Saintess Summons Skeletons

Sofia observed the teleportation platform, wondering if it was even safe to use such an old technology, “When do we go?”

“Whenever you want. A few things though, first of all, you will need to put these glasses on if you do not want to end up blind,” the Oracle answered, handing Sofia a pair of almost pitch black glasses which blocked light from all directions.

Sofia tried the glasses and she couldn’t see anything anymore. “This is as good as being blind.”

“You’re going on the sun, don’t even worry about it. The other thing is, the teleportation process should take about an hour.”

“An hour?!”

“The sun is just that far from us. So, do we go now?”

“Let me think about it…Say, mister Sky, you wouldn’t happen to have a free week or two to help me practice an Angelic spell?”

“...”

“It would make the quest easier, do you not want to help your God reclaim Her temple?” Sofia tried with a smile and a wink just like Sun had done to her.

“What have I done… Sure, whatever. Follow me to Mornn’s training room.”

 

It seemed the Sun’s Oracle had a lot of free time on his hands, unlike the other high-level people Sofia had met until now. The muscular elf was clearly used to teaching, he even had his own coach chair in the Sun Saintess’s training room. He was a bit surprised that Sofia was able to use the Angels’ magic, and no matter how he tried, he never managed to replicate it, but his advice to Sofia was invaluable. She had made basically no progress on the new version of the bolt until now, and by the end of the first week, Sofia was already able to use a slightly unstable but functional copy of it.

After that, he decided to see how she fought in a mock battle against him. His reaction was word for word ‘How in the high heavens did you survive until now?’. After which he proceeded to give Sofia a second, much more painful week of training focusing on close combat and dodging. After the second week, Sofia was the one wishing for it to end.

‘[Sprint] reached level 42’

‘[Sprint] reached level 43

‘[Sprint] reached level 44’

‘[Radiance] reached level 52’

…

‘[Radiance] reached level 57’

‘[Evasion] reached level 76’

…

‘[Evasion] reached level 98’

“Good work. This should be enough for now. Go take a good nap and a shower, I will be waiting for you in the transmission room.”

Finally over! This guy never stops. This is what a real demon looks like!

No wonder Mornn is such a freak, I’m shocked that Alith could keep up with her at all.

Sofia trudged out of the training room, hurt and on the brink of passing out, no amount of healing could cure the fatigue she felt after the hellish training.

 

Someone else appeared in the training room after Sofia left.

“She holds rather well, don’t you think, little Sky?”

“For a magic class, she sure does. She’s been copying system tools even. But will that be enough for where we’re sending her?”

“We can only wait and see, perhaps she won’t have to fight at all. The circumstances of the Lords and their attack on me are still vague even after all this time.”

“There wasn’t any follow-up, was there?”

“Not after I gave up on the orbital station. It was a wise choice, what happened to Curse…”

“Aren’t you asking for a beating by sending her there after all?”

“If my assumptions are correct, we should be fine. There will never not be danger when interacting with the Lords, but this might be the best way to go about it. Since they have, for once, shown interest in something. Hopefully five essences are enough of a peace offering. Worst case, I give up on the station for good.”

“This is the most surprising part to me. It’s astonishing to see them so active all at once too. Even the dormant one seems to be awakening.”

“That is her work as well.”

“What, really?!”

 

To be fully prepared, Sofia took the time to apply three [False immortality] runes, as well as regenerating her mana by summoning and dispelling some book skeletons, absorbing their mana through [Heat death]. Then, after the book recovered all its fog, she headed for the transmission room again.

Oracle Sky was already there when she entered the room, sitting cross legged on the teleportation platform slowly feeding it mana.

“Finally there. Come sit with me, as I said, this will take about an hour. Don’t forget to put on the glasses at the end.”

“Alright. I forgot to say it but thank you for the training, I learned a lot.”

“It’s the duty of us older folks to train the new generation.”

“Would you train anyone who asks?”

“Perhaps. Few have the determination to do so, let alone to see through to the end of the training.”

“I could see that… Is it not weird to be as strong as you are? I am still nowhere near that but… I barely feel human anymore.”

And the demon transformations aren’t helping.

“Power is but a tool. It does not change who you are, only what you can do. Simply being around people for long enough will alleviate this feeling of yours, try to avoid prolonged isolation. But the hard part is outliving those very same people. I never got used to it.”

