[Due to the high complexity, Enchanting Technique-1 requires 8 days for development. System will still be available for other tasks in this time period. Would you like to proceed?], asked the system after Daneel commanded it to develop the technique for Enchantment.
This was nothing new. The way that the system rated complexity was still a mystery for Daneel who had spent an year developing techniques with it. Some like the fireball or ice prick took very little time, but others like the short range teleportation spell had taken 5 days to develop. Even though he had asked, the system had simply stated that the complexity was tied to the degree of resources required to develop a certain technique.
At least, since he had upgraded the Phenomena Analysis Module-1 to Level 2, there had been no instance like before when the system had to completely shut down to develop a technique. Taking advantage of this, he had developed almost all of the spells he had available, even if his level was still not enough to use them.
On telling the system to proceed, Daneel looked around to find Ripley and say his good byes. It seemed that he had gone down the stairs when Daneel had been communicating with the system, thus he also walked to the stairs and reached the ground floor.
At a corner of the room, Ripley was sitting on a chair taking long swigs from a bottle of wine.
His face was scrunched up into one of pain, making Daneel wonder whether this was the same person who had been so animatedly enchanting trinkets just a while ago.
Seeing him come down, Ripley took another long swig and said, "Dana... if we had been together, we could have had a son like you by now. Curse that scoundrel Sellax! If only he hadn’t broken through to 2nd Grade Enchanter before me...."
Tears and snot started flowing down Ripley’s face. Seeing the pitiful figure, Daneel decided to hear him out.
His original plan was to follow his hunch about the mosquitoes next. If he was right, there was a great chance that he could establish a stable income for him and his faction.
Yet, it had already become night. Although his stomach was grumbling due to eating nothing since the morning, Daneel chose to stay and let the man pour out his concerns. After all, he had to thank him for enabling the system to develop the invaluable enchanting technique. If the technique being developed was anything similar to the rest of the ones so far, then there was a great chance that even the problem of absence of trinkets for his faction could be resolved.
Ultimately, trinkets were the backbone for any faction. There was only so much a person could do unarmed against someone equipped with defense and combat trinkets. This had been very apparent in Joshua’s fight against Team Varanel. Although they had won, such a strategy would fail the next time because the other team could easily find countermeasures against it.
Deciding to go to Elanev the next day, Daneel asked, "Who’s Dana?"
He had been wondering about the reason behind Master Jonah being very specific in his instructions. Now, after speaking for the first time in front of Ripley, Daneel understood why.
As if Daneel’s voice had woken something up inside Ripley, he threw the bottle aside and started telling his story.
Each and every event and detail was told in vivid detail.
As Daneel would find out later, being cooped up alone in his house for so long had led Ripley to develop a particular disposition where anyone who asked him even a single question would be treated to a barrage of information. Whether the information was useful or not was beside the point, as the listener would be inundated by the sheer detail and volume of the information given.
4 hours later, Daneel finally staggered out of the house and wearily walked to the academy.
In fact, he had dozed off many times throughout the conversation, hence he had no idea just what the gist of the story had been. Hence, he chose to ask the system.
[Ripley, Sellax and Dana were classmates. Both Ripley and Sellax courted Dana, but she said that she would be with whoever broke through to a Grade 2 Enchanter first. Both had red grade comprehension and reached the requisite mage level at the same time. Yet, after traveling to a neighboring nation and learning Enchantment in a dedicated academy, Sellax broke through first. Since then, Ripley has shut himself in his house trying to break through. He assumes that Dana is with Sellax and that she would come back to him if he broke through himself.]
So that had been the sad story. What did advancing to a certain grade as an Enchanter have anything to do with being with someone? Although his social skills were developing, Daneel was still very new to matters of the heart. All he knew about romance came from a few movies he had seen back on Earth. Thus, his romantic knowledge ended at "Guy and girl fall in love, marry and live together happily"
The next morning, Daneel made his way to the Fists of Justice Training Hall.
Finding Elanev, he put forward a plan that made the former gawk at him in disbelief.
A few hours later. In the forest closest to the gate outside the Capital City of Lanthanor.
2 people carrying long poles with nets attached on top could be seen jumping around.
Beside them was a sealed bottle, in which a few mosquitoes were flying around, trapped.
These 2 were Daneel and Elanev. The reason he had approached Elanev had been that he needed someone who knew the city in and out to contract a woodworker to make these nets for catching the mosquitoes. The insects were deemed useless, thus no one sold them like other exotic animals.
Thus, Daneel had no choice but to use nets to catch the damn things. Spells were of no use because they flew too fast. Daneel was also not powerful enough to make a barrier which could trap the mosquitoes in.
On inquiring with Elanev, Daneel found out that there were even more interesting quirks in these mosquitoes. Typically, they fed on sweet things like honey or fruits in the forest. Yet, they were capable of finding out the existence of Ether from many miles away. Once they became aware, they would stop at nothing to devour the ether blocks clean. Even if one put the blocks in a vault, the mosquitoes would somehow find a way in and leave nothing behind. Only magically made barriers could keep them out. After the mosquitoes were done eating away a block, there was no way for the Ether to be extracted from them. Many had tried but failed because similar to how the magical energy inside Ether was modified to go back to the earth once it was absorbed by a human, mosquitoes also modified the energy by ingesting them. Thus, even if many mosquitoes were collected and crushed, there was no way to obtain the energy or the ether from them.
Thus, this resulted in their predicament-having to jump around trying to trap them and place them in the bottles they had prepared.