The weeks flew by as Zoe experimented with different shapes for her light toy. She wanted to get something as small as she was used to, but the gems themselves were almost as large as the tiny toys, let alone the housings around them.

  It was an incredible feat of engineering, Zoe had begun to realize. To create something that was so bright, at such long distances, with such a pinpoint beam of light. Just with mirrors and a tiny battery. Here she was with magic at her disposal, tiny changes in the shapes possible in moments with just a thought, and still couldn’t replicate what they’d created.

  Somebody could, she knew. Maybe a proper light mage with years of experience, or perhaps a glass maker with thousands of mirrors under their belt. But Zoe couldn’t, yet. She couldn’t even make one that would last longer than about an hour away from her before the lens melted away.

  If she made the walls out of the much more mana dense frozen splinters, they wouldn’t melt unless she applied an enormous amount of heat to them. But the resulting light beam was far less directed than if she used the more translucent frost — and for the lens, the frozen splinters didn’t work at all since they were entirely opaque.

  Maybe there was glass magic, Zoe wondered. If she could manipulate glass as easily as she can manipulate frost, then even with just some very basic knowledge of refraction she could probably make something passable. The light source would be much larger than a laser diode would be since she was limited to the size of the gems she had, but the beam would be much more powerful. Too powerful, Zoe wondered? Was there a risk to creating a pinpoint beam like this?

  Zoe laughed to herself. Maybe she was just overcomplicating it. Andrew had used pinpoint beams of light when they were in Flester’s Might — if she just took a light class and stole its skills, one of them would probably be more than capable of doing exactly what she wanted.

  Which felt a little bad, Zoe realized. Trying to build a laser herself was fun, it required thinking about things she didn’t often think about. Like when she first built her home and had to plan out her ventilation to keep herself from suffocating. That was an interesting problem to solve, and she was proud of the solution she found.

  A single skill that solved her problem was boring, in a way. And it didn’t reward creative thinking, it didn’t incentivize her to think outside the box. Outside of her box was the jurisdiction of other skills, if she wanted to be there, she needed to find new skills.

  And skills were fun, but something just felt wrong there, somehow. Maybe if she were in a different position — if she were mortal, she’d be thinking differently. With her limited skills, she’d have to think of different uses for them. Different problems she could solve with the tools at her disposal.

  But for her life, it just didn’t make sense from a purely practical perspective. Why would she invest weeks into building a laser pointer when she could probably spend less time finding a laser pointer skill?

  Was that intentional, by whoever created the system? To try and slow the progress of people who managed to break out of their species’ limitations? Or was it just something that whoever created the system never even though of as a possibility? Was it malicious, or negligence?

  Zoe summoned a sheet of paper and started scribbling a note into it.

  Hey Eliza, it’s Zoe. Long time no see, huh? I should probably be better about that, sorry. Anyway, I’ve been thinking about the system a bit and thought it might be fun to run some of the thoughts by you. I’m in the capital at the moment but I’m high level right now so I could be anywhere else soon. Get Lila to send me a message whenever you’re back in Korna, alright? Hope you’re both doing well.

  She pushed mana into her Sending skill and watched as the letter vanished. A few minutes later, she received a message from the system, and urged it to show her the rest of the message.

  *Ding* You have received a message from Lila Jurgenhill.

  Hello Zoe, I’m glad to hear from you. I’m in Korna right now with Lila. Life lately has been a little slow ever since I got my immortality — why rush, you know? Lila’s mortal, and she doesn’t have much time left now, if I’m being honest. I’ve tried to convince her to learn some skills to help but she’s so stubbornly attached to her natural end. Another three years? Maybe four? I’ve accepted it, she’s accepted it. I think if Ash were still around, she might have thought differently.

  But what’s in the past is in the past. I’d love to chat with you about whatever discovery you’ve made, if you’re reaching out to me then I’m sure it must be an interesting one. They so often are. I’ll be in Korna at Lila’s house for the next few weeks and then I’m making a trip down to Foizo for a couple weeks. Come stop by if you’re available.

