“Pnning another expedition?” Agnes asks with a raised brow, ign Emily’s decration.

  “Yeah. I want to have a look further into The Crystal Waters. Maybe find a duhis time if I’m lucky. Why? Wanna e?” Emily says with a teasing grin.

  “No thanks,” Agnes says with a scoff. “I’m not one fhting mindless beasts. Though, I guess you’d fit right in.”

  “Ha. Well, this mindless beast o design a new spell for your tattoo. So, sit down and tell me about your bat spells’ lightniance.”

  Agnes nods, her face shifting to a serious expression as she drops to the ground.

  “The main spells I use on myself in bat are steel body and iron Valkyrie. Iron Valkyrie gives the same resistance as steel body does, so you should be able to adjust the spell for steel body.”

  “Got it. Please activate steel body for me then. I’m going to take some measurements.”

  Anges nods and starts casting. Her skin shimmers as a silver glow envelopes her, ing her skin and muscles in a metallic sheen of power. Emily walks behind her, dropping dog both palms against her skin.

  “Tell me when the lightning starts getting painful.”

  “Got it.”

  Emily casts stunning touch, maintaining the spell and p a stant stream of weak magical lightning into Agnes, who doesn’t even flinch as the spell activates. Emily slowly starts p more mana in, adjusting the spell to increase the power output. The spell reaches the same strength as a sed circle attack spell and Agnes visibly grits her teeth.

  “I feel it now, but it’s still bearable.”

  Nodding and making note in a bnk folder, Emily tinues increasing the spell’s power. After a few more seds, Agnes hisses and taps out.

  “It hurts now.”

  Emily cels the spell instantly, letting the crag lightning fade but keeping her hands on Agnes’ back.

  “Got it. I have a good reference for how strong I tuhe spell now. Please stay still for a little bit longer and don’t resist my ss so I take your physical measurements and some measurements of your mana circuits,” Emily says calmly.

  “Wait, why do you hose?” Agnes asks in fusion, gng over her shoulder at Emily.

  “Well, unlike a standard ented tattoo, I’m not just tattooing an already-designed pattern. So, in this case, I model the spell around your system to give it maximum efficy by doing things like putting intake runes near jun points in yic circuits.”

  “What about my physical measurements?”

  “They’d normally take those when you actually get the tattoo and just scale it to you then and there. I’m just making it easier on myself by grabbing them in one go now.”

  “Okay. S away I guess.” Agurns bad goes still.

  Emily shuts her eyes, first sending a light stream of maa to trace the ey of Agnes’ body. In a few seds, Emily has a full three-dimensional render of Agnes drawn into her notes with every dimension she could need recorded around it. , she releases a slow stream of unattributed mana, keeping it lio herself while guiding it around Agnes’ system. It’s a much slower process, as Emily has to adjust the stream stantly to stop it being so weak it’s dispersed by Agnes’ internal mana movement, or s that it’s perceived as an attack.

  Ten mier, Emily opens her eyes as out a sigh of relief.

  “There we go. That should be all the measurements I need for now.”

  Agands up, crag her ne relief.

  “Thank Goddess. I should’ve known it would be unfortable to have someone else poking around inside my body like that.”

  “Just wait till I actually do the tattoo. It’s gon a whole lot worse,” Emily teases. “Now, final question. Where do you want the tattoo to cover? The more skihe more effective I make it.”

  “I’m fih everything but my face, so go wild. Now, let’s tinue sparring. I won’t be happy if I don’t hit that smug face of yours at least once before csses start.”

  “Ha, good luck,” Emily replies, standing up and preparing her spells to go again.

  ***

  Emily returns to her room after finishing her spar with Agnes, who has agreed not to tell anyone about her assion, something she didn’t even care to question. Emily sets about designing the tattones, spinning together spells in the Spellweave to use as a foundation.

  Hmm. This is far more plicated than making a normal spell. It will probably take me a couple of days if I fully devote myself to it. Let’s throw this to my two sedary cores to do in the background. It should be ready in a week if I do that.

  e lunchtime, she casts the task to her other cores and heads to meet her friends. Dante and Enzo join them for lunch today, and afterwards, they all head to the hub together.

  “Hello, how I help you?” the clerk behind the ter, Anka, asks with a dead stare.

  “Woah. What are you doing here during the day?” Emily asks with fusion.

