Noelle sat down on her couch, exhausted. It was day 12 of her life as a Misha. She had no idea what she was doing but somehow, she had been put in charge of creating a type of magic that could store effects in crystals and release them later on.

  “What in Hourai’s name is lil’ bro planning? There is no way that he put us in a situation like this to just dispel those curses.”

  Noelle played with a crystal, realizing that Agnis had hijacked their plan and repurposed it.

  “He is a 9t after all, I shouldn’t be surprised but… I still am.”

  Noelle got up and grabbed a stack of research papers and started going through them. “It’s as if I’m back to Hourai’s home tutoring…”

  Her integration in the Misha community was successful, a bit too successful. She looked slightly different from most Misha and this had drawn others toward her, making her relatively popular in no time.

  She knew how to handle popularity, but it would hinder her in finding methods to dispel the deadly sin curses. That’s what she thought, but now that she was in charge of this research she could steer it in any direction.

  “Hmm, how about having the magic in the crystals dispel powerful curses so that the need for an expert lessens?” She shuffled through the research papers and found two that had a similar concept.

  She put them apart to read later.

  She was curious about Giana and Agnis, Raishin was in Yvonne’s care and vice versa, so she was worried the most about her own performance but she was curious about the foxes.

  Noelle, or more accurately, Melody left her reinforced house and started heading toward the market square, bought some commodities and located the stands that sold fish.

  Two Misha were causing a ruckus and one of them was caught in a headlock. Melody smiled. “Heh, they’re so easy to find.”

  She walked over to them and ‘Introduced’ herself. “Good morning, my name is Melody Crystalsole. I got curious about your interactions.”

  This party-pooper here is my sister, Athena. I’m Minerva Dragoncall.

  The headlock around Minerva tightened. “Please don’t pay mind to my idiot sister, it’s nice to meet you. How can we help you?”

  Melody couldn’t help but feeling impressed, she knew that these two were Agnis and Giana but they gave off a completely different feel, their behavior was similar yet different.

  “I just got curious on what you two might be researching.”

  I could tell you, but then I will have to kill you!

  “Can you just act normal to strangers for once?!” Athena said as she tightened her headlock. “Sure, but here might not be a great place, mind coming over to our house?”

  Don’t blame us if you get cursed the moment you step inside!

  Athena started twisting Minerva’s ear.

  Owowow! This is torture! A crime! Ok sister, I get it! I will behave!

  The surrounding Misha seemed amused by their interaction. Agnis had told them that Misha had no sense of humor, but it seemed that that might have changed.

  Athena and Minerva lead Melody to a house that resembled a coiling dragon.

  “This… this is your house?” Melody asked in awe.

  Heh, it’s amazing, eh? My sister worked her ass off for it!

  “And why are you bragging like I did everything? You do the strangest things… I was in charge of the aesthetics; Minerva was in charge of the seals and security of our house.” Athena said as she pointed at Minerva, who was proudly marveling at the coiled dragon house.

  While the material structure of the house was similar to all the other houses, Noelle could tell that it was otherwise impregnable. She had a question for Agnis, but that might have to wait till she got inside.

  Come in, come in!

  Minerva used something akin to a foxfire and opened the lock to their home. Noelle had learned the hard way on how Misha locked their doors. Her lock opened by a physical key made out of crystals. She had to add specific magical signatures in it to make it similar to a Misha lock.

  The disguises on Athena and Minerva dropped, the moment the door closed.

  “This is extremely secure. I have a question Agnis, if you can make a house impregnable, why can’t you do this to yourself?” Melody asked as she eyed an extremely fluffy couch.

  It’s location bound, and I attached it to a spatial lock. I would have to stay stationary if I want to benefit from these effects.

  “Hmm, not your style I suppose. I came here wondering how you were doing but…” Melody looked at Giana who she regarded as her sister. “Giana looks hotter than the last time, and she seems to be glowing.”

  Yeah, I recently recovered from Giana ‘devouring’ me. She went at it for 3 days and immobilized me for 1 day… I was right in avoiding vixens, but I’m glad that it happened now.

  “Oh finally! Took you long enough! You might be physically fast, but you’re slow in this!”

  Yes yes, I know. So how are you doing?

  Agnis sat down in his tails and Giana sat next to him. Melody looked around and chose to sit on the fluffy couch.

  “Oh, this is made out of your fur! How I’m doing… quite busy. Somehow, I have been put at the head of research to store magic into crystals and have the crystals cast the magic at a later moment. It has been inspired by this skill named [Hattrick]. I tried to get my hands on it as a reference but it seems well guarded.”

