As I walk around the village thinking, a new task is slowly added to the mental backlog. Growing the root formations for the battery in my interworld. It’s not quite as fast as if I was fully focused on it, but I can do it almost non-stop all day long. As long if I’m no doing anything mentally demanding.
I idly think over dozens, hundreds of ideas for my next project. A complex runic working. Though runes alone will likely not be all that is needed. Given its nature, I did not outsource it to the mages on the payroll. The goal was to share my enormous Exp. bounty with someone else.
I wanted to somehow allow someone else temporary control of my roots. I’m working on the specifics, but I doubt the person would gain any appreciable amount of Exp from simply pressing buttons on a control panel. That meant they would have to directly control the roots, and for that, they would need my help.
There is a skill, I think may be able to help me, telepathy. Though right now, I focus more on integrating someone's mana in a simplified control rune. I move within my inner world hundreds of roots into the necessary shapes and test a few things.
The results will not be too clear given as I didn’t have someone testing them, but it was progress. I look at the sky even though I already know what time it is. About 21h00.
In about an hour Merlin should be waking up. I don’t let the time go to waste. After a while of experimenting, and with little else to do in the department, but still wanting to make progress, I stop to read my book. I open the last page, read it, and am happy to find another 3 pages filled out. As usual, the contents are fairly along the lines of my thought process and doubts.
I read everything carefully, and try new things out. Though an old doubt starts to creep in again. How do I upgrade my book? I still have no concrete idea of how to go about it. I put the question to the back of my mind and get on with the immediate concerns.
The new runes and writing technics I learn are quite useful. An hour later I stand at Merlin's door still trying about different things based on what I got from the book. Dozens, hundreds of different thought processes, as each of the lines in my book further refines my approach.
When I get to the last line, it has nothing to do with what I was expecting. It nearly answers the question I had. How to upgrade the book. Too bad it was not clear, just an off-mark comment. But along with the system’s description, and my brain being so fired up, I manage to make some headway. Finally, I find the start of the path.
There are rather the possible starts. The two I’m pretty sure are material upgrades or knowledge upgrades.
Perhaps, I simply had to feed it orichalcum or some other metal or write in the book’s pages. Though writing seems redundant. As long as I knew something, it already counted towards the book. Could someone else put the knowledge they had in the book?
Ideas on how to implement it come to mind, I will try them all. The book was a priority. But that was for later, for now, I watch as Merlin opens his door and sees me laying there. With a confused face, he scratches his head and asks me hesitantly:
“Nash?”
“Yes, I had an idea for us to work together on.”
Swiftly his whole demeanor changes, and with a big grim he replies:
“If you had an Idea, it must be good. Tell me more about it.”
“My contribution to the battle was quite high, and the Exp rewards were enormous. We are talking over 5% of the total exp.”
It takes a moment for the number to sink in.
“Holy… I had guessed it would be high, but that is staggering.
“Yes. I want to see if I can let someone else control my roots, and even if their contribution ends up only being a portion of mine. One or two percent of any attack is already an enormous Exp bounty.”
“Greg did not get a full percent, and he was shouting for joy at hitting level 70.”
“That is good. Now imagine what you could do if you hit the same level or an even higher ono on today’s attack.”
“Will there be an attack today?”
“Yep, it's supposed to be easier, but all the villages will get a trial from the system after paying their tribute.”
“Forget I said anything, forgot that was today. Thank you for reminding me, and yes, let's go work on your roots. I may have finally hit Level 50, but a few extra levels under my belt, or perhaps a better option for the class upgrade would be swell.”
“Swell, really?” I say jokingly, and we both laugh as we head for his lab.
------------------------------------
“So you put every single stat point into intelligence for now?”
“Yeah, I’m glad I did it as well. Though I’m gonna have to back off a little on the aggressive distribution. After the attack, I felt the balance was beginning to go off, I will be putting a couple of points in Wisdom. For now, 135 Intelligence is enough.”
“Hell, I don’t have a single attribute beyond 50.”
“Yeah, but you also have every single one in the 30s and 40s. Outside of the stats from class and stuff, most people only have about 15 to 25 points across the board. Specialization is my path, but yours is nothing to complain about. It’s different, that’s all.”
I grin, and we let the chit-chat fall away as after the small break our attention returns fully to the project. Instead of permanent, or painstakingly drawn designs for the runes, on top of the table sits a complex, thin and flexible network of roots. This way of doing things greatly accelerated as each iteration of the design could be tested in seconds or at most a minute or two. Instead of taking minutes at the minimum or even hours in some cases.
