“Well, sorry for worrying you like this, Sof. I honestly expected something more like a quest just like the one he gave you, and not, you know, a sudden death. I think the last thing I remember is you telling me that this wasn't a good idea. *In hindsight, you were right...”
Sofia let herself fall on her bed, sighing. “Listen, I'm not going to chastise you more. I'm not really in a position to do that, considering… yeah. But, at least warn me in advance before you do something crazy next time…”
“Yeah, alright. I'm not planning on dying again so soon though, but well, if I had to choose, this was still a better way to go than my previous death. And it wasn't for naught either; we just learned quite a few things, and I actually got what I wanted. So, huh, besides the death and emotional distress, it wasn't all that bad…” Alith tried to justify herself with an awkward smile.
“True, we've learned from a very trusty source that if I wait too long to bring you back, you're dead forever! It is good to know, but it's not exactly making me feel better about the situation, Sofia complained from her bed.
“Well, we also learned that I'm still myself after the resurrection, which is really good news. Imagine if I had lost all my memories from the past three years… It would be like I'm really dead. Not too bad for me, but that would really suck for you, so… I'm very glad that's not how it works…” Alith walked around the room nervously, then finally laid down next to Sofia. “I'm really sorry, thank you for bringing me back, Sof, thank you for never discarding my useless skill.”
“As if I could ever get rid of it…”
After a moment of calm silence, Alith spoke again in her usual lighter tone this time. “You know, you just witnessed a historical event, the first-ever recorded death of an Alith, quite the accomplishment, right?” she told Sofia with a giggle.
*What, really? I thought this was the death of the shortest Alith,” Sofia answered with a cheeky smile.
“Well, you’re not wrong.”
They laughed together and shared another instant of comfortable silence, until Alith had something to say again, “Hey Sof, did you know that the system has a divinity tab?”What?!
“Are you serious?” Sofia answered, incredulous. The only way she could see the essences she had was through VPPV; she had tried several times to find another way to access them but hadn’t found one.
“Yep. I didn't know either. I was just frustrated at not being able to see the thing I died for, so, I tried to think of a bunch of related keywords. Turns out you just need to think ’access divinity’.”
Access divinity?
A new system window appeared in front of Sofia's eyes.
For fuck's sake.
“What's even the point of having all of these system functions if no one ever tells us about it?!” Sofia complained. “Couldn't the admins have left us an instruction guide or something? I swear if I ever meet one of them the first thing I’ll do is punch them right in the face!”
Alith sat up and shrugged. “I don't know, seems pretty intuitive to me.”
Sofia stared at Alith. Are you kidding me? “Alright, Alright, intuitive, huh? Did you know that the system can predict the weather? I learned about that in a book in the teacher's section in the academy’s library. It’s very, very simple; all you have to do is say out loud in your head, ‘report satellite forecast’.”
“Nevermind… What’s a satellite?”
“Hell if I know."
“Looks like it's gonna rain tomorrow,” Alith commented, reading the system forecast.
“Rain gets stopped by the Academy's shield anyway,” Sofia answered absentmindedly as she was focused on the divinity window.
This one isn’t in Draconic? There’s really been fewer and fewer Draconic stuff to translate lately. Would a certain Scribe happen to be responsible? Don’t overwork yourself, alright?
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[Divinity status - Sofia Aphenoreth]
– Saintess of Scripture –
(VIP) (Safeguards : On) (Link Status : ERR_SSS018 - Conflicting Regional Settings)
Planar connection:
Superphysical - Yes
Mana FOG - Yes ♢
Subspiritual - Yes
Margin - No
Deep - Unclear
Collected Essence - EV :
Aphenoreth - #DIV/0
Dread - 3.68
Looming - 1e-9
Ormoncleth - #DIV/0
Scripture - 2.12
Sorrow - 4.73
Sun (5) - 25
Victory - 4.28
I have many questions… Conflicting regional settings must be thanks to Sen transferring me to the Draconic part of the system.
“Any idea what EV is?” Sofia asked Alith.
“No… Are you also locked on ‘Mana FOG’?” Alith asked back.
“I am, yes. It’s pretty obvious that it’s the mana plane, but who knows what FOG means. I don’t think it’s about literal fog.”
