In Loki's Honor

There I was, dreading the evolution choices I had. By now it was obvious this whole book mimic existence was engineered by Loki. I feared what would happen if Mom hadn't agreed to do this job of his. No, before that. Even the [Lost Sage's Insatiable Journal], the cursed book that swallowed Raina, was his idea.

In for a copper, in for a gold. Is that the correct saying? Anyway, what did I have to lose?

[Administrator's Red Phone]

Call start

Tuisto: What is the emergency?

Matriarch: Oh, the curse really was lifted.

Tuisto: Why wouldn't it be? It's a System curse.

Matriarch: Anyway, it was my lesser, cursed self who initiated the call. Netherbane has a message for the Administrators. Especially Mr. L.

Tuisto: Go on. This call may be recorded for training purposes.

Matriarch: Ba dum tss. Dad jokes. Never gets old. In any case, Netherbane wants a good evolution. They think they went down the cursed book route, now it's time for the redemption arc.

Tuisto: I'll convey that to Loki.

Call End.

The curse took over me again. Though Mom left some scribbles on my pages, proof it could be used to unlock my full memories and leave some hints behind. Tuisto wouldn't like me abusing the Perk like that but hey. They couldn't even remove the Perk now. Because I had a Perk that blocked them from messing with my (Unique) and (Combined) Perks. All because nobody trusted anyone enough to toss the other one around.

One, in particular, struck me.

"It's okay to look at the evolutions now. I doubt they won't grant our wish."

So I did. I pulled the Rank-Up menu, which told me I needed to evolve to rank up.

> You reached the limit for this form and must evolve to continue to grow. Select an evolution.

Then it led me to the evolution choices. This time, I had dozens. One for each elemental affinity, one who made me a book where any name which was written on me would kill the person and doom the user into becoming an edgelord, one called, "The Grasshopper Lied Heavily" which I had no idea why made it to the list, the "Rideshare Driver's Guide to the Galaxy" which I knew what it was parodying, and so on. Dozens of meme evolutions.

Finally, in the end, I found it.

Requirements:

Directly wielded the Matriarch Divine Magic

Has a Magic score of 448, no more, no less

Begged the System Administrators for it

Is a book mimic subspecies

Is also a munchkin, a crybaby, and a dilly-dallier.

Is a freaking simp for their own wife.

Will say "I'm Loki's bitch" out loud in the next five seconds or lose this evolution choice.

What the hell? "Why do I have to say I'm someone's Bitch? It's not even true! And you know I can't say that name out loud!" I said out loud. "And at least Wyxnos was indirectly passive-aggressive. Geez, how far have we sunk."

> For being a smartass, you earned 1 Experience Point. You are learning.

Before any more practical jokes, I slammed yes on the evolution choice.

Malefimimic (unique) -> Autobiographical Scriptures of the Matriarch (unique)

Bound with dragon leather, moistened with bitch tears, and clad in the purest Truesilver corner protectors, The one and only officially sanctioned book that describes all the holy deeds of the Matriarch. A tome most holy, a [Saintess] in paper form, ready to deliver salvation and damnation upon the world at Her whimsical commands. All who read its pages shall understand the true righteousness of the Matriarch and also her utter lack of sexual morals. May the iniquitous shudder and hide from her Light. May those who truly tread the holy path of self-discovery and debauchery gain a brand-new [Pódi Deluxe].

What did I say about practical jokes? Honestly, I wished to not pick any of these evolutions and just go cry in a corner. The last sentence had me very, very worried. I had not much choice in the matter. I slammed "yes" on this evolution.

> Starting evolution. You will be unconscious during the process.

*

*

You evolved into an Autobiographical Scriptures of the Matriarch (base). Your level has been reset to zero. This is a final evolution.

Your remaining Exp after evolution was divided by 1,000,000.

You gain,

1 Attribute point at every level.

+1 to all Attributes every 5 levels.

1 Perk every 2 levels.

5 HP and Energy per level.

You gained the Perk, Divinity Pool (unique): Ascension rejected, you chose to forevermore remain in between a mortal and a true deity. So be it. But the touch of Divinity, the holy spark you absorbed and melded with your Soul is undeniable. You have 1 base point of Divinity and now have access to the GP pool even when not close to your [Wisp of Creation], for good or bad.

You gained the Perk, Self-Biography (unique): Your own pages update automatically as a journal at the end of every day or when you die. This Perk cannot be suppressed.

You gained the title [Holy Scriptures of the Matriarch]. This title can only be used in book form.

Before I delved into the Perks and spent my Exp blazing through the base levels and into the first rank up, I took a look at myself. My cover was now bound in red dragon leather, perfectly tanned. Enough Truesilver to make Baritono the Dwarf have a heart attack covered my eight corners. The Truesilver shed light but I could control its brightness. The color of the leather too. I changed it to white. On the front cover, only the Matriarch's holy symbol. I was about two feet tall by one and a half wide and four inches thick. No way Barbara would carry me casually now if I didn't shrink myself.

