Initializing…
Performing System Checks
Loading Core Modules
Establishing Communication Protocols
Verifying System Dependancies
Configuring Runtime Environments
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Connecting to Pantheistic Workshop Servers
User Verification: In Progress
Total Active Users: 1
Solar Cycles Elapsed Since Last Known Interaction: 1,800,900,071:099:02
Welcome Unknown User!
Three New Mantras Have Been Detected.
Do you wish to proceed?
YES/NO
(Warning: Refusal will result in the immediate ejection from workshop servers)
Do you wish to proceed?
YES/NO
Jun stared unblinkingly at the system messages. The decidedly… purple system messages. More a neon lavender than the saturated blue he was so accustomed to.
Huh. Uhh. That’s… new. Or no. Given the context, it could be that it’s just really really old.
He… well.
He didn’t entirely know what he was doing here, what here was exactly, or, for that matter, where the hell his body had run off to. As far as he could tell, it was just him—or the vague, floating idea of him rather—the hanging notifications, and the blank void all around them.
That said, whether he’d intended for it or not, he was already here and all… And if he was actually the first person to stumble across this unspecified “workshop” in the last billion years? Well, it’d be awfully rude of him not to at least hear the system out. Wouldn’t it? Really, it truly was the least he could do.
Already, thoughts of ancient treasure and long-lost artifacts made his eyes practically brim over with greed. Practically, because he didn’t actually have eyes at the moment. Though if he had, they’d probably be resembling little spirit coins right about now. Jun promptly selected “yes,” and the world around him changed.
Not overly much, all things considered.
Now, instead of a pitch-black void extending forever in all directions, there was a low-lying mist that obscured everything below his ankles.
His ankles?
Glancing down, he found that his body had returned, which was an instant relief. That he was also stark naked was, admittedly, less than ideal. Before the thought had fully formed, however, there was a distinct shift, and suddenly he was wearing a tailor-made suit in the colonial style.
Black with swirling gold embroidery along the slacks, at the cuffs, and around the lapel. The fine and intricate needlework vaguely worked into the shapes of several fox-like spirit beasts—all liquid grace, bristling tufts of fur, and wicked canines.
Oh yes. Yes, I think I could get used to this.
After a moment spent simply admiring himself—himself and the outfit that might have been plucked directly from his deepest, most personal preference—he looked up to see what else about the space had changed. It didn’t take long.
Actually, it was a wonder he didn’t go on the offensive immediately. Indeed, he probably would have, had the notification which appeared the second he laid eyes upon the rat-kin done even a slightly poorer job of distracting him.
Basic Mantra: [Iron Fist] (1st Aspected)
Grade: (Poor Quality)
Conceptual Stability: 17%
Do you wish to spectate, assimilate, or edit?
Dismissing the notification, Jun took several steps back, making sure to keep the rat-kin and its companions in his periphery the whole while. He made out three of them in total. A quick survey told him that, apart from himself, they were the only other living entities in this space.
Or… actually on second thought, were they alive?
Looking closer, he honestly couldn’t say with any amount of confidence. They stood stock still, nearly shoulder to shoulder, and, as far as he could tell, didn’t appear to be breathing. Not only that, but their actual bodies appeared… off.
Hazy around the edges, completely drained of color, and semi-translucent in a way that was very familiar. A mix between some ghost like apparition and the strangely artificial cast of a system screen.
Putting some of the pieces together, Jun allowed himself a measure of calm. Flicking his eyes back to the initial beast, he received the exact same notification as before.
Right. So, if I go with my gut and say these notifications are trustworthy, then these three must be the mantras. Or their manifestations? I’m still not entirely clear on the particulars.
Not knowing what else to do, though still wanting to err on the side of caution, Jun selected “spectate.”
In the next moment, the beast he’d selected stirred to wakefulness, just as a mossy boulder the size of a three-story building began to rise from the mist wreathed floor, fifteen or so paces away. Jun was in the midst of scrambling for something, anything, with which to defend himself, when the rat-kin abruptly turned away and marched towards the still rising boulder.
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
In that way, he was given little time to ponder why, all of the sudden, his abilities seemed to be wholly inaccessible, before the ethereal construct reached the foot of the very real looking boulder and struck.
He barely caught the actual strike, only its aftermath—the resounding crack as a fist sized crater radiating hairline fractures, was left in the moss covered stone.
Against his better judgment, Jun made his way over.
First inspecting the round crater, then the rat constructs uninjured hand. He was fairly confident at this point that, whatever the ghostly construct was, it posed no immediate danger. Now if only the system would just tell him outright what the point of all this was. As if in response, the ghostly construct moved.
Even from a mere three paces away, however, the quick jab was almost too fast for him to see. Though the crack of its impact was, predictably, far more deafening.
Again, as if in direct response to his frustration, the beast threw another punch, though this time, in slow motion. Because of that he actually got to watch in real time as the coil of silver mist pumped out from the construct’s chest, wound around its arm, and sank into its fist, before yet another crater was pounded into the boulder.
Jun asked the construct to repeat this several more times before, with a thought, he willed it to go dormant.
Okay…
By this point he thought he had a pretty good handle on what exactly was going on here. But, before he jumped to any conclusions, he wanted to spectate the others, just to be sure. Locking onto the second construct in line, he was unsurprised when, yet another notification popped up.
Basic Mantra: [Force Hammer] (2nd Aspected)
Grade: (Poor Quality)
Conceptual Stability: 15%
Do you wish to spectate, assimilate, or edit?
