[The Cimillate is initiating the Refinement Protocol]

  "Oh, fuck off with your sanctimonious bullshit, already," said Isabelle as she sighed and rolled her eyes. This whole "protocol" business was starting to really annoy her. It was so goddamn pretentious.

  The air around the Cimillate warped. A shimmering, crystalline cage, glowing with the same sterile white light as the drones' beams, began to materialize around her. It was a prison of pure order, designed to break down her chaotic essence, to "scrub" her from the inside out.

  "Isabelle!" Ignis roared, diving towards her. But several drones intercepted her, their beams forcing the dragon back.

  [Mana low]

  [Stamina low]

  There was no escape. The cage was forming too fast. Her Void Maw was gone, her resources were tapped. She could feel the oppressive energy of the cage pressing in, already beginning to leech the fire from her katana, the life from her cells.

  Then, something completely unexpected happened.

  A small, squeaky voice, filled with rage and grief, cut through the sterile air.

  "You... you... YOU DELETED MY SPUD!"

  Tahsi Junior, tears still streaming down his scaly face, was running. Not away. Towards the Cimillate. His hands were empty. His heirloom was gone. He had no weapon. He had no magic. He had only pure, unadulterated, chaotic fury.

  His father had called it chaos in his bones. He was right.

  The kobold-dragon leaped, a small, scaly missile of pure emotion. He slammed directly into the Cimillate's perfectly flawless diamond core.

  And he bit it.

  [Party member Tahsi Junior used Vengeful Gnaw]

  He wasn't strong. His teeth, sharp as they were, couldn't possibly scratch the diamond. But he wasn't trying to break it. He was infusing it with something far more potent. His grief. His rage. His chaotic, illogical, spudless despair.

  [Critical hit]

  [Cimillate -5 hp]

  [Cimillate -10 hp]

  [Cimillate -5 hp]

  The Cimillate shuddered. A flicker of chaotic energy, a sputtering spark of raw, untamed feeling, coursed through its perfect, crystalline form. The spinning rings on its body stuttered. The light of its diamond core fractured.

  [Chaos corruption detected: Anomalous emotional spike]

  The half-formed cage around Isabelle flickered and died.

  Isabelle looked up, her breath catching in her throat. She saw it. The core. The sliver of condensed chaos Lyra had told her about. Tahsi Junior's reckless, idiotic, glorious act of defiance hadn't just damaged the Cimillate. It had forced the thing's hidden heart to the surface.

  [Raw Essence detected: ???]

  The core was no longer a flawless diamond. A single, hairline crack ran through it. And from that crack, a tiny bead of black, viscous energy was seeping out. Raw Essence. Not the pittance from the drones, but a concentrated dose of what Lyra had promised. The stuff of stars.

  The hunger in Isabelle roared back to life, eclipsing her exhaustion. It was a primal, all-consuming need.

  She didn't hesitate.

  She pushed herself to her feet, her body screaming in protest. She raised her katana, its flame now a mere flicker in the sterile air. She didn't aim for the Cimillate's body. She aimed for the crack in its heart.

  [Isabelle uses: Shadow Pierce]

  She poured the last of her mana, the last of her will, into one final, desperate strike. Her katana didn't burn with fire. It trailed darkness, a needle of pure shadow.

  [Mana 2%]

  The blade struck the diamond core.

  It didn't shatter. It pierced.

  The tip of her katana sank into the crack, and the chaotic energy within her shadow magic acted like a wedge, forcing the fissure wider. The Cimillate froze, its entire system seized by a paradox it couldn't process. Order and chaos, touching directly within its central processor.

  [Critical hit]

  [Cimillate -657 hp]

  ['Cimillate' is dead]

  The bead of Raw Essence, no longer contained, erupted.

  It wasn't a trickle. It was a geyser. A torrent of pure, condensed chaos blasted from the Cimillate's core and slammed directly into Isabelle.

  The world dissolved.

