Excerpt from The Profound and Pretty Princess' Ultimate Guide to Cultivation, Captivation, Cuteness, and Carving Your Way to the Top, English Edition (the worst-selling guide in the history of Putijama)

On AAI Guarantees (Short Form)

AAI guarantee compliance is monitored by your own AAI. If you violate, it's reported immediately/as soon as possible to the Planetary AI. The only ways to prevent immediate reporting are being in a rift/dungeon or using an illegal blocking field. Nobles' AAI restriction tech is not allowed to block guarantee violation reporting.

Violation repercussions are very aggressive, at best resulting in six months hard labor and up to death – sometimes there's even a bounty your AAI broadcasts to everyone in your area! Violating the spirit, if discovered, can cancel all existing guarantees and block the violator from making new guarantees. In spirit violation is not monitored by the AAI. See On AAI Guarantees (BORING!) for more information.

After a few more increasingly bizarre offers, Milenka finally relented and started to explain what she found.

"This enchanting style is completely new to me. And I've traveled to every little corner of this world, at least the ones I know about and aren't blocked by the storms. I've seen hundreds of approaches, many I would guess might be better than this, but nothing quite so… lyrical? It's like there is a song or a poem told through the enchantments. It's beautiful and haunting in equal measure." She couldn't seem to take her eyes off my ring.

"So, you said it's not essence capped, what does that mean?" I asked, trying to bring her attention away from my hand.

Tiesa answered instead. "Means it might be able to continuously Tier Up. Almost all Tier 1 items – or really any Tier items – can't take essence at all. Especially human-made ones. Rift-made items have a higher percentage that can but it's still in the 5-10% range at most."

Jasna added, "And most only have one aspect that can be improved. A Tier 1 weapon, the enchantments or the materials might be able to go up to Tier 2 but very rarely both. And then it's almost always the limit – one Tier up."

"Yeah, and the power level at that new Tier is usually sub-par. So a Tiered Up weapon will start Tier 2 at the bottom of Tier 2 where most items that are crafted or dropped are mid-Tier or better. If you're a crafter, why mess around with the higher-Tier materials if you aren't going to make a good weapon?" Tiesa was nodding along to her own statement.

"Aha, yes, and the cost to Tier anything up is astronomical. Few are silly enough to hurt their essence channels just to push that power to an item. Especially a mere support item. That ring is very curious indeed. Why would someone spend so much time, effort, and resources to craft it? I must know. There's really nothing I can trade for it?" Milenka was giving me puppy dog eyes but it was especially hard to see through the veil she had lowered again.

I shook my head. "Does that mean I can continuously Tier it up and it won't hit that cap? Is there really a reason to do that with a spatial storage item?"

"Ah, only most likely. I cannot say for sure. It is very odd. The enchantments are very strong but seem strange. They were made to be moderately ineffective at a low Tier it seems. And there is an enhanced protection from null essence but that makes the null eat away at mundane things in there. I normally would expect these other items you dumped out to be negatively impacted by being in any storage item but they don't appear to be suffering at all. So curious! Such a mystery!"

"Calm yourself Milenka. Maybe I shouldn't allow you coffee if you are already this excitable," Ervin said, laughing at his own joke.

Tiesa and Jasna stared daggers at the man.

Isekonsultant Tip to Thriving #26: When someone is showing passion, undermining them or making fun of them is usually the last thing you should do. Especially as a dude to a woman. Just not a smart play, no upside and lots of downside.

No matter the planet, don't tell a woman to calm down. Even I know that one.

Clearing my throat, I pointed to what looked like a resizable sweatband for working out. "Why don't we start with this and we'll come back to my ring?"

Milenka began to analyze the band and started chuckling darkly. The longer she looked, the more she laughed.

Finally, after five minutes I had to ask. "What's so funny? It's just an enchanted sweatband? From the notes, they were trying to use it to increase speed?"

"And they succeeded! In the worst way possible! That ring was strange but this, this is like if you had access to some of the best enchantment runes on Putijama, significant resources, a bit of knowledge related to how that was made," she pointed to my ring, "and then gave it all to a moody teenager, giving them a deadline of a day. Many of the runes are related to speed, but only related." She looked back down laughing even harder.

"I'm not sure I get exactly what you're implying," I said, trying to get more information.

"It's just a jumble of runes, many of them working against each other. It's like knowing a lot of words and a bit about what they mean but when you put them on a page, it becomes close to nonsense."

Milenka put the band on her wrist and punched the air, her hand moving strangely. She nodded and seemed to do a few more tests with her hand and turned back to me.

