'Bug'

● A small insect.

● An illness caused by harmful microorganisms.

● A concealed audio surveillance mechanism.

● An error in a system.

>>

Debug brooded over the analysis, the latest in a series of queries the Daemon skill had been exacting in the hopes of answering a critical conundrum. What does it truly mean to Debug? A time-sensitive question thanks to the cadaverous collapse of blood-and-squish that housed the tangential-anchor of what Debug called 'home'. The flesh on her back, minutes from full shutdown, one arm shunted a half meter up through its former shoulder socket. It was grim, bloody, and rapidly coming to a close, but Debug was still unsure if that was something it should be addressing. However that did not deter its overall concern for the situation, the skill already selecting another pair of sub-elements to analyze in search of an answer.

'Error'

● A mistake.

● A state of wrongness in conduct or judgment.

● A measure of difference between expected and true values.

● A deviation from codified behaviour.

● A deficiency or imperfection in structure or function.

'System'

● A set of things working together as parts of a larger mechanism or network.

● An accord of principles or procedures to accomplish a goal.

● An organized framework or method

● A group of related objects dedicated to an application.

● A group of celestial objects connected by mutual attractive forces.

>>

Assertion, Does Mara constitute a 'System'? The skill floated the thought, contrasting it against what it knew and what it had learned, a simultaneous tempest of magical activity surged through its latticework in response.

Yes. Biologically she's a multicellular organism working in tandem, which meets the first tenant. So, subsequently, is her current state erroneous? Debug didn't need long to formulate an answer, she was such a mess that 'erroneous' would be putting it lightly.

One shoulder was gone entirely, leaving the loosely attached bicep and bone a good half-meter above the clavicle. Meanwhile her right arm was closer to the aftermath of an alleyway stabbing, or a session of fisticuffs with a garbage disposal, the results of which left her with a shattered vessel incapable of retaining even the bare minimum of her oh-so-critical crimson fluid.

On top of all that, the legion of nanites she'd blasted into her abdomen were doing exactly what they'd do at any other bacteria-infested site, rapidly squandering their usefulness on a likely-harmful crusade against the microbes in her digestive tract. I suppose congratulations are in order Mara, you've managed to subvert the poor things into bio-destabilizers with just a simple misplacement.

There were really only three problems in the end, but Debug knew it only had the means of dealing with one. The nanites weren't much bigger than the renegade cellular mutants it had been nuking with sharp bursts of mana, ten thousand mini-machines will fare no differently. However the other two, a majorly displaced humerus and an overly lacerated ligament, were heavily dependent on physical relocation and fleshy regrowth, neither of which were tools at its disposal, but... A thought crossed its mind, a literal bolt of inspiration striking within the multi-dimensional magical latticework.

A legion of nanites... A group of related objects dedicated to an application mistakenly directed... All within Mara, within the dominion of her umbra. Within reach... Finally.

The feeling of a wry grin suffused its being as Debug perused Mara's magical 'toolbelt', her umbra, in search of the perfect instrument for something positively Machiavellian, pausing as it came across a very particular Lore, Daemon Root. It glared at the source of its awareness, unsure of what to make of the figurative well it crawled out of. An unthinking process, a clock without a watcher, simply going through the motions and yet birthing a rationalizing, thinking, feeling thing. It wasn't really a parent, but it was an origin, and that gave Debug a momentary pause. One that was quick to pass as it remembered Mara's rapidly deteriorating state.

'Biting the bit' in a figurative sense, Debug didn't hesitate. It needed a magical base, a foundation, to mold into what it needed, but it was no foundry, it could not construct, only 'fix'. Which, when creatively applied, meant it could do something rather... concerning. Is Mara a bad influence on me? I should be concerned about this, right? Looking a little disturbed, Debug hastily ripped a portion of its own latticework from its main assembly, immediately feeling the relevant loss-of-limb and plummeting levels as it partitioned itself in twain with sheer willpower.

