Author’s Corner: Behold, another chapter! We are rapidly approaching Christmas, so with it I shall bring you the gift of plot(maybe, if my fingers determine plot shall be written).
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After I was done with my simple test for controlling technology, I began writing software again. This time it was a software for both myself and Celeste. I recalled how Harlan and Rita talked about there being the possibility to get an extension for the companion AI that would allow it to display information in front of me eye, like a heads up display. Since I already have a Cybernetic eye, and Celeste can tap into my mana to ‘connect’ to me, why not make use of it?
My first test was unsuccessful, because I did not take into consideration that Celeste was unable to alter my mana flow, meaning that she could not output energy in the same way that she takes it in. However, there were other ways that she could output it, as proven by the fact that she creates holograms. I simply had to create a workaround that let her hologram function pass through my aura and connect to my Cybernetic Eye. Meanwhile, I had to also create a special access program for my eye that would allow the connection.
Rather than copying technology, or controlling it, this was the method of Technomancy where one interfaced with it. After I wrote the two programs, I simply had to use a bit of my Technomancy to bridge the connection, and a series of windows appeared before me.
Connection Program established between Falenel and Celeste
This program will enable the companion AI to interface with the Cybernetic eye, and alter perception within a set of effects.
Technomancy has advanced to Basic!
Mana Manipulation has advanced to Novice!
Aura Sight has advanced to Basic!
New Spell Unlocked!
Interface Technology - Technomancy - ★
This spell enables you to interface with technology, and use yourself as a medium for information to be displayed.
Mana Cost: 50
I smiled at the three advancement messages before testing out the connection. “It working alright for you, Celeste?”
After I asked, the room suddenly lit up in a brief yellow light, which was only visible from my Cybernetic eye. Though, if I looked carefully, it wasn’t the room that was lit up, but each individual object was highlighted in a thin border of yellow light before moving on to the next in rapid succession. Afterwards, a small white text displayed itself at the bottom of my vision. Testing, testing?
“A bit too fast on the targeting system, but otherwise alright. Now, next step, calculate trajectory.” I pointed my finger at a nearby wall, and from my Cybernetic eye I could see a thin red beam emitting from my finger, colliding against the wall. I moved my finger around, and the beam followed it. “Good, that should help a lot in the future. Now, bring up a 3D representation of the wolf aura.”
Although it was still only visible to my Cybernetic eye, a 3D model of an aura appeared in front of me. “Switch the skin pattern for the snake scales. After that, add on the lovebird wings.” As I spoke, changes were made to the aura. “Good… Now, if I can get a few more pieces, I should be able to make a small dragon. Well, the body of one, at least.” I recorded the finished aura with my eye, having it turn at various angles to get the full picture.
The connection program with Celeste offered her a number of minor abilities. The primary one was the ability to create holograms within my Cybernetic eye by changing the information I received. This is what let her do all of those previous acts. With her own processing ability, she would be able to easily calculate wind resistance based on the wind mana flow when I activate Aura Sight, so the targeting system should be spot on.
The second most important ability was how she was able to save the auras directly to my memory, so that I could have preset forms to shift into. Lastly, this let her display information obtained through her software directly into my eye, as an extension of her holograms. This would give me everything I needed to at least be competent with whatever I needed to do.
Sadly, this wasn’t enough to let her AI inhabit my head, but it was a step in the right direction. I would still need to be wearing the bracelet in order for the program to work. But with this, I should be able to do my work as a mechanic much more easily.
It was already late by the time I finished the programs, so I went ahead and went to bed for the night. When I woke up in the morning, I did a quick inspection of my grove, and was rather surprised with what I saw. One of the birds, I’m not sure which, was sitting on the ground next to the sapling of the heart’s apple tree, singing to it. Since I was in tune with all of the magic in the grove, I was able to feel a slight magical reaction from it. Likewise, the other bird was perched on the enrichment fruit tree, seemingly resting. However, I could feel the rush of wind mana entering and exiting her, as if cycling.
