Three more weeks flew by and neither the Overseer nor the midwife showed up to check up on me. It was a good thing, because we hadn't made that much overall progress on the defense front. I spent most of my time inside of the Mindspace with Delta, trying to figure out how the house runes functioned. It was a science that was entirely new to us and since we had no instructor to teach us how things worked, we were akin to two blind kittens poking in the dark.

Since I was born so weak and sickly, my mother was watching me like a hawk, so it wasn’t like I could start firing [Modify] spells at the runes to mess with them. Besides that, modifying big, physical objects like that would eat all of my mana and I didn’t want to modify the runes yet - they were an incredibly complex, interconnected system that spanned the entire house. Mainly, I was afraid of breaking something.

From what we did figure out so far - runes were an entirely separate, symbol-like language, one which specifically harnessed and utilized the currents of the Astral ocean beneath the world. The central keystone ward right beneath our cottage was an upside-down black basalt obelisk buried deep in the ground. The obelisk existed not only in our world, but also in the Astral ocean - it harnessed the magical differential between various Astral planes converting it into mana that was used by the ward. It was kind of like a magical Stirling engine.

An elaborate rune spiral woven from gold-like metal circled the obelisk. Bits of it had decayed, broken off over the centuries, so the ward was currently much weaker than it was originally designed - the obelisk was failing to send power to the house. That’s why my parents and everyone in Skyisle had to pay the local kids to bring charged runestones from the windmills every morning. Everyone’s Astral-engines had decayed beyond use and the locals clearly lacked the skills to repair them.

Skyisle village stood on the shoulders of ancient giants of magic and over the passing centuries knowledge had been forgotten and lost. From what I knew this was a normal occurrence in cycles of civilization. Soviet economist Nikolai Kondratiev was the first to define the sociological cycle theory based on cycle-like phenomena in the modern world economies.

Many Soviet economists who studied Kondratiev’s theory of K-waves tried to predict the timing of recessions, stock market peaks and stock market crashes. All of these analytics had failed to stop the fall of the USSR - since all of their mathematical models lacked the necessary data to predict the future.

As an appreciator of probability math, I firmly believed in the reality of Psychohistory. I really enjoyed the aforementioned fictional science in Isaac Asimov's 'Foundation' book series. Asimov’s psychohistory combined history, sociology, and mathematical statistics to make general predictions about the future behavior of very large groups of people. It was the epitome of statistical analysis sci-fi that realistically portrayed the K-wave cycles of civilization.

Alas, the Soviet analysts had never succeeded at making Psychohistory real. Reality was harsher than science fiction. In the 1950's Soviet mathematician Mikhail Lavrentyev tried to make a Soviet foundation, a city of science hidden in the forests of central Siberia, far away from the politics of Moscow. He called his project Akademgorodok. I doubted that the people of Akademgorodok would succeed at restoring the Soviet legacy - when things got tough in the 90’s, a lot of the scientists simply chose to flee to USA rather than to try to preserve and protect the knowledge base built by USSR.

My hope was that with my knowledge I could eventually push the local civilization out of its stagnation back to the tip of the rising K-wave in terms of economic and technological growth. Maybe with my deep understanding of Omnicode I could create “Technomagica”, a scientific theory of magic that would help restore all of the obelisks buried beneath the village.

. . .

“You do know that you’re still sitting on thirty five points?” Delta commented, distracting me from my ruminations of the future of Skyisle.

I nodded.

“Why haven’t you spent them?” She prodded. “I already invested everything I gained into Intelligence.”

“I’ve become rather indecisive, since the phantom-squid’s attack.” I sighed.

“Why don’t we go over some of the possibilities at the very least? You shouldn't just idly sit on thirty five points.”

“I don't know what Skyisle needs and where to focus myself. I presume that most of the villagers have either pure magic or strength builds,” I said. “Since they’re farmers or day laborers.”

“It’s a pity I can’t scan their full menus like yours or mine,” Delta sighed.

“How do you think Charisma builds function?” I asked, looking at my menu.

“The Infoscope can’t determine whether people have Charisma without a point of reference.” Delta replied. “You could spend a single Charisma point and then I could see exactly what changes in you.”

“That’ll be a very minute Charisma change,” I commented. “Not sure if we can extrapolate a thousand Charisma points out of that.”

"Just do it and show me." Delta demanded.

I put one point into Charisma.

"Hmmmmm." Delta said. “Interesting… Now, if we can find someone in the village that’s extremely Charismatic, I could scan them.”

“I highly doubt that anyone in Skyisle has a Charisma build,” I speculated. “I think it’s more of a big city thing. It seems like something that thespians… actors could use. This village doesn’t have anything in regards to entertainment. Besides the point, deep scans of strangers is extremely dangerous - they might possess an anti-spying skill or defense runes that would kill you.”

Delta groaned at that. She turned back to Bessie and fell silent for a while. Then her eyes lit up.

“I think I’ve got it! I’ve scanned the Omnicode word [Charisma] in my System menu as far down as I could go and extrapolated the term itself. It’s defined, composed of growth in: [persuasion], [leadership], [attractiveness], [charm] and [devotion].”

Delta displayed the Charisma fractal on the screen. “The foundation of [Charisma] is [Persuasion]. I scanned the [1] Charisma on you and... it’s basically a permanently active mind-control spell that’s affixed to its wielder, gradually building in complexity and power. So if someone invests a ton of points into Charisma they become more persuasive and can brainwash others, bend them to their will!”

