He took a moment to look at the spider still facing the wall, unmoving, her Mana undisturbed. Hopefully, she didn't notice anything from what happened to him, but he couldn't be sure, as the F-grade creature would certainly be better than Olkan at detecting anything happening to his body.
The Skills listed on his Status felt nicely filled out now, including a nice little surprise.
Skills: Mana Shroud (Rare, Proficiency G.3), Mind-Soul Bulwark (Rare, Proficiency G.1), Attuned Drill Strike (Rare)
Not only did he get [Attuned Drill Strike], but somehow his defensive skill gained its first proficiency level. Looking into the construct at the center of his chest, Axl could see the neat little cube exactly as before, still a small box around the marble of his soul. Only looking more closely, with the full attention of his Skill, could he sense that the Mental barriers had a solidity that wasn’t there before.
He started to understand why the possibility of getting a Dao glimpse drove Olkan to such a dramatic turn. This thing not only gave him a Rare Skill option in addition to his other ones—a better result than simply upgrading a choice like Terraria offered, it also added a proficiency to a Skill as a freebie. And this was with him not having any clue what this was or how to control it.
Still, Axl set any more thoughts on the Dao aside, not wanting to rouse any suspicion in Moxlin about what was going on. Or Nox, of course.
"Alright, done," he said, letting some of his contentment show. After all, I'd be suspicious if he were too defensive about his gains. "Thanks for the tip, by the way, combining my boons worked quite well."
Moxlin turned, her many legs a flurry of enthusiastic motion. "Right? Right? My first boon would only increase my proficiency to [Glyphic Inscription] by one step, not bad by any means, better than the measly free Attribute points most people get, but the combination let me split the technical art! I now have [Weaveshadow Glyphic Arrays] too, which really lets me specialize more without diluting my proficiency. I've heard people even getting new Skills this way, but I preferred my result, actually."
Axl nodded, glad to get the sense of what two combined boons would do, and that as a baseline, it just gave you extra free Attributes to distribute. But it was still too suspicious that this spider would just spill so much about her. His every memory from Roken made cultivators come across as a suspicious, secretive bunch, and his experience with Olkan only reinforced that.
"So, the reward for Nox's quest?" he asked.
"Yes, yes!" she said, jumping up and down. "Let me clear out some space to show you the options."
Axl's eyes followed the little spider closely, seeing the Mana churn in her as she activated a movement skill, a small thread of silk from one of her legs reaching her destination, then her body quickly zipping across it, her legs all splayed out. It was very telegraphed, taking a full second to gear up, and a small disturbance in her Mana preceded her appearance, not to mention her raising a foreleg to activate it. Her lackluster use of the Skill was further emphasized by her struggling to move away small rocks slightly larger than her, grunting at the effort.
Somehow, this small spider was different than the F-Grade four-legged ones he saw earlier, and figured that the few Attributes she got per level with an Uncommon class meant he had better Attributes across the board than even the ones she focused on. It was a relief, and seemed logical, since why would Nox use one of her elites to simply ferry some rewards to a generally safe part of her territory? Not to mention the little spider's class also specialized in crafting, so her Skills would also not be battle-oriented.
Axl felt bad now, seeing the hand-sized spider struggling to move little pieces of rubble around, and he easily swiped away the remaining rocks for her until a small patch of ground was mostly clear. He even brushed against her, surprised how soft the dense fur was on her body, the little spider now looking more like a small dog than a murderous creature.
"Behold, the result of all your hard work!" In a blink, three things were in front of her: a sheathed sword, a folded set of clothing, and a leather-bound book. "Spin me into a fleshsack! This is not at all what I expected!"
"You didn't know what you were bringing?"
"No! I just had it in my secret hole, not my usual hole. Good thing too, if I'd have known, by my girl hole I'd be tempted to try to get a peek at that book… Here's the proper notification."
>>Nox of the Void Quest: Provenance Trial.
>>Update: Complete
>>Reward: Choice of one of three gifts from Nox.
>>Accept: Yes/No?
Axl accepted, eager to get his mind off the spider's various holes, and more information popped up.
