Lurona city [southern shores of Fuminao Legacy Kingdom], local time [1794.01.26]
Zeph weighed his words for a moment. It didn’t do him any good, though. Ghrughah already knew too much.
He still didn’t fully trust the giant. Ghrughah had his personal agenda for working with them, even if he wasn’t interfering with any decisions the Guild had made thus far.
But, as much as he couldn’t call him an entrusted person, the giant was always useful and seemed truthful. The only reason Zeph was hesitating, was because of Gru’s origins. Or rather, because of the lack of thereof. As an ancient being that couldn’t be fully comprehended even by the System, Gru’s existence posed a real threat to his own well-being. It wasn’t even a question of who knew about him, but of how many people did. One random rumor and a lot of influential people would want to have a word with him, and not necessarily in a civil manner. People with power were very serious when it came to knowledge and artifacts, and Gru was a living incarnation of both.
That, though, was in the future. The chances of anyone spreading that information anytime soon were minimal for as long as they were working together towards their main goal of advancing and setting a footing on a higher stratum. Also, right now, Zeph was indebted to the man. A man who was yet to break his word. His own origin was slowly resurfacing as well – it wouldn’t take longer than a few years before the attentive individuals concluded that he was a Terrien. At least, that was his prediction.
Taking into account that context, omitting the topic or straight-up lying would be the least optimal course of action. Not to mention, he was planning to move to the higher stratum in a year and the giant was becoming kind of indispensable for that plan to work. Providing a disservice to Ghrughah at this point would probably do more harm than good.
As so, he decided to give a truthful, yet succinct answer.
“Symbiotic Parasite, it was called,” he admitted. Surprisingly, he could feel a weight lifting from his shoulders when saying that.
Why that was, he wouldn’t have known.
The giant hummed, deep in thought. It didn’t take long for him to speak again, though. “A previously unknown designation?”
P’pfel’s head shut up. “Oi! You never talked about this?!” the wild Gremling exclaimed.
Zeph threw a glance in his direction, noticing that his glasses were lying on the table.
Shrugging, he turned to Ghrughah. “Only in the System’s taxonomy. Also, an unexpected effect of a certain experiment.”
“Don’t ignore me, you Mazga!” The little being standing by their side started to wildly swing its arms around.
“…I won’t pry any deeper,” the giant said, nodding respectfully. “If you don’t want to speak, that is. Symbiotic or not, a parasite is a difficult company.”
“Don’t misjudge,” Zeph answered, ignoring the curses and random punches flying at him from his right. “He was only helpful at all times,” Zeph said, gratitude seeping into his voice.
Ghrughah sent him a strange look. Meanwhile, Zeph turned to the rowdy Gremling, grabbed the back of his collar, and lifted him up. Ignoring his animated protests, he grabbed the glasses from the table with his free hand and forcefully put them on his nose.
Truthfully, he itched to try that for ages – just for the sake of testing if it would work. The only reason he never tried was the fact that it would be exceptionally rude. For many reasons.
But the current situation required the professor to be present, not the wild part of him.
The Gremling froze. Then his body spasmed two times like a broken machine.
Thankfully, after that small hiccup, the mental shift took place.
The problem was, P’pfel didn’t seem to be grateful at all. His head slowly turned to Zeph, a deep scowl contorting his face.
“I would prefer if you abstained from doing that. Ever,” the professor growled deeply. But, surprisingly, instead of venting his anger any further, he looked away and silently mumbled an explanation with a defeated tone in his voice. “I have only so many triggers I can use consciously.”
Understating his mistake, Zeph put the Gremling back on his chair while apologizing profoundly. Dealing with that disbalance seemed like a real pain and it just occurred to him that forcing the trigger could possibly degrade its usability.
The professor wasn’t without blame, though. If he had explained his situation better, Zeph wouldn’t have used such an underhanded method in the first place.
Their awkward moment was disturbed by a deep hum coming from Ghrughah. It sounded like a poor rendition of a cough.
They both looked at him, slight relief visible on their faces. The giant ignored it and asked another problematic question.
Although, this time Zeph was ready for it.
“You are referring to it as if it’s another person?”
“It’s because he’s sentient. System-recognized sentient, that is.”
A long moment of silence filled the room as his companions’ eyes widened.
