Chapter 115: Dragon-rider subsystem
Alex Sandclaw’s POV:
I climbed off Felix’s back and sat down on the edge of the loft. “Give me a moment, I haven’t looked at it yet.”
With a quick mental command, I opened up my status window and navigated to the new Dragon rider subsystem window at the bottom of the list.
> [Dragon Rider Sub-system Beginning]
>
> Welcome Alex! Glory, rewards, and the satisfaction of knowing you helped people awaits within! As rider Prime, you will have access to the full functionalities of the sub-system as they come online. As a System handyman, you have full access to the statuses of all systems and local node stabilities. I have taken the liberty to list them below.
>
> Quest System: Undergoing repairs. (Stability 45%)
>
> Settlement aid System: Setting up. (Stability 75%)
>
> AI-system: I’m perfectly functional, thank you very much. (Stability 55%)
>
> Map system: Offline (core #29).
>
> Citizens system: Offline (core #111).
>
> Weather system: Online. (Stability 100%)
>
> Dimensional storage system: Offline (core #ERROR).
>
> World tracker system: Online. (Stability 98%)
>
> Title system: Online (Stability 96%)
>
> Error, unable to retrieve rest of list.
>
> Please be patient while I set the functions up and make a few repairs.
>
> [Dragon Rider Sub-system End]
That was oddly direct. Like, much too direct. The System usually had a passive, informative tone. Not this. And the way it referred to itself as ‘I’... Odd. It almost seemed like the System was talking to me. Could it even talk? As far as I knew—as far as anyone knew—the System was lifeless, inanimate, and dead. It had no mind of its own. It shouldn’t be able to talk, nor refer to itself as ‘I’. And yet it did. That was… disconcerting, to say the least.
Was this another change from activating that System core? I didn’t think it was, but how could I know? As I thought the situation over, a thought occurred to me. Was it just this menu that spoke to me, or my other System screens as well? With a quick thought, I pulled up my status, but a cursory glance told me nothing had changed. I checked a few other screens, like my Skill descriptions, but none spoke to me like the dragon rider sub-system screen had. Satisfied with the result, I went back to trying to understand what the message was telling me.
It was a little confusing, but the gist of it seemed to be that there were more functions like the Title system that Felix and I had managed to repair. One that immediately stood out to me was the one called the map system. If it was what I thought it was, that could’ve come in really helpful during our stay in the underground tunnels. I tried selecting it, but nothing happened except for the System giving a vague feeling of absent-ness. Something was missing. Not there. I repeated it a few times with other systems similarly labeled ‘offline’ and got the same response. I concluded that ‘offline’ probably meant something like ‘unavailable’. Or, considering the core we came across: dead and without mana; turned off.
Did that mean we could also turn these back on if we found their cores? And if we could, should we? I hadn’t seen the consequences of turning the Title system on, but I knew it likely caused a pretty big upset. Regardless, it was something to consider. I made to continue scanning through the list when Felix interrupted me.
“What does it say?” he asked, and I realized that to him I would have just been staring at empty space for a few minutes. Whoops.
“Sorry,” I said. “The System is being… weird.”
Felix raised an eye-ridge at me. “Weird how?”
I shook my head again, this time in resignation. “It’s easier to just show you,” I said, then climbed down to grab my notebook and a pencil from my supplies. I quickly sketched it down, then turned to climb back up. But Felix had glided down already, so I just handed it to him. He read it over, then frowned.
“Oh, yeah, you weren’t lying. That is really weird. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of the System being quite this direct and… personal? Some Skill descriptions get close, but never quite to this degree. Either way, it’s probably not a bad thing? It does raise some interesting questions regarding the sapience of the System though. But we’ll just have to ignore that for now. It’s not like it really makes a difference anyway. What do the other options do?”
I nodded in agreement. “I’ll check them out now, give me a moment.”
I nudged the option for the weather system, and this time a screen did appear.
> [Weather Control and Monitoring System Status Report Beginning]
>
> The weather tracking subsystem is fully operational. A total 94.33% of monitoring nodes are online, which is within acceptable margins. All data processing and node control cores are online. Mana consumption is at 92% of standard. [See more details?]
The weather control sub-system is online but on stand-by. A total of 97.21% of control nodes are online, which is within acceptable margins. A total of 99% of node control cores are online. Mana consumption is at 6% of standard. [See more details?]
[Weather Control and Monitoring System Status Report End]
Okay, that was by far the longest title for a System window I’d ever seen. The contents were… underwhelming, though. I’d hoped for a weather report of the local area or something similar, but instead I just got some sort of maintenance report. I supposed it made sense, since the Title that gave me access to this information was called ‘System handyman’ and not ‘System weatherman’.