"The effect of this is to speed up the muscles within its domain. Right now, that is about <6 inches> total. Punching with this on and actually hitting something would probably break your wrist! Imagine your hand itself, the muscles moving very quickly but on an arm moving regular speed. What good would that do? I guess if you got it up to Tier 5 or so, it might be able to cover an entire body but there's no way the materials last that long. Utter garbage but entertaining and educational. I'll give you five gold for it."

Tiesa informed me on the walk over as to how selling worked when it was team spoils so I sent an info packet on the item to 'the team', knowing Vidas needed to actually approve the sale. As I handed over the next item – a pair of blue and red rimmed spectacles – I got an approval back, sending it to Milenka.

"Oh this one is even worse! Ha, how would that— and with that— with the. No, no way. That's so funny. Ten gold for this just for the sheer entertainment value. Can't wait to use these bad boys!"

"Tell us what they do. Stop being cryptic. It is annoying." Jasna folded her arms in front of her chest.

"Well, let me guess. The notes said they were trying to increase perception, the ability to spot incoming enemies?" At my nod, she laughed again. "They tried to restrict it to only monsters and only ones that would attack. No need for some of the general birds in a rift that aren't actual enemies. But they connected it all completely wrong! So all it does is significantly increase your ability to spot and track mundane flying animals that won't attack!" She burst into a fit of giggles.

So they are birding binoculars… Great, these items are all going to suck, aren't they?

The next item, the researchers noted they were trying to increase someone's control over green essence. And while it worked to some degree, it only did so for spells whose affinity was to another essence. Mainly black, making it essentially useless in the Kingdom. We netted another whole 15 gold as it might be sellable in an area with black essence.

"Oh, don't look so grumpy! You're up 30 gold, that's not terrible!" Milenka said, storing another item in her heavily protected but mundane pack.

"This circlet was meant to increase intelligence in some way. The researchers said it worked but not how they intended," I said, handing her a large and ornate band of a silvery metal that caught the light just right, making me feel on the verge of an inspirational thought. Despite a few hours playing with it while thinking, none ever came.

"First, don't tell me what they do! It's more fun to figure it out myself. Like solving a madman's puzzle. And… you work closely with these researchers you are going on about?" Milenka asked curiously.

"Why do you ask?" Tiesa cut in before I could essentially ask the same thing. Jasna was frowning. It seemed all three of our hackles were raised.

"Well, these all have some essence in them. Some concentrated essence. But it is Tier 1 concentrated essence. He," she pointed a finger bedecked in a gaudy ring at me, "seems to be on relatively equal footing with you, at least in some form and fashion. So it's not his…" Milenka trailed off as if to say 'you fill in the blanks here' about them not using me as an essence mule for the items.

I looked to Tiesa and we nodded at each other. After a full two seconds of silence, I looked back to her as it seemed we both thought the other would elaborate. "Tiesa, why don't you explain," I said, laughing slightly.

Tiesa gave a highly redacted and modified version of discovering the items in a long-abandoned facility near the southern coast.

Milenka seemed to relax slightly. "I'm a merchant and enchanter myself so I know we don't always get to focus on ethics. The baddies' coin spends just as well and I'm no paragon of virtue. But these are sinister. Well, not the items but what's been done with testing them. They all have some degree of essence in them and all are built to take as much essence as they can get."

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Figuring it was okay to confirm slightly, I said, "Yeah, from the little info we could get after they destroyed most of it, calling them baddies is an utter insult to anyone else that you'd call a baddy. If you imagined pure evil, it sounds like they were worse. And did it merely out of curiosity and greed. Not sure if that bit makes it worse or not." I finished with a shrug.

"Well, this thing is essentially useless. If you fill it with essence, it will make you smarter. Unfortunately, they used channeling runes so it has to be your own essence! You'd be far better just allocating that essence to your own physical core with a focus on mental cultivation and not robbing yourself of the future power. I'd probably destroy it rather than let someone use it but it has two runes I haven't seen used like this. Ten gold?" Milenka asked, looking like she was ready to put it in her bag.

"Can you send me a full write-up on that? I think we'll keep it as we have someone we know who studies mind cultivation and would be interested in examining it. We'll destroy it after," I said, trying to hold back my nervousness at how well that could work with Steve's Cap.

She took it back and inspected it deeply for another few minutes.

Ervin chuckled but said nothing, continuing to sip his fourth cup of coffee.

How is he not bouncing off the wall or needing to poop? No Terry, focus.

I sent the item description along to the rest of the team and got approval to sell so I purchased it myself. It meant I was down two gold from the start of the process – I made 20% of 30 gold and would have to pay 80% of ten gold so six profit and eight cost – but it was still worth it.