  “Hey Emma!” Zoe called out to her friend in the bathroom.

  “Yeah!” Emma called back, her voice somewhat muffled by the heavy wooden door.

  “I’m gonna go visit Eliza and Lila for a bit, if you wanted to join me? I could drop you off at Foizo if you like too.” Zoe shouted.

  She was met with silence and some noises she preferred to pretend to ignore for a couple minutes before Emma came out of the bathroom. “Yeah sure. Sounds fun. What are you going to visit Eliza for?"

  “Long story, I don’t wanna explain it twice. You ready now?" Zoe asked.

  Emma shrugged. “Sure, sounds fine to me. Will we be gone a while?”

  “Uhh, probably not? If we are I can come drop you off back at town though, if you’re worried about the cats.” Zoe said.

  “Okay, thanks. Bye boys!” Emma shouted back to the silent house. The boys were asleep, or at least that’s what Zoe assumed since she couldn’t hear them thrashing around in the other rooms as they played with their toys. No distinct, terrible smell from them using their litter boxes either.

  Zoe and Emma made their way out of the city and then Zoe Cosmic Leaped them through the air until they arrived outside the gates to Korna. They walked through the gates — much simpler than the ones outside the capital, Zoe noted, and headed to Lila’s apartment.

  Eliza opened the door after Zoe knocked and let them in. The smell of tea and fresh bread filled the air.

  “Would you like some tea?” Lila asked, her hair thin and gray. Her face covered in wrinkles and saggy skin.

  “Yes please.” Zoe said.

  “Thank you.” Emma said.

  Eliza slumped down onto the couch, and told Zoe and Emma to make themselves comfortable. Zoe summoned a wooden chair to sit on and Emma sat down next to Eliza on the couch.

  If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

  “So.” Eliza said. “What have you discovered this time?"

  “Yeah, I’m curious. What’s up?” Emma asked.

  “You don’t wanna wait for Lila?” Zoe asked.

  Eliza shook her head. “She’s not interested. She’ll come bring us some tea and biscuits and then probably go back to her writing.”

  “What’s she writing?" Zoe asked.

  “Some book about these kids that get eaten by a mirror, or something? I’m not quite sure, she’s being a little secretive about it still.” Eliza said.

  “Sounds… weird.” Zoe chuckled.

  “It does. But she’s having fun with it.” Eliza said. “Enough about that though, what’ve you got to talk about today?"

  Lila stepped around the corner carrying a platter with three steaming mugs of tea and a small pile of biscuits. She placed it on the table in the middle of the room and smiled at Zoe. “You three enjoy yourselves now. I’ll just be in the kitchen if you need anything. It’s nice to see you two again.”

  “You too, Lila. I’m glad you’re doing well.” Zoe said.

  Lila smiled at her as she walked back around the corner, and Zoe picked up one of the mugs of tea to sip on it. The tea was herbal and fresh, with a hint of citrus. She grabbed a biscuit and bit into it, finding it somewhat dry and brittle, with a sweet, fruity flavour to it.

  Eliza tapped on the table. “Come on, out with it. I’m dying to know, now.”

  Zoe chuckled. “It’s nothing so incredible. I was trying to make this.” Zoe summoned her most recent prototype of her laser pointer and shone the yellow beam on the table in front of Eliza. “It’s kind of a complicated feat of engineering that people far smarter than me made, and I happened to replicate by cheating with magic.”

  “What’s it do?" Eliza asked.

  “Cats like it, mostly. But this isn’t really the point.” Zoe stored the cylinder away again. "The point is that I realized something. All of the work I did on this was pointless. I’ve spent weeks working on this, I’ve learned so much from working on it. I’ve learned how light interacts with different shapes of frost, how it bends and twists and bounces. I have almost an intuitive understanding of how my frost will affect a beam of light now.