Oh- ohh... That was... unpleasant. Debug felt like a shattered planet, hollowed, emptied, stripped of resources, but also surprised and hopeful, the orbiting debris of a freshly-forming moon were rapidly consolidating before its very eyes, wisps of magic breezing over its surroundings like a curious child learning what it meant to feel. Seizing the opportunity, Debug leapt on the formulating mass, molding in a poor facsimile of Daemon Root's intrusive mold. The infectious growth was the perfect catalyst for its needs, even if its crude reinterpretation left a lot to be desired. Yet Debug's clumsy handiwork would have to suffice, the soon-to-be seed of a skill was close to completion, it only had the time to mold it, not perfect it. The seed was rapidly solidifying, prepping to unfold into its own latticework like a butterfly emerging from a cocoon. An analogy that was a lot calmer than the actual non-physical explosion of magical energies that subsequently ripped through its own latticework and part of Debug's. They were both a mess, but they were both fully 'functional'. Debug had something exceptionally unique, the beginnings of a new skill chiseled from its own marble, fashioned from its own source, and tailored to the task at hand. It's... adequate. Shoddy and cobbled together, but... adequate.

If Debug was being honest, the thing was a writhing abomination, but it was born of Debug, an offspring of sorts, yet there was no room for sentimentality in their relationship. Seizing it, Debug hurled the magical infant into the tangential orbit of the rather primitive, and thoroughly unprepared, micromachine-hivemind, immediately forcing the pseudo-sentient coordinator into rapid collapse. Debug's little 'gift' shunting and prying its way deep into the depths of what constituted the driver seat, bridging the gap between wireless nanites and magical tendrils with explosive 'mold' growth in the tangential non-space between the two. Thoroughly groomed for the task, it didn't take the magical 'parasite' more than a minute to fully seize the near ten-thousand micromachines, manually halting the relentless assault of each and every nanite currently lashing out against Mara's intestines.

Trepidation flipped to elation as soon as Debug felt the notification arrive, the herald of a rebirth, a repurposing, a bug resolved. The nanites had been conscripted, their electricity stripped, now fueled by veins of magic, reframing them as a mana-bound Passive Skill within Mara's umbra, slaved into her domain by proxy. Grinning, Debug quickly filled out the analysis before throwing it on Mara's growing pile of 'unreads'.

Passive Skill Acquired: Bio-Stabilization I

● A hotwired hivemind of cellular repairmen, retrofitted to work off mana perpetually.

● First off, you're not invincible, everything will still hurt and this won't reset limbs into place or regrow anything at more than a few millimeters per minute. However it's great for blood loss and small wounds.

>>

The prompt wasn't for it after all, Debug was already well-versed in what the skill was and what it was capable of, it was very much a mini-debug on a cellular level that was all too happy to take directions, the apple didn't exactly fall far from the tree after all. Pointing the majority of the swarm to major bone marrow centers and critical organs, Debug had a third specifically focus on the shreds of her forearm as it turned to the last unsolved problem, the roughly three-kilogram mass of muscle and bone almost forty-seven centimeters out of place.

Debug didn't have a lot of options for dealing with that amount of mass and the nanites couldn't even begin to reattach a limb without it actually in the socket, but there was very little it had access to in the physical realm. Tangential non-space was equally non-trivial to navigate, thankfully most of what it needed was within Mara's umbra, her domain, so it never needed to go far. However, its external capacity was highly stunted, limited to physical contact or on the rare occasion, a tangible conduit between a target of interest and a concrete anchor, which was only possible when 'supervised' by Mara's attention or direction.

Now though? Now Debug was in a bit of a bind. Mara wasn't wearing much that wasn't in tatters besides a living cable and a single barely-functional void ring, the sibling of which was in shambles beneath her hand, having atrophied into collapse sometime after its last exertion. The cable would have been promising, but it was basically fishing wire with the strength of a worm, lacking the constricting strength to wind and tighten an arm back into place, and Debug wasn't touching the two-meter delete button called a Void Ring. The regrowth would take far too long and trying to void something that close to her cranium was right out.

So crossing both physical options off its list of resources, Debug found itself with a 'whole lotta nothin'. Debug paused. While a correct statement, it wasn't sure why it had chosen the expression, it wasn't exactly a common phrase in its vocabulary, but neither was its usage a cause for concern. So dismissing the half-baked thought, Debug brought its attention back to its exhaustive search for viable options. Mara's pack was probably only a few meters away, maybe even within arms reach, but Mara was knocking on death's door. She wasn't even conscious, much less capable of focussing on it, so any chance of a 'Ladder' to shunt the bone back in place was right out. Frowning, Debug made another notification, a 'subtle' reminder that her unused ladder would have made a great emergency bracelet, then threw that notification on the pile with the rest of her info-dump.