The roots, in their current form, aren’t able to handle any appreciable amounts of mana. But for now, its only purpose is to test how to achieve connection.
“There, it’s done,” I say after finishing the nth iteration of the design. “Your mana should be better integrated now, and won’t suffer no interference from my own mana stream.”
“Ok, I’m sending a little in.” My own mana is already spread through nearly the entire control structure, as Merlin places his hands at the edge of the formation, his mana spreads over the runic working following very specific paths. I touch the side of his head, as he attempts to open himself to me. In his mind, he holds very simple and distinct shapes, as he tries to move the single root standing at the middle of the table.
He is not able to directly manipulate nature mana, let alone the Aether necessary to connect to trough the other path to Pando’s seed, but his domineering control of all the basic elements is so high, it nearly makes up for inexperience with melding earth and water in anything more complex than mud.
This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.
His intelligence stat and sheer talent with mana gave him an innate dexterity that I was hard-pressed to match even considering I practiced for years with Aether.
His mana flows through the formation and by the end, as he concentrates, and we succeed. The small leaf on top of the root bends slightly.
“Finally,” I say.
“Now we just have to make it scalable, though a more fundamental limitation is the sheer complexity of the whole endeavor. I don’t think anyone else will be able to repeat the feat in less than a month or two.”
With my head a little lower than my first exuberant statement, I reply:
“Yeah, I think you are right. For most people, they would need at least 150 intelligence and level 100 in the mana manipulation Skill to do this. At least if they want to be reliable. And takes into account a few improvements to the design.”
“Then let us not waste any more time. There are a couple of people that would benefit from it greatly.”
“I mean sure, but I think having you leveling is a better option overall given how long the other people will take to catch up. Closer to the attack next month, you will already be at a much higher level, and you will be more used to manipulating the roots. You will probably be able to help, trying to rush would probably be counterproductive.”
“Perhaps you are right. And someone like Greg, which would be the main benefit from focusing on other people won't be able to get help like this for even longer. With his current progression, he won’t be able to use mana to the required level for many months at least.”
“Yep. Come on let me just…” I say as I modify a few runes slightly on the table and he patiently waits while centering himself and focusing on the next part.
The sun rises as we rush to get as much done as possible before the morning meeting. Each of our iterations lasts longer and tunes in on Merlin’s way of handling mana. As I begin to thicken the roots, he starts to improve his control of the roots, though actually growing them seems to be beyond him. For now, all he can do is move them.
As 7 o'clock nears, we head quickly to the town square. When we get there the precession has already started, and the robot we were waiting to see stands, finishing up his speech.
“The people not here right now, I will collect from later. As they are not too many, I don’t mind. Now, you know the drill. Lift your hand if you have the two silver coins.”
Most people lift their hands and leave. This time I don’t lift my hand and see a minute later about 200 left. I approach, remaining at the end of the quickly moving line, which is way more efficient than I expected. In less than 10 minutes I’m the only one how hasn’t paid.
“So, why are you here if you already have two silver on your pocket, little mage?
With an easy smile as I stand at about 45 degrees to the ground. It’s a little more natural to talk like this instead of fully laying down.
“I wanted to see how much this coin is worth,” I say as I take Pando’s coin from my pocket. His eyes go wide at seeing the coin. What surprises me is however the Aether construct he sends in my direction. As the Aether gets to the coin, I reflexively close my roots around it and absorb a little of the Aether. Most of it even after entering the roots leaves with ease that changes everything I knew about it. Before it all leaves, I strongly grab hold of it and thicken the roots around the tiny amount left.
I’m surprised by this reaction, I have never seen Aether leave another being after entering it, and just the thought sends my mind across light-years. So many possibilities if I ever manage to do the same with my Aether. This Aether is very different from anything I have ever seen before. So I leave it separated from my main pool, while tightly holding it in my grasp. His face, which on the last visit had been almost expressionless, now reacts nearly exactly to a human’s.
“Well,” He starts a little uncertain but soon composes himself. “I can't explain it properly, but let's just say, that coin is worth about 7 coppers in system currency. Properly authenticated however a collector would pay significantly more.”
“Why is it worth only 7 copper?”
