Chapter Eight

  Harmony awoke iiny lodge room to a raspy, gasping "Grracck" from her amphibious partner. She might have cared a little more if she had felt his distress rather than annoyahrough the [Familiar Bond]. As it was, she felt drained from staying up too te. A pair of Dig Boys had escorted her back.

  "Something you ate st night bother you?"

  The toad coughed some more. Out of its gullet flew a ball of slightly inky slime. The ter of the ball sparkled with a sheen of metal.

  The neancer rolled out of bed to i it, her skills helped clear some of the gunk, but the object was still sticky a. Plug it up with the ess of a maid who had handled much grosser situations, Harmony sighed upon seeing a partially dissolved colr with a silver ag. Princess D, it read. "I said s." Then she pushed as much chastisement as possible through the liween them.

  Harmony was sure Hyath could detect a bonded pet, but not everyone used scrolls on their animals. They may be cheap, but they were not free. A little bit of guilt flooded in at the idea that her familiar might have taken someone's beloved rather than help with the rampant stray problem. Forcefully she stilled those emotions, the world was harsh, and people as die sometimes.

  "Grrup." Her toad responded with a strong sense of guilt and shame.

  "It's okay, buddy, just be more careful ime." Being a predator, she khere would be a ime.

  With no point iurning to bed and an array of chores ahead of her, Harmony started her m routiripping, she did what she called her m wash. [Manipute Dead], [Renew Spirit], [Poise and Bearing], [Dust], [Beauti], and [Style and Grace] bio exfoliate, remove grime, catch stray hairs, give her a small burst of energy, and shake off any m awkwardness. The synergy and bination took what she felt was most of her mana and a k of stamina, but those would recover over time.

  She slid on her maid's uniform, fighting to repce the awkwardness of the cloth-light outfit with a mindful aowledgment that it was her professional attire and part of her role when w. As an afterthought, she added her new glove. "Yes, my lord." She practiced softly.

  This was the neancer's first time as a personal maid. Lord Tyler's requirements were light as he rarely used one, often going with a houseboy as an assistant for tasks of physical bor like moving shelves for him in his room. Bates had provided a chore list after Ambrosia's performahere had been an implication that the matriarch would pay attention to how well she pyed the part.

  Breakfast. Assisting the lordling iing dressed. Following simple dires. It was almost a relief that the maid khat she'd be processing the other skill stones as the task that would take most of her time. It still didn't absolve her of her duties.

  At the small pantry, she threw together a quick lunch from the lodge stores. Preserved meats, dried fruit, and cheese, she knew a fresh delivery of bread and cream would be ing and waited patiently for the bell, letting her know when it was at the entrahe fact that breakfast took more posing than cooking was a weight off the neancer's back because despite the food being mostly dead matter, attempting to use any of her skills always left it tasting slightly foul to her taste. 'Barely passing' was the highest pliment from the cook she had ever received before being barred from the kit.

  She snacked while she worked. Hyath indicated he was tired from the night's excursions and slunk off to a er to nap. A little [Beauti] and a touch of [Style and Grace] helped create a beautiful food spiral. She approached lord Tyler's room, breakfast tray in hand.

  Tyler was sitting half up in his bed, wearing nothing but his thin under shorts, a book in his hand reading.

  "My Lord, Breakfast is ready." Fog on incorporating her physical skills rather than activating them, she performed a curtsy while holding the tray. She could feel [Small Armor] add strength and flexibility that wasn't there before as it settled in.

  "Set it on the bed."

  Harmony did as he requested.

  He zily dug into the food after setting the book down, not even gng at Harmony's hard work as his fist grabbed a se, half mushing the food together before he brought it to his mouth. "I reend you use the mana skill stooday. Mana and stamina skill stones be difficult. The armor is ing tomorrow, and I'd prefer it if you were in top shape when it arrived."

  Harmony picked up on the disappointed grumpiness in the lord's tone. Did something happen st night? Yes, it was her right to decide how she would progress. Tyler was known for both his obsessiveness and impulsiveness, and what if he impulsively decided to not let her into his team to help with the create undead pet scroll?

  "Of course, lord Tyler. You are more knowledgeable than me on this. I'll absorb [Mana Rotatio." She pushed [Poise and Bearing] as hard as she could without activation and smiled. The skill should make it more natural without the skill-activated look that gave the use away, like the gambler whose face suddenly goes bnk through a bluffing skill but ends up having it be a tell.

  And she could see his eyes were watg for such a ge. She knew she'd overdo earlier. He softened. "Good. Mana or Stamina skills are a test everyone has to face if they want to evolve."

  Harmony nodded as though this wasn't covered in most people's gripes. An unfortable y. No one liked to talk about it, take the skill, and move on. Mana skill stones were the most on but had the widest variety. Mana touch, Mana sense, Mana manipution, mana sight, Mana pocket, mana aura, mana bending, the list goes on and on. True geniuses created personal mana skills. Many nights were speating, fog, and mostly daydreaming about being one of those geniuses. Exhaustion from the hard grind of huntis or scrubbing floors took that vanity away, never mind that she'd fooled herself in the past.

