Today for didn’t start like normal. Because today is not a normal day. Today is Unika’s birthday, so no morning training for .
Instead, after Lua made sure Unika would sleep for about one more hour, Alice, Cailie and I went to work on her breakfast. Cailie headed for the CropFields to get the freshest possible fruits and vegetables, no Storage kept ones don’t count. anwhile Alice was working on a fresh loaf of bread, while I was dealing with the protein.
After joining us in the kitchen, Cailie juiced so of the fruits and also made a vegetable smoothie. Unika isn’t the best at eating her vegetables, but she does drink vegetable smoothies. I can also make vitamin pills or gummies with HoBase, but having a more natural source is better.
Alice then took over for Cailie, slicing the remaining fruits and letting Cailie set them up on a serving tray.
anwhile, I was cooking up so thick steaks. They were from a bison I spawned inside HoBase so ti ago, one that I’ve been slowly growing with Rank Up Magics. By the ti I killed it, it was an S-rank monster. The reason I did it was to control the diet and how the bison grew. I tested the sa with so fish on floor 42, and it did make the food taste just a bit better than what I could normally do. But sadly it is so much work that it really isn’t worth it, except for special occasions.
For fish it is a bit more worth doing, as when eating it raw the taste difference is more noticeable. But I still won’t be doing it unless I can sohow automate the entire process. Or maybe I need to hire beastkeepers who will do it for . Unless Einar and Eline can spare the ti.
They might have the ti. The Card Beasts have been out on fewer missions since the Card Venturers got their A-rank licenses. The Venturers can deal with most threats, so the Beasts only go out for S-rank and unknown threats.
By the ti I was finished with the at, there was a giant pile of steaks ready to go. As well as two more on a separate plate, along with eggs and fried rice. I looked over to Alice and Cailie, and the two of them were also finished, so we headed for our room.
As we arrived, Unika was just waking up. Wilma and Lua had been keeping an eye on her, and when Lua heard that we were done, she used a bit of Blood Magic to end the effect of the sleep spell she placed on Unika.
We sang her happy birthday, and set out her breakfast. And when she saw the giant pile of at on the secondary platter, a glowing fox erged from her body.
Stella didn’t actually have a birthday, at least not one we knew. The sa goes for the spirit inside Cailie. Well, technically that spirit isn’t a separate soul like Stella is, instead an extension of Cailie’s soul. A copy of sorts. And for so reason, Alice and Mana share the sa birthday. It technically isn’t the sa because of the different calendar, but the date as written is the sa.
Stella and Unika quickly thanked us for the breakfast, and then dove straight in. Literally in the case of the light projection fox. I have no clue how the food that Stella eats while operating as a light projection actually does anything for her, but apparently it does, so I just leave it to be a magical mystery.
… no, no I won’t. Instead, I used Mana Vision to follow the mana around the two. And with each bite Stella took of the steaks, a strong pulse of mana was sent from her to Unika. So Stella is sohow turning what she eats into pure mana and sending it to Unika. That mana then strengthens Unika, temporarily, almost like it was used to cast a buff spell on Unika.
Good to know that the two of them can do sothing like that, even if it isn’t as exciting as sothing like a mysterious space magic portal between the two would have been.
Also, this is just a guess, but I think if Unika wasn’t full on mana, she would probably be recovering mana instead of getting that magical buff.
After her breakfast, despite the fact that it was her birthday, Unika still wanted to get her practice in. Or maybe that was because it was her birthday. I don’t know.
But anything she wanted was free for her to do, so she ended up sparring with . Mainly using Magic. I was using a mix of Prism-Ice Magic and Space Magic, while Unika ca at with her Sunshine Light Magic and Solar Flare Fire Magic.
My Prism-Ice Magic held up surprisingly well against her higher leveled Fire Magic, but her Light Magic easily pierced through it. And while it did scatter sowhat, like if it had passed through prism, it didn’t stop the spell. Instead it caused unavoidable Light Spells to hit .
But luckily I was able to stop it with Space Magic.
I even attempted to defend against the Light Magic with so Gravity Magic, but making a gravity strong enough to capture light isn’t exactly a good idea, or sothing that is easy to control.
