Taking a few steps closer, Enya circled the cocoon, inspecting it from every angle. A distinct energy radiated from within, strikingly similar to the power the Queen had used to command her swarm. Pell and Josier had speculated it might house countless spiderling eggs, but Enya’s senses told a different story. Instead of many energy signatures, there was only one.
“Alright. Fred, punch it.” There was only one way to know for sure. If it turned out to be filled with spiderlings, that just meant more experience and Soul-Energy for her—even if hunting them might be tricky if they were too small to kill efficiently.
Fred approached the cocoon with his usual unhurried clatter, tapping it with a bony knuckle. The hollow knock that came back sounded more like bone on glass. With a rattle of his jaw, Fred took a step back, wound up his fist, and drove it into the cocoon’s surface with all his strength.
A massive crack splintered outward from the impact point, dark fissures weaving through the webbed crystal. The sharp, echoing sound of crackling glass layered over itself as small shards rained down, followed by a heavier cascade as Fred pulled back his fist. Seconds later, the entire front half of the cocoon gave way, collapsing in a glittering avalanche of webbed crystal strings onto the ground.
A gaping hole now marred the cocoon’s surface, and Enya felt the energy more distinctly than before. There was no mistaking it—it matched the Queen’s power perfectly, but it came from a single, concentrated point.
Fred stepped aside as Enya peered into the shattered cocoon. What she found wasn’t the swarm of spider babies Pell and Josier had feared.
It was just one.
Nestled inside, a tiny spiderling no bigger than her palm lay sleeping on a delicate bed of webs. Its body shimmered like a gemstone, radiating an otherworldly beauty. It was half, maybe even a third, the size of the Spiderling Queen, but infinitely more endearing. Enya’s eyes lit up at the sight of it.
“Oh, it’s… so cute…” she whispered, resisting the urge to reach out and pick it up. But caution won out in the end. It’s still a monster… I should probably be a little bit safe.
Skill: Insight has been activated.
Target: Gemlight Spiderling
Revealed Information: A small piece of Gemlight used as the power source of a Crystal Spiderling Hive. After sufficient assimilation, the Gemlight has mutated while within a Crystal Spiderling cocoon.
The message left Enya frowning in thought. The creature wasn’t a Crystal Spiderling at all—it was something new. A Gemlight Spiderling. The distinction felt important, though its meaning eluded her for now. Maybe, given time, it would grow into a true Crystal Spiderling? Or maybe it was something else entirely.
One thing was certain: this was no ordinary monster.
"Come here, little guy," Enya whispered, balancing on her tiptoes as she reached into the shattered cocoon. She gently scooped up the tiny spiderling, cradling it carefully as she pulled it out.
It fit snugly in her palm, and now that she had a clear look at it, the insight skill's description made much more sense. Though shaped like a spider, its body appeared to be made entirely of crystal—gemstone-like and polished, almost too perfect to be natural. It looked less like a living creature and more like a masterful sculpture carved from stone.
She studied the little spiderling for a moment before deciding to keep it, at least for now. Maybe it would evolve into something more significant later. As she held it, she could feel the faint pulse of crystal energy coursing through it, a quiet but potent power that intrigued her.
"Kid. Undo this. Right now," came Pell’s voice, sharp and agitated, from behind her.
Enya turned, eyebrows knitting together in mild confusion. "Uh… the cocoon’s already broken. I don’t think I can put it back together—"
"Who cares about the cocoon?" Pell cut her off with a growl. "I mean, unbind me. Whatever you did, fix it. This fight was fine and all, but I’m not some minion of yours, ready to fight your battles and clean up your messes. Undo it. Now."
Enya blinked, her confusion deepening. "Bind? What are you talking about?"
Pell groaned, rubbing his bony forehead in exasperation. "Whatever spell, skill, or curse you used, you bound me to yourself. My system just informed me I’m now your minion—minion thirteen or something. Or maybe that’s my level. But that’s not the point! I don’t want to be soul-bound to you. I was stuck in that dungeon for five years, and no offense, kid, but I’m not looking to swap one leash for another—even if it’s yours."
His hollow eyes locked on her, searching for any sign she understood. But the confusion on her face only deepened, her lips parted slightly in uncertainty. A ripple of unease spread through Pell as realization dawned on him—she had no idea what she’d done.
