Chapter 113: Revelations – Chapter 110: Puzzling Progress

Aperio let out a frustrated sigh as the Class Subsystem fell apart again, burying her face in Caethya's hair and letting out a scream that nobody heard as it was negated by a touch of her magic.

This had been the sixth attempt in at least as many hours that had gone awry. Most had simply ceased to exist while the two more promising ones disassembled themselves in rather fantastical explosions of multi-coloured magic. The All-Mother was starting to believe that her recreation of the Class part of her System was not good enough for her to try things on. Using the actual one would probably be better, but she did not want to risk endangering everyone who used the System with her tinkering. And nearly everyone uses it.

The only place not making use of her creation she could think of at the moment was the world Adam had come from. I should ask him about that place. It felt… weird. Aperio would be lying if she said she did not want to go there, but the lack of mana led her to believe that it would not be a good idea. I radiate that stuff, after all.

After Mayeia had told her her mere presence made people stronger by giving them access to purer mana, Aperio had paid a little more attention to the world around her. It had not taken long to discover that she was a walking wellspring of mana. Not that it wasn't obvious before.

A few incoherent mumbles from Caethya caused Aperio to remove her head from her disciple’s hair and brush her wing gently over her side. She had no doubts that Caethya could feel her agitation at her continued failure to repair the System, something that likely made her sleep a little more restlessly than needed.

Aperio let a sliver of her mana flow through Caethya, the Elf losing the bit of tension that had appeared when she had become more and more annoyed with her lack of progress. The All-Mother contemplated trying to use that technique on herself for a moment before giving it a try. Sadly, moving her mana through her body only caused it to reinforce her shell more quickly and not relax her. At least, not how I wanted it to…

She would have lied if she said the mana flowing through her — improving her — was not relaxing in a way. But it was a different kind of comfort. One for the insisting of her subconscious that she must be stronger still to properly defend herself.

Another set of runes appeared in her mind, settling into her recreation of the Class Subsystem. This time, she had opted to redo the entire section that supposedly dealt with stat increases, making it a bit more stable. And actually functional… Hopefully.

She added a few more runes she knew should be there, interconnecting every piece of the Class Subsystem. Aperio had to figure out how to prevent information from flowing backwards in the System, but simply looking at the more intact parts — especially the [Status] region — of her creation had been helpful in that regard.

A sliver of her mana flowed into her recreation, causing it to practically hum with energy. There was, of course, no actual noise, but Aperio could feel her recreation come alive regardless.

Unlike her last attempts, this one remained stable, simply sitting in place where she had created it. Now… How do I test it? She could not just take a soul and use it as a test subject; that would go against everything she stood for. Creating a fake soul was also out of the question for now.

She had no idea how to actually create a soul and, even if she did, making one that was not truly alive might not be possible. I already change them by merely touching them, what would happen if I created one?

The answer was obvious: Ferio. While she could not remember how exactly her daughter had come into the world, Aperio knew it was not through normal means. In all likelihood, she had created a soul that would become Ferio. I would've had to have made all the souls… Or built something that made them.

She doubted souls just came into being out of nowhere, and her apparent lack of one only furthered the idea that she had invented the concept of souls, and then somehow made them. Aperio shuddered slightly at the thought, the motion causing Caethya to mumble slightly and place her hands on Aperio's own.

"Caethya?" the All-Mother asked quietly as she could, feeling the mana of her disciple flow more actively through her body.

The woman just mumbled in reply and tried to pull Aperio's wing tighter around herself as if it was a blanket. Despite her status as a Demigoddess, Caethya was still unable to move Aperio's wing. The All-Mother did not resist, however, moving her feathered limb with her disciple’s motion.

A small flex of her mental muscles ruffled Caethya's hair and caused the test version of the Class Subsystem to shudder slightly as she pushed more mana through it. How do I figure out if it works now? she wondered as she reinforced a few of the connections that had begun to dissolve under the strain of her mana.

Aperio let her mind wander through the System's space, trying to find something that would help her with her current predicament. I had to have had a way to test it before… Even though her old self had been relatively emotionless, she had still cared about her creations, and making something that she could not have tested seemed wrong to her, even now.

While the All-Mother did not find what she was looking for, she did get a bigger picture of just how broken her System was. Now that she understood a little more about how it worked, the closer she looked the worse it got. 'Attributes' — a rather large section — was almost entirely gone, and the same was true for 'Advancement.' A quick glance revealed a myriad other missing sections, and those were only the more easily noticed gaps in the System.

Would explain why someone with a lower level appears to be much stronger than others, Aperio thought to herself as she poked at the broken parts with a few tendrils of her mana. They felt cold; dead. Like the ruins of some long lost civilization. It kind of is. The only difference was that she was the only one who had had a hand in creating it.