>> Kodachi of the flowing strike (G-Grade, upgradable to F)
>>A sword made from a single piece of Helkan, endowed by an inspiration of the F-Grade artisan producing it to grant the weapon unusually refined Mana transmission. Hilt array provides limited self-repair.<<
>> Sheersilk armor set (G-Grade, upgradable to F)
>>A full matching armor set made by the in-house artisans of Nox of the Void with high-grade spider silk, enhanced by Nox herself with internal arrays providing additional defense from physical attacks. Includes limited self-cleaning and self-repairing arrays.<<
>> Selsin Clan Glyphic Compendium (F-Grade)
>>The full glyphic compendium of the pre-conversion Selsin Clan, including all G and F grade insights, recipes, and typical progression paths. Cover includes strong curatorial preservation and bibliographic arrays. Requires soul-binding.<<
Axl couldn't help but drool at the first two options. The sword seemed perfect for his use of [Mana Shroud] and he'd bet that if he'd worn the armor set his arm wouldn't have been messed up by just a glancing blow from Puppy's head.
The third option was a bit odd, however. The other two seemed like something hand-picked for him, from what Nox was likely to have observed since he got into the bamboo grove. While he certainly was enamored with the idea of the glyphs that made up the ice-box back in Roken's apartment, he doubted she'd been seeing that far away, at the very least because at that point he was just some random elf in a dead city.
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"Why am I being offered this book?" he couldn't help but ask.
"You mean the best thing ever that I've ever seen in my entire life ever?" The tiny fangs of Moxlin's mouth chittered rapidly. "I don't think you know how rare a full compendium is, most of us have to piece things together from fragmented sources or endless experimentation. This lets you have a clear path! I just want to eat a leg, this is so sticky! I didn't even know mommy had stuff like this lying around."
"Why doesn't she share this with her own artisans? I mean, you could just study from it and pass it on?"
"It probably needs soul-binding, right?" she looked up at him, her big eyes somehow looking comically forlorn, blinking slowly.
Axl nodded, pretty sure that spiders back in Sol didn't have eyelids. "Yeah?"
She shook her head. "This means you need to bring it into your soulspace to use it, since it adapts the text to your Skills and inclinations, even to the stuff you have available, to some extent. It then can only come out when you die or cut off a piece of your soul to pass it on."
"I have to say, the idea of bringing something into my soul doesn't seem very appealing."
Moxlin dramatically rolled her eyes at him. "Too late for that, you got a positively wretched dimensional pouch glommed onto it. It's like refusing to savor the shimmering dew butterfly at its tender first molting, but you eat fistfuls of maggots from the trash."
Axl chuckled at the visual. "Fair enough, I didn't know a dimensional pouch did something like that."
"But seriously, wait," Moxlin jumped up to a nearby stone to be roughly eye-level with him. "No messing around anymore. The weapons and armor are great, but they're ultimately only going to be good for you in the short term. Mistress Nox would only offer you this book if she thought you could make use of it, and from what I saw about your Mana control back there, I have to agree. I know using glyphs is not typical for Oocile's subsystem, but it's perhaps the most versatile form of external Mana manipulation, useful for spellcasting, talismans, arrays, alchemy, leg me—even beast taming or spirit walking if you're creative."
Axl thought back to the potions that basically repaired his ruined arm. "Alchemy, you say? Like to make healing potions?"
"Yes!" Moxlin exclaimed, lifting a pair of forelegs in excitement. "The heavenly craft! I find it too dangerous for my taste, working so closely with fire and all, but there is no better way to get into potion-making than glyphic alchemy."
He also didn't fail to notice the book included knowledge of both the G and F grades, while the others needed to be upgraded to F, and who knows if he'd get the chance at the Shrouded Crescent. More than anything else, however, he was ridiculously curious to learn about those glyphs.
"Why are you so set on my choosing this thing," Axl asked. "Do you get some sort of commission?"
"I am not holding anything back, promise!" she nearly shouted, raising up two pairs of legs now, clearly having misheard him saying omission. "You and all the other big ones are so sensitive. Us crafting artisans are supposed to do this kinda thing, every single array or talisman I put together is to help the nest, after all. Why wouldn't I just help out this way too? I literally spend all day thinking about covering up deficiencies and capitalizing on strengths. Ignoring the input from a support class just leaves your weaknesses flapping about in the wind. Not to mention that being so paranoid will only sour your webbing, and then nobody will want to play with your girl holes. Like, just the other day—"
"Fine, fine," Axl interrupted, not liking where the rant was heading. "I choose the book."