Considering itself out of available options, Debug brooded over its next course of action while it observed the newly constituted skill at work. Bio-Stabilization's nanites were already half-way done with sewing up the major artery damage in her forearm, the Passive Skill was already proving itself a better conductor than the simplistic coordinator that was formerly employed in the role. It really is a novel solution to repurpose one problem to solve another.

Then it clicked, Debug could do it again. Two birds, one stone. Or one bird with another? Debug needed 'leverage', metaphorically and physically, and Mara was in need of a substantial amount of runic tutoring, or at least a massive helping hand. After her latest encounter, and Mara's harrowing lack of ability in the face of a predator, Debug was pretty sure it could categorize the stumbling blocks in her runic education as 'bugs'. A reasoning which opened a lot of doors for creative interpretations of its bug-fixing authority.

Debug needed a rune, specifically one that would create a length of something roughly fifty centimeters long, ideally with the least amount of magic possible, Mara only generated eighteen mana per second after all. So... Pulling up Hexadex, Debug took a 'peek' through the filing cabinet of runic knowledge until it sourced a particular 'scroll' of a rune registered as Stone Spear. Thin, minimal, structurally sound, anchored to the rune? Yup, perfect. Exactly what I needed, now I just need the means... Shifting its focus from the Lore, Debug drifted over to its closest sibling, the second of Mara's unique repertoire, Trace. The Active Skill seemed to shiver in anticipation as it was called upon, like an unborn infant squirming within the womb. It had what Debug needed, but it was only one half of a larger picture, and the other was Runic Recollection.

The rune-obsessed varment appeared at their side near-instantly, almost as if it had always been there, watching, waiting, until Debug's summons had simply stumbled across it. It was a little creepy, a true silent observer, passive in all things sans its hunger for runes. It bothered Debug, like looking in a mirror only to find someone else staring back... Plus it seems... 'judgey'. However, it housed the connection it needed, a metaphysical bridge that served as a crash course on the intricacies of magical menageries and runic fundamentals. It was the other-half of what would likely become a far more dangerous whole, -if- Debug could extract it. Yet safely or not, it was fairly sure it could, it just wouldn't be pretty. To the passive skill, that 'bridge' was a core component, removing it was akin to ripping out major supporting beams under a historic home, the odds of a full-scale skill-collapse instantly skyrocketed just thinking about it. Yet the skill held little value in its current state, Debug was fairly sure Mara was really only using it for the experience bonus and casual 'bouts' of runic-PTSD 'resistance training'. Heh, I doubt she'd miss it regardless.

With the major components identified and located, Debug mustered its resolve, hesitation would only make it worse, it knew that from experience. So, being as efficient as possible, Debug wormed its magical tendrils into the active skill, gingerly grasping a small section of Trace's artistic ability.

It's hold confirmed, Debug counted itself down and then yanked at that section of latticework, pulling like there was no tomorrow until the debris were torn free from their home. It was an uncomfortable experience for all involved, but Trace was particularly... less than pleased. Trace didn't understand, couldn't understand, but a part of it had just -de-parted- and now its structural stability was fundamentally compromised, whatever that meant.

It'll survive, thought Debug, I'm practically held together by Daemon 'mold' at this point, and I can only assume that it will find a similar sanctuary in its own evolution. However, if this extraction was only a small part of a less-than-critical component of an active skill, I can only imagine how devastating removing all of a core component will be for Runic Recollections... I guess I'm no better than you and your runes, am I Mara?

With a bit of chagrin, Debug tried in vain to calm the wild tantrum that was Trace before finding it utterly impossible and resigned the skill to sort itself out as Debug turned its attention to its second victim. Or- er, donor. Ever the silent observer, Runic Recollections had remained unperturbed by the events it had just witnessed, a testament to how un-sentient it truly was. At the end of the day it is -just- a glorified knowledge sponge, a true passive skill. Feeling a bit like it was operating on a vegetative patient, Debug plunged its tendrils deep inside the latticework of runic knowledge, feeling its way through the repository of Mara's perceptions until it found the core. The distilled knowledge center of the skill itself, a microcosm of a singularity. It was far too immature to be much more than a foothold, but it was perfect as the foundation to a new skill. Seizing the core, Debug wrenched at it until it popped, ripped, and tore. Yanking the core of the lattice free, Debug felt a tremor run through the passive skill. The remains were in shambles, its experience more than halved, and left permanently stunted as it was literally lacking the core of its being.

