The years marched ever onward. Before I knew it, we turned 150.

Most of the smaller rewards from assisting the Sanctuary in repelling the hive had dried up, as had most of our other Achievement rewards. Part of this was because our proportion of contribution to the sanctuary’s defense was rather small now - while we were still the original creators of the artificial sun, most of the actual legwork had now been done by the hundreds of other Mages in the sanctuary. Another big part of why we didn’t get very many rewards was related to Felix’s research. We spent most of our time and essence on that, which left little to do other Achievement-generating activities such as heal people or actively participate in defense of the sanctuary. However, it was more than worth it.

After several decades of study, Felix finally managed to crack part of the internal logic for how Anise’s Ability worked - and by extension, how to copy that onto an item. He combined this research with a long, detailed study of how Sallia’s magic system worked - and by extension, how to create an item that was compatible with rune magic systems. Combined with Felix’s previous experience in creating the artificial sun, Felix managed to make a new item for me - one that would hopefully change the game going forward.

Item: Brand of Miria

Effects: This brand cannot be unequipped once it is equipped, unless it is removed via soul-surgery or a similar method of permanent alteration.

When activated, the user of this brand MUST possess a rune-based absorption essence ability - otherwise, this brand will fail to take hold, and then self-destruct. (It will also fail to work properly if user possesses two or more rune based absorption essence abilities).

This Brand settles within the outer layer of the soul, similar to a tattoo. It allows the user to record any rune that they have created with their ability, and then copy some or all of those runes onto any new body they come to inhabit. The runes will follow the same dimensional laws as detailed by their rune-based absorption essence ability.

The ‘saved runes’ may be overwritten at any time.

This brand cannot interact with abilities beyond Expert grade.

The runes will still have upkeep costs, unless the ability removes them.

Maintenance cost - 100 Achievement per reconstruction.

It was amazing.

According to Felix, he had spent nearly ten thousand Achievement trying to make this brand work - less than he had spent on the artificial sun, but still a substantial investment. A big part of that investment was trying to figure out how to get the item to work properly - since this was very different from the items we usually encountered in the Market, Felix had spent decades of time and mountains of Achievement figuring out how to make this work. At first, I had been worried that he was wasting his time - but the effects of this brand were more than worth it.

As long as I used this brand, I would never lose power from my absorption essence magic system. That was huge. The brand even allowed for me to change my rune setup in the future, if I felt the need to do so. I just needed to invest time into recording a new, preferred rune, and then copy it into the brand.

I didn’t know if I would take much advantage of that - after all, I was getting very used to my portals and my spatial sense abilities, since I had used these abilities as the bedrock of my defensive abilities for two lives in a row. While these abilities had some weaknesses in physical combat, my dress could at least partially cover for those weaknesses, and my ability to flee into the air or teleport around meant I could also evade danger. I genuinely felt that my first two rune choices were great, and I didn’t intend to change them in the near future. Still, having the option to change things around was useful. I was excited to see how far I could push the rune magic system in the future.

This item also made me realize just how much Felix had grown, and how much he could now offer our group as a whole. So far, he had been able to contribute to the team in a lot of ways - for example, when one of us needed a loan back in the Market, he was typically the one who sponsored that loan. However, this world had allowed him to finally step into his own as a craftsman instead of just being a bank. This item also made me realize how useful an item craftsman actually was. The items we found in the Market, while useful, were also generic. They didn’t fit our specific needs or build decisions - they were pieces of equipment meant to be sold en masse to people with a wide variety of builds. Thus, none of the items in the Market we had found were built for weird or specialized needs, such as ‘preserving runes from the absorption essence magic system between lives.’ Instead, they just needed to be useful to most people in the Market, and the items would find a buyer.

I suspected that this had always been a problem in the Market. Perhaps in the past, shops had also offered some kind of service related to crafting custom items, thus allowing people to gain more specialized equipment. Either way, Felix now fulfilled a gap in the team that I hadn’t even realized was as important as it was.

After Felix gave me the brand, I laughed, and gave him a huge hug.

“Thank you. It means a lot to me,” I said. “You outdid yourself this time.”

Felix grinned, and patted me on the back. “I’m glad that you like it. We only have two worlds left to gather as much strength as possible, and then we’ll fight for our lives. Pay me back by getting as strong as you can and keeping yourself safe, all right?”

I giggled. “Are you trying to take my lines, Felix?” I gave him another, closer hug. “Let’s make sure that all four of us survive,” I said, more quietly this time. I had spent multiple worlds with these people, and I cherished all of them. I didn’t want to lose anyone.

After that, Felix and I got a few drinks to celebrate his accomplishment. He was, unfortunately, out of materials for more items - or at least, items that were powerful enough to be major upgrades for our group. The materials for the {Brand of Miria] had come from the ten-bell raid monster, and most other monsters didn’t seem to have enough strength to produce more materials. This meant that Anise and Sallia wouldn’t get any custom items of their own until we found more materials - but at least Felix had gotten one item out before he ran into this problem.

After we finished celebrating, I returned home and considered my current equipped items.

Items: 5/5

1. Simple Friendship Bracelet with Distance Chatting (7 Maintenance)

2. Essence Core (6.5 Maintenance)

3. Lake-Gazer's Dress (22.8 Maintenance)

4. Breath of the Storm (47.8 Maintenance)

5. Dream of Hunger (40.7 Maintenance)

The three items I was most committed to keeping were my friendship bracelet, {Lake-Gazer’s Dress}, and {Dream of Hunger}. {Dream of Hunger} was an incredibly potent single-use item, and I suspected we would need powerful one-use items during the fight for more lives. Unless I had a good reason to, I wasn’t going to give it up until we had secured our future. {Lake-Gazer’s dress} was also very useful for me - it had more than proven its value hundreds of times over. Just the easy access to a large reservoir of water was enough to push most of my abilities further, and was a direct requirement for some of my abilities to work at full power. Unless that changed, there was no way I would replace {Lake-Gazer’s Dress}. My friendship bracelet was also off-limits - there was absolutely no way at all I was ever going to reincarnate into a world without the company of my friends. The very thought was unpleasant - I didn’t want to be alone for decades under any circumstances.

However, {Essence Core} and {Breath of the Storm} were both up for replacement. {Essence Core} was just a way to boost my essence reserves for the sake of Extinguish - it had little other use. {Breath of the Storm} was also a useful item, but a lot of its uses were niche - I mostly used it as a shield, weapon, and occasional lightning-bolt wand. All of these were mildly useful, but none of them were really critical for me.

After some discussion with my friends, I ultimately decided to ditch {Breath of the Storm}. I handed that off to Felix, who equipped it to his sixth, currently empty equipment slot, and then got to work copying my first runes into the {Brand of Miria}. The next time we returned to the Market, I wasn’t going to be stuck spending a week or two trying to regain a tiny fraction of my power. I was going to waltz in with half of my ability set ready to go, and after I rebuilt my access to extinguish, soul-clamp and renewal, I wouldn’t be much weaker than I usually was ‘at my peak.’ All four of us were excited to see how much easier that would make our next trip to the Market.

After that, I decided to spend the next few decades building out my rune repertoire and trying to figure out any final weaknesses in my rune system. As I buckled down and prepared to make use of my new item, time continued to pass.