"Great!" Moxlin beamed, her mood turned on a dime. "Go ahead and take it."
The other two items disappeared with a swipe of the spider's leg, and Axl took his prize, the large tome much heavier than it seemed.
>>Accept soul-binding with Selsin Clan Glyphic Compendium (F-Grade)? Yes/No
He mentally selected yes and the book simply disappeared, almost throwing him off balance. It was now lodged firmly in his mind, an object as easy to manipulate as the space in his pouch. Better, even, since he was able to leaf through the book effortlessly, even hold separate pages from different sections next to each other. There was a small problem, however.
"The vent?" Axl turned to the spider. "I can't understand any of this!"
"What? How come?" Moxlin turned her head in confusion. "I'm sure the book uses more of the expanded sixty-five thousand than most sources, but the core two hundred and fifty-six should be enough for most of the G-grade stuff."
Axl pinched the bridge of his nose in annoyance, regretting masking his ignorance so thoroughly. "I don't know the two hundred and whatever. I don't even know any glyphs at all! Hell, I've basically only been a cultivator for two days!"
"Now you're just being silly," Moxlin chuckled, but then paused when seeing Axl's frown deepen. "Wait, what? Nobody taught you to read? No, wait, you’ve only been cultivating for how long?"
Axl sighed, defaulting to the cover story he really should've mentioned earlier. "I was a simple store clerk in Piril, and know spoken and written Saptish, plus enough maths for the simple accounting at the store. Everything else I picked up out of necessity when the Undead Legion attacked the city."
"Oh, I'm so sorry! I was so sure you were some secret disciple of mommy’s. I had no idea! Ohhhhh, I probably shouldn't have told you so much about my build."
"Yeah, probably not."
Moxlin paused for a moment, then shrugged. "Oh well, good luck not dying!"
"Oh no, you don't!" Axl lunged forward, grabbing the small spider. Her entire body easily fit in his hand, only her tiny head and a single leg sticking out of his closed fist. "You're going to fix this, you little shit."
"Aaarg! What are you doing?" She squirmed in his grip, but it was as he expected. She wasn't very strong, even if she was a higher grade than him. Apparently, she also couldn’t use Skills when [Mana Shroud] kept Mana pooled in his hand, disrupting her Mana flow to some extent. Not to mention that she had a complete lack of battle instincts, not even reacting as he picked her up. If anything, the surprisingly soft fur densely covering her body tickled as she squirmed.
"Let me go right now, or I will tell on you!"
"You got me saddled with a book I can't use instead of gear that would keep me alive, so you're gonna teach me those glyphs."
"But… But your quest? You can't just go back to the nest for training, right?"
"It’s a week's march to the Shrouded Crescent Valley, I can walk and learn at the same time. And I'm sure momm—Honorable Mistress Nox wouldn't mind further improving the odds of my success with a little bit more help." He said the last bit louder, looking around to hopefully get at least an implicit okay from the crafter's master.
"You dumb meanie, I'm not doing—" the spider suddenly stopped flailing. "Oh, hey, I just got a quest to help you."
Axl looked aside at his own notification.
>>Quest: Basic glyphistry training
>>Reach Proficiency G.2 with any form of glyphistry under the tutelage of Moxlin within 7 days.
>>Reward: Choice of glyphic Skill.
>>Pending approval by Moxlin
He lifted up the little spider buried in his hand. "What do you say, honorable teacher Moxlin?"
But she was looking at him with overt fear. "Just who are you, really? This isn't a teaching quest from Nox or some subsystem, this is from the Deep System itself."
"And with the benefits to match, I take it?"
"Yeah, it seems too good to be true. But seven days, that's impossible. It takes full-time artisans years to reach the second proficiency in anything, sometimes decades."
"Nox herself told me the System can't give out impossible quests," he replied, stretching the truth a bit about what she actually told him. "Maybe you'll find me an unusually quick study. And who knows, I might share some of the knowledge from that book you were so excited about."
Moxlin stared at him, and Axl could see the moment greed took over common sense. He got a notification that the quest was approved by Moxlin, so he accepted as well, and opened his hand.
"First I have to go deal with some wolves, then we start our first lesson."
"Aiaaaa," Moxlin flung up a pair of legs in the air in exasperation. "Already you start being a difficult student."