  “Haaaa. I went over budget this month, so I’m having to take extra shifts,” Anka says with a tired sigh. “Please don’t make it worse.”

  “Sorry. I’d like tister for an expedition please,” Emily says apologetically.

  Pirl. Alchemy is an expensive vocation.

  “Sure, let me get the paperwork now.” Anka turns around, slowly gathering a few sheets of paper and a few magical instruments before returning.

  “Okay. Now, first, I expect you are the leader of this expedition?”

  Emily nods at her question.

  “Great. Please note your name, circle, and family affiliation dowhen.” She pces down a sheet Emily reises from Oscar’s expedition along with an ented quill.

  “Sure. Just cheg, but who gets to see these forms?” Emily asks before writing anything.

  “Before the expedition, only me, the clerk who files them, and the members of staff rove the expedition. Afterwards, any of the families registered as participating request these forms along with the results of the expedition. Why?” Anka asks as her shoulders sag and the bags under her eyes seem to grow.

  Her family aren’t close to the Mandragos and she’s far too disied to spread information. She’ll probably care more about getting rid of me quickly than how I answer.

  Making a quick decision, Emily answers holy.

  “I don’t want my sponsor family to find out my circle yet.”

  “I see. Don’t worry. The mages giving approvals are all ant affiliates and are under traot to leak information. Just register with a different family affiliation and they’ll never know,” Anka says, pushing the sheet towards Emily.

  “That’s not against the rules?” Emily asks while filling out the sheet.

  “Nope,” Anka responds curtly.

  Odd. Why do they even give us a ce to give the credit of our expeditions to a different family? They definitely have records of which family we belong to.

  Emily shrugs and finishes writing, pg the quill doassing the sheet back.

  “Done. , all of you add your information to this sheet please.” Anka hands another sheet to Juliana beside Emily. “While they’re doing that. You fill out this. It’s just simple stuff on when you’re leaving, how long you pn on being gone for, and the goals of the expedition.”

  Emily takes the sheet and fills it out as well, guessing that the trip would take two months. They soon finish the paperwork and hand it over for Anka to submit, signing with their magic signatures.

  “There you go, your expedition should be approved within a few weeks. Anything else?”

  “hanks for your help!” Emily says, leaving the tired girl to her work and leading her friends away from the ter to talk.

  “Who’d you sign up under?” Hester asks ohey’re clear of the ter’s queue.

  “The Madonna family,” Emily responds with a grin, before turning her best puppy dog eyes on Juliana. “And it would be wonderful if said family could help me out with seg transport to and from The Gde.”

  “Of course, you don’t want to deal with the b bits.” Juliana rolls her eyes, a teasing glint in her smile. “Sure, I’d be happy to help. Do you need help colleg preservable food as well?”

  “Yes please!”

  ***

  A week ter, Emily knocks on the door to Agnes’ room early in the m. After a few seds of waiting, the door fades from existend Agnes weles her in.

  “e on through. I’ve set up spa my study.”

  Emily nods and walks in, taking in the minimalistic setup of the mage’s room. Unlike Jenny’s fortable, personalised living space, Agnes’ room is pin and undecorated. It’s surprisingly simir to Emily’s room before she added masses of maes, just slightly bigger and with more doors leading to ected spaces.

  Agnes guides her towards one of said doors, opening it up to reveal her study. Emily ughs in approval as she steps in, the room far more in lih what she expected of the woman. There’s a single shelf with a small colle of books pext to a wide desk, but all of the walls in the room are coated with hanging ons of various types.

  From flintlock pistols to spears and bows, Emily ’t help but appreciate the vast colle, reising a few of the issions Agnes ordered from her.

  “It’s impressive, isn’t it?” Agnes asks with a smug grin, notig Emily’s i. “I have more in my practi. I’ll show them to you afterwards, if you want.”

  “Sure!” Emily agrees, ied in using some of Agnes’ more exotic pieces that she didn’t make herself for inspiration.

  Emily turtention away from the ons to the middle of the room, where a small wheeled stool and a low, padded table are pced surrounded by a few sedary tables. She walks over ales down oool, gng at Agnes, h in the door unsure what to do.

  “Could you grab me some water please while I get everythi up?”

  “Sure,” Agnes says, leaving the room.

  Emily turns back to the tables and reaches out, juring items from her newly created spatial item.

  ˉˉˉˉˉ

  [Utility Belt]

  [Rank:] D

  [Description:] A belt of five interwoven holder-locked pocket dimensions.

  [Effect:] Allows the user to freely access one hundred and twenty-five square metres of ste space.

  _____

  The belt is a delicate work of magic that took Emily a few days of frozen time to refine. Five of the six pouches on the belt have a lesser space crystal held within, with a simir spell to her drawstring pouch carved on. The leather belt itself has several runes woven in, and another crystal attached in the small of her back, creating a trol array that allows Emily to summon items from any of the separate spaces at will, surpassing the size limit on third circle ste spells by sidestepping the issue.

  The sixth pou the belt is left untouched for The Clock, since she discovered it’s impossible to pce the mysterious pocket watto dimensional ste.

  The small tables around Emily quickly fill with different jars of beast materials, magic crystals, and a few tools. She starts preparing the ingredients, crushing crystals, pulpi flesh, and even burning a few items to mix the ashes in with the rest.

  A little while ter Emily looks up from her prepared salves and inks, the design of which required a stint in frozen time to perfect. Agnes is sitting on a chair at the side watg, haviered the room earlier only to be ignored by Emily.

  “You ready?” she asks expetly.

  “Yep. Please strip to your underwear and lie down on your stomach. I’ll start with your back,” Emily answers without looking up, ing up the y tainers and dirty tools.

  Agnes plies, dropping her clothes to the floor and climbing onto the padded table. Emily finishes clearing up and looks at Agnes, pulling out a full virtual stencil of the tattoo array and ying it over her body. She gives Agnes a once over, cheg the tattoo lines up as she expected and appreciating the old battle scars Agnes has kept.

  Looks good.

  She reaches for a bck salve in a ramekio her and scoops out a healthy portion of the gunk. Carefully, she smears it across the stencil on Agnes’ back, slowly drawing out a plicated mix of lines and runes. Agnes shivers slightly at the cold touch, but otherwise says nothing as Emily works.

  Emily switches between a few different magical mixes, painting on several colours aures. After a while, Emily asks Ago flip over.

  “Wait, is that it?” Agnes asks fusedly as she turns. “It didn’t even hurt.”

  “Ha,” Emily chuckles. “No, that’s just me preparing. I’m getting all of your skin prepped before I start tattooing. You’ll definitely know when the real thing starts.”

  She repeats her work on the front, c Agnes in a dizzying pattern from her neck down to her toes and pushing her underwear out of the way at times to plete the whole pattern.

  “Done. Onto your front again please. I’m starting properly now.”

  Agnes nods and turns over while Emily picks up a set of thin, hollow white iron needles. She dips each of them into a different ink, then ys them down on a tray o their respective inks. She keeps one of them in her hand, leans against the table in front of her, and raises it to the tre of the patterns on Agnes’ back.

  “This is going to hurt. Please don’t resist, and try not to move too much, or this will take a lot longer. Just let me know if you o bite something,” Emily says calmly, her st ent making Agnes flinch slightly.

  “It ’t be that bad, right?”

  Emily doesn’t respond, taking a deep breath and releasing it, falling into a deep focused trance. She lowers the needle to the skin and pours a carefully calcuted spark of lightning attributed mana in before stabbing down.

  In one careful, almost meical, motion, the needle punctures the skin, is a mix of ink and mana, then pulls back. Almost instantly, her hand shifts imperceptibly to the right and stabs again. Emily’s hand turns into a blur, repeating the same motion over and ain without a millimetre of deviation from the intended path, carving a line of magito Agnes’ body.

  The mana a materials mixed into the i with the salve smeared on her skin and burn into the flesh below. Agnes grits her teeth as the mix sears deep into her, f herself to remain calm and preventing her mana from fighting back.

  Emily ignores Agnes’ rea, not even hearing her grunted pints through her deep trance. Her hand fshes betweeray and Agnes, switg needles and mana elements smoothly, growing the pattern slowly.

  After several hours of nonstop movement, includiing Ago flip halfway through, Emily pletes her artwork. She sits back, dropping a bloodstained needle onto the tray aing out a sigh of relief.

  Agnes lets out a tired groan, turning her head to look at Emily with minimal movement.

  “Are you done?”

  “Yep! And, I have to say, I really outdid myself, sidering it’s my first time,” Emily says with pride, admiring her work.

  “sidering how much it hurt, you’d better have,” Agnes grumbles with more than a little rese, f herself to sit up. “Let’s see if it was worth it.”