I know I wasn’t ant to use it, but I did want to test it out. And not like I was nerfing Unika with it. And yes, it is actually quite easy to increase soone’s gravity with Gravity Magic. Sure an AoE effect is easier, but then it would affect , so I’d rather use a targeted increase gravity spell.
And no, I wasn’t using Ti Magic on Unika. If I did, it would be unfair. Ti Magic really isn’t well balanced, as slowing down my opponent while speeding myself up gives good enough of a reaction ti to take on people way above my skill and stats. And the opponent’s only choice really is to dispel the effect. Or try to out speed the effect of the Ti Magic.
But back to our practice. It was good for to use ice against fire, but admittedly, it is a bit of a sha I didn’t want to yet reveal one of the secret gifts I wanted to give to Unika today. I was really tempted, but I managed to not do it.
After we finished the morning practice, the two of us headed to the baths and I washed all of Unika. It took a while, since her nine tails really take so ti to clean. But every ti we clean them, the final result is worth all that effort.
Since our morning had run long, it was already ti for lunch. It was slightly better than the usual HoBase fair, but the dessert was Unika’s birthday cake. And as you might be able to guess, for it to feed everyone on HoBase, it was quite large. My kitchen staff had really done it again with the multi-tiered cake.
It looked like Stella’s mountain, with a circular edible Sun floating above it. The Sun cake was floating thanks to a magic circle drawn into the serving platter. Admittedly making the cake look like this wasn’t even my idea, but I do love the final results.
Unika took a slice of the round Sun cake, and she also cut the top of the mountain, which held the large crystal that had been at the top of Stella’s mountain until most of it was used to protect the two during their combination evolution.
I took so cake after Unika and I also wanted a piece of the Sun. But I didn’t take any of the mountain, wanting to make sure there was enough cake for everyone. I then took my seat next to Unika.
Stella had once again materialized as a light fox, but this ti she was tiny and standing on the table. She asked to feed her so of the cake, so of course I did. Which made Unika want to feed her as well, so I had to start alternating. But not for long, as Alice also wanted to feed the two, so soon enough Alice and I were altering which of the needy foxes we were feeding.
And you know what cos after cake, right? Yes, presents.
For that, I let Valoa go first. I an, if Unika’s little brother wants to be first, who am I to deny him?
What he had was sothing both very normal, but at the sa ti very special. A monster carcass, at fully butchered and cured into jerky, hide cured and ready to be used, claws polished, bones preserved and all around perfectly put to use, or ready to be used. Sure it was just an E-rank Lynx, but that isn’t why it was special.
It was special because it was the first monster Valoa ever hunted. And he did it technically by himself. Yes I had people watching over him as he did, but he did beat the monster solo. He was also involved in the other parts of preparing it, even if he needed a bit more help with those parts. For original chapters go to NoveI-Fire.ɴet
Unika was extrely proud of her little brother’s first catch. And even more proud of how effectively he had used it.
I assud that Olia would go next, but she instead let so others, saying that it was better her gift be saved for later, or Unika crying would take so long that it would keep others from returning to work. Which, knowing what her gift is, might actually be the case.
So to get them ‘over with’, I let my employees give their gifts before us. Admittedly Einar and Eline were still sohow the first on the list.
They had kept up the Card Beast tradition, so even with Unika not involved, they had captured a monster for her to ta. A small snow fox. It is an F-rank monster found in cold climates, and is generally not hunted by people. But plenty of beginner tars ta them, as they are very easy to ta. Unika quickly tad the fox and laid it on her lap.
Next was the painter squad, Inka, Jonin, Lange, Artie and Odessa. The five of them had painted a large mural of Unika and Stella on one of the walls of HoBase. Yes, they did ask for my approval.
There were naturally gifts from my other employees, the dhampir students and the Card Ventures, but let’s get to what you really want to hear. What I and my other fiancées got Unika.
From Alice, it was a spellbook containing new spells. The System doesn’t have any spells that are specific for Unika’s Sunshine Light Magic and Solar Flare Fire Magic. Which does make question why those aren’t unique skills, but ask the Goddess and she tells she doesn’t know. But with her unique racial skill, Alice can decently easily develop new spells, so she wrote a spellbook about them. And she can optimize them for use with Quick and Instant Cast.
From Lua she got so special shampoo. Lua made it with Sharon to be extrely good for beast folk’s fur, especially the tail fur. And it really is. I would know, I was a test subject for a few of the first ones. And if you are asking why Lua is needed for it, well it does use Holy Water as the base and you need Holy Magic to make it.
