Chapter Thirty One

Loap, Adric, and Hyacinth were in charge of the heist. No one returned, had any golem limbs, undead torsos, or other potential resources in their arms. [Poise and Bearing] kept the disappointment off of Harmony's face.

Adric moved forward. "There were some complications but it's not a complete loss. I was halfway back here when the teleport hit. I do believe the scraps got left behind, but we might be able to find some use for them. You'll need to see what happened." Adric was already leaning towards the direction of the Sacred Valley.

"Go."

Adric dashed off.

The way he said scraps instead of parts wasn't hopeful.

"Don't hop to conclusions, Royal White. Any item we leaped out of the valley crumbled into pebble-sized pieces. Metal, high-quality golem pieces, even the corpses carried. Your primal believes we can get some use out of them, a smith to reforge the metal, a tinker to salvage a mana network. Additionally, your pact-bound guide may have a surprise."

"Hyacinth?"

Loap nodded.

Hyacinth sat beside the obelisk showing off his full size and looking more than a little smug. Oddly, quietly, smug.

"Okay, spill it, big guy."

Hyacinth opened his large mouth and started to wretch, his whole body contorting with effort.

"I didn't mean literally." Harmony snapped. Dancing away with everyone else to give him space.

"Hyuck, hyuck, grooooooaaaaak…" Two barrels flew out covered in bile. After a bit more coughing a third one joined the pile. That one cracked on impact spilling its contents. Elemental gems scattered across the ground undestroyed by Hyacinth's stomach, the teleportation, and leaving the Sacred Valley.

It was a solid tactic. No one teleported and had their lunch left behind. On a more technical level, living bodies were ideal at insulating things from outside energies and effects. She couldn't reach into a body and pull dead cells out with [manipulate Dead] then the dungeon couldn't easily go in and destroy the loot after it left the valley. Undead had some resistance to a lesser effect. Since the gems weren't breaking to pieces now it was probably fair game at this point.

"That'll do toad. That'll do."

Hyacinth preened at his success for a minute before shrinking back to pocket size and asking for a pick-up.

The gems counted as a win. Selling the crystals from big squirt had been a crash course on the value of such gems for crafting and spells. Undamaged ones brought a premium price. They could at least be expensive fire starters or single-use attacks. Considering their naked arrival it was entirely possible that when they returned the objects they collected outside of titles or half-step bodies wouldn't go with them. Imagine the ridiculousness of saving items and never using them. There were several things Harmony itched to try.

But first… "Tyler, I'd like to purchase some of your time," Harmony asked.

The man's mouth hung open as though his jaw's hinges were broken and about to fall off. Not a great look for a man whose evolved class was the iron door.

Jessica with her newly gained power let loose a long, feminine laugh that vibrated from the core of Tyler's body.

Loap took more direct action and smacked the man on the back of the head, causing him to finally return his jaw closed.

Was it really so shocking? They had a system now where she could buy his time and expertise for contribution points. She'd used the system dozens of times. Gareth lived off of it. Kenny and Owlsley provided information about their evolved education. Apparently, doing well here might help with academy placements. Milo's spectral grandfather provided medical expertise for a cost. This time Tyler had what she needed. There at the center of his chest, his skill fluttered quicker.

"Come on. I have some questions." Harmony let her authority out to get him moving. And walked to her shelter.

Harmony had looked for other options. Glimpses of soul sight under the guise of practice. Most competitors had stamina or mana skills. Lord Tyler was the only one to have both a [Heart] skill and one that used fate.

The skill was starting to lag behind [Disintegrate], and with seven seals, yet no apparent change, clearly she was not getting the most out of it. If she explained the situation, Gareth wouldn't take a bet no matter the odds that it wasn't the theocratic bond she'd been saddled with. Advancement and understanding started with someone who had a similar skill.

Tyler sat down, blue flickers revealed Jessica was giving the man a talking to. Once those died down Harmony started her questions. "I'm exploring my [Heart] skill and want to ask you how [Mana Heart] works for you? As well as any insights you could give me."

"How did…?"

"I have a good memory and you revealed your skill to me when I first acquired [Mana Rotation]. Is your skill a stamina or mana skill?"

"It's both. That's one reason why I selected the stone. The dealer I bought it from charged an outrageous price, but one far less than it was actually worth if he knew what I did. It gave me increased stamina and mana. I'm sure you've experienced how your heartbeat drives it. For me, it gives a little boost of mana and stamina. I can feed it mana for an extra stamina boost or feed it stamina for an extra mana boost."

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"Is that how all [Heart] skills work?"

Tyler gave a little shrug. "That's the basics of what I was told. Len would probably know more since he tutored me on them. [Hearts] always have two effects that allow you to initiate an act of exchange. Usually, something you feed them for stamina and something you get out when you feed them stamina."

That presented a problem. Harmony had fed [Eternal Fable's Heart] with stamina and mana like she was pounding a gnome to death. It never accepted any of it. What it had eaten was a thread that felt like fate, and even then it didn't give her stamina, what it gave her was a headache of information. [Recall] brought back that messed up sensory slaughter that had been briefly graced upon her. With that sense of truth that Jessica was in Tyler and how Felix's swords had souls. The dungeon's energy puppetting the troops and a bunch of other things she didn't understand. Even now the memory skill couldn't handle it all. She was losing information slowly.

"You say usually? Are there exceptions?"

"We're talking about skills. There are always exceptions, secrets, and problems. I'm guessing your [Heart] isn't taking stamina?" Tyler asked.