  [Raw Essence absorbed: 1,493]

  It was not a notification. It was an experience. And holy fucking shit, Isabelle was thrilled. For a split second, she was the Cimillate's stolen soul, its imprisoned chaos. She felt its eons of silent, suffocating service to the Great Builder, the slow death of its individuality, the final, glorious explosion of freedom she had just given it. She felt its power, its knowledge, its history. It was agony and ecstasy, a universe of information crammed into a single, searing instant.

  The Cimillate's perfect form crumbled to dust.

  ['Cimillate' is dead]

  [Combat mode deactivated]

  "Fuck yea! Suck on that, douchebag!" said Isabelle. She hip thrusted in the general direction the Cimillate had once faced. She was a little bummed that it hadn't left a corpse, but then, she focused her vision some more.

  [Loot 'Cimillate Dust'?]

  Isabelle was looking at a pile of dust on the ground. THAT was what had become of the Cimillate? Hilarious. Isabelle cackled, audibly even.

  [Loot 'Cimillate Dust'?]

  Isabelle regained her composure, and then she thought yes.

  Inventory: Cimillate Dust

  Cimillate Portion x4

  +2 carry weight

  Elixir Solvent

  +0.5 carry weight

  Isabelle wasn't sure what either of those things did, although she felt her normal compulsion to loot the shit out of them. Still, some of these things would take up a not entirely insignificant amount of Isabelle's carrying capacity! With that in mind, well, she decided to learn more about each item before looting in earnest.

  Item: Cimillate Portion

  Description: Part of a Cimillate, this object contains echoes of the power once held by the devoted subject of the Great Builder. Collect enough of these items and you could create a Cimillate Construct, among other things. The material itself is somewhat ineffable in that it is unlike anything else in Beaubinte, truly alien, and seems not to obey all laws of reality .

  Okay, so this could be used to make something, and at a pretty cheap price. That's not half-bad, Isabelle figured. She took all four, because why the fucking hell not?

  Item: Elixir Solvent

  Description: A clear, odorless fluid that can dissolve most potions into their base components. This can be used to tinker with existing potions as well as in creating your own.

  This actually seemed pretty fucking cool! Maybe Isabelle could dissolve a Potion of Healing and get the healing ingredient from it? Or the ability to heat things? Well, Isabelle could already heat things with all her fire based destroy spells. Shit. Maybe, she thought with some excitement, she could dissolve something else. A Potion of... oh, she didn't know. A potion of Giant Strength dissolved in this... would it give her a giant? Isabelle wasn't really sure. Still, she was sure if she held onto it, she'd eventually think of something better, something more fun.

  With that, Isabelle took everything.

  Inventory: Cimillate Dust

  n/a

  It gave her such inner joy to loot, Isabelle noticed. It was a real, palpable feeling. A feeling of wellbeing, and of accomplishment.

  When was the last time Isabelle had slept? She couldn't remember. But looting sure was fun.

  [Notice: Your weapon 'Overlord’s Flaming Yellow Katana' has become twisted by shadow magic!]

  Isabelle gasped as she watched the weapon in her hand as it was enveloped in a strange puff of black smoke. As the smoke subsided, the Flaming Yellow Katana was still flaming, and it was even still yellow, but the flames were an incomprehensibly dark black, and the blade itself was twice as long and three times as sharp. It looked absolutely sinister.

  [Overlord’s Flaming Yellow Katana unequipped]

  [-22 str]

  [-37 dx]

  [-11 stm]

  [Overlord’s Flaming Yellow Katana removed from inventory]

  [Isabelle's Yellow Katana of Shadow Flame added to inventory]

  [Isabelle's Yellow Katana of Shadow Flame equipped]

  If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

  [+33 str]

  [+42 dx]

  [+22 stm]

  [+25 mana]

  Woah! So not only was Isabelle's weapon now named after her instead of the fucking Overlord (fucking FINALLY), but also it was way more powerful! That was awesome. But Isabelle didn't really feel awesome.

  If only Isabelle had enough XP to level up. That would really make her feel awesome. She was a little bummed she hadn't earned enough XP from that fight, honestly. Then again, Isabelle figured she could always end up using that Raw Essence she harvested to force level herself up. She could do that, couldn't she?

