Chapter 34: Chap. 28 : Stay the Course

Zoemie woke up from blissfully dreamless sleep feeling decent. Not great, but not groggy either. She rose up, pressing her hands on her knees to bring herself standing, and teleported to the bathroom first, her mind whirling with thoughts following yesterday.

She then returned to her room, stretching her shoulders and sitting down to open up her computer. She wasn't sure what she was going to play, but in fact she didn't particularly want to play anything, her mind was too busy for it, so she simply teleported to the kitchen, not feeling like bumping in the doorframe.

The breakfast was here, again, Zoemie sitting down and eating calmly, suppressing her thoughts. She felt alright, unlike the day before, and was not rushing anything, content to take things at her own pace. Her food consumed and subsequent routine done, Zoemie shook her head and considered what to do.

She returned to her room, and decided to play a little bit. She would do some more work for Xajymzia a bit later, but she thought it would be better to take her bath first. Probably a better idea to handle work when I don't feel all filthy.

After a short sequence of gaming, Zoemie teleported to the bathroom, enjoying her bath in silence and solitude as she thought about her current video game, but she didn't manage to get anywhere new, yesterday's events stuck within her mind. Urgh. That really sucked.

After finishing her bath, drying herself up, and changing panties to another pair, Zoemie teleported to the lab. She had work to catch up to and not much else to do, since she had no particular idea about what she could play right now, so instead she decided to be productive.

She opened the room, goggles appearing on her head as she sat down on the chair, the pillow still here, and started working again, putting curses in items, her mind free to wander as she did something useful.

So Zoemie thought. She wasn't great at thinking about very serious stuff for long, it bored her, but she couldn't get her outburst out of her mind. There was something about it that annoyed her and she couldn't put her finger on it. I don't wanna be that kinda jerk. I don't want to pull that kinda shit on anyone ever again.

She sighed. Xaj didn't really give a shit, tho. Am I the one blowing things out of proportions ? Zoemie decided to refocus on the job, for now. Gettin' her shit done is gonna be a better apology, and even if it isn't an apology it's still actually something useful.

She cursed more items, adding in resistance upgrades and anti-acid enchantments to plates, and even a strange enchantment of amplification to what looked like a generator unit of some kind, or maybe it was an engine piece ? Zoemie put the thought out of her mind, for knowing that wouldn't change anything.

She worked in silence and solitude, satisfied for now with the progress she was making.

---

Xajymzia nodded. Zoemie was making a lot of progress, the current batch of items would be done relatively soon. She would have to move on to having her charge fuse the items soon, while she finished a few extra items, like her scanner eyes.

Calling the device "complex" was an understatement. But it was well-designed, with clearly separate parts for each of its functions, gathering the mana on one part and analyzing it on the other, and this was convenient for Xajymzia. She had no need of the visual output, by example, so she could simply ignore or remove it, or adapt another one.

While for her eyes she could simply read the data within her mind, she would need to design a special output terminal for the one integrated within the dungeon. All this data wouldn't be very useful if Zoemie couldn't read it and subsequently use it to strategize.

Speaking of terminal, Xajymzia had added as a very long term goal the creation of a new calculation terminal for herself based off computer technology and magical materials. It would take a long, long time to make and require both a lot of resources and a special room, but it could grant her overwhelming ability in term of calculating power. The portal would come first, however, and she would need to read up on the details of computer construction.

Xajymzia quickly checked the items Zoemie had finished, removing the spells on the crystals and putting a new one in. She had originally planned to summon one crystal for each item, but while slightly more effort this was cheaper overall.

She would have needed to create a magical crystal cave to reduce the cost, and it would have brought the cost higher than her current method even with the reduction. She might end up making one eventually anyway if she needed more crystals or higher-quality ones, but that would be for later if ever. Dismissing those crystals would make up for the loss either way.

Maybe there wasn't that much point being stingy when her reserves for conjuring were so high, but Xajymzia had learned better than to be wasteful. Maybe she could upkeep Zoemie's lifestyle for more than a hundred years before starting to seriously need more, but it was still a "mere" century, plus her needs were bound to become more complex as she grew older.

That said, her previous investments were still paying off. The pineapple and cacao fields had added over four decades alone ! Xajymzia was getting more confident that she might need more infrastructure for cheaper conjuration.

The big thing she had been thinking about was some form of small-size magical circuitry, which she would need for her eye-integrated scanner. The large-scale dungeon scanner had less need of it due to room not being a limiting factor for it.

Her research on the adventurer's loot had given her a slight idea on how humans made their magical equipment. It mostly seemed derived from mana-activated runes engraved in common materials with relatively little regard for the magical conductivity of the board, although they used monster parts to increase the efficiency.