The information was really quite neat, though, even if I couldn’t really do anything with it. The insight it gave into how the System operated was unlike any other, and there were undoubtedly people who’d fall head over heels to get it. I sketched it down, and quickly made a few copies of both the dragon-rider subsystem window and this one. I blanked out any mention of dragons, though. I’d give this to Felix’s dad later. He’d know who best to give this to.
With that done, I selected [See more details?] on the monitoring system, and got a list of raw information so long it didn’t fit in one window. Dozens of different windows popped up around me, displaying all kinds of information. Data flow statistics, maintenance reports per world, nodes listed for repair, power consumption reports per sector, world, and total, graphs upon graphs of data going back centuries, and more. It gave me a headache just trying to understand, so I willed most of the information to go away.
I pressed a hand to my head, rubbing at it in a vain attempt to lessen the pain. “I think I bit off more than I could chew,” I said with a groan. “The System wasn’t joking when it said ‘more details’. I don’t think I could’ve gone through all of it, even if I’d had centuries. Like, just look at this!” I said, giving him the sketch I’d made of the total power consumption report. Just it consisted of a few hundred bits of information and graphs. And this was one of the shorter screens. And there were dozens and dozens of screens just like it.
Felix stared at the report and its numbers for a good minute. Finally he spoke, “That’s a lot of mana. That’s like a half a million mana every single second. And that’s just for one of the Systems functions? I can’t even imagine how much mana the System consumes as a whole. Where does it even get that much?”
He shook his head, and put the sheet of paper with the rest of the pile. The Academy’s scientists were gonna have one hell of a day when they got this.
“Do the other online systems give you similar information?” Felix asked, and I checked. They did indeed give very similar information, and I added it to the pile in short order.
After that, we relaxed for a bit while we waited for the ‘Settlement aid system’ to finish setting up. It was one of the few we believed we’d actually be able to access, with the quest system being the other. Luckily, the wait wouldn’t be too long. In the time we’d spent talking and looking into the information, the stability had gone from 45% to 85%.
It wasn’t until checking the progress for the fifth time in as many minutes that I realized we’d totally forgotten about the reason we had needed to come back here to Felix’s room in the first place. I facepalmed while I shot Felix a sheepish look. “I totally forgot about that knowledge that was dumped into my head. I’ll check it out right now while we wait.”
Felix chuckled, then gestured for me to come over to him. I obliged and he sat me down against his side. “I don’t want you falling and hurting yourself if you lose consciousness. Or to cramp up if you spent too long going through the information,” he said, then gave me a kiss. “Plus, I like having you close.”
I smiled at him, returning the kiss. Only after a few moments did I remember I hadn’t sat down with him to make out. So I wriggled closer into his touch, then relaxed my mind as I focused on the information. I usually only used this type of meditation if I had to do detailed mana manipulation, but in the small amount of time I’d had the [Dragon riding] Skill, I had discovered I found it a bit easier to access specific knowledge this way.
I turned my mind inwards to where I felt the knowledge resting. It was like a soft fluffy cloud on the edge of your vision. You knew it was there, but you usually didn’t pay attention to it. Though, going with that analogy, this was more like a heavy, dark storm-cloud. Not in terms of doom and gloom, but with how densely the information was packed.
In my mental image, I flew over to the cloud, wanting to get inside. Except, I couldn’t. It was like the cloud was behind a glass wall. I just couldn’t get to it. The knowledge and memories were blocked off to me.
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
I opened my eyes and frowned at Felix. “The information is blocked. I can tell it’s there, and how much information it is—a lot—but when I try to access it, I just… can’t. It’s like there’s a wall in the way I can’t get through.”
Felix tilted his head at me. “That’s definitely odd,” he said, then thought for a moment. “You should try again. If it’s a wall, it’s bound to have a crack in it somewhere. Metaphorically, speaking, I mean.”
I nodded my agreement and tried again, scouring up and down the wall, feeling the shapes and edges of the knowledge. It wasn’t so much a wall as it was just a protective covering, only blocking off the new knowledge, but not the adjacent memories. Oddly enough, the adjacent memories were all about Felix and dragons, how they manipulated mana, how it applied to me, how Felix’s magic worked, and how he breathed lightning. The parts I knew and understood, anyway.
There was, however, no crack in the wall.