They’ve started learning magic? One in Nature Magic, and the other cultivating Wind Affinity? Well, guess it was bound to happen sooner or later. I sighed slightly, before exiting the grove. The next two hours, I spent on starting to cultivate Lightning Affinity. Although I had only managed to raise it to 1% through connecting to the hotel’s power grid, that was still a good advancement, as long as I kept it up.
When I left the hotel today, I went towards the transit station, where Celeste indicated I should be able to get a job as a mechanic. When I arrived, I saw that it looked rather similar to a bus station, except the busses were large spear-shaped vehicles that shot into the sky. Celeste directed me towards the side, where a large muscular human was standing around barking orders at people. When the human turned around, I was shocked… Wait, that’s a woman?!
Although from the back she looked like a professional weightlifter, when she turned around there were clear traces to her gender. Almost not enough to make me believe it, but they were there. Most notably, though, was her distinct lack of a companion AI bracelet, even though both wrists were fully revealed. “Yes, what do you want?”
My mind had blanked for a moment after she spoke, before I managed to recover. “Ah, yes, sorry. I heard that you were hiring, so I wanted to apply for a position.”
She looked me over for a moment and sighed in resignation. “Show me your ID, then.” When she saw it, she scoffed lightly at my level. “Just 12? Well, not like it matters much for this anyways. Do you have any skills that would help out around here?”
“I am a decent programmer, and am practicing Technomancy, if that counts.” She seemed a bit surprised by this, as it quite clearly breaks the ‘druid equals nature’ mold, but nodded her head. “Yeah, it counts. You able to use fire or metal affinities?”
To her question, I nodded slightly. “I can use fire, but I haven’t cultivated metal yet.” To be honest, I hadn’t even considered that metal would be its own affinity, more a subset of earth. However, Celeste showed me in my eye that I did have a 1% Metal Affinity. Maybe I should cultivate that at some point?
“Well, that’ll at least save on welding torches. Your job will be diagnostics and repair. If you display some skill, I’ll move you to a tougher job. The pay will be based on the amount of work you accomplish, so no slacking off. You’re probably here to earn passage on a ship, right?”
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When she asked that, I nodded my head again, making her sigh. “Few people actually stick around for a full time position, but it’s understandable. You want to get out and see the universe and all that. See that scrawny guy over there?” She pointed to someone sitting at a desk amidst a mountain of metal parts. “You’ll be working with him while you’re here. He’s the only other Technomancer we have, so he’ll be glad for the help. How long are you staying on for?”
“Thank you very much, ma’am. And until I can get the funds, or a job on a ship.” I spoke and went off to my designated partner. He was pretty helpful, though asked me to do most of the heavier lifting, as he was not very well built. I quickly found out that he was not a player, but a native to the world. Through him, I learned a few interesting facts about the game itself.
First of all, the current date in the game was Month Twelve, Day Twenty-Three of the year 3015 A.G. When I asked what A.G. stood for, he replied that he wasn’t really sure, and it was an ancient measurement that has existed since the races began their interstellar journeys. Since he liked to talk, I wasn’t going to stop him. I might be able to learn something interesting from the lore of the game.
Over the next few days, the process repeated like this. In the morning, I’d wake up and cultivate Lightning Affinity for two hours, then go to the starport and work with my partner, who turned out to be called Joseph. We’d talk as we work, sometimes about the history of the world, and other times about the work itself. When I got back to the hotel, I would cultivate Lightning Affinity for another two hours before going to sleep.
As for the things I had learned from the ‘history lessons’, there was actually a bit of controversy. Many races claimed to be the first that developed interstellar travel, though they all agreed on when it happened. The first interstellar journey was launched from a planet that has varying names depending on who you ask, so must simply call it the Cradle of Life, and it was launched in the first year of the current method of tracking time, so 0 A.G.
This first voyage went out and contacted many new races, sharing their technology in order to allow all races to share their journeys. Though, at first it was said that the ‘first race’ did not share their technology, but did so over time after being the sole power in control of it. Several people have gone looking for the Cradle of Life, calling it the center of the known universe, but nobody has ever succeeded. Or, to be more accurate, nobody has ever succeeded and been able to report back. The closest report was someone claiming to have found a Dungeon Planet.
Naturally, I asked what he meant by that, and he told me that many worlds had dungeons, places of extremely high density magic where monsters and items would randomly spawn. In the first days of A.G. this was where people learned the runic language. And very rarely, these dungeons would become larger than the norm. Sometimes, there would be planets with a Dungeon City, Dungeon Continent, or even a Dungeon Moon. However, there was only the one report of a Dungeon Planet, so many people debated over the validity.
Now, about the work itself. Even though I had almost no experience being a mechanic, I found the task surprisingly easy with Joseph’s help. When scanning an object with Technomancy, it was easy to find the broken pieces of the aura to identify the fault in the device. After that, I used a spell he showed me to dismantle the device, passed him the broken piece for repair, then reassembled it with another spell. The reassembly was actually quite easy, since I had Celeste’s help memorizing the original condition of the aura, and merely had to fit the pieces in place to replicate it.
Doing this work gave me a number of bonuses, with the most obvious being two new skills, called Engineering and Maintenance. The former was a skill which showed my understanding of machines, while the latter was a sub-skill to repair them. Surprisingly, my Sketching sub-skill also applied for Engineering, likely for drawing schematics. I also received other bonuses, such as my Technomancy advancing by a few levels, and my intelligence increasing. For some reason, I even gained a total of two levels, even though I had not killed a single monster. When I asked, I was simply given the explanation of it being ‘work experience’. Though, I didn’t get stat points when I leveled up, so it was likely a reflection of the bonus points I received.
On the last day of work, I managed to finish getting my Lightning Affinity to 5%, granting me the Lightning Manipulation skill. I had a feeling that if I continued developing Lightning, Wind, and Water Affinities, I would eventually get an ability to control the weather. Though, I wasn’t too worried about that for now, and went ahead to condense a Seed of Lightning. With that, I was able to add a weather system to my grove, and it expanded even further.
Rather than getting paid a large sum and being able to buy my way onto a ship, the boss(I found out her name was Sam), paid me a decent amount and put in a recommendation for me to get a mechanic job on a ship from X-23. So, although I only made twenty silver from my five days of work, I wasn’t dissatisfied. Especially since it meant I could ride the shuttle up for free.
With that taken care of, I went to the hotel for one last night, making my plans for tomorrow. Pet shop, and then the shuttle. Can pick up the Technomancy later, or try to figure it out myself. Either way, not really skilled enough to do it yet.
NameFalenelRaceHalf-Elf(Woodland)TitlesVengeful HeartFame0Level 1428%ClassDruidSub-ClassWild ShaperDeityMalthanHealth150/150Health Regen0.25Mana570/570Mana Regen0.67Strength12Wisdom70Agility20Intelligence57Dexterity20Charisma9Vitality15Luck14Points Remaining0Earth 8%Fire 7%Wind 8%Water 8%Lightning 5%Light 8%Dark 7%Plant 7%Luck 2%Madness 2%
Skills
Mana Manipulation - Novice Level 2: 0%
Nature Magic - Basic Level 4: 20%
Wind Magic - Beginner Level 6: 41.5%
Archery - Beginner Level 3: 25.9%
Dagger Mastery - Beginner Level 3: 14.1%
Wild Luck - Beginner Level 8: 30%
Sketching - Basic Level 6: 50%
Herbology - Beginner Level 5: 2%
Gathering - Beginner Level 6: 6%
Alchemy - Basic Level 1: 0%
Mana Signatures - Basic Level 8: 11%
Cooking - Basic Level 3: 52%
Flight - Beginner Level 6: 12.3%
Aura Sight - Basic Level 2: 0%
Technomancy - Basic Level 5: 19%
Programming - Intermediate Level 3: 10%
Runic Language - Intermediate Level 1: 0%
Engineering - Basic Level 1: 18%
Maintenance - Basic Level 3: 2%