34 - Shen

Maya wondered what the state of her brain was these days. Suddenly going unconscious in a normal world meant a lot of bad things. She could only recall once when she had fainted as a kid from heat. Then, she had been rushed to the hospital and given an IV drip. That had been a big deal.

Since arriving to the rainbow sky hellscape, Maya had been knocked out, knocked herself out, been blasted to unconsciousness by explosions, and all manner of things. A normal person would be really screwed if that happened to them in a five or six week period.

Maya opened her eyes and closed them again. She sighed and then opened them. The masked face of Shen was looking down at her. That was not something she wanted to see when returning to the wold. The spike of anger, rage, and terror all bubbled in her veins as she stared into the mask.

It was a different one this time. Before it had been an ivory white mask in the vein of Roman sculptures. The mask showed the same facial features as the previous mask; a wide mouth, four eyes, and a sharp hooked beak for a nose, but this one was colored.

Was the mask a uniform? The stormtroopers all wore masks, but theirs lacked the facial features and were instead reflective faceplates. Perhaps they were germaphobes. It was something she never really dwelled on, as Bell didn’t seem to have any diseases that he had spread. Were the masks cultural? Who knew what Shen believed in besides being a piece of garbage asshole.

No, they were hiding something. The image of the Halvara dying to her pulse stunner entered her mind. Someone that strong shouldn’t have succumb to such a tiny weapon. Something else was amiss. The armor, although tough, wasn’t just to protect them from their captives.

“I see you are awake-”

“Where’s Bell.”

“Where he is and how he is, are irrelevant. I have questions, human.” Shen walked away from her, standing before a computer terminal that grew out of the floor.

Maya saw that she wasn’t in the white prison cell she had awoke in earlier. This room was similar to the overly decorated room she had first met Shen in. Perhaps it was his taste in decor. Maya thought it was too… richly appointed. Too many tapestries and too many gilded edges on everything, Maya leaned more toward minimalism and modern decor.

On the plus side, she wasn’t naked anymore, so things were looking up. Maya looked down at the jumpsuit or onesie she wore. The cloth was fine and airy, silky smooth, but made of a dark fabric that felt like nothing she had ever touched before. It clung to her body in a revealing manner, but being naked was even more revealing, so it was still an upgrade.

Shen didn’t turn as she walked to where he stood before the computer screens. She bottled up her rage and questions. Something was amiss, he wasn’t gloating or being a vicious asshole.

The computer screens displayed her, in all her glory. Maya, by now, had become used to the lack of privacy. Everyone, it seemed, had seen her naked and every bit of information on her cells and atoms was shared among her friends, and enemies.

“Do you know what you are?” Shen asked.

“Awesome?” Maya replied. “Where’s Bell? Is he alive?”

Shen ignored her questions. “You are an anomaly,” he said. “When you first came here-“

“Brought here as a captive,” Maya clarified. She clamped her mouth shut afterward, silently cursing herself for letting her mouth run away from her.

“When you were brought here, scans revealed something off about your structure. I had not seen such a thing in two hundred years. It was something that should not exist. I wish to know more about you.”

“Yeah, I’m swiping left on this hookup,” Maya said.

“I have no time for jokes. I have no time for your silly bravado. I want answers and I want them now. Speak. Plainly. Truthfully. Immediately.”

Maya felt a pressure in her head, a ball of pain that grew behind her eyes. She cried out and clutched her head and it kept growing more painful. Finally she dropped to her knees and sobbed from the agony.

“How long have you been in this dimension. What were your levels when you arrived. How did you arrive. When did you create this dimensional scar?” the pain grew in Maya’s mind. “Answer, now.”

She stuttered out the answers, between bouts of agonized groans. Shen didn’t move, didn’t say anything as she told him about her universe’s Integration, about the dimensional instability, about the dimensional bags she had thrown to destroy Medusa. It all came out in a rambling, barely coherent blubbering.