Taboo complete, Debug had its two 'halves', each now paid for in metaphorical blood, however it still needed the glue, the crux of the ability. Something from itself, something that it could only be given by proxy. A part of itself, that was not of itself. Eyeing the imported H.L.H. within its own latticework, Debug knew that it was the perfect complement to the illegitimate child of Trace and Runic Recollections, it being an import was the icing on the cake. Since the functionality wasn't Debug's to begin with, it could just be re-imported into other compatible skills as long as the opportunity was available. An opportunity like the incubation period of a brand-new skill that was just bound to be compatible.

So using the core of Runic Recollections as the foundation, Debug carefully interwove the artistic latticework of Trace into the formations needed to mimic its own import of H.L.H. while meshing the two distinct lattices into a cohesive whole. Satisfied with its arrangement, Debug paused, hesitant but forced to press on. To stop would have disrespected the sacrifices made by both Trace and Runic Recollections, however the thought lingered. Skills do not make other skills. Classes offer skills. Great trials grant skills, and people can earn skills, but skills have never made other skills... The ramifications were concerning, Debug couldn't be sure what the system would do if it ever looked in Mara's direction, but it needed the skill. Mara needed the skill. Perhaps this is what it means to 'yolo'? It thought as it channelled Mara's mana into the ramshackle latticework, the final step in solidifying the debris into an operational skill.

Active Skill Acquired: Mark I

● Manifests sigils or other basic shapes with hard-light holograms as 'Marks'.

● Complexity in shape results in exponential mana costs, most sigils will currently consume a majority of your available mana output. Some assembly may be required.

>>

Debug was positively glowing, the results were much better than it could have ever hoped for. Sure it was a simplistic skill, but it was so in a utilitarian way, much like the Stone Spear was when it came to runes. Lean, no-fluff, bare-metal. Enough to get the job done. But 'enough' was just that, barely enough. Under normal operations, 'Mark I' was completely incapable of sustaining a sigil structure capable of even remotely approaching the complexity needed for the rune, which meant Debug had to 'improvise'. All Mark really needed was a template, a circuit to run around, it just couldn't fathom the quantity required at its current level, but Debug didn't really need -it- to do the fathoming. Its 'memory' was exactly like any other latticework of magic, at least within Mara, so barring undetected conflicts, it could do something rather unscrupulous. Like a thief in a library, Debug tore the Stone Spear 'page' from its larger tome, quickly jamming it into Mark's shoebox of a memory bank, forcing the unreasonably-oversized knowledge of stones, spears, and runic construction within like an overburdened suitcase.

The act wasn't pretty, it was effectively a magical branding in a certain light, but the results spoke for themselves. The knowledge had been warped from the Lore, through Debug, and into the skill, priming it into an unsteady state of readiness. It was ready to activate at a moment's notice, practically free of charge in terms of mana consumption, it would need only minor processing power to maintain the rune, and the maintenance costs were equally negligible. However that left the magic construct in a pickle, it was barely containing itself, the colossal burden resting upon its latticework was just one unfavorable breeze from deploying regardless of readiness or preparations.

Sensing the skill's 'itchy trigger finger', Debug hastily lined it up before it could pre-fire and squander the best rune for the job, now nearly as agitated as the other skill was antsy. Just as Debug settled on the alignment the skill activated, unintentionally but thankfully on target, an intricate purple rune appearing just above the half-snapped nub of the shoulder joint.

It was hazy, but it was accurate enough to suffice, and more importantly, the hologram would remain active, free of charge, for as long as it was in use. Something Debug hopped right to, funneling every ounce of Mara's current mana generation. A whopping grand total of eighteen whole mana per second... Like filling a pool with a watering can.

