Joe swapped his job once again, removing monk for mana doctor. So… cure basic status and advanced status… and cure all, so… let’s try that. So… Cure… her.

Joe felt his mana roil within him without his control and grimaced, not liking the feeling of something else taking control of his limbs. Feels a bit like when I did those weird spear combat movements. The system took control of my body, so… same thing… Joe allowed it to do so, not wishing to fight it and hoping that something could happen. His mana twisted in some strange form within his body, a three dimensional shape that Joe could barely grasp before it flashed from his body rapidly, directly for the girl. It hit her and took on the same shape that he’d felt in his torso, but large enough to surround her entirely. It took on its shape, rotated around her in rapid twirls and spins before seeming to hone in on some location within the girl’s body. Its spinning came to an abrupt halt, although it did over shoot its aim and spent a few seconds oscillating back and forth before finding what it was targeting. It then shot out rays of some kind of light from different portions in its array, the rays blinking on and off in rapid alternating sequences before seeming to dim and grow frantic in its efforts. It’s… running out of power? Something is… Joe immediately attempted to give more mana to it, somehow, but found the attempt a failure. He finally gave up on that and simply blasted the array with some of his mana but it did nothing, simply passing through the array. The array continued its attempted but grew dimmer and began flashing in an obvious display of a failing system. Finally, it failed and suddenly exploded, silently, in a flash of sparkling mana, the array no longer viable.

Joe glanced at the lady’s status but found no changes and frowned. Right… so… not useful, so… Doesn’t seem to be… oh, magic or faith healers… they got a magic heal, how about… Joe was already swapping out his mana doctor for the magic healer and immediately instigated his magic heal skill targeting the woman. He hid his grimace as the system once again took over his mana manipulation limb and created another, even more complex, magical array construct. This construct was of dozens of parts, some three dimensional while others were simple two dimensional shapes. The simplest proved to be a triangle in an inverted triangle in a triangle, all on the same plane. That he immediately grasped, especially when it flashed out of him towards the girl and began its work.

The triangle in an inverted triangle in a triangle immediately went to her feet, setting up some kind of construct on the floor, but the other half a dozen or so constructs took up places around the woman. One setup over her head, a skull cap of some kind which had a line linking to another two constructs that were off to the side and appeared currently dormant. Another construct appeared to be in two parts, with one side a small conical construction while the other side was a massive construction that also connected to the two non-active constructs the skull cap construct was connected to which were waiting on the side lines. There were another few others that rapidly darted around the woman, and even three that dove into and out of the body, one seeming to focus on the torso, one on the limbs, and a last one on the head.

As Joe began to try to figure out what all was going on, the three bodily invasive constructs all came out quickly and linked up with one of the bigger ones. With that, the two non-active constructs suddenly leapt to life and began swirling around the body, sending out rays of some kind of mana into the body at several specific points, mostly into the lower torso. Then, the constructs searched a few more times before all activity ceased and all the constructs suddenly faded away, the mana that made them up dispersing back into atmospheric mana.

Joe looked on, frowning. OK. Cool… but what the heck was all that… and… He looked at the woman’s status and found the curse still glowing with red malevolence. OK… so… on to the next idea, I guess… then… time to do more … diagnosing… something. Joe pondered, thoughts lost in what he could do and more importantly, how to do it. While he thought, he turned to his diagnosis skill.

Diagnose the girl. His mana was taken once again, under the control of the system as his doctor’s diagnose skill began using his mana into creating a couple dozen mana constructs. They erupted out of his core, coming to birth in a strange expansion from his chest into the air in front of him. He watched on, fascinated. The constructs formed, several connecting to one another with long sinuous strings of mana that floated strangely in the air. The constructs floated while they were created out of mana and once completed, they swarmed around her, streams of mana flowing from the constructs into the girl. The constructs continued swirling around her while spitting mana at her.

Soon, all but one of the constructs finished their work and faded away, the mana in his constructs depleted. The last construct suddenly zoomed towards him, coming to rest in front of his face before expelling it’s mana in a rush. The mana faded, forming a rectangular shape that soon was replaced by… Huh… ok… so… a blue box made of mana from a mana construct… are all the boxes made of mana then? Is the whole system… well… that would make sense, but… huh… so not looking like its science… future tech… nano… wonder if… never mind. Joe quickly shook his head, a physical representation of his effort to scatter distractions and turned to look at the blue box that hovered before him, studying it carefully before frowning, then grimacing in disgust when it proved to be quite useless.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Diagnosis: Diagnosis complete. Insufficient power. Insufficient effort. Data not retrieved.