With a small sigh, Aperio created copies of the broken Subsystems she found next to the — hopefully — repaired one for Classes. Won't achieve much if these are broken too…

Sure, she could simply integrate her repairs of the Classes into the actual System, but what use would it be to have Classes if nobody could level correctly, or even get the stats they earned for it? None, was Aperio's conclusion, which prompted her to start to replace the broken runes she recognised.

Working on the System was soothing in a way. Despite having no idea how it worked, she still knew what to do. A most bewildering feeling, but still one that felt right to the All-Mother. Repairing her creation was the correct thing to do, of course; that it was weirdly enjoyable was merely a bonus.

The shifting body of Caethya in her arms caused Aperio to pull her attention from her System repairs, only devoting a small part of her mind to continuing the task.

"Slept well?" the All-Mother asked, lifting herself up a little so she could better look at Caethya.

The Elf replied with a mumbled "Mhm" and a shallow nod of her head before she yawned and stretched. Her disciple's movement caused Aperio to retract her wing and distance herself slightly.

After a moment longer of stretching and some more yawning, Caethya sat up straight and rubbed her eyes. Aperio followed suit, letting her wings hang off the edges of the bed.

"Do you have a bathroom?" her disciple asked after a moment of silence.

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The All-Mother raised a brow but gestured towards a door at the back of the room, behind Caethya, nonetheless. "There is one, yes, but I have no idea if what you need is in it."

"I think I'll manage," she said as she started to crawl off the oversized bed.

Aperio appeared in the middle of her bed once Caethya had left it, burying her face in the pillows and spreading her wings as much as she could. Despite the already ridiculous size of her bed, her wings still hung over the edges with the outermost feathers touching the floor.

"Maybe you need to make it even bigger," Caethya said, smoothing out the wrinkles that had accumulated on her dress. "A room that is nothing but bed. That would be nice."

"I have my Void for that," Aperio said, turning her head to watch her disciple walk towards the bathroom. "Much more comfortable."

"For you, maybe," were the last words the Elf said before she closed the door behind her. There was an enchantment on the room that obscured it even from Aperio's senses, but upon minor inquiry the room's enchantment only functioned as long as she didn't focus on it.

Maybe I can add an enchantment like that to my dress? Hide my aura with that? If nothing else, it might at least stop her aura from providing her information about everyone near her in far too much detail. …How do I add enchantments to clothes?

Aperio scrunched her brows as she appeared sitting on her bed, a small piece of cloth coming into being in front of her at the same time. It was the same technique she had used to make her dress, just that she had added all the runes she had found around the bathroom to it.

At the moment, it did not exactly do anything, the runes simply sitting on the magically created cloth and shimmering in a pale silver whenever the light shone on it. Aperio tilted her head slightly as she poked her finger at the piece of cloth, sending a tiny pulse of her mana through the runes.

Instead of numbing her senses to the fabric she had created as Aperio had expected, it glowed with her mana for the briefest of moments before it simply ceased to exist.

"What?" Aperio mumbled as she looked at the space the cloth had just occupied. The threads of reality had been violently torn apart when she had pushed her mana into the enchantment, as if the magic had somehow exploded. But it didn't. It just stopped existing…

She averted her eyes from the section of space that slowly mended itself as Caethya left the bathroom. Her disciple had switched dresses, wearing another dark blue and silver one that Aperio was very certain was supposed to show Caethya's allegiance to her. It only lacks an identifying sigil...

"Yes," her disciple said, sweeping her hand in front of her skirt and lifting it with a little flourish, "these are the colours we picked for any official clothes of your church. You weren't there and we thought you might like it; wearing the same colours and all. It's just missing your sigil."

"I don't have a sigil… Or don't remember it, at least."

"Then make a new one," Caethya said as she closed the distance that separated her from the bed. "Would probably be better anyway. I doubt you wish to continue what you have done in the past."

"Perhaps," Aperio said, tilting her head slightly as the sections of the System she had copied for repair slowly began to 'speak' to each other. Speaking was perhaps overstating the phenomenon, but they were definitely communicating with one another.

"Something wrong?" Caethya asked, her eyes flicking all over the room.

The All-Mother did not reply immediately, her attention fully directed at the copies she had made. Not paying attention to the repairs had seemingly yielded better results than actively repairing them. How?

"Aperio?" her disciple asked again, this time lightly touching her upper arm.

"I'm fine," the All-Mother replied eventually, directing her gaze towards Caethya. "I’ve just discovered something… weird."

"And that is?"

"I made copies of broken parts of the System while you were asleep," Aperio said, tilting her head slightly as she observed the separate Subsystems pushing a final bit of mana through the constellation they had formed before falling silent. "I wanted to fix them, but despite my efforts they never really worked. But, when I did not focus on it — delegated it to the back of my mind — they somehow got fixed faster."

"I wouldn't know how to breathe if my body did not do it for me," Caethya said. "Perhaps it is something like that?"

"Maybe," Aperio replied, a few strands of mana already flowing into the now-repaired copies she had made. "That does not mean I like it."

GamingWolf

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