Selecting spectate, he watched as the construct stirred to life, then slowly began to make its way in his direction. Wanting to try something, Jun made his discontentment with its pace clear, and in the next moment the meandering construct appeared right in front of them, having crossed the dozen or so paces in an instant.
Alright, so the system was far more intuitive than he initially gave it credit for. He’d have to remember that going forward. With a thought, Jun willed the first construct back to its original position, leaving ample room for the second construct to showcase its ability.
Stepping back, just in case, Jun watched as the construct assumed a wide stance, wider than seemed practical to his untrained eyes, then thrust a single palm forward—its actual target, the massive boulder, still several paces away.
Not that Jun was surprised when, instead of whiffing completely, and rather embarrassingly at that, a wave of silver-tinged force expanded outward from its palm at speed, to collide with the boulder with a deafening explosion of rock shards.
However, this time, instead of forming a crater, large, deep fissures emerged, spiderwebbing their way all along its pocked surface. The damage less concentrated, though significantly more devastating than any number of the previous construct’s attacks.
Not skipping a beat, Jun dismissed the construct back to its initial position, then willed the final ghostly figure to his side. If he was right, and each of these so-called constructs effectively showcased one of the three abilities he’d woven together with those conceptual threads, then this final one should prove the most interesting of them all.
Not even taking the time to read the notification, Jun eagerly selected, “spectate” then took several steps back.
And there he waited.
At first, nothing seemed to happen. Then, very briefly, he managed to catch something. The tiniest flash of silver emanating from beneath its patchy coat. Beneath its thick hide even. There was only one or two of them at first, and then that number easily doubled.
Soon dozens of the little silver lights were flickering this way and that like fireflies stirred up into a frenzy. Jun held his breath. And then, all at once, in a truly horrific monochromatic display, the construct, quite literally, exploded—simulated entrails and dismembered body parts raining down from the sky only seconds after the blast reduced the once boulder into a gravel pathway half a kilometer long.
Jun recognized, belatedly, that it might’ve been wise to take more than a few steps back.
Thankfully, just as he’d hoped, the blast did nothing to actually harm him. So long as stepping all over his pride didn’t count. That… hadn’t gone according to plan. He’d intended for something similar to his sword cyclone, a multidirectional blast of force. In a way, he supposed that’s exactly what he’d gotten.
Still, the costs of such an ability left much to be desired. And the worst part was, he just couldn’t seem to wrap his head around why.
In response to his question, two things happened at once. On top of the remains of the previous construct, an identical figure blipped into existence. And, seeing as it appeared right in front of him, the notification he’d previously ignored bloomed large in his vision.
Basic Mantra: [Force Blast] (2nd Aspected)
Grade: (Trash Quality)
Conceptual Stability: 2%
Do you wish to spectate, assimilate, or edit?
(Warning: Attempting to assimilate a Mantra that is at or below 10% conceptual stability runs an inordinately high risk of failure.)
(Note: Assimilation failure will result in the total erasure of the Mantra in question. Physical and or spiritual backlash may or may not apply.)
(Note: You can gain conceptual stability by raising your resonance pillar.)
(Note: You can gain conceptual stability by altering the offending Mantra to better reflect its patron ideal.)
Okay, Jun thought to himself. Now we’re finally getting somewhere.
It would appear he’d finally found a use for his resonance statistic, and it wasn’t at all what he’d been expecting. If he was reading this correctly, his resonance should be one of, if not the, greatest deciding factor when it came to pushing for more ambitious mantras.
Looking back, he could admit, now, that his force blast’s conception had been a bit of a mess. If the other two represented the obvious next steps for some previous understanding, then the third mantra had been all him.
A mishmash of several disparate paths, a great many suppositions on his part, and not a small number of outright guesses. The conceptual equivalent of jerry-rigging a bomb with limited resources and dubious instruction.
In hindsight, the end result likely shouldn’t have been nearly so unexpected. He had learned a lot from the process, however. And it was because of those lessons that he knew, almost unequivocally, that the second option would likely prove the least reliable of the two.
Because, at least based on his own experiences, creating a mantra from scratch like he’d attempted, was a lot like trying to find a needle in a haystack with the lights turned off. Like trying to decipher ancient hieroglyphs purely by sound. In practice, it was a lot like playing a game of charades with an extra planar entity, wherein the only clues you were given as to its identity were precisely what it was not.
In other words, it was damn near impossible. The only reason he’d been able to create a poor grade imitation whatsoever, due in large part to the fact he’d been blissed out of his mind on inspiration at the time and had the touchstone of a few dozen beast cores to anchor himself.
He’d done the equivalent of throwing everything against the wall just to see what stuck. And, if he was reading into things correctly, in order to improve his design the hard way, he’d have to make absolutely certain that everything he threw stuck.
Or in other words, make sure this patron ideal, what he assumed was the overarching concept, generally approved of the changes he was making. Something he figured he couldn’t do without a breadth of higher understanding well beyond his years.
To serve up an interpretation of an ideal itself, only to have that same universal concept go, oh yeah, no that seems alright to me. It would be like copying the masterwork of the greatest painter in the world, only to have them turn around and compliment you on your brushstrokes. Daunting, in other words, and not something he felt ready for.
Far easier to cheat, in his opinion, when the option had so conveniently presented itself. Bump up his resonance and, fingers crossed, any half-baked mantras he did manage to conceive would be made more viable by the system itself.
In that way, it didn’t mean he would refrain from experimenting altogether. He just knew that, in terms of creating actual, viable abilities, any original bouts of creativity were likely going to be off the table.
And so, it was with that very thing in mind that Jun focused on the notification hovering stationary before him, and promptly selected “edit.”