Chapter 13: 12. Partners in Crime

Back when I got to level two I threw that point on charisma because I thought I'd get another point with each level. Turns out I thought wrong, and I was kind of miffed when I realized I wasn't going to pump up all my stats that quickly or that easily.

I did get another point to spend, but this was an 'ability point' which meant it could only go towards one of my two abilities. Since Dispell was already grade two, I dropped it on Detect.

It was weird I had more experience dispelling magic than detecting it, but that was mostly because I hadn't been anyone's target very often. Whereas I'd gone out of my way to practice dispelling and scrutinizing magic with Evie, which explained why that ability got pumped up on its own.

Level three also cranked up my health and mana again, and made all my spell casting that much more effective. So I took a few moments to admire my updated Stats sheet, and checked what the improved Detection ability meant for me.

'Detect Magic (2): Natural ability, passive. You can usually detect when magic is affecting you or another target within a 2m radius of you.'

At first I wasn't sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing. Like I definitely needed to know when someone was trying to enspell me, but I was in a freaking magic school, I didn't want to start getting a million notifications every time class did a magic exercise.

On the other hand, I realized how this could help in other ways. I could Detect, Dispell, and Scrutinize spells that weren't aimed at me. If someone tried to enspell the person standing next to me I had a shot at gaining a new spell. And if I was unsuccessful, well it wasn't my ass on the line. I was just starting to think about all the possibilities that unlocked, when my best friend distracted me with another exclamation.

"You levelled up?!" Candice stared at me wide-eyed again. "When the hell did you get level three?!"

We were still sitting in her dorm room, she'd just sort of gotten her head around all the stuff I told her about learning spells from Evelynn, and must have done the Info thing on me.

I blushed, "It was only a half hour ago. Um, right after I sent Alice back to her room."

She just stared at me, speechless again.

My cheeks stayed red and I felt awkward as I asked her, "Actually um, you know how at level two I put a point on my charisma? This time I got another point but it couldn't go to my stats, it had to go into a different category. Do you know how that works?"

Candice took a deep breath then sighed, "Yes. It's part of all the stuff you should already know. I still don't understand how your interface is so broken but you're obviously in the system so it's probably ok to tell you this."

She kept her voice down as she started explaining how every new level had a different bonus.

So level one would unlock an ability, level two came with a free stat point, and level three was a free ability point. Then at level four I'd get a spell point, which would let me upgrade one spell of my choice. And finally at level five, I'd gain a new spell.

"I don't know how the new spell thing works," she added quietly. "I hope it lets us pick from a list rather than just randomly assigning us something like it did for the ability."

That left me with a lot to think about. For one thing I sort of regretted putting my stat point on charisma, it should have gone into intellect since that was the most important stat for sorcery. I assumed I'd get new points at each level, so it didn't seem that big a deal. On the other hand, I was super cute and that still made me happy. At least I didn't waste it on something useless like strength or wisdom.

The other thing that stuck out from what Candice just said was regarding abilities. At level one I didn't get a single ability I got three of them. Well, two of them plus a 'special'. The way she was talking, she had only one.

I asked, "So uh, the ability thing? You already know mine, its Dispell Magic. It gives me a chance to dispell anything that hits me, or someone right next to me. Will you tell me yours?"

Candi blushed and looked down at the table as she seemed to be contemplating whether or not to tell me.

After a few seconds I said quietly, "You don't have to tell me if you don't want. No pressure Candi."

"It's called Truth," she sighed just as quietly. "It's kind of a two-for-one, there's a passive and an active side. The passive just tells me when someone's lying. The active... When I know someone's lying, I can try and learn the truth."

My stomach went cold and my mind started racing. How many times had I lied to her in the past two weeks? How many times did she get the truth? Did half-truths count?

We were both silent for a few more seconds, then Candi said quietly "I've never used the active on you Abby, I promise. I... Let's just say I'm not upset with you. We all have secrets we have to keep, especially girls like you and me. Being in the system means we're even more aware of that than most people."

After another second or two she added, "I was afraid to tell you because I knew it'd make you scared of talking to me. But I know if I didn't tell you, or lied and said it was something else, that'd just make things worse later. It's... I don't know. I thought it was a really cool ability for the first month. Then when we started to become friends I realized how fucked up it was having that kind of..."

"Ok Candi," I finally responded. "I understand. And to be fair I had some similar thoughts, before I knew you had a system too? Like I worried if you knew some of this stuff about me you'd think I was going to take advantage or something. And um, thanks for respecting my privacy. I honestly hate lying to you but like you said, we all have secrets. I'm still so new to all this stuff, it's hard to know what's safe to share."

One nice thing knowing my friend had a permanent magical lie-detector in her head meant she'd know I was being honest with her. And I'd try and stay honest with her from now on, even if that meant having to say "I can't answer that question" a lot in the future.

