People didn’t just get exploded into another world. Unless some did and Seras just never heard about it before. But even if dimensional travel was possible that didn’t explain why she was naked.

There were clues within the text of her racial traits, and further within the update screen as well. Her system had stated that her old essence gifts were changed into the new ones she saw. Implying that the previous traits had been attached to her race as human, but if they had changed did that mean she was no longer human?

To be fair she had only been about ten to fifteen percent human after all her upgrades. But to have that identity suddenly stripped away from her and replaced with this ‘outworlder’ thing left her with a slight aching feeling in her chest.

Seras shoved her feelings down into a little corner of her memory, with a note to sort them out later. For now she felt like she had been sitting too long. Language adaptation implied that she might have a use for speaking foreign tongues, which implied people. Hopefully.

Her first task before she addressed the whole fustercluck that was whatever the hell had happened to her was to find somewhere safe. And while she had been just sitting in a pitch-black room fiddling with her settings, she had never confirmed whether or not she was safe. That meant exploration.

Before setting out she did a quick inventory of all her assets, which was depressingly short. She was naked, with only two unknown shards in her hand, and couldn’t actually see anything in the absolute darkness. Seriously, why had the strange Technology essence shard follow her across dimensions, but not her guns? Or her spacesuit?

Seriously, why the fuck was she naked!

If Seras had believed in any higher powers she think they were fucking with her. Actually, were there actual Gods? The Net access trait had mentioned divine repositories and a need for permission. She added that thought to the corner of her brain where she shoved all the other questions. It was starting to fill up fast.

If she stepped out now, she would be naked, blind, and unarmed. But could she fix any of those issues right now?

She rubbed the Technology essence shard with her thumb.

One of the first things kids learned after they got their first aug was not to shove random and unknown shards into the neck slots. Easy way to get hacked and mobbed with ad-bots that lived in your own head.

But she had seen the word essence mentioned several times. First with her old human essence gift (whatever that meant) and then in her ID page where it listed her essences as 0/4. Then again under her stranger in a strange world trait. Assuming that one was supposed to help her figure out what was going on and survive then she had to also assume that these essences, awakening stones, and skill books were something that she might need to find and use.

“Fuck it, shit can’t get any worse.” Seras growled.

With a thought the smart skin over her neck ports opened up, and Sera slid the Technology essence in.

Pain, white hot pain like a million volts of electricity turned the black world into a white one, and she felt her knees buckle.