Finally the pain vanished and Maya collapsed to the floor. She felt her tears soaking the thick carpeting.

“No levels?” Shen mused. He walked back to the computer screens and looked at them. From the ceiling, robotic arms began to descend. Maya watched in horror, then terror as they clamped down upon her legs, arms, and body. She tried to struggle, but they were immoveable.

“I see I was also foolish,” Shen said, ignoring her struggles. “Dimensional bombs would not have occurred to me. It would have also been an action I would not have done; the bounty alone would have ended my glorious return. Enemy of the State is not a title one casually carries around, not in the Empire. Death is the only outcome for such a title, once you are dead, then the System pays out the bounty and the bounty only grows higher the grades and tiers you increase.”

A blue orb followed the robotic arms, it floated above her navel and began to pulse light across her. Maya felt heat and then a cold sensation that burned its way through her body. It wasn’t painful, but shocking.

The readings upon the computer screens changed. Maya realized she couldn’t read what was being displayed. She could understand Shen and he could understand her. The universal translator should have updated when coming across other languages.

“What…” Maya could only muster.

“Silence.”

The machine withdrew, dropping Maya.

“You’ve gained a level,” Shen said. “Dimensional Awareness III? True Mana Draw? Essence Mana Channeler? Excellent.”

Shen turned and towered over where she still lay on the carpeting. He seemed to peer at her from behind the mask, as if finally seeing her for the first time.

He began laughing. “I see now,” he said.

“What do you see?” Maya finally managed to ask. He knew something about her. He could read her levels, skills, and abilities. That meant he had to be much higher in Evaluation than she was. “What do you see?”

“Do you know what Essence Mana Channeler is?” Shen asked. He didn’t wait for her to answer. “It’s a Tier 4 System Ability. What separates a Tier 3 SIL from a Tier 4 being is being able to tap into the essence mana that makes up the multiverse. There are only a few million Tier 4 beings in all of the multiverse, out of trillions upon trillions. They are ageless and they are all powerful, that is because they control essence mana.”

Shen walked back to his computers. “It all makes a kind of sense, when you look at it. The amount of essence mana that is channeled into a Point of Contact world is incomprehensible. Those weak creatures that have barely been Integrated can’t even feel it or notice it surging around them.” Shen chuckled. “Combine that with your being sucked into a dimensional instability, the fact that essence mana was already destroying your body…” He turned back to her. “You are something rarely seen, Maya Sullivan.”

“What is that?”

“Do you know why your mana channels are nearly destroyed?”

“Nanaseto said it was due to me flaring up when the Integration occurred. I would have probably died from it.”

“Perhaps. But never trust a Tier 1 AI. It cannot see anything, it is a trash machine trying to delve into the mysteries of the System and SIL. The ultimate goal of System Identified Lifeforms is to begin channeling essence mana,” Shen stated. “Yet so few, so very few, ever managed to accomplish such a thing.” He looked at her, stalking once more to tower over her. “You, on the other hand, seem to have achieved a shortcut.”

“A shortcut?”

“I have been in this place for a hundred years. I have studied all that have arrived through the dimensional instabilities, those that survived, those that did not.”

“There are more living people out there?” Maya asked hopefully.

“You’ve seen them. Halvara was such a living person.”

“But…”

“In time they all serve me,” Shen stated. “Knowledge requires sacrifice.”

“What did you do to them?” Maya demanded. Her thoughts turned back to what Bell had endured. The machine, the mana that was burning through him, the fact it would eventually sear him of his channels. It all clicked. “You seared them? You did what you were doing to Bell to them. You destroyed their mana channels in an attempt to what? To power that machine that was forming?”

“I call it the dimensional cage,” Shen said, a bit of pride in his distorted voice. “It is the cumulation of fifty years of work.”

“What the hell are you doing?” Maya demanded.

“Silence.” Pain blossomed in Maya’s skull again. “I was explaining something to you. You, weak human, have achieved a shortcut that no one has done in living memory. You have cheated the System.”