Most bonds never really got all that intelligent as at Tier 3 or 4, the general cap the government would allow unless the bond was in the military, they were usually moderately clever and able to fight but couldn't really communicate. Spending 100% of a bond's essence to get smarter was a luxury few people would have.

As I was still considering possibilities, Tiesa took over and handed the enchanter a slightly stubby and matted cape of indeterminate animal or beast pelt.

Milenka began chuckling almost within seconds of seeing it.

"I see why these things were abandoned. I'm going to go grab something quickly." She went into one of her packs and pulled out a small bag.

After staring at it for a good few seconds, a very silly hat appeared and she put it on her head.

At my look, she scoffed. "You don't like my prognosticator's hat? How rude. I was going to read these items and tell you something about them!" She made a lot of hemming and hawing noises while moving her hands around, laughing to herself. Tiesa shrugged and Jasna looked checked out.

"I see with my seventeenth eye. Yes, I have way more than three. I see that the notes indicate they took the useful items and left the stuff that was utter junk! How did I do?" She gave us a beaming smile.

"Got it in one," I said.

Isekonsultant Tip to Thriving #27: Sometimes just humor people if it will expedite things. If the information isn't useful to keep secret, disclose it to move things forward.

She laughed and then returned to the item, holding it up. "Behold, the dirty cape of now you see me, now you don't!" At our confused look she made more signs of trying to present it like it was something amazing. "This one might actually not be capped too which is confusing as it looks like garbage. But the effect scales pretty incredibly. It's just a terrible one: before you've been spotted, you are easier to spot. Once you've been spotted, it's far easier to hide and break line of sight. So it's absolutely terrible. I guess maybe if you're a coward that wants to run but you'd get attacked immediately by any rift creature because you're so much easier to see. It seems like it would be about 100% easier to see and gives a 50% bonus to stealth once you've been seen."

I looked to Jasna. She was tilting her head back and forth. "I think it might be useful for someone we know. What do you think? Risto?" I was hoping she got the hint.

"No, that fool loves to rush into a fight and wouldn't retreat if his life depended on it," she replied.

Tiesa clearly picked up what I meant and said, "Yes, not him but one of his students I know. I assume that one is ten gold too?"

"Nope, 25. It might have uses as you said. If you outbid that, it's yours."

I sent the info packet and 26 gold bid to the team and there wasn't an immediate answer.

"Either way, it will go to Tiesa for her young friend or the team will keep it."

I indicated the last item, which was a rather ridiculous item that looked almost like a professional wrestling championship belt.

I always wanted one of those as a kid but my parents were probably right, that would have been a bad idea, definitely would have tried to wear it to school…

"Now this one is actually mildly useful without too much of a drawback. It currently boosts strength by about 6%. And it's fashionable. But the essence conversion ratio is horrible. I estimate getting it the rest of the way to peak of Tier 1 would mean a strength boost of at most 15%. You'd have to get it to Tier 3, which I'd guess is its max Tier, to be closer to 100% boost. And that's an insane expense. 40 gold for this one."

Tiesa sent an AAI message to Jasna – at least that's what I guessed happened given both their reactions – and got a small nod. "41 gold it is," she said.

"Eh, I'll bid 50. I like the look of it and it's just impractical enough to be fun," the enchanter countered.

At an eyeroll and a 51 gold bid from Tiesa, I sent the info packet to the team and got back approvals for both pending requests.

I thought we were done as Tiesa put the last of the items in her pack but Milenka took my hand again.

"There really is something about this ring. It's not an actual smell or sound but it's like it's just outside each of my senses, like I can feel the touch will come or there is something that if I move another inch, I'll be able to get its scent. It's going to haunt me. You're sure I can't buy it off you?"

Even the times I took the ring off my finger felt like something was immediately missing so while it was probably economically the right call, it wasn't one I was interested in.

I shook my head and Milenka just shouted 'Bah' at me and went to go sit in the corner and work on her tablet.

"I apologize about her. Milenka can be… a tad too enthusiastic. If she weren't as talented as she is, I might not be so willing to tie my fortunes to hers. However, as you saw, she can assess almost any item and is an incredible enchanter. She also has a great eye for value. Her haggling is horrible but that's what she has me for." Milenka threw something at him from the corner at his insult of her haggling and he reached out a hand to snag it without looking to her.

Ervin's smooth voice made me simply want to trust him and work with him. It made me wonder if he was using a skill or it was his Cap at play.

"Understood. I have to deal with my own fair share of… interesting characters…" I tried to keep from looking at Jasna but Tiesa was laughing slightly so my gravitas seemed to be on shaky grounds. "Anyway, this Scanner you have, where is it?"

"Oh, it's actually just an add-on to the Scanner here. I think we can use that, right?"

