As dawn's light crested over the horizon, I finally peeled myself off the ground. Sitting upright, I rubbed my eyes and stretched.

"Feeling better?" asked Autumn, their voice tinged with concern.

I looked up to meet their eyes and saw that part of their face was still destroyed where I punched them. They were slowly regrowing the part I had caved in, but their left eye was completely non-functional at the moment.

"A little. Sorry about the…" I started, then trailed off as I didn't really know what to say.

"Don't worry about it. It sounds like you've been through a lot," they replied, voice soft.

I chuckled, "It has certainly been an interesting past few days."

"I wanted to ask earlier, but what's that?" Autumn asked, pointing at the insect that was standing beside me.

"Oh, that's Novi. Say hi, Novi!" I said both aloud and over our mental connection.

"Huh? Oh, hey Autumn. Sorry, I'm still busy. These humans are really persistent," she said, before her body went back into its automated following stance.

I hoped she was doing okay; she's been under as much stress as I have. Though she'd be much better at dealing with it given her peculiarities… Unfortunately for her.

I also walked her path once. The burnout always catches you in the end.

I think.

Wait, why can't I remember—

"I don't understand, who's Novi? Where did they come from? How do they know me? What do they mean they're busy?" Autumn asked.

I snickered, then took the time to explain to Autumn what happened while we were separated.

They sat through the story patiently, only interjecting when I was about to move off the topic of Novi.

"You know if one of your splits is damaged, that will injure your soul as a whole. There were Sylvans in the past who tried creating multiple bodies housing the same soul, but the practice went out of favour when it was shown one of the clones being corrupted meant they all were," Autumn said.

"I don't think that's something I have to worry about. Technically, Novi is inside my Core. Her other bodies are just artifacts that allow her to move. Just like this shell I'm wearing around my real body."

"Okay… Just be careful," Autumn replied, slightly mollified.

Given the way that the Distributive relay worked, no actual Mana crossed over between the bodies—only information.

That might explain why my Capstone Skill was so insistent that I should not try to output any information processing capabilities to Novi's bodies. Because doing so would mean her soul would have to at least partially enter them.

Which would open me up to potentially being targeted indirectly through one of her bodies. Though, she would probably have to be inhabiting it at the time.

It was still a risk I couldn't take. I had already experienced that once, and I would prefer not to ever again.

"Oh, by the way. Do you know what a Concept Strand is?" I asked. I wasn't using Argent Bastion as effectively as I knew I could be, and I was curious as to what it actually was.

"I've heard the term used by Sylvans. I think it's important for your Second Ascension, but we're not anywhere near that point yet," Autumn replied.

"Hmm, no information passed down by Syladine?"

Autumn crossed their vines together—the Root equivalent of shaking their head no.

"Shame, that info could have been handy. Shall we be off then? We do still have that Divine Quest," I said, then stood up and patted the dirt off my cloak.

"Oh! Right, we were heading to the Sylvan Maw!" Autumn rushed to their feet and scampered forwards, only stopping to make sure I was following along.

With a wry sigh, I took off with them.

The environment was practically just rocks and the occasional tree, but it looked like we were near the edge of a cliff.

Autumn reached the edge before me and stood peering off into the distance. When I caught up with them, I saw why they stopped.

In every direction as far as the eye could see was a massive ocean. The only land in sight was the tiny island we were standing on. Behind us was the enormous wall of white, and in front of us was nothing but blue.

The sun had just crested over the horizon, painting the ocean with soft golden and red hues. A soft breeze carrying the taste of salt blew over the bluff. For the first time in the past week, everything felt quiet. I let myself just stand there for a moment and take in the view.

I checked the notification that had been sitting in my tray since we got here.

[Zone Entered] You have just entered The Ophidian Deep.

Taking my eyes off the ocean, I could see there was a path that led down the hill to a flat granite beach. Off to the left at the very edge of the island, I thought I could see a ship's mast, which was probably meant to be our way off the island.

I pointed it out to Autumn, and we made our way down towards the water.

Walking along the granite surface, the boat came into view. It looked like a galleon made of black wood from a distance, but as we got closer, I could see some differences.

For one, most galleons from Earth weren't covered in ritual arrays, and from my knowledge, none of them gave me the urge to run screaming in the opposite direction.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

I had to grab Autumn's arm and run Winter through myself to counteract the effect. Blocking their sight of the ship stopped them from trying to wriggle out of my grip, so I grew a makeshift cotton blindfold for them and continued onwards.

At the pier where the ship was tied up was a man with a body that looked like a cross between a stereotypical troll and an orc. His skin was obsidian black, and two ram horns jutted from his head. He was smoking something and sitting on a stool. His red eyes trailed me as I approached.

I was fairly certain he was some kind of demon.

"Hey, any chance my friend and I could get a lift on your ship?" I asked once I was within hearing range. Autumn jerked at the mention of a ship, but I just tightened my grip on their wrist.

That mental effect was rough.

"Passage is twenty thousand Eids," the demon replies.

"Eids? What are Eids?" I had never heard of any kind of currency existing.

"Eidetic coins, can you pay?" he drawled, rubbing his clawed fingers together.

A window appeared in front of me

Pay for Passage? Current Balance: -129300 Eids Cost: 20000 Eids Y/N

Why was my balance so far in the negative? What the hell was Novi doing? I knew that absolutely wasn't me because I didn't even know I had money in the first place.

"You, uh, wouldn't happen to be interested in bartering anything instead?" I pleaded, shifting my weight from one foot to another as I was starting to realize we may be stuck here.

"No fee, no passage. Feel free to swim." The demon grinned maliciously at me and pointed out into the water.