  She took the tray after it looked like an explosion cleared away most of the once-anized food. With the lord's armor waiting, dressing duty was . Inspiration from her new skill gave a sense of how the armor worked, even if it rejected suent-stifling equipment. It made it easier to predict where a strike from him would e from due to the narrower range of motion. It also made it easier to help him put it on.

  Outside, the air caused goosebumps across the maid's exposed skin. Her physical skills helped keep her from shivering, which would be unbeing, as they walked to the meditation spot. Her employer looked positively oblivious to the chill under his multiple yers of padding and armor.

  "Remember, no matter how prepared you feel, you're never fully ready to hahe mana skill."

  Harmony was sure the lord was repeating words he'd been told himself. "Of course, my lord, I'll do my best. Is there a reason why you selected this skill stone for me?"

  "You've always had good movement trol when you use [Dust], and mana skills with movement like Mana push, Mana wave, and the like often have an offeivation useful in bat. It's also my ce to get ary logged in the records. [Mana Rotation] doesn't show up anywhere."

  Taking the stone, she sat o and tried to calm herself, letting the chill distract her. Of course, it was something new and unique because that is what Tyler does. She only fumed a smidge, knowing that he could have acquired something like the sought-after Mana Bolt to give her a helpful skill in bat against something other than the undead.

  Do you wish to learn the skill [Mana Rotation]?

  She readied herself to slow down the acquisition of information from the stone. [Small Armor] had been an ued rush to her soul, but now she had that experience. Outside of experimentation and internal refle, abs a skill stone was the best time to gain insights. She accepted learning [Mana Rotation]. The push that happened down her arm wasn't there. The sto in her palm. She stared at it, pting if she o draw out the information. Pop. The skill's essence shot out and puhe neancer right between the eyes.

  Numbers, equations, acceleration, decelerations, folding, twisting, knotting, information shoved into her that felt too big to fit. Like her soul entered aing test where her eyes were bigger thaomach. It did not stop. She tried to grasp the simpler cepts, but with only self-taught book learning, nothing prepared her for this. A treatise on the expoial difficulties ression and hoaired up with mana usage had been a tool to put her to sleep.

  The world started to shake and twist like a ride in an out-of-trol carriage. Harmony's mana dumped into it, slogging into the mess, pushing, yet uo reach a goal even if she wao activate a skill. The information didn't ect to her skills and synergize with them; it bathed the whole system, dousing it all pletely.

  Fear crawled up like an unwanted guest in her mind. Tyler broke her. What if she could never use a skill ress again. Rather than freeze, Harmony did what she always did. Fought harder beh her mask of ess. The teasing, cruel words, and her mother's look of disdain all fueled her progression.

  Mana trickled bato her, but this new part of her gobbled it up, useless for her to use. More tools, so her heart beat faster. With every pump, she added stamina to get started if magic wasn't going to work, she'd push her endurand willpower into it. There she felt a nudge, something she could work with. She pulled cepts from the skills she'd mastered to fight. How to spot the little differences with [Analyze], to ge the nature of things with [Manipute Dead], the deep e with [Familiar Bond]. She drew pieces about grace, poise, energy, and the proper application of force. It was not a dam to burst, but the mess started ing slowly rather than sitting stagnant.

  [Mana Rotation] held all that energy and cepts, but the best she felt she could do was kick it, straining herself in ways she wasn't used to.

  The flow moved, breaking up more and more of what felt like dams sealing in her skills, barriers she had to burst. A trickle became a flood, and everything started to spin. She pushed more in, going from tired to exhausted until she could no longer maintain the effort, but letting go, she no longer .

  A self-sustaining flow inside of her soul around her skills. As a bit of aowledgment for such a task, some of the essences of the new skill melted and merged into the movement. Slowly she felt her stamina and mana reserves recharge.

  Gasping, she opened her eyes to the clouds and the sky, her back against the hard ground. Rolling to the side, she threw up her breakfast onto the dirt.

  "It took me two days to feel okay after abs the [ma] skill stone."

  Harmony tried to curse him, but all that came out was a moan.

  "You were out for about an hour. I almost ran to get a healer during the worst of it, but evehey know not to interrupt mana skill acquisition."

  Trying to get up only resulted in her emptying the rest of her breakfast and ying back down. Only an hour? It had felt like the process had taken twice as long as getting [Small Armor].

  "Eeep!" She squeaked, finding herself lifted into the air. Tyrone's hands were appropriately pced under her shoulders and knees. A fury-based shame built up about this not being professional or how a Maid should present herself, yet she could not accept any other option as he carried her.

  "If you shove the skill to the side and try tet about it, recovery is quicker."

  Good advice or not, Harmoly bristled at the idea internally. It went against how she pictured her progression. Synergy, w together, is how you use the skills rather than activating them only when he flow inside felt stable, except the flig movement caused her stomach to flip. She ended up expelling bile onto Tyler's armor.

  She felt herself bei into the small bed. Then a tray of food and water was brought and pced beside it. Later Hyath settled in at her feet. She struggled with her new skill until sleep took her, making her dream of a turbulent sea of math equations.