Chapter 584: Chapter 577: Size matters

About half an hour after Speed left, Saria fell from the sky and landed in the middle of the swamp like a cannonball, “HELLO EVERYONE!” She looked around, seeing Sofia currently sculpting large bone blocks, and Pareth a bit further away busy collecting swamp plants into pots. “Wait… It’s just you two?”

“Who else? Alith will come with Remia a bit later, and Bookie should be back… Probably soon?”

“You sent him to a dungeon alone or something?” Saria asked.

“No, no, I just need a lot of red sand for my new leveling technique, he’s gone to fetch it. He’s travelling on the skeleton chimera we got from the last trial, that thing is absurdly fast.”

“Ah right… So… You’re really not going to tell anyone else about the admin?”

“Well, Alith and Shaily already know… And I am willing to bet that the high levels also know. It’s not like it’s going to change much in the short term anyway. I’ll try to see if I can get him a message later, I figure he might want some help to un-erase some of his things. I worry that he might want to take Anna’s dagger back, though, and I cannot really afford to lose it.”

“Hmm… Yeah, to be honest we can’t know what this guy might think or be like. Doesn’t hurt to be cautious. But well, if he wants the key back there’s probably not much you can do to prevent him from taking it. And on another note… What the hell are you trying to do in this swamp?”

“Oh, nothing much, just starting a city here, I got permission from the emperor.”

Saria was speechless.

“A city?! Hey I went through all that trouble to find those damn rings and you’re going to build a place in the overworld?!”

“You found both rings?!”

“Of course I fucking did!” Saria answered, showing her right hand wearing two midenicite rings.

“W- Well… Zangdar will still be my main home and base of operations… Even though it’s more like Alith’s lab at the moment, it’s just that with the limited number of rings, we can’t really have too many people living there. And I’d like to keep it a private and safe space for people we can trust. But also it’d be nice to have a… Less void-y place to return to and rest sometimes. If we can have artisans and such move here it would be even better.”

Saria took a second to look around and take it all in, “Yeah, sure, but why not just buy a place in Vasperia though? And why a swamp?”

“It won’t be a swamp for very long, I’m just holding back with the heavy land-forming until Pareth collects enough plant samples. We’ve found a good location in the swamp, it’ll be great for a small city, just a bit further south. We have a river, easy access to the sea and the spirit forest, it’s going to be nice. As for why here in particular… It was free. And I want to go crazy with bone architecture, so buying in an already existing city isn’t exactly the best choice.”

“You’re not worried nobody will want to live in a city made of bones?”

“It might take people a while to get used to it but it’s also extremely durable and

free. I can make anyone’s dream house in a matter of minutes at this point if I’ve got the bones ready, and I do. I just need to find someone to manage the city for me, it shouldn't be too hard.”

Saria seemed dubious, and she kept peppering Sofia with a thousand questions about the supposed bone city’s logistics for the next hour until Bookie arrived on skeleton back, carrying two huge leather pouches filled to the brim with red sand. He barely had time to unload and say hi to Saria that Alith appeared out of nowhere carrying a sleeping dryad.

“Hey hey hey! I’m done!” She proudly announced, offloading Remia into Pareth’s arms, “Oh hey Sar, long time no see. Want some candies?”

“Maybe step out of the mud first? You’re sinking,” Sofia commented.

“Oh shit.” Alith pulled her mithril boots out of the muck and jumped onto Sofia’s bone platform everyone else but Pareth was using. “How is HE not sinking?” she then asked, pointing at said skeleton.

“He has passive levitation on his armor through his signature skill right now,” Sofia explained, “So, the stat candies are done?”

“Yep, all done, Health, Speed, Strength, Agility, a hundred thousand stat points each, got them all. These were a lot tougher to reproduce than the two previous tiers. Also it is quite literally magical poison before being a strengthening drug, you want to brace yourself before you eat those,” Alith explained with a proud look.

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“How many do you think we can each take?” Saria asked, “I might just be able to buy enough Aura to start making real use of it with that many boss points.”

“After the first four, I was able to eat five more, basically, but I’m quite resistant to most magical plants by now, so I got to eat more. I’d say an average person our level would probably have to stop at two.”

