9/14 15:57 (Summer, Night)
Sabel returned to rationality after hours to find her head resting on Luna's shoulder while being gently pet, her hands bound by shackles of Black Blood with Mafel in the same situation so that they wouldn't .
Or at a second look, a similar situation as the former Boss was still under the influence of the Mark as she noted from the fact that the white-haired one had an expression of bliss in her face, her eyes closed in contentment.
"How is…?" Sabel.
"She is fine. She needs a bit more time to separate my emotions from her own as she is less used to feeling things than you." Luna petted her head as her bonds dissolved.
"How long was I out?"
"No idea. It's night right now. Can you walk?"
"Yes, I-" Sabel tried to stand up only to almost fall, barely able to stop herself before Luna helped her with her blood to lead her back to the coach and her arms.
Sabel found herself embraced by her front while Mafel leaned against her back.
She sighed, relaxing, while hugging Luna back before she noted something else.
"Why am I not hungry? Even with Vital Energy, I should be."
"Simple really. I am transfering my Vital Mana to you two to feed you."
"I-I see. Thank you? How long do you think she is going to be out of it?" Sabel asked Luna about Mafel only to recieve an unexpected answer.
"Why don't you try to feel the answer using your Mark?"
"How do I- no. You are right, I must find out myself." Sabel started to concentrate on herself, more specifically on the warmth in her chest, deep within her heart, calling for her attention.
No, she corrected, deep within her soul she found the Mark, a tether connecting to something, no someone, else.
As she concentrated on it, she saw.
Information almost blanked her mind before she slowly was able to slowly start to navigate the information, noting how the information was her own memories, even those she forgot, mixed with her own, Luna's and even Mafel's emotions.
As such, slowly she was able to concentrate until the influx of memories slowed more and more until they became just a trickle, trickle that quickly ended.
She sighed, exausted, before concentrating again, this time on the tether itself and not the part of herself connecting to it.
Their Link was not very strong yet, barely born, yet was more than enough for her to send a request for information, request that was answered almost automatically by Luna's Soul not with words but pure information.
As such she understood the other needed an additional hour before she regained full control.
She turned to her own body, relaxing against Luna as this last one continued to pet her head.
"I'm sorry, you must have been bored this hours…"
"Not at all, fending the two of you off was quite entertaining and I had more than enough time to finish reading the three book and practice." Luna responded, a True Self manifesting before them holding one of the books for them to read before saluting and Dispelling, the book vanishing back in her Ring.
"I see. Then I'm relieved." Having said her piece Sabel leaned her head back on Luna's shoulder and started to doze off.
"Very well. Now that Sabel is calmly sleeping, my Mafel is even more passive and so I can properly train all out."
A mass of Black Blood rose from her shadows enveloping the three of them in an hollow sphere, mixing together with Vital Mana forming a True Sphere, enhanced with [Greater Self] and [Mana-Clad Warrior], while sharing with it one of her Skills, "Presence Suppression" to hide them.
A second one formed within it enhanced with the sames Spells while with the Skill "Artifact Proficiency" to enhance the effect of the Shapes within and around it.
The third and final sphere finally formed within it with the Skill "High-Speed Processing", accelerating the inside slightly.
Immediately after her 5 True Images appeared within the sphere, being complete, naked, copies of herself made out of liquid darkness with bright purple lights in the place of her irises.
This caused another reaction because of the Skill "Parallel Processing" joining them to the network that was her mind.
Finally she Summoned her Familiars within three of her True Images causing them to change even further.
The one harboring Warden changed the least, its skin becoming densely packed scales as part of her hairs became horns, the one holding Ash changed the most when it comes to material, becoming made entirely out of solid flames.
Finally, the one holding her oldest Familiar changed the most, its nails and fangs becoming sharp as knives, a third light appearing on its forehead while its hairs became similar to sturdy whips ending in a spinning drill to impale individuals.
She smiled analyzing the changes within them caused by their Ranks and the presence of her Familiars and the way she herself would behave in that situation to find and correct any inefficiencies.
Starting from the most important and numerous change was that her own Unique Skill was inherited as an Innate Skill in their cases while her own Growth Skills don't allow them to gain any Magicules in the first place.
But the most interesting thing was the effect of "Singularity" upon Ash.
This last one had as Skill only "Fire-Attribute Magecraft", a Skill that needed a minimum Affinity towards the Fire Attribute, thing that should have been rendered useless because of her own Unique Skill only for said Skill to change, showing a new side to it.
Instead of reducing all Affinities to nothing while boosting the No-Attribute Affinity to the maximum, in this case it instead reduced all Affinities, the No-Attribute one included, to nothing while bringing the Fite-Attribute one to the maximum.
She smiled as another piece of the puzzle she and her Unique Skill were being revealed to her before the test even really started.
The battle started in full with her Images using Vital Mana to nullify the damage to her, her Mates and the office itself while she observed them attently, in movements sure but especially her three Familiars-Images' version of her and their own Skills.
Immediately she recognized that her Warden-Image and her Vision-Image had the advantage, one when it comes to defenses, thanks to the combination of "Imperial Scales" and "Physical Resistance", while the other had an advantage derived by its perception and its sheer versatility derived from its natural weaponry.
Meanwhile Ash was instead being slowly but surely being driven back as it was incapable of using "No-Attribute Sorcery" and "No-Attribute Magecraft" as it had no No-Attribute Affinity.
