Victoria frowned as she considered the system. It was becoming increasingly clear that the system couldn't completely act as a substitute power system for most Worlds. The levels of energy they dealt with were simply too large. For example, most of Greg's friends had energy levels around ten thousand points wise and that put them in the early stages of their tier four. Tier five would start at sixteen thousand, then tier six would be at thirty-two and so on. The problem was that the amount of energy required kept growing exponentially, while the amount of points they were getting remained the same. With the amount of energy involved, points would only have a limited use, unless there was a way to turn energy into points like she did with the energy cores, and even then that only helped her. So using points purely to increase energy wasn't a great idea. Instead, it was the auxiliary uses that provided the most benefits, such as increasing skill comprehension or adding traits like the translation ability from the System World. She'd still leave the energy options, obviously, since it did give a good boost, particularly in the early stages, making it easier for people to get started, but she'd messed up by making it the primary focus.

Victoria began to rearrange the system around what she considered the core features. First, there was the recovery function. Using points to heal and eliminate needs like hunger and exhaustion was probably the most fundamental benefit the system could provide, as it ensured the user's survival. She was pretty sure that was the first need in that hierarchy thing people talked about. It also provided a bit of security, because of the healing, though you still had to… Victoria paused. Could she make healing automatic? Victoria rolled her eyes. What was she thinking? Of course she could! Though… she wouldn't want to waste points on every little thing. Mostly she'd want it for lethal injuries, maybe crippling ones too… she'd probably need multiple settings to adjust for the situation. She quickly cobbled together an auto-healing option that went from disabled, to lethal wounds, to crippling wounds, and finally to all wounds for the wimps. She also added a separate auto option for basic needs, so people could select whether to have their thirst, hunger, and exhaustion automatically taken care of as well.

Victoria looked over the recovery page, considering if there was anything else she could add. What would be helpful even without points? Not everyone could keep a massive reserve of points to spend like she could, so they'd probably want to save them as much as possible, looking for other solutions… so diagnostic options would be helpful, right? It already listed what the injuries were, but… Victoria added a physical model to the page, injuries lighting up where they actually were on the body, making them easy to identify. While she was at it, she also added hunger, thirst, and exhaustion bars, cause who didn't love resource management? She gave the page one last look over, before nodding in satisfaction. She hadn't made any major changes, but what she'd done should make the recovery function more helpful and user friendly. She hoped.

The next function she looked at was the communication systems, but there wasn't much to do there. She already had a contact list so people could call and text each other, or even find each other on the map. The only thing she could think to add was a party chat function. It was the same with the map. It showed the area around people, based on the data gathered, letting people find each other easily. All Victoria added was the ability to mark POI's. Honestly, she probably should have added those a while ago, but it hadn't seemed relevant… For skills, she added the option to automatically spend points on selected skills, and that was that. The skill page was already pretty good.

Finally, Victoria reached the traits page, and frowned. So far, all she had available was the universal translation ability, dark vision, enhanced senses, and enhanced virility, all from Andrew and his forms. It wasn't that the traits weren't useful, but… they were basic. They wouldn't provide the boost she was looking for from the system. The problem was that most of Andrew's traits were locked to his World, or at least the cores from that World. Adding a Nature affinity to a mage from Greg's World wouldn't do shit, because they didn't work with affinities. They also didn't have the structure to project the presence of an apex predator. So Victoria couldn't drag the good traits across Worlds, but she didn't have any idea how to create traits of her own. If she wanted to take her system to the next level, that's where she needed to start, figuring out how to create these traits that would give the users an edge over their opponents.

Victoria focused on the universal translation ability. This was her key to figuring out how these traits worked. The others were just physical changes, things she could have accomplished through the system, no trait required. She probably shouldn't even include them under traits… maybe she should switch them to the physical manipulation page? Though she wasn't sharing that one at the moment… She shook her head, refocusing on universal translation and closing her eyes, focusing on her point vision as she bought the trait, watching what the energy did as it worked. It was fast, almost too fast for her to see, but she watched as the points twisted, shifting… into something she couldn't see.