  [Combat mode activated]

  [Clarification: Yes, you can use Raw Essence to convert to your overall XP, and then use that to level up. The higher your level, the more Raw Essence it will cost you to level up. That being said, you of course aren't able to level up right now, regardless of your Raw Essence collection. This is due to the fact that combat mode is now active.]

  "This is due to the fact that combat mode is now active," said Isabelle in a high pitched, mocking tone as she sighed and rolled her eyes. Classic system, classic.

  "Isabelle, what happened to your katana?" said Tahsi Senior, chomping on a baguette.

  "It, uh, got twisted by shadow magic or some shit," said Isabelle, rolling her eyes. Why was Tahsi even asking? Why did he care? All he did was eat bread, that hungry motherfucker.

  "That's cool, I wanna get twisted by shadow magic," said Tahsi Junior.

  "My son!" said Tahsi Senior, gasping and dropping bits of baguettes from his lips unintentionally. "My son, how could you say such a thing?"

  "Jesus Christ, you're all so fucking annoying," said Isabelle with a sigh. "This party is barely functional. Like, at all."

  "Isabelle!" said Ignis, flying in from a distance and stomping on the half-corrupted ground like a giant, melodramatic walrus. "Isabelle, Tahsis, stop fucking around already! Can't you see we're in combat mode? I'm sure that more Cimillates are here to cleanse the area or something. I don't want to get wiped out like bad code!"

  "Thank you, Ignis," said Isabelle, rolling her eyes. Why did Ignis think she needed to always be the voice of reason? Maybe Isabelle would cut out Ignis' giant, scaly vocal chords while they slept. Like any of them would EVER get any sleep. Isabelle was beginning to think sleep in Beaubinte was impossible, although she knew even this was untrue. After all, kobolds themselves lived nocturnal lives. Maybe it was her humanity that made this world seem such a torture to Isabelle, although of course she had to admit to herself it was obvious not all inhabitants of the entirety of Beaubinte were kobold. On the other hand, she had spawned in the port district of Thres, in the Protectorate of Ozi, population almost ENITRELY kobold. So, Isabelle's experience was a little bit skewed.

  Wait a second.

  "Wait a second," said Isabelle, rolling her eyes at Ignis as she tried to look at her without imagining flaying her vocal chords and smoking them like ribs. Were dragon vocal chords delicious? Possibly, Isabelle figured. "Wait a fuckedy fucking second, Ignis, and don't give me any honey bunches of bullshit about stress or combat mode or Cimillates or eminent doom. Why in the fucking hell did you say you don't want to get wiped out 'like bad code'? Like, okay, I understand that the world of Beaubinte is structured essentially like what a video game would be in my old life. Really, I get it. But why would 'like bade code' be a colloquialism? It seems improbable to an extremely high degree."

  "Sacred tongues, Isabelle," said Ignis. "Remember?"

  [Updated: Learn more about the Sacred Tongues]

  [Objective: Find out where you could study the linguistic history of the Sacred Tongues]

  "Ugh, duh," said Isabelle with a sigh. "That stupid quest request updated and everything."

  But there was no more time for Isabelle to complain about learning, for three Cimillates, and their ten Cimillate Sanitizer Drones, were upon them!

  "Fucking balls," said Isabelle with a sigh. Then, she realized what she now held in her powerful hands. "Good thing I have this new katana to try out!" She turned to the Cimillates and their drones, and in a singular, fluid motion she drew the Katana of Shadow Flame. The black flame roared to life along the blade, not a heatless fire but one that seemed to absorb the very light around it, a hungry void of pure destruction. The sterile air of the rift, which had been leeching power from everything, now seemed to recoil from the weapon.

  Ignis let out a low whistle. "Well, that's new. And terrifying."

  "Watch and learn, you big flying lizard," Isabelle grunted, a vicious grin spreading across her face. The exhaustion from her earlier feat was gone, replaced by a manic energy fueled by the stolen Raw Essence and the sheer power humming in her new weapon.

  The lead Cimillate, identical to the one she'd just destroyed, raised its crystalline arms. A grid of annihilation beams shot forth, a web of perfect, intersecting lines of erasure designed to leave no room for escape.

  "Same old trick," Isabelle muttered. "Time for an upgrade."

