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General Knowledge learned: Internal Energy Collection
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Emily closes her eyes and focuses on the information in her mind being restructured and elaborated on. She’s surprised as information on machina and the Neuro Net flows in and connects to her understanding of mana and magic circuits. However, the point that gives her the most shock is the information on magical beasts' passive mana collection being woven in as well.
Opening her eyes after the information settles, she opens the system and pulls up the description of her new knowledge.
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[Internal Energy Collection]
An understanding of active and passive collection of atmospheric energy, and its conversion into and containment of unique energy types.
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A wide grin appears on her face.
“It might work!”
Excitedly, she moves to stand up before noticing Tom and Hester are missing from the table. Pausing and remaining seated, she looks to her side and sees Juliana looking at her quizzically.
“What? Where are the twins?” Emily asks while closing her notebook and dropping the open textbooks out of the barrier.
“They left about an hour ago. They said goodbye, but you completely ignored them.”
“Ah, whoops.” Emily awkwardly scratches her cheek.
“Also, what might work?”
“I said that out loud?” Emily asks, flushing red with embarrassment.
“Yes, you did,” Juliana giggles.
“Urgh, I’m too used to being alone. I was looking at creating a new meditation technique because what I’m currently using can barely even be called that.”
“Cool! Are you going now?” Juliana asks, tossing the book she was reading behind her and standing up.
“Yeah, I’m gonna head to the training rooms and test in a gathering array,” Emily answers, standing up too.
“I’ll come with you; I have some spare points to burn right now!” Juliana grabs her arm, and they leave the library together.
After a quick teleport and a short walk through a few hallways, they find themselves in front of two empty B-grade training rooms.
“Meet out here at 8 to head to dinner?” Juliana asks as she places her hand on the panel beside her chosen door.
“Sure, see you in a bit.” Emily watches Juliana vanish through the door before turning to her own.
Raising her hand and injecting a small flow of mana, text appears on the panel:
Welcome Emily Coldstone
Please configure your session settings:
[Environment]
[Targets]
[Gathering Array]
Ignoring the first two options, Emily opens the gathering array settings. Selecting five times density for a cost of ten contribution points per hour, Emily steps into the training room. The door shuts behind her and she looks back to see a small silver panel beside it with a point total and exit button.
The room itself is a blank twenty-metre by twenty-metre cube with white walls and a grey floor. In the centre of the room, Emily sees a large magic circle with a complicated mass of runes that she can’t even begin to understand. Walking over, she moves to the centre and sits down. The magic circle activates the moment she settles in the centre, and she feels a pressure building around her.
Reaching out her hand, she moves it around, feeling resistance as if moving in deep water. Focusing hard on the air around her hand, she sees a slight shimmering haze being disturbed by her movement.
Interesting. I guess atmospheric mana becomes visible if you focus enough of it in one place.
Refocusing and trying not to waste the time she’s paying for, Emily sits up straight, with her shoulders back and her chest forward. Her legs are crossed, with each foot resting on top of the opposite thigh. Linking her fingers and placing her thumbs flat against each other, she rests her hands on her legs and shuts her eyes.
Taking a deep breath in through her nose over four seconds, she holds it for three.
Releasing the breath from her mouth over five seconds, she pauses for two.
Repeating this breathing pattern, she focuses internally on the movement of the mana and machina through her Magic Network. At first, the movement of her internal energies is a complete mess. Random bursts of machina fire from her cortex along her internal pathways, and mana releases from her magic circle in rhythmic waves, clashing with the travelling machina.
Slowly, she calms the subconscious movements of energy to a lull. Then she focuses on her cortex and releases a mass of machina down her spine. As the energy spreads to the base of her spine, she releases it, all at once, into every connecting pathway that once made up her nervous system. She lets it flow to every inch of her body, filling every limb and organ before joining what once made up her vascular system, before flowing back to her cortex, carrying extra atmospheric mana with it.