“I don’t think I would want to get used to that. But I see, thanks for the advice… By the way, if the teleportation takes an hour, and you would sink the orbital temple by staying there for twenty minutes, how will you leave?”

“... How much do you know about teleportation?”

“I know the basics, soul tunnels, space stretching…”

“Good, then, what we are doing right now is sending your soul out there, it’s pretty far already.”

“Really? I don’t really feel a difference.”

“Because the mana link is uninterrupted. We will be using this to transport both of our bodies there, but I will make sure my soul stays here. After confirmation that the teleporter room is safe and that you can proceed, I will use my own soul and the path we just carved as the anchor for the return teleportation. Which will be much faster. If the teleportation platform on the other end is dysfunctional, this will not work, in which case I will bring you back with me on a space journey.”

“What about the quest?”

“If it comes to this, I am certain that the quest would become invalid and be canceled by your scribe.”

 

After almost an hour of idle conversation, which included asking about the Dragon handprint that Sky knew nothing about, Sofia felt space stretch around her. Before she knew it, she was sitting in a similar but larger room, with all kinds of tubes, buttons, levers and black slates around.

“Hmm, it seems everything worked perfectly. The situation also looks rather calm. This is your last chance to turn back, Sofia. You will not be able to reactivate the teleportation platform without clearing the station and reactivating the main engine, you do not have enough mana to teleport by yourself without it.”

“Activating the engine? How do I do that?”

“It should be pretty obvious when you see it is what Sun said. Will that be all? I must leave quickly,” Sky said, his voice uneasy.

“I will be alright, see you in a bit, prepare my reward in advance.”

Sky threw his head back in laughter. “Sure thing, Saintess, sure thing. Good luck.”

Gone. Just like that.

Alright, let’s see what present the Lords have left in this space temple. I said nothing, but it’s interesting that they would attack something unprompted like this, Sun must have been doing something that She shouldn’t have here. Was She really just trying to harvest Her own energy?

Sofia tried [Identify]ing the black slates on the walls only to be welcomed by an error message.

[ERROR]

[Couldn’t establish connection, user will enter temporary Scribe Only mode]

[To avoid operating slowdown, please keep at least 10 000 mana available at all times]

[Anomalies may arise]

[You will be reconnected when possible, until then many sub-systems will be unavailable]

Oh, yeah, right. Can’t establish connection. We’re just too far then.

Another [Identify] cast returned different results.

[Screen]: Used to display things, currently out of power.

Oh so it’s like the wall displays in the ranking tower, got it.

Looking around the closed room, Sofia managed to find a single working screen near the door. A few lines were displayed in weak red letters, written in elvish. Sofia smiled. Finally, studying that ‘Introduction to written Elvish’ I found in Zangdar’s castle is paying off!

‘Station Power Supply Control Panel

Power Supply Status :

Main Power Supply OFFLINE

Secondary Power Supply OFFLINE

Emergency Power Supply ONLINE

Current module status :

Trajectory correctors LOW-POWER

Temperature regulation LOW-POWER

Doors OFFLINE

Life support OFFLINE

Defense system OFFLINE

Transmission platform OFFLINE

Flare protection OFFLINE’

Below the lines, there was a drawing of only a few lines, labeled ‘trajectory’. It showed the temple represented by Sun’s rune, with a line showing its orbit around the sun. Along the orbit line a small note said ‘502 minutes per rotation’.

I don’t know what ‘Life support’ is for exactly but it feels like having this one be off isn’t such a good thing. The doors won’t open but that isn’t too much of an issue. I can redirect the power with the side buttons I think.

Sofia pushed the (-) button lined up with ‘Trajectory correctors’ and the (+) button for the ‘Life support module. The orbit line around the sun updated, showing that after about half a rotation, the station would end up inside the sun. Oh, that’s not good at all. She quickly reversed her changes, fixing the trajectory. So If I do that I change my deadline from three months to 4 hours.

Deciding that the best plan of action for now was probably not to change any parameters at all as the place was at least stable, she was about to quickly graveyard through the door when she felt a tremor.

Somehow, her body froze. This was not the instinctual reaction that had sometimes paralyzed her in the presence of higher beings like the Archangel, it was a different sensation she had only really felt twice in her life.

Aphenoreth?!