  “Uhhm, Noelle… about that. Might want to give up on [Hattrick]… it’s the skill Deca made which has stumped the experts for 6 years… The two of us have been tasked to crack it or at least simplify it and…” Giana glanced at Agnis. “He has tutored me in being able to read it but… I don’t understand it at all, and my tails have been on it since we got here…”

  Well, Deca had pointed out that I may have a knack for complicated skills, so it’s possible that I’ve created a skill that only I can use… sorry but you might have to give up on it. I could give you tips, though.

  “Right, so that’s why the name sounded familiar… I thought I might have misremembered. It makes me wonder.” Melody leaned forward and placed her elbows on the table and rested her chin on the back of her hands. “Agnis, don’t you think that you might be the most powerful man on the continent?”

  Don’t be ridiculous, there are many people that are stronger than me.

  Melody lifted her head and started counting. “Probably the most diverse magic on the continent, can use Dragonvein which punches through magic like it doesn’t exist, can use ancient languages and enter ancient buildings and read ancient texts, is a blacksmith that can craft magical weapons, which on their own can shift the balance of power. You also can use swords well enough to be a threat to weapon masters.”

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

  Melody continued counting on her other hand... “You seem to know the empress of the Aquini Kingdom, the vice president of the AA, and the CEO of Yttroz Industries. You are wealthy and above all… you’re a mystical beast.”

  She ran out of fingers, so she returned to resting her chin on the back of her hands. “I’m sure that I miss several, but if you were to turn into a super villain, this continent would be done for.”

  But all I did was selling rubies…

  “Don’t worry Noelle, you will get a spot next to us when we turn evil!”

  “That’s nice to hear. But ‘when’ and not ‘if’ eh? Either way, now that you bonded with Giana, I can’t have you underestimate your self-worth. Now that aside, can you simplify [Hattrick] for me so I can get ideas and a starting point?”

  Hmm, how familiar are you with Misha physiology?

  “I’ve recently learned that the hats were part of their bodies and not just a cosmetic… no wonder they’re so protective about it.”

  That’s enough of a basis. The hats hold about 70% of their mana, without it, they are just a slightly stronger human. The hats their selves can cast magic independent of the caster, but not many Misha seem to take advantage of it. The patterns on the hat indicate what family they’re from.

  Agnis and Giana showed their hats.

  I had to made sure that Deca’s hat matched the patterns on mine. Now, about their magic circle structure… it’s extremely complicated. A hat is both a biological part and a magical part of a Misha. Now Noelle you should know as you might have tried to find out Nilah’s composition.

  Agnis’ hat turned into Nilah who jumped at Noelle and requested cuddles. Noelle tried again to figure out what Nilah’s composition was and couldn’t find out.

  You don’t have to take my word for it but try the same on a Misha hat during your research. You will get similar results. Nilah isn’t similar to Misha hats, but their complexity is similar. Discovering that caused me to get an idea of having Nilah mimic a more realistic Misha hat. I got to the point that I might as well be a real Misha when using Nilah as a hat, which allows me to use [Hattrick].

  “I believe you, but I will still try it out. So, I need to deepening my understanding of hats to solve this?”

  Uhh not really, actually I don’t know. This is important to being a Misha, so it might be important to know. It might be useless or useful, depending on what you want to do with it. Why I’m telling you this is that this is the basis from [Hattrick] it modifies the hat to become a more active part. It knows every skill the Misha knows, and it can cast skills independently, so these are properties of [Hattrick].

  Agnis formed illusions, showing him stealing hats from Misha. They seemed like memories. There were many instances of him making a fool of Misha and turning them harmless after the Misha lost their hats.

  Stealing their hats is difficult, but not impossible. This was the reason I was called the Silver Menace; I stole their hats. They couldn’t retaliate or counter this. I wrote papers to up the security on their hats but kinda figured out how they upped it and stole them again, so I created a skill that assumes the worst; a situation where the Misha loses her hat.

  “So, you created [Hattrick] which can be activated when the hat gets stolen? So, its properties would be casting magic independently… wait that skill your illusion used in that Nightmare dungeon!”

  Yup! That was [Hattrick]!

  “That was 1 skill? That was so unfairly strong… we were helpless against it…”

  Well, it makes things easier, as you’ve experienced it. Misha hats are indestructible but despite that, they are super protective of it as it could be seen similarly as our tails. Which reminds me… I need to tell you something after this Deca, it will blow your mind! But back to the topic. With [Hattrick] the Misha don’t have to worry about their biggest weakness; losing their hats. They can teleport to any floating hat.

