Pando’s village commander POV.

Millions of humans risk life and limb to push the enemy back. We didn’t immediately initiate the attack, waiting until we had both better equipment and numerical superiority. But the enemy has found another small crack in our runic formations that drains our shields way faster than they should for the intensity of those attacks. Not quite as deadly as their initial attacks, but each time we patch a hole, they find another way to poke a hole in our defenses.

The frontline fighters outside the main shields or even its edges can no longer stroll right up to the enemy with little fear of actual death. Now even relatively small groupings are dangerous let alone when they make use of their beloved large scale attacks.

Now, being light on our feet has become a requirement of the job, doubly so for anyone right up in the face of the enemy.

The problem is that even the greatest dancer, twists their ankles occasionally and we no longer have redundancy in our defense layers. Now, small mistakes cost them their lives.

Pushing off the confrontation also has a cost. Every day we delay any assault, we likely multiply the number of casualties as they get further entrenched.

We get glimpses of what is happening inside with the nearby seeds using their faux perception fields. The specifics may be clouded, but one thing is clear: the elves are getting mithril from that place.

I see a couple more flying ships come into the edges of the battle, harassing the reinforcements and trying to go unnoticed, as most cities draw their roster to a minimal level of defense, especially the ones further inland with little risk of being attacked.

A tiny dot on the map representing our next step forward takes my attention. One of a different color and shape than anything that ever graced Earth’s map. A flying vehicle of kind and proportion without equal.

Like the others, it won’t be able to directly influence the battle, given the flight restriction in the system exclusion zones. Nor should we throw it right in without understanding its limits, but after so much of our research and resources went into its development, it has to make at least a modicum of a difference in the fight.

Let me witness a glorious reveal.

==========

Automaton’s seed POV.

All but the barest threads of my attention is on balancing the careful compression of the high speed hydrogen plasma soup. The moment demands that I go beyond what I ever have, but not in maximum power output but rather in consistency.

With full battery banks, the excess energy keeps being shunted to propulsion and other lesser priority tasks that had systems of their own but no sense in wasting the power being generated.

The seconds tick down after a yellow warning light turns on everywhere until at the right moment, I feel a drain of unheard-of proportions.

At least outside the weapons development lab.

In a tenth of a second, the first bank of capacitors is fully drained and it even takes a decent chunk of the battery's power. Then the capacitors use those very batteries to recharge themselves over a few seconds and both suck in every spare watt from the reactor slowly recharging.

Presumably, that finished off a group of elves, but just the reactor is more than I can pay attention to and so that’s where my attention goes.

Then comes another drain and another. Every couple of seconds like clockwork until it's over and only a sliver of power is left in the reserve batteries.

Thirty seconds till the battery is drained. Fusion starts to pick up again, slowly recharging it.

If we were on the power ‘grid’ we would need days. Even a a lasrge junction, we still still need hours. But my mind keeps the reactor lit and producing a decent fraction of the world’s current electrical power output. In minutes I feel the drain from another few shots well before it was full. That drains both the battery and capacitor to nothing once again.

Even if the powerful and in many ways wasteful lasers, have to fight the very system to accomplish anything and only kill a single elve per shot, the entire endeavor is going to be worth it.

Then I assume we get closer, as the mana banks start to go down quickly. All that mana concentrates on our magical turrets probably finishing off the enemy before we move on.

I stop for a second and reevaluate my approach to the fusion process while idly keeping the reactor just above the breakeven point.

Getting closer to the enemy has its dangers. The very reason we banked so hard on this ship, is that it can become a platform where lasers could work from kilometers away melting sand into glass over huge swathes of land given enough time. We aren’t comfortably there, but even 500 meters of range is decent and way beyond what the enemy could reach with mana attacks.

The real problem is the recharge rate. Gigawatts of power from the reactor sound like a nigh infinite amount until you come to realize how insane the power outputs to make useful weapons against system users are. Which is compounded with the system’s interference.

Unfolding my mind in different ways I seek the perfect mental framework for my task. Molding myself into what I need to become to accomplish this one thing. The balancing act of a nuclear reactor relies not only on trained technicians and computers but my touch. I take in thousands of streams of information and compute how to overcome the mathematical puzzles continuously shifting every other millisecond. If we were relying on magic, some of the effects could be directly manipulated, though the mana costs would eliminate most of its practical usefulness. Instead every moment I have to find the configuration of magnetic confinement that fixed electromagnets that will produce a field of shape and strength necessary to not only keep the equipment safe but also increase the pressure, heat and collision in the plasma soup folding in on itself.

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Superheated steam spins the turbines generating just a little more energy than it consumes.

The next version will probably incorporate a direct energy conversion module. If we get the balance right we will improve both power density while eking out another couple of percent of efficiency. Though it will add a layer of complexity.

Right now, what I have is steam, and it's with this machinery that the very Aether in my core stirs in search of the smallest of gains, the mildest efficiency improvement or the chance that my friend will come back and make all this irrelevant for today.

But he hadn’t yet come back and so I will be near the front lines, helping in my small way to eliminate the reinforcements getting to the enemy and making the lives of our front line defenders ever so slightly easier.

============

Ajax’s POV

As I wake up with a mild headache, I watch the map in the command room. Dad is there with a dozen other leaders and support personnel. Two pyramids are almost being overrun. At least from the enemy’s perspective.

Somehow the enemy is moving like they own the territory even half a kilometer from their pyramid, buffed with increased stats and clad in defenses against most of our more esoteric attacks.