Joe’s frown was bitter but he sighed and attempted once again, this time forcing extra mana, if he could, as well as much more effort into focusing upon the effort of diagnosing the young woman. He forcefully added mana to the effort of the system as it created the constructs, and he smiled to see a small but noticeable difference in the constructs’ glow. He did grow concerned, however, when he saw a bubble form on all of the constructs, at what Joe sort of guessed were the rear of the constructs. He frowned but continued, focusing on his desire to know and understand the curse the young woman had. The constructs formed in the same way before suddenly ripping from him in a much less comfortable way, and he grunted, falling to a knee.

His constructs went to work, identically to the last ones, but they lasted for quite a bit longer, the strange bubble that had formed at the rear of each of the constructs slowly shrinking over time. As his constructs worked, he puzzled over the strange bubbles until he had an epiphany, and smiled. Huh… batteries… mana batteries, I guess? Cool. So… they should fade away after…

And as he watched, the bubbles evaporated and the constructs continued their work for another few moments before they faded away as before and the last construct rushed in front of him before displaying what it had found.

Diagnosis: Diagnosis complete. Young. Female. Base. Healthy. Monsterizing: 35%. Cursed. Curse unknown: Insufficient power. Insufficient Presence. Curse data not retrieved.

Joe barely held back his growl, but still sighed. A worthless analyze skill… wish I had a useful… hmm. Although… monsterizing… hmm. Joe turned his head towards the boxes scattered around the room and sent a diagnose at them. His constructs formed, flying out quickly but evaporated almost immediately before the blue box construct rushed up at him and displayed its info.

Diagnosis: Diagnosis aborted. Ineligible target.

Right. Useless… well… no… it got the curse. Lack of power, so… more power, but lack of Presence? What’s that? How do I …

His thoughts ground to a halt and a memory trickled back as he flicked a glance back towards his skills list which he quickly brought up. Right… Guidance… job guidance… probably won’t work, but… education theorist? This job is in the education group… and faith theorist… cause of the curse? And cure curse?

Joe swapped jobs. Job guidance, what is diagnose.

Diagnose: A basic skill of Medic and Doctor.

Expected uselessness. Job guidance, how can I use diagnose … what is diagnose best practice.

Think or say diagnose with a target in mind.

Joe sighed this time, completely expecting it but still utterly disappointed. So… then… let’s swap out to education theorist, then… Ooh… wait… Job guidance. What is Presence.

Presence: the sphere of a being’s influence within the being’s domain in which the being may assert and impress the being’s domain upon the world.

That… ok… that wasn’t as useless as I feared. So… some kind of … area in which one can affect … things. Wonder what it… ooh! Is that the sphere cone thingy I was doing? Then… so… can I do … wait… is my presence thing… constructs… basically the same as the mana constructs? Then… what is the difference? That doesn’t make… much sense? Why is that… Joe clenched his teeth and once again shook his head to clear the distractions, returning to what he wanted done. So… add in my sphere thing… let’s try that…

He instantiated his sphere thingy… find the name? Maybe it’s that Presence… right… go with that for now… Double check with Garnedell. He then pulled his Presence tight in around her before he engaged his diagnose skill once again, adding power as well. The various diagnose constructs all gained the small bubbles on their rears or sides just as his previous examples did, and the mana constructs formed as they always did, if a bit slow and a bit more time, before they rushed to surround the young woman again. Joe kept his presence going and even added in his own scanner system to it as well, attempting to connect it to the scanner construct of diagnose as well as diagnose’s reporting construct. He wasn’t sure what he was doing, but he had the weird floaty lines connected between them similar to what the other diagnose constructs had. He made sure to focus on their purpose as information conduits when he made them.

The constructs did their work, flowing around her even as he kept his own Presence working in conjunction with diagnose. Joe watched on as it worked, working for a bit longer than before and soon completing, these constructs fading away. Joe nodded and waited for the blue square to pop up with some information.

Diagnosis: Diagnosis complete. Young. Female. Base. Healthy. Monsterizing: 23%. Cursed. Curse unknown: Insufficient time. Complete curse data incomplete. Curse of #&#*, @)#(, @)(#$*&, and sex.

Joe blinked at the return, then smiled. OK. Now were getting somewhere… Looks like four areas of the curse? Something like that… if the commas AREN’T part of the gobbledygook? Maybe? One of them is sex… which I guess makes sense… then we need others… so… hmm… time to get education theorist and get more info. And… wait… why did monsterizing go down? Is that good? Or is that… how do we…

“What is monsterizing?” Joe asked the room in general.

Kukurnal quickly responded, “I am uncertain. You can ask the other priests when they come, but I believe it is the process of becoming a monster.”

OK… so, not good… but why is it going down then? Reaches zero and they become a monster then? Gotta speed this up then… that’s going down WAY too fast… wait…

“How long does it take for someone to monsterize?”