Sworded Affair

Emma gets her first glimpse at her shiny new power up, and doesn\'t think much of it. It was a rough wooden cube, seemingly powerless in her hands, and the best compliment she could give was that because she was still wearing that futuristic space suit, said cube lacked any damaging power, and her hands had yet to collect any splinters from handing it.

[It only works for crafting classes. Give it some mana, just a drop, as if you were using the System to make a single, ordinary candle.]

Emma obeys, feeding the innocuous cube a piece of herself, not enough to even register as a single point of MP to the System, but enough. The cube vanishes, expands and implodes all at once, leaving her in the middle of a crescent moon. Jars, wax, sculpting tools and more surround her; everything the kitchen back home had, and, if Edith\'s explanation was correct, far more to come.

[Now, what I\'m going to be doing is a bit of ritual magic, with the ingredients you\'ve procured. Because this isn\'t part of your current toolkit, you won\'t get any experience from participating. You can learn from it though, assuming you can glimpse what\'s happening below the surface. How much you gain depends on what you can observe, but I won\'t be slowing down for you, there\'s too much at stake here.]

"Levels are no good if we\'re dead," Emma huffed. "Do what you have to."

[Good. Take note of the cooldown on your Duplicate, first of all.]

"The duplicate?" Emma echoed, pulling up the relevant information. "Hold on, why isn\'t it counting down? It\'s been at least a minute since I fed it to the boss."

[Time frays at the seams, here, amidst the echoes of apocalypse. The Duplicate will return when this is solved, or not at all. You\'ve taken the first step, forging a link between it and yourself. A small piece of yourself has been placed beyond time; our first act will be to seize upon sympathy, and extend it.

Mass withdrawal initiated:

50 Thrones

Victorian Gown (3-piece)

Your Sacrifice (1 oz)

Self-Reflection (3 pages)

Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

Sacrificial Blood (1 gallon)]

Emma watched carefully, eager to learn; even this act taught her something important, that her crafting table freely rearranged itself to accommodate new ingredients. The jars and tools were gone, and the pile of wax shrunk down to only a handful, barely enough for a single candle by her estimation.

[What is אדם?]

A simple, three letter word sent her reeling, unable to parse its meaning, as the System\'s translation fell silent.

[A frail thing, of blood and bone.

Sacrificial Blood (1 gallon) consumed.]

Emma did not jump, as an entire gallon of blood vanished in a puff of thin air, despite what anyone else might say.

[A coffin, entwined in the hopes of two.

Your Sacrifice (1 oz) consumed.

Bequeathed in gold.

50 Thrones consumed.

Bedecked in glory.

Victorian Gown (3-piece) consumed.]

I never even wore it once, Emma thought sardonically, though given what she\'d since learned of Victorian fashion, she wasn\'t sure if that was a blessing or a curse.

[A miracle of chance and the invisible hand.

Self-Reflection (3 pages) consumed.

We are, each and every one of us, a candle, flickering amidst the Eternal Wind.]

In that final moment, Emma thought she saw the handful of wax vanish, a brief realisation amidst the taste of fire and flesh and copper. It was gone, seconds later, all but that last, which she had to wipe away with a gloved hand. She was bleeding, quite profusely at that, from eyes, ears and mouth, and her body suddenly weak, requiring both hands pressed against the crafting table to keep herself standing. Belatedly, Emma realised that Edith had been uncharacteristically modest before, when outlining what she was about to do.

[HP: 9/100

For witnessing and surviving the creation of a Divine-grade Candle, 1000 EXP gained.

Level up!

Half-Demon Homunculus: Level 6 Chandler

User unable to comprehend, next skill award increased one tier.

Level up!

Half-Demon Homunculus: Level 7 Chandler

User unable to comprehend, next skill award increased one tier.

Level up!

Half-Demon Homunculus: Level 8 Chandler

User unable to comprehend, next skill award increased one tier.

Level up!

Half-Demon Homunculus: Level 9 Chandler

HP: 100

MP: 100

EXP: 1810/2000

User unable to comprehend, next skill award increased one tier.

Level 10 skill-selection tier maximised.

Eternal Wind stored.]

Emma blinked rapidly, both to clear her eyes and to dismiss the flood of information, because she rightly didn\'t care. As soon as was practicable, her eyes went straight to Eden\'s Echo, and the sole new occupant therein.

[Eternal Wind: No matter near or far, all are one. Light a candle with yourself for two ships in the night, build a bridge where none still stand.]

"This is…" Emma searched for a word to encapsulate the absurdity in her hands, and failed.

[Well, what are you waiting for?

WARNING: This Dungeon is unstable, and will collapse if unbeaten in 51 minutes.]

Needing no further prompting than that, Emma reached within her storage ring, and withdrew a purple candle, inlaid with newborn stars. Belatedly, Emma realised she didn\'t have anything leftover to light it with, and the crafting table didn\'t include matches.

[It\'s in the description, dear. Remember the first thing we did?]

It took Emma a moment, but she did. Taking the candle in her hand, she reached within herself and fed it her mana.