Chapter 37: Chap. 30 : Closer and Further

Zoemie woke up feeling surprisingly okay, for once. She shook her head, and considered. What to do today ? I need to... Zoemie suddenly bolted up. Right, I need to make those spring shoes things ! Almost forgot about those, she remembered. And the equipment-switching thing. And train, too. Uurgh...

Zoemie sighed, calming herself down. Where to begin ?, She asked herself, slightly anxious about the tasks at hand. "Food. Then I'll see.", she decided. She then teleported to the kitchen, sitting down and starting to eat breakfast.

Zoemie had no idea how to approach either of these tasks, so she started thinking about it while she ate. I guess for the spring shoes, I can approach kinda like I did with the rest of the equipment ? ...Yeah, let's go with that. Zoemie had no idea how the these even worked, however.

Actually, can't I just fuse them with my combat shoes instead ?, Zoemie realized. That would certainly be faster. "I'll have to see, I guess. Gotta make sure Xaj's stuff is done first either way." Zoemie nodded to herself, satisfied.

After finishing her breakfast and subsequent routine, Zoemie teleported to the lab. "Wonder how many more of these are there ?", she asked herself as she activated the fusion, before folding her arms. "Nah, there'll still be a bit more cursing to do afterwards either way. Right ? I remember Xaj mentioning something like that. Zoemie sighed. "So... what to do now ? I guess I'll see ?", she asked herself.

---

Xajymzia looked at the target with surprise. Surpassed all expectations. This was, if Xajymzia was to be frank, absurd. She had managed to actually blow a chunk off from the cursed slab, a feat she could never have accomplished without upgrading herself, and she didn't even expect it to be actually possible even then.

It went a long way to explain to Xajymzia just how overwhelmingly powerful Zoemie was, even if Xajymzia doubted it was the whole story. Even in full combat gear, there was still a gap between Xajymzia's projections and Zoemie's actual power. That said, it was no priority to investigate, at least for now.

Xajymzia biggest worry about upgrades had been the time needed to install them, but it appeared that might be as much of a factor as she feared. Her biggest bottleneck would be Zoemie's fusion ability, which did take some time to work, but Xajymzia wouldn't waste that downtime either way.

She was still trying figuring out how the scanner device worked was next, and what she had added to her plan was "ask Zoemie." It wouldn't have been her normal approach, but there was something within her that told her that asking Zoemie was, if not the solution, at the very least going to help.

Xajymzia couldn't quite fathom why and was generally not the type to operate in this fashion, but it was worth an attempt. She knocked on Zoemie's door, and entered when prompted. "Oh, hey.", Zoemie said first. "Got some upgrades done ?", she continued, Xajymzia sitting on the chair while Zoemie was on her bed.

"The results are... above my expectations.", which seemed to brighten Zoemie's mood. "In fact, I owe you thanks for making that possible. But I'm not exactly here for that. I have... a question, and you might be able to help me."

"Ookay... I guess I'll try ?," was Zoemie's answer, so Xajymzia started to talk before Zoemie could continue.

"I have been working on the scanner device, trying to understand how it works, but am having difficulty figuring it out.", Xajymzia started, and continued after a Zoemie grunt. "What I can tell for sure is that it takes its data from the user and... does some kind of manipulation to it, before outputting the result, but I cannot seem to understand what it does.", Xajymzia explained.

Zoemie thought about it for a short while. "So, uh, like, all I know is computers, but... So, you might... a thing about computers that my dad often said is that they work in zeroes and ones. Which... is true, but... it's all about how the 0s and 1s get interpreted."

"So, a file extension, what it represents is a data format, essentially how it's ordered and written. That's why you can't just turn an image file or a video into the other, you gotta know how it's put together first. Now, most people don't really care about that because they don't need to – properly-designed software handles all this kinda nitty-gritty for the user."

"Data format ?", Xajymzia asked, and Zoemie, who seemed more animated than she had ever been in... probably a few weeks, kept talking.

"It's... a bit hard to explain, but, like, when you open a file and don't save it, you're reading its data under a certain... like a pair of goggles. Theoretically, nothing prevents you from opening it under another pair of goggles, but generally you'll get something unreadable or garbage data. You can, say, read an image file as a text file, but you'll get nothing useful from it, and it would be needlessly complicated to modify it that way.", Zoemie continued.

"The most basic, like, the closest to 0-and-1 processing you can get, it's opening your file in an hex editor, which is essentially a simplified version of binary data. I've done it a few times, for save editing or rom hacking." Zoemie eyes shifted as she recalled something. "I think it was Yggdrasil Odyssey ?

"But the thing here," Zoemie said, refocusing, "is that that only applies when using the software as intended. It's only when you start to try to do something than the software isn't designed around, like changing character levels to an arbitrary value or taking a black-box device apart and looking how it's working inside, the data format becomes relevant."

