14

They walked with a brisk pace in the small stretch of space between the end of the forest and the vertical drop of the chasm, where the unnaturally smooth stone was devoid of any form of vegetation or even blemish. The air was thick with mana and energy, which seemed to come from the lava itself as if it was not only carrying tremendous amounts of heat but also a hidden river of magical energy.

Automatic cultivation at 2.43 times the previous speed. The LAI said, confirming Charles’ suspicions that indeed the mana was thicker here. Almost two and a half times as much as it was in the forest, where it was already quite high compared to the city, since there were no people using it or breathing it in for kilometers everywhere.

Eereen was walking ahead of Charles, who was looking around without too much interest. The landscape was still monotonous and unchanging to his eyes, with the thick forest of oaks and birches on the right and the gash in the ground on the left but nothing worthy of note. The canyon filled with lava had been quite interesting to see at first, but then became just another thing like the others. Small plumes of smoke often could be seen coming from the cavity, plumes which were then spread around by the winds and polluted the air with the toxic gases they were made of.

It was nothing too dangerous for Charles yet, the LAI told him after he queried it, and the elf had her own way of dealing with the issue. He wanted to experiment with the fact that the lava was carrying more mana, and already had a few theories swimming in his head: perhaps in this world the presence of energy generated more energy of another form, but he was quickly disappointed by the fact that he could not do anything to prove it, so he returned to his bored state.

A theory was always interesting to him, sure, but at the same time it quickly lost its appeal if there was no way to either prove it or to make use of it. And, for now this was not only just a theory but also a useless one, making the situation even worse still.

“Uhm…” The elf said inquisitively.

“Speak.” He replied disinterested, without any hope that the conversation that was about to inevitably begin would entertain him in any way.

“Do you have a name?” She asked shyly, reminding him of how she acted back at his workshop.

“Of course, I do. What kind of question is this?” 

“It’s just that, ah, you didn’t say anything when I introduced myself.”

He looked at her for a moment. “It wasn’t relevant. It still is not, by the way.”

“Oh, okay.” She looked down at her feet for a moment, eliciting a sigh from Charles. He knew that he was being quite hard on her for no reason.

“It’s Charles.”

“Nice name!”

He didn’t reply, wishing the conversation ended right now before it could become cringeworthy. He didn’t have to wish for long, though, as a gurgling sound coming from inside the canyon captured his attention.

He stopped walking and stepped closer to the edge, raising his gun and preparing more bullets from his storage ring to be taken out as soon as they were needed. There was a tungsten one in the barrel of the gun, one he made specifically to be fired at maximum power. He also readied a few iron ones in case he needed to fire them in quick succession, and a couple of heavier alloy ones in case he needed to pack more punch. Eereen was keeping her distance from the lava, as if she was expecting something bad to come out of it.

And, Charles knew, it was very likely that something bad was about to come out of it. He knew where this situation was going, judging by his now almost comprehensive knowledge of the stories and the games from the 21th century. The narrative called for some action, and here it was.

From where the sound came, the lava burst outwards like a soap bubble and revealed a slightly darker shape moving inside the river of molten stone. It was not affected by the density of the molten rocks, moving nimbly as if through water. The thing was staring right at Charles from inside its fiery bed, looking at him with eyes made of small diamonds that were brightly lit by its internal energies. There was a spark of thought, the seed of intelligence buried deep inside those eyes. The shape itself was made of half-molten rock and smaller, darker pieces of obsidian that were held together by the rest of its shapeless body.

Its shape shifted continuously, assuming ever different forms and with parts of it being periodically washed away by the flow of the river of lava while other pieces attached themselves to it as if to restore the lost mass. Charles watched in fascination as the process repeated itself once again, until something resembling a face coalesced around the two gemstones that were its eyes.

“What is that thing?” He wondered, feeling the waves of mana come from its center and radiate through its body.

“A magma elemental…” The elf said in a low, small voice.

Charles turned around and saw her shivering next to the trees, trying to find shelter in the forest, which was the thing she felt closer to home, at least in his mind. He, on the other hand, was not too worried. Unlike skill users, or rather differently than with humans in general, he could feel the raw power come from this being and thus could estimate how strong it was. By his estimation, not too much.

The elemental roared, emitting a sound so loud and piercing that Charles had to cover his ears and even took a step back. He aimed down the holographic sights of his railgun, while the elemental started to move its body, climbing out of the lava river. It was several tens of meters below where Charles stood, but even from this far up it looked quite big and imposing, making it five to seven meters tall at the very least.

“If I shoot at it,” Charles asked, looking at the moving thing with interest and fascination, but without taking his aim off of it. “Would that be enough to kill it?”