There was another awkward silence between us, and I decided to change the subject.

"What about everybody else?" I asked her. "Like they're not 'in the system' but they obviously advance in levels. Do they get bonuses and stuff too? How do they apply them if they don't have the Status screen?"

Candi shook her head slowly, she really did seem astounded how clueless I was about this stuff.

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Still speaking quietly she explained, "They level up same as us, but they don't get any bonuses at all. They don't know about levels or stats or abilities or anything else. To them it's just normal work and study right? Like they learn something, practice it and get better at it, but they have no idea there's a bunch of numbers and statistics behind the scenes. That's why it's a huge advantage for us. Someone like my roommate? She'll slowly advance and level up but sooner or later she'll max out. Meanwhile you and me, we'll advance faster. We'll improve. We'll gradually drive our stats up higher which will let us advance and improve even faster."

After a moment she smirked, "Unless you keep putting points on your charisma."

I blushed, but I smiled as well. "So I'll get another stat point eventually?"

"Yeah," she replied. I told you about levels one through five? Six through ten's a repeat, so at level seven you get another stat point. Maybe put it on intellect next time?"

My blush got brighter and I mumbled, "We'll see."

I decided to change the subject again to get away from last week's mistake. "So how'd you get your roommate so scared of you? She took off like a shot when you told her to give us some privacy."

Now it was Candi's turn to blush. "Oh fuck this is going to sound even worse now that you know... The first week I got her to play Truth or Dare with me? Every time she picked Dare I gave her something really nasty so she'd stick to Truth, then I just gathered up all the dirt she had on herself. She lied through her teeth but my active told me the real answers."

She hesitated, "After I learned Thought Skim, I'd snoop now and then and when there was something juicy on her mind I'd strike up a conversation and ask some pointed questions, and get even more dirt. I still do that with her to keep ontop of her. But anyways, after about two weeks of that she stepped out of line one day and I let on how much I knew about her and threatened to go public with it. She's been on her best behaviour around me ever since."

I found myself staring at my friend for a few seconds as it sank in. "So you're basically blackmailing her into doing what you want?"

Candi blushed even brighter but admitted, "Yeah, I guess. I didn't mean to take it so far but it's so tempting... That first week she really gave me a hard time, like about my hair, and about my background? If she wasn't such a bitch to me, I wouldn't have been so enthusiastic about..."

"It's ok Candi," I smiled. "I get it, seriously I do. And that's the sort of thing the school's going to really start encouraging in second semester anyways, so you're just getting a head start on it."

I hesitated a moment then asked, "I'm going to guess that you hit level two some time after you started blackmailing your roomie? Or after stepping up the efforts to gather dirt on her?"

My friend's eyes widened slightly, "How'd you know that?"

"Let's just say I've noticed a trend," I replied. "Please don't ask me to elaborate yet, it's stuff I'm still unpacking and I'm not sure what to do with it myself?"

A thoughtful frown settled on her face, then after a moment she said "You levelled-up after using that Control spell on Alice. And at lunch you used Arrousal on both Alice and Hannah. We advance quicker when we use our magic on fellow classmates?"

"I don't know for sure," I replied with a grimace. "Something like that anyways."

Candi gave me a sly look and asked, "So which of our classmates did you work over to get you to level two?"

That got a long sigh out of me, and I said quietly "I'd rather not answer that just yet."

My friend looked apologetic as she responded, "Ok Abby. I won't keep prying."

A moment later her expression shifted to a hopeful grin and she added, "I guess if I want to keep up with you I need to step up my efforts? Maybe pick another classmate to go after."

Without even thinking what I was doing I suggested, "You take Hannah, I'll take Alice."

"Deal," she agreed before I even knew what happened. "Will you teach me those spells you used today?"

And just like that me and Candi were almost partners in crime. Except the weird thing was it wasn't even against the rules. We were just being proactive. It was like reading ahead in the textbook, or doing extra independent studies to get a higher grade.

I had to teach Candi spells the normal way, since I was pretty sure she didn't have the Scrutinize ability and I wasn't going to risk mentioning it. It quickly became obvious that it was easier to teach spells the better you knew them, and I had Arrousal at grade three. Not to mention I'd used it a bunch already, so that was the easiest one to teach her.

Today was the first time I'd even tried using Control and I only did it once, but I had a feeling I might be getting more experience with it over the next few days. Especially if Alice actually came after me again.

We spent about a half hour as I explained it to her and she wrote it out in her notebook, then she let me know it worked when she got the notification she'd learned it. After that she was eager to try it, but fortunately she didn't ask me to volunteer. I figured maybe her roomie or Alice's blonde friend would get the honours.

By then it was nearly time for dinner anyways, so we headed back to the dining hall together for a nice quiet meal. And neither of us was secretly hoping Alice and or Hannah would attack us again soon. Probably.

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