Mr.Scribe, is it an issue for the leveling if I eat those right now? Sofia silently asked her scribe, and one of Sofia’s system documents opened by itself, it was one of multiple pre-written documents containing only one word: ‘no’. Sofia had made them to allow Mr.Scribe to easily communicate without having to take control and actually write things.

No issue? Nice. Now how do I do that? I definitely want at least two health to get it to a million. After that… All strength? The [Olympian] title equalizes my stamina substats anyway…

While Pareth and Bookie were walking around the swamp with Remia, Alith’s stat candies were devoured by the two sisters. Sofia ate two Health candies, bringing it to slightly over a million, and five strength candies. After that, she started to feel a bit like that time she had smelled the leviathan tear, so she decisively knew to stop right then and there.

Meanwhile Saria was being a monster as usual, and crushed even Alith’s record, eating a total of twelve candies before she started to feel ill.

“It’s really weird, your body is storing the excess energy I think,” Alith told Saria as she was examining her skin which was turning slightly blue, “You should probably spend it fast before it becomes a problem.”

“It never did this before. But well, I can spend it. I’m buying all the aura upgrades I can!”

“How many is that?” Sofia asked.

“Two, a small and a medium… I could only afford tiny ones until now, so that’s progress…”

Sofia stared at her stats as she chatted.

Health : 1 022 762 / 1 022 762

Stamina : 370 242 / 371 002

Mana : 2 054 899 / 5 022 238

Too bad we cannot see the sub-stats. Almost doubled my stamina though, I feel a LOT stronger.

Why do I have this sudden urge to punch something?

“Sofia?” Saria called out for the second time.

“Ah, sorry, I was-”

“Are you daydreaming about a man?” Saria joked.

“Much better, I was admiring my status sheet. Err… I guess I do have a date with a ‘man’ planned for next week though,” Sofia admitted with a shrug.

“No way! Sofia? You? On a date? Who are you and what have you done to my sister?”

“Pareth doesn’t count, Sof.”

“Hey! It’s not like that! I just didn’t know what else to offer the guy so…”

Saria narrowed her eyes, “Hoy, hoy, sister, is this how I educated you? I thought you had a little bit more self respect…”

“Is he hot at least? Taller than you? Strong charisma? Level two gajillions? Dragon ancestors? Super rich?” Alith asked with curiosity.

“I- He’s not bad looking, I think? Ah, but, it’s not that serious… We are really just going to eat dinner and get straight to business after that.”

There was an awkward silence.

“Sofia…” Saria said, “I know this isn’t what you meant but… You should really be more careful about your phrasing…”

“Ah- I-” Sofia stuttered. After being silent like a dead fish for a few seconds, she tried to change the subject. “D- Does anyone want to help me set up my levelling station? I finally have everything ready…”

“Sofia…” Saria sighed.

“Seriously, who is it, though? I’m reserving the right to reject people from zangdar if I don’t like ‘em!” Alith continued to press Sofia for answers.

“What she said!” Dopple agreed in a rare comment on something that wasn’t a shirt or armor.

Sofia rolled her eyes, “It’s REALLY not that serious. I swear, there’s nothing going on…”

Alith walked closer to Sofia, she had to look up to maintain eye contact so she really wasn’t as intimidating as she tried to be, but she tried anyway, “Answers! We request a name.”

Sofia tried to look in Saria’s direction for help, but Saria seemed to be waiting for her answer as well. “I should have kept my mouth shut…” Sofia said with a sigh.

“True,” Alith confirmed with a hearty laugh, “What else did you think was going to happen, of course we want to know more, moron. What do you have to be ashamed about anyway, we were each other’s first kiss so the bar for our relationships is so low it’s not even funny…”

“What are you waiting for to go find someone if that’s how you think?” Saria asked Alith from the side, already aware of the [Maiden’s kiss] shenanigans.

Alith put a hand over her own head, and moved it horizontally to reach Sofia’s body, landing right under her chest. “That’s why… And before you ask, no, I’m not interested in dating a Dwarf…”