Did I lose consciousness?

NOPE!

Am I happy? Yup. That's kind of rare. Also, my left arm didn't explode. Sure, there are some massive bruises, a few cracked bones, and a missing pinkie on my leg. One missing eye. An ear that nearly tore off. Plenty of hurt inner organs. Nothing Lily wouldn't be able to handle.

But! Look at this.

Lvl 111Strength: 43Dexterity: 41Constitution: 112Mana: 327

Strength and Dexterity went up by 10 points each, and Constitution increased by 20 points! That's like getting 13 levels worth of stats, just by trying a little bit. That sounds all too good. I'll have to get Lily to heal me and try again, maybe I can improve on the process.

A few skills also leveled up.

[Mana Infusion - lvl 21 > Mana Infusion - lvl 22]

[Mana Infusion - lvl 22 > Mana Infusion - lvl 23]

[Mana Infusion - lvl 23 > Mana Infusion - lvl 24]

[Focus - lvl 33 > Focus - lvl 34]

Good, very good! My body hurts like hell and I will most likely get killed by Lily, but right now I'm happy.

“How are you even alive?” the creepy thing on the floor asks and I ignore it.

Not even a rude talking brooch will dampen my good mood.

“Well, anyways, there are still some parts where you are seriously lacking. It's called active tempering, not active ruiningyourownbody.”

"Huh, It's not the same?" I answer.

Also, isn't she too similar to me? Is it because of imprint imperfections or was she somehow affected by me? Being made from my hand and stuff.

Lissandra then continues to diss the entire process I did. She calls me dumb multiple times and calls my mana manipulations barely better than that of a 5-year-old child. But I sit there and listen. Even though she is rude, she gives some really good pointers and now that I went through it there is a bit more I can understand.

I find that I'm already getting used to this grumpy and high-standard imprint of the terrifyingly powerful Absolute. Yet, she is so different from the fake I met on the second floor. It's hard for me to bring myself to hate her for killing Ruby. Another reason is [Focus] that keeps all these emotions at bay and my knowing that Ruby would have died anyway.

Still, I need to be careful. I know for sure that she is willing to take over my body and mind the moment an opportunity arrives. She would do it without a moment of hesitation.

Then, the more we talk, the more I realize that its personality is really not perfect, as it also said. The imprint is not as dignified, it's missing some memories that Lissandra probably didn't want to share even with the imprint as she probably thought of the imprint as a different being from her. So she just gave it basics to make sure it would do what she wanted and have some skill to maybe take over someone from the tutorial and get out and then use coordinates to get to her original self.

Yet, the system messed with her plans a bit, either actively or passively.

Well, it's not like it matters that much, I just need to get said coordinates as it's something that interests me as well and then I also need to learn as much as possible from it before it spends all of its mana.

“So, little pup, you can't do it too often. I remind you of it once again. Even if you can handle it, your circuit and your pathways won't be able to. Also, the next time you will have to use even stronger energy to temper your body, or the result will be minimal, if it works at all.”

It's as I expected, but it doesn't matter. Getting a way to permanently strengthen my body without having to spend stat points on useless, inferior stats is good enough. I'm curious about what else she is hiding from me.

Give me, give me all the information and the secrets and hidden techniques! I need to know!

“Why did you look like a grandma back then?” I ask.

The brooch silences.

“Even Ruby looked young, there is no way you wouldn't be able to.”

It's still quiet and I can nearly hear it thinking about using its precious mana to torture me once again. I bet Lissandra is not used to people talking to her like this. Hell, just a single sneeze from her fake original self could probably kill me if she was not careful.

Then the brooch sighs, it's so weird that it almost makes me laugh, “There was no need to. And yes, just having your body at a certain level and strengthened with stats or mana is enough to keep your youthful appearance or even make some older people look younger.”

“Were you hot, when you were young?” I can't help but ask. Seeing her being so unsure about what to do now that she is a brooch somehow makes me want to bully her. To pay back for all the bullshit she did to me in this way.

