-Sous-

With an overwhelming rush of magics and manas from my connection from Robert, I found myself being forcibly unplugged from my SteelStar and Sins of the SteelStar account as I found twenty-two of my mandalas were suddenly being inscribed, granted three class specialties in form of ancient-mana, Spirits-Expression, and Advanced Iogem Glyphs along with a vitas vessel-connections hybrid facsimile and a connections facsimile. A Grand Key? Mirroring? I mused in shock from the abruptness and mana-drunkenness as I observed the new 21 mandala formula Grand Key gracing my mandalas, making me now not only a penta race advanced but now also an emperor-spirit and apex on top of blackzone manager and stargranted.

“Are you okay? Your SteelStar just disappeared,” asked Pattissoria as my secondary conscience that served my own personal system assistant started to converse with the vox system assistant I suddenly gained from becoming an apprentice vox reborn and naming him Departie.

“I am fine. Just give me a moment to compose myself. Tell Ras I will return to the battle in a moment.”

“Okay, I’ll do just that!”

“Thank you, and don’t forget to focus on restoring the dungeon cores,” I replied before cutting our communications link and turned to see the other connections I now possessed: a spirit and familiar contract with Neo Draceld Z and spirit contracts with not only Umi but Robert also. It seems that he was now an enlightened spirit with origins in the Veiled Countries and the World and Restrictive Systems: hopefully the downsides would be minimal for him. 

Not only that I was now tier 4.1 with the effective tier of 3.7 because of one of my new feature mandalas being cursed along with the facsimile it was connected to, but my ego and psyche weren’t the only ones in my being now: the facsimile had a sapience of its own. Feeling the facsimile and analyzing it, I found it was a mirroring one connected to identical ones within Robert and Umi: their sapience blending together and connecting themselves to our mirroring Grand Key. Composing myself as I subconsciously ordered my secondary conscience and Departie to help me circulate my current overabundance of mana, I asked the sapience of the facsimile,

“Who might you be?”

“I am Driscoll Avarawacky, or rather a replicate image of him given life from you and your pair of connected companions,” explained the facsimile as the image of a man of indiscriminate age with smoldering eyes and long oily black hair that was wreathed in dark flames appeared in my mind’s eye.

“I am not familiar with the name,” I replied, sensing from my newfound shared split personality that I should be.

“It seems you are not a native of Dragon Country or Eilean Faliachte Na Nog. Although it seems that one of my predecessors is a ruler of this land. It is nice to turn my manalogical lineage rules over three artificial world clusters,” explained Driscoll as he fed me fragments of knowledge and information. The original Driscoll was a sentient born in another artificial world cluster known as Eilean Faliachte Na Nog. After ascending to partial-magi-sentient and becoming a recursive mage, he craved to return to his sentient roots and did so with status designations of sentient along with hexes of sentience. He would later end up an impostor realm conqueror by arduously gaining the status designations and pinnacle points needed, becoming the second generation council master of the meek and fallen in the process along with a handful of other types of pinnacle of mages. And before his death, he even managed to become a founding ruler of another artificial world cluster, Dragon Country.

“To think you became stronger than the likes of Reagan Road and Johari Vogt centuries before the Aligning and as a partial-magi-sentient no less… as for your peculiar style of spellcraft, it would explain why the tag bonuses received from the forbidden tags all are toward status designations of sentient-m,” I mused in rapt interesting: to think someone who want to be seen as a sentient by their fellows and the metaverse itself, although I could not deny the potential upsides in that.

“Now then, I should focus on aiding Robert and keeping from him breaking any further. I suggest you return to your own fights,” commented the split personality before going silent: I nodded in understanding as I felt the searing pain that Robert was feeling over our connection. The only things keeping him from having a complete mental schism from all the sudden curses, influx of mana and mandala inscriptions, and the sudden ability to enter the spiritscape were Driscoll, his surcia-curcumedioia side, and burning desires to live and protect Harvey.

“Departie, I will you to aid my secondary conscience in maintaining some mandalas,” I audibly told my new vox system assistant as I did the mental math. This new Grand Key, Historie Pastoria Sweet’s Dark Trinity of Sweets, somehow extended the operation range of my crystalline mote form to include the entire Enigma along with up to 10 kilometers away from it in any distance: likely a byproduct of my new metrics and not an actual ability derived from its mandala inscriptions. If I combined that new extended range with my current abundance of mana and the feature mandalas of SteelStar Shell of Nierelf & Trans-Nubian Queendom and Remote-Controlled Orange SteelStar, I would be able to deploy my SteelStar back into the fray with more power than if I simply plugged back in to my proxy pod.

“I will, sir,” replied the vox system assistant as I fed him and my secondary conscience the orders. Focusing inward on my original mutant body facsimile, I transferred my consciousness to it and conjured up my crystalline mote form near the edge of System Assistant’s Caketopia. Activating the two features and making up for a lack of a synthesis between them with my processing power, tact, and aides in the form of Departie and my secondary conscience, I found myself in my desire of relations model SteelStar.

Observing the status of the SteelStar, I saw that its integrity was lowering at a miniscule rate while its internal reserves were listed at over 100%: no cross-karmic retribution though which meant my plan was working. Seeing that everything was in order, I went to looking out across the black sphere-covered sky in an attempt to find Ras and his flying gazebo: leave it to the Glyirian noble of a fellow underling blackzone manager to use his cursed Dulled Senses Affliction to make a cursed stratum 2 system slot that both experspatted and circumvented the issue of weakened mundane senses. It didn’t take to find him from the streaks of mist and magical miasma trailing behind his ballista bolts as I neared the battleground I was at minutes before.

Seeing that he was currently using his simulated body with its Blind Oracle’s Soaring Gazebo and also outside of the Enigma, it was not only impossible but pointless to use Lucilla and Jaffa’s Mass Organic Com Array. Sighing internally to myself, I had my secondary conscience up a telepathic connection to communicate with him via Pattissoria, 

“How is the battle faring? Any changes?”

“The Soldiers of Clay have brought reinforcements from the west and north west. Robby’s side of the defenses are handling the north and north east still. Also my half-sister arrived with Minerva, Wes, and a handful of Brackentrail’s townguard.”

“I see, I shall intercept them and go from there.”

“You think you’ll use your Wish Transformation this time?”

“No, most likely not,” I replied, feeling my connection to the Shaytan-Brachii through my gem of fancies stir: the whims of the greater djinn were beyond me but luckily it had not asked anything of me yet. Thinking about it, Umi must have the subrace of Trans-Nubian Shaytan-Stargranted but she definitely was not a stargranted due to be a partial-magi-sentient from the looks of it, but Robert definitely was one now as he acquired a second subrace to become one: was he contracted with the Shaytan-Branchii also or to another shaytan-type greater djinn?

“I don’t think I’ll ever understand you stargranted,” commented the Glyirian with what I could only assume was a furrowed brow like he usually did when he was frustrated.

“You aren’t the only one. We are a weird group of recipes and dishes,” I noted as I neared the fray. Unsurprising the Soldiers of Clay were still using golem wave tactics, which only reaffirmed my belief that they had experts in mana generation amongst them: mere sentients of their tiers wouldn’t have been able to hold out for so long otherwise. Seeing Minerva and Wes standing the line and with other sweet tooths, Glyirian military, and the townguard of Blackentrail, I made way to aid them.

Making my way down the sloped side of the hill my conquest resided one, I began to fire off blaster fire with my medium-ranged blaster as I neared the west flank of the fight. It didn’t take too long for the golem conjurations to try and cut me off before I joined the others, falling into my trap: conjurations were childs play to me. Activating Motive Jacking, I sent my SteelStar’s wires flying for the nearest four golem conjurations as they rushed me with their earthen fists and swords: at the wires reached their maximum length I activated one of my two empowerments, Remote Wires. 

With silent snaps the wires removed themselves and embedded insides the golem conjurations, turning them on the others. And seeing that my SteelStar’s internal reserves were still over 100%, I went to activate the other empowerment, Destructive Jacking, to flood the controlled golems with a destructive influx of Game System-altered manas to control them. Now to join the others, I noted with nod of approval at my handiwork before leaving that group of conjurations to destroy each other.

“Thank the saintesses you’re back,” laughed Terrin as I joined the group of sweet tooths with Ras overhead. Looking at the handful of golem conjurations I was currently controlling, already moving through the various groups of them. “And you brought more friends, again.”

“It is only fair that I exploit my strength as a sous chef,” I replied, feeling the rush of magics and mana keep me alleviated and unable to completely remove myself of mana-drunkenness. But of all the times to be mana-drunk, this was likely one of the better times to be do: it kept me from accidentally focusing on my newfound connect to the spiritscape, Robert’s searing pain and madness that was being managed by Driscoll, and the exhaustion that Umi and Neo Draceld Z were feeling.

“Well it’s good to have,” chimed in Wes as he looked up and down at my current. “I didn’t think you would look so out of place though.”

“Not like that matters right,” noted Minerva, pointing to the nearby hills and houses. “We have more generals inbound… and a giant.” Turning to see what she meant, I was greeted to the site of a giant golem that looked like a classical monster golem: a hulking mass of dirt, stone, and moss. Clearly now that reinforcements had arrived, that meant the Soldiers of Clay’s trump cards were also arriving. Even with my current amount of mana, Motive Jacking that will be impossible, I noted with a sour feeling before looking over to Minerva and Wes with their weaponry, Terrin with Isebella, and Ras with his floating ballista and gazebo. This wasn’t a fight I would excel in, but that didn’t mean I could try to turn tail and run like Robert.

“I’ll support the other sweet tooths with my body-jackings, that should leave you three and Ras with a clean cut toward the giant,” I told the others as I looked for the best position to situate myself at.

“Sounds good for me. Wes, Minerva, you think you can try and find who ever is controlling that thing? It’s probably a singular Soldier of Clay,” followed up Terrin with a grin as his spirit ring glowed with mana. 

“Better than fighting a giant,” answered Wes before the two of them split off. Now then, let’s see where we can stem the tide the best...