Repeating this a few times, she slowly forms her machina into a natural rhythmic pulse before focusing on her magic circle. Timing it precisely with the rhythm of her machina, she releases a mass of mana at the same time as a pulse of machina, guiding it through her old vascular system and collecting atmospheric mana on the way out. The two energies meet and briefly mix, before separating as her mana joins with the old nervous system and returns to her circle.
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Emily repeats this process for a few more cycles but frowns as she feels like she’s missing something. Breaking her trance and opening her eyes, she opens her status window and stares at it.
It didn’t count as a new meditation technique yet. What else can I try?
Looking at the hovering window in her vision, her attention is drawn to her unused talent.
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[Magical Engineer]
User {Emily Coldstone} has the unique ability to perfectly merge magic with machines.
-Grants the ability to convert between machina and mana
-???
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Wait, convert between machina and mana?
An idea strikes her, so she closes her eyes and falls back into her trance. After a few more minutes of carefully controlling her energy flows, she reaches the same point as before. This time, as the machina and mana both saturate her body and start to mix, instead of drawing them back in, she pulls upon the idea of conversion. The two intertwined energies suddenly seem to connect and merge before a change takes place. What was once mana becomes machina, and what was once machina becomes mana.
The two energies then separate and flow back to their respective containers. Emily feels something click in her mind, and, as if reacting to her enlightenment, the gathered atmospheric mana around her begins to quiver. The mana is drawn towards her and seeps through her electrically charged skin, supplementing the two delicately merged energies at the point of conversion, and compressing them little by little. With each subsequent cycle of release, merge, exchange, and recall, Emily’s mana and machina both increase in purity and density by a marginal amount.
Emily remains in her meditation till she feels an hour and forty minutes have passed. Opening her eyes, she releases one final breath from her mouth and watches the expelled air shimmer and distort like the heat haze in her home city. She sees the electrical currents flickering across her skin fade and slowly stands up.
Stretching with a feeling of invigoration, she feels a slight change in her body and opens her status, hopefully, to check it, along with the notifications she ignored while in her trance.
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[Status]
[Name:] Emily Coldstone
[Race:] Human
[Age:] 15
[Magic Circle:] First Circle
[Machina Cortex:] First Stage
[Attributes:] Strength 7, Dexterity 15 > 16, Agility 12, Vitality 8, Intelligence 23 > 24
[Health:] 115/115
[Stamina:] 175/175
[Mana:] 360/360
[Machina:] 360/360
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Skill superseded: Basic Meditation (active)
Intrinsic skill created: Technomancer's Breath (active)
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
[Technomancer’s Breath (active)]
[Cost:] N/A
A unique energy collection technique created by User {Emily Coldstone} to maximise the benefits of a technomancer. Through controlled breathing, internal energy movement, and the effect of exchanging between esoteric energy types, user can gather atmospheric energy and use it to refine their body and increase their understanding of mana and machina.
-Upon activation, user enters a trance-like state to gather energy.
-Refines the user’s body and internal energies, and increases health, stamina, mana, and machina regeneration while in use.
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Emily grins happily at the messages before her.
Nice! My intelligence increased again, and this time my dexterity increased too. I don’t know if my old meditation technique helped at all, but this one definitely improves my other stats! Unfortunately, trying to copy the passive gathering method of beasts only helps draw mana towards me, I still can’t use this while moving.
Stepping out of the centre of the gathering array so it deactivates, Emily moves her body about to feel the changes brought by one point in dexterity.
Hmm, I don’t feel too different, maybe slightly more in control of my fine motor movements?
To test, she quickly weaves together a spell and finds her hand movement to be slightly faster and more precise than before.
Thought so, dexterity affects my control of my hands and my hand-eye coordination. A very useful stat for gesture casting and making things!
Ecstatically walking up to the door, she looks at the panel beside it and sees a charge of eighteen points. Too happy to care about the cost of her session, she presses the exit button and steps through the door after it opens. Seeing Juliana standing in the corridor waiting for her, she steps forward and pulls her into a hug, lifting her and spinning her around while crying gleefully:
“It worked!”