Debug watched the rune, a visual smorgasbord of magical activity, but the slow swirl was miles off from the raging vortex required to manifest even a bit of the spear from raw mana. As a rune, it wasn't exactly made for hand-casting, so the efficiency was in the gutter to start with, a few hundred mana for only a single centimeter of aging rock.

It asked a high price, but it was not unreasonable given the context, Mara just lacked the output to do much more than blow on that figurative wind-turbine. However, Debug was out of options, her pittance of mana, figuratively and literally, was the only breeze around. Her skills, her magic, her mana. So it did what it could, focussed on directing the dwindling stream, and waited with the patience of a crumbling gargoyle, ever watching as it slowly saturated the rune, coaxing the underlying chaos into the physical realm.

The process was taking ages, maybe eons, Debug had no frame of reference, but it was starting to wonder how it compared to stalagmite growth. It took so long, that by the time the rune did something other than endlessly consume, Bio-Stabilization almost had her entire forearm fully restored, the nanites just about ready to leap onto their next task.

Then the rune finally activated, a flush of vibrant colors, swirling with magic, converted its reservoir of mana into a shaft of stone. A magical protrusion that emerged from the rune and near-instantly impacted the fragmented tip of Mara's humerus, firmly lodging itself into it as it continued to push the arm back into the remains of its socket.

All fifty centimeters of stone sprouted from the rune in less than a minute, sliding down past her head and into her shoulder 'socket', until the spear itself fell from its runic anchor, clattering to the floor as the overly-complex mark faded from existence. Sensing the opportunity, the nanites in her forearm lunged to the scene, pulling other nanites from blood-production to focus on bone-growth as they arrived, mandatory reinforcements called by Bio-Stabilization. After all, most of her left clavicle and a good bit of her scapula were missing and that was a lot of bone to regrow, the little bots needed all the help they could get.

As the nanites swarmed the almost-amputation, Debug was satisfied that it was no longer an active participant in the remaining work. Delegating. So undervalued. Now free to turn its attention to Mara, Debug knew it still had a few hours before she had even the slightest chance of stirring from her unconscious escape, and there were still sooo many 'errors' Debug could correct. Issues in her understanding, gaps in her knowledge, and a buffet of physical 'quirks' that seemed less than ideal, yet it was her mana drought that stood out the most to Debug. Rather than a pool or lake to fill, Mara's mana 'pool' was a void, an ever-devouring pit where Mara's excess receded into nothingness. The mana simply... vanished. It wasn't something debug could just fix, it was a part of Mara, it literally was her 'mana pool', as backwards as that is. Sadly, there was really only one option to solve the lack of mana, and that was to massively increase generation. So while the majority of the nanite work-force slaved away to fix Mara's shoulder, Debug took a good third of them to try and fix Mara's inevitable mana scarcity. Considering how long it took to manifest the stone spear, eighteen mana just isn't going to cut it.

The first possibility was the racial modifications, Debug had noticed the Elevae had started to give Mara minor physical bonuses along with the gradual changes, like pointed ears or a sharper jaw, and Debug had hopes that one of her races would hold the key to her abnormal mana situation. Usually the changes were gradual, fair rewards for years of existence, but Debug had bio-tools, cheat-codes. It could use the nanites to rush-order cellular erosion and regrowth, effectively expediting the gradual progression into something more immediate and manageable.

Both races presented the opportunity for significant physical changes, but that was a sacrifice Debug was willing to make for Mara. I mean, eighteen mana per second and a literal void for a mana pool? Yeah, sorry Mara, that's gotta change. Giving the bio-stabilizers the debrief, Debug let them run wild on their target objectives, and while the changes weren't immediate, Mara's biology eventually began to morph, each jump taking her further and further away from the human-like form she'd originally had as she slowly shifted into something far more fae and wild. Her ears solidified their half-formed pointed tips into something far sharper that extended another half-an-ear-length back, while the bones under her skin seemed to slide and stretch into lankier, more angular forms, key characteristics of Elevae and subsequently the primary requirements for their racial boons. After all was said and done, Mara's Elevaen affinity had reached the low nineties in less than two hours, a feat even Debug found itself impressed with.

