hopefully, she’d at least get some answers. So she thought about it a bit and sent her reply.

『Hello, this is Merlina. Gelic isn’t great at typing, so you can usually assume it’s me. I’m actually staying in Vulgrest at present as well. Two days from now would work for my schedule. Just name the time and place.』

Angelica could have offered to meet sooner, but that would give her time to mentally prepare herself, and there was still a bit of prep she wanted to make. She also didn’t want to sound too eager, having picked her words carefully. And in regards to being careful with words, since it was almost two weeks later, she would undoubtedly hear from her mother quite soon actually. Knowing the woman’s schedule, and when she was likely to text between meetings and tasks, it should actually be any minute now.

Honestly, Angelica couldn’t help but smirk when her prediction came true, her phone buzzing almost immediately after she’d finished scheduling with Pathos. Speak of the devil and she shall appear. Actually… now that she thought of it, did that idiom come from Summoners in regards to them calling Demons? It probably wasn’t apt to say anymore since she had met literal Devils.

Her mother invited her to dinner and clothes shopping, which she went ahead and agreed to without a struggle. It felt like a bit of a waste, since clothes were mostly pointless for her now, but it should still be an enjoyable time that kept the peace and would hopefully lead to more reconnection. Maybe she could skirt purchasing anything, touting financial reasons, but she already had a good idea how it would go.

Angelica would eventually concede to an outfit, letting her mother buy it for her. It would be an unspoken agreement, but she’d be expected to wear said outfit on a follow-up rendezvous as a show of appreciation. That sort of made their relationship feel a bit more shallow and transactional, but buying gifts had always been one of her mother’s main ways of showing love, as proven by the laptop.

Annoyingly, she’d be meeting both Pathos and her mother on the same day. Angelica was meeting the Zenmoon Summoner around lunchtime, so there should be no real issues, but that was going to be a huge drain on her social battery. All this textual conversation had woken her up properly, so while still a bit tired, she decided to go ahead and start her day and hopped in the shower.

Also annoyingly, when Angelica thought about it, she couldn’t think of the last day she’d showered again, meaning she’d fallen back into bad habits. At least it was just a result of keeping busy rather than depression. She’d still make sure to do a deep clean. It was a good time to refresh herself and take stock, decide how to spend the next two days, and maybe come up with new training methods. Since she now had two firm appointments, she definitely wouldn’t be taking on any Summoning jobs that risked her being late.

Over the past… almost two weeks, apparently, the DGS had been notifying her as usual whenever she earned an increase. But because she had been so busy and focused on other matters, she’d likely missed some outright. And those that were registered at the time likely slipped her mind mere moments later. As a result, she’d requested that the growth system keep a running tab for her to inspect later, when she had the mindset for it, so now seemed like a good time. And she’d earned quite a bit.

[Auto-Color Lv. 17, Evoke Lv.19, Runic Artist Lv.4, Scrutinize Lv.3, Masquerading Transfiguration Lv.12, Second Stomach Lv.8, Manifest Ice Lv.23, Cold Resistance Lv.29, Manufacture Lv.10, Salvager Lv.6, Swipe Lv.14, Venomous Strike Lv.7, Irritating Lv.5, Plague Resistance Lv.7, Essence Tip Lv.5, Ambidextral Mastery Lv.12, Fatigue Resistance Lv.5]

[Creativity absurdly increased]

[Creativity has improved from Talented to Inspiring]

[Might monumentally increased]

[Might has improved from Pointed to Edged]

[Vigor, Competence, Malice, heftily increased]

[Vigor has improved from Baseline to Stable]

[Lucidity notably increased]

[Beguilement increased]

[Fabrication Attunement significantly increased]

[Oppression, Destruction Attunement heftily increased]

[Fraud, Glacial, Pestilence, Egoism, Pride Attunement notably increased]

[Gnostic, Famine, Pedant Attunement increased]

[Summoner Rank: Novice Lv.17]

Quite the haul indeed. Regrettably, there was no Reprint increase, but it was getting close. Despite eating quite a bit, there was no Discerning Palate increase either since it was almost exclusively leftovers, despite a few frozen meals and snacks she had to shake things up, but that wasn’t enough for a level. Cold Resistance had been most of the way to the next level from her time hugging her frozen bath, then all the feet stuff had pushed it up by two in total. Essence Tip came from regularly refreshing her training Order while also adding it to her daily lifeplan Order. And with Evoke getting so high, she was well on her way to meeting the requirement for False Idol, not that she’d ever want it.