I told Felix as much, and he just shrugged. “It’s knowledge you gained from the dragon rider sub-system, right? It makes sense that it has something to do with dragons,” he said, then frowned. “It’s odd you can’t access it though. Why give it to you if you’re not allowed to touch it? Seems like a waste of effort. Though, given the source, maybe it’ll open up once the subsystem finishes setting up? Or maybe access is one of those rewards it mentioned? Speaking of, has it finished yet?”
I checked the System window again, and while it hadn’t finished yet, the stability percentage was nearing 100%. A few more minutes perhaps.
“It’s not done yet, but I think it’s close,” I said. We fell quiet after that, and I tried to find a topic to talk about while we waited. It was surprisingly hard, as my mind kept going back to the subsystem, and all the information it had given us already, but I figured something out, eventually. “You said earlier you wanted to change classes, right? Do you have any idea which classes you want to do instead?”
Felix shook his head. “No specifics, but I think I’ll take a few more combat classes. The kind you can take without having specific Skills.”
I nodded. “That sounds like a good idea, though if I could make a suggestion?”
“Sure, go ahead,” he said.
“What about an aerial combat class we can take together, so we can practice fighting while I’m on your back?”
He thought about it for a moment, then nodded. “That sounds like a good plan. I’m sure there are some really clever strategies we can come up with if we had a little time and a personal trainer to discuss things with. I’m meeting up later with my dad anyway, to talk about what he found on his trip to those archives and such, so I’ll ask him if he could help set us up with an instructor.”
“Sounds like a plan,” I said. “I’m not sure where I’d fit it into my own schedule, since I like my classes and wouldn’t want to drop one, but I’m sure we’ll figure it out.”
We fell into silence for a moment, and I took the opportunity to slide closer to Felix’s arms and snuggle into him. He put a wing around my shoulders, resting his head on top of mine.
“I’m really glad we’re home again,” he said, his voice now reverberating through my skull with each word. I chuckled at the sensation. Felix continued, “I don’t think I’ve said it enough, but I really hated being underground like that. Having you with me helped a lot, but I still really didn’t like it.”
“I know,” I said. “Though, I will admit that right now, looking up at the open sky and not seeing a ceiling feels a little intimidating.”
Felix nodded. “I suppose. In a way, having those walls all around us was a little comforting. You can’t get ambushed from above if there’s a ceiling in the way. But the oppressiveness outweighed that heavily. To me, at least” he said. “How’s the sub-system going, by the way?”
“That’s fair, it really did feel like we were being crushed at times. Also, let me check.” I opened the sub-system window.
> [Dragon Rider Sub-system Beginning]
>
> Quest System: Undergoing repairs (Stability 52%).
>
> Settlement aid System: Online (Stability 100%).
>
> AI-system: I’m perfectly functional, thank you very much (Stability 55%).
>
> Map system: Offline (core #29).
>
> Citizens system: Offline (core #111).
>
> Weather system: Online. (Stability 100%)
>
> Dimensional storage system: Offline (core #ERROR).
>
> World tracker system: Online. (Stability 97%)
>
> Title system: Online (Stability 96%)
>
> Error, unable to retrieve rest of list.
>
> [Dragon Rider Sub-system End]
Aside from the Quest System’s stability going up a few percent, nothing else really changed much. But the Settlement aid system was now online. “It’s done, I’ll take a look.”
> [Settlement aid System Beginning]
>
> Hello Alex, as this is your first time using this function, I will give you a brief explanation. Below, you will find a list of all settlements and outposts within a 100km radius of your current position. If you select one, it will show their current status, the amount of people living there, and the stability of the local node. If a settlement is in need of aid, it will show so on the list, and details will be provided when you select the settlement.
>
> Once the quest system is online, you may receive rewards for lending aid.
>
> In any case, here’s the list, sorted by distance.
>
> * Academy campus [In distress: local node stability: 78.3%]
> * Training-ground keeper’s recluse: [Safe]
> * Deepwind valley: [Safe]
> * Pondview hunting outpost: [Safe]
> * Silvervein mining outpost: [Safe]
> * Cleargardens: [Safe]
>
> * [See rest of list?]
>
> [Settlement aid System End]
I read through the small explanation twice to make sure I understood it correctly, then I read the list. It seemed small at first, until I realized most of the list had been shortened away. When I selected [See rest of list?], the list expanded to include over a hundred places, all of them safe. I’d have to compare them to a map sometime, but from the names I’d guess they were mostly small outposts for hunting and gathering resources, with a few small villages or retreats thrown in.
All in all, the only settlement showing any distress was oddly the academy. You’d think out of all the places here, that it would be the most fine, but apparently not. I followed the instructions the system provided and selected the academy to learn more about it.