  “I see. So, storing mana in the crystals might be backwards… if they crystallize their mana, which means it’s a part of themselves, and then use it, the effects might be a bit more similar to [Hattrick].”

  That’s not my field of expertise, but that might work. You’re the crystal expert.

  “So how complicated is this [Hattrick] then?”

  Uhh, Deca you take this, I don’t think I’m qualified in explaining this.

  Giana gave a tired sigh. Melody knew Giana well. Giana had high perseverance and could stay motivated in the most of difficult times. This particular sigh was similar to the one she let out after they attempted to find their way back to Hourai, and she had no idea on how to tackle the problem.

  “Deca has been tutoring me. You might not know this, as I didn’t know, but most magic circles are extremely simple. I checked all my magic skills and only racial skills are complex enough to have folds, something I never knew about.”

  Giana put a book on the table. “A magic circle could be seen as this book. Now this isn’t completely accurate as a fold could be seen as a page. Most magic circles have 0 or 1 folds, meaning a book of 0 or 1 page. Would that be called a book?”

  Melody shook her head.

  “The magic circles we see when someone uses magic is often the same as the complete magic circle as a 0- or 1-page book can have their contents shown in just that, so in that case it’s a perfect representation of what their skill truly is.”

  “And the folds indicate complexity of the magic circles?” Melody asked.

  Yeah, as Deca said the racial skills of tailed beasts have folds, often 3-6 folds. Even if we would show the magic circles of our racial skills, it would be difficult for someone to copy them based on those. I might be able to with some effort but people that specialize in stealing magic won’t be able. Even a skill like [Meteor] only has 1-fold.

  “So, you would think that the skill Deca had created has many folds, right? You would be partly right… he compiled groups of folds. He calls it ‘Compiled Folds’ but that name is lame, so I will call it an ‘Epic’.”

  Hey! But I agree with that epic name, hehe.

  “So, he created 18 ‘Epics’ which make out the skill [Hattrick].”

  It seems that you need some more tutoring, [Hattrick] has 21 Epics.

  “… see? This is what I’m dealing with! So, there are 21 Epics and the first one has 90 folds.” Giana looked at Agnis who nodded.

  Noelle leaned backwards. “So… this is why they haven’t figured out the skill yet?”

  “Well, I pointed out to the headmaster that they were looking at Epics and thought that they were folds. They were looking at the index page, thinking all the Epics were folds… they thought that there were 18 folds.”

  “Yeah, maybe looking through that paper is a bad idea. But you gave me ideas. I might need your help if it comes to coding magic though, and my last question, for lil’ bro. What was your goal by bringing us here?”

  Agnis showed the characteristic 9t smile and eye glow which indicated that he was up to no good.

  What do you mean? You chicks wanted to come here to lift the curses.

  “I have reason to believe that you hijacked our idea.”

  Agnis shifted his posture to one of confidence and being in control.

  If so, what are you going to do about it?

  Melody had no idea on how to react to his response. All she knew was that it would be beneficial to them in the long run. The foxes often cause immediate discomfort to ensure better outcomes in the future. It might be related to the fact that they can control time or their eyes, which could see things that Noelle couldn’t imagine. All Noelle knew was that her task was to solidify and stabilize anything 9t create.

  “Never mind, you would do nothing that would actively harm us. Just try to keep this city whole.” Melody said as she got up. “I have a mountain of work to do. It was nice to see that you two are doing ok and causing problems for a whole race. Come visit me when you have time, my house is the one that looks like a golden-brown crystal.”

  Giana showed her to the door and waved her off. Ideas flooded Melody’s mind as she walked through the streets of Mishaspire. It had been a while since she had constructed something new. Magic skills, while completely different from constructing buildings and tools, still need construction, base materials, a plan and more.

  “Not quite my expertise but I like a challenge!”

  Melody unlocked and kicked in her own door. She was full of vigor and focused on crystallizing her mana. She couldn't care less about the research papers she had put aside earlier in the day. She wanted to create something from scratch.

  “Make it a part of myself which detaches from my body…”

  Noelle went through days of trial and error, after which she managed to externalize simple skills into crystallized mana.

  “Hmm, quite tiring and only simple skills can be put in this [Crystal Satellite]. It needs more refining. Now that I have the basis, let’s read these research papers.”

  follow if the story is interesting enough.

  Ayaru Mistflower