Once more I awoke to the view of the ceiling that I’m rapidly starting to learn to recognize as my own, but this time I’m not alone in my bed. Sheeno lays curled up next to me, holding on to me with all 4 of her arms, as if I was some kind of teddy bear.

“I knew that [Hyper-Focus] would have eventually fucked me over, sooner rather than later…” I mumble, finding that working my mouth isn’t particularly difficult, so the lingering headache must mean that the damage I suffered either must have been mostly magically healed, or it was less physical than literally crying blood made it appear to be.

“Don’t blame a [Trait] for that. Know that I’m incredibly disappointed in you, your fainting due to brain-related damage can’t be such a common occurrence that I develop a contingency to rapidly work around it”, the sleepy voice snaps my focus to my companion’s face, who is looking down at me from further up on the pillow with a tired frown.

“You’re right, but-“, I wanted to tell Sheeno about what I learned during that mess, but one of her hands clamped my mouth shut before I could even begin to.

“No ‘buts’, I don’t care if there was some kind of benefit earned from what you did: Your health must come first! Am I understood!?” She angrily asked, now half-upright, towering over my form, and showing no signs that she would release my mouth so I could respond.

Thinking that she was incredibly hot at that moment I hurriedly nodded my head, and that seemed to satisfy her since she finally released me.

“Good! Now, are you confident that it won’t happen again?” Sheeno asked.

“Well… exactly the same thing? I don’t think so: the knowledge is already here, now I only need to dissect it and make it mine”, I carefully said, while poking the side of my head for emphasis. ”If I were to find something else equally fascinating though? I give you full permission to slap me out of whatever trance I get into: It definitely can’t be healthy that it keeps happening”.

“Yes, it can’t be healthy, and yes, I will be slapping you next time”, She nodded, completely serious in her declaration.

“I foresee a lot of slaps in the future.”

* * *

A short breakfast later, Sheeno forced me to unwind a little at least until it was lunchtime, so I entertained myself by reading some of the books we now had in our expanding library, which for now was limited to books about magical theory and other similar subjects.

An interesting read nonetheless that focused on trying to explain how different [Affinities] could achieve the same result by touching on the same concept from different angles. The biggest takeaway was that my idea that concepts governed how one shaped magic was both right, and not really that innovative. Although, I guess others can’t normally see it in the [Matrix], so that’s why it’s only a theory for the writer.

A MAGIC Theory!

…Anyway, when lunch finally came along I insisted on preparing it, and once Sheeno relented, accepting that I was a functioning adult that could cook, I tried to recreate a vol-au-vent with the green chicken and some weird purple shrooms that I was assured weren’t poisonous, all inside a relatively normal loaf of hard bread. If my father were here he would probably be disappointed that I opted for the more substantial Belgian version, instead of the smaller version the Frenchs liked to make, but I was always a fan of the more plentiful version, and the French version often came with other stuff on the side that didn’t ever mesh well for me with ‘chicken and mushroom’, so I just mashed some potatoes instead.

It did come out good, but the unearthly nature of the ingredients made it come out tasting like nothing I was expecting. I had to try my hand at cooking some more if I were to understand how the ingredients from this world fully differentiated from the ones on Earth.

Finally, when we were both done eating, Sheeno finally agreed to let me get back to work, but only if she could watch over my shoulder what I was doing, like some sort of mother hen.

That was easy enough to agree to as long as she didn’t purposely distract me… unless I got into a trance again, in that case, she would be free to slap me, thanks to our previous accords.

* * *

Now, back into the ‘sanctity’, meant as in a ‘sancta sanctorum’ sort of way, of our private room, what did I want to work on first?

Well, I liked to think of myself as a harassing backliner, and while the [Pizza Launchers] did their work, they could be vastly improved with what I could now implement in my repertoire.

I brought the [Matrix] of the [Spell] into a visible state, and with new knowledge inside my brain, new abilities on my hands, and a phantom pain generated from the memory of seeing [Overflowing Ability], I got to work, analyzing my previous work.

…yeah, still too complex to fully understand, but hey: Progress is progress!

So… the name I gave it was actually somewhat limiting its potential, by being needlessly complex and not really describing what it could do.

It appears that the fact that names held power here was now another proven fact for me.

I patted myself on the back for actually naming [Kenny] and [Buddy] with somewhat normal names, which probably contributed to them being fully recognized as [familiars] by the [System].

Obviously, I didn’t want my primary [turret] to become a familiar, since it would defeat the main use it lately had in the sheer numbers it could provide, rather than power; and while making it into a [familiar] would probably make it stronger, it would definitely keep me from summoning more than one at a time and of that I was certain: I tried it with [Kenny] to no avail.

Back to us, and by that, I mean to me: The first thing I had to do was give it a more proper name.

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‘Disk Launcher’ was probably the most generic name that I could give them, but it could work.

Wait! I’m a moron!

Nothing new there.

I already saw Latin being used by both [Dungeon], supposedly created by the ‘enemy force’ through natural means, and the [System], supposedly in turn created by the ‘allied force’, so it probably held some power on its own as a language.

I don’t believe that the multiverse just so happens to use Latin as the language of power, it was probably just my [cultural interpretation] doing its thing, but that was exactly my point: Latin back on Earth was the language of science, and since I, and probably most of [Humanity], thought of it as so, which gave it inherited properties through convictions that meshed really well with the reality that we now found ourself in.

Considering that, the name of my main [turret] will become [Discus Launcher], because I’m fairly certain that ‘discus’ is ‘disc’ and I don’t know the translation to ‘launcher’, so that stays the same.