"So, like, I think the biggest thing that I can tell you here is that maybe it's not manipulating data as reinterpreting it, like much as changing the file extension or opening it with another software ? Maybe. I don't know ?", Zoemie finished, uncertain.

Xajymzia pondered for a bit, and nodded. This is going to help a lot.

---

Zoemie sat in front of the strawman, embers of magic at her fingertips. The conversation with Xajymzia had put her in a good mood,so she was trying to use that good mood for something productive, and had settled on magical training.

The problem was while Zoemie wanted to train, she had no idea how. So, she was sitting down thinking. "How do I approach this ?" The problem isn't my power, right ? It's speed and accuracy. And Zoemie had no idea how to train that.

"Like, power is... maybe not easy, but, like, it's straightforwards to deal with a lack of it. I'm sure there's a ton of resources I could use or find if all I needed was more raw magical power." But that ain't going to help me get more accurate and cast spells faster.

She considered. "I could potentially solve the accuracy problem with homing ? Can I even do that ? Might not work well with all spells, though..." In games, generally, the strategy for using inaccurate moves or weapons is to either boost your accuracy or to disable enemy evade. "But that second approach ain't always reliable, there's always something immune to it."

I could work around it, but that's just delaying the problem, right ? "I will need at some point to deal with my shit Hit in a way that works against everything.", Zoemie grumbled. "Speed... hmm... I'm not sure." Maybe try to cast spells faster ? Or more of them in the same span of time ?

"Actually, maybe this could work ?" Zoemie said, before nodding to herself and conjuring a chronometer, which she put to the side. "Alright, let's try this.", Zoemie said, getting up and starting to conjure fireballs, while activating the chronometer.

Let's go with thirty for now, Zoemie decided. She didn't want to cast too much magic because of the fusion that was still going on, but it would still be an amount Zoemie considered acceptable for a first test.

Okay. Around seven minutes for thirty or so fireballs. "Not... not great. Kind of shit, even". Zoemie said, catching her breath. "Just gotta do this once a day, varying the spells or something to make sure I improve overall speed and not just one spell." Zoemie nodded to herself. Sounds good.

She teleported out of the training room, her breathing slowly returning to normal as she considered what to do. "Gaming ?" Probably, actually. The item was still fusing in the laboratory, so Zoemie couldn't spend too much mana on training nor could she fuse another item, and she had drained quite a bit from throwing fireballs around. Yeah, let's go with that.

---

Xajymzia nodded, satisfied. She had figured out enough of the scanner device that she could prepare her scanner-integrated eyes, which she was currently finishing. It had taken a surprising amount of work to setup, in big part because it had required a fair bit of lateral thinking that she wouldn't have figured out without Zoemie's rambling.

Xajymzia lightly tapped on the eye, the circuits within lighting up and emitting information in the output. As she had expected, she was capable of reading the data offhand even as she held it in her hand, with no need for a specialized converter, but it told her nothing about the purple-haired archer adventurer that she didn't know already.

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The traces of magic that remained on the adventurer's clothes had been sufficient to activate the eyes, but it did not give her any information about what happened to her body. Xajymzia shook her head. This is not a question she would have an answer for today, it appeared.

Instead, she teleported to the laboratory, and started setting up the scanner eyes and appropriate curse-holding crystals. She had added a setup for another pair of eyes, which had an ability that allowed zoomed-in sight for long-range view. She had considered night-vision as well, but her current eyes already had those, so she had simply conjured a duplicate pair.

Xajymzia walked up to Zoemie as the latter was leaving her room, seemingly done playing. She nodded at Xajymzia, who answered with a nod of her own. "What's up ?", Zoemie asked, seemingly in a good mood.

"The last batch of items are ready for cursing.", Xajymzia explained, Zoemie nodding in turn. It had taken a bit more setup, but it was done. Xajymzia was actually looking forwards to the result after her earlier tests, and was careful to restrain her excitement. Haste made waste, after all.

"Will probs do it tomorrow.", Zoemie answered. "The training session took a bit out of my magic, so I'm probably gonna take it easy for now... although... maybe using the mana regen skirt, I could pull it off ?"

"There's no need of it right now.", Xajymzia said, Zoemie nodding with a grunt. "I'll leave you to your gaming, instead.", she continued, before leaving. She had a few more things to do anyway, including deciding what was going to be Zoemie's dinner. Zoemie's assistance had helped a lot.

Avocado cream soup, Xajymzia decided. Overall, things were proceeding smoothly. Should be done by end of week.

---

How late it is ?, Zoemie asked herself as she woke up. She hadn't gotten that much more done yesterday, but her priority right now was finishing up Xajymzia's items, and that mostly required time. After breakfast, of course. Man. Do I not miss school. She could actually sleep in now when she was tired.

And she did not miss them, either. Zoemie shook her head, trying to push the thoughts out of her mind as she teleported to the kitchen. She had done a bit of thinking about the remaining pieces of equipment and upgrades she wanted to do.