At my groan and drop of my head, Ervin laughed. "I'm kidding, already dealt with the Magister. The way my device works is interesting because I need to power it at the same time you are getting scanned. I use my own mana so I have to be in contact with the crystal. That means I will be able to also see your Innate Capability."

At my non-plussed look, he chuckled darkly. "Relax, I have done this many times. Do you really think I'd still be alive if I went around blabbing about people's Capabilities? Besides, I trade in hard goods, not information."

[Incoming AAI-Backed Guarantee from Ervin Hasani: 'I, Ervin Hasani, swear to provide the energy to enable you, Terry Carver, to learn your Tier 1 Innate Capability. I also swear that I will not disclose said Capability to anyone and shall not do anything to allow for the disclosure of said Capability knowingly through any actions. This guarantee lasts until my death and shall come with a 25,000 gold fine, to be paid to Terry Carver, should I break this guarantee. I also swear to immediately inform, to the best of my ability, Terry Carver should anyone else come to know his Innate Capability through my actions or inaction.]

I sent the terms to Tiesa and Jasna and both considered for a full minute.

I don't really see how this can be broken or exploited. While Milenka's contract wasn't this ironclad, this seems like I'll know immediately if something goes wrong and he's strongly economically incented to not disclose it. I don't trust Uros but setting me up like this feels odd. I'll go with Tiesa and Jasna's recommendation but I think I'm in favor of it.

I looked to both women who I'd come to trust so much the last few weeks. Both gave me a nod, though Jasna's seemed reluctant. We all stood from the pillows and walked to the Scanner room.

"I'm sure you know the drill, just place your hand on the Scanner and I'll—" Ervin cut off as the door opened and in marched the Magister of Scans and his assistant –daughter? Maybe both? We never really got a clear answer on that – both looking extremely grumpy.

"I'm here to oversee that you don't damage our Scanner. You heathens from The MM don't have the delicate mana control necessary but Uros has guaranteed the repair and upgrade costs for when you break it," Vadim, the Magister of Scans, said haughtily.

Ervin simply smiled and rolled up the cuff of his sleeve on his left arm, showing a device that clearly pierced directly into his skin in a number of places and had lights blinking merrily across the entire length, ebbing and flowing like the waves on a calm beach.

"Don't worry, Uros is compensating me appropriately for this. And it is only excruciating for the first ten minutes after you put it on. And during the process. And when you take it off. But again, don't worry," the tall man said with a smile.

He gestured me to the orb and laid his own hand on it as well. "I probably have enough mana to do this a few times over but no need to be risky. Once I initiate powering the Scanner, go quickly. Understood?"

At my nod, I saw a surge of power flow from his forearm into the Scanner and the device went from softly glowing to a vibrant shifting technicolor light show. I quickly placed my hand on the Scanner and went through the prompt.

[Welcome to the Scanner of Velez; AAI connection detected. Begin Tier 1 Innate Capability scan: yes/no. Error, additional power source detected. Please see Scanner screen for results. Begin Tier 1 Innate Capability scan: yes/no.]

I selected yes and felt the scan, much deeper in my cores than the previous attempt by the Scanner here and even deeper than the one in Zalano when I had my Core Ignited.

It felt good and bad, like a warm, tight hug but with a slightly sweaty favorite aunt wearing a bit too much perfume.

I chanced a look at Ervin and he was concentrating deeply, pain clearly etched on his face despite his making no sound. I could see the gauntlet he was wearing writhing on his arm, seeming to penetrate its barbs into his arm deeper every second.

After what was a slightly unpleasant minute for me and what must have been agonizing for Ervin, the screen lit up brightly for the world to see.

Well, specifically only Ervin and I as we were the only ones touching the orb.

[Tier 1 Innate Capability: Significantly enhanced essence channels. You may absorb skills with lower cost. You may absorb up to five skills per Tier without any cost and additional skills will have a lower essence channel cost. Absorbing skills when higher within each Tier will allow for additional skills to be added for a lower cost.]

I stood there staring at the readout. It was essentially my wish from the first second I landed on Putijama: the ability to use spells at no cost to myself. Flying was off the table until Tier 5, at least according to the at least seven different people I'd asked. But, pocketbook willing, I could literally go buy [Fireball] right now and it wouldn't hurt anything more than my bank account.

Finally. After the worst 24 hours of my life, I get a break. We might get Steve to being actually smart enough to be a real member of my team, a real partner to me in delving, AND I get to be a mage.

My smile faltered slightly as I saw the look in Ervin's eye. He quickly went back to a look of pain, shaking out his arm, but I saw that hunger. That same look Katarina gave when she saw Steve's Cap.

Well, shit.

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