Her greed skill would become a problem, if it wasn’t already one. Unfortunately there was little Sarah could do against it currently.
Gain a skill to counteract it? Something like “charity” was probably what she was searching for, yet she doubted that she would be able to get such a skill naturally, even with the help of greed. It just went too much against her own nature. She didn’t mind sharing some of her findings with the world, but that was about as far as she was willing to go and not even that decision was based on altruistic feelings. It would allow her to gain fame and backings, which in turn would allow her to proceed with more questionable experiments as well as gain funding.
Well, back in her old world the latter had already been covered thanks to her family, though independent money sources had still allowed her to perform research her family might have otherwise blocked.
Unfortunately now in this world her knowledge about magic was made mostly obsolete with the system granted instincts. She might be able to teach people certain spells regardless of affinity, but they would still be worse than what their affinity was granting them anyway. The calculations necessary were too cumbersome, the mana required too much, and it wouldn’t even help level the users affinity. If they really wanted to use another element, they would likely choose to acquire another affinity over learning some low level spells.
However those were thoughts for later.
She could still try to approach a counteracting skill from a different angle, like what she did with her orrery. As skills were based on the internal mana flow, she should be able to alter it manually.
In theory.
Her orrery did work, as it was basically a spell transformed into a skill by binding it to her body. Her team members’ aura did work, as it was just a plain aura paired with splinters of her own orrery. Furthermore she had already experience with the spells involved. But neither was she able to observe her greed skill, the mana in her body was too dense to be monitored with her mana sense and she didn’t know what to search for in the first place, nor had she any idea how a thought guiding spell or a thought protection spell would look like.
Destroying the skill manually, creating a counter current or isolating it were therefore off the table. At least until she had a breakthrough…
Forgoing a skill in favor of a brain surgery was also an option. She should be able to alter her thoughts by extracting or destroying certain sections of her brain. Unfortunately, while Sarah had some knowledge about brains from her soul studies, those were more based on observation.
She still didn’t know to what extent their bodies had changed with their arrival in the Realms, so the bits of information she had might be obsolete.
Then, should her knowledge still work, would such a surgery even have an effect? She was trying to affect a skill with it, but what if the skill made that part of her brain useless? What if by removing that part of her brain, she would also lose the part of her, which let her fight against the greed in the first place or affected some other important bits of herself?
Lastly, even if she had the knowledge, abilities and certainty that everything would work, she couldn’t perform the surgery on herself. Training someone, maybe her sister, was an option, yet it would take years. Especially since that one candidate likely wouldn’t have Sarah’s patience and memory.
Also, she could try to change her soul to fight her greed. Sure, similar to the other options she didn’t have much knowledge or experience, but at least she had something like a starting point with her orrery and a good excuse to continue her soul magic research.
Though in the end all approaches had too many uncertainties and too much knowledge she was still missing. Not to mention that she wasn’t quite willing to test those theories on her own body or soul first, if she made any progress. And while she had two test subjects next to her, she probably shouldn’t use them for such experiments. No… Bad train of thought, they were her sister and guide, she shouldn’t view them as disposable entities, even when it would be very convenient.
Fortunately, thanks to her perfect memory and overmind, for the moment Shara had the skill more or less under control, but even now a small voice was questioning whether it wouldn’t be better to just give in and focus on more important matters. Why waste so much mental prowess on something you can’t fight anyway long term? Didn’t her greed also have some advantages?
She quickly dismissed that thought.
Instead she chose to examine the past events and Sarah had to admit that her new skill had already caused quite a few problems.
Going back in time, why did she use the souls as one of the first sacrifices? Even if it was just a few seconds, she would have been able to get some extra mana, if she had used them last.
Why was she so impatient and started the ritual as soon as they escaped? Sure, someone might have the ability to track them and with the spatial affinity mana crystal mostly exhausted by the barrier, she would have to withdraw. But she could have still waited for a few minutes in each other location she had previously designated as backups, which would have given her again more mana for the spell. Her enemies weren’t all-powerful. They wouldn’t have been able to find her instantly or the war would have ended much sooner with a different outcome.
