Fresh Chip

I travel on a ship, which has made a stop on this world for me alone. That isn’t to say that I’m the only one aboard though, as this ship seems to be something more akin to an elevator or a bus. So, it’s more as if I’m the only one waiting on my level, or the only one at this bus stop.

There’s plenty of metaphors to consider, but this ship—in my mind at least—is nothing more than a rickety, old elevator which creaks and shudders at every stop. The kind which rocks side to side every time a passenger farts.

If I set aside my bias and look at it objectively, this ship is the same as every other flying ship I’ve seen; polished and made with the greatest of care by artisans beyond my ability to even comprehend. The wood under my feet has mana slowly moving along it’s grain as if still alive. A flow that continues through the entire vessel, perhaps even connecting to the roots of the crystal tree up above.

Though at its core, it’s still that rusted, old elevator in my mind.

My tour guide, guard, or whatever they consider themselves, seems rather unimpressed with their quest to escort me to another realm for business. He’s done nothing more than is required of him and is likely just excited for the end of the workday and whatever plans he has for after.

Conversation between us sputtered out after a casual exchange of pleasantries, and neither of us has been interested in getting it started again. It’s what I imagine a bad date would be like.

The others on the vessel all seem rather well behaved, though they still fill the room with the quiet sounds of polite discussion. There’s also the clatter of cutlery and porcelain as the many servers run about ensuring that no one is hungry. I recognise the same atmosphere as from a high-class restaurant I once visited with my family.

If I were to guess from their appearances, I would say that the others are all master mages of one sort or another. Their long robes shine bright with mana glow, but otherwise come in all colours and designs to fit the different species. From the thick density of mana in their clothes, I have to suspect that they have some seriously powerful mana flowing through them.

“How long until our stop?” I ask my caretaker. It’s rather discomforting to be forced to come here without any of the others, but there’s no better choice right now. I am not turning down this opportunity because I might get a little anxious being alone.

“A few more stops.” He replies, before returning to his quiet somnolence. If he had a phone, I’m sure he’d be fiddling with it.

At each landing, a man by the loading ramp calls out the name of the city or world. A few of the passengers head out, and a few board.

It’s both an uncomfortably familiar and alien experience at once. Public transport in the form of a realm-travelling, flying ship.

The worlds outside are constantly replaced with new ones, but we never stray from civilisation. A quick tour of the many city worlds, each and every one a peaceful metropolis and most, but not all, have a world tree of some sort standing over the horizon.

The more of these subtly different worlds we pass by, the deeper my fears rise in my heart. There’s a difference between knowing that the Unified States is made up of many different worlds, and quite another to actually see a small fraction of them with my own eyes.

Finally comes a name that sparks recognition from my companion, and we’re off. This particular city world is rather dense with mana, so much so that as soon as we leave the ship, I feel the mana friction wash over me.

It’s not quite at the liquid stage but it’s still a little more dense than my own flesh, which makes for a great training opportunity. I press the mana into my mind once more, to the point of leaking mana from the fraying vortex. I draw in mana from the air to replace what I lose and push my training to the next level.

A world tree, the same as from my academy, stands tall over the horizon, but this one is not alone. There’s a dozen of them surrounding us over the tops of the buildings, and that’s only counting those that I can see.

The canopy above is so thick that no light can come through, but that’s apparently not a problem to the denizens that live here. Under the canopy, the lower leaves glow with enough light to imitate day, even if that light is uncomfortably green.

“Right this way.” My escort says, leading me through the tight city streets, weaving past the sparse foot traffic. The buildings here are as beautifully and artistically designed as in the academy, but at far less grand of a scale.

None stand tall or wide, it’s all cramped together to make the most of the limited space. As if to try and make up for that, the walls are carved and painted with wide-open vistas of foreign worlds. I’m not sure whether it would lessen or worsen the claustrophobia of the local residents.

The buildings here, whether factories, houses, or laboratories, are all built right on top of one another. The dustless stairs that we pass by suggest that even the city below is well lived in, and likely just as tightly packed.

It’s a little frightening how well populated this world truly is. I have a long, long, way to go before I have a world like this under my influence.

Without conversation we make good time through the quiet streets. The homes and workshops around us are bright with lights and life, though I only catch a word here and there as we pass by.

