Chapter 571: Chapter 564: Warmup

Cursive illusory letters appeared above the orb.

Hydrogen.

After a short silence, a clear ‘ding’ echoed as if someone had flicked a bell, and a series of numbers appeared.

0.1

That must be the mana cost…

“Is it not working?” she asked, not feeling any change.

“No it probably is,” Everelle answered. “Hydrogen is an invisible gas. Can’t even smell it. It’s very explosive, though.”

Velania just nodded at the knowledge she already had. “It’s working perfectly! Any other questions before I go? You have a minute.”

“I have two, actually,” Everelle said, “does it have to be a ‘one word’ word? And is there no no-repeat rule?”

“Usually any concept up to three words is fine, four is pushing it,” Velania answered, “and the mana costs are based on both your understanding of the thing you summon and the actual energy needed to summon it, so while you can try to repeat a word, it probably will be the same mana cost both times. All good? My turn!”

Sofia had already retracted her hand to let Velania put hers on the orb.

“Deuterium!”n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

The same process repeated, and a value appeared with a ding.

‘Deuterium; 0.15’

Again, although the word seemed to be valid, nothing obvious happened.

Another invisible gas?

Everelle mumbled from the side, “No dihydrogen then… Values work about how I guessed, I’m surprised they aren’t much smaller… I thought the energy conversion was much better than that…” She looked at Velania and spoke up, “You already know exactly what you’re going to play for several rounds, don’t you?”

Velania did not answer, simply flashing her a cute smile.

I would probably already be getting a curse mark if not for Everelle… This game isn’t all that fair when one side already has the information they need. If you’ve already played you have a huge advantage…

Luckily, Sofia had an advantage of her own, and though Everelle could only give three words by herself, she was still allowed to talk to Sofia the rest of the time as long as she did not give a word. Evidently, then, the best strategy was to cheat.

“Sofia, go with list 3,” Everelle said after some consideration, seconds before the timer ran out.

“Got it,” Sofia quickly said, placing her hand on the orb.

List 3…

“Helium three,” Sofia recited from memory, having absolutely no idea what the thing was, but guessing it had to be another gas.

*Ding*

‘Helium-3; 0.25’

As soon as Sofia took her hand off, Velania got her next word in.

“Flash!”

Flash? How do you even assign that a value? Is it arbitrary? Depending on how bright it is?

With a ding, the orb shone green for an instant, producing a brief flash of light.

‘Flash; 0.5’

“Shit… Of course that could work…” Everelle said from the side, sounding a slight bit worried, “No matter… Continue with list three for now.”

Sofia nodded and gave the next word on the list, this one she knew of.

“Carbon.”

‘Carbon; 0.9’

It seemed the orb pulled the image directly out of Sofia’s head, as the surrounding floor was instantly covered in a thin layer of black dust, like the Erredian rot usually left behind.

“T- This one normally just makes coal…” Velania commented, surprised by the appearance of the carbon dust.

“I’m more used to it in this form,” Sofia answered with a shrug.

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“Alright… Well. The real game starts later…” Velania said, preparing for her next word; “Oxygen.”

‘Oxygen; 1.2’

“We’re just setting things up for this room to go up in flames at this point…” Everelle said from the side as more invisible gas filled the room, visibly pushing the carbon dust around.

“That’s the idea,” Velania admitted with a nod.

“Should you really admit to that?” Sofia asked.

“No point in hiding it if you already know. I expected that you would get a few cursemarks from the beginning but I’m happy it's not the case.”

“We have my college degree to thank for that,” Everelle commented, “but I feel like the usefulness of that is about to run out. Still surprised that these things aren't censored. Switch to list 4.”

“Aluminum,” Sofia said next, prompting a tall stack of shiny gray metal ingots to appear next to her.

‘Aluminum; 2’

“Titanium!” Velania immediately continued, making a similar, if slightly less shiny, stack of ingots appear on her side.

‘Titanium; 3.5’

“Did you not say censoring was mostly for historical things?” Velania then asked Everelle.

“Anything having to do with ‘advanced’ science is usually quick to get caught by the filter as well,” she answered.

“Really? But advanced science is quite common, no?” Velania asked with incomprehension, “Is the elemental table really considered advanced science?”