Also, while she wouldn’t hesitate to take the resources of her own allies, if it was necessary, had she been more patient, she could have reached her goals without them.
Why didn’t she anticipate that there would be mechanics in place which prevented people from simply casting large scale spells unnoticed? She had already seen that the system would give out warnings in case a high level entity entered a realm. She should have assumed that casting a spell like she did, would have consequences. Well, she had made preparations for some of them, but still just barely enough.
Why hadn’t she come up with defenses for mana affinity attacks? She knew of the potential dangers even before she entered the Realms, as her spell hacking would probably fall within the affinity, if one bothered to study the structure of spells and how to change and reuse them. And while there were countless affinities she wouldn’t be able to account for, the mana affinity was on the list given to her by her guide. So why didn’t she delay the experiment until she had found some ways to defend herself? Maybe dummy spells, which could draw in the attacks.
She really should have thought of that earlier…
Also, she would have been dead if the enemies had someone with a spatial affinity in their ranks during the last fight.
But the worst mistake was still starting the war in the first place. Yes, she wanted to know whether bigger spells allowed her to gain more levels, whether she could affect realms permanents, whether she had the ability to replicate the acts of gods. But there was no reason to try it out this soon. She still had a soul which needed to be healed, defenses which needed to be strengthened, other ideas which needed to be tested. Risking everything with such a big move was unnecessary!
Sarah’s thoughts were racing. Trying to find all the mistakes she had made, figuring out their implications and anticipating their consequences.
Though apparently Nia wasn’t that keen on letting the mage reflect on her actions in silence any longer. She had also received the message that the war was over, so whatever the girl was doing, wasn’t as critical as keeping the ritual running.
“What was that?! Why did you suddenly take our mana?! What did you do to our auras?! Just tell us if you need something! We could have tried to help you with the spell on our own, if we knew that you needed help! Or at least prepared ourselves for whatever you were planning to do. We even have a contract! Also how where you even able to take our mana on your own?!” The guide assumed that whatever happened to her did also affect Sera, but regardless she was quite angry at Sarah.
Being thrown out of her thoughts, Sarah was confused for a moment and couldn’t directly answer. Yet Nia didn’t seem to care all that much about answers, as she already continued. “Hey Sera, you should also talk to your sister!”
Being suddenly part of the conversation, Sera was surprised, yet even more shocked was Nia by the answer. “Eh? Whatever. It isn’t like we lost anything permanently and i even got a level in my soul-binding aura. Also i might have done something similar in her situation…”
“Are you all insane?!” If they weren’t bound by a contract and in an enclosed space, the guide might have left then there. Not only did the warrior not care, she actually seemed happy about the experience.
Finally catching up Sarah quickly tried to defend herself. “Hey! I might have gotten a greed skill, but i’m not insane! Though i guess i could live with the label of mad scientist… Anyway, to answer your previous question, i gained a skill which lets me drain the mana of the environment and other beings as well as objects to some extent. Probably also through the influence of greed… Well, i’ll not use the skill as an excuse for what i did, as i would have done it on my own, if necessary. Though i guess i should still give you an apology? So… Sorry for taking your mana without informing you first.”
She deliberately disclosed her skill. It might be a weakness, but it was better her teammates could warn her, should she be consumed by her greed again, before she lost herself.
The half-assed apology which let her already expect the worst for the future was one thing, yet the revelation before that easily overshadowed it.
“Wait, you have also gained a mental skill?!” Nia could only groan at the thought.
“Nice, now i have to babysit two unstable beings from other worlds who don’t care for the common sense of this one. What the hell did i get myself into…” She then added, quieter, yet still loud enough for the girls to hear it. At this point she simply stopped caring.
“Well, i think i’ve the skill more or less under control, but it would be good if you could tell me, should i act weird. Anyway, any tips in regard to evolving one’s affinity or claiming rewards?” Sarah tried to deflect and change the topic.