I was then given a great demonstration as to why his boat was so heavily enchanted with a fear ritual.

Where he had just pointed, a leviathan sea serpent at least the size of a skyscraper, breached the surface of the ocean, crashing back down, sending waves as tall as buildings in every direction.

Was that interaction staged? The whole ocean had been completely calm until the demon pointed.

Luckily, it was so far off that I couldn't even see the water where it had leapt from—only its silhouette on the horizon.

I chuckled softly to hide my anxiety and turned around, walking back up the path to the top of the hill. I let Autumn go, and they ran ahead of me to get away from the black galleon.

We couldn't turn around and re-enter the story Zone. The exit message stated that leaving would be permanent.

When we had returned to the rocky outcropping, I sat down and brought Autumn with me.

"So that was a bust," I grumbled. "Do you have any ideas for getting anywhere?"

Turning to Autumn, I saw they were shaking and hyperventilating, which was entirely unhelpful for the current moment. Looking at the boat must have had a really strong effect on them. Normally, they didn't even bother to breathe.

I was glad I had Winter on my side.

Laying my hand on their head, I sent a gentle flow of Winter into them. It was focused on self-control, so I knew it wouldn't work as well, but I hoped it would help at least a little. Novi's version would probably be better suited for helping other people.

After a couple of minutes of slow infusion, they calmed down and, with a sniffle, removed the blindfold. Their eyes were leaking an exudate that I was fairly certain wasn't sap. It looked more like a latex similar to what dandelions excrete when damaged.

Thank fuck, I wouldn't want to have to put them down for being a traitor to sap-kind. But then Autumn wasn't a tree, so I didn't have to worry too much in that regard.

Though they did consume that World Tree seed… I'll have to make sure they don't lean too far in the tree direction for their Sylvan evolution.

"Can we please never go near that boat again?" Autumn asked, the undermeaning of their words in Root was tinged with absolute terror.

"No, we don't have to go near it. But we need another way to cross the ocean," I replied, then actually gave it a moment of thought. "Swimming is a no-go. I doubt either of us would survive acting as driftwood. That means the only other option is me building us a boat."

This wasn't something that I'd be going completely blind into. I had taken sailing lessons as a kid and could man a sailboat on my own just fine.

Building one… Well, how hard could it be? For a basic sailboat, you needed two sails, one mainsail that could be used for the primary thrust of the boat, and a jib that allowed for increased flexibility.

Then you put a rudder on the back and a daggerboard, which you shove in the middle of the ship, through the hull out the bottom, to prevent capsizing at the slightest wobble.

Simple. I could even model it after the old Laser that I used to race in. Those things were so fun once you got them going fast.

"Give me a minute, I need to figure out how this is going to work," I said, then started a simulation and began designing a boat from memory.

A couple of minutes later, Novi snapped out of her automated daze.

"Okay, Sam should be in a good place not to get killed in the next twelve hours. Gods, it was a nightmare getting out of the city. Those fucking cultists were like bloodhounds for non-humans," she said, then huffed and allowed her insect body to collapse on its side, legs twitching in the air

"I didn't understand half of what you just said," I replied without looking away from my design.

"Don't even get me started. I'll tell you later. What's going on here? Are we taking a break? I know I could certainly use one," Novi asked. I was surprised she hadn't been listening in until now.

"We have to figure out how to cross that," I said, pointing out over the ocean. Right as I raised my hand, another sea serpent crested out of the water.

What the fuck? I haven't seen one since the demon pointed out over the water as well. Are those things triggered by pointing?

I lowered my hand and pointed again, but nothing appeared.

"Stop confusing correlation with causation," she said, tapping her legs on the ground as she spoke.

"But the timing doesn't make any sense, and we know Zones do weird things like that sometimes!" I shot back.

"You can really tell you're both the same person," Autumn interjected.

"What does that mean?" Novi and I said in unison. Then we simultaneously huffed and looked away.

Given the synchronicity, I couldn't help but let out a chuckle, and neither could Novi.

"Okay, here's my plan so far," I said, sending over my memory of everything that happened since Autumn and I went down to the pier.

Novi spent a moment processing everything before she spoke, "You're gonna get yourself killed trying to replicate something we found nostalgic about our childhood."

I frowned, "Not necessarily."

"Ellie, Lasers were designed for lakes, not oceans," she said, pointing a leg towards the sea. Another sea serpent rose from the water when she did so. She cut me off before I could point that out. "Shush, ignore that, I'm not done. We have no idea how large the body of water is. What if we're out at sea for multiple days? Wouldn't it be nice to have a cabin if that's the case? Also, you're completely ignoring the fact that you have a Profession with your current design."

"How so? I added circuits to the boat," I complained. I was sprucing it up to be a really nice boat, too.

"Did you even check what new materials you could make?" Novi asked, her insect eyes locked onto me.

"Uhh… I… No…" I forgot I even had that function. But I wouldn't admit that out loud.

Novi rolled her eyes, which was an impressive feat with the body she had right now, given she had proper insect eyes that couldn't rotate.

"Okay, let's get to making some then. Autumn, would you like to help? I'm sure your Fall Mana would be a nice addition to Ellie's Winter," she asked.

Autumn's eyes lit up, "You learned how to access Winter? You have to show me what your connection with it is! I knew you could do it!"

"You did point that out a while ago, didn't you. Back when I was playing around with manifesting leaves… Yeah, okay, fine, I can scrap all this work I did and start over. That's fine," I grumbled, and closed the simulation. "Winter Mana demonstration first? Maybe you could help me out with how I should use it."

Autumn nodded vigorously.

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