Over the next few days, the city expanded explosively, from only the half-completed workshop of Erredis, to hundreds of rudimentary buildings and structures, all made out of bones, and a lot more ‘house skeletons’, leaving space for the walls and roofing to be made of more conventional material.

Sofia returned to her Skelem bone factory in Zangdar, it was empty, and so was her own storage. Pareth was busy dealing with the other urgent city logistics like food and water, so it was only Sofia and Bookie. “Alright… I’m all out of bones.”

“This is the worst part of losing the blessed constructs,” Bookie commented.

“Yeah, now I have to be there for the factory to work. But the healing is a lot faster so the rate of bone production is better. We just need a few more Skelems. Then if I don’t want to spend all my time here I can just relocate it to the city. I just never expected to need so much bone.”

“We need a lot because everyone wants to be with us!” Bookie proudly said, his arms crossed.

“True. I didn’t expect Pestle to want to contribute but we’ll have to decide what to do with her Midenicite, we could probably make some nice sculptures.”

“Oh! Sofia, do we still have all the molds you made of Sorrow and everything?!”

“Of course, did you think I got rid of them? Most of them are in the basement here, actually. We’re finally going to get to use them. That’s for later though, we have to give everyone proper houses before we start decorating, don’t you think?”

“Hmm… Why did you decide to give the houses for free though?”

“I’m not really giving them. The entire city is ours, I don’t want to sell parts of it. It will stay free for a while until the city is properly up and running, and then we’ll start taxing. I still need to work out the details, but there will be two monthly taxes, one on the house or business location, and one on level. This should make us more than enough money to maintain the city.”

“I’m not sure I get it…”

“Well don’t worry about it, it’s my job to take care of it. If you want to help, we can try to get you a few Accountant skeletons or something like that,” Sofia said with a smile.

“HmmmHmm… Why is Engineer still working on the gun thing and not helping with the city? They are bad weapons, right?”

“You would call something that can hurt a level 299 bad?”

“They barely hurt you and never hurt brother Pareth at all,” Bookie said in incomprehension.

“Well, it’s not to hurt us. See, your skeletons can watch over the city when we’re there, but when we’re not, we need someone else. It’s going to be hard to employ very high level people to be city guards, so we can take regular people around level 100 and give them those, that will make them strong enough to handle most of the crime,” Sofia explained.

“What if it’s someone stronger than us doing bad things?”

“Technically if it’s an ascended, the Petulant One fairy protecting the Empire should help us. Otherwise, well, we need to find someone else above level 450 willing to help maintain order.”

“Can grandma do it?!”

“No,” Sofia answered, picking Bookie up and starting to walk back toward the castle, “I’m sure she would help if she’s here, but we can’t ask her to always be there. Eventually we should have enough people strong enough living around us that it would be in their best interest to help defend the city, but until then we need to figure out something.”

Bookie was silent for a few seconds. “Sofia… What if we ask Death?”

“Death? Hmm… Maybe if I can handle enough of His essence it would be fine? Who knows whether he would accept, though. But we can definitely build him a church and ask Leverle if he can send a few priests. Using the temple district as our main line of defense isn’t exactly a terrible idea, especially if Zoth decides to stay a while.”

“I want Sorrow!”

“Well I’m obviously going to build mom’s temple first, with Love’s, but until I can retrieve the Wheel of Progress she cannot come so… Hmm… Actually, if I complete one more of Sorrow’s palace trials, maybe we can convince Velania to move to the new temple here. Other than that there are still a few more temples that we-”

In the entrance of Zangdar’s castle, Sofia suddenly stopped.

“Sofia?”

“I just felt something weird, I think I know why, get down for a second,” Sofia said, putting Bookie down on a bench.

“Eheheh… Finally!” Sofia exclaimed, brandishing a shining sky-blue orb, “Mirror catalyst, Primed for use!”

“Whaaa! Can I try it!”

Sofia looked at Bookie in incomprehension, “Try it? It’s primed now so nobody else can use it.”

“No no! Try it on me!”

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from NovelBin; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Sofia looked at Bookie, then at the catalyst, then at Bookie again. “You do know you are a book, not a weapon, right?”

“But I feel like it will work!”

“... Well… If you say so, don’t be sad if it doesn’t, alright?”

“I won’t be sad!”

Sofia nodded, and unlatched Bookie’s book form from her waist, then, not too sure how to insert a catalyst into a book, just pressed the orb against the cover. To her surprise, it actually shrunk and dug a hole into the cover, embedding itself into it.

“Aaaah!” Bookie yelped as the orb dug into the cover.