“What are you talking about?” Maya gasped.

“The Essence Mana Channeler ability you’ve gained. At level 11? As a low grade, Tier 1? Unheard of. But now I understand what has happened, how the System failed to maintain order.” Shen laughed and stalked back to his computer screen. “Your body charged with so much essence mana as Integration occurred, then you were brought to this near manaless dimensional plane. One major oddity about this plane is that essence mana can’t form here. Something is preventing it, something is denying it from entering here. It is amazing and terrifying.”

“What does that mean?”

“The System can’t work as well here. It cannot create items here. It cannot interfere with things here. It is weak here. But more importantly, you can channel essence mana. I believe when you were brought here, you also brought the essence mana that was surging in your universe. As a Point of Contact world that meant it had to be changed to a Tier 2 world, therefore even more essence mana was being brought to your planet.” Shen walked excitedly toward his computer, raising a hand and information flashed upon the floating screens. “In a your world, you would have flared up. Your body was too sensitive to mana, it would have tried absorbing everything around you, but then you were brought here.”

Shen brought up a holographic screen of Maya. In it were strange lines, glyphs, and symbols etched across her body. It was like a circulatory system, but not… it was her mana channels.

“The essence mana that had saturated your body was trapped. The dimensional instability didn’t allow it to leave as it should have normally. Instead it coalesced into your body, creating a feedback loop that burned through your original mana channels.”

The display changed, the lines, glyphs, and symbols faded and a few were burned away.

“Your body has been building essence mana channels this whole time, at the same time it was destroying your normal mana channels.” The display changed, overlaying the fading mana channels with a brilliant golden set of glyphs and symbols. “Your body was so malleable when it arrived here, no levels, no skills and abilities. Essence mana was trapped within you. So it began building essence mana channels.” Shen laughed. “This is interesting. This will revolutionize Tier changes. Do you know how many struggle to rise to Tier 4? Billions, trillions. The most powerful beings in the multiverse are stuck trying to achieve true greatness.”

“So what does it mean?”

“You fool,” Shen snapped. “Do you know why there are levels, why there are hard to change stats like Luck, Fortitude, and Foundation? Why your stats are broken up into Physical, Mental, and Soul?” Maya remained quiet, knowing it was all rhetorical. “It is broken down in that manner to stagger and weaken the essence mana that is changing you. It is to prevent it from burning you root and stem. It is the System’s doing. Harnessing all that power and throttling it enough to allow our weak bodies to adapt and handle the strain of it all. Every level, every attribute point, it is all essence mana being shaped into something your weak form can handle. Every time you channel mana to make something, every point of experience you gain from destroying a monster, even every universal credit you gain, it is all essence mana that has been harnessed and shaped by the System so that you can use it.”

“Okay, so I can channel essence mana. Does that mean my stats are useless?” Maya asked.

Shen laughed again. “Your channeling is raw and horrific. Your ability to shape mana is non-existent. It will take years to even begin doing the most basic of things with it at your tier.”

“I burned Jo pretty good,” Maya responded hotly.

Shen stopped his mocking and looked at her. She could almost see the scowl he had on behind the mask. “She is no more,” he stated.

“What?”

“Mana Burn, do you even know what it is?” Shen demanded. “It is an unstoppable fire that can only be extinguished until the target is destroyed. Once Jomallava was aflame, there was nothing anyone under Tier 3 could do to stop the flame from consuming her.”

“I didn’t get a kill notification,” Maya said.

“You didn’t kill her, you destroyed her. Everything. All the mana that made her up, all the mana that formed her body, it was all destroyed by the flame. There was nothing left, there was no mana left for a notification or experience gains.”

“Jesus,” Maya gaped horrified.

“It is an amazing Tier 3 Skill,” Shen said. “Not very useful in large scale combat, but in small engagements, very good.” He waved a hand and returned to his screens.