My companion comes to a stop outside of a building and starts pounding on the door. The walls are painted as a snowy mountain range struck by a glowing purple storm, the mountains fall away into a deep ocean in the house beside.

“What is it?” Comes a grumpy shout from within. A male if I’m to guess from voice alone, and without hint of invitation.

“Your assistant has arrived.” My guide says, before hurrying off. Either he has better work to do or someone waiting for him at home, because he doesn’t wait for even a moment.

I’m a little worried about getting back home without him, but by the time I think it, he’s already gone. Should I just hop aboard the ship until I see a familiar world?

For that matter, was this magical, public transport a service that we could’ve used whenever we liked? Is there perhaps one of these ships that frequents Earth? It’d be nice to take a quick visit and pick up a few things.

“Oh, you.” The Elvish man says, opening the door and looking over me. I feel no particular interest in his analytic gaze, nothing but a slightly bored curiosity, not until he rubs his eyes and blinks away his sleep.

“You’re the one I’ve been corresponding with?” He asks, “About the games.”

“Yes, that’s me, unless you found another pen-pal. You said you made some changes to the support device that I could help you with?”

“I did,” He nods, “Or at least I hope you can help me.”

He checks over my shoulder before ushering me in.

“Say, what’s your thoughts on societal rules and the suppression of progress?” He asks, out of the blue.

“They don’t let you have any guinea pigs?” I ask, a little hesitant to fill in that role.

“That’s not quite…” He hesitates but closes the door and leads me into another room, “The rules of our society limit what I can do with these support devices. Some of your suggested changes would cause problems with the welfare officers.”

“Oh, that’s all? I know I can’t fight an army, so following the rules can be a little important.” I reply, pretending that I haven’t broken more serious rules already.

“It can be important.” He says with a brief nod, “But a few bent rules won’t bring an army marching your way. Especially if no one knows about it.”

“Sounds to me like you’ve built something fun.” I say, with a smirk rising on my lips.

“No, you’re here for a few adjustments to the enchantments on your support device. I’ve made nothing, you understand. Nothing at all.”

“In that case, you could say that I’ve been up to a whole lot of nothing recently myself.” I reply.

“You changed your support device, an uncommon occurrence.” He says, looking down at me before pulling me over to a desk. I see in the back room the glow of an old tv, a bulbous CRT. A N64 sits in the cabinet under it, with those strange three grip controllers that I personally had no fondness for.

“Nothing important happened.” I say, turning my eyes back to whatever project he’s brought me here for.

“I’m sure.” He replies, deeply curious but hesitant to ask further.

“So how do we upgrade? Do we pull the last one out, or does the new one take care of it?” I ask, looking around for any tools that might be useful.

“I was hesitant to ask outright, but do you have a means of removing yours?” He asks, nervously looking around the room, “That’s the one part that I haven’t perfectly figured out yet.”

“I do…” I reply, feeling out the threads running through me. “I can remove my support device, and yours if that’s what you want, but it’s a rather difficult process.”

“What do you need?” He asks, jumping at the hint of an opportunity. His eyes shining bright with excitement.

“Something to knock you out.” I say, “The process of having it removed is rather traumatic.”

He pauses for only a moment before rushing for the door.

“What’s wrong?” I ask, following him, “I’m not about to torture you or anything.”

“I’m getting a potion, maybe two. I’ll be back in a moment.” He leaps out the door, but quickly turns around to glare at me, “Don’t touch anything.”

He leaves the moment I nod, showing that I’ve heard him.

The room I’m in is fairly spartan, a few worktables covered in silver sludge, jars filled with the same on shelves above, and a cleansing stone on a pedestal over a drain in one corner. A few metal rods and pincers hang from pins on the wall.

I don’t have long to guess at what’s going on before the elf rushes back through the door. He looks between me and his still running game a little suspiciously but nods happily when he sees that nothing has changed.

“Here. A potion to knock me out, and another to wake me.” The man says, “You can remove my support device?”

“I can.” I say, “Obviously, you’ll lose everything on it, including your translator. You want to do this now?”

He quickly nods, the smile on his face impossibly wide.

“Well, lay down and knock yourself out.” I say, “Do you need to drink the other potion to wake up?”