"The fuck?" Victoria muttered. Was the translation feature not based on energy? It obviously wasn't physical, so… "Aura?" Victoria cocked her head curiously. Were traits based on aura? She blinked, before scowling. Of course they were! That's why Andrew picked them up like they were freaking candy! But she couldn't see aura, so how could she see what it was doing? "Andrew! I need your help!" She yelled, getting up and heading upstairs. "Andrew!"

"What?!?" Andrew yelled out from the deck as he heard Victoria yelling for him.

"Your fucked up non-existent shit is messing with my system!" Victoria yelled back before reaching the deck. "I think I'm doing something with aura but I can't tell what because I can't see the crap!"

"So you want my help seeing what's happening?" Andrew asked and Victoria nodded. "You could have just said that instead of yelling up and down the ship!"

"Eh, this was quicker." Victoria shrugged, waving him closer. "C'mere and let me do shit to you."

"What are you going to do?" He asked cautiously as he approached.

"You're going to buy the universal translation trait and watch what the system does." Victoria explained. "If I know what it's doing, I can try and figure out how to get it to do other things."

Andrew gave her a wary look, before nodding. "Okay fine." He sighed, closing his eyes. It wasn't like Victoria would just let him not, so it was best to just get it over with. Victoria could be pretty bullheaded when she decided something needed to be done. "So what, I just buy it and watch?"

"Yup." Victoria nodded. "It happens pretty fast, so make sure you're ready when it happens."

"Got it." Andrew muttered, closing his eyes, focusing on his aura sight as he purchased the trait, watching what happened. Just like Victoria said, it was quick, but he still caught a thread of aura appearing out of nowhere and diving into his Deer core, doing… something. "Huh…" It kinda reminded him of when his Changeling core absorbed another core. "My core just absorbed it." Andrew explained as he opened his eyes.

Victoria frowned. "That isn't very helpful."

Andrew shrugged helplessly. "I don't know what to tell you. It just went into the core. It probably did something inside, but I can't see that."

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Victoria's frown twisted even further. "Shit… I'm never figuring out this trait crap, am I?" She sighed. How was she supposed to study something she couldn't even see?!?

"Well… if I had to guess, you're making core pieces and adding them to people's cores." Andrew muttered. "But even I don't really know how to read core pieces, let alone make new ones. I don't think it's something you can just do."

Victoria grunted in grudging agreement. "Just frustrating. The only reason I can even find these traits is because your system finds them for me!"

"Maybe that's a sign you shouldn't be messing with them?" Andrew commented tentatively. "I mean, fucking with cores can be dangerous, you know? Especially when you can't even see what you're doing. I mean, you're an energy person. Why don't you find a way to fuck with energy?"

Victoria paused. "Hmmm… yes, I should focus on energy." She nodded. "You should focus on traits!"

Andrew blinked. "Uh… what?"

"It's perfect!" Victoria exclaimed. "You work with aura, so you study what aura does, and put it in the system! All I need to do is add a way to upload information to the system… should be possible, right? Sort of like what Gaia did with that game." She trailed off as she focused on the system, trying to figure out how to go about this. The system was obviously connected to people's minds, so it shouldn't be too hard, right? She'd already downloaded Foratuna's memories before. She just needed a knowledge tab, right? A page that categorized everything people knew, organized by topic… Victoria blinked as she realized this page was pretty similar to the skill page. It was just that you couldn't create knowledge out of nothing like you could with skill. If you swung your sword a thousand times, you'd get better at swinging your sword, but you wouldn't suddenly learn how to stab with it. So for knowledge, she needed people to actually share their knowledge… to upload it so others could download it. Of course, she had to make sure the knowledge was actually correct too… it would help anyone if people just uploaded a bunch of lies and misinformation. But the only way to check information was to already have that information… She needed to talk to Gaia and see how she handled this.

Andrew watched as Victoria wandered off, lost in her own thoughts. "What was that about?" Sarah asked, walking over from the foredeck where the girls were once again sunbathing while they kept an eye on the babies, though the babies were all in well covered little rocking basket things, because, you know, babies don't do well with prolonged exposure to the sun. Though magic might change that… eh, no point in risking it.

"Eh, it was just something to do with her system." Andrew explained, shooting a dismissive wave Victoria's way. "Apparently she can modify cores to some degree, but she doesn't actually know what she's doing, so it isn't very helpful. I can at least see what she's doing, so she wanted me to check it out, but it looks like all the important stuff happens in the core, so it doesn't help."