> [Settlement Description Beginning]
>
> Name: Academy Campus
>
> People: 1.352.124 people (see distribution?)
>
> Status: In distress
>
> Node stability: 78.3%
>
> Warning, low node stability may lead to an increased chance of monster surges, increased monster spawn rates, decreased mana density, decreased experience gain, and an increased chance of violent rift displacement.
>
> [Settlement Description End]
I frowned as I read it through. That did not sound good. That did not sound good at all. I grabbed my pencil and notebook and quickly sketched the windows out for Felix while I read through the description again. Increased chance of monster surges, it said. Was this what caused the monster surge while Felix and I had been down at the training grounds? Was this why Felix had lost his wing there?
“Fuck,” Felix said. “I’m gonna need to show dad this. Sorry, Alex, but this is a little too big to not show him.”
I shook my head. “No, I understand. Though I wonder how much he will be able to do about it. We don’t even know what a local node is, let alone how to find and repair it.”
Felix looked at the paper in his talons for a moment. “Maybe dad knows, or he can find it in the archives somewhere. Either way, it’s better to show him,” he said, then sighed. “As if he didn’t have enough on his plate already.”
There was a moment of quiet as both Felix and I read the notebook through again, from start to finish. But it didn’t mention anywhere how we could find and repair it. After reading it through for a second time, I had an idea to find out. The system had been acting oddly direct, hadn’t it? Maybe we could just ask? In the worst case, I’d just look a little silly speaking out loud like that.
I went over what question specifically to ask, then spoke my question out loud. “Hey System, how can we find a local node?”
> [Query response begin]
>
> Query: Where to find a local node.
>
> Answer: As you have access to the information through your System handyman Title, please refer to the map.
>
> [Query response end]
I sighed, as that didn’t really get me anywhere. I did notice Felix raising an eye-ridge at me, though. I’d explain in a moment.
“System, how can I find a local node if the map is unavailable.”
> [Query response begin]
>
> Query: Where to find a local node without a map.
>
> Answer: As you have access to the information through your System handyman Title, please refer to the map. ERROR: map unavailable. ERROR map cannot be unavailable. ERROR: map is unavailable. ERROR: map cannot be unavailable. ERROR: map is—ERROR: recursive loop detected. Insufficient processing power available through local node to reconcile expected and available information. Now taking preventative measures to decrease system degradation. Please ask your query through a proper core.
>
> [Query response end]
I stared at the window for a moment, then groaned. “I think I made the System freak out, again,” I said as I shared the window with Felix.
He read through the information, and sighed. “Well, this isn’t very useful,” he said. “Though the fact it actually responds to your questions… Maybe you could try asking how to repair the map function instead? Or the node?”
I did as he asked, but the System didn’t give a response. “I think I know what those preventative measures were,” I said with a frown. Then, having a suspicion, I checked out the dragon-rider sub-system and found that the function labeled ‘AI system’ had decreased by a full five percent. While it could be a coincidence, I didn’t think it was. Damn, no wonder it had shut us out, if asking a single question caused such a decrease in stability.
I sighed and told Felix what I’d figured out. “That’s unfortunate. But, it doesn’t really change our plans, does it?” he asked. “I mean, we were already planning to go to one of the cores, anyway. Now there’s just an actual reason to go there.”
I gave Felix a look. “Our previous reason was perfectly fine, too, Felix. Don’t belittle your own motivations like that. But I will agree there’s a bit more of a hurry now. I don’t know how long the stability has been this low, but there’s only been the one monster surge,” I said, then stopped to think for a moment. “And as far as I know, people haven’t been complaining about their Skills leveling slowly or the mana density dropping, so I think it’s been like this for a while. We can probably just follow your dad’s order and train up first.”
Felix nodded and was just as he was about to speak, there was a mental twinge from the Settlement system. I didn’t know how I knew that was what it was, but I knew. I held up a hand to stop Felix and opened the window up.
> [Settlement Description Beginning]
>
> Name: Academy Campus
>
> People: 1.352.124 people (see distribution?)
>
> Status: In distress
>
> Node stability: 78.2%
>
> Warning, low node stability may lead to an increased chance of monster surges, increased monster spawn rates, decreased mana density, decreased experience gain, and an increased chance of violent rift displacement.
>
> [Settlement Description End]
It took me a while to spot the difference, why it had alerted me, but after comparing it to what I’d drawn down just a moment ago, I cursed.
“Hey Felix, ignore my last words,” I said. “The stability percentage just dropped from 78.3% to 78.2%. I don’t think we have as much time as we thought.”