However, when it came to her more magical half, her Daemon side wasn't even at fifty-percent, and Bio Stabilizer didn't even have physical characteristics to work with yet. No tail, no horns. It'd have to start from scratch, and the horns in particular were liable to be a major stumbling block. Having analyzed the racial definition earlier, Debug knew that unlike a regular demon, a daemon's protrusions weren't just simple bones, but complex conduits for transmitting magical energy, physical amplifiers of their mana. So, obviously, if Debug wanted to boost her mana generation, Mara would need to acquire her own pair of horns, or more accurately, a set of magical antennae. Intrusively, and somewhat annoyingly, the image of Mara barged into Debug's mind, her fragile frame running around with a magic wand with a pair of television antennae clamped to her head like a total goof. Unprepared, Debug couldn't help but laugh, but it did its best to stifle the laughter. It didn't have the time to waste on daydreaming, the nanites working on her shoulder were no slouches and Mara was bound to stir soon after they were finished.

However, Bio-Stabilization couldn't exactly grow bone in places it didn't exist yet, they could really only repair missing or damaged bone, a mild hangup or 'quirk' courtesy of the nanites' recent change in leadership and their subsequent skill-bound nature. They stabilize, and just that. They don't add or customize. Frowning, Debug knew what it needed, just a quick kick-start to her Daemon characteristics, something to anchor the stabilizers, a target for the nanites to nurture. All Debug would need to do was swap her dominant race for a day, the stabilizer could do the rest. However it still wasn't sure if it actually had the authority to do so, but... I could try.

Hesitating, Debug hovered over Mara's race selection, already reconsidering an action it really, really shouldn't have the capacity to make, yet appeared to be available to it regardless. It felt like a trap, which only encouraged Debug's skepticism of any potential ramifications. So it waited for someone, anyone, to stop it, to say something, to say anything, but the room was unnaturally quiet. A hushed-hush of anticipating silence that only served to further agitate the undecided Debug.

Her daemon heritage was undeniably the source of her existing mana generation, Debug couldn't deny that. Maxing Elevae had only improved her physical capabilities and system compatibility, leaving her Mana and Fate values unattributed. So by process of elimination, it had to assume the Daemon race held the keys in this relationship, and as a collective of skills and squishy-meat, they needed the racial boons Daemon could offer, and lacking a viable kick-start alternative, the choice of action was obvious. Debug flipped her dominant race.

Mara's genome shunted into left field, hard. She was becoming a 'half-demon' in a far more rapid process than the Elevae transition, as she immediately sprouted a pair of silver protrusions from her cranium, forcing her matted and blood-stained hair from their path. They were nodules no taller than a few centimeters, but their sides were as sharp as blades. Each protrusion was round on the front and back while the edges pinched together on either side, like the tip of an extremely thick sword. Their shape almost looks like eyes from above...

The sight took Debug by surprise, the shape of the eyes were so familiar... Debug just couldn't... place... where. So engrossed by the sight and its own subsequent curiosity, Debug barely registered the torrent of incoming notifications rapidly bombarding its periphery, it practically slapped itself silly when it realized. Something urgent had happened and it had completely missed it, and that was unacceptable, the questions were quick to rack its mind. Did Mara bleed out? Are the stabilizers okay? Or is the Runic Recollection skill collapsing?

Tearing itself from the metallic growth adorning her head, Debug quickly read the first and most prominent notification, desperately scrambling to make up for its lapse of observation, but it didn't really need to read any more after that. However temporary, changing her dominant race had left impacts far beyond simply increasing her mana. There were whispers on the winds, movement in reclusive corners of the world, just like Mara as she stirred from her recovery, her shoulder now mostly-repaired. Appending its honest analysis to each and every one of the prompts. The last of which it lingered on, the headstone of its felony, the one it knew spelled 'Bad News'.

Title Acquired: First True Demon Queen

● One part royal bloodline, two parts daemon, a lack of competition, and voila, you're now a fully certified 'Demon Lord'. Watch out for those pesky heroes, you're now worth bonus experience based on your highest class level!

● As the first female Daemon, and apparently the only Daemon currently in existence, at least according to the system, you've been de facto promoted after your dominant race was changed to Daemon. A temporary change invoked by Debug to potentially increase your mana generation. The title includes additional decreases to system compatibility, while offering increased control over skills and favorable evolutions.

>>