//Author Note
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//End Note
There exist many roads to power, and many different paths lead to the same ends. Some Skills and adaptions work towards the same purpose, and work well together, others do not. Some technologies are useless in the light of magic and Skills, but some are much more powerful once adapted to the new world we live in.
Looking through the stolen information that I’ve taken from the leaders in this underworld, I can understand that path to power a little better.
“We need to diversify our Skills and magical abilities.” Nel explains, standing in the lead of her advisory group that she gathered together for the purpose of studying Skills. “The queen of the Arch monarchy and the president of the republic both use an incredibly wide selection of Skills to cover many different situations, and use a wide selection of magics to respond to different enemies.
“The president of the republic does this through using transformation techniques. He applies different magics, tactics, and abilities with the different physical forms that he takes, and can respond to most attacks an enemy might deliver. I believe it would be smart for us to train ourselves in a similar manner.”
“I didn’t think you wanted to fight?” Vii asks, leaning forwards from her soft chair. We’re currently resting in a room of our tower while going over Skills and considering how we’ll train ourselves for the future.
“I don’t, but there is likely to be no choice.” Nel replies with a sigh. “Red does have it right in understanding that the universe is a violent place. It is unlikely that assassins will politely ask whether I wish to fight or not.”
“Ah, it’s so nice watching the children grow up.” Red says, sitting slightly apart from us as she throws back a handful of what look to be grapes.
“With that in mind, I’ve set up a Skill list that I want you to meditate on and attempt to master.” Nel continues, sending them along to us. “I have also attached a new system that can grade your current understanding and use of a Skill.”
“‘Broken’ means that the Skill is currently unusable, ‘Functional’ means that it is barely useable, but still being worked on, ‘Mastered’ means that it is fully useable for it’s intended purpose, and ‘Customised’ refers to a Skill that you’ve adapted for your own purpose.
“Beyond this we’ve also developed a system allowing for you to design your own Skills fully using imagination without needing to act in order to create said Skill. Thus, we can develop Skills that we don’t have the magical or physical ability to act out. Thus, you can look into the theoretical application of abilities that are impossible currently, and work towards them.”
She explains all this and a little more, as I sift through the Skills that she’s advised for me.
‘Spirit Transformation’ is the first to catch my eye and is clearly adapted from the Skills that I stole from the bear man running the republic. A quick look over the Skill informs me of its purpose, but I’d rather have a discussion over this one.
“About ‘Spirit Transformation’?” I ask, and Nel nods.
“Kyra, as you can reshape your Mana Form into the world outside of your flesh this is a unique Skill for you. It should allow you to expand your mana form into the world outside of your body, without causing those issues you brought up when trying to do so earlier.”
“Alright, but in what way is it transformation?” I ask, “I considered this idea before, but I don’t really know what exactly I’m supposed to do with it.”
“You will have to imagine a form or shape that you can accept as being a part of yourself, even if only in the mana form state.”
“A form or shape that I can accept?” I ask, “What does that mean exactly?”
“Bigger boobs?” Eshya suggests, hugging me from the side and sneakily reaching around my back and grabbing my chest.
“As ridiculous as it sounds, that might be a good place to start.” Nel says, nodding slowly. “Ultimately your main goal should be a semi-permanent transformation that allows for you to maintain your soul outside of yourself as far as you can manage, so I don’t think enlarging your spiritual breast size would help there, but it is a transformation that you could envision as being part of yourself.”
“I mean… I’m not so sure about that.” I reply, looking between them and trying to get the joke. “Are you serious?”
“It’s just something to consider trying to start off.” Nel says. “Your goal is to make new shapes and forms that you accept, so meditate on the experience and attempt a number of different shapes.”
“Okay.” I nod slowly, putting that training off while I explore the other ideas. “Does anyone else have something just as ridiculous?”
“I have a Skill that helps me to ‘become wind’” Vii says, “It’ll let me make my body immaterial as the wind, while I’m casting powerful wind magics. It seems really, crazy powerful, but I’m sure it’ll cost a lot of mana without adapting a whole bunch of my body for it, but it might actually be useful with my time stuff too.”
“We couldn’t find anything that would help you with your time magic, unfortunately.” Nel says with a shake of her head. “We’ll be keeping that matter quiet for now, considering just how ridiculous that talent really is. Now, as for your question, I’m considering taking on a full form of the transformation ability, but it will take some time to adapt my physical body to be capable of using it.”
“I’m just focusing on the sword.” Eshya says with a smile. “Every single Skill, helping me refine and perfect it all to one perfect strike, cutting through reality itself for one beautiful moment.”
“Your Skills aren’t that good.” Nel says dryly, “I should know I was the one who sorted them out.
“Now, I’ve selected a number of magics that I want you to try and breakthrough with. This is to diversify our magical abilities, if we don’t do this much then we’re going to find that our smarter enemies will eventually come up with tricks to overcome our strengths.”
“That they do.” Red agrees, nodding sagely as she looks over her own Skills to the side. “If you don’t do at least that much then you will eventually die to assassins, or traps.”
“Precisely.” Nel nods, in agreement.
My list has space, force, ice, and wind magic on it, but apparently, there are entirely different magics that the others are learning.
“If you are troubled with any of them, do consider taking on another magic, but please do try to breakthrough in a number of magics at the very least.”
Moving on, I notice a few abilities focused on improving my fighting style for up close style battles.
A hand-to-hand casting Skill describes a style where I cast through my hands and feet much like I have been, while also shielding and countering. There are movements that I would never even think possible, let alone combat viable, with even a new layer of the Skill that is locked behind a requirement for force magic.
It would let me kick off of a force barrier and shove my body around using magic alone. Just a glimpse of what I can eventually achieve is enough to impress me.
Tying into it is a special awareness Skill that’s adapted from my Eye’s of an Empire ability. It’s essentially just an ability to train my multi-minds to pay attention to my surroundings, so that I can’t be surprised by anything. With the use of this Skill I don’t have any excuse for messing up with my late shielding techniques.
It’s very much a useful thing, but it’s a little embarrassing that after all this fighting I need Nel to put this Skill list together for me.
“What’s this watchmen Skill about?” I ask Nel, looking through the Skill and trying to understand the purpose of its existence. “I can send my vision to someone else?”
“You cannot handle security and control of this empire all on your own.” Nel says. “There’s too many people, and too much land for you to overwatch already, and it’s only going to grow as a burden. We will need an organisation to handle it.”
“No.” I reply firmly. “No, I’m not going to create a spy agency to watch over my own people.”
“Why not?” Eshya asks, punching my shoulder. “You already are watching everything that everyone is doing you pervert, what’s the trouble in sharing that task around.”
“It’s too easily misused.” I say, “I’m already feeling guilty for using this to spy on my own people, but I cannot bear the thought of giving that power to others. I’ll take care of it, and I’ll be responsible for it.”
“It’s too much.” Nel says, reinforcing the point.
“I have plans to expand my focus.” I say, “I’m not making a spy agency, okay?”
“We’ll return to this topic later, when you’ve had time to consider it.” Nel says, “Moving on, are there any other questions?”
“Why isn’t there more combat abilities?” Red asks, and I tune out the conversation so that I can focus on the last of my abilities.
I have a new tagging Skill that might be able to bypass the Skills that people use to rid themselves of my tags. ‘Hidden Bug’. It’s still a test and no one seems sure how useful it will be, so it needs to be developed with the help of those working on rejecting tags, which is another Skill that’s been added, likely for all of us. ‘De-tagging.’
There’s also a new addition that works as a replacement for my swimming Skill. ‘Conformity’ This should allow me to interact with the world without losing my defences and strength. Essentially it’s a means of limiting the amount of mana I have in my skin without sacrificing the rest of my mana form.
It lets me retain the effect of buoyancy and allow me to interact with weak things without destroying them. To make the Skill work, I need to control complex warping mana flows through all of my skin.
This isn’t an easy thing to do, I can tell just from reading into it, but the benefits are impossible to ignore.
Next is a set of abilities to hide myself and to see through others attempts at stealth. This is just one of the important things that I was wanting to gain, but it’s still a little challenging to use. At the moment, both these Skills are limited to those that don’t require any strange magics to use, but I get the feeling that if I want more useful Skills I’ll need to understand a number of magical branches.
Finally, there is a Skill that teaches me to flow my internal mana more effectively with more powerful currents that should help to contain my power while I’m at full liquid stage, pushing towards crystallisation.
There are a number of insights packed into the Skill that’s already making me a little frustrated at my own lack of creativity. Many of the things it teaches me are things that I should have figured out on my own if I was paying enough attention to my own mana form.
Within it are a dozen different training techniques to increase my control over my own mana and soul.
“All of us have much to study and learn.” Nel says, staring out between us, “I want for us to do as much as we can before our children arrive, they will need our time and attention, and I will not let you be dead-beat mothers. Put your best efforts into this and let us have some time to raise these kids properly.”
“Don’t worry,” Eshya says with a firm smile. “With all these new Skills, I’m going to be stronger than Kyra before those babies pop out.”
“That’s not a very pleasant phrasing…” Nel says, frowning at her.
“I’ll figure out crystallisation and space magic.” I say firmly. “There’s too much that I need to do that requires more power, and the ability to go wherever we want.”
“I’ll master wind magic.” Vii says, “And my time magic too.”
“My own abilities need polishing and diversification.” Adler says with a slow nod, looking through her Skills. “Are we going to be training together?”
“That’s the intention, yes.” Nel replies. “We should all gather together for joint training sessions in the stealth, tagging, and conformity Skills.”
“More time for us to flirt?” I ask, leaning into Eshya, who readily wraps me in her arms.
“If you can do that while studying, then sure.” Nel replies with a long sigh. “For now, we focus, we study, and we grow.”
“Then we take over the world.” I say, with a desperate chuckle. I need more power, and there is more that I can do to achieve it.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
“You have the test computer chip for me?” I ask, entering the research and development room. Ria, Wally, and my scientists and engineers are looking over a few things together, deep in discussion.
“We have a prototype, but I’m not sure how you wanted to get this working.” Wally says, staring at me in confusion as he steps out of the conversation. “There’s no data input or output system. It’s literally just a computer chip kept running with electrical power.”
“Well, I can test it now if you want.” I say, picking up the small metal container. It’s only about as wide as my finger and twice as long.
I flood it with my own mana and cycle it in and out until it eventually shifts into something that is a part of me, much like my throne and my armour.
Is this a proper extension of my mana form? How is this any different from what I’m hoping to do with my spirit transformation abilities?
After a few seconds I can feel it become a part of me, but I can feel no particularly interesting changes from it. It’s like my armour in that I can store mana into it, but I can’t feel anything about it that would help me to think or process any of the visual data that I’m collecting all the time.
“Try doing some maths. There should be a simple calculator program stored on it.” Wally suggests, while messing with something on his computer. Karl is beside him giving him a few pointers while looking back towards me occasionally.
“Will do.” I reply, doing some quick maths.
Addition comes quicker than normal, but I’m not sure if that’s really this chip or just something that’s happened with all the other changes that I’ve taken on. I’m not entirely a moron after all.
I move onto multiplication and division, and suddenly I feel something change.
Within the computer, I can feel the calculations ticking through the systems. The numbers coming to me much faster than they should, and even large-scale multiplication just moves in a flash.
I try something else, getting it to record some of the footage that I’m collecting with my other abilities, but I don’t get any response.
“It’s sort of working…” I say, nodding to them slowly. “I’ll keep experimenting with it and get back to you guys with the results.”
“Alright. We’ll get back to work then.” Karl says, staring at a computer screen. It’s clear that they’ve found something that they’re trying to build together, and I’m only getting in the way. With another quick thanks, I leave them to it and get back to my own studies.
There’s so much to do, before my people end up starving because of my own weakness. It’s time to buckle down and get to work.
I have people to blackmail and diplomacy to figure out.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Stats and Skills
~Mana Form:
Current mana density: 30,092 / 60,892 units
Current mana volume: 14,957 / 30,266 shards
Mana volume at crystallisation density (Max. mana volume):
Kyra: 30,266 shards
Kyra’s armour: 20,777 shards
Kyra’s throne: 1,109,298 shards
~Forms
Mana Canon
-Annihilation Heart (Adapted)
-Blood Fuel (20,000 mana shards)
-Bone Magic Storage (40,000 mana shards)
-Nail Shifters (50,000 mana shards)
Dancer
-Flash Nerves (8,000 mana shards)
-Quick Perception Mind (Adapted)
-Burst Reflex Muscles (35,000 mana shards)
-Layered space Muscles (80,000 mana shards)
Turtle
-Rebinding Tissue (Adapted)
-Catalyst Sweat Glands (140,000 mana shards)
-Repulsive Skin (80,000 mana shards)
-Prehensile hair (10,000 mana shards)
-Fatty Tissue Blood Storage (100,000 mana shards)
Investigator
-Wide eyes (5,000 mana shards)
-Wide ears (5,000 mana shards)
-Sharp nose (5,000 mana shards)
Misc.
-Clean bowels (Adapted)
~Favourited Skills:
Magic:
-Annihilation Magic (Customised)
-Fire Magic (Functional)
-Space magic (Broken)
-Force magic (Broken)
-Ice magic (Broken)
-Wind magic (Broken)
Movement:
-Hand-to-hand casting (Functional)
-Mana surge movement (Functional)
-Stealth (Functional)
Senses:
-Eyes of an Empire (Customised)
-Combat Awareness (Functional)
-Watchmen (Functional)
-Hidden bug (Functional)
-De-tagging (Functional)
-Anti-stealth sight (Functional)
Special:
-Spirit Transformation (Broken)
-Conformity (Broken)
-Training mana form (Functional)
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
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