"You don’t know what I’m talking about, do you?" Pell asked, his voice quieter now, tinged with something between disbelief and dread.
Enya shook her head, her expression sheepish. "No clue. Did I do something bad?"
Pell winced at the flood of worry that hit him, as if it were his own. He wasn’t sure how, but he could feel her distress—the swirling questions in her mind, her silent pleas for reassurance that he wasn’t upset.
Is Pell mad at me? Did I mess up? Please don’t be mad. I’m sorry.
He wasn’t reading her thoughts exactly, but the emotions behind them were unmistakable. It was like her feelings were bleeding into him.
"Check your notifications," Pell said, his tone gentler now despite himself. "See if there’s anything about me in there."
Enya nodded, quickly pulling up her system screen. Her gaze darted over the list of notifications, most of which detailed experience gains. But halfway down, her eyes landed on something specific.
There it was.
System Notification: ‘Pell’ has been registered as a Level 13 Skeleton
Uh… it says you’ve been registered as a level 13 skeleton," Enya began, squinting at the system message. "And it lists some of your stats." She frowned, her confusion deepening. The notification had popped up shortly after she’d soul-forged Pell’s bones, making them stronger.
"I think… when I enhanced your bones, it somehow let me claim you as a summon," she said, her voice uncertain.
Pell crossed his arms, his jawbone grinding faintly. "Okay. Then cancel it."
Enya looked up at him, puzzled. "How?"
He stared back at her, silent.
A long pause stretched between them as they both waited for the other to offer a solution. Enya flicked through her system menus in growing frustration, flipping between screens until she found her summon list.
Spell: Summon Skeleton [Active] [D-]
Active Summons: 4/4
Sure enough, Pell was now listed as one of her summons. She only had three other minions, but the system claimed she had four.
Pell groaned loudly, his skeletal frame rattling with irritation. "Goddamnit. I’m stuck as your minion, and you have no clue how to undo it. We need to fix this, kid. I’ve had enough of being soul-bound to last a lifetime."
"Okay," Enya replied absently, still scrolling through her menus. Truthfully, she didn’t mind the arrangement all that much—having Pell officially tied to her seemed convenient. But she could see the annoyance in his posture, and if it bothered him that much, she’d try to find a way to fix it.
Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.
Eventually.
Shyrith Gem [Crafting Reagent]
Description: A translucent blue crystal that feels unnaturally heavy, as if weighed down by the coldness it contains. It serves as a perfect reservoir for ice-aspected magic. Can be used as an excellent conduit for storing Soul-Energy.
Enya held the shard of the Shyrith Gem, a piece that had broken off one of the spiderling guards. Its chill seeped into her fingertips the moment she picked it up, its weight almost unnaturally dense. But beyond its physical properties, she felt something else—a faint pull from within.
The Grim Pullet stirred within her, its pages fluttering slightly inside her mind. She summoned the book out in front of her. It had immediately identified the crystal, offering her a wealth of information about its uses. The Shyrith Gem, as it was called, was a rare crafting material with potent ice-like properties.
Curious, Enya flipped through the pages and found several recipes that utilized the gem. Names like Frostwoven Shroud, Snowfell’s Pendant, Glacial Warding Bone, and Creeping Frosthammer leaped out at her. Some required materials she couldn’t even begin to pronounce, let alone imagine finding, and the quantities listed felt overwhelming.
Still, one recipe caught her eye and made her pause:
Gravecaller’s Band (Gold Tier)
Description: A ring that absorbs and regulates excessive chilling temperatures. By pouring a steady amount of mana into the ring, it releases a continuous cold mist of energy, lowering the surrounding temperature and creating frost. If Soul-Energy is used instead, the mist can emanate from summoned constructs, granting them temporary cold-attribute enhancements for as long as the energy lasts.
Materials Required:
- Shyrith Gemstone (minimum 70% pure quality)
- Ring with an empty slot to embed a gem or crystal.
- Runecrafting Ink
- Frozen Mycelium Thread (or any ice-aspected binding wire, string, or thread)
- 50 Soul-Energy
A gold tier item. Normally, items of such a high caliber were far beyond her reach. Most required materials with names she didn’t recognize, or costs so exorbitant they felt like a cruel joke. But this one? The Gravecaller’s Band only required 50 Soul-Energy—not a small amount, but manageable compared to some of the absurd prices she’d seen in other recipes. This was most likely one of the easiest gold tier recipes in the entire book.