“What,” Maya began. “What now?”

“Now? Now, you will create the opening for the dimensional cage. You will bridge this dimensional plane and the multiverse at large.”

“You’re trying to get back to the multiverse?” Maya asked.

“Of course. I have spent a century in this place. I have learned all I need to know. I shall return and continue my research. I will find the core of the System. To do that I need your essence mana. It is stronger, it is better, and it is enough to create the bridge.”

“If you knew I could channel essence mana and it was what you needed, then why do that to Bell?”

“When are the times you have channeled essence mana, child? Was it when you concentrated, or when you were scared, angry, filled with rage and terror? You didn’t even have the ability Essence Mana Channeler.”

Maya frowned. “Why do you know so much about this?” she asked.

“One hundred years. I have learned everything I needed to do this great work.”

“If I do this. If I create this bridge for you, then you’ll let me and Bell through too?”

Shen leaned toward her, his mask leering. “I can just make you open the gateway. I can force your body to do what I need it to do,” he hissed. Then he straightened up and looked at her. “But sure, I’ll let you and your friend come with me.”

Maya shuddered and nodded. “You’re high leveled right? Tier 2?”

“What of it?” he demanded.

“Why can’t you do it?” she asked. “You’ve got all these people, all these SIL who survived the dimensional instability, yet all you did is sear them of their mana channels, for what? To create some gateway? Why can’t you do it? Your levels would allow you to, right? A high level means strong mana channels. Bell is only level 30, but he’s stated before that mana channels grow as you level up. I don’t understand it.”

“You do not need to. You just have to do it.” Shen stated. “You have essence mana channels, something far more powerful than normal mana channels. It will allow the absorption of mana long enough for the cage to activate and the gateway to open. You, Maya Sullivan, are what I have been looking for. You’ll open the gateway and I’ll be free of this place.”

Maya shook her head still not comprehending. Why did Bell have to suffer? Why were all these poor people committed to Shen’s goal? After he had seared them. They were like…

She stopped as her thoughts tumbled into place. Bell had said cybernetics wasn’t good because they messed with mana channels, but high grade, Tier 2 System Tech could create a rough set of mana channels for someone desperate. If their mana channels were seared, they could use system tech to rebuild some of it, a semblance of mana channeling.

Bell and her had fought the two invaders and they had been tough, but they should have been tougher. The difference between grades in tiers wasn’t just about levels, it was about skills and powers that they obtained from channeling. If they were fully able to channel, Bell and she wouldn’t have had a chance.

It was the reason why she could defeat rogue AIs that had higher levels than she did. They couldn’t channel mana and they couldn’t use their full potential. They resorted to alternate means to supplement their power.

Maya looked at Shen and the thoughts continued to click together. He hadn’t channeled anything since she had arrived. Bell’s teachings had included a little bit about feeling mana being channeled. It was a survival skill that everyone had to know. She wasn’t good at it though, due to her weak mana channels, but she occasionally could feel Bell channeling when he had been working on Junior.

For all his power and cruelty, Maya realized that Shen hadn’t been channeling around her. He could fix mana channels, he had stated that he would fix her channels so he could use her as he had used Bell.

Yet, he hadn’t channeled any mana. That only meant…

“You’re seared,” Maya blurted out.

Shen snapped his head toward her.

“You can’t channel mana, can you?”

“Silence.”

“High grade, Tier 2 system tech can make a slight effort in cobbling together mana channels for mid grade, Tier 1 SIL, but not for anything in Tier 2, right? You’re Tier 2, but can’t channel.”

“Silence!” Shen snarled.

“That’s why you need me to make the bridge. You can’t channel mana to form it, you have to have someone else do it.” Maya’s mouth was running away from her, she knew it but she couldn’t stop. Then it clicked. The mask, the computers, the system tech, all of it. “You’re not even a SIL are you? You’re a rogue AI.”

“SILENCE!” Shen snarled and launched himself at her.