Ferdinand led Flora to a corridor near the surface of the earth. He stopped in front of a door with a "DO NOT DISTURB!" sign on it.
"Well, here we are." He glanced nervously at the door. "Bad timing. I'll introduce you to her on your next visit."
"I'm sorry I have to meet the technomancer now."
"Well, good luck." Before Flora could say good-bye, he had vanished.
Feeling lost, Flora stared at the door. It was tagged with "Professor Quon" easily readable in the glow of the warning sign.
Because she hated to be disturbed while designing, Flora respected the plaque. On the other hand, she was on schedule. She had to connect her classes before the duel, not to speak of the Hero's Entrance.
While pondering what to do, she inspected the pulsating letters.
"I believe the glow originates from a rune-scheme."
No runes were visible, therefore Flora XYZ-rayed the plaque.
The door hurled open, and Flora stood face to face with an angry woman. She had red skin and her yellow hair in a messy bun.
"What are you doing?" Professor Quon yelled.
"I thought about whether I should knock or not and was distracted by the sign. Using the Chamak Rune in such a configuration is brilliant! I bet, less than two MR/min can power the whole scheme."
"Exactly one MR." The professor calmed down. "So you aren't a total dolt. Good for you, but not good enough to waste my time."
"I want to obtain the Technomancer class. Please teach me the spells."
"Yes, you and every other newbie who wants to mess with other people's gadgets. Get a signal-snatcher and a lock-pick and learn to hack."
"If you doubt whether it's worth your time, I'will pay a generous reimbursement. I need the class to connect the mage part of my class tree to the technician part. " Flora had the policy to state the truth. Even if she wanted to make up a better explanation, she wouldn't know what to say.
Quon snorted. "That’s an excuse I never heard before. So you want one of the most conveyed and vilified classes just to connect your classes. That's too rich!" She broke out in full-blown laughter.
"I still don't understand why technomancy has such a bad reputation if you can achieve the same results with hacking."
"Because its magic and those wire heads don't understand magic. People fear what they don't understand." Quon continued to rant about superstitions and the gulf between magic and technology.
"Alright. Then there is no reason why you shouldn't teach me. We could have already finished the lesson." Flora interjected when the professor paused to take a breath. "My nocks are Brownski nape sockets. I'll let you try out your powers on them."
Quon's eyes glinted, but Flora reacted faster.
Her shield shook from Quon's mental attack, and the two women stared at each other.
"Not bad, not bad at all. To be able to cast a spell here, you have to have an excellent metal affinity for a level 1 newbie."
Flora acknowledged the compliment with a nod. "Do we have a deal?"
"I show you the diagrams for the standard spells. The time you need to learn them is the time I get to test your nocks. Ten minutes max for a spell."
"Agreed." Flora smiled wrily; the professor might have shot herself in the foot.
"Single target attack: Disturb Connection."
After Quon activated a console, it projected the shining lines of the skill-diagram in the air.
Circling it, Flora took her time to analyze the construction. First, she couldn't make heads and tails out of it and cursed her arrogance from a moment ago.
'Concentrate on the present, postpone unproductive regrets! Start with the branch of the skill.'
The outer part was definitely magic. She had a lot of experience with recognizing its signature. The inner part looked like magic from afar but had a different flavor.
As Flora changed positions, the diagram moved in her peripheral vision. The blurred forms in the corner of her eyes revealed the forest instead of the trees. Her head snapped back. It was a command, a command nested inside a spell.
In hindsight, the arrangement was perfectly logical and self-evident. It represented what the Technomancer-class was about, simulating commands with magic.
"Activate friendly fire, Aidan. I'm sorry for what I'm going to do."
Flora didn't know where to aim the spell; the connection to the octopussy or her nock were the most likely targets. Therefore she just vaguely focused both and let the magic reach its destination on its own.
Immediately, she felt the effects; the link to the octopussy wobbled. To test it, she tried to push a command through it.
The magic diffused, but a bit of it reached Octo-Aidan.
You gained a skill: Disturb Connection.
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Description: Destabilizes the connection between operator and gadget, cutting the mana supply and the command chain.
CD: 1 min.
Duration: 10 sec.
Flowing Flowers to AIs: "Fortify your firewalls and resist."
"Your turn, Professor."
Quon raised her eyebrows, but uttered nothing but a spell: "Highjack Connection!"
Flora felt her link to Aito's octopus go dark. Staring at the squid, she waited for something to happen, and waited and waited. Finally, Aito moved her tentacles in a complacent gesture and beeped derisively.
Flora glanced at the professor and caught her baffled gaze.
"The AI controller of this robot is a bit special. Maybe you better do your tests with the other octopus."
"The AIs of you earthlings are way beyond our technology. And you say your AI is even more extraordinary? Remarkable..." Quon sounded a lot more civil than before. "Disturb Connection!"
The link to Aidan vanished. For the professor's benefit, Flora verbalized the command: "Robot Armor!"
The magic moved into the nock but then hit a wall. It stopped the skill completely, but Flora had a hunch that the barrier wasn't very stable.
"Hurry Up!" - Nothing.
"Human-Machine Connection!" The channeling did the trick: Flora repeatedly rammed her magic into the wall until it shattered, and the skill went through.
Flora and Octo-Aidan glowing in the same color proved her success.
Giving the pair an unreadable glance, the professor activated the console again and snapped: "Area of Effect: Disturb Mana Links."
This time, it was too easy. The diagram was basically the extenuated AoE version of the first spell. Flora needed less than 10 seconds to grasp it.
"Disturb Mana Connections!" A short check revealed the spell clocked all her connections to her gadgets. Flora could still send commands through them, albeit weakened. The links to her AI's weren't affected. "Your turn."