The effect itself was fascinating, offering wide-area coldness and the ability to temporarily infuse her minions with “cold-attribute enhancements.” Whatever that truly entailed, it sounded powerful. The ambiguity only fueled her curiosity further.
What drew her to this recipe, though, was its accessibility. The materials didn’t seem impossible to acquire, and she already had the Shyrith Gemstone in her hand. The Grim Pullet helpfully detailed the other ingredients as she skimmed the recipe:
Runecrafting Ink (Bronze)
- A typical ink used in runecrafting, specially processed for engraving runes. Can be easily purchased from Magic Associations or vendors.
Frozen Mycelium Thread (Copper)
- Threaded mycelium commonly found in cold-attribute dungeons, such as ice caves or frozen caverns. This material can often be substituted with processed ice-enchanted threads, though the purity of Frozen Mycelium Thread simplifies usage.
Ring with an Empty Slot
- A plain ring designed to hold a gem or crystal. Typically sold by jewelers or craft shops.
The ink sounded easy enough to obtain—she could likely find it at the Magic Association or in one of Talo’s shops. The ring also seemed straightforward. If people in Pell’s novels could waltz into a shop and purchase a diamond ring on a whim, surely she could find an empty one somewhere in the city. The only thing that seemed unorthodox was the Frozen Mycelium threads.
Enya was sitting in the center of the now-destroyed Crystal Spiderling hive. She was cross-legged, holding the Grim Pullet on top of her lap, head on chin, looking down at its pages. In front of her, Muffins sat, both hands wrapped around on top of one another, forming a skeletal prison for the Spiderling Queen.
Enya spared a glance up at the captive in Muffins' skeletal grasp.
Perhaps “former Queen” would have been a more fitting title now. After all, Enya had single-handedly obliterated the hive, slaughtered the noble guards—possibly even family—and taken the Queen's child, if the Gemlight Spiderling had indeed been hers. That child was now Enya’s, a pet far cuter than its mother.
Victory had its perks, after all.
“Sucks for youuu,” Enya teased with a grin.
The Spiderling Queen continued to thrash, its crystal body glinting faintly in the dim light. It had been struggling non-stop since Muffins had scooped it up. These creatures apparently had no concept of stamina, their energy seemingly endless despite their defeat.
A loud crash sounded beside her. Startled, Enya looked up to see the last of the crystal spiderling corpses tumbling into a disorganized pile.
“All right, kid,” Pell announced, dusting his hands off with exaggerated claps. “That should be most of ’em. The rest are so smashed they’re smaller than pebbles, and I’m not about to waste time piecing together a spider shattered into a hundred bits.”
He stretched his bony arms and turned toward her. “What’re you reading about now?”
“This crystal,” Enya said, holding up the Shyrith Gem. Its translucent blue surface gleamed faintly in the light. “It’s called a Shyrith Gem. Do you know anything about it?”
Pell stepped closer, plucking the gem from her hands. Even without nerves, the coldness of the crystal was palpable, a faint sensation that seemed to pierce through his undead composition. He turned it over, inspecting it from every angle.
“Hmm… Shyrith, huh?” he muttered. “I’ve heard the name before, but I’ve never seen one, bought one, or known anyone who’s sold one. Pretty rare stuff most likely.”
Enya tilted her head, confusion creasing her brow. “But you said blue gems were valuable.” She pointed to the pile of corpses, noting the yellow, green, and another shard of blue crystal among the debris left by the spiderling guards. “Didn’t you say the colored ones—anything but white—should sell for a lot? How do you not know what a Shyrith Gem is then?”
“No,” Pell said bluntly. “I said they were valuable, not that all of them would sell for a fortune.”
He held the gem higher, letting the eerie glow from Fred’s skull, who was standing nearby, to catch on its surface. The light refracted through its cracks, illuminating the flaws within. It was relatively pristine, but the cracks inside marred its perfection. Shame, Pell thought.
