Three days. That is how long Merlin takes to run over the most basic of explanations over their magic developments in the inner world. Even Alex, bursting with energy to learn of the first few hours, didn’t come back the next day seeing that after Merlin had run through everything that could help with his spear wielding.

But to lads like Burges and I, every word was gospel with intrinsic value as a science, even if we couldn’t immediately see the use. They were just different flavors that had to be appreciated in their own context, and I want it all. Bitter, sweet, sour, spicy and salty, along with all the combinations in-between them. There was just so much that called to me.

We stopped every so often to experiment along a new angle that Merlin or his team either couldn’t try or hadn’t thought about. But even with our contributions, it was clear: Merlin is the real deal. He didn’t just make use of the time well, he came into himself, perhaps tangentially aided, by starting to call himself a meta mage.

His own mental image coalesced in this new reality under the system.

We barely stopped to eat and sleep, though we did take the time to accompany the HLZ-B squad in their second outing just to be safe along with my daily blacksmith stop. I would be stupid to leave this kind of coin on the table just to save an hour or two.

A whole 40 silver per weapon is quite a lot and it did wonders for my own projects, which even if most of them seemed to have taken a life of their own in my absence, relied on periodic infusions of money to keep spreading at a quick pace.

Their growth was all along fairly expected lines, and I was happy to step aside where necessary to allow it. From the MRI to the root network extension.

During those days I slowly get used to the new and much more pronounced powers I now have. The sudden jump in stats was fairly startling, but there is more behind it all. Something faint, but as the days passed and the feeling didn’t go away, more of my attention was dragged to it.

It is nothing new in the entirety, but each of my movements seems almost a sublime disconnect from too much oxygen in my brain. A hidden layer of fogginess underneath it all and the system’s interference seemed stronger than ever on this. Or perhaps I was just more sensitive to what was always there.

It feels like the system’s interference with Aether usage all over again. This nagging on my senses and the peeks behind the curtain that I occasionally got started to command all my attention until I could do nothing else besides think about it.

Every time I take my mind off something, the brief instant before I start something new all consuming. The underlayer there, pervasive and impossible to escape.

I push through finishing going over Merlin’s discoveries and using every spare instant to deal with other matters preparing for my next tasks, but it is too much and I stop it all

I stop.

Instead of following my previous programmed list like improving my runic workings, my mana handling with the smithy, increasing the Inner world size, dealing with my class subclasses and dozens of other tasks are all important, this goes to the top of the list.

I had over 200 in perception and every single other stat more than 100. That change or something else seems to have brought this to me. It didn’t make sense that although I had gained some new capabilities, everything was so muted. That every time I tried to absorb something, the system stealthily put a mylar layer in between me and what I wanted to touch.

So that goes to the very top of my list.

The system’s interference.

At first glance, it was… insignificant. But the months of trying to get in deeper touch with my gut changed my perspective and I cannot ignore this now.

It doesn’t matter how thin it is, I know it is there and unlike the crack in a phone screen, it won’t go away if I just ignore it, nor do I want it to go away given it feels like a real problem. I won’t change myself into someone that would ignore something I feel is important.

Aether, Qi, my natural perception field, and Will all give me a glimpse behind the curtain, but they are too short, too narrow to really take in the shape behind, and each time they are more dizzying and less clear.

With the large jump in stats, it is hard to decide my next course of action and what would be the most helpful. I don’t know what exactly is the optimal path, but whatever else I may do later, this is the first item. My very class is One with the World and I won’t take any lesser connection to this place and people in it than the utmost I could achieve.

Did anyone else notice this?

Perhaps for someone at 500 perceptions when they crossed the 100 stat threshold across the board if that is what prompted the change if that is even the prompt for this change. But if the very senses that Perception enhances are also neutered by the system and put behind a thin, but ever so slightly matte layer scattering the very photons and taking the precision of my senses, then nobody else would notice the change.

In the end, It doesn't matter what will happen to the others. Or even if I can help a few see more than the glimpses that I peeked through when the halo around me shifted or was ever so slightly miss aligned.

I connect to the runes in my body and start empowering and modifying them. With plenty of silver and gold in their makeup, they can handle a lot of mana just fine and that is exactly what I use them for.

Handling loads of mana.

I fly right above the canopy of the trees, spending a good 10 mana a second. It pushes me even a little faster than the normal 150+ kph of my first flying bicycle. Though this consumption is mostly about the inefficiency of flying without an aerodynamic fairing around me to guide the air. I’m spending over 10 fold more than a proper fairing would allow