But then a tiny bit of mana flies at me and I jump up, sending a few shields towards it. The mana passes through them as if they do not exist. It nearly looks like some weird version of [Disruption] that ignores my mana.

Then it continues to track me slowly before speeding up and hitting me.

Nothing happens.

“Uh?” I scan my body multiple times, not finding anything at all. Not a speck of mana, not what she did. She is probably just pretending to attack me and trying to throw me off.

I still start getting nervous.

“Silly little pup, you know what people fear the most?” the fleshy brooch says darkly while laying there unmoving in the middle of the room that is barely lit by my mana orb filled with thermal energy.

It's creepy.

“People fear the most things they don't understand, they fear the unexpected. Because when you don't know something and don't expect something you can't prepare yourself to defend against it.” Lissandra continues.

The wind rages outside and the creaking of the house now becomes louder.

“Now then, little pup, keep thinking about what I did, keep expecting my revenge. It might even take some time and you forget about it, but I promise when you expect it the least you will get your lesson for your potty mouth. Or maybe not. Maybe I'm trying to trick you and didn't want to waste more of my mana.”

Then the silence fills the room and the brooch looks somehow satisfied. Yup, this imprint really differs from Lissandra.

“So that means you weren't hot?” I can't help but say.

“Motherfuc…”

Lissandra went to sleep, or whatever brooches do when they are tired. What an assholish and petty grandma. She refuses it but now I'm sure she got somewhat similar to me. She probably just doesn't want to accept the fact that her imprint was imperfect to the point where it got affected by me. I swear when I meet her original self, I'll have my revenge.

But for now, before the night ends, I can look into two of my skills.

[Disruption] and [Oscillation].

These are the skills I've been thinking about a lot lately. Now that I have a better idea of how the system works and after talking to Lissandra, something seems amiss.

[Disruption] is what I use to disrupt mana, but from its name, it should be used to disrupt everything. It's not called [Mana Disruption]. So should I be able to disrupt the connection between some materials? At much higher levels, could I disrupt the connection between cells?

Then there is [Oscillation] that I mostly use to oscillate mana. To vibrate it, to make it more, and then I use it to increase the cutting force of my weapons. Once again, it's not called [Mana Oscillation].

After observing some monsters and watching Lissandra's weird mana just pass through my shields, something about them feels off. It's almost as if they should be just one skill and they haven't been growing as much as I would like them to. Is it a problem caused by having two skills with somewhat similar effects?

I don't know, but I asked Lissandra for a few hints and got some. So now, I'll try to combine them.

It's totally possible to combine two skills into one. If they are similar it's easier, but if their effects are too different it's almost impossible. That's where I think there might be a skill combination token in the future.

The system likes its tokens.

But enough of that. I enter [Focus] once again, ignore my wounds, and start using both of these skills at once.

[Disruption] is more intangible while [Oscillation] is more physical, but I try to use the second one on a piece of wood in my hand while attempting to apply the first one. The feeling is weird, so different, yet so similar. There's something both of the skills have in common.

At first, I try to use both skills at once, but after hours of feeling like it leads to nothing, I just use one of them while trying to use it as the other one.

Even the creepy brooch wakes up and surprisingly gives me a few pointers. I continue, and hours pass as I keep failing, only to receive a few more tips mixed with complaints about my terrible mana handling. But this time I don't filter her voice out and listen as her voice guides me through the process.

Lissandra easily identifies what I'm trying to do and even knows where I should go to get a good result, so she guides me there.

She doesn't give me everything on a silver platter, not at all. She makes me practice, try, and fail, all while leading me to the point where I come up with ideas and questions on my own.

I dislike her but she is extremely skilled.

Then, the night passes and the day comes. I once again lose track of time and multiple hours pass when finally the notification sounds.

Congratulations, you have acquired a new skill by combining [Disruption] and [Oscillation].

You have acquired a new skill: [Resonance]

[Resonance - lvl 0 > Resonance - lvl 9]

Haaa… my levels… why am I even surprised?

Congratulations, you have fulfilled four out of four conditions required to use the Beyond difficulty entrance token!

You can now enter Beyond once every four months.

Ehm, what?