Sliding down the silver grass-covered side of a half toppled skyscraper, I notched my gunlance up and fired at the giant metal-clad bird chasing after me. Watching as it tumbled out of the sky, I smiled and went to catch myself on an exposed windowsill ledge. Those four days had been a bunch of training for me and Robert and between that and my streams of both the Hybrid System of Warring Cores and my usual greater gaming, I’ve been getting the help on mutating and filling out multi-system slots from Gunther and A-Eris.

To think I would use most of the twelve faux-system slots I got from the Greater Nameless Variety composite system slots facsimile, but using six of them instead of four system slots to make a fully patchwork stratum 2 multi-system slot was worth it. Sure the potency was on par with a normal multi-system slot but it still had the same amount of connections and mana holding capabilities as a stratum 2 one. Plus with Gunther’s help I was able to have it be synthesized out of my multi-system slot for the Hybrid System of Warring Cores, the empowerment system slot for the H-D System Slot of Warring Cores’s Staches, and then the one for the Flasaporium hub that has a gas gland for my spirit contract with Robert. Empowering an empowerment, Gunther really knows how to make things interesting, I noted as I traced the empowerment of the stratum 2 multi-system slot to the empowerment system slot then that system slot’s empowerment to my original system slot for the Hybrid System of Warring Slots. Combine that with the fact the stratum 2 multi-system had power-links to my Strange Man’s Working Contract (Gamer Tech) and SteelStar Camera of the Lucky CharmBall gave me an amazing weird advanced kit in the form of Patchwork Kit: Streaming Sweets (Summoner).

“Crap! Surcia-Robert, cover me!” shouted Robert from behind me, sprinting away from his own giant metal-clad bird and firing bullets at it with a pistol in one hand and a shield in the other. 

“You can’t keep relying on me,” replied Surcia-Robert, piloting a replica of Robert’s spirit I had summoned with Patchwork Kit: Streaming Sweets (Summoner). With a flare of mana, he fired off a stream of colourful sugary motes that buffeted the magical beast and sent it tumbling to the ground, its metal coating eroded by the spirit’s magic. “You’re not the one summoning me, Harvey is.”

“Yeah, but you’re me, well another me.”

“I’m also an another Ras and another Mita nowadays cause of that stupid 2nd generational synthesis mandala.”

“You don’t hear Driscroll complain about being connected to Sous and Umi as their own other personalities.”

“Well I’m not Driscoll,” commented the spirit with enough feistiness that I could feel it over my connection to him.

“Come on you two, we don’t need to fight here,” I interrupted the two, already sort of used to Surcia-Robert’s hard headedness. “I don’t mind having my spirits helping everyone out. Let’s just follow A-Eris’s lead on this.” A nod from Surcia-Robert as we got back to work; it was hard to ignore A-Eris’s lessons on delegating tasks to summons with how well she handled her RTSes and contracted monsters in the form of gingerbread commuters and urbanites. Especially since she had six kits compared to mine current four and Robert’s three, it didn’t matter that four of them were from patchwork multi-system slots and the other two were from faux-system slots with none of the connections being progressed enough to have multiple kits in them: she was overcoming quality with quantity and skill.

“It’s almost time for the stream to start,” commented Lens-P, floating behind me and keeping an eye out to make sure there were no more bird monsters.

“Already?! Is everything set up?” I asked, already feeling my secondary consciousnesses from my sub-features of Livestream Second-Ego, Livestream Moderator, and Livestream Coder wake up and get the memo along with Ramsey and Blendon from their personal spaces.

“Systems are all green. Streaming devices are fully hooked and standing by. Social media messages are currently being deployed.”

“Perfecto.” 

Looking over to Robert and Surcia-Robert, I saw Robert was already giving me a thumbs up: having a spirit contract with him was amazing, it was like we’re on the same wavelength sometimes. All that meant was that we had to find A-Eris so we could head over to stage 0 pocket dimension we would be streaming in with my brother. Sending up one of my current camera-balls, I went to view through it to try and find the enlightened gingerbread urbanite.

It took a little bit to find her cause how good she was at hiding but I finally managed to find her in the nook of one of the abandoned buildings, translucent panels floating in front as she managed her eight RTSes and six contracted gingerbread monsters with ease. Look at her go, I thought with a grin before having my camera-ball sway side-to-side to get her attention since I didn’t want to overly strain myself with cross-karmic retribution to use it’s connection to Blazehopper’s & CharmBall Co.’s Camera-Ball Party and fire a laser for her to notice. Looking up, she gave my camera-ball a quick wave and sent a message over party chat,

“Thanks for being discreet. I’m guessing it’s about time for your stream to start? I’ll be right over.”

“It’s no problem, just following your suggestions.” I sent back before closing the party chat: just because I had a kit that gave me working access to it didn’t mean it was safe given how common counter-surveillance kits apparently were. Smiling, I started to make my way to the portal to our designation with Lens-P, Surcia-Robert, and Robert in tow. 