  “I learned so much, and I’ve made this so much better. But all of that work, all of that learning was completely pointless. Because in the same time, I probably could have just taken some random light mage class, stolen their pinpoint light skills and enchanted something with those instead. It would be smaller and work better than this monstrosity I’ve made.”

  “Well if you learned something I wouldn’t say the time was wasted, Zoe. Knowledge is important, even if you don’t get to the end result you wanted.” Eliza said.

  “No I know, but I mean from a purely practical perspective, right? The goal is to make a pinpoint beam of light that I can use to play with the cats. And I would be better off just finding a skill that does that, instead of spending all this time learning how to do it myself.” Zoe said.

  Eliza nodded. “I see. I never even thought about that.”

  “You see what? What do you see?" Emma asked.

  “The system is penalizing her for experimenting. Or, more specifically, it’s not rewarding her for experimenting.” Eliza explained.

  “What’s that mean?" Emma asked. ”Seems like it’s convenient to me. You get what you want and you don’t have to put in as much time learning how to do it. That’s a win win, right?“

  “The problem is that it hampers curiosity. We no longer wonder about ourselves, but about the magic the system can offer us. It’s a reliance. And a reliance isn’t necessarily bad, but imagine how much we’re missing out on because we think to find a skill — or perhaps somebody with a skill, instead of trying to solve an issue ourselves.” Eliza explained.

  “I don’t see the problem with it, I guess. I like skills, and if they solve the issue I have, then that seems good enough?” Emma said.

  “I always thought the system rewarded us for experimenting. The more magic we learn, the more power we get. But it isn’t. It’s rewarding us for interacting with the system. Why?" Eliza asked.

  “Because it’s magic?” Emma shrugged. “I dunno. Maybe it wants to help us out.”

  “Maybe. But maybe it gets something from us interacting with it. Maybe every time we use it, every time we pull on its power, it gets some small part of us.” Eliza said.

  “But I’m immortal now. All of us are. We’d probably be dead if it wasn’t for the system, so it seems like it’s given us more of us, not taken bits from us.” Emma said.

  “But it might be getting something else. I don’t know what it would be getting. Maybe whoever created it just didn’t think that far, but now there’s the possibility that they have, and that they want us to interact with the system more and more.” Eliza said.

  “Which, to be fair, could just be because they think their creation is very very good and people should be using it more because it’s so awesome.” Zoe said.

  “That’s true.” Eliza agreed. “We don’t know enough.”

  “So should we stop using the system?" Emma asked.

  Eliza laughed. “Of course not. Can you imagine? A life without the system? No. We’re reliant on the system, whether we like it or not. And for the record, I do like it. But we should be aware of this, and try to push ourselves further. Find our own limits.”

  “Which for me, means I don’t get to cheat and find a pinpoint beam skill.” Zoe sighed.

  “No, get your skill. It solves your problem, and you’ll have fun with it. But don’t stop thinking about how you can solve problems with the skills you already have. And maybe one day, we can try and figure out how to make things work without the system.” Eliza said.

  “I think the system makes things cost more mana. Since it always wraps its filthy mana mitts around the patterns, but I don’t think that it actually does anything to the skill. It just obfuscates the pattern a bit. So if we could get used to casting without the system, our mana would go further.” Zoe said.

  “And do you have mana troubles?” Emma laughed.

  “No, but that’s also cause of the system. Do you think we could improve our stats without the system’s help? Just, fiddle around with ourselves until our health gets boosted by some enormous amount?" Zoe asked.

  Eliza sighed. “People have tried that before.”

  “And?" Zoe asked.

  “And they’ve died. Be careful with that, Zoe. I don’t see why it wouldn’t be possible, but the system is very very capable, and there’s no ethical way to practice this without risk of death.” Eliza said.

  “So whoever made the system probably killed very many people, then?" Zoe asked.

  “Without a question. If you ever meet the creator of the system, you are not meeting a saint.” Eliza said.

  Links:

  Ko-Fi:

  Patreon: