Chapter 18: Chapter 16: Peace… for Information Session Number Two.

Man, I slept like a baby…well, I kinda was one. It surprised me every time, but I really had gotten used to sleeping on the cold ground. Weren't it for my size, I would look like an ancient dragon sleeping in her lair. Ha!

I should stand up and...ow! Urgh, my body feels like… it's so stiff!

Parallel mind #3 informed me that I'd been soundly sleeping for a very, very long time now. She couldn't guess how many days, but that was understandable as we are inside a cave with no access to the sun.

Frankly, I thought this felt familiar to the morning I woke up after getting chased by the garms and falling into a hole. If I remembered correctly, I was affected by [Exhaustion (Major)] back then. Oof, I really was bad at managing my Stamina…

My whole body, from tail to my wings to my neck, was completely inflexible and ached a lot even at the slightest movement. I couldn't begin this day like this!

With my bones cracking up like a storm, killing off the silence of the cave, I felt so much better after stretching that much. I felt free. No longer stiff like a rock.

With my body renewed, I decided to collect the orc corpses. Call it sentimentality, but I wasn’t doing it to eat them but to give them a proper burial. No way was I eating them when I had fish in my storage. They acted way too much like humans, making the thought of eating them awkward.

Two of the orcs were burned to death while the tracker was just a bit further away, slightly charred but still relatively recognizable. The two other orcs were in the maze-like hallways. I could smell them, kinda, due to the blood, but with how far away they were, I decided to take it slow. My parallel minds were generous enough to appraise everything while I was stretching, and were ready to brief me with their findings.

Ha, I felt like a boss having her workers do the tedious job for her. It did save me the time to sort it all out myself though.

Now, if you guys are ready, then I'm ready for the information dump!

‘Oh, is that what you thought of us? Your secretaries? Wow, so nice of you.’

That was parallel mind #2. She seemed to have some “tsun” inside her, considering she was rather curt with how she talked to everybody, despite being the most cautious of us all. It would be endearing… were it not for the fact that she was me. I felt a bit weird to admit I had something like that inside me, but, whatever.

I’ll just apologize a bit and ignore her for now.

Hehe, sorry? Anyways, Manager Mind, would you please?

‘You actually called me that?! Oh my gosh…’

Parallel mind #1, who I would now call Manager Mind, seems quite displeased about it. I mean, was it that weird though? At the end of the day, all these parallel minds were parts of me, specifically, certain parts of my emotions to better differentiate ourselves. It made it less obvious I was talking with myself, and instead, made me feel they were separate individuals… kinda.

‘Now, now, everybody. Let’s just stop with the joking, ‘kay? There is so much we gotta work through that we just don’t have the time for the procrastination! Well, we kinda do, but you know what I mean.’

And that was parallel mind #3, the last of my more developed parallel minds when it came to speaking. I gained a fourth during the orc battle, but from the looks of it, she was trying to find an emotion to cosplay at. But, honestly, three dominant people speaking inside my head was enough, anyways.

‘Oi, I can hear you, Original Mind!’

Yeah, sorry about that, but too many voices. I’m already weirded out by this.

With peace regained inside my mind, we all began sorting through the information the parallel minds gathered. To start, Manager Mind began relaying [Identify Lv. 10]’s new description of [Primal Magics] to me.

<Primal Magics: An ancient skill that allows the user to wield magics with the highest efficiency. A combination of multiple skills that are inherited by a being naturally inclined towards the power of mana. The skills combined are: [Mana Efficiency Lv. 10] [Arcane Mind Lv. 10] [Arcane Corruption Resistance Lv. 10] [Chant Revocation Lv. 10]>

<Mana Efficiency: A skill that decreases the amount of mana used in spells. Besides spells, any usage of mana will see an increase in efficiency and strength>

<Arcane Mind: Strengthens the mind of the user with mana to prevent breakdown due to mana related problems. Enables the learning of spells. Available spell slots = 4 * [Arcane Mind]’s level>

<Arcane Corruption Resistance: Through the usage of magic, arcane corruption is accumulated in the body and mind of the user. This skill increases the body’s tolerance of it and reduces the amount created upon mana usage>

<Chant Revocation: A skill that lowers the necessary incantation length of a spell. At max level, the need to chant will become completely redundant>

Ah, so many skills.

This probably was the first skill where it was made up from multiple lesser ones. I quickly assumed all those merged skills were applying simultaneously with the mother skill, which my parallel minds confirmed pretty quickly. In fact, they got pretty angry I wasn't reacting even more.

‘Jeez, not really the reaction I envisioned. Whatever. I guess you can’t figure it out if you don’t experience it yourself’ #2 suddenly commented about it.

Hmm? What do you mean by that? I asked, prompting Manager Mind to explain.

‘Alright, let me explain it. You know what [Mana Stress] is, right?’

Yep. It happened after using up my mana during the garm chase. I also got a big headache whenever I tried using a spell.

‘[Mana Stress] is essentially that. Remember when you appraised the Mana stat in our profile and how it mentioned we couldn’t recover mana once it fell down to zero. Exactly, that is the status ailment’s name. During that garm chase, I tried using spells to help you, where I noticed once your Mana drops to zero, you actually suck in the mana from the air. It stresses your body out, causing that headache.’

#3 then began wriggling a mental towel to demonstrate it visually. Water at first was drained like a waterfall, before it only dripped like a small rain until there was no more water. She kept twisting the now dry towel desperately, shouting “I need it! I need it!” as #2 poured small amounts of water into the towel. Although #3 could siphon off some more water from it, it left her completely exhausted.

‘This is what we think is happening when you have [Mana Stress]. There are also four stages you need to be mindful of.’

<Status Intensity: Certain status conditions start off weak while growing stronger with every subsequent stage. These stages are: Minor, Moderate, Major, and Critical. Not all status ailments or conditions possess differing intensities>

As my eyes widened in surprise, having not thought of appraising the (Minor) and (Moderate) I’ve seen before, Manager Mind continued, ‘I used [Identify] on Mana to open its description to then use it on [Mana Stress]. If we ever reach the Major stage, our mind would have collapsed.’

A collapse of the mind?! Do you mean I would have lost my sanity?

‘Not your real “mind”, your arcane mind would collapse. You will temporarily lose your ability to use mana until you recover fully, but that depends on the circumstances. If you were crazy enough to let it reach Critical, then, oh boy, you probably could have killed us, girl.’

‘…’ I was baffled. Without saying another word, I quickly made a mental note to take care of my mana consumption no matter what. A mage had to learn how to do it, after all, especially since my life depended on it!

Noticing this, #3 quickly attempted to calm me down with another explanation, ‘Wait, wait! Calm down. Don’t worry. It sounded worse than it should have been. We’re relatively safe, since we have skills like [Arcane Mind] and [Arcane Corruption Resistance].’

‘Yeah, so stop crying about it,’ #2 nodded. ‘Aside from allowing us the ability to learn spells, [Arcane Mind] also reduces the effects of all mana-related problems. It slows down the deterioration, you could say.’

‘Especially [Arcane Corruption Resistance]. Since that is our main protection against [Arcane Fever],’ Manager Mind added.

Arcane corruption was essentially the feedback of using mana, similar to how breathing oxygen would produce carbon dioxide. But unlike the respiratory cycle, arcane corruption stayed within our body and mind, slowly dissipating through our body over time. Sadly, they couldn’t learn more through the descriptions on it.

However, we did learn more about [Arcane Fever]. The parallel minds felt it during the orc fight with how we overused our spells. With [Arcane Corruption Resistance Lv. 10], we were highly resistant against it, but if we were to be afflicted by it, our Health would slowly fall, similar to bleeding out or being poisoned. This would only happen if we went over our body’s capacity to hold the corruption, so the larger we became, the less we had to worry about it.

Dragon body grow big and strong, please.

To summarize, [Arcane Corruption Resistance] lowered [Arcane Fever] problems whilst [Arcane Mind] reduced [Mana Fever]’s effect on me. The former could be felt, so my parallel minds could tell me when I was at my limits, while I just had to make sure my Mana never reached zero with the latter.

Easier said than done, really.

Praise being a dragon! Dragons are amazing!

I celebrated the fact I had [Primal Magics] as my racial skill. Looking through all this information, I gotta admit I had vastly underestimated how hard it was to use magic with all these things to remember. I’ve been able to do all the crazy stunts in my magical life only ‘cause of this skill I got at my birth. I couldn’t imagine how difficult it must be to become a mage as a normal person.

‘Yep. [Mana Control] is needed to control mana in your body and to move it to your mind. It’s not needed for abilities but without it, we wouldn’t be able to use spells.’ Manager Mind wrote a checklist of what skills were needed to become a magician.

‘[Arcane Mind] is needed to store the spells we learn from skills and protect us from the after effects. Without it, we couldn't have learned a single spell and [Mana Stress] or [Arcane Fever] would have killed us eventually.’

#2 also mentioned our available spell slots were running out and that we should buy a specific skill to solve that. But that could wait for later.

‘[Arcane Corruption Resistance] is needed for us to use multiple spells and our dragon abilities. Without it, [Arcane Fever] would come more frequently,’ #3 answered before handing me the responsibility for the last bullet point.

Finally, [Chant Revocation]’s existence meant that, generally, spells needed to be chanted for them to work. I don’t think I ever had to chant before, but it wasn’t like I had a manual for that. Hold on, doesn’t this mean saying the name of the spell was unnecessary, too?

A revelation. The tradition of calling out your super powerful and amazing spells and attacks weren’t valid in this world. Oh no, did that mean, whenever I shouted these names out like this, I was making myself look like an idiot?

Life has no meaning anymore… Well, at least, that meant I could hide my attacks and spells. And, besides, calling the stuff inside my head isn’t really a problem. It helped me envision it better, and from the looks of it, being able to imagine my spell better made it easier to materialize the spells.

In any case, this information would help me grow as a mage. If I had a master, this would probably be the first thing I learned. Regardless, better late than never.

With that magical information done, my parallel minds drew my attention over to my titles. Oooh, titles! Probably the more interesting part about my beginning skills and boons. I wondered how much more details were unlocked with my [Identify Lv. 10].

Let’s find out!

<The Light: A title granted to a mortal recognized by the Goddess of Light, whose control has been usurped by the owner. Boosts proficiency gain of magics based on Holy Element. Decreases Dark Element resistance and proficiency. The possessor of this title will feel strengthened under light, but will feel uneasy and weakened in darkness>

<Bearer of Kargryxmor’s Blood: A title granted to a mortal recognized by the God of Dragons, whose control was usurped by the owner. Boosts experience gain and decreases skill point costs. Decreases Water Element resistance and proficiency. As a possessor of the progenitor dragon's blood, the possessor will be occasionally affected by the [Battle Frenzy], if one has not fought in a long while. Battle related skill proficiency gain will be increased during battle or if affecting an enemy>

U-Usurped?! No, no, no, when did I do that?! Fuck! I deny any sort of fault for any of this crap! I am a good girl! Oi, when I mentioned that I didn’t want to be involved in any of your plans, gods, I didn’t mean to be overly defiant or something. Oh shit, I’m  in big trouble! I’m a good kid! Seriously! I can’t just make enemies with the gods!

‘Woah, what are you flipping out for?’ Manager Mind was confused at my sudden panic.

#2 agreed, telling me to take a breather. ‘Seriously, just cool down and think about it first. You get too taken a hold by the mood or atmosphere. You panic too much, and this is the sorta stuff holding us back during the auditions. We need to cool it, when needed.

‘Until we helped you with a plan, that orc double team was pretty scuffed, you know. Bad vibes.’

You are reading story A Dragon Idol’s Reincarnation Tale at novel35.com

Urgh, but you guys were panicking too!

' ' ' We are you! ' ' '

‘…’

I mean, it was true, but still, getting screamed at wasn’t nice. Regardless, I shook my head and breathed in and out as my parallel minds said. Maybe I was overreacting to this a bit too much. With a clear mind, I thought about the description again, making me ask myself, “Whose control did I usurped from?”

Obviously, it was the gods, right? The Goddess of Light and this God of Dragon, Kargryxmor or something. Since these titles came from them, they must have some amount of control over them. But the question was, what did they do with them?

Could they control me like a marionette or something? They probably knew of my location, since they were gods and so on, so why haven’t they sent any help yet? Was I being abandoned by those gods like my dragon parents? No idea, but their control over me probably had something to do with their plans, which I foiled at this point with my usurpation.

In the end, this discussion led to nothing. My parallel minds noted how it was useless to think about it for now. If the gods were to send their minions to fetch me, then my excuse would be I had no idea what happened. Manager Mind did tell me she saw the description of both titles changing in the aftermath of the garm chase, when I fell unconscious. Still, that didn’t answer anything.

Which meant, I had to focus more on how these titles were benefiting me.

‘[The Light] affects both our combat and daily life. Remember when we were born and how we felt coming out of the egg? Or how unbearable the first few hours it was after waking up in the cave? Put us in a dark room without light and we weaken, while somewhere with a ton of light empowers us.’

Meaning, fighting inside a cave wasn’t ideal. I wondered if this was just a mood boost or something, since the title didn’t mention any stat increase.

‘[Bearer of Kargryxmor’s Blood] is also extremely problematic…’ #2 noted before reminding me of [Battle Frenzy]. ‘The dragon god’s title is the source for [Battle Frenzy], an effect that only appears if we don’t fight things for a while. It’s awesome that it helps our skill gain, but this sounds like a troublesome “addiction.”’

‘Or, of course, we could get some kinda skill to help us solve it. Honestly, how much of a problem will it be while we’re in this forest? Not. But, the moment we return to society, we should find some sorta solution. A mental protection skill or something, right?’

From the sound of it, the titles didn’t show much more than before, although it did make me weary of my future with the gods. Why did they reincarnate me to this world, and why did they bless me? With all the silence, it made me actually scared of speaking with them one day.

In any case, with the titles technically done, since [Otherworldly Reincarnator] was obvious enough, we then talked about the rest of our skills. My parallel minds also analyzed the systems, like monster ranks, the breakthrough points, and all sorta stuff. It was interesting, and gave me a better understanding of what sorta world we were living in.

Game-like, as I mentioned in the beginning, was the best way to describe this world.

‘Ok, considering we’re getting tired of all this talking, and I’m feeling famished, honestly, I’ll just give a quick rundown of the skills. Just say yes or no.’

Yes.

' 'Yeeeeeeeees.' '

It was time for the funny part of this information session. Like a kid entering a candy or toy shop, my brain was just rushing through the possibilities of buying and upgrading skills. I had that nostalgic good-feel forming inside my stomach. I couldn’t wait any longer!

‘Skill upgrades first. Upgrade all stat-boosting skills over their breakpoint?’

Unanimous yes!

<Multiple proficiency requirements fulfilled. [Enhanced Health Growth Lv. 4] [Enhanced Mana Capacity Lv. 4] [Enhanced Strength Growth Lv. 4] [Enhanced Vitality Growth Lv. 4] [Enhanced Wisdom Growth Lv. 4] [Enhanced Stamina Growth Lv. 4] gained. 3500 SP remaining>

Stats were important. Period.

“900 SP spent. Do we want to increase [Earth Magic] to level 10?”

No, we can train it up.

' 'Mhmm.' '

All three of my parallel minds agreed immediately. If there was a need to argue, then we would. There was no bantering, only a strange tranquil atmosphere where everybody switched from “fun” to “work” mode. I still felt excited, but I didn't let that cloud my judgement.

It was something I had to learn during my early days as an idol trainee. You had to be able to switch from your normal self to a professional, stoic persona when it came time to go onto stage. After all, it was important to have fun as an entertainer, but you had to make sure your audience had even more fun.

I might joke that we weren’t too similar sometimes, but this proved how wrong I was. Artificially-made from the System or not, they were me.

‘[Evasion] and [Acrobatic] are next. [Evasion] is at its second break point.’

Lifesavers. Yes, ja, hai, ne. (English, German, Japanese., Korean)

Defensive skills were too important to not improve. We only had two ways to defend ourselves, either evade everything or take small amounts of damage and heal it up. I said “yes” in all languages I could speak fluently in, just to emphasize how much I wanted them.

<Multiple proficiency requirements fulfilled. [Evasion Lv. 8] [Acrobatic Lv. 8] gained. 3100 SP remaining>

‘400 SP spent. The rest of the skills aren’t needed right now, so let’s go to the skill list. Time for some work, girls.’

Looking over the whole skill list will be annoying. I was already dreading it a bit. We already planned to take all the stat-boosting skills and [Humanize] so that would mean we would have to use 1700 SP for that, leaving us with 1400 SP for other skills.

Among them, we were looking for skills related to becoming a better mage. A skill that opened up more spell slots, skills that reduced mana usage, or skills that increased our spell’s power. Those sorta skills.
Though, I also told them we should look for skills focused on close combat. [Spark Claws] displayed incredible results and I presumed [Spark Fang] would be awesome, too. My parallel minds, on the other hand, thought it was unnecessary.

‘Don’t let them get close to us. No need to use [Spark Claws] or [Spark Fang], if we bombard them from range,’ said Manager Mind with full confidence.

I did understand her logic, since we’re a mage and so, but I was worried we might be focusing too much on range and magic. Too many eggs in one basket, you know. Our Vitality was quite low, so I was hoping for one or two skills to help protect my body. Spells were nice, but I was sure skills would help out, too.

There was also the issue of the two mana-related abnormal effects I wanted to address by taking a skill that gave me an Ability. Like, a weapon ability like those kobols and orcs used. [Spark Fire Dragon] built up arcane corruption, albeit slowly, so maybe [Unarmed Technique] would be useful in a pinch?

‘The best answer to your question is to nuke the ever living crap of our enemies. But, I’ll note your worries down. I guess it would be even cooler if we’re deadly in melee-combat too. Anyways, check out what we found.

In her usual curt way, parallel mind #2 interrupted my thoughts. She patted my back with her mental tail, saying “Leave it to us” and called System Voice. The monotonous robot sounding System Voice began listing all the skills my parallel minds found.

<Would you like to buy [Health Recovery] [Mana Recovery] [Stamina Recovery] [Magic Power Enhancement] [Mana Barrier] [Accuracy Correction] [Mental Stability] [Mental Warfare] for a combined amount of 1100 SP? Your current SP is 3100>

Oh, recovery skills do exist. How have we not gotten them yet?

‘We can’t answer that. It perplexes us too, but at least we can get them now so we can train them up. It should help us with our mana and stamina recovery issues,’ Manager Mind answered.

True. So, the rest are combat-related ones, right? I like the sound of [Mana Barrier] and [Mental Stability].

She nodded. ‘Those are the defensive skills you wanted, although we still don't think taking a close combat-related skill is efficient. [Mana Barrier] constructs a barrier composed out of mana to protect us. Range and close attacks alike.’

 ‘[Mental Stability] should help you with the [Battle Frenzy] effect. The skill protects you from stuff that affects your mind, so it should slow down its appearance rate. It probably won’t stop us from wanting to fight more often, but it should stop the anxiousness caused by it,’ #2 said in an uneasy voice, also hoping it would work in the end.

[Mental Warfare] also has some nice effects for its price of 250 SP.

<Mental Warfare: A skill related to magic. This skill increases the user’s available mental space to learn spells, while also boosting the power of spells. It reduces the effects of mental attacks inflicted on the user. Available spell slots = 4 * [Mental Warfare]’s level>

The last two skills [Magic Power Enhancement] and [Accuracy Correction] did exactly what their names suggested. Simple but powerful skills.

You guys did a really great job. Did you guys find any good expensive skills or why did you not take any?

‘There were a few, but we needed these skills, especially when they are so cheap. We left 400 SP in case we need to upgrade something after the evolution. Considering we already planned on taking the stat boosters and [Humanize], our budget was running empty,’ #3 sounded defeated, even telling me we had to go hunting immediately to refresh our SP supply.

Geez, maybe taking [Humanize] isn’t that good of an idea?

‘Of course not. 1000 SP for a skill not related to combat that also provides zero utility in our situation should never be considered.’

‘But we need it…’

‘Agreed, we need it.’

‘It’s been so long since we last sang properly. I can only imagine how rusty our dancing skills will be. Urgh, I wanna sing!’

Once again, watching them act like this made me feel so much closer to them. They weren’t like robots at all.
These small trivial and illogical quirks made them quite cute, reminding me once again I was still human inside. #2 blushed and pouted over the fact our dancing skills was probably rusty at this point, which also saddened me since I wasn’t the best dancer. Manager Mind teased her since she wouldn’t be dancing but I would, while #3 gushed over the fact that we would buy [Humanize] soon.

It was clear as day. Music and singing were my life. I didn’t care if I was “wasting” 1000 SP. The last thing I wanted to ruin was my talent in singing. I was a musician and an idol. Fuck efficiency. I’ll grind up that 1000 SP the moment I evolve.

All four of my “inner selves” agreed to my idea. We were unanimous.

Hiehie! Let’s end this already and get to evolving.

' ' 'Agreed.' ' '

<You have bought [Health Recovery Lv. 1] [Mana Recovery Lv. 1] [Stamina Recovery Lv. 1] [Magic Power Enhancement Lv. 1] [Mana Barrier Lv. 1] [Accuracy Correction Lv. 1] [Mental Stability Lv. 1] [Mental Warfare Lv. 1] [Enhanced Health Capacity Lv. 1] [Enhanced Strength Enforcement Lv. 1] [Enhanced Intelligence Enforcement Lv. 1] [Enhanced Vitality Enforcement Lv. 1] [Enhanced Wisdom Enforcement Lv. 1] [Enhanced Agility Enforcement Lv. 1] [Enhanced Stamina Capacity Lv. 1] [Humanize Lv. 1]. Your current SP is 300>

This great mood lasted only for a bit until we found and collected the orc bodies… or what was left of them. When parallel mind #3 informed me how I slept for a long time, she truly meant it. All the corpses were already decomposing. Worms, insects, and the bacteria created a pile of rotten meat and a foul nose-killing smell.

… Still, I kinda promised them a burial when I woke up. Hope I wouldn’t die from the die before evolving now~

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