Cailie was technically next, but her song to Unika was going to be perford later. It isn’t one ant for an audience.
So let’s move to Janina. She had brought out another treasure from her own treasury. The Rending Claws of the Deep. She told us that they are the claws of the great beast she once faced. The one that she described to look like Cthulhu.
I had looked up the ‘Old Miasma Beasts’ when I got access to perfect System Support, but the information on them is basically nonexistent. When they were around, the System was much less organized than it is nowadays. In fact, it was during the ti when the Crystal People still watched over the Chaos God Cores.
So while the System knows they exist, partially because of Cthulhu, they don’t know where the others are, or how many of them there are.
And now Janina was passing the rending claws, sothing she believed she would need if she ever faced another one, to Unika. They would still need to be made into sothing Unika can use, but that was better left for us instead of having Janina do it.
Last, before and Olia, is Wilma. And she has made Unika a new bow. We’ve been experinting with them since Unika’s evolution, and made more than a few successful ones.
But the one that is by far the best for Unika is one based on the ZW - Phoenix Bow.
Spoiler
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The bow is normally contained in a small backpack looking thing. From there, it can deploy either in its bow form, or as a pair of fiery phoenix wings. And any arrows shot with the Phoenix Bow are automatically set ablaze and will burn any opponent hit by them.
Oh, and the Phoenix Bow is a legendary weapon, in case you were wondering. Just holding it does increase your strength by 1100. I might go over its stats at so point, but not right now.
Second to last was . I didn’t do too much, since I did help with so of the other gifts and I still have the ‘secret gift’ for later. As well as a little surprise to go with it.
My dedication was a statue made of the Gem of Refraction. Aka. the huge gem that was at the top of Stella’s mountain, until what happened to it happened.
I developed a way to join those small pieces of the crystal back together, and I used it to make a statue of Unika and Stella. My idea was that we could take it to the monster world and set it in the shrine that is at the top of the Solar mountain.
Unika, and especially Stella, appreciated that I was able to bring most of the crystal back together, and they agreed that it should be returned there.
Well, I still have so, but it is really good for magical tools and weapons.
Last was Olia’s gift. And it was like no other. It was sothing only she, with my help, could make. Videos of Unika’s father.
I, and so of my monsters, used a lot of Ti Magic on Olia to make her perfectly recall mories with her late husband, and we recorded them all with Storage. Olia then gathered the best to show Unika right now, and the rest would be viewable to her whenever she wanted.
And as Olia assud, seeing the mories did bring tears to Unika’s eyes, and she spent most of the afternoon just watching through everything. Including mories she never could have known like her own birth.
Since our day was largely taken by Unika watching her mother’s mories, we didn’t have the ti to head out. Not that Unika would have many places she’d probably want to visit. Her family is here, so the only place would really be their old ho. Which probably has new people living in it, so we can’t just barge in for so casual recollections.
And we already had a tear filled mory mont.
So instead, it was ti for to give Unika her magic stone. Yes, that was the ‘secret gift’. It is no secret I’ve been giving the promissory stones to my fiancées on their birthdays, and now it is Unika’s turn.
Hers was held by a small baby fox, and that baby fox was attached to a pendant. One with a chain that can adjust its length so that she can wear it even when she is in her full nine-tailed fox form.
And as Unika dragged to my bedroom, I knew it was ti to reveal the last secret. So I pulled up One of Every Race and changed races.
As my new tails grew in, I used the two and brushed them against Unika’s currently single tail. … Did I ever say that Unika can combine her tails into one? Or three. Or any number really, but one and three are the two she commonly uses when she doesn’t want all nine to be out.
Unika looked at , seeing that I was using a race she’d never seen use before. One she’d been asking why I’d never gotten. One I told her I’d get eventually, but that I actually already had and I was trying to improve.
The race of Fox-folk. And Fox-kin. And the one I was currently using, Multi-Tailed Fox-kin.
I had actually tried to get all the way to Kitsune, but having that many tails made with Manamorphic Body is not easy. So I’ve never been able to keep them for long enough for the System to give the race.
But that didn’t seem to bother Unika too much. Her one tail split into nine, and she aggressively dragged to bed.
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