“Anyways, no,” Pell said, shaking his head. “The white crystals—Lamu-something—are super common. The differently-colored ones are definitely more valuable, but that’s just an educated guess from a merchant’s perspective. You said Shyrith, right? I’ve heard the name before, but I’ve never seen one in person. That alone makes me think this gem is rare and valuable, at least in theory. But, you know, being rare and being valuable are two completely different things.”
Enya hummed thoughtfully, glancing at the gem in Pell’s hand. It might not be a jackpot, but it was hers now, and she had plans for it. She hoped that the purity of the gem was still at least 70% like the recipe required.
He flicked the gem into his spatial inventory with a casual toss. “These could sell for a dozen silver coins, a single gold, or even a hundred platinum. I’ve got no idea.”
“Well, that’s not helpful,” Enya said, frowning.
Pell’s soul flames flickered in mock exasperation. “Bite me, brat.”
“I can’t. You’d break my teeth.” With her excellent retort, Enya looked back at the book in her lap. “Do you know what runecrafting ink or frozen mycelius thread is?”
Pell crossed his bony arms. “Do you mean mycelium, not mycelius?”
“Uh…” She glanced at the page again. “Yeah! Mycelium, that thing!”
“Runecrafting ink’s pretty straightforward,” Pell explained. “You can buy it at the Magic Association or from some merchants. It’s used for—you guessed it—runecrafting. Adding enchantments to things, making talismans, that sort of stuff. Frozen Mycelium Thread, though, is basically just string made of ice. That stuff’s harder to find, but most people substitute it with ice-enchanted yarn or string. It works just about the same.”
“Can we buy some in the city?”
Pell nodded. “I’d be surprised if we couldn’t. Runecrafting ink is common, and there’s always a merchant selling enchanted fabrics or threads. They’ve even got fire thread if you want to get fancy.”
“Are they expensive?”
“Not too bad. A small vial of ink is under a dozen silver, and a big spindle of thread might set you back half a gold to a few pieces, depending on the thread.”
The sound of Josier’s footsteps echoed through the chamber, cutting into their conversation. “You two about ready to go? There isn’t much else here.”
Enya snapped The Grim Pullet shut and pushed herself to her feet. As she landed, her enchanted boots caused her to spring up higher than expected, and she stumbled, catching herself with a laugh. “Woah… gotta get used to that.”
She turned toward the pile of spiderling corpses. “Alright, let me just absorb these, and then we can leave.”
“So… Laura,” Thomas began, leaning casually against the pillar that framed the gate to Talo.
The day had been uneventful so far—just the usual stream of merchants, travelers, businessmen, and the occasional noble passing through. But the previous day? That had been far from normal. A skeleton and a girl with a bloodied forehead had strolled right up to the gate and entered the city like it was nothing.
Thomas still couldn’t shake the memory of that girl. After scanning her status with his bracer, he had been left utterly stunned. The system had marked her as a high noble, someone whose rank dwarfed even kings within the entire second layer. If he’d made even the slightest misstep—denied her entry or offended her in any way—his entire bloodline might’ve been erased on a whim. The thought haunted him through the night, made worse by the reminder that he didn’t even have a wife to carry on his nonexistent lineage.
He swallowed and mustered his courage. “I was thinking… maybe you and I could…” His gaze shifted to the right, avoiding Laura’s face.
“Thomas!”
He froze, panic surging through him. Then he jumped back in alarm.
“Sorry! I won’t ask you out again, I promise!” he blurted, snapping his head toward her and bowing so low that his eyes were level with the dirt.
“Thomas, it’s Mr. Orben! He’s injured!” Laura cried, her voice urgent.
Thomas straightened, following her gaze. His stomach dropped when he saw the familiar figure of Mr. Orben.
Orben was well-known in Talo. Somewhere in his early fifties, he was a kind and dependable man who did a bit of everything around the city. One day, he might be cleaning garbage from the streets; the next, he’d be helping locals with directions or fixing minor issues. A true jack-of-all-trades and a beloved presence in the city.
But now, that same kind-hearted man was staggering toward them, barely holding himself together. Blood spattered his tunic, and he clutched his arm, crimson droplets still dripping from it. His movements were sluggish, his steps unsteady, and fatigue was etched into every line of his face.
Thomas’s eyes widened. He didn’t hesitate. Sprinting forward, he raised his bracer, immediately sending out a call to the city healers.