The first to recover was Ghrughah. He gripped his face with his oversized hand and bent down, asking the most natural of questions in a muffled voice. “Let me get this straight. You have a sentient parasite inside your body?”
Zeph glanced at P’pfel. He was sure the Gremling already knew about Gru’s sentience.
He was wrong.
Are they worried about Gru’s Class and Profession, or something? he asked himself before turning back to the giant. “Yes? Something’s wrong with that? And, by the way, it’s a symbiotic parasite, in case you forgot already.”
His comment didn’t change their sour grimaces.
“Do you even know how ridiculously this sounds?!” the wild Gremling spoke, disregarding the glasses on his nose. His voice full of disbelief. “Who would risk something like that?”
“Like I said,” Zeph muttered impatiently, “a result of an experiment. Don’t we have better things to do right now?” His foot started hitting the floor rhythmically at some point.
Despite the curiosity playing in their eyes, both recognized that he wasn’t ready to share more.
Without a word, the duo nodded and started moving.
Ghrughah and Zeph returned to the compression chamber while P’pfel decided to find more people to help with the interpretation of the primitive spectrophotometry images.
~~~
As it turned out, only the center of Gru’s Manasolid was causing the strange diffraction of the X-ray light. The edges were leaving perfectly normal images; only a sphere of around five millimeters near the center produced long lines on the collector.
Structurally, it really was resembling an egg, all things considered.
Zeph hoped to see the characteristic absorption peaks of the DNA on the spectrophotometric collectors. He knew that Gru, despite his alien body structure and the addition of Manasolids, was a carbon-based lifeform. The Ancient Civilizations Skill also hinted that he should have a ‘normal’ DNA or, at the very least, something resembling it very closely – Zeph didn’t have much time to read from the Skill yet, and the cost of Tier 3 knowledge was still double of his Mana generation.
After finishing the experiment, they cleaned the chamber and started moving the equipment back to Ghrughah’s workshop. P’pfel was already waiting for them with good news.
He not only managed to find five Hannyajin with a good eye for colors, but two of them were actually painters in Professions. And those two recommended making regular paintings of the collectors instead of simply observing them and noting their findings. With supporting Skills and their expertise, the paintings could be done in minutes, long before the reagents on the collectors start to deteriorate.
Some details would be lost, but Zeph wasn’t worried about that. He had additional observers and what he cared the most about was the relative strength of absorption. The control group would hopefully be enough to normalize the results of such a subjective observation method.
The impromptu exhibition was organized in another room within the Ghrughah’s domain. The access to his main workplace was strictly limited to people he approved of, after all.
Two takes were planned for each collector – one within a light neutral to the chemicals on a canvas, and another within a dim, scattered white light. They had three ‘shots’ of each Manasolid and one control image, so they decided to test things firstly using the first shot of every Manasolid.
After the first round, they made a small break. P’pfel had to work out a chemical that would slow down the absorption properties of the reagents on the canvasses without compromising the existing images. That’s because the white light was too much and the collectors were absorbing too much from it, changing their colors visibly in less than a minute. On the other hand, it was very difficult to recognize the color saturation and intensity under the light of a neutral color – even Skills weren’t enough to compensate here.
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
The second try was made in almost total darkness – the weak white light was barely enough for them to see, all to preserve the canvases for longer. At the same time, P’pfel changed the chemical composition of the preserving bath. Zeph didn’t even try to ask about the details; all he knew was that it slowed the absorption of light around three times over while desaturating the images by a small margin as a side effect.
That round was a success, and the third one followed soon after.
The canvases from the control group were cut into four pieces before being exposed to the harmful light. It decreased the accuracy but assured that no mistakes would be made. Two quarters would be analyzed under the condition from the first series, and the other two under the dimmed light after taking a new chemical bath.
Zeph waited for the free observers to finish their notes, then thanked the team for the good work. He made sure to note their names to send them a modest, if well-deserved, remuneration for the help provided. The Hannyajin weren’t sure what to think about that – for them, it was merely a part of their daily job; living in such a close-knitted community didn’t differentiate between work hours and private time all that much – but he managed to convince them by pointing out that they shouldn’t speak about what they saw or did here. Taking part in an experiment managed by three Guild Heads wasn’t something to take lightly, even if their role didn’t seem to matter much, so they accepted that his explanations at face value.
Back in Ghrughah’s workshop, he started analyzing the data. Using the notes as a main source of information, and the painted images as a context, he quickly started drawing the absorption graph.
