Chapter 50 - About collars, bloodlines, and feeding

Chapter 50: Chapter 50 - About collars, bloodlines, and feeding The following day, we woke up as usual, and Yaci went to call Lovelace for breakfast. "Good morning, Aurea." "Good morning, Lovelace. Did you rest well?" "Yes, it was ok." Yaci brings us both bowls with nuts and dried fruits, which Lovelace starts to eat hungrily. "Lovelace... you did feed on my mana back in the dungeon, right?" "Hm? Oh, yes. It was delicious, by the way." "Thanks, I guess. But what I meant to ask is if that’s something you need to do frequently, or if normal food is enough." "To be honest, to feed on mana is better, but I can make do with normal food most of the time." "Most of the time, you say..." "Yeah. I can’t properly restore my own mana by resting, like you do, so I need to take it from living beings. All food is made with living beings, so I get mana through it." "But it isn’t enough when you need to replenish a bigger quantity..." "Exactly. And if my mana gets too low, I revert to that form." "I got it. So, whenever you need it, feed on mine before that happens." "You don’t mind?" "I guess it’s better than having to fight you again." I laugh, while Yaci just looks at us, trying to make sense of our conversation. "How did you feed on her in the dungeon?" "Ahhnnn..." "Ngh... Yaci, some things are better left unsaid. You don’t want to know the details of the fight. Trust me on that, please." "Was it that bad?" "Please..." "Okay, okay... sheesh." "Thank you." At this moment, Lovelace sighs and says to me. "I think that I might be able to do something to make up a little for the pain I inflicted on you." "There’s no need to do anything, really." "But I want to. Please, allow me to do it for you." "And what is it?" "Your collar." "My... Oh." I’ve been a bit worried that the collar might become too tight as my body grows, but most of the time I simply forget about it. I reach my hand to my neck. "You mean this?" "Exactly. I won’t promise anything, but if I analyze it, I might be able to undo its sealing magic." "That would be amazing." I have an Appraise Object skill that allows me to do analysis of any object, as long as I can see it directly. The biggest limitation is that sight requirement. I can’t appraise spoken words, nor can I appraise invisible objects or things I see through a reflection. Which meant I wasn’t ever able to appraise my own collar. And this collar seems to have some built-in function that blocks any attempt at tampering by the person wearing it. I asked for the shamans of the tribe to take a look at it, but they were none the wiser about it. Now it seems that I’ve been thrown a lifeline, in the form of Lovelace. "Please, you can do it whenever you want!" "As soon as I finish eating, then." "Okay." I look at Yaci, and she has a smile from ear to ear. "So, when we rescue everyone, we will be able to also take the collars out of them?" "Possibly." "Lovelace, there have been more than one thousand years of magical development in collar security. Do you think that you’re up to it?" That was me, suddenly remembering the whole thing about the arms race between mages and collar makers. They’re always trying to outdo each other, which means that the collars only get more and more secure over time. But Lovelace only smiles wryly. "Do you think that I would create this whole System without giving myself some cheats?" She answers, tapping her own head. I mean, she has a point. And it got me curious. "I have a title that basically keeps me up to date with security magic development." She basically answered the question that was written on my face. "That’s a huge cheat. I want some of those, too." "I don’t have admin rights anymore. I’ve tried to access it a couple of times ever since we left the dungeon." "Of course. She wouldn’t be that stupid." "At least you have a system, Aurea. I don’t even have access to that." "Could we hack the system to give beastkin access to it?" "I don’t have the memories anymore, so the answer for now is no. Even if I analyze it all over again and reverse engineer it, it would take too long." "Longer than what you took to implement it?" "Without the memories, it would be like learning how the engine works all over again before being able to start making sense of the code." "What? What does that mean?" "How do you know those words???" Yaci was obviously completely confused by Lovelace’s analogy, yet it made sense to me. What baffled me was to hear that terminology in this context. Lovelace just sighs, taking some time to think things through before answering. "Yaci, to answer your question in lay terms, it just means that I don’t even remember the basic knowledge I would need to analyze the complex magic of the system." "Oh, okay." "And Aurea... You know I can read memories, right? Thing is, even though the person itself forgot those memories, the data is still in the brain, stored somewhere. I can access that as well. I used it to read some books from the goddess’ world." "She let you access her memories?" "She would block everything except information related to video games, programming languages, and algorithms." "Got it... and that title you mentioned before, doesn’t it work on the system?" "I purposefully left any information related to dealing with the system outside of the scope of any titles, so people wouldn’t exploit it." "Makes sense..." "In other words, the skills needed to craft one of those collars are absolutely nothing compared to those needed to deal with the system." She eats the last fruits in her bowl and then approaches me. "Now, let me take a closer look at this." I stay still as she looks at the collar, with a faint blue aura coming from her eyes. Does that also come from mine when I’m appraising an object as well? Gotta ask Yaci later. At some point, she starts muttering the words of an aria, and making some gestures with her hand. The aria is a weird one. I understand most of the words, thanks to my knowledge of the Draconic language, but the way they are put together makes no sense to me. At some time, I feel a jolt of pain in my neck, as if receiving a shock from a taser. "I’m sorry about that. I pulled the wrong thing. I’ll try to be more careful." I make an effort not to chuckle at the irony of being tased myself and keep trying to unravel the aria she keeps muttering under her breath. Yeah, I guess theoretical knowledge of the ancient language can only take me so far, after all. There’s nothing like actual experience. I would have never dreamed of creating an aria like this one. At least, not with the knowledge I have right now. After half an hour, I hear the sound of something creaking and then breaking. Suddenly, I don’t feel the pressure of the collar on my neck anymore. Lovelace is holding it in her hands. I reach my own hands to my neck, and there’s nothing there. It feels so goooooooood.