The problem with earrings is that I don't have pierced ears. And it sounds just uncomfortable. Zoemie had considered various things, from a bracer or necklace to the more outlandish like putting the enchantment on a piercing or her panties.

She had even considered asking Xajymzia for help, but had ended up having the idea on her own. Just put the enchantment on a specialized device inside my dungeon. The problem with accessories is that they could be removed or lost, and Zoemie didn't want to leave anything to chance.

Zoemie had no intention to ever leave her dungeon for longer than a day, so it would be fine, for if she ever needed to leave, she'd simply dress herself in her combat outfit. And since it's in my dungeon, I can just teleport to it when inside.

She nodded to herself. Sounds good. I'll set it up later today. This wasn't something that Zoemie expected to require a lot of mana, so Zoemie could set it up while fusing an item silmutaneously. She then finished her breakfast, and subsequent routine, before teleporting to the lab.

However, as she opened the door, she didn't find anything to fuse, but more crystals and items. Right. Zoemie considered for a short bit. Yeah, I remember that... I'll do it later, she decided. After taking my bath and all that. She instead teleported back to her room, lying on her bed for a bit before opening her computer.

---

Zoemie had just finished her bath, and she was now ready to handle the workload for the day. There were three things she wanted to do : handle Xajymzia's items, work on the spring shoes, and work on her changing room.

"Where do I start... Changin' room." It's gonna be the fastest of the three. Zoemie considered where to set it up before teleporting to the training room. She looked at the wall next to the room, and added an extra room there, with metallic grey walls.

It was not a very big one, as Zoemie didn't expect it to take a lot of room. Within the room, Zoemie added a large, white button, and she then teleported to the storage, to fetch the enchanted earring. Where was it again... right, wait. She instead warped to the workshop. There we go.

She then returned to the changing room, and looked at the earring. "Alright, so I wanna an enchantment on that button that does the same thing as that earring does, how do I do that ?" First step, copy the enchantment from the earring like I did with Xaj's crystales.

"Then..." Zoemie looked at her hand. It felt strange, her hand being merely wrapped in light, yet it was as if a solid wrapped around her fingers, not feeling air around them. She put the copied enchantment on the button, the feeling in her hand returning to normal and Zoemie nodding to herself.

"Now, let's see if I can edit that enchantment to do the thing I want it to do.", Zoemie grumbled. How can I do that ? Try to use my curses, maybe ? It's a pretty similar thing, right ? She focused, extending her curse and trying to adapt the copied enchantment for the button.

It took her suprisingly little effort to do so, her mana quickly withdrawing back into her once she was done. "Alright. Now I need to test it out." She considered setting it up with her combat outfit, but decided to try with an random conjured outfit first, summoning a simple, white shirt and matching skirt to do so. Just in case.

Reconjuring some cheap shit is easy. Remaking my entire combat outfit from scratch isn't. "Okay, so how do I hook this up... like... this. Okay. That's pretty easy.", Zoemie said to herself as she successfully managed to link the conjured clothing to the button.

She then pressed the button, and her clothes instantly changed to the conjured clothes. "Yes ! Perfect. Now... add more button and link different outfits to them ? At the very least, setup the combat outfit to this one." Zoemie smiled as she went to pick up her combat gear.

As she looked at her sword, something came back to Zoemie's mind. Right. Zoemie remembered she had meant to add a summon to hand ability to her sword a long, long time ago. "Let's do that now.", she decided. "Or else I'm gonna forget about it." Gonna delay the shoes, and the crystals, but this will make training slightly easier. Actually, I might need both the shoes and that... I'll see later.

She teleported to her workshop, her sword in hand, and considered. She could either unfuse her sword and add a new sword with the teleporting enchantment, or simply smack down the enchant as-is and call it a day.

Zoemie sighed, considering, before teleporting in the old, creepy metallic skirt she had made so long ago to test out her fusion ability. You're gonna come in handy now. She added an extra curse on the complete item, and tried to unfuse.

Okay. This should work, Zoemie confirmed as the unfusion dispelled the curse she had just added. Good to know, just in case. She smiled, simply adding the summon to hand effect to her sword. Then, she teleported to her bedroom. Enough for now. She'd handle Xajymzia's remaining items after dinner.

Man, Zoemie thought, as she added to the text file for her equipment the summon to hand enchantment on her sword, in case she'd need to know it for later. "This place is so much better."

---

Yuulvan left the small town, thinking. It had been a few good years since he had last travelled throughout the Seaguard Greatwoods, and it was at its most stunning in the beginning of summer.

There were to his memory not much between this town and the next two weeks over. He could definitely take the time to relax and enjoy the forest. It would make the sun more bearable, too, and a mage of his power was at no risk from monsters.

And he was in no rush, either way. Teleporting to his destination ? How unsatisfying. Why do such a thing when he could take thing slowly and contemplate nature's wonders ?

Yes, he decided, his heart settled. That is a good idea.

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