“Yeah, sounds unlikely, or at least, I don’t think it would be capitalized if that was it. By the way, you might be able to guess, but I have some exclusive information on here. Still don’t know the Orat-”
“Hoy!” Sofia cut Alith, placing both hands on her friend’s mouth. “Are you trying to die again?!”
Alith pushed back Sofia’s hands. “Just saying it should be fine, no? He won’t just show up for no reason just because I said the name, will he? I’m not asking for anything this time. And I’ve always been able to say Aphenoreth and Ormoncleth without any issues until now.”
“Please don’t say it. Even if just to spare my nerves,” Sofia pleaded.
“Alright, alright. Fine. Just read the thing, then, and show me yours, while you’re at it. I’m curious.”
[Divinity status - Alith]
– Blessing of Phoenix lineage (Sun) –
(Hero) (Safeguards : On) (Link Status : Operational)
Planar connection:
Superphysical - Yes
Mana FOG - Yes ♢
Subspiritual - No
Margin - No
Deep - Unclear
Collected Essence - EV :
Yvraveteth - #DIV/0
Yvraveteth The Orator.
Aphenoreth The Inquisitor.
Ormoncleth The Regulator.
And Edrazeketh The Annihilator.
There we go, I have a complete collection. Can’t rightfully call myself the saintess of the Deep if I don't know at least that much, right?
Alith tapped on Sofia's shoulder. “Looming?”
“I am just as confused as you are, never heard of that God, I don't see where I could have gotten that, it doesn't show up in VPPV nor does it count for [Quintessential], and I have no clue what the one E something stands for.”
“Our best bet is probably to ask Cinthia’s spectators. And if not, then Erredis would probably know,” Alith suggested.
“I already missed today's class because of you, I can't really travel all the way to the sect, so Cinthia it is, but first, I think we owe Miss Beryl an explanation about my sudden absence.”
“Are you in big trouble because of me or…?”
“It should be fine. I just need to do the extra hours later; we teachers are allowed some flexibility for emergencies.”
Still in her pajamas in the middle of the day, Cinthia scratched the base of her horns, reading the messages popping up in her chat one by one. She looked up at Sofia and Alith, “So… T- The EV thing should be ‘Essence Value’, or how ‘pure’ the essence is; An EV of one is essence from an entity that barely qualifies as a cognizant divinity, while an EV of five is the best of the best you can get,” she explain while looking back at the messages every other second.
“So Scripture really is just that weak,” Alith contemplated, sitting on her bed, facing Cinthia’s.
“And Sorrow is quite strong. Still, Scripture is more than double the minimum so it’s not that weak either, even if it’s the weakest of what I have,” Sofia analyzed.
“Not really,” Cinthia corrected, “your Looming essence is the weakest. I didn’t understand everything but in short, Taxes says that this is a value indicating something so weak it should even be qualified as divine essence. Like a speck of a concept, worth less than the tokens they donate for my skills.”
“Taxes?” Sofia asked, “That’s a new one.”
Cinthia shook her head, “No no, Taxes is a regular also, but they usually only show up whenever money or mathematics are involved…”
“At least that’s consistent with their concept… What about Looming, then? That also sounds like a Recessed,” Sofia asked while changing position on her non-existent chair.
Cinthia took a second to look at the new messages. “As far as they know, there has never been a deity of Looming,” she finally declared.
“That would explain why the EV is so low, but why is it in my list?”
Sofia and Alith waited for a bit, hoping for an answer from Cinthia’s chat, but after a good minute, the red-skinned orc girl sheepishly looked up from her message window.
“T- The answers I’m getting are not really helping… But, for context, this is Death’s take on the matter that they wanted me to share with you…”
‘[|||||]: (͠≖ _≖)?’
“I- I see… Well, I’ll keep an eye on it, I guess… I kind of get a sense of foreboding the more I re-read that line in my status and its weird number…” Sofia told the other two.
Alith nodded in approval, “If nothing else, at least the Looming’s true to its name.”
Well, it’s the least of my concerns at this point, with everything else going on. I still haven’t given the storage ring to Shaily after all this time… I’ll check up on her progress after tomorrow’s class. Hopefully Erian will be back.
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