Chapter 212

I slipped off the bed and cracked my neck. It was still pretty early but it wasn't comfortable to lay around in a bed stacked with so many people. I looked over at Morrigan hugging Torien from behind while they both still slept. Bella was still sleeping but I could tell Mimi was up as always. She wanted to know if she should follow me but I waved her down mentally. I think I wanted a bit of time to myself this morning.

While lacing up my boots I decided to look over my status again.

[Status]Name: Lilith BaphometRace: Greater Succubus [Race Hidden - Displayed as Beastkin (Sheep)]Gender: FemaleClass: [Novice Magic Swordsman] Lv. 12Level: 50

Stat Spread:Strength: 100Vitality: 100Charisma: 10 (736)Luck: 20 (746)Finesse: 70Magic Control: 100Magic Force: 100 (160)Speed: 70 (90)Endurance: 10

Karmic Energy: 7268

Unallocated Stat points: 0

Skills:Haggling Lv. 15Swordsmanship Lv. 38Illusion Magic Lv. 4Light Magic Lv. 11Light Manipulation Lv. 12Uuna Riding Lv. 13Linguistics Lv. 10Ritual Magic Lv. 10Drawing Lv. 12Mana Sense Lv. 6Luck Magic Lv. 6Enhancement Magic lv. 8Flying lv. 7Intimidation lv. 1Internal Mana Manipulation lv. 4Cartography lv. 1

Class AbilitiesMerchant Skill - CalculationsProstitute Passive - Resist DiseaseProstitute Passive - Magic FingersProstitute Skill - Ease PainProstitute Skill - Freshen UpProstitute Passive - Tight FitProstitute Passive - Group DynamicsProstitute Passive - Go UnnoticedProstitute Passive - Resist SleepProstitute Skill - Center of AttentionProstitute Skill - Nightcap

Special Passives:Soulbound CompanionsSpecial drop rate upSightspeakDouble Down

Innate Abilities:Karmic RetributionBeing of Karma

Racial Traits:Succubus ConstitutionSexual Appetite Lv. 47Succubus BondGreater Succubus Shifting

Titles:[World Traveler - Hidden Title][Origin of Succubi - Hidden Title][Dungeon Destroyer][First Explorer][Early Intervention][Demon Hunter][Follower of Sorsette][Mother of the Succubi - Hidden Title]

The only thing that's changed is that I managed to unlock the first level of Cartography. I wasn't anticipating learning it as a skill, through the system anyway, but maybe I shouldn't be surprised. It was knowledge that Sorsette's system reinforced so it made sense that there was a supporting skill. Maybe it was a little more surprising that there was an entire guild supporting people with the skill though. Thinking about that further, the cartography guild probably only existed as a middleman for paper and ink supplies. Something I know firsthand is pretty expensive in this world. And I suppose a guarantee that the freelancers who are hired for cartography jobs know what they're doing, otherwise what would be the point of me receiving a certification? It did make me wonder how many other trade guilds existed though. Blacksmiths from what I've seen so far operate more like direct businesses despite also requiring a lot of training. Maybe it's a bit easier to tell when physical objects aren't made correctly than maps. I didn't really know.

That reminds me, I'll need to go back and retrieve the sword Tenna made for me today.

I pulled my sketchbook and charcoal from my trunk along with the ritual magic book and my two notebooks before leaving the room. I don't want to bother anyone around the embassy so I sat next to the window on the second floor and began to sketch the courtyard from there. Just something easy to center myself. I was feeling a bit melancholy I think. Everything has been so hectic lately. Things will probably only get more hectic when we end up storming the slaver's guild in a day or two. Winethorn never gave me an exact day, she just said she would inform me before they suppressed the collars next and give me a chance to storm the place at the same time. It sounds as if we may not be the only ones participating based on the way she put it. Well, I suppose the cult of Amphores will be participating, that much is a given.