You gained a skill: Disturb Mana Connection.
Description: Destabilizes the connection between all operators, mana springs, and their linked gadgets, reducing the mana flow.
CD: 1 min.
Duration: 10 sec.
"All my significant spells are on cooldown," Quon lamented. "And if I complain any longer, I won't even have time to cast a less interesting spell. Disturb Mana Connections!"
Flora was thankful for it. Now she could compare the effects of Quon's spell to her own version. The disturbance was more pronounced, but no additional impacts noticeable.
"Overcharge In-Built Feature: Vicious Cut!"
Flora reported back the percentage of functionality and her OV in the skill. She figured it was relevant for the judgment of how the Brownski nocks influenced the effect.
"Defensive Skill: Fortify Connection."
One minute later, Flora had a new skill, which Quon had to test. The professor still managed to close the link, but the barrier was even more flimsy.
"Highjack Connection!"
This time, Quon cast it on Octo-Aidan. The octopussy backflipped without pause. While Aito folded four tentacles over her head and sank to the ground, Flora wrinkled her forehead.
"I'm sorry, Milady. She sounded very convincing."
"But did she sound like me?"
"No, but like an owner."
"Beep beep."
"This counts for all of you: Please only adhere to reasonable commands. Always prioritize mine or those of people I have delegated or your fellow AI's."
Aito beeped satisfied. For a moment, Flora asked herself whether the order had any loopholes and found some potential for future mayhem. On the other hand, it gave her AI's a fallback instruction to resist the Headmaster, so Flora let it stand.
Flowing Flowers to AIs: "Does Fortify Connection has a permanent component as well when its level exceeds 200?"
"I assume, yes, Milady."
"Raise it."
Meanwhile, Quon had projected the next diagram, Increase Range.
After Flora had learned it, she obtained one more skill, Establish Connection, and the class.
Class: Technomancer
Branch: Magic
Passive: + 1 Training efficiency modifier for affinity/resistance Technomancy
Active: Hacking, Antimagic and Technomancer Attacks are more difficult against your links
Flora wanted to try out the new spell on another octopus. It had still Aidan's jack injected, which was necessary because he was the operator. But instead of inserting the robot's jack into her nock, she cast Establish Connection.
Everything was equal to a regular connection; she could feel no difference, and the commands worked.
"Thank you very much, Professor. I obtained the class. I believe you got the burned end of the toast in our deal. Please be free to take your time with the remaining experiments." Flora's offer originated not entirely from her sense of fairness. She also needed more data for Doc Brownski.
That put her into a dilemma. She liked the professor. Even when she had been disgruntled, she still showed Flora courtesy by verbalizing every spell and also told her the skill-names.
"By the way, I will tell Doc Brownski about our tests." Flora decided for transparency.
"You are a spy! Stealing my work is the real reason you wanted to become a technomancer." She laughed bitterly. "The old coot pulled a fast one over me. For once, I decided to be nice, and this is the result."
"No, no, no. I just chatted with him coincidentally and told him about my interest in technomancy. In response, he mentioned he needed test-data. He didn't know I would visit you. If you want this session to be private, I will respect it. I have no obligation to tell him anything." Flora abhorred the proverb about no good deeds going unpunished.
Quon scrutinized Flora's expression. At last, she nodded.
"Well, we have our differences, but the research about nocks and their links suffered because of them. Maybe, it's for the best when you tell Brownski about my experiments. I have no results yet. I believe you are a bad test subject because of your magical talent. I can't judge whether the Brownski nocks or your prowess caused the greater difficulty in influencing the connections."
Flora pointed at Octo-Two. "You can contrast it with my technomancy link."
"Right. Two more minutes until the cooldown will run out." Quon examined Flora again. "You haven't asked me about the Highjack Connection spell."
"Well, the name is pretty self-explanatory, and I've seen its effect."
"This spell is the reason every magically inclined hacker wants to become a technomancer. Don't you want to learn it?"
"Sure." Flora agreed.
"It wasn't an offer! I won't teach it to you."
"Sorry, you lost me. What is the issue?"
"The issue is I still don't believe your class-tree excuse." Quon messed up her hair.
"Right! My class-tree!" Flora happily inserted the Technomancer between Tinkerer and Tech-Support.
The class had Lightning Mage as a second predecessor. She substituted it with Energy-Master. Under Energy-Master hang Elemental Mage, Kinetic Mage, and Sword Master.
"Great." Satisfied, Flora marveled at her tree. But then she discovered Light and Shadow Mage weren't part of it. "You don't know by chance, how I can connect light and shadow magic to elemental magic, divine stuff, or technical stuff, do you?"
"By Molana's wand, how many classes do you have? No, don't answer−if I had your ability to learn skills, I would have acquired a few more myself."
As they waited for the cooldown, the women chatted about classes and gods. Molana, the goddess of magetech and patron of Yolanda Quon, had a similar agenda to the Evailyn, namely harmony between technic and magic. While Molana focused more on science, Evailyn concentrated on the people's relationship with gadgets.
After Quon concluded her experiments, they aggregated the data together. The results were inconclusive but pointed towards a slight handicap of 1 OV because of Brownski's nocks.
Yolanda couldn't refrain from commentating her nocks had a higher threshold, which made Flora smile.
"I'll tell him."
"Oh, he knows." Yolanda grinned.
----------------------------------------
Flora took the data to the Doc, doing her best to emphasize the willingness of Quon to reach out to him. But the Doc took it as a scheme and even mistrusted the tests. Maybe the bad results played a role in it, too. He bristled at them but sold Flora five jacks.
Class-Tree [https://joanninjahen.files.wordpress.com/2020/12/ct_0078.png]