“Just pour it into my mouth.” He says flopping down right then and there. It’s strange that he’s not suspicious of me at all now that he’s drinking a knockout potion, but I guess he just wants this that much.

As soon as he stops moving, and the empty potion bottle rolls from his loose grip, I get to work.

With my strengthened mana sense and a little practice, it’s much easier to get the silver slime out of the man this time. As soon as I’ve pulled the last silver thread from his body, I grab the potion, open his mouth, and pour it in.

He wakes up choking on globs of the silver metal but he doesn’t seem to care, looking down at the silver running from his mouth with curious wonder. It doesn’t take him long to leap to his feet and rush over to his worktable.

To me one silver blob looks no different from the next, but he confidently and joyously rests his hand on one in particular. It runs up his arm, dissolving into his flesh as he closes his eyes and slows his breath.

“It works…” He says excitedly, “It works.”

“Well, that’s nice.” I reply, still waiting for him to explain what it is that he’s changed in this new model.

“This is… a lot.” He says, “It’ll take some time to get used to it.”

“Care to explain?” I ask, returning his attention to me.

“I have another.” He says, placing his hand on another blob of silver, “It’s everything you were asking for and more.”

“I can see that you’re excited, but can you give me a better explanation than that?”

“I don’t think I can.” He says with a joyous laugh, “It can copy Skills, modify systems, and… and everything. It’s incompatible with collars which is… a benefit? An issue? That’s for others to decide.”

“Well, call me convinced. Let’s go.” I say, taking a grip on the threads running through me, “Why didn’t they make these things easy to remove?”

“Because they weren’t meant to be removed.” He replies, “Are you going to be alright? Didn’t you say it was traumatic?”

“I’m fine.” I say, “Just give me a moment.”

He watches me with far more interest than before as I start leaking silver metal. My nerves are on fire, and I stumble my way to the ground as I lose my senses.

It doesn’t matter how well I deal with pain if it blocks out near everything else, turning the world to static.

After the fit passes and I can see again, the elf asks me something. Or I presume it’s a question, without a translator I’m unsurprisingly a little lost.

Whether through lack of any particular affection for the man, or simple coincidence, I find his voice and language to be entirely unpleasant. It’s a little grating, a little oily, and just distasteful.

“Translator.” I say, spitting a hunk of my old one onto the floor. “Mine just broke. No idea how that happened.”

I hope the sarcasm translates.

He nods and grabs his other silver blob. There’s so goddamn many blobs of metallic silver here, that I’m rather sick of the sight.

He holds it out for me, and I accept it by shoving my hand through the thin membrane surrounding the thing. The discomfort doesn’t come as a surprise this time, and gradually the words he’s saying start to make sense.

“…any second now. Do you understand me now? No?” He asks.

“Yeah, yeah.” I wave him off.

“Good.” He nods, “While there’s plenty of things I’d like to know about that ability of yours, I’ll save that for another time. I’ve put my thoughts together, and there are a few things in particular that I need to properly explain about this new support device.

“First, the most complex part of this new system. I have added tools for self-modification, you can now change any and every function, display, and tool within the device. It will take decades to go through all of it, and longer to fully realize everything you can use it for.

“Next, is the part that I’m most proud of and have been working on for a long while. The Class and Skill system.” He declares happily.

“Didn’t you already have that as part of the last version of this thing?” I ask, looking into the long list of tools available in the menus, while planning out my changes. I already have a long list together and it’s just growing longer.

“No.” He answers, clearly a little frustrated at the fact, “I was… convinced to gut the system and rush the delivery. This is the finished product, what I’d intended to make from the start.”

“Why hold it back? Was there an issue with this new version?” I ask.

“Yes.” He replies, “It risks breaking certain rules in our society, thus it doesn’t exist. Those rules are unreasonably holding us back, but…”

“You can’t fight an army.”

“Precisely.” He replies, “I talk with a few others that share my concerns, and we do hope to change things, but it’s a fine line that we walk. Worst of all, we can’t use many resources without the welfare officers noticing.”

“And this will help?” I ask.

“Oh, it will.” He sounds quite proud of himself, “I’ve managed to copy quite a large assortment of Skills into these. I’ve bound them together within Classes for categorization like one of those video games from your world.

“Though unlike games, we don’t need artificial barriers like leveling or experience points. You now have the full Skills of hundreds of masters in that support device, all to be used at your own leisure.”

I hold back my disbelief and instead flick my way through menus to take a look at this new Class and Skill function. Tripping through the wide selection of abilities, I quickly force them into alphabetical order and take a closer look.

I select the first Class and Skill that I see and feel my body start moving on its own to imitate the motions of a weaver at a loom. Of course, without a seat or a loom, I fall right over.

The implications are… interesting, but I already see that it’ll take time to get used to each of these new Skills.

“I’ve been working only on theory so far, but I expect it will take some effort to acclimate to the new Skills. Also, you’ll have to be cautious with any Skills that consume mana or require a more developed mana form than you’re ready for. I’ve also already confirmed that it doesn’t allow you to use new magics, only new spells for magic types that you can already use.” He explains quickly.

“You can also copy the Skills of others who are using older devices. The process requires only that you are touching them while their support device is still functional, it works even without their consent but that might change with this new system.”

“This is… interesting.” I say.

“Not as interesting as the next part. This is where we need to be most careful.” He says quietly, “Look, I want to upset the way things are, but… I don’t want everything to fall apart, or for anyone to get hurt because of this.”

“What is it?” I ask, trying my best to keep a stiff expression. He doesn’t really need to know about all the people that I’m going to murderize with the help of his new invention.

“Replication. With the appropriate materials, or just an older model, you can replicate the enchantments of the new device. You can make more.” He hisses the last excitedly.

“Why couldn’t you just produce this as an add on. Something that can be used when you already have an old support device?” I ask.

“To explain that you’d need to intimately understand the particular details of the enchantments on the device.” He explains, “I’ve loaded it with all the Skills and knowledge that I could, but it seems you’ll still need to study. The information is all in there, but you’ll need to take the extra effort to read through it before you can understand any of it.”

“I suppose it can’t be perfect.” I say, feeling my head aching as I try to take in the wide selection of Classes, Skills, and system modifications.

“I’d like it if you could use it well and spread it around responsibly.” He explains, “It can be used to change this society for the better, or I hope so, at least.”

“Thank you.” I say, giving him my honest feelings, “This is honestly… it’s amazing.”

“I know.” He says with a laugh, “Now I need to go stir up my creativity. I was in the middle of this game when you arrived.”

In seconds his attention has turned away from his universe changing invention and back towards the pixelated old game. A few old memories float back to me as I watch him play.

With a long sigh, I dig into the settings screen and start shifting things about, renovating the rooms inside my head. There are enough tools in here to build new furniture, but that’s going to be an even longer process.

It’s a powerful new weapon, or more accurately, a whole gun factory filled to the brim with schematics. It could change everything, but in the short term, I’m not sure it’ll have quite so large an effect.

If we’re discussing fighting, a bigger issue than having a Skill, is knowing when and where to use it. Knowing how long your leg is, and whether the kick will hit, is just as important as knowing how to kick.

All that aside, I’d like to see what Skills I can copy and how long it’ll take before I can get everyone important to me reequipped with this powerful upgrade.

While still in a daze, looking through my options and rearranging things, I hear a pounding on the door.

“Kyra, it’s time to return.” Says the same impatient young man who brought me here.

“Thank you.” I say waving to the elf, who’s still roaming around Hyrule. He glances my way with a little wave of his own.

“I’ll stay in contact.” He says, sending me a blank message.

“I will.” I say, adding him to my new contacts list, “If you come up with any interesting new ideas, I’d be interested in hearing about them.”

I leave, following after the guide and heading back towards the ship.

Making the most of this last chance, I squeeze my brain full of mana, as much as I can force into it. Today I’ve developed far beyond what I was expecting, and the changes in my mana sense is difficult to ignore, but I can’t afford the extra distraction.

I try not to stumble over my feet as I glare at the phantom parchment floating in the air before me; it’s covered in numbers, one of which is ticking up before my eyes.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Skills & Stats

~Mana Form:

Current mana density: 792 units

~Mana distribution:

Skin: 0/24%

Muscle: 0/12%

Mind: 64/64%

Cardiovascular: 0/11%

Misc.: 0/10%

Efficiency: 64/79%

~Favourited Skills:

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