He didn’t even care to calculate the uncertainty – all he wanted to see were the peaks.
The giant and P’pfel stood behind him, patiently observing his tedious work.
Finally, the last point was placed on the graph. He quickly took out the local rendition of a mechanical pencil and a simple tool from Ghrughah’s stock that was used for drawing technical blueprints – the contraption was just a thin, flexible sheet of steel with five movable pins that could keep it in place. He used it to trace the lines connecting all the dots of each Manasolid. The calibration method and accuracy of the tool were unknown, but he just needed a simple visualization and nothing more. Thankfully, a few different colors of the pencil’s lead were available, so the resulting graph easily distinguished between different Manasolids.
Taking a few steps back, he admired his handiwork, nodding to himself with satisfaction.
“Aaaand, what exactly does it tell us?” The professor asked skeptically, tilting his head. “Don’t get me wrong, I can see the difference between Gru’s Manasolid and the rest. It’s like night and day. But…”
“Nothing I can explain easily,” Zeph started, “but I can see an absorption pattern that relates to living cells.” I better leave the DNA out of this discussion. Especially because I am not sure how similar theirs is or behave in comparison to the beings from the Earth. Also, it would be sad to spoil their rewards.
“Are you certain? How about making a control group to compare the shape?” Ghrughah asked.
“As sure as I can be. There is a lot of rubbish adding to the absorption”—Gru’s ‘egg’ was definitely absorbing more than it should, not only as a Manasolid with DNA molecules—“but the pattern is visible nonetheless. And I don’t have the equipment to make a control group. It’s a very specific, microscopic part of the body that I am recognizing.”
He sighed. Thank gods there aren’t any actual cells inside. That would be undecipherable…
“Also, even if I’m wrong, I can still confirm with the probability of above 96% that carbon-based structures exist inside.” He turned to his two companions. “If this isn’t an egg, I don’t know what else can it be.”
A new notification pinged in his Interface at that moment, but it didn’t open just yet – as per his settings.
He did look at it immediately, though.
“You have it?” the Gremling asked excitedly.
“Give me a moment…”
Congratulations!
[Ancient Civilizations ] is now [T3] [L21]. (+8)
[Earth’s methodology] is now [T1] [L45]. (+11)
New data derived from the learning process. [Soul fragments] awarded!
Congratulations!
[Profession] [Shaman] is now level 37! (+2)
Major upgrades:
Shaman [+2]
==> [Memory] [+2], [Unallocated] [+4]
==> [Matrix Space] [+10], [Mana Capacity] [+88], [Mana Generation] [+12]
Soul fragments for the Profession? Really? he thought with surprise.
He knew that his Profession was already on the brink of the next level, so he wasn’t that surprised at the two new levels. But what he did was as far from ‘shamanic’ practices as he could possibly imagine. He was just examining a possibly living organism using scientific methods.
He shook his head. That’s not important, the Skill levels, though… he quickly walked to the closest chair before quickly falling into a meditation-like state.
Reading from the ‘Ancient Civilizations’ Skill was costly, true, but he only tried to access the part that was basically an overblown index and nothing more.
Sure enough, he found a whole series of Soul memories relating to Garuans’ eggs – a new addition. He already knew that most of them probably wouldn’t be useful in Gru’s case, but that was all he needed to know for now.
Opening his eyes, he saw the two artisans preparing to work at their respective stations.
Ghrughah was quick to notice that he was back, though. “Not even a minute. You are getting better at reading,” he complimented, putting down a half-disassembled collector container.
“Confirmation?” P’pfel asked immediately, whirling around.
“Enough to confirm that our guess was right,” Zeph nodded.
The Gremling frowned. “No invitation for the scan at the Shrine?”
Zeph shrugged. “I am expecting one only after the second egg is made. The process will probably destroy it.”
“Gru is still asleep?” the giant asked, walking closer.
“More like, still in the coma.” Zeph sighed. “I don’t think we will hear from him in the near future. It’s already taking too long. I will need to meditate on it to try and see what is going on.”
“So, you say,” P’pfel started rubbing his hands in a show of pure greed, “we are done and the setup is free?”
Zeph rolled his eyes while standing up. “Yes, yes. Do your worst,” he said dismissingly.
The happy dance the Gremling did in the background was ignored as he turned to the giant. “Ghrughah, do you have one free miniaturized compression box maybe?”