You have successfully renamed [Forceful metallic Pizza Dispenser] into [Discus Launcher].

Honestly, this was a long time coming, since it didn’t even launch metallic objects anymore, or at least not solely those now.

I summoned the [Matrix] once more and yes, the squiggly mess that once represented the name is now replaced by a neat coupled [Rune], which fits on the main ring of the [Spell] just as well as the others do, allowing the whole thing to rotate much more smoothly than it did before.

In other words, the improvement felt substantial, but I definitely could still do more.

In fact, I immediately decided to add an addendum for ‘mobility’ to the [Matrix], because with all they could do, the fact that they were stationary didn’t make much sense, especially since now such an addition wouldn’t weigh that much on my [Core], with how much it had grown since I had first devised the [Spell] to be efficient and cost-effective.

I tweaked a bit the [Runes] meant for its kinetic capabilities, trying to make it fire faster and with a bit more ‘humph’ behind each throw, and felt the change successfully fall into place.

If there was a set of [Runes] I was confident in using by now, it was those related to the concept of ‘force’.

Satisfied with my work on that I turned my attention to my [Shamanic Totem of Protection].

I mean, the name there too didn’t seem to fit: Maybe it was meant to merely shield once upon a time, but now it bestowed an ongoing healing effect to those under its influence.

Summoning the [Matrix] I saw that I was right, easily noticing the name here too sort of needlessly ‘weight down’ the whole thing, so I started thinking about new names.

I definitely wanted to keep the ‘Shamanic’ part, since the design was made to resemble the shamanic poles that you could find in Korea around remote villages. Sort of a nod to my mother’s heritage, and my own culture.

‘Shamanic pole’ itself wouldn’t be bad for a name, but I really wanted something more unique.

‘Shamanic Idol’? No, it sounded like I wanted a bearded old man to sing pop songs in skimpy clothing.

What a terrible mental image I just gave myself.

[Shamanic Totem] alone really was the best option I could think of, but having just what it was in the name felt kind of lame, so I really wasn’t sure.

You often shortened it to [Shamanic Totem] in your mind when thinking about it, so it really would not differ much for you personally; on the other hand, if the name mirrors the thought behind it you will be able to quicken the cast time by the tiniest of bits, even though it may already appear instantaneous right now.

“It’s not instantaneous, my [Reflex] is high enough to make me recognize that. That’s why lately I find myself relying more on my free-forms [Runic Barriers] than my actual [Totems].”

Then there is a really quick solution that you could implement right away.

Recognizing that [Buddy] was right I went ahead and changed the name of the [Spell], but not without grumbling internally a bit at how lame the name really was.

You have successfully renamed [Shamanic Totem of Protection] into [Shamanic Totem].

Resummoning the [Matrix] I saw that the change wasn’t as substantial as it had been with the [Launcher], but it was there.

I finished by adding the [Runes] that cause the redirection and reflection of force upon hit and called it done.

[Flying Trappers] and the [All-Purpose Mount] were fine: the names were fine, the [Matrixes] were fine, and the effects were fine.

I just added some [Runes] that made the [Trappers] fly and fire faster, while making their shape go from cubical to spherical because let’s be honest, floating eyeballs fit their aesthetic more than the ‘ magical jet-engines’ I had originally based them on, and then I finally added that bit to the [Mount] that made it so I could properly steer it.

“Can’t believe I’m fixing that only now, after the mess that it caused.”

And now… it was time for the good stuff: The new stuff!

I really needed two things right now, one to further harass a target, since that was the role I decided I could cover the best, and something stronger than what I had at my disposal.

Why would I make something whose whole purpose would be to solely harass? Because I really missed the biggest type of utility harassers normally had: Swarmers.

In my mind, there was nothing more annoying than an enemy with the [Swarmer] behavior, so it was only natural that I would have a self-replicating swarmer, whose main purpose would be being fast and sturdy… no, maybe I could make it kind of malleable so it could fuse with its other selves and become a stronger and bigger version of itself.

And also I wanted it to become a sentient [familiar], with some sort of rudimentary hive-mind.

I know, I too was scared of a ‘grey goo’ scenario, but given the emptiness of my inner world, I really wanted something that could reproduce on its own and make use of the natural resources I seemed to have inside of me.

Also, I could only imagine how surprised my enemies would be when I just started pouring out entire armies of mobs.

But now, it was time to see if I could do this at all, to begin with.

Without having the need to throw a look at Sheeno I saw that she wasn’t hovering as close to me anymore, but was now sitting in a decadent chair whilst reading a book that I didn’t know we had.

“Hey, Sheeno?” I attracted her attention, still without turning toward her since I was too focused on what I was about to do.

“Yes?” She simply asked back, putting down her book by keeping a finger in the fold so she would keep the page.

“I’m going to do one of those impossible things I can do, and I just wanted to warn you in advance so you wouldn’t be alarmed”, I explained, already preparing an ideal starting point for the [Matrix] in my mind.

“Ugh, must you?” She said, while tiredly throwing her head back on the headrest.

“I mean… yeah, weren’t you the one that told me that I was the one that should define his own path with my [Class]?” I threw her words back at her.

“Fair enough. I will be ready with the slap”, Sheeno simply declared, going back to her read.

Seeing that there was no winning with her, I finally threw a look her way, which ended up making our gazes cross and she caught the occasion to wink at me and really go back to her book this time.

With one last shake of my head, I went back to work. There was a new friend that I had to make.

…

Ok, that came out way weirder than I wanted it to.