Juliana giggles at Emily’s enthusiastic greeting. After a few moments, Emily lets her down and blushes slightly in embarrassment.
“Hehe, I assume it went well then?” Juliana asks, smiling while she grabs Emily’s arm and starts pulling her towards the exit.
“Yes, I’ve now created my very own meditation technique that also works to refine my body!”
“Wait really? My family’s technique only refines my mana, can you teach me yours?” Juliana asks, flashing her usual puppy dog eyes.
“Sorry, I don’t think it would work for you,” Emily says, trying to think of an excuse and remembering the visible electrical currents when she used it. “You have to have a strong lightning affinity.”
“Aww.” Juliana visibly deflates at Emily’s words, making her feel guilty for getting the girl’s hopes up.
“Sorry, I’ll show you why later. You’re still up for more gesture casting lessons, right?” Emily asks, feeling the desire to cheer Juliana up.
It works: Juliana looks at her, eyes shining with expectation.
“Of course!”
***
After a quick dinner with the twins, where Emily apologises for ignoring them earlier, Emily and Juliana return to her room to continue their private tutoring.
“Show me your new meditation technique!” Juliana requests eagerly while taking a seat on Emily’s bed.
“Okay.” Emily sits down on the floor in front of her, with her legs crossed and her hands in position.
Closing her eyes, she activates her skill and feels her energy flow quickly fall into rhythm with her breathing. The reactions within and outside her body feel more muted than they did in the gathering array, but she continues for ten seconds before opening her eyes and looking at Juliana’s astonished reaction.
“That’s so cool! You were all sparkly!”
Emily laughs at Juliana’s description as she stands up.
“What does it actually look like? I can only see the aftereffects when I break my trance, and it was far less dramatic now than when I had higher density mana around me.”
“Well, your skin lit up with small sparks of lightning, and I could see your veins glowing underneath. Also, your hair went crazy! I can see why you said I wouldn’t be able to use it, I assume that lightning everywhere is what’s refining your body?”
“Pretty much,” Emily agrees, not wanting to tell her the full truth about machina.
They move on quickly and continue Juliana’s practice with gesture casting. After a few hours, Juliana leaves, hugging Emily and promising to collect her for breakfast in the morning. Emily then spends the rest of her day meditating before heading to bed.
***
The next morning, Emily wakes up at 8 am and checks for the day's classes, finding she has geopolitics in the morning and hand-to-hand combat in the afternoon.
Sweet, I get to beat up some nobles!
She cheerfully gets out of bed and showers, before getting changed and brushing her teeth. After she finishes her morning preparations, she sits down at her desk and checks The Clock to see how long she has till Juliana should arrive. Finding that she still has five minutes, she pulls up her status to review her recent changes in full and pauses, staring at the open screen in disbelief.
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[Status]
[Name:] Emily Coldstone
[Race:] Human
[Age:] 15 > 16
[Magic Circle:] First Circle
[Machina Cortex:] First Stage
[Attributes:] Strength 7, Dexterity 16, Agility 12, Vitality 8, Intelligence 24
[Health:] 115/115
[Stamina:] 175/175
[Mana:] 360/360
[Machina:] 360/360
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Talents:
[Intrinsic] Magical Engineer
-Mechanical Genius
-Magical Genius
Skills:
[Intrinsic] Magic Network (passive)
[Intrinsic] Technomancer's Breath (active)
-Parkour (passive)
-Basic Machine Construction (passive)
-Basic Melee Combat (passive)
-Basic Spellweave (active)
-Mental Fortitude (passive)
-Overdrive (active)
-Basic Metalworking (passive)
Knowledge:
-Basic Clockwork
-Basic Steampower
-Basic Electrical Theory
-Basic Mana Formation
-Basic Particle Physics
-Basic Material Science
-Basic Kinematics
-Basic Waves
-Basic Thermodynamics
-Basic Elemental Theory
-Internal Energy Collection
Equipment:
[Intrinsic] Clockwork of Time (Ex)
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“Today’s my birthday?!”