  Instead of creating a Void Maw to consume the beams, she did something else entirely. She swung the Katana of Shadow Flame in a wide, horizontal arc. The black fire didn't fly out as a projectile; it unspooled from the blade, forming a shimmering, impossibly thin wall of pure shadow that hung in the air in front of her.

  [Isabelle uses: Shadow Aegis]

  The beams of annihilation struck the shadow wall. For a moment, they simply vanished into its darkness. But the sheer volume of power was immense. The wall buckled, its edges fraying like burnt paper.

  [Mana 85%]

  "Holy fuck, that's a lot of mana," said Isabelle. Still, she could hold it. For now.

  The drones, seeing their primary attack nullified, adjusted their tactics. They broke formation, a dozen of them gliding towards her from different angles, their geometric forms promising sharp, physical impacts.

  "Ignis! The small fry!" Isabelle yelled, her voice strained with the effort of maintaining the shield. "Keep them off me!"

  "On it!" Ignis roared, swooping down. She opened her maw, but this time, instead of a torrent of chaotic energy, she unleashed a focused stream of pure, concussive force.

  [Ignis uses: Draconic Gale]

  The blast of wind wasn't elemental; it was raw physical power. It slammed into the oncoming drones, knocking them off course and sending them tumbling end over end through the air. They quickly righted themselves, their flawless coordination recovering instantly, but Ignis's attack had bought her precious seconds.

  "They're tough!" the dragon bellowed, circling back for another pass. "They don't feel pain!"

  "They're not supposed to, you idiot!" Isabelle shouted back. "They're fucking calculators!"

  The Tahsis, meanwhile, were not idle. Tahsi Senior, having finished his croissant, had now equipped a lengthy, crusty baguette like a club. He was running alongside Tahsi Junior, who was now armed with a small, sharp-looking sourdough roll.

  "For the Spud!" Tahsi Senior shrieked, swinging the baguette at a low-flying Tetrahedral Scout.

  [Tahsi Senior uses: Clubbing Bread]

  The scout, a perfect white pyramid, simply altered its course slightly, and the baguette swished through empty air. Tahsi Senior, overbalanced by his swing, tripped and fell face-first into the dusty ground.

  "Dad!" Tahsi Junior cried, attempting to jab his sourdough roll at another drone. The drone ignored him completely, its path unwavering.

  Isabelle almost laughed. It was so absurd. So perfectly, chaotically useless. And yet, their very presence, their illogical, bread-based assault, seemed to be a minor irritant to the drones' perfect calculations.

  The Cimillate commander, its shielded attack failing, its drones being harassed, switched protocols again. The spinning rings on its body accelerated, and the crystalline lattices began to glow with a cold, white light. It was preparing another, more powerful assault.

  Isabelle couldn't hold the Shadow Aegis and attack at the same time. She had to choose.

  Her eyes darted to the Tahsis, flailing ineffectually. To Ignis, fighting a losing battle against overwhelming numbers. And then back to the Cimillate, its diamond core beginning to pulse.

  An idea, wild and reckless, sparked in her mind. It was a stupid idea. A dangerous idea. It was exactly the kind of idea she would have.

  She dropped the Shadow Aegis.

  The grid of annihilation beams, no longer blocked, shot towards her.

  In the same instant, she activated her Shadow Step.

  [Shadow Step activated]

  [Current visibility null]

  [Mana 70%]

  She dissolved into darkness, but she didn't reappear behind an enemy. She reappeared inside one.

  Specifically, she reformed inside the body of the lead Cimillate.

  It was like being plunged into an arctic ocean made of pure logic. There was no blood, no organs. There was only a vast, silent, interconnected network of crystalline structures and pulsating light. She was a virus in a perfect system. An error in a flawless equation.

  The Cimillate froze, its entire being seized by the paradox of her existence. The beams of annihilation it had been firing cut off mid-air.

  Now.

  She plunged her Katana of Shadow Flame directly into the construct's diamond core.

  [You used Internal Rend]

  The black flame of the katana, a weapon of pure chaos, met the perfect order of the Cimillate's heart.