We weren’t half way through before A-Eris and her platoon of summons managed to meet up with us. I could see why so many people use RTSes, I noted as the enlightened gingerbread urbanite neared: with her six kits from faux-system slots and patchwork multi-system slots she had over a dozen RTSes and potent enough monster summons. Someone using just the normal system slot’s connections could probably end up with a proxy body and a dozen or so RTSes; she became an actual real time strategy-style secret worlder!

“So A-Eris, since you’re the actual tactician here. Do you think the plan is going to work?” offhandedly commented Robert as he kept a weary out so he didn’t get suddenly ambushed again by the various metal clad monsters of this area. He was getting better at handling his kits, but he was still working out the kinks of his Quester (Strange)’s weapon selection ability: pistol, shield, dagger, shortsword, combat gloves, and acid flasks. He had a variety of weapons to get used to.

“I think it’s a good plan. With Gunther and his employees striking at this stage 1 pocket dimension and an adjacent one, we won’t have to worry about more potent reinforcements. And since fans of Harvey’s and Percy’s VoxView streams joining us in this assault, we will be able to invest more of our gingerbread urbanite forces to defend the forward base,” explained A-Eris before glancing over to me, “I have to give Harvey props on thinking it up.”

“You can’t give me all the credit, Robert helped out a lot,” I laughed as I fiddled with my account menu to keep a track of my VoxView stream and social media accounts along with Percy’s stream to see everything. “He was the one that suggested asking my stream if they wanted to join in on a base assault, and surprisingly a bunch of them said they wanted to.”

“I just pointed out that people like joining in on stream activities, and the people that can check out your restrictive streams are also the type of people that can afford investing the system slots or mandalas for system slots and faux-system slots for the hybrid system,” retorted the blackzone manager with an embarrassed look on his face. And he wasn’t wrong! Between my stream and Percy’s, we managed to get a ‘for sure’ from three dozen members and a ‘likely’ or ‘will try to come’ from around eight dozen more. When it came to players and system slot-centric delvers, faux-system slots are pretty common for sampling different Digital Realms and special locales and just building up a variety to work with when it came to advancing their portfolio of mandalas to higher stratums. 

Meeting up with Percy at the pocket dimension of Retro-Sweet District’s autonomous blackzone, First Candy Base, we were greeted to the sight of a small army of fans ready to go. Scanning over the crowd I was surprised how many of them were obviously using normal system slots and even multi-system slots instead of faux ones and how many were toting three kits instead of two: no obvious cases of anyone with a system slot’s connection with its maximum weight filled out yet though. 

“Blazehopper, you’re here, we’re ready when you are,” called out my brother, fully in streamer mode, with a surprising face following behind him: one of the Goltinium Spellman Nine, Aya Kuwa-Muramasa.

“Sweet, and hey is that Aya?” I asked with a smile, holding back a small laugh as I noticed she had more swords than Percy; compared to the six spellblades he had from his two system slot’s connection and cursed faux-system slot’s connection, Blades of Weakness, she had a whopping ten katanas strapped to her waist!

“Yes, and like I told Pendramug, you can just call me Murainmasa while streaming,” replied the katana-covered spellman with a smile of her own and a bow. “And I can’t help but say that I’m excited to be fighting alongside you… I’m a big fan of Pendramug and his swordsmanship.” 

“Haha, that’s a nice play on words for your account name. Mind if I just call you Murain?”

“That’s fine by me, as long if I get to join you.”

“Of course you’re welcome to join us! You’re a spellman, and like what, almost tier 5?”

“Tier 4.9, hopefully I’ll be 5.0 by the new year,” replied Murain as she placed a hand on one of her katana’s hilts.

“That’s awesome! Good luck, Murain. Now… let’s get the show on the road,” I encouraged her before shifting gears and looking over to Percy. With a nod, the both of us went to send out the final messages that our streams were about to start on the usual sites and starting turning everything on. Feeling all my secondary consciousness and spirits ready, I flipped the switch with a thought and watched as the translucent screen of a chatbox appeared. “Good afternoon VoxView! And hello ladies and gentlemen to another restricted stream today! Blazehopper here and I’m excited to announce we are about to do a raid. Not just any raid, but one with a hybrid system in an artificial world cluster.” A bunch of cheers both from chat and the people around me while my four camera-balls spun around to give the audience a better look of all the stream followers that managed to join us. “That’s right, we’re helping with Manic’s quest, all of us!”
As the chat exploded with excitement, A-Eris swooped in to organize everyone and get us heading to our destination: the neighboring pocket dimension currently housing the base of a cobalt faction, Brandt Rental & Repo. Excited myself, I followed right behind her along with Pendramug, Manic, and Murain.

Crossing through the shimmering portal, we were greeted by the sight of a pocket dimension filled with skyscrapers even higher than what we saw in Raentir’s Reach. Swapping out his polka dotted mask for a potion-wreathed one and conjuring up some exploding mana potions, Surcia-Robert commented with a growl, 

“Don’t need to be a sensory specialist to tell that they are already coming.”

“Haha, yes my blades can feel them in the air,” followed up Murain as she pulled two elegant looking katanas that softly glowed with mana from their sheaths; one of my camera-balls honed in on here to get a good shot of that.

“Well let’s not keep them waiting then,” I laughed before loading my gunlance. I could already tell, this was going to be an amazing stream!