“I have a solution.” I half croak half shout, but a moment later another word comes out in a mutter: “…maybe.” Everyone’s faces turn to me expectantly and I scratch the back of my head: “I spoke too soon, give me a few minutes to figure it out.”

My dad’s gaze lingers on me for a moment longer than the others and I try to decipher what his eyes carry, but there is no time to waste, so I come back to my subclass switch.

The system screens are fairly in line with what I expected. And the stat increases is in line with a subclass with such a grand name and rarity. Two pre chosen skills replaced two I didn’t care to even have on my list.

Call of the Dead – unlocked Lv. 10

Horde of the Dead – Unlocked Lv. 25

As I glance of each of the skills, hints of knowledge stream in my mind and I know that is a nigh endless source. They are gonna be useful. Though usually not helping me infiltrate places. System streams knowledge of what they do in my mind and how to use them but after getting the gist, I push them aside. Looking for whatever advantage I can gain from the pyramids.

Whatever I can learn.

My actual goal with all of this.

Nothing beyond my class shows up, so I take off running trying to glimpse one of the pyramids outside. I look around, trying to taste the Lifestuff, to find any hints of a different flavor, a seasoning that doesn’t belong there. But if there is anything, it’s too faint to feel.

One of my class skills keeps nagging at me for freedom and action.

So I Cast Horde of the Dead.

Half of my Mana streams form my entire body in seconds forming an impossibly complex formation like what I had seen from other people's casting system skills. But mine doesn’t have something on the order of a thousand runes, but hundreds of thousands. They form a cloud of dark smoke surrounding me and with a nudge to the thickest fighting, it rolls over all obstacles, even all the shielding from both our sides.

Without relying on the skill and the system, I would have no chance of creating a thousandth of these many runes, nor accomplishing the complex mental gymnastics needed to cast a spell like that raw.

Its effects are as impressive as I expected.

The fog touches the corpses and pulls something that loosely feels like the last lingering Aether from our fallen defenders gaining shape. A single ‘shade’ starts attacking the enemy from their very midst, then 3 and 10.

In that instant, I knew that number would balloon to infinity in a large enough battlefield.

This skill can tilt any fight slightly in our favor, especially the bloodiest ones.

The initial manifestation of the skill finally ends, taking the very last step becoming ‘self aware’ and partially independent of me. It won’t last forever, only about half an hour and as I push it I feel a range limit. If I push more mana or increase my skill level those would increase, but even now it's plenty for our purposes.

The long cooldown is probably the only thing not making this skill completely broken. The main downside of system skills.

As I start moving, I can still feel my body and willpower strain to sustain it even if in another sense it already achieved independence. But that self sustainability is way more complicated than I initially thought. I’m still its source, even if I travel to the other side of the world. I let a hint of Nash’s Aether flow into my body. It seems to help the strain more than normal Aether.

But this is just another piece of the puzzle with that guy. For now, I should simply save it as much as possible. I blew through half of my Lifestuff stores to survive back there.

I take off running to another pyramid. One away from the enemy’s fighting. ,

I can almost see behind me the goblin shamans having a much easier time fighting my shades. But my distraction is all the others need to turn a tough battle whose victory would mostly be achieved through numbers, into a contest of skill, while still having the backup of numbers. We won’t even have to reveal ‘all’ our tricks.

Running inside the pyramid I was aiming with the tacit blessing of the guards sound shifts around me. The heavy stone dampens the clash of battle outside and as the shield closes, it nearly mutes it. I keep the pace until I’m in the central chamber where I find a few people. From young boys and girls to the closest thing to a crotchety old man the system allows. They are still there in the same fruitless endeavor, touching the sarcophagus and trying to pull up an interface, but finding no purchase.

I stare at them as a connection links me to this pyramid and I feel the potential to connect a few of them. As I spin Lifestuff inside myself I feel insith fill my mind in a flash. My experience with Aether is what gives me context for what would normally take months, or even years to properly learn. I glimpse Knowledge of the situation and the system’s rules, and most important of all, how to expand and finish this ‘connection’.

I ‘unlocked’ the pyramids, even if my Speaker of the Dead is only a subclass. Now, I can choose those who will be allowed to join my side.

And who am I going to allow this great honor?

“Everyone”.

The everyone in front of me looks back in confusion, but I’m busy allowing those connections to form. I think of telling them what they will have to face, the choice, but somehow I know that’s the wrong decision. They have to ask themselves and though I won’t allow anyone to suffer as much as I did, some will end up with a lone scar in their minds.

“You know how stupid that was?” I hear from my dad entering behind me just as I finish my job.

“You talking about this or that?”

He blinks at the empty spot before me where moments ago a dozen people stood. “Well, everyone has to make their choice.” He says. “But I’m talking about entering the enemy’s pyramid. That was foolhardy”

“I know,” I say with a tired sigh.

“Now, you sound like a crotchety old man.” He says, and I feel him restraining himself to not come over and ruffle my hair and though it would ruin the moment in a fashion, I wouldn’t mind it at all.

“If you only knew Dad. If you only knew how right and how wrong you are…”

“Ohh, I can imagine.” My dad says with that same strange glance. “What you are gonna do now?”

“Beyond allowing others the same choice I had to face? I think there is more potential to be unlocked. I have some thinking to do. We may have the advantage in the pyramid I passed, but there is another that they still have a small chance of getting inside. Traveling the inner world defenses just to save one pyramid is too great a cost. We may need the surprise one day.”

“What are you gonna be able to do?”

“I don’t know yet, if I did that the battle would already be won. But a seed of a plan seems to be taking hold.”