Saintess Summons Skeletons-Chapter 840 - Ups and downs

[Blessing of the Deep] (3/4) : The Saintomancer was granted a name.

They may see inhabitants of the Deep.

The Saintomancer and their summons are immune to the [Mind control], [Hypnosis], [Confusion], [Insanity], [Domination], [Soul Parasite] and [Instant Death] status effects.

In battles that you did not initiate, your attacks bypass all immunities.

Passive abilities may be fused into your aura.

Sofia was silent for a second.

Passives… Into my aura?

You mean… Potentially all my passives. ‘Fused’ into an ever-expanding range and no mana cost?

Am I reading that right?

Praise be to the Lords…

Ah, wait… [Forced Genius body] won’t be able to level up the skills once they’re part of my aura, will it… Hmmm… I need to be careful how I do this...

Well… I’ll need to fix my arm first.

Sofia glanced at her left shoulder again. It was not cicatrised, just raw exposed muscles, bone and bloodlight where her arm should be.

Even the bloodlight was erased…

How much of that can possibly be recovered?

A diagnostic, Mr.Scribe?

[It is hard to say more than what I already did. The slot calculation is currently accounting for recreating the missing circuits in the existing free space. We may be able to reclaim some space, but not all.]

So we’re for sure losing one to two skill slots, basically? Really not ideal, but still fine. Beyond that? 𝕗𝗿𝕖𝐞𝐰𝗲𝕓𝐧𝕠𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝐨𝚖

[The 2+Million lost Health points are likely also gone for good, but that is still uncertain. I cannot make much of an assumption beyond that.]

Sofia faintly nodded, and tried to use her aura to make herself a bone arm.

The process of that was strangely complex. She was pretty used to replacing temporarily missing limbs by a bone cast, but now, while sculpting bone was as easy as ever, sculpting it into her arm was no longer something she could do. It just felt like nothing. Even when, after some struggle, she made it look mostly right, the bone limb couldn’t be called her arm anymore. It was just a bone puppet in the shape of an arm that happened to be attached to her. It only took her a few seconds to get used to it, after all this was something she used to do a lot and not just with her arms, but it no longer felt the same.

At least my aura is completely unaffected.

Hmm… Say, it looks like I still have all my unlife runes. What happens if I die?

[While it has a record of the blueprint’s lost part, it cannot recreate the damaged area.]

So nothing.

[Indeed. If we reach the surface without activating the runes. The recording should make it easier to work on a fix.]

And if we can’t manage that?

[DATABASE should have a record of our blueprint. But it might not be quite up to date or as detailed. In the worst case, it would be from the last trial.]

That’s not too bad.Can I ever have sensation in my left arm again?

[Uncertain. Hopefully. It might require some clever bioengineering.]

I happen to know just the Lich for that. And a few other potentially helpful people for this… What’s the current state for the skills with a warning?

[Missing Limb warnings should be obvious. Other than that, most of the other skills can be used with partial circuits. Performance will be impacted. For the ones that cannot, manual aerial recreation of the missing circuits would be necessary.]

Like learning the missing parts from scratch…

[Not quite. We have the spiritual part of the blueprint to act as a crutch. The issue is that we will both need to get used to it. It might take weeks of training to get to a functional level.]

The others have done well without me for three months, so that should be fine.

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Her internal conversation over, Sofia sat up again, holding Pestle, and observed the fairy and her surroundings a bit more.

First of all, Pestle’s condition was a bit strange. Some time after falling asleep on Sofia, her body had faded away, leaving only the familiar midenicite skeleton behind. But her mana heart that should have been the dim, temporary one provided by Bookie to his summons, was clearly different now. Despite that, Pestle was still linked to both Bookie and herself. It was all truly incomprehensible.

Next, the fortunate and unfortunate consequences of her battle were a few. Most of her things were still there, neatly stacked next to her, the Abereth and her Staff included, both silently floating behind her head. But two golden items were clearly heavily damaged: the saint set’s sash and anklet. Both had taken direct hits from the robot’s arms when it destroyed Sofia’s body. In a way it was commendable that they survived the blow at all. That was the end of the physical losses.

As for the gains, Sofia wasn’t too sure how it got there, as she had teleported back to the group without it, but the head and part of the upper body of said ascended robot were stacked in a corner of the cave. To say they were in a terrible state would be an understatement, but some select components seemed to have miraculously survived, which was probably why they had become loot.

