After the Conquest, Time to Start "Training"
[Huh? That tickles... What did you do to me?]
The Fate-Substitution Talisman Doll reacted, then fell silent for a moment, as if sensing the change.
"Well? How do you feel?"
Xie Yu was pondering what permanent activation meant. Perhaps the doll could walk and wave like a person, or perhaps it had gained greater intelligence... He roughly considered several possibilities, but none seemed quite to match the literal meaning.
Come to think of it, other things didn't have this option. Had the special "Lifelong Entrustment" appeared because Sealed Artifacts themselves had a certain living quality?
There were many questions waiting to be explored. Xie Yu squeezed the Fate-Substitution Talisman Doll and found it was still hard, seemingly not transformed into a soft creature that could move.
[I think I can sense magic now, your human magic... Oh my, just what did you...]
Xie Yu was taken aback. He could hear the surprise in the Sealed Artifact's tone, but he didn't understand what its words meant.
What did it mean, it could sense magic?
As a complete amateur of a mage who hadn't even gotten started, Xie Yu didn't understand what the doll was so surprised about.
Weren't Sealed Artifacts also things that belonged to the field of magic?
They had tangible and intangible powers and means of "casting spells." Being able to sense magic hardly seemed worth mentioning.
"And then?" Xie Yu squeezed it again, urging it on.
[Sealed Artifact 3-0771 (Affection 100 [permanent, omitted from display hereafter]) was overcome with delight. It discovered that it seemed to have surpassed the ranks of Sealed Artifacts, becoming able to do something no Sealed Artifact could do, but that humans could do easily.
[It was certain that all these changes had come about because of you and were your gift. (Faith rose to 20)]
[It said excitedly:]
[I can cast spells now! I can use the spells you humans invented. Look.]
After Affection had permanently settled at 100, Faith had appeared... Xie Yu watched.
The light around the doll flickered faintly.
A tiny voice, sounding somewhat strained, came from Xie Yu's pocket:
"Surge of spirit, I hear the echoes!"
Xie Yu didn't feel a thing. Everything seemed perfectly ordinary. The air was still air, the room was still the room, and even the inn's fabric curtains remained motionless.
[I detected it, I detected it! That pillow is filled with down, there are cotton slippers in the bedside drawer, there's an uncleaned patch of dust under the bed, and there's limescale in the toilet tank. I saw it all.]
Xie Yu watched quietly.
After seeing Kaiming and Wig Brown's detection abilities, he had actually assumed all along that this little Sealed Artifact 3-0771, which belonged to the domain of spirit and soul, could do all that too. After all, they belonged to the same domain. It seemed only natural that a supposedly powerful and mysterious Sealed Artifact could do the little things mages could do.
He had never looked closely into what Sealed Artifacts could and couldn't do. He had simply felt that, since they were no less powerful than mages, they ought to be able to do everything mages could.
After all, both the general magic textbook and the answers provided by The Petulant Test Paper described Sealed Artifacts as "able to do things mages cannot."
The Abnormal State powers of Sealed Artifacts, such as 3-0771's ability to substitute a life, were extremely difficult for ordinary mages to replicate with magic.
As for "things Sealed Artifacts cannot do, but mages can," such a way of putting it and such a perspective were rarely seen, and no one asked questions like that.
Come to think of it, Sealed Artifacts were still regarded as objects. Human mages had no reason to demand that an "object" be able to use all sorts of magic.
Xie Yu did not yet know what kind of change he had brought to this world.
He was merely thinking:
"So Sealed Artifacts can't use magic!"
That made sense. If Sealed Artifacts could master all kinds of spells on their own, there would seemingly be no place for human mages.
After that thought, Xie Yu suddenly remembered that he himself didn't seem to know much magic either.
If even Sealed Artifacts could use magic, wouldn't that make him inferior to a Sealed Artifact?
[Sealed Artifact 3-0771 (Faith 20) curiously examined the world around it, like a newborn baby:]
[Wait, that cane has a hidden compartment! There's something inside.]
Following the Fate-Substitution Talisman Doll's words, Xie Yu looked at the cane he had left standing against the wall beside the bedside table. At its upper end was a rounded, metal-rimmed head with a glittering gemstone.
It was the cane Mr. Kaiming had left behind, and it had a nice feel and weight to it.
"A hidden compartment?" Xie Yu stepped forward and picked up the cane.
[The loyal solid-wood cane (Affection 100) heard your words and suddenly woke up:]
[Yes, I have a hidden compartment! Mr. Kaiming even stuffed something inside this morning! That damned impostor didn't take it away!]
[If you hadn't mentioned it, I would have almost forgotten. Quick, open me up and have a look.]
"How do I open it?"
Xie Yu ran his fingers over it for a while. The metal patterns on the rounded head fitted tightly together, and he couldn't seem to find any mechanism.
He shook it, but there was no sound from inside, either.
[The loyal solid-wood cane (Affection 100) recalled:]
[You need both hands. Use six fingers to press the six little rubies on the sides, one in each of six directions, all at the same time. Press them down hard. Quick, press me.]
Having the cane explain the mechanism itself saved a great deal of trouble. There was no need to find a master locksmith.
Following the cane's instructions, Xie Yu gripped it with both hands and applied pressure in an awkward position.
With a click, the top quietly flipped open.
Inside was a flawless piece of white crystal, as thick as a finger. There seemed to be a cylindrical cavity at its center, filled with a brilliantly golden, fluid substance that looked like some kind of medicinal liquid.
The white crystal was completely intact, without a single opening or joint. There was no telling how the liquid had been put inside.
"A potion? A potion concentrate?"
Xie Yu's limited knowledge of magic helped him recognize what it was.
[The ill-tempered Flame Gold-Melting Potion (Affection 0) greatly disliked light and disliked being disturbed while it slept:]
[What are you looking at? If you like looking so much, why don't you take me out into the sun and have a good, close look?]
[Then see if I don't blow you to death!]
[When that happens, if your dad can find even one grain of your ashes in this building's ruins, I'll admit defeat.]
This was clearly not in the same league as the "focus potion" Xie Yu had drunk before his exam. The liquid in the crystal was extremely dense. The potion he had drunk before had been thin as water, and its container had been an ordinary glass bottle.
[The loyal solid-wood cane (Affection 100) continued to recall:]
[I've seen this! This is the concentrate for a fire magic amplification potion. It was purchased at an extremely steep discount from the client "traveling merchant Green's mother" for 190 gold coins. I think Kaiming intended it as a gift for Fry.]
"That expensive?" Xie Yu put it back in the cane's hidden compartment, afraid he might drop it.
Apparently, the potion had to be stored away from light, and Xie Yu respected that.
Finding the potion was an unexpected bonus, though unfortunately he couldn't use it for now.
He looked back at the Fate-Substitution Talisman Doll and asked:
"Then how many stars would you be as a human mage?"
[Hmm, in terms of spirit and soul power, I might be close to four stars... If you're asking about my spellcasting level, probably a magic apprentice? Please don't look down on me...]
[I only remember a few spells. After all, I couldn't cast them before, so there was no point learning them.]
"I'm not looking down on you. Oh, right, you must know how to read. If you can read, you should be able to read books," Xie Yu mused.
The mechanism called permanent activation seemed to have enormous potential to be explored.
[Sealed Artifact 3-0771 (Faith 20), which disliked reading, was shocked:]
[Me, read books?]