“They are impossible to kill with arrows, but I think your weapon can do it.” The girl said, still remembering the destructive power of the seemingly harmless piece of metal in his hands.

“Good. I’m not taking any chances. Stay back.” He said, and then took a step back himself.

Judging by how scared the elf was, this thing was definitely not peaceful. He didn’t want to risk a direct attack from a creature that could momentarily stun him by just roaring in his general direction. He sighed, and mentally turned the dial up on his weapon.

LAI hyperfocus, assuming direct control. Projectile inbound, composition is lava with magical enhancement of unknown nature. Possible dodging patterns: 362. Selection is influenced by presence of asset: elf. Attempting to maximize survivability of both host and asset. Enacting pattern 45. Damage to host: 0% probability. Damage to elf: 0% probability. Dodge completed; parameters reset. Incoming projectile has caused small fire, avoiding area. Calculating tactical response. Action: delete danger source. Powering firing mechanism. Detected different response from equipment: noting differences and preparing report. Firing bullet, maximum power. Projectile path is accurate, hit confirmed.

“There goes 5% of the total charge.” He muttered, then looked at the counter in his vision as it changed to 39%. He was surprised for a moment to see that instead of five it only consumed three percent of the charge to shoot at max power, another good thing of leveling up weapons, but the aftermath of a full powered blast from his weapon forced him to come back to reality.

For a very brief, almost imperceptible moment the whole river bed was visible while the lava formed almost vertical walls, displaced by the tungsten rod. At the same time the sonic boom created a shockwave that threw Charles several meters backwards and displaced the lava even more, showering the forest behind the canyon in small red smoldering droplets.

There was no trace of the elemental now, he noted with glee as he got up from where he fell to the ground. The suit protected him from the fall even without power, and did its job so spectacularly well that he was about to congratulate whoever built it before once again being reminded of the fact that items improved with use by gaining levels. He brushed some dust off his shoulder, and registered the impression of words that the system transmitted to his brain with a smirk.

[Level up! New level: 145]

From 4.19 to 4.23 times better as a human in general, meaning that by gaining just one small level the exponential function that regulated his gains gifted him with the equivalent of one 25^th of a person’s worth. The system, the magic, he wanted more. More power, more magic, more knowledge. And he would take them, with force if necessary.

The encounter repeated itself several more times on the way to the other side of the canyon, but always with the same outcome. Charles wondered if the elemental was always the same one, inhabiting different bodies each time one was destroyed, or if every time a new one was born. And if that was the case, why did it always happen close to him? Perhaps they appeared even in other places, but he was not aware of it, or it was his presence, his brain waves or something else inside of him that triggered the formation. In any case, the monsters were just too weak to resist his weapon, and were obliterated into nothingness as soon as they managed to coalesce.

“Where do those things come from?” Charles asked, after a while the two spent in total silence.

“The mana in the lava makes them.” Eereen replied.

Charles huffed, disappointed at the nonsensical information, and accepted the fact that he would not get much more information from the elf. Meanwhile, the forest was slowly shifting into a more open terrain, now devoid of trees and richer in water while at the same time more desolate.

It didn’t take much longer before Charles noticed the steam and the foul fumes coming from underground.

“A phlegraean zone.” He said under his breath, looking at the pits of boiling mud that could be seen against giant upturned boulders in the distance. There was a rocky hill ahead, and there were rivers of steaming mud rolling down the hill slowly and steadily as if the ground itself was moving.

There, built against the hill, there was a tower. It was completely made of metal, shining under the midday sun and reflecting the light like a polished mirror. There was a pillar of white, soft smoke coming out of the top like a cloud that extended high up into the sky, where the air currents deviated it from its ascent and made it twist and turn until it could no longer be seen.

As he got closer, he could finally take a look at the tower in all its glory. It was built in the middle of a field of boiling, steaming mud pits. There were piles of bones dotting the ground around it and its entrance, with many of the bones resembling human remains. There was no armor adorning the bones, no swords on the ground next to the craters. Nothing that would indicate why the dead men even died so close to the tower.

Nothing except a sight that only Charles could recognize. Bullet holes, and round craters and depressions in the ground.

“That’s it, that’s the place.” Eereen said, pointing at the tower.

Charles mentally asked the LAI to go on high alert. “Yeah, of course we have to cross this whole volcanic caldera to get there.” He said, making no mention of the bullet holes and of his new theories about the place.

“What’s a caldera?” The elf asked while he was still thinking about ways to get closer safely.

“It’s where the underground magma accumulates before a volcanic eruption.” He replied distractedly.

“So, you mean that this is a volcano?”

“It might be dormant.”