Xajymza did not know how much humans had access to in term of technology and industry, but she was at the very least confident that she could outcompete them in that regard. The three adventurers were seemingly relatively well-off, yet their equipment was, while not crude, relatively easy to match with Earth knowledge and technology alone.

Had the humans here higher levels of technology, they would likely had had superior materials for their equipments. That did not mean their equipment was bad, however – the adventurer's weapons had been crafted from monsters material by most likely specialized artisans, and they were in fact skilled and ingenious.

Some of the their equipment had been outright inspired, the slates came to mind, and the three adventurers in fact seemed to have relied heavily on having a large bag of tricks at their disposal. Although Xajymzia wasn't certain of why, something told her than dungeon subjugation was a small part of what humans adventurers handled. It would certainly explain the large amount of diverse magical items, at the very least.

---

Zoemie had stopped the enchanting after a while, feeling her mind getting tired. She got up from the chair, preparing to teleport when Xajymzia knocked and entered carefully, wearing this time her researcher getup.

She nodded at the items behind Zoemie, the latter unsure how to read her face, before turning to Zoemie and starting to talk. "You've been doing a good job,", she said, satisfied, "but it's time for a slight change of track. I'm starting to run out of items I need cursed – you were faster than I thought."

Even with the delay, Zoemie grumbled internally, before refocusing. "There's a few extra items to go through, but I want you to start moving onto the fusion phase instead. The last few items can either wait or are not ready yet.". Zoemie nodded, suppressing her slight annoyance.

"So, how you wanna do it for the fusion ?", she asked instead, keeping the conversation productive. "You've got a plan or something ?", to which the labcoat-clad maid nodded.

"Well, yes.", she answered, and she teleported a few of the cursed items. Zoemie had no idea which part it was supposed to be, but she could guess what Xajymzia wanted her to do. She focused, looking at the items. How did we do this again ? Maybe I should conjure some tes... Nevermind, here we go, Zoemie thought, managing to activate her fusion ability.

The items turned white and started melding together. This never gets any less gross, Zoemie thought, before feeling slightly faint all of a sudden. She sat down and blinked, a magic spell from Xajymzia running through her and bringing her back to attention somewhat.

"Hmm.", Xajymzia said, troubled. "I underestimated the mana cost and complexity of your fusion spell, by quite a lot." She turned towards Zoemie. "You don't need to be here while doing the fusion, correct ?"

"If I remember right, yeah. I can simply leave it on the background while doing something else.", Zoemie answered. "So I'm gonna go for a walk or game or something instead of sticking around and watching the thing fuse, maybe ?"

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Xajymzia nodded in answer. "Yes. This will likely be a better use of your time. And more enjoyable, too.", to which Zoemie teleported, first to her room to grab her music player, then outside for a walk. It would likely help her clear her mind more than gaming, plus she felt too tired for the latter.

She stretched her limbs as the heavy heat of the summer hit her body, despite the trees covering the sun's shining fury. She walked around, letting the music play and soothe her. It wasn't hard to curse Xajymzia's items, but it did get tiring after a while.

It made it hard to focus, Zoemie feeling more scattered than ever. But it didn't really bother her here, since she had nothing to focus on. She was free to let her mind run, not needing to focus on anything in particular.

---

Xajymzia observed the items fuse with a focused intensity, as if her glare could make "watching ice melt" very literal, noting everything and storing all pieces of data with no exception. She would analyze it later, content for now to think about other things while her arcanic sensors were wholly focused.

She had the records from Zoemie's past fusions for her equipment, but they were missing a lot of data for various reasons. She needed more to clarify the exact functioning of the process. While she could theoretically use a combination of iterative engineering and the data she possessed for making an artificial, on-demand fusion array eventually, it would take far too long and distract her from more important long-term pursuits such as the portal.

Plus, it meant she would spend a much longer period of time without her new body, and considering the risk of an attack from the duke or another unknown, Xajymzia didn't want to take that chance. She grumbled. She had still underestimated the complexity of the fusion by a few orders of magnitude at least. There were some magical stuff in there Xajymzia didn't even know was physically possible according to the rules of magic as she knew them.

Yet at the same time, these movements of mana were things she could definitely reuse and inspire herself from, for handling the portal in particular. Some degree of self-sustaining magical-mind guidance ? That was absolutely insane to simply think about for Xajymzia. The spell did seem fairly expensive, but to manage that would require unfathomable amounts of mana, at least by the rule of magic as she knew them.

There's a trick to it. Whomever designed that ability must have been highly skilled, and have an understanding of magic that eclipsed Xajymzia's by a landslide. This displeased her. Whomever possesses such skill is a threat.