"I see…" Sarah nodded. "Can you modify cores?"

"Theoretically?" Andrew shrugged. "But effectively not really." He sighed. "Cores are… complicated. Isolating any one substructure out of everything that makes up a person… the best I can do is copy the entirety of a core, which only really helps me."

"Why is that?" Sarah asked, cocking her head.

"Well, normally people can only have one core." Andrew explained. "At least as far as I can tell. I'm the weirdo who seems to be able to have as many as I like. Or Greg, but he still only has one core per body…"

"So you can't give me one of those Beast core things so I can be stronger?" Sarah raised an eyebrow at him.

"Well, I could, but you'd turn into a Beast in the process." Andrew chuckled. "I don't suppose you'd like to spend the rest of your life as a Deer, would you?"

Sarah's expression twisted. "No thank you. I like being human."

"Yeah, I like you as a human too." Andrew nodded with a small smirk.

Sarah glanced at him with a small smile of her own. It was nice having someone else her own age around. She was so used to being 'the kid' of the group, the one to be protected and taken care of, but not a lot to offer. Not that she blamed anyone. She was a kid. But she still felt more like an accessory than a real part of the group sometimes. She didn't have that issue with Andrew though, because he was just a kid like her! She'd thought it'd be the same with Victoria, since she looked like she was around her age too, but… well, she couldn't tell whether Victoria was older than she looked or just weird. "So what have you been up to over here?"

"Just playing with light." Andrew shrugged, creating a few small globes around him. The Deer ability was actually a lot more versatile than he'd previously thought, more light manipulation than just light beams. "Look, I can even do strobes!" He grinned as he got the orbs flashing and swirling in different colors.

"All we need is some music and we could have a rave!" Sarah laughed.

"I dunno, I'm pretty sure we'd need drugs too." Andrew pointed out. "It's not a real rave unless everyone is gorked off their ass."

"True…" Sarah frowned, before letting out a sigh. "I guess we'll just have to do something else then, huh?"

"Well, if we're just talking lights and music, we could do a laser light show?" Andrew offered.

"Ew, those are lame!" Sarah retorted, giving him a light shove. "The last time I saw one of those it was a planetarium!"

"Hey, planetariums are cool!" Andrew protested. "Who doesn't love space?!?"

"Yeah, well, space kinda loses its magic when you get kidnapped by aliens." Sarah commented with a sigh. "What's the point of wondering what's out there when what's out there is trying to screw you over?"

"I mean, aliens, sure, but that's not really space you know?" Andrew replied. "Space is like- like nature. It isn't about what's in it, but the majesty of its structure. A field of stars or a forest in fall, they're just… beautiful, you know? The fact that there are horrible things living in them doesn't change that. I mean, look at this marsh. I bet we'd die within five minutes out there, but that doesn't change the fact that it's pretty as fuck."

Sarah blinked, looking between Andrew and the marsh. "Wow… I didn't think you were that… poetic."

Andrew flushed as he shrugged. "I just like nature… I think things would be a lot happier if they'd just take a minute to appreciate the beauty around them, instead of constantly struggling for… well, everything."

"Okay, now you just sound like a hippie." Sarah snickered.

"Hey, you were the one who suggested a rave." Andrew retorted, poking her in the side.

"Raves aren't for hippies!" Sarah protested.

"Raves are totally for hippies!" Andrew countered.

"Nuh-uh!" Sarah stuck her tongue out at him.

"Uh-huh!" Andrew shot back, sticking out his tongue as well.

"Rachel!" Sarah turned to yell. "Andrew says raves are for hippies! Tell him he's wrong!"

Rachel turned to look at them with a blink. "Well… as an ex-hippie myself, I can confirm that raves are totally for hippies. And pot-heads. And college kids that think they're wild. Pretty much anyone who likes to party."

"Ha! Told you!" Andrew laughed.

"She said other stuff too!" Sarah protested. "Just because you like raves doesn't mean you're a hippie!"

"Eh, pot-heads and college kids are just hippie-lite." Andrew snorted dismissively.

Sarah scowled, before letting out a sigh. "Yeah, you're right." The two shared a look before bursting out laughing. Yeah, Sarah decided, it was good to have a friend.