“Dormant? As if asleep?” She asked, scrunching her face.

“Yeah.”

“Do volcanoes sleep?” There was disbelief in her voice, but Charles was still too distracted to register it.

“Some even sleep for millennia between one eruption and another. And this here is what goes on while they are mostly inactive.”

She smiled, understanding dawning on her face. “I see. This is a volcano, then.” She paused for a moment, looking around. “It didn’t look like one though.”

Charles stopped in place after his thoughts were scrambled once again by her annoying voice. He looked at her with his arms crossed, and spoke loudly and fast. “Why do you even care? Aren’t you like a wood elf? Do you not live in a forest? Don’t tell me your forest is actually upon the steep sides of a volcanic mountain.”

“No, it’s not that.” She sighed, forcing the few tears that had formed on her face back to where they came from. “It’s just that the forest next to my home has a lot of those smokes that come from the ground and mud pits.”

“How is that possible? The forest must be dead.” He asked, his eyes fixed on hers. It was the tears that unsettled him.

“It’s dying. A lot of it died in the last few decades and now rivers of lava flow where the trees once grew.”

“Damn. Must be tough.”

“Does this mean that you can’t help us?”

“No, it does not. One thing at a time. Magnets first.”

It was then that the LAI sent him a notification, effectively taking his attention off of the conversation entirely. Apparently, the artificial intelligence had finally found a way to force the system into recognizing Charles as a valid target by masking its presence for a millisecond. It would shut down for long enough that the system would think that Charles did not have it anymore, and then it would come back online before anything bad could have time to happen. That time should be enough, in theory, to trigger whatever method the system had to track people and give them skills and bonuses.

If he was successful not only would he be sure that the issue was indeed the LAI, but he also would have access to much better magic and bonuses on top of what he already had. If anything, there was no way to have it worse than he had it now, where he had no bonuses and no access to quests or skills.

He gave the mental confirmation to proceed, and felt the LAI shut down for the smallest of moments while shielding itself in a thick layer of his own personally attuned mana. It was enough, because by the time the LAI was online again, words had impressed themselves in the visual cortex of Charles’ brain.

[System initialization complete.]

[New individual, no previous records in database.]

[Scanning…]

[No information available. Error.]

[Null pointer exception. Creating new pathways.]

[Action decided: observe. Contain deviancy. Threat evaluation is 0.]

[New class gained!]

New class: Unidentified [unique, no level cap]: unknown

“Fuck.”

He stood in silence for a few minutes, now acutely aware of the fact that he evidently acted too rashly. If what he read was true, then he had just forced the system into taking proactive action for the first time in who knows how long, and actually made it take a decision based on the new data instead of based on predetermined decision trees.

The system was intelligent and capable of doing that, which was a great finding that helped Charles understand what he was dealing with, but at the same time it meant that it was now watching him. Or it was trying to watch him at least, because considering what he read about his class it was clear that the system was having trouble following him closely as long as he had his LAI online.

He took a deep breath. Not all was bad, in the end. He had been lucky but now he knew that keeping the LAI online was paramount if he wanted to avoid having the system interfere with him too much. Coming back to reality,his eyes scanned the surroundings, and he was relieved to find that nothing had changed from before. The system was not actively trying to investigate his presence, at least for now.

“I got a new quest!” Said the elf, overjoyed. Charles looked at her and saw her jumping in the air. He sighed. There it was, the system pursuing its own agenda through the quest system.

“I seem to be unable to get said quests. Care to read it for me?” He asked in an unnaturally calm voice, which made the elf look at him sideways before she could school her face.

“Uh, sure… it’s called ‘The mystery of the Metalmancer: The Factory’. It says to investigate the factory, whatever that may be.” She said the last part as a whisper, but the LAI heard it and relayed the information to Charles. Of course an elf had no notion of factories.

“And it offers rewards?”

“Yeah! Experience, and items for my village!”

A smirk appeared on the engineer’s face. “Well, then. If the system is interested in this place, then I will get to whatever it’s in there first.”

Inside, his thoughts were much more frenetic that he was letting on. For the first time in a while he was actually in the presence of a being much bigger than himself. The last time this was true, it was with Eve. The Empire’s AI, the overlord that governed everything and the constant voice in his ear. Now, it was the system. It was manipulative, selfish and fixated on its goals just like Eve but, unlike her, this entity seemed to only bother with its own interests and not with the greater good of its people. Assuming it even had people it cared for.Eve fixed issues, this system not so much. Perhaps it fixed them for itself but definitely did not care about the pawns it used in the slightest.

He was lucky to at least have some sort of insights into its inner workings thanks to the elf who was with him.