“Long story short. It doesn’t matter that you used silver from previous coins. Coins are almost indestructible as long as you are not trying to destroy them. If you melt them, the resulting metal is just common silver, nothing special about it. The worth of the coin is that they are system recognized. Your meager abilities to wield Aether and the fact you are not authorized to make coins greatly dimmish the value of even a hand-crafted coin.”
“Authorized?” I ask hoping to extract a little bit more info.
“You don’t have a territory, nor are you a ruler, and especially not a licensed to print coins. Legally speaking, in the system's eyes, you are nobody.”
I try to make sense of the turmoil within me from his words. I don’t know what stirred my emotions. I know it wasn’t his last phrase, I care little for such opinions. But somewhere, in his first phrase, there was something I rebelled against. Not from the face value, but the deeper meaning or something.
Trying to make sense of it, along with Pando’s seed, I begin to spin my own Aether around. He already knows I can wield Ather. And searching for meaning and truth within me seems so much more important. Hesitantly I, begin to speak:
“Those may be true in their face value. But I‘m Pando’s guardian, against all who seek to harm it. Pando is my territory as much as anything could be mine. And any right I may wield as a recognized being in front of the system I yield to Pando as it should be. There is nothing anyone can say to change that.”
As I finish speaking, the pressure is off. Something is missing. I didn’t hit the nail in the head, but somehow it was closer than any time before.
He, however, just laughs. As if I had told the funniest joke on the planet. Truly caring not for anything else, he is like a kid that found humor where no one else can.
“You humans are a wonderful race. You will get what you looking for someday.”
“Why are you so open and forthcoming?”
“Because you piqued my interest. Even if you did steal my Aether, I have taken a liking to you. Even I’m still bound by the system, but someone that wields Aether within only 2 months of integration is noteworthy. Time, I running out so hurry up, the 2 silver coins.”
As I move to take them, he disappears as I feel the distinct teleportation spell touching the roots holding the payment. I appreciate his forwardness, but it was disconcerting he could just do that with such ease. The space around me should be my sovereign space.
This mental image brings a reaction from my new sense. Probably even better than the previous image of a home. With a wide smile, following all my gains, I go back to work on the more urgent tasks. But this is not to be filed away for months, this is quite significant. The sooner I invested some time into it, the sooner I would see some dividends from what I learned.
-------------------------------------
I wondered why me, one of the strongest and most capable amongst my entire race was sent to this insignificant place. Just to collect coins? My main duties, all things considered, were still understandable. Regardless of this being a backwater on the frontier of this galaxy, administrating an entire integration tutorial is a fairly standard action given my small infraction.
But when I saw the boy, I knew why I was also relegated to this menial task. The decision of the system was starting to make sense.
He got lucky I was no friend of the council. Though if I was a friend to the council, all I would have to do is pay a small fine for skirting the system’s rules. Instead, I was being forced to work here.
Another point against me, what that we were considered the perfect administrators for the new integrations. Most of my race did not bother with emotions when doing any menial job. In the eyes of the system, we were highly efficient, which benefited the council. Any type of highly automated race like us may be good from this perspective, but the council knew that biological beings made for better administrators in the long term. And anything that benefited the people integrating was something to be avoided. Especially considering outliers like someone yielding Aether while inside the tutorial. That was the stuff of nightmares for the council flunkies.
I was the administrator, and I had yet to notice him. Though he was sure to do plenty that would shake things up. And the system was not a fan of people like that.
Perhaps I can stealthily help him. I just need to take care to never exceed what the system allows, skirting the rules was fine, but outright breaking them would have dire consequences, especially while I was serving my sentence.
I almost finished with setting up the needed runic and Aether structure for a time chamber. It would allow me to speed up time and make my sentence thousands of times shorter. At the normal flow, the task of administrating took a couple of thousand instances used a fraction of a percent of my mental capabilities.
I was after all an automaton race. From a layman's perspective, we were computers with sentience.
But after running into the little meat bag, perhaps not watching the movie on 1000x speed would make things more enjoyable. No matter how much of me was a computer, I was still amongst the sentient races. Especially after temporarily adding the human genome to my own, my emotions were running even higher than normal.
I think over what type of help I could provide to make things even more interesting. I can’t do much, but a few tidbits of information here and there would be enough to help him. With that, he has a good chance to keep most of the resources of his planet from the council.
After a closer look at the others in his village, it looks as if he is not the only rising star in that village. Let’s see how this story unfolds.
Be it a bright star, a nova, or a black hole, it will be fun to watch.