Some may wonder why she was bothering to train in this way, thinking she was merely trying to became better at fighting but while this is true, it is not the only reason.
The main reason for such, the one not normally actively known about, is that someone could use an immense amount of training to slowly drill against the Wall of their progress to decrease the Burden of the Skills on their Soul, training that because of the sharing of "Parallel Processing" the Images' is counting as her own.
As she observed the battle royal before her, she noted how her Images were behaving, carefully concentrating their assault on the Ash-Image.
This from the outside may have seemed like the four of them decided to eliminate the weakest of the bunch but the truth was quite different, as shown by the fact that it was surviving in a battle against four Beings with the same stats as it using "No-Attribute Sorcery" to enhance themselves.
The truth was that the four of them were driving it into a corner to force it to adapt, leaving it no chance to survive otherwise, as the thought that a copy of Luna channeling a Familiar would be weaker than a copy of Luna alone was unacceptable to all other Lunas.
The only thing they could accept as behavior was to drive it to a corner until it could properly fight back.
Method that worked as evident by the fact that flames quickly started enveloping its fists, a Sorcery of the Fire Attribute used without the Skill to increase its power and ease of use, thing quite easy for Luna to do considering its naturally high Control caused by "Singularity".
This caused her to actualize a Sorcery normally called [Burning Grasp] through pure knowledge, intuition and will, Casting quite the high-level Spell with the ease of a master.
This was evident from the analysis Luna made of its effects as it struck one of the Images, causing two, no three Complex Alteration of Status at once, "Burning Resistance Down (Self)", "Burning Damage Increase (Self)" and "Continuous Burning (Self)", both of them lasting a whole 10 minutes even if she herself was the one recieved this attack.
Attack that didn't end even now as its hands were still clad in a flaming red aura while the struck Image was periocally bursting into flames from the inside out.
The effects of these Alterations were simple, really.
"Burning Resistance Down (Self)" lowered the Resistance to the Status "Burning" of who has it, "Burning Damage Increase (Self)" increases the damage the "Burning" Status inflicts once Active and finally the "Continuous Burning (Self)", a Status that constantly inflicts some "Burn" every second.
Simple Status Alterations like "Burning" have three layer of effects depending on the Resistance and the amount of Status Effect inflicted.
In this case the "Burning" Status Effect has the following effects with the basic potency depending on the source: The first is that the Target recieves more Fire Damage from following attacks and is always active so long as "Burning" is present; the second is the Active effect, happening once the inflicted Status is equal or superior to the Resistance, that contiuously inflicts Fire Damage to the Target; finally, the third and final effect is an amplification of both the previous two effects relative to the difference between the Status and the Resistance.
Luna watched studying the following battle as Ash-Image started to use "Fire-Attribute Sorcery" and "Fire-Attribute Magecraft" to fight back against Warden-Image's barriers and the attacks of Vision-Image who's even its missed attacks were dangerous as the area around it was sharp as a blade.
She felt it, the Progress Wall being slowly grinded because of their efforts and her own constant passive trainining.
Time passed as Luna examined the slowly stabilizing connection between herself and her two Mates deep within their Souls while analyzing her own emotions and the desires natural of a Lunarian, much more intense than even that of an Half-Elf.
It was the reason why she couldn't stop herself from taking the two of them as her own in such little time while the previous her never even thought about People in any romantic way or even simply cared about other's People existence.
The truth was that as a Lunarian she was more similar to a normal Person than when she was an Half-Elf thanks to both her time around the old Vampire to analyze how he behaved and the stronger desires of a Lunarian helped her understand other People's emotion.
She concentrated back to the fight, noting how the Skills her Familiar-Image were using would be quite different from the same Skills if used by her.
The "Fire-Attribute Magecraft" of Ash was able to generate, control and amplify flames; "Third Eye of Physicality" of Vision was able to roughtly see the opponents' Vital Energy while its "Weapon Mastery" rendered its body a natural weapon; finally, when it comes to Warden, its "Imperial Scale" allowed it to create Barriers all over the place because it was incorporeal as just a Shade while its "Physical Resistance" was being channeled through her barriers.
All these were things she wouldn't be able to do without her Familiars.
As her Images continued to battle, destroying and being destroyed in return, she felt it, her Soul growing in power enough to lessen the Burden to the point that it finally happened, she gained a new Skill surpassing her Wall, a Skill she wanted intensely.
*Luna Gained the Ability Skill "Crafting".
She smiled, satisfied, and it was just in time too as Mafel finally was able to focus on reality, her Images vanishing.
Differently from Sabel, she instantly found their Link together and mastered its use, sending and asking informations with the same, if not greater, ease than simply asking to Luna's pride to her Mate.
Meanwhile Luna examined the difference in her abilities from before noting no particular change from before, just a slight increase in power, at least for now.
"So what do you want to do?"
"I'm going to leave this city tomorrow. You are free to accompany me if you want to but you will be mine all the same."
This response was only partial as all the same very soon they would always know each others' location and she planned to come back to bring Sabel back with her.
This wasn't hidden from Mafel and neither was the completely absent sense of direction that is part of Luna's being, thing she understood easily throught their Mate Link.
"I see. In that case I will search you once I conquer the Dungeons nearby while keeping my new sister? Company."
"Very well." Luna accepted easily before kissing her Mate softly. "Let's relax for now." Her five Images, three housing her Familiars, were Summoned to restart her training.
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Thanks for reading and comment if you have any thought about this chapter or story in general.
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