Soon there wasn't anything I really felt like adding to my sketch so I decided to move on. Something from memory instead. I started blocking out the rough proportions of the twins. Nothing fancy, just a pose of the two sitting together. Let's see if I can capture the energy that I often see between the two. My conversation with Torien has given me a bit to think about. Before she came to bed last night, she told me she talked with Silva a little. Only enough to tell her that she wanted to sit down and have a longer proper conversation about where the two of them stand, but that she wouldn't be able to do it last night. If I had to guess, she was too emotionally drained from our prior conversation.

The map hadn't taken me long to finish last night. It was sort of complex but I could tell why the map was only really useful as a test. Pretty much every possible map marker was on it but a lot of it was pointless information. Stuff like, 'this area from here to here has a zero-degree incline.' It might be useful to put down that mark if there actually was an incline but it obviously only existed to check a box. To make sure I knew what the marking meant more than anything else. Most real maps wouldn't be nearly as convoluted. It almost felt like a bit of a letdown to have traveled all the way to the capital just for this, but I guess I'm here more for the certification than any actual training. Assuming I passed the measurement tests of course.

After reading up on that part in the book he gave me I almost laughed out loud. The 'measurements' I would be required to take were hardly scientific. It seemed like they were more guestimates until a 'real' mapmaker revisited the site. I was essentially being trained to get nothing more than a rough layout. I think with a smart application of ritual and light magic, I could get much more accurate measurements than the 'paces' and 'arm lengths' I was expected to take. I double-checked that these weren't something like 'feet' in imperial measurements where there is a specific length despite the name of the unit but no, it's complete ballparking. Korrim really did mean it when he all but said that I would pass as long as I wasn't an idiot.

I looked over the sketch of the twins that I had drawn. I liked it for the most part but I didn't really nail the feel I was looking for. There weren't any obvious issues with the picture but it didn't really... capture their energy. It only looked like them superficially. I sighed and set the sketchbook and charcoal aside. I picked up the ritual magic book and started to thumb through the light magic section.

Light magic isn't as developed as other magics but there were plenty of rune configurations for it. After looking through this book for a while I learned where ritual magic comes from. Nearly all of it comes from dungeons. There have been a few instances of people doing the exact same thing I'm trying to do now, reverse-engineering and rebuilding ritual circles for other uses, but most widely used ritual circles are simplified dungeon ritual circles that were originally used for things like traps and inherent magic in the dungeon. Even the ritual magic for cleaning, as simple as it is, is just a simplified ritual circle that originally was used to keep the floors of a dungeon clean of blood, sweat, and debris. That particular one just happened to be able to be simplified to the extent that a child could activate it. Dungeon researchers have been collecting these ritual circles from dungeons for a long time in hopes one of them will be useful, like the cleaning ritual magic everyone knows. As a result, there are a surprising number of ritual circles in this book derived from how the dungeons keep their lights on. Benign ritual circles are literally embedded into the walls that determine how much light exists, whether the light changes over time like a faux day/night cycle, and many other related things, all powered by the dungeon's internal magic supply. It also seems that a lot of the magical lamps I see in cities use continuously activated ritual magic and use those mana stones you get from monsters to power them. This book is a large compendium of ritual magic circles and components from many different people's collected research. All of it is pretty fascinating.

All of this meant though, that creating ritual magic to shoot a laser and measure how long the laser goes before its path is broken isn't actually that difficult to make with the pieces I have in this book. Since I knew exactly the kind of device from my original world that I was trying to replicate, it wasn't as challenging as it could have been to find the right pieces. I suspect that this idea is pretty novel in this world, otherwise someone would have already created it by now. Using similar means, I was also able to create ritual magic to create a laser level, get a plumb line, and even measure the degrees of an incline against the plumb line. It's quite fun combining pieces of ritual circles that were once used for traps and invisible tripwires with light magic for this purpose. It also brings into perspective just how lucky we got in the midnight castle dungeon. Because the dungeon was so young it didn't have a lot of these magical traps and I'm not sure if me and Morrigan can see these with our mana senses. I'll have to ask her later but I suspect she doesn't know one way or the other. I didn't get the impression that either of them had been in a dungeon before but I think I never asked. Succubi can see magic with their eye transformation now but I don't know how that relates to the ritual circles embedded into the walls of dungeons and I never noticed anything like that when we were there. There isn't any information in this book on how the ritual magic was collected either.