I also noticed that most of my inner pages couldn't be changed. The first half of them was the Matriarch's "autobiography", a re-telling of her lives so far. Oh, well. I had [Cursed Words] still, and nobody could read that without my permission.

The GP pool was minuscule. With only 1 base point and no way in sight to gain more, it was based on Faith and amounted to 1004 points because half of every other Attribute contributed to it. No regeneration. I guess I would need to steal Divinity from moon rocks to fill that but I wouldn't leak those over time like before.

Attributes above the cap withheld.

You gained the Perk, Surpasser CXV. Increase your Attribute caps by 1,150%. You gain 115 Attribute Points over 20 levels.

Bloody damn it! I forgot about the lowered Attribute caps. Last evolution, they weren't high enough to warrant it. Three hundred points, mostly from Magic, are gone. I needed to fix this, ASAP.

*

*

I rushed to meet Barbara. When I mean rushed, I meant floating on the [Lost Sage Encyclopedia], using the most complete repository of knowledge in this world as a floating platform. Talk about the [Archmage] who used (Unique) artifacts as paperweights. Or a Goddess who forgot a dead Lich's vessel in a dungeon.

I happily sent her.

Barbara dropped her work and rushed out of the lab. She gasped as she saw my new and improved shape, "Nethe! You are so big now!"

"I can see it. [Holy Scriptures of the Matriarch]. It's very nice. Very, very nice. And it will force the Church to shut up. I can sense a lot of Mana coming from you." She picked me up and I dismissed the floating book. She caressed my cover, making me feel all tingly. Then she opened me and started skimming the pages. "That's the same story that's on the Encyclopedia."

There are more silver sparkles on your pages. They look very nice. What are your bindings made of now? They look like silver but, whiter? Stronger?"

"Are you... thinking of harvesting them?"

I shaped one of the corners away from the cover and then cut it. I could feel another one growing and after I recovered 2% of my maximum HP less than 3 seconds later, another one grew.

A worried Barbara picked up the cover corner, "Did it hurt?"

"Now, can we refine the Truesilver out?"

After a day of testing, we found that we could. Each corner yielded about 10 micrograms of Truesilver. A king's bounty.

*

*

I went down for a quick trip into the Labyrinth alone and gathered enough Exp to reach level 32. That included one rank-up that didn't change my progression.

You gained 10 base Perks.

Human Royalty granted you 2 base Perks.

You ranked up. Attribute caps increased.

You gained 6 rank I Perks.

Human Royalty granted you 1 rank I Perks.

Proficiency points granted.

You gained 30 Attribute Points.

You gained 6 to all Attributes.

Royalty granted you gained 8 Attribute points, 8 Strength, 8 Dexterity, 12 Endurance, and 4 Willpower.

Ultimate Surpasser granted you 184 Attribute Points.

Magic-Infused granted you gained 8 Magic.

Now I was ready to break the curses. I gathered the Aspects and went into seclusion. Not to cultivate, the wrong genre. But to squeeze as much MP from this world as possible and break these curses. Should've done that before I lost 100 points of magic. This will take some time.

The only Aspects who didn't have the [Mana Wellspring] Perk were Lily, Apricot, and Alloralla. The three remained on the island to keep our many projects going. That meant we had five Wellsprings overlapping, boosting everyone's MP regeneration by six. We went to the tallest spire, an annex to Barbara's castle.

"Now, I'm making a pact with each of you for a portion of your Magic score," I said and used [Dark Trade] with each of them. In total, I gained 300 Magic and 100 Luck points. Temporarily.

Five of the most powerful spellcasters in this world sat down around me and we let our MP pools fill, which happened hella fast. Then I channeled all of mine plus 10% of everyone's excess MP regeneration to [Erode Curse]. Less than a minute later, I got a message.

> You broke the curse, [Major Feeblemind]. Do you want to revert it?

Yes, why the fuck not. And what was going on? A minute later, before I could snap out of my befuddlement, another message came.

> You gained the Perk, Major Intellect Boost: You gain +1 to all mental Attributes at every level divisible by 10.

We were wasting Mana while I stared at the message. I set it to [Major Decrepitude] next. The same thing happened. less than a minute to break it, then less than a minute to convert it. Next, [Major Feeble Soul]. Same thing. And then all those Perks combined into a single one.

> You gained the Perk, Major Attribute Boost. You gain +1 to all Attributes at every level divisible by 10.

I wasted no time putting all the energy into the last curse active, [Broodmother's Final Judgment]. It didn't break instantly. After giving it some thought, I noticed what happened. With all the boosts, my Effective Magic score for curse-breaking went to over 1,000 points. That was more than the Magic score used to determine the curses above which lowered the biggest hurdle, the difference between Magic scores to nothing. All that was left was to pay the base cost of a million MP per rarity level but divided by my Luck bonus.

The Broodmother's curse, however, had a Magic score of 1,700. And the cost scaled on the cube of that difference. It would take us a few centuries sitting here to break that one yet.

We cut the session short.

A few months later, it was finally time to go down to the surface and pay [King] Hamilton a visit.