“Planning to start training your Mana manipulation?”
The question was legit. Those things weren’t able to keep the Mana density stable without manual input. A person with an Advanced Mana manipulation had to constantly stabilize the density, which made it quite an efficient training method for beginners. The box itself worked like a buffer – allowing for minor mistakes and a few minutes of inattention.
“I will start traveling around soon enough. I would rather take the egg with me than keep it here, so it will be best if I get used to the exertion.”
The giant nodded with understanding. “That will cost you—”
“Just add it to my tab.” Zeph waved his hand. “I don’t even want to know. I need to check my income with Kwan, either way…”
Ghrughah smiled awkwardly but didn’t comment. “I will send two to your room. Remember to keep the backup one.”
After exchanging a few more words, Zeph left the workshop to find something to eat. After all the night’s work, he was starving.
~~~
The central canteen above his underground apartment was empty at this hour, but the cooks were already preparing for the lunch rush that would happen in an hour or so.
They were understanding enough and prepared him a full-course meal in a few minutes. The improvised dinner turned out better than he hoped.
When he was in the middle of savoring a rich soup containing way too much meat, Makani unceremoniously dropped in the seat opposing him.
“Eating in the public canteen? You should start using our entree delivery, we have full right to use it.”
Swallowing the spoonful, he looked up at the Manacaster. “And waste my time? This dinner was prepared in minutes!” he said, smiling goofily and gesturing at the table filled with goodies.
The man shook his head in disappointment. “I think you have gotten too used to developing in fast bursts. The majority of our Soul fragments comes from the food!” He pointed at him menacingly.
“I just received two random levels in my Profession for a day of work, so I would rather try to slow the process down,” he smirked. “Any reason you were looking for me?”
Makani looked around lazily before erecting a simple Air Sphere. “Well, it’s not that critical. My old friend from the Academy sent me a message. You wanted to talk with a Scholar, yes?”
Zeph’s eyes moved sideways as he chewed on an especially tasty bit of meat. He had totally forgotten about that.
“How… well, how knowledgeable is he about my people?” Of course, he meant the Fullangrarians, not the Terrien.
“Not at all. He is more of a technology enthusiast,” Makani assured. “One that knows more about history than current innovations, though. I had learned that he would be visiting Lurona come the spring, so I asked if he would be interested in some light discussion about the current state of the technology on stratum zero.”
Zeph sighed with relief. “So, it would take time? Good, I can work with that.” Seeing Makani’s raised eyebrow, he explained further. “I have some difficulties regarding my bond and… that whole last attack you know about.”
Makani nodded innocently, putting his head in his open palm. “I’ve heard some ‘rumors’ about that, yes.”
“…I will tell you more when we are in one of our rooms, okay? Anyway, I need to contact the Mapmakers Guild to invite their Cartographer. And I still need to find a Shaman instructor…”
“A Cartographer?” The Manacaster perked up. “Good luck with that. They will suck you dry before agreeing to anything. We have become a kind of hot topic lately,” Makani said with a wave of his hand.
Zeph blinked in surprise. “What are you talking about?” he reached to his collection of medallions hanging under his shirt, then shuffled through them to show the one from the Guild he mentioned.
Makani’s eyes bulged.
“They gave you their medallion?!”
“I secured the deal the moment I visited them, shortly after arriving in Lurona. The guy mentioned something about a good greeting and forgotten lands… But they seemed okay? Why are you playing a drama queen?”
“Zeph, you have more luck than brains,” the Manacaster said, massaging his forehead. “They don’t play nice with the powerful and wealthy. Mostly because their tragic state of business is their fault. That medallion means more than you think. You were recognized as someone who can help them.”
“Same difference,” he shrugged, dropping the chained medallions behind his collar. “As long as I get what I need, they can get all the glory.”
“Let’s get back on topic,” defeated, Makani dropped his arms on the table while leaning forward. “Kwan wanted to inform you that she has found a promising rumor about an old Shaman living in the country. We need to plan out your schedule.”
“A meeting, you mean?” he asked absentmindedly, already reaching for the next dish.
“Absolutely. What about right after you finish? I am also busy, you know?” the Manacaster said, sending an uncertain look at the dishes filling the table.
“Not a problem. Just give me a few minutes to take my armor. It needs to be saturated soon”