It was like every nerve in her body was stabbed with a needle. In her haze she tried to turn nerve sensitivity off. But even with the signals being cut off from her brain Seras still felt pain. It was in a place she couldn’t identify. Leaving her with no further questions about the soul’s existence. There was no way to better explain why she felt like the core of her existence was being overwritten.

~~~*~~~

She awoke back on the floor, with no memory about finally collapsing, nor any idea how much time passed.

Seras sat back up, expecting phantoms of the earlier pain to return. But strangely she didn’t even feel a twinge of discomfort. If anything she felt…better?

No, more like she felt more complete. Like something within herself had been yearning for something, but it didn’t know it until she slotted that shard.

Seras felt around her neck to pull the shard out manually. Only to find nothing within her shard ports.

With a mental command Seras opened her ID again and scrolled down to the essence section.

Essences

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Power no essence: normal 0/5 attributes

Speed no essence: normal 0/5 attributes

Spirit Technology Essence: Iron 0% 1/5 attributes

* Essence ability; Inscribe Rune/Circuit

Recovery no essence: normal 0/5 attributes

Okay, she hadn’t been expecting the pain, but the process had given her… something. Actually, what did she get besides pain? It had bonded with the spirit trait, and she could now feel like she had tapped into some hidden reservoir of power. But how did that help her, what did it do?

She focused on the Essence ability until a new screen appeared.

Inscribe rune/circuit

Allows the infusion of Mana and crafting materials into small objects to create magi-tech formations up to iron rank.

Cost: Varies

Cooldown: None

Before she could even think question how the hell she even did that, she realized that with the ability an instinctive knowledge of how to use it had been slotted into her memory. It was like suddenly gaining a third arm and having full control over limb.

With but a thought Seras infused mana within her finger and a soft blue light lit up the room around her. Giving her a real view of her surroundings for the first time.

Despite her new glowing magic finger Seras was disappointed. Because with the knowledge of how to activate the ability she also had the understanding that she had no idea how to use it for its primary purpose. Infusing magic runes required a prior knowledge of how to do that, the same went with the circuitry. She had been given a chisel, but had no idea how to wield it to carve wood or chisel stone. And any amateur attempt at doing either was likely to hurt her in the process.

So all that pain was pointless. She was still unarmed and naked. But at least she wasn’t totally blind anymore. Though the light on her finger was hardly better than a small candle.

Seras glanced down at the awakening stone still in her hand and considered it. The pain from the Technology essence had been enough to knock her out, and the power it had given her did jack-all. She had guessed that awakening stones unlocked new capabilities from her absorbed essence, but she had no guarantee of whether or not it would be useful. For all she knew the strange stone that had been mysteriously placed within the miraculous pocket space by an extradimensional entity was some sort of trap. At least she knew where the Technology essence had come from.

With a thought the light blue portal to the pocket space open and Seras threw the shard into it without a second thought.

As equipped as she was going to get Seras raised her glowing finger and began to examine the room.

Based on the echo she knew that it was fairly large, but only now did she realize just how large it was. She had been laying on a large circular platform, the floor of the platform had a loose scattering of gravel and dust, and she found a few large rocks indented into the surface. Once she dusted away some dust and gravel she saw that it was made of a glassy black material like onyx or obsidian. Laid into the black stone was a rosy-gold metal that formed odd runes and strangely arrayed lines. The newly awakened power of her technology essence whispered in the back or her mind, this platform was some sort of formation circle. She found one rune with a large oval shaped part, within that open space she saw thin hair like lines that looked suspiciously like circuitry. And once she knew what to look for she saw many runes merged with elements of circuitry.

Despite telling her that what she was looking at was a formation circle her technological essence gave her no further hints into what this circle was supposed to do. All it did tell her was that it was incredibly complex.

Around what Seras assumed to be the front of the platform she found a set of stairs leading to a lower level. She went down the handful of stairs and began to study the side of the platform. The whole circumference of it was lined in more complicated runes mixed with circuitry that she had no hope of figuring out.

Looking to the rest of the room Seras could make out some grand murals on the wall, but the colors had long since faded away, and what little light her magic finger produced didn’t reach of the bottom meter of the images. The room had only one doorway, a massive frame designed for giants nearly twice her height. It lead to a long hallway, and to Seras’ excitement she saw a pale light at the end.

Careful not to rush ahead Seras placed her hand on a wall and followed it towards the light. It was a good thing she went carefully because halfway through she encountered a pile of rubble at about knee height, she wouldn’t have seen if she had rushed toward the exit and would have fallen face first into the shard stones.

She glared at the rubble and then raised her finger up to illuminate the ceiling. Above her the smooth stone ceiling was interrupted by a jagged scar where some of the stone had crumbled. It didn’t look like the work of roots or water, and the blackened scorch marks hinted at the blast that had broken the ceiling.

Stepping over the rubble Seras noticed something strange. In the center there was a patch where the stones had been shoved to the side in a roughly round pattern. The scene of a fight was painted before her despite the sparse evidence. She imagined people fleeing down the corridor, laying a trap for their pursuer. Only for it to shrug off the several tons of stone.

It was hard to tell from the cleared patch of ground, but Seras imagined a pretty large creature. About the size of a small family hovercar.

The rubble in the platform must have also come from the people who set the trap. Though whether they survived or not was unclear since she didn’t see any corpses when she searched the room.

Determined to not get caught in a fight given her unarmed state Seras walked softer.

She didn’t find any more rubble after the first pile and made it to the end of the corridor without any trouble.

The whole time she had been walking the light had steadily gotten brighter and brighter, until she passed through the threshold and got a proper look at where she was.

Her eyes widened at the sight before her. She was standing on a massive building in the center of a crumbling subterranean city. She saw concentric circular roads centered around the step pyramid building she had emerged from, following the arc of those circular roads were broken and burnt out buildings illuminated by green quartz like crystals that gave off a faint light.

More impressive than the ancient city on the lowest level of the cavern were the buildings carved into the side of the chamber. It reminded Seras of honey comb patterns she had seen on old nature documentaries, made back when there were still bees. How had people even made those things?

Above her she saw something even more impressive. Instead of a ceiling over head she saw the lip of a cavern above, and form the random arrangement of glowing crystals she could see that there was another layer of city above her. She zoomed her vision in and saw the lip of another city section above that.

She was at the bottom of a massive cavern with a larger cavern stacked on top, with another larger one stacked above. She couldn’t even confidently say there were only three levels since the light faded further up.

Seras was born and raised within the megacity of Mantel, and she was no stranger to engineering marvels. But this place took the cake. It outstripped every mega tower or sublevel of the complex mess that was her home by an order of magnitude. How had anyone even carved a cavern of this size?

Even with modern machinery it was nearly impossible to dig something like this underground.

Seras had been so distracted by the marvel around her that she had forgotten the first rule of stealth.

That it didn’t matter how quiet you had been if you were caught out in the open staring like a slack jawed moron.

A low growl behind her snapped Seras out of her stupor and she turned just in time to see a sleek black shape pounce on her.