Shadow Slave

Sunny spent a lot of time considering what was the best use of the contribution points allocated to him by the army, as far as Memories were concerned.

He had no doubt that the cohort was going to encounter hordes of Nightmare Creatures in Antarctica. Hopefully, he and his soldiers would survive… which also meant that they would receive a lot of Memories, and eventually even Echoes, throughout the campaign.

Still, most of those abominations were going to be either Dormant or Awakened. How powerful of a Memory could killing such a creature bring? Additionally, any boon received in battle was bound to be arbitrary. Even if it possessed considerable power, who was to say that this power was going to fit the members of the cohort well?

So, now was his best and only chance to get his hands on potent Memories that perfectly suited his soldiers and himself.

However, nothing was ever simple.

Despite the fact that the government had been extremely generous, outfitting six Awakened, let alone a Master, was not cheap. If Sunny had not spent the lion's share of contribution points on upgrading the Rhino, he might have been able to acquire a good amount of powerful tools. As it stood, he was desperately short on funds.

This was why he had to make several painful decisions. Firstly, he gave up on getting something that he himself could use and chose to concentrate on the needs of his subordinates.

'That really leaves a bad taste in my mouth…'

Sunny let out a mournful sigh. There was just no denying it… his personal arsenal was already a bit too outstanding. He had to console himself by remembering that his six soldiers were, in a sense, an extension of this arsenal. They were meant to become his most powerful weapons.

So, empowering them was the same as empowering himself.

Secondly, purchasing Echoes were also out of the question. Although there were plenty to choose from, the cost was just too high. Sunny might have considered getting one if he could turn it into a Shadow, but he already knew that he had to possess the corresponding shadow in his Soul Sea to transform an Echo.

So, his main goal was to enhance the equipment of his soldiers in a meaningful way.

Sadly, even that was mostly out of his reach now.

…That was if Sunny did not cheat, of course.

'But why wouldn't I?'

An ominous smile appeared on his face.

Sunny was in a unique position to get most of what he wanted while spending a vastly smaller amount of contribution points than anyone else would have had to shell out. After all... he was an aspiring sorcerer.

Purchasing dozens of powerful Memories might have been out of his reach, but with some luck, he would not need to. Requesting a powerful Ascended sword for Belle would consume a considerable chunk of his remaining contribution points, for example.

But purchasing a Dormant weapon with a suitable enchantment would not. All he had to do was study its weave, and then transplant the enchantment on the swordsman's current blade.

In other words, Sunny planned to treat the Memories he purchased as building blocks of powerful tools, as opposed to tools themselves. That way, he could get much more value from the contribution points in his possession.

The only disadvantage of this approach was that it would immensely burden Sunny in the coming weeks. Nevertheless, he was willing to try. Even if not all of his attempts of transplanting weaves were going to succeed, he was confident that a sufficient amount would… if he chose the right ingredients, of course.

Sunny studied the vast list of available Memories for a while, then sighed and left the gymnasium. He had to inspect the goods personally. Sometimes, it was easy to forget that most Awakened did not enjoy his ability to peer into the very essence of Memories and receive a handy description of what each enchantment was supposed to do from the Spell.

That was something that consuming a drop of ichor that had fallen from Weaver's eye gifted him, and while there surely were Aspects that allowed a select number of people to do something similar, most Awakened simply had to rely on vague feeling and experimentation to unlock the full potential of their Memories.

It took some convincing to make happen, but eventually, Sunny was allowed into the main armory of the army encampment. There, he found several dozen of Awakened busy with paperwork. There were no thousands of Memories resting on the shelves, waiting to be allocated to various units.

The logistics of the whole system were a true nightmare, since Memories could only be transferred in person.

As the result, each was assigned to an Awakened supply officer who served as a walking arsenal and was supposed to personally deliver the chosen Memory to the recipient when requested. Sunny would have looked like a complete fool if he demanded each of these officers to manifest their entire inventories for his perusal, not to mention that such a thing would take forever to complete.

Luckily, he had narrowed his selection to a comparatively short list of Memories that were both cheap and had great potential. Now, he just had to take a look at them to make sure that the weaves were suitable and easy enough to copy.

Sunny had a lot of goals, ranging from comparatively simple to achieve to those that required a great effort on his part and could end in failure.

For example, there was a Dormant Memory that came in the shape of a straight razor. Its only enchantment, according to the description in the government database, made it extremely sharp. Trying to hack and slash Nightmare Creatures with the tiny blade was a recipe for disaster, but what if he could imbue Belle's sword with the same unnatural sharpness?

There was a cloak that had no other purpose than to make its wearer weigh less by a couple of kilograms. In and of itself, the enchantment was not too useful, but what if he applied it to Dorn's unwieldy sledgehammer?

Better yet, what if he managed to transplant the [Feather of Truth] enchantment of the Mantle of the Underworld to it? Even though Sunny still had trouble working with complex weaves of Ascended Memories, he felt that he had a solid chance of success.

What if he could purchase six cheap charms, and enhance each of them with resistance to cold that the Memory of Ice provided? Thankfully, he could spend his contribution points to receive souls shards required for these manipulations, as well.

Of course, the task was daunting and complicated. Not only did Sunny have to collect all the necessary ingredients, spend a lot of time and essence to create countless strings of essence, study the new weaves, and actually succeed in replicating them… he also had to take other factors into account.

The difference between passive and active enchantments, the capacity of the Memories being changed, the rate at which his Awakened soldiers would have to expend their limited reserves of essence to maintain the more powerful effects, the synergy between them… all of these concerns were enough to drive a person mad.

Not to mention that he only had several weeks to achieve this ambitious goal while simultaneously overseeing the training of the cohort and performing other important tasks.

He would probably improve his nascent mastery of sorcery, at least.

Staring at the confused supply officers, Sunny rubbed his face and groaned.

'So much to do… damn, is being a captain always so stressful?'