She would have to increase her own understanding of the rules of magic. She had penned in an increase to her raw magical power, through upgrading the magical generator unit in her body, but that alone wouldn't be sufficient. And her analysis of the fusion would be an excellent sources of both ideas and knowledge.

Zoemie reentered the dungeon, before teleporting to her room, seemingly going for a nap. Xajymzia nodded, satisfied, not having withdrawn her attention from the ongoing fusion one second.

---

Zoemie woke up feeling parched, and after going for a drink decided it was time to play. She had barely got to do any of it today, after all, between working for Xajymzia, going out for a walk and napping.

She booted up one game, knowing what she would do. She probably wouldn't get that much farther, with how difficult things had gotten at this point in the game, but progress was still progress. She was satisfied with her performance so far, so she didn't feel the need to stop or restart, being content to keep going.

She defeated monsters and collected loot, even defeating a superboss, a broad smile brightening her features as her strategy countered everything it could do. Yeah ! I knew this would work. Zoemie was pleased as punch with her success.

Still, the difficulty did grind down at her patience, forcing Zoemie to savescum her way through difficult or annoying encounters and generally blocking her progress in unexpected ways. Zoemie hated the unexpected, it always annoyed her.

So, she did stop after a while, before frustration got the better of her, and decided it was time for a bit of magical training. She didn't feel like dealing with crafting her spring shoes today, but throwing boulders and fireballs sounded like a fine use of her time, and she needed to train anyway.

She teleported herself to the training room, before focusing on the mana beneath her skin. She rose up her hands, conjuring a large boulder she promptly threw with magic. It smashed into the strawman, tearing it apart. Zoemie smiled, an almost maniacal thing, as she started to conjure a fireball bigger than her head.

It crashed into the strawman in a scorching blast, Zoemie starting to summon another fireball before she had a realization. My problem isn't power. It's speed, skill and accuracy, right ? So is chucking fireballs dumbly like this actually a good idea ? She sighed as the realization dawned on her.

"I can't just do that brainlessly while my fireballs get 0,1% bigger than the last one until they get bigger than my head.", she grumbled. "I have to actually think about what I'm doing, huh ?" For next time. Right now I just wanna chuck fireballs.

So Zoemie did just that, channeling fire and throwing it. I've gotten better at wielding my mana. It felt more natural for her than it did before, moving the sludge beneath her skin being... not quite effortless, but easier than it used to be. Zoemie was still being kind of careful, however. Don't wanna hurt myself like last time.

She swapped from fire to wind, letting a wildstorm tear the target apart with the fury of the skies, an hurricane that threatened to tear apart all who opposed its creator's continued existence. She turned to darkness, conjuring beams of shadow from her fingertips.

The thin, black beams pierced the strawman, their very existence for some an affront to all that is decent and worthy, leaving nothing behind but clean holes barely bigger than Zoemie's thumb that promptly regenerated.

As Zoemie prepared for her next spell, however, she felt oddly tired, and decided to stop for today. The work session earlier probably didn't help. She shook her head. Better than nothing. She looked at the time. 6:50 PM. It was slightly too early for dinner, Zoemie preferred to eat dinner between 7 and 9.

She decided she wasn't going to play, as she couldn't focus knowing she would have to eat dinner soon, and instead teleported back to her room, grabbing a book and doing a bit of reading. Kinda miss the Internet. Game forums were nice.

Zoemie shook her head as she refreshed her memory. The book she had wasn't complete for the game she was playing, as it was for another edition of the same game that had less content, but Zoemie didn't really care.

She did feel something strange while reading, like something that was gripping under her arm letting go of it. Fusion's over, huh ? I'll start the next one after dinner, Zoemie decided. She didn't want to get another bout of lightheadedness like before. Some kind of mana exhaustion ? Would make sense, Zoemie logicked, satisfied with her understanding.

After a while of reading, Zoemie noting things down on her computer, she teleported to the kitchen for dinner. This time, it was... Zoemie wasn't sure. Probs more greens, tho. I probably eat more veggies here every week that I did in my entire Before life. Although, these greens are actually tasty, Zoemie thought to herself as she ate the dinner.

After finishing her dinner, Zoemie teleported to the bathroom for her post-dinner routine, before teleporting to her room again, deciding to play. Wait, actually, no. She teleported to the lab first, bumping in the doorframe as she approached the door.

Xajymzia nodded at her, opening up the door, following Zoemie. She for now looked the exact same and didn't feel more powerful than before, so she might not have upgraded herself yet. Another set of items laid on the table, clearly expecting the fusion.

Zoemie sat down on the chair, looking over the items and channeling the spell, a smile on her face as all of the items started fusing together. Superb. Enough for today. She nodded to Xajymzia, and teleported back to her room for more gaming before sleep.

As Zoemie went to sleep that night, she felt mostly content.

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