Aside from that, there were a few random things here and there in the cave, including a strangely large pile of the orichalcum fruit pits, but certainly no twelve-colored gem relic.

Perhaps the funniest part of it all was that she was still wearing her draconic armguard, as nobody else could remove it. She reached for it to take it off, remembering a beat too late that she no longer had a left arm. With a sigh, she used her aura to control her bone arm to remove the armguard.

She gave a glance at the red gem embedded in her black lace glove.

You wouldn’t be able to repair my blueprint, right?

Would be too easy, huh.

Actually… Maybe its one time use effect of reviving the holder from a true death could fix it? Considering how ridiculous the stone is in general, it just might.

Well, I would not waste it on an arm anyway…

Next she grabbed the admin dagger for inspection, using her aura on its bone-sprite catalyst to make it fly to her hand.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, it was pristine and spotless, despite having been at the center of the weird black space rift that had turned the ascended robot into a pile of scrap.

Hmmm?

Oh, it seems I’ve earned a new title.

♢UNIQUE ♢ [REGRESSOR]: Solo-kill an ascended before reaching level 400.

This has to be your second life, I don’t believe you can do that otherwise. How’s the future? Does Nex find the bleak kingdom? Is Anna eternally single?

I don’t know how the fuck you returned to the past, but hook a brother up, I could really use a little rewind. Just a quick ninety thousand years, something like that.

Oh, and I guess, I should still give the title a proper effect, while I’m at it… Not that you would need that anyway. I suppose I’ll make it something quirky.

Effect: Upon equipping this title for the first time, you may claim one item from Jin’s experimental ‘very normal’ toolkit. They will be forced to cooperate as long as you have this title equipped. (Claim requires being in system range)

Available items:

[Prickly the NEEDLE]

[Blunt the HAMMER]

[Sensitive the KNIFE]

[Raw the CLEAVER]

[Masochist the CHISEL]

[Thirsty the BARREL]

[Seeker the MAP]

[Delicate the ENGRAVER]

[Normal the ROCK]

[Fiery the CAULDRON]

[Gold-digger the PICKAXE]

[Soul-eater the SMARTPHONE]

[Forgetfull the ENCYCLOPEDIA]

[Spinner the LATHE]

[Burly the AXE]

[Loud the CLOCK]

What… What the hell am I even looking at?

Prickly the needle? Normal the rock?

Wait… With these names… And…

More Dopples? Is that it? Am I getting that right? Surely not, right?

Forgetful the encyclopedia sure sounds like a very trustworthy ‘tool’...

Also, ‘forced’ to cooperate means they won’t if I’m not using the title, doesn’t it?

I understand what he meant by quirky… Did Jin seriously craft… One, two… SIXTEEN items for this joke?!

I’m not sure I even want one of them…

I guess ‘seeker the map’ might be fine? Didn’t expect this smartphone thing to be something I’d ever hear of again but here it is. Definitely not getting that… Should I get the cauldron and pawn it off to Alith? She already has one Dopple after all. Heh.

One more thing to deal with when we’re out.

As she idly waited in the cave, lost in thoughts, a book appeared on her lap without warning.

Oh, hey. Finished fighting?

Bookie summoned himself next to Sofia, throwing himself into her arms before he was even fully formed. “Sofia! Sofia! You were asleep for so looooong!”

“Shh, you’re going to wake up Pestle,” Sofia answered with a chuckle, patting Bookie’s back as she hugged him, “I’m up now, hmm, you got yourself a new cape? Looking nice.”

“Hnn. Everyone got things! We even found the artifact!” Bookie said, looking up at her, sounding quite proud.

“Oh, you did? Is it with Sonia?”

“No… We found it but… Getting it isn’t very easy…”

“I see… Then, how about you tell me a story, for once? What kind of adventures have all of you been up to without me?”

“It wasn’t without you!” Bookie answered indignantly, “You were just…”

“I know, I know. I need to thank you all for protecting me all this time, right. Thank you, Bookie.”

Sofia kissed Bookie’s forehead without warning.

“Aaaaah! Ewww it’s all sticky!” Bookie ‘complained’, jumping back.

Sofia raised an eyebrow, “Oh, you know how to joke like that now? Come here!”

“You’ll never catch m– waaaah! Aaah, using your aura is cheatiiiiing!!!”