It took me about four hours of experimenting with the circles to come up with working prototypes of the ritual magic circles. Eventually, the twins came out of the room to see what I was up to. Predictably Bella was still sleeping into the late morning and Mimi wasn't in a hurry to get up so the two were still cuddling together. I could still feel them lying in bed through the bond.

"Good morning, Lilith. Oh! Is that the ritual book? Did you make anything interesting?" Morrigan said excitedly.

Torien rolled her eyes and smiled before her eyes landed on the sketchbook I had left open. "Hey, is this us?" she asked as she picked up the book.

I smiled. "It is supposed to be you, but I wasn't too happy with how the sketch came out. And yeah, I've been working on some ritual magic to help me with cartography. The book told me to take super inaccurate measurements so I made these spells to make good measurements easier using these units here," I said pointing to a page near the back of the cartography book.

Morrigan looked at the cartography book and nodded. "Yep! That's what most shops use when they're trying to be accurate."

I looked over at Torien who was smiling down at the sketch.

"You like it?" I asked.

She looked up and blushed. "Yeah, I've never had anything like a picture of my sister and me before. You said you didn't like this drawing... can have it?"

I frowned and scratched the base of my horn. "Well... it's messy charcoal and I don't have anything that can act as a fixative so it'll probably smudge pretty quickly. Plus I don't want to tear it out of my sketchbook. How about I draw something for you in ink? It'll be less messy that way... I should probably see if I can find some way to laminate things..." I said trailing off while thinking through some of the ritual components I had been studying.

Torien rubbed her arm awkwardly. "I... didn't mean to ask for something like that..."

I looked her in the eye and grinned at her. "I don't mind drawing for my friends," I emphasized. "For better or worse I just don't really want to give you that drawing is all. How about the two of you sit down and I'll draw a portrait? Something that won't get messed up as easily."

Morrigan smiled at Torien and dragged her over. "Come on Tori! Like you said! We've never had a drawing of ourselves before, let's not let this opportunity go to waste!"

I was happy Morrigan was so gung-ho about this. Torien almost never asks for things. "Sit down over there next to each other," I said pointing to a pair of chairs. "I'll be right back!" I ran to my room and grabbed one of the journals I haven't used yet. It had nice thick paper, a bit like cardstock. The surface was made with ink in mind so even though the paper was thick, it didn't absorb too much ink and had a pretty nice surface after the ink dried. I didn't have a pencil to work with so this would be a purely ink drawing. I don't think I've tried this kind of thing in this life but I was up for the challenge. I tore out two pages as carefully as I could and came back out to sit in front of the twins.

"Alright! Pose for me! How would you like this portrait to look? Are you two going to sit there still like boards or are you going to give me smiles?" I said enthusiastically.

I blocked in two drawings and got a feel for their expressions before telling them they could relax now. The two came over to watch me draw but I didn't mind. I'm not sure why but I didn't feel the least bit worried about people watching me work even though intellectually I would have thought that it might feel embarrassing. I just grinned as I worked on the two ink drawings. I intended to draw one for each of them so I took my time going back and forth between the two. This was also an interesting challenge and not something I've done before probably, but it was kind of fun to develop two slightly different images at the same time.

I smiled when I looked down at the two pictures I had drawn. Since I had the models in front of me, I was able to capture the charm that had been missing. Morrigan had a big grin on her face and had her arm over Torien's shoulder. Torien was looking at her sister with a sideways grin, slightly exasperated but happy and relaxed looking.

"Lilith! This is perfect!" Torien said with an ear-to-ear smile. "I can have this?"

"Of course, Torien. I made these for the two of you after all."

I went to sign my name in the corner and frowned. My fingers twitched and I paused... almost remembering a name I had scribbled hundreds of times before. I shook my head and signed my new name.

Lilith Baphomet