“Hrrm,” I muttered. “So, it’s important that we eventually come up with an anti-charisma defense spell, if we don’t want to be affected by it.”

Delta nodded.

“Can you extrapolate other System terms for me in the same manner?”

“Sure thing,” she replied. "Go ahead and put one point in everything."

As I did, a bunch of new screens lit up around Bessie. I looked at the nearest one.

[Strength] - [Physical Attack Multiplier] [Hardened skin] [Musculature improvement]

“This is what dad has,” Delta commented as I observed the [Strength] Omnicode fractal.

“Right, I saw him lift a two ton log with ease once,” I nodded. “A feat that would be quite impossible for someone from my world.”

“See this bit here?” Delta pointed at one of the rings. “It’s another permanently active matrix. Dad’s body is constantly pouring mana into it. It reinforces his muscles and hardens his skin.”

“What about these triangle bits here?” I asked, pointing at the lower parts of the fractal.

“Permanent changes on a genetic level. Improved mitochondria, stronger musculature.” Delta explained. “I’ve been scanning both of our parents when they’re asleep.”

“So, I can theoretically affix this spell matrix to myself and become stronger?” I asked.

“Yep. Anything can be assigned as a skill, as long you possess a deep understanding of it,” she replied. “It’ll eat a lot of mana though. Mana which you do not have.”

“Right.” I rubbed my face. “Hang on… what if I just copy his mitochondria into my cells?”

“That might work,” Delta nodded. “But you have to strengthen the overall cell structure first, otherwise you’ll end up with a bunch of spontaneously combusting cells.”

“And here I thought I could hack my way into being stronger than twelve bears,” I complained.

“You still can,” she said. “It’s simply a matter of understanding and applying all of the changes manually to your cells, muscles and organs. Sure, you could dump thirty five of your points into strength and get stronger… or you and I can focus on incrementally changing your body to match that of our dad's.”

“So we have to spend mana and time,” I said.

“Time.” Delta nodded. “Something which we might not have, if the Overseer comes for us. I doubt that physical strength will help us defeat a high level wizard.”

“Right,” I sighed and moved to the next screen.

[Agility] - [Gravity Control] [Acrobatics] [Leap]

“Gravity control?” My eyebrows went up.

“Yep,” Delta traced a spiral fractal. “This bit here can selectively lighten or increase the weight of the body.”

“So if I extrapolate Gravity Control into a skill…”

“You’ll eventually be able to fly around like me… or walk as if you're on the moon at the very least.” Delta laughed.

I nodded, moving onto the next screen.

[Dexterity] - [Steady hands] [Assembler] [Focus]

“Dad has some of this one for sure, he can do some pretty precise carvings,” Delta commented.

“The Assembler bit that’s a permanently affixed spell too?” I was starting to recognize permanent magic constructs.

“Yeah, see how it drifts partway into Focus? If we slap this one onto your hands you’d be able to build intricate machines. Clocks for one. Skyisle lacks complex clockwork.”

“Yeah, Skyisle needs better tools.” I nodded. “Is there even a blacksmith in the village?”

Delta shook her head. “I don’t think so. As far as I can tell, all of the tools used by dad were either passed from generation to generation or imported from the outside. I can’t exactly scan the ones with the anti-spying runes all over them.”

I moved onto the Vitality screen.

[Vitality] - [Autohealing] [Cellular regeneration] [Temporal rewind]

I squinted at the fractal formation and spun it around trying to understand how it worked. “Permanently affixed healing spell?”

“Yeppers,”

“This regeneration bit… how deep does it go?”

“All over the body,”

“Immortality?” I gasped.

“Sure, as long as the user doesn’t run out of mana,” Delta noted. “Yeah, there’s these bits here that make permanent changes to cellular structures… and then there’s this bit here. Look!”

“Hold up, is that… no it can’t be!” I zoomed in on the strange information fractal that warped into itself. It looked like a mobius loop. My eyes hurt when I tried to focus on it. It was a four-dimensional superstructure on a two dimensional screen.

Delta giddily jumped up and down. “Time, Dante! Time! We can make time our bitch with this!”

“Holy crap, you’re right!” The hair on the back of my head stood up. “This is one of the most important things we’ve discovered so far.”

“...aaand it’s very expensive in terms of mana.” Delta ran through the calculations. “Damn it.”

“But can we work on it to reduce the use, study and optimize it?”

“We can,” she nodded.

I slid the [Temporal edit] up to one of the main screens. “I’m saving it for further study. If we can’t reduce the mana use, we can try to figure out how to connect it to the ward.”

“Connect it to the house ward?” Delta blinked. “Why?”

“Think, Delta, think!” I started to pace. “The Equality Order is the local religious authority. If they've been here for a while, they probably already know the capabilities of the local wards and are likely able to counter it. We have to present them with something entirely unexpected… something that’ll make sure we win, something that’ll give us more than one try against them!”

“Like a temporal rewind? Of the entire house?!” Her eyes bulged.

“Do you recall the ‘Mirror for a Hero’ film?” I asked.

“No,” Delta shook her head. “I think the soul damage carved that memory out of me.”

“It’s a 1987 science fiction movie about three men trapped in a time loop, where the day is always May 8, 1949.”

“Ohh, that sounds really fun! Can we watch it together?”

“Yeah, let's take a break.” I nodded and sat down. A big screen flashed into existence displaying the Soviet Sverdlovsk Film studio logo. Delta instantly flickered to my side, cuddling up to me. I let my memory of the movie play for her as I contemplated breaking time itself within the confines of one house.