A slower requirement she was getting closer to was whatever needed Ambidextral Mastery Lv.20. Despite all the nonstop training, it had only gotten five levels. Besides playing with Cherub, virtually everything she did provided the supposedly boosted experience. So it was just one of those Skills that would be a drag, but she’d keep at it.

Interestingly, there were no Attunement rank-ups. Kind of weird that neither Egoism nor Pride hadn’t reached Touched. Technically, she only had one Skill in both, and the could be like Fabrication that was just innately slow, but it felt she’d hit Touched in most other Skills by this point. That led to a theory that the more Attunements she had, the slower they would increase. When she probed the DGS about it, she was given an annoyingly vague answer.

[In a sense]

That led her to tweak her theory slightly, to thinking it was more about spreading herself thin with her training, dabbling in a bunch instead of focusing on one. When she’d gotten the deluge of Cold Resistance levels, she had really felt the Attunement in that moment, which was probably what had helped the spike. Meaning having a bunch didn’t matter as much as committing to one at any given time. So if she’d only done art, and not the other training methods, by her guess, Fabrication would have jumped again to Intertwined. Well, whatever. She liked the diversity, even if it meant slower progress in that regard.

Besides just what was tied to her system, she was doing well in a bunch of other ways too. Since she wisely hadn’t brought her phone into the shower, and couldn’t check the current specifics at that moment, there was a lot to be proud of based on her latest information. Merlina’s Boutique had passed a thousand active readers and was still climbing thanks to the algorithms at play, even without her magical intervention, at least not too much. While still on the low side compared to the more actiony juggernauts of the site, in her genres at least, it was undoubtedly a break-out hit.

For commissions, she’d gained several dozen new happy customers, with quite a few repeat requestors already on top of her old usual commissioners. And for her investments, they were doing grossly well. Her Inspiration-induced Pride had basically achieved a masterstroke performance. Only one tanked completely, which she pulled out of as fast as possible—still a little late, regrettably—but how was even her enlightened self supposed to know that the CEO was going to get caught cheating on her husband with the head of marketing at a sports match?

Despite that loss, a chunky few thousand had been made in the past two weeks, which she’d used to reinvest in a couple new ventures. And she’d made a habit of checking on it regularly, usually when she was eating meals, scanning through the charts as if they were an enthralling tv show. While it was fun to see the growth, boy was it way more stressful now than what her prideful self had to endure. She was already absolutely ready for it to be over and throw it all into long-term savings, but she needed a bigger nest egg first.

She pawed at the shower controls to turn off the water, but stuck around for a minute longer to think about what to do next. Hmm, maybe she could train Bug Bite by—

“Is this Gelic?”

“Huh, what, who?” she asked the open air, thinking she was hearing voices. Then she realized that yes, she was definitely hearing a voice. A Summoner was reaching out to her, so she telepathically repeated the same questions.

“Am I speaking to the Pestilent Puck known as Gelic? The one who knows Transfiguration?”

“Uhh, yes.”

“Very good. Would you be willing to accept my summons?”

“Ah, sorry, now’s not a good time. Check back in like a week.”

“I’m afraid we don’t have that kind of time.” Now that she could focus on the voice a bit more, it was definitely a man. At first, she thought it might be Pathos communing with her, but that was ruled out. “Last chance to do this the polite way.”

Ugh, Gelic didn’t care for how stuck-up he was suddenly acting. But he was a snobby Summoner, so what did she expect? That didn’t stop her from putting some stank on her next words. “Well, if we’re still being polite, then I politely refuse.”

“And I refuse your refusal,” he countered. “So we’ll do this the direct way. Gelic, I summon thee!”

“W- w- wait! Ahh!” She felt her body begin to dissolve, so she desperately reached out of her shower, trying to snag the towel out of shameful instinct, despite being in her Puck form. Sadly, it slipped out of her claws right before she vanished from her bathroom.

[You are Bound | Contract: To be negotiated | Time limit: Indefinite]

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