Even if he might be a bit self-centered and blind to others Tyler wasn't stupid. "No. It ate some of what I felt was a thread of fate. Did you notice how the during the battle our troops seemed to take more hits than they should have? They were nudged by fate."

"Gran's ledger, Fate skills are hard to counter. And it ate foreign fate? Do you have a skill to produce fate? Nevermind. Your [Heart] would have to make some if it ate it, that way you could feed it a supply for the other effect. But what would you feed it to get that?" Tyler rambled like he was Len. It had to be unusual because he only got rambly over unique and strange things from his collection. Would that mean he'd be more interested in her now? Tyler's eyes were still searching out the problem not locked on her with possessive hunger. "What did eating fate produce?"

Was that something she wanted to tell him? It's not like she understood exactly what happened. "I saw and felt more than I usually do. It was unusual, but felt real and true." If she hadn't had practice working with soul sight it would have been crippling and nearly blinding.

"What did your… never mind… you wouldn't know what your eyes looked like. Still, how would your heart cycle work?"

Harmony wished Len was here. Not that he couldn't get rambly, but he tended to be able to explain things better. It was luck that Tyler wasn't tongue-tied at being in a room alone with her. Jessica's presence and constant bothering by Loap must have hardened him against fumbling while around women. "First, what is fate?"

"It's a narrow window of options that is pressed on reality. When we act we don't have infinite outcomes, what fate does is narrow outcomes in a situational way. When I use my fate-bonded skill it isn't preventing damage it creates the drive towards only the possibilities where people are not harmed while under the effects. That's actually a perfect way to test this"

"What is?" Harmony asked.

Where on the battlefield it was like a thread poked her, a whole quilt of fate smothered her coming off of Tyler. It lacked that malicious nature that demanded a reaction, but it did make her [Heart] ache. "Feed your skill." Tyler insisted.

His skill wouldn't last that long. The moment she accepted it as something to take in. [Eternal Fable's Heart] ripped a chunk of the weave of fate. Tyler let out a grunt as his skill started to unravel due to the damage.

As fate went in, her perception of the world shifted. The earth magic in the walls that built her shelter. A twist of different energies buried in the ground where the immunity idol was, revealing it to be something more complex than a note granting immunity. Jessica inside of Tyler paired with a ghostly projection outside of her naked and wagging her finger at the man.

"You need to ask before you do something like that. You can't spring your skill on a girl and demand they eat it!" Harmony heard but didn't hear. A thousand other little things were there if she reached, but it shut off like the shattering of a glow stone as the swallowed fate disappeared.

"Your eyes, Harm! They glowed white and a strange script in black scrolled across it. I'd have to be inches from your face to try to read it, but I don't think I recognize it. What kind of [Heart] skill did you get?"

Harmony ignored him. Her head was still ringing from the overload of information. Was the glowing sight a theocratic thing? Tyler wouldn't know if Guild Mistress's confusion about no gods in the area was true. And if the seals were gone? What would happen? Having experienced that more than once, it wasn't something she wanted to repeat unprepared for even if part of her itched to find out about what would happen when it was unsealed.

"That was helpful, Tyler. Please go. I'll let you know if I need to purchase your services to get fate later. "

"Harm, what is your heart…" Tyler winced. Jessica had to be giving him an earful. "Fine. I'll be here if you need me." He gave a long head bow. "My service is yours, Royal White." He finished taking a page from Loap before he left.

Harmony grimaced. She needed to master this skill. Relying on Tyler for fate tied him a bit too close to her and ruined his valuable skill. A contribution job of Have fate? Will pay! Felt ridiculous. Tyler had said she should be able to produce fate with her heart to have a supply for the other skill. He'd called it a heart cycle?

How does one feed perception to get fate? Harmony looked internally at [Eternal Fable's Heart] It vibrated with each heartbeat, hooked into her physical body, enough so she couldn't imagine how awful it would be if someone used a skill like her soul strike to shatter it. For something she mostly relied on passively, it felt deeply hooked into her soul. Felix's blades seemed like they could do the kind of damage where one good strike to her [Heart] would produce complete skill failure in her. It looked the same as always despite feeding it fate now that it was empty, should have focused on the skill while doing that. Would the extra senses apply to her internal sense of self?

This is a stupid idea. Harmony shoved her introspection at [Eternal Fable's Heart] along with what she called her soul sight, and why not some physical sensations from her body too? A little smell, taste, and sight. Mental constructs of physical concepts took a lot of logical hoops to create what felt like an imaginary ball of senses and shove it into her [Heart] skill. Harmony hiccuped when it ate it.

A numbness flashed through her, her tongue lost its taste, out of her soul space she tumbled away, and an eye blinked out struck blind. Fed, the heart beat out a sticky mess of fate. Having given up much of her soul sight, it was only the fact this was a new sensation that let her feel how fate hit the edges of her container and stuck there. Should have [Strided] before trying that, except the conceptualization and digestion process took more than two seconds to do. What if the senses stay gone?

Adric's head popped into her shelter. A little blurry and visible only in one eye. "I got the metal!" He announced excitedly, but it was faint and muted to Harmony's ears. "Are you okay, Harmony? You don't look so good?"

A fear that it might be permanent damage faded as her vision and hearing started to return. [Eternal Fable's Heart] leveled from the mess. Training the skill was going to be complicated. What wasn't complicated was Adric's eager face and jingling bag of metal bits. "I'm fine, Addy. Come in and show me all the treasure you got."

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