I make my way out of the building the interview was in. It’s a nice building, but it has that distinct feel of not belonging to anyone in particular, so I’m guessing they rent the few rooms for when they need to. When I got down on the street I take a deep breath, and then I shoot into the air, again taking on the flight form.

‘It’s kinda disturbing’... No, that’s an understatement. I left it out during the interview, but just how much knowledge did I share? Did I share any at all? Wikipedia is more about the more objective facts. Does that mean I shared all my ‘knowledge’ knowledge? How about my personal life? Do I suddenly have a bio on Wikipedia? Was any of it, or will any of it actually be put onto the website? Or does the ‘god’ know it?

God, huh. Wikipedia; the Great Wiki, Custodian of Knowledge and patron of exam cramming… Well, I can see that being a thing. Wait, would invoking Wikipedia during an exam count as cheating? How the hell would you stop that? Anti-deity field? Is that possible?

Ahh, whatever. All worries start to seem so small as you rise into the air… It’s not quite the overview effect, but it does give some perspective. Or maybe it’s just me, or an effect of the freedom of flying, or a side effect of some part of the shapeshifting. Speaking of the overview effect, I wonder if I can get into space, somehow.

Well, I’d need a way to protect myself against radiation, and if I use magical means I’ll have to account for the reduced mana as you get higher. Speaking of which, I really need to get around to making a mana-measuring tool. Something which gives a more objective ‘value’ than the admittedly vague feeling I get. Hm, we do have a space industry in Norway, right? I should get in touch and find out what exactly is needed.

Propulsion, or the act of getting up there is obvious. Then there’s the ‘not dying in space’ part. The same methods I use to breathe underwater should be mostly usable in space, but radiation is harder. Actually, can’t I just make a ‘throwaway’ puppet? Or one made from something less affected by radiation. Rock golem? Slime? In fact, I might be able to create a puppet which acts as a spacesuit.

Can you patent that? If so I should. And then there’s artifice. That should be easier to patent, but the actual enchantments and such are a bit vague. Ahhh, I can handle all those things later. For now, let’s just fly! Fast! High! Give in to the feeling of bursting with energy, shoot through the skies like a feathery missile!

How does my mind manage to come up with absolutely brilliant ideas at the exact points in time where I am not only busy, but in a way such that I can’t easily write them down…? Well, joke’s on you brain, because this time I was high enough up to just revert my wings, pull out my cheaper phone and make a voice recording! (and then stop my plummet towards the ground)

Not that it caught much of my screaming over the winds, but my short-term memory is enough to patch the gaps. As it turns out, the idea wasn’t actually that brilliant, but should still be functional, and I can slowly refine it. For now I have a nice bladeless desktop fan kinda thing. And the mana measurement device.

The measurement device is a wooden plate (more of enchanted wood to conduct mana better) with a simple, but fairly sensitive electro-generating formation, which in turn is connected to fifteen LEDs. Here in my room it can make them barely visible without direct sunshine, but I added switches to connect different amounts of them.

The switches use the base-2 system (ie 4 groups of 1,2,4,8 LEDs), and lets me have any number of them active at one time. They glow at about full strength with nine active LEDs, so in the spirit of engineering I have decided to call this density of mana one ‘apartment’, even if the density is likely to change over time. Or if I make another measuring device.

For the record the base mana level outside seems to be around point-six apartments, or a bit less than five LEDs. More importantly, however, is the magic bladeless fan. I mean, it’s a failure, since what I tried to make was a mana crystal power ‘engine’. To not set my mind too much on one track, but mostly for the challenge, I made it without looking things up on the internet.

The result has basic working functionality, but it produces so little thrust you’d need to be in space to use it, and that would kinda make it useless because no air. It works just fine as a proof of concept, and by looking up a couple things I was unsure of (I mean, I have some idea of how these things work) I realized I was doing several things wrong. So after creating a design document, a small sketch, and writing down things I want to remember later, I swapped over to Wikipedia.

As it turns out, there is a page on me. It’s a stub though, and looking at the logs it was made before the interview. So at the very least my life experiences aren’t put on the website. I tried searching for various bits of knowledge I don’t think would be there (so knowledge about magic) and results were similar.

‘But’ I realized, ‘Wikipedia the website is built to be open, and have logs and all that jazz. Shouldn’t the deity have that as well?’

“Oh, Wikipedia, Custodian of Knowledge. What are my contributions to you?”

And a single word, or more the concept of it, appears in my mind, not unlike when using a mind-bond: ｢Nothing｣

That’s… Good to know. But it does mean I got knowledge for free. Or for a promise I have yet to fulfill. I mean, I’m pretty sure it’s a stated goal from Wikipedia to have information be free and easy to access. Either way I would like to contribute. Before that, though: “Wikipedia, how does your knowledge work?”

Another burst of knowledge, placing itself more like a short-term memory, as if I had just read a page on it. The deity knows all that is on the website, but not vice versa. It freely shares all knowledge it has, and anyone can contribute. It wants contributions, particularly for post-Upheaval topics, and that goes for the website as well.