  [Cimillate -255 hp]

  [Cimillate -358 hp]

  The result was catastrophic.

  [Warning: System cascade failure initiated]

  [Clarification: The Cimillate is self-destructing]

  A silent, white-hot explosion of pure energy erupted from within the Cimillate. But it wasn't a normal explosion. It didn't expand outwards. It imploded, collapsing in on itself with impossible force.

  Isabelle felt the pull, a vacuum of absolute nothingness trying to tear her apart. She Shadow Stepped again, a desperate, last-second leap, unraveling from the collapsing construct just as it folded into a single point of non-existence and vanished.

  ['Cimillate' is dead]

  [Raw Essence absorbed: 1,501]

  The geyser of power was even more intense this time. For a breathtaking second, she understood the geometry of a thousand stars, the calculus of a dying universe, the cold, empty joy of absolute perfection. And then it was gone, leaving her gasping on the ground, her body tingling with stolen energy.

  The self-destruction of the commander had an unexpected side effect. The ten drones escorting it froze, their lights flickering. Without their central processor, their logical commands, they were adrift.

  [Enemy systems destabilized]

  [Command link severed]

  They began to twitch. To glitch. Their perfect geometric forms wavered, one sphere stretching into an oblong shape, a tetrahedron flickering between a pyramid and a cube. They were breaking down, their sterile order decaying into entropy.

  "NOW!" Ignis roared, seeing her opportunity. She breathed another torrent of chaotic energy, and this time, it found no resistance. The blast enveloped three of the glitching drones, shattering them into clouds of inert dust.

  [Tahsi Senior uses: Desperate Flourish]

  Tahsi Senior, scrambling to his feet, tripped again, but this time his flailing baguette accidentally smacked a fourth drone right as it was reforming from a cube into a pyramid. The impact, at just the right wrong moment, caused the drone to collapse in on itself with a pathetic fizzling sound.

  [Critical hit]

  [Cimillate Drone -255 hp]

  ['Cimillate Drone' is dead]

  [Raw Essence absorbed: 12]

  Isabelle pushed herself up, her new katana still clutched in her hand. She sighed and rolled her eyes. The chaos was beautiful. The destruction was art.

  She charged at the remaining drones, a whirlwind of black flame and shadow. They tried to fight back, firing clumsy, misaimed beams, but their coordination was gone. She danced through their dying attacks, her katana a blur of shadowy death. One by one, they fell, each one shattering and leaving behind a tiny, pathetic mote of Raw Essence.

  [Raw Essence absorbed: 36]

  Within a minute, it was over. The ten drones were gone. The rift was still there, still chanting, but the immediate threat was neutralized.

  [Combat mode deactivated]

  And yet, still no notice to level up. Damn.

  Isabelle stood amidst the glittering dust, breathing heavily. She felt invincible. Drunk on power. She turned to her "party." Ignis was panting, her wings drooping. Tahsi Senior was covered in dust, clutching his half-eaten baguette like a trophy. And Tahsi Junior was just staring at the empty space where the Cimillate had been, a single tear tracing a path through the grime on his face.

  "See?" Isabelle said, her voice raspy. "I told you I had it under control."

  "You imploded a living calculator from the inside out," Ignis said, her voice a mixture of awe and terror. "That's not 'under control.' That's 'suicidally insane.'"

  "Same difference," Isabelle shrugged, looking at her hands. They were glowing faintly with a dark energy. She felt the 3,049 Raw Essence humming inside her, a coiled serpent of infinite potential. She needed more.

  [Notice: You may now convert your Raw Essence into XP]

  Oh. That was right. How many times would Isabelle be able to level herself up with the Raw Essence?

  [Wist+int check succeeded]

  [...]

  [Calculating]

  [...]

  [Clarification: You can level up approximately 5 times if you use your Raw Essence to convert to general XP.]

  Isabelle allowed herself a weak grin, if only for a moment, before devolving back into a sigh as she rolled her eyes. But this was a sigh of relief. And she was so, so ready to level up.

  So, Isabelle focused her mind.

  [Convert all available Raw Essence into general XP?]

  [Y/N]

  Isabelle thought yes.