“Woah, you were right. All good? Feeling any different?”

“I think it makes me better at hitting things!” Bookie guessed, scratching his skull.

“You were a spellcasting weapon, then? Interesting but I’m not going to start hitting people with you. Anything else?”

“Well… I have a hole now. It feels a bit weird.”

Sofia nodded, “You got yourself a catalyst slot. A bit like a human getting her ears pierced I guess? We’ll have to try to find you a nice catalyst now. What about the other effects?”

“I… I don’t think it changed anything else.”

“Really? Even if it doesn’t double anything you should at least have gotten the magical effect.”

Bookie seemed confused. “I… Maybe? I don’t know.”

“Let me check your skill, maybe Mr.Scribe can tell the difference. Hmm, nothing on the skill itself. I can’t use Identify either, so…”

“Ah!”

“Noticed something?” Sofia asked.

“I found it!” Bookie exclaimed, standing on his tiptoes to grab the Book from Sofia’s hands, and opening it, “Look! Look! I have a mirror page now!” he excitedly showed her.

At the very start of the book, there was indeed now an extra page, bringing the number to fifty one, but instead of the usual look, it looked like a thin sheet of flexible polished mirror.

“Do you know what it does?” Sofia asked, observing the page.

“No,” Bookie denied, shaking its skull.

“Let’s see… Try eating that,” Sofia told Bookie, grabbing a spare Rat skeleton from the halls, she had some reserves, just in case. She lowered the skeleton into the mirror page, and it was absorbed into a golden mist.

Thin lines like scratches on glass started appearing, drawing two rats on the mirror page. The cost was also doubled.

Without Sofia’s prompting, Bookie summoned the rats right away. Their bones had a slight mirror polish, and they quietly awaited Sofia’s orders.

“So it’s a two for one page? Do you get double stats from them?”

Bookie nodded.

“Interesting. They look like regular summons aside from that…”

Wanting to see them move a little, Sofia gave random orders to the two rats, and quickly noticed something ‘wrong’. They moved in perfect sync, so much so that it was a bit eerie to look at. She stopped one with her aura, curious to see what would happen, and the other one was immediately stopped in its tracks as well.

“They’re actually like reflections of each other… I imagine if one dies the other does as well.”

“I think so too,” Bookie confirmed.

“Well… I don’t know what we’re going to do with this page, but it’s interesting,” she commented, dismissing the rats. “Can you hand the catalyst back?”

Bookie nodded and the catalyst popped straight out of his cover, returning to its original size.

“Thank you, want a small bone bit to fill the hole until we find you a catalyst?”

Bookie shook his skull, so Sofia just nodded and summoned her staff out of her eye.

Unable to identify the primed catalyst due to her mana debt, Sofia brought up her old logs.

★★★★★★★★★U [Tournament Master’s Mana Mirror Catalyst]:

Carefully crafted by [Redacted] with their own essence, the master catalyst reflects its recipient weapon instead of enhancing spellcasting.

Doubles all magical effects of the recipient weapon.

Doubles all physical damage inflicted by the recipient weapon.

Recipient weapon cannot be destroyed.

On first inserting into a recipient weapon:

* Grants the item one random powerful magical effect.

* For spellcasting weapons only : Vastly improve performance as a physical weapon.

* For physical weapons only : Vastly improve performance as a spellcasting weapon.

Cannot be destroyed.

Must be primed before use.

“Such an incredible item… Let's see what we get!”

Removing the diamond catalyst of her staff, she placed the Mana mirror in its place in between the staff’s fingers.

“Ah shit… I can’t Identify it…”

Sofia had to leave Zangdar and get Saria to Identify her staff for her.

[Lumian Royal Hand Scepter +1] ♢ :

A weapon that is eager to serve its ruler.

Now has the capabilities of a Mithrium club for skull-cracking purposes.

* Absorbs the backlash of forcefully canceled channeling.

* Cannot be damaged by the user’s magic.

* Halves channeling time.

* Halves channeling time.

* Halves the mana cost per second of sustained magic.

* Halves the mana cost per second of sustained magic.

* Inflicts [Thunderbolt] on hit.

* Inflicts [Thunderbolt] on hit.

* Can hold and use the passive effects of 1 Ring (applied to itself).

* Can hold and use the passive effects of 1 Ring (applied to itself).

* [Greater Beautify]

* [Greater Beautify]

Catalyst : [Mana Mirror]

Accessory : [Regulator’s bauble]

Ring : [Strategist’s stamina ring]

Ring :

[Greater Beautify]: Grants the wielder +15% Charisma.