Well, might as well sit down and share some knowledge. Gives me a lot more control than the mind-magic or whatever gods do. Well, I don’t think that many pages on subjects I can actually contribute to exists. I can add to the magic Wikia, though. Wait, that’s separate from Wikipedia. Could it be considered part of its pantheon or something? No matter. I’m not obliged to contribute, perhaps except for saying that I would.

I plop down my empty bag after another round of selling, this time focused on one specific product. I seem to be gaining fame (and maybe some infamy) because several people asked about stuff I mentioned in the interview. The interview hasn’t been out for more than three days, though I’ve been here several times since I was interviewed which probably helps.

As for the product I’m selling, I noted that the mind-bond stones sold really well, particularly among couples and girls. The ten stones I made originally sold out really quickly, and those were just somewhat pretty rocks. With that in mind I made more of those, but also some more interesting designs.

The first is a pendant, which is really just a stone with one flat side and a hole with string through it. But thinking of couples I went ‘couple→lovers→(maybe) marry→rings’, which I figured was a really good idea. Rings are really small, though, too small for using the same techniques as the larger items.

So I decided to start with a wristband, which is smaller than a pendant, can look pretty, and still doable. With two mana absorption arrays leading to one mana crystal which in turn fuels the mind-bond enchantment, it was still a bit bulky. So to make it more compact I elected to remove the crystal and mana absorption arrays.

After that I worked on the actual enchantment, managing to get a functional version the size of a small coin. So obviously I returned to the wristband design, which now only needed a small disc connected to a silken string. Only when I had made it slightly larger to work with a mana crystal did I realize I could now just put the enchantment on a ring. Derp.

Long story short, version 3 of the ring has a small mana crystal taking the place of a gem, from which the enchantment draws power. Anyone with [Mana Manipulation] can recharge the gem, but for others it becomes one-use, which isn’t particularly nice. So the final version has a charger(sold separately) which is a small wooden or metal tablet you can put it on and it will recharge.

I also made a portable charge which is also charged at the tablet, but holds more mana and can charge the ring by contact. So I made thirty of the rings(with accessories), ten wristbands of silk and five of stabilized conjured material (the shards you get from breaking it are not sharp, I tested) and fifty stones which can quickly be turned into pendants, of which I made ten.

The ratio of goods was somewhat of a miss, but I managed to sell it all (and get orders for yet more) in three hours. Sold some other things, too. So with a good haul today I’ll just get myself some food, then head over to Leda. The last couple days I’ve been studying her and the egg to figure out how the whole mana physique thing works. The egg is a good reference since it’s growing rapidly, but not really something I can mimic, what with being fully grown already. See also: Not a wyvern.

“Hi Leda.”

｢{Happy}Hi! I will go hunt, protect the egg.｣

“Sure.”

Aaand she’s off. As with the other times, so I’m hardly surprised. Oh well. I sit down on a soft blanket-mattress hybrid thing I made (better than the rocky ground) with crossed and levitate the egg over, putting it in my lap. I mean… It’s as big as me, so it’s more like I’m one of those fancy egg cups. Either way I lean my head on it, forming a mana link with the steadily growing creature within.

I say mana link, but it’s something between a normal mana link and connecting to a magic device: There’s some resistance and the other part has some control, but it seems to be 100% simple self-preservation. It might be my imagination, but I think the feeling it gives has changed over time. Then again I have only truly paid attention to that the last couple weeks.

I let go of the link and instead focus inwards. Mana physique, huh. My body seems to be more or less saturated with mana, so I do think you need something to improve on that. Not that you particularly need to unless you actually use a ton of mana. If someone were to ask me why I’m doing it, then, what would I answer?

There’s a famous quote, which has many variants which are essentially the same thing. When asked why he climbed Mt. Everest, one of the early climbers replied: Because it’s there. And then you have ‘Because I can’ and ‘to find out what’s on the other side/what happens’. Curiosity, then. The oh-so-human drive to seek out the new and unknown, taking any obstacle as a challenge, and all challenges as something which must be overcome.

What I know of mana physique is that beasts and monsters often have mana crystals of various sizes, and their very flesh and bones are often changed, to differing degrees. Together, they form a core and a system of channels through which mana flows much more freely. The question then, is how. How does it form? How does it work? What are these channels?

The egg grants me insight into the first question, in that it already has a small mana crystal and better mana flow than my body. In other words, it can be inborn. Unfortunately it formed before I started paying attention, or possibly before I met Leda, but either way I only know that they are there and pay attention to how they change. They do change; the crystal is growing, and the channels are getting more… solid? Tangible, perhaps?

As for the second question, the answer is in two parts. One is the physics of it, if that’s the right word. The other I have an answer to: The crystal helps store and direct mana, whereas the channels have drastically reduced ‘resistance’ to mana flow, meaning more mana can be held at any one point and also moved faster.

