Shadow Slave

Sunny returned to the Brilliant Emporium as the sun was rising above the eastern horizon. If someone had seen him coming back home at the break of dawn, they would have probably assumed that he had spent the night elsewhere… and with someone else, engaging in revelry.

Of course, being mistaken for a philanderer would have been the least of his problems — many people already considered him a lecher, anyway. It was better to be seen as a profligate than as someone who had a habit of sneaking into the forbidden parts of the royal castle at night.

«Now, wait… what does it sound so wrong?»

In any case, his goodbyes with Cassie had felt a little hurried. She had seemed to be a little dazed and a little rattled, acting strangely around him… well, it was not surprising. Sunny doubted that she had expected him to dump two years worth of memories into her head in the span of a few hours.

But he had no other choice… initially, Sunny had wanted to share his memories with Cassie little by little. But the war was approaching faster than he had expected, and so, he needed her to trust him sooner.

Cassie was smart. With what she had shown her this time, she would be able to figure out many things. Most importantly, she would understand that he had been a companion to her and Nephis for a very, very long time.

Even if their relationship had been turbulent and rocky for most of that time…

Knowing that, she would lower her guard around him more. She would also advise Nephis to trust him better.

Well, and…

The things Sunny, as the humble shopkeeper, might do in the future would not look as outrageous. Which wasn't to say that he was planning on doing something outrageous, of course! But he had also not planned on participating in scandalous duels and being publicly embraced by Nephis because of a candy wrapper, so…

Things just sort of happened when Sunny was around her. He could put a leash on his emotions and control himself better, but… he didn't want to.

«Ah, so many things to do…»

Entering the Brilliant Emporium, Sunny yawned, stumbled sleepily to his bed — the very same bed he had taken from the hidden chamber of the ruined cathedral — fell on it, and closed his eyes blissfully.

At the same time, his avatar in the basement of the Marvelous Mimic looked up in disbelief.

«No way.»

They had so many things to do, and the original body decided to just go to sleep?!

Sunny couldn't believe himself.

Shaking his head, he sighed and continued pouring over his notes.

indeed a lot

preparing Memories for Rain, developing a design of the soul sword for Nephis… oh, and by the way, today was the day they were supposed to go on

suffering

looking forward to their

Before that, however…

to work on the

soulbound weapon was

each

simplest to solve, which was not to say the easiest. It was

would have just gone with the most potent ones at his disposal — those harvested from Great abominations would be ideal. He also needed a set of powerful soul

seriously consider using materials harvested from Cursed beings… even if he

entirely different this time

Actually, it was impossible

Changing Star's soul as he walked the path of Ascension. Really, there was no one better suited to wield a soulbound weapon than her since its power would depend on the power of her soul, and

and her Aspect. Her weapons and armor had a tendency to melt

sure that he already had the main

the material storage of the Brilliant Emporium. Just by looking

he was staring at… were the shards of the mystical ice that had once been the heart of the Winter Beast. It seemed a little odd, using ice to channel

create an alloy on its base? A lot of

of the Underworld well, and had come a long way in learning its secrets. He had reached a point where he could theoretically recreate most of its enchantments… except for the one he needed to master the

been simply too odd. Back then, in order to fulfill its requirements, Sunny had had to defeat thousands of opponents. The strangest part was that he had not needed to kill

simply a restriction placed on the onyx armor by its creator? Sunny wasn't sure. All he knew was that

had turned the Mantle of the Underworld from a Memory

simply recreate the [Soulbound Relic] enchantment? Or was fulfilling the demands of the [Prince of the Underworld] enchantment an integral part of the

and Sunny wasn't even sure that what

to the point that he was considering temporarily manifesting more avatars to keep working on

problem, meanwhile, was not as elaborate, but

to include, and constructing the map of the

lot

determined to finally accomplish something that he had been trying to do for a long time recreate the [Unseen] enchantment of the Moonlight Shard, which allowed the ghostly

would need to be an enchantment that augmented the

Beyond that, however…

was too much to choose