The elemental table? She says that like it’s common knowledge but I’ve never even heard about it?

“As I thought you know the periodic table…” Everelle replied, “And to think It got censored the two times I tried to bring it up before… As you can guess it’s not really something that’s being taught at all these days.”

“Are there no elven academies everywhere anymore?” Velania then asked.

“There are academies, but no elven academies as far as I know,” Sofia answered, “They teach almost exclusively magic and related knowledge fields. Though I do know elves used to have more different technology using electricity, but they also pretty much just use magic now,” she said, before going on to the next word on list 4, since Everelle hadn’t told her to change, “Zirconium.”

Cutting it close on the timer. More ingots?

‘Zirconium; 6.5’

More ingots. For a game this isn’t all that fun so far. But I guess if the fairies know they’re going to be playing it, these first rounds would go super fast. I would truly be lost without Everelle… I’ll really need to thank Cinthia for her recommendations...

“They gave up on it?” Velania asked, seeming quite sad about the idea, “I really liked the elven cities… All the colored lights and the tall buildings…” She stopped to think for a few seconds, “I think last time I visited their discovery museum they were experimenting with making some kind of tube with coils of tungsten.” She had quickly placed her hand on the orb before saying the last word.

‘Tungsten; 12.9’

A pile of silvery wire coils appeared next to the titanium ingots, Velania bent over to pick one and show it to Sofia and Everelle, “Just like this!”

“The elves were making CRTs?!” Everelle finally realized. “What I wouldn’t give for a working TV right about now…”

“TV? CRT?” Sofia asked.

“I don’t know either,” Velania said.

“Wait, none of this got censored?” Everelle said, having a hard time to believe it. “The system must be really fried, I won’t complain about it, though, give me a damn tv! I want to watch ***** again!”

“Oh, you got censored a bit there, I think,” Velania noted.

“So it’s not completely broken… Also you can keep going down the list Sofia, though we’re at the end of it…”

“That won’t be an issue, we are already at amounts of mana that I can properly visualize, I could play normally I think. No reason not to take the free round, though; Bismuth.”

‘Bismuth; 14.6’

A small pile of strangely-shaped colorful rocks appeared on the ground.

“Woah!” Velania said in shock, “So pretty! How come the bismuth I summon is all gray and sad?”

“You need to melt it down and pull out crystals as it starts to cool down,” Everelle explained, “Now are we starting the real game, or are you going to pull out the radioactive elements?”

“Radioactive?” Sofia repeated, completely lost.

“We’re starting the real game,” Velania confirmed with a nod and a small smirk. She raised her normal hand and placed her scarred hand on the orb, “Spark.”

‘Spark; 20’

A ball of electrical sparks formed in her left hand, the air seemed to catch flame like an oil-soaked paper, and the room was engulfed in a gigantic explosion.

Sofia was surprised, but she was also unscathed. The explosion was strong enough to reduce any normal human to a burned crisp, but it was too weak to even get past [Dodge - me] distortion field. The flames and shockwave just curved around Sofia, only the heat could reach her, and it was barely hot enough to mention.

Is Everelle good?

When the explosion died down, Everelle was covered by a pitch-black ball, while Velania was just standing where she had been, busy trying to cover the scarred half of her face back with the hair that the explosion’s blast had pushed away. The ball around Everelle then deflated and moved away, revealing that it had just been a sunless drone acting as a shield.

“Well, Sofia, all yours now. The scaling from here on out is a bit weird, judging from the sparks, I have honestly no idea how it will work. I’ll keep my fun words for the end game if we get there,” the Sunless hero said, a smile in her voice.

“Fine with me, we still have no curse mark so I don’t doubt we’ll get there. Let’s see, more than twenty mana, forty at most…” I could take a page from Erian’s skill book? Speaking of, I should maybe go and fix his and everyone else’s memory after this. Alright. If I remember the mana cost correctly…

“Bear trap.”

‘Bear trap; 30’

Hundreds of armed bear traps appeared all over the ground, some of them flat on the floor, some of them haphazardly placed on the ingots and debris that littered the whole room after the previous explosion.

“Careful where you step,” Sofia said to Velania, “Your turn.”