The third question, I suppose, is just a rephrasing of the first part of the second question. What are the channels made of? I have no ability to sense what something is made of with magic, and while I have dissected some of the pink rabbits (they’re everywhere) and even one of the thorn-antlers, all I can tell is that the pink rabbits don’t really have channels, and the deer use their bones for it. What exactly makes their bones have better mana flow I don’t know.

So my current running theory is that magic or at least mana changes them over time. Bones are naturally somewhat conductive of mana, more than flesh at any rate, and given how they are in almost every part of the body, it makes sense that they become channels. The problem I have with that theory is that I don’t want to wait and see. If it can happen naturally, it can be forced as well.

Speaking of which, I have grown two head-sized mana crystals to use in a couple experiments when I get to go to the military’s new magic testing area. The egg seems to be doing fine, so that means I can do the other preparations until Leda is back.

I transform into the ‘assistant’ puppet and get some distance from the egg. Don’t want to damage it by accident, but I need to keep it in sight or Leda’s gonna be livid. Again, ugh. Either way I bring out a fist-sized, or what I consider a ‘medium’ sized mana crystal, head-sized being large, thumb-sized being small and thumbnail and smaller being tiny.

This will hurt, but I think I can mostly control it, and my main body is safe in subspace anyway. Probably safe. I make sure this body is saturated with mana, draw a sharp breath, then start absorbing mana from the crystal, pushing the mana density of my left hand past the saturation point.

And it burns. At first it’s just unpleasantly hot, like standing too close to a fireplace. So I spread the mana into the forearm until it no longer hurts. Then I repeat the process, until the entire arm is just past the saturation point. It feels… not unlike being sore after a bit too intense exercise.

I move it over to the right arm, then the right leg, left leg, and back to the left arm. The sore feeling lingers. So it’s more than just a danger signal, it does some damage even at just beyond the normal max level. [Regeneration] is slowly repairing it, and with some active [Healing Touch] the left arm is the only part which still hurt.

Next question then: Can I use healing to make it, well, not hurt? … No. I put the excess mana back into the crystal and heal up. The arm… still hurts. In a different way, more like a fading bruise, but that does mean there’s a point beyond which I can’t fully heal back up. Worrying.

All right then, let’s try using half the mana in the body in one spell. The effect… Crash condensing a mana crystal outside the body. ‘Crash’ because that’s the only way I can describe what the mana does. Leave mana in the legs, but use the rest, channeled 50/50 through the arms to form a sphere of mana.

Aiaiai-ow-ow-ow! Ok, huuh, breathe. That was about half my mana, but only the mana of the puppet body, and boy did that hurt. I expected pain from oversaturating parts of the body, but the mana didn’t flow well enough for that. What I got instead was pain that… well, if this body is a series of pipes, it’s not made for that much mana moving at those speeds.

At least I still hold control over the mana, despite the pain in my… I don’t even know what hurt, or where it is, but I can only describe it as a spike of migraine-level head pain, while feeling distinctly like it’s not in my head. Good thing I didn’t try that with my main body. Or perhaps that’s exactly why it hurt like that.

This much mana in one place is quite visible. Beautiful, but also scary, like a tornado. Well, let’s make it more compact. Compress! Condense! My hands move as if physically squeezing the glowy mass together. It resists, pushes against the force of my control, physics not agreeing to have this density of mana.

And then, the inner parts crash together, and the whole thing collapses into a tiny little crystal. One which I, by experience, know is about as stable as conjured materials without stabilization. But I’m getting pretty good at stabilizing it by now. I’m not doing that, though, instead merging the little crystal into the bigger one.

Next up, oversaturation test. I sit down in a mostly comfortable position, then start absorbing mana from the crystal again, this time spreading it throughout the entire body until it reaches the point where the feeling of too much heat turns into a burning feeling. I ramp up [Regeneration] and clench my teeth as I push past it, into territory of scorching pain.

Through deadened, or possibly just dead, nerves, the pain starts to seem more distant. From my slightly distant vantage point in subspace, I note the damage it does to the body. It also causes convulsions and cramps, so it likely burns the nerves. Curiously, the bones seem to hurt less.

And then it’s no longer so distant. I find my consciousness back in my main body, next to the puppet. It has fallen over and has a vacant look. There’s a smell of cooked meat as well as burnt meat. The pain is gone, but I feel like something was ripped away. I grab the now fallen mana crystal with [Force Magic] and pause.

Shit! Did I kill the puppet? I hurry over to the singed female body. A corner of my mind dryly notes that I had done some fine work on it, which I have now undone. No, it’s breathing, the short, shallow and greedy instinctual breaths the body does after an adrenaline-fueled battle against the Pale Rider.

I put my head to her chest. Heart still beating, all too fast. And the mana is still rampaging. I should save her. I must save her. I grab her hands in mine and forcefully form a mana link. Not that she resists - the only force opposing me is her complete lack of control.

With control of her mana I start drawing on the mana, dispersing what I don’t use for healing into the air. And at that inopportune moment my phone starts ringing from its safe spot in my bag. I’ve been getting more calls lately since a sufficiently interested customer can find my number, but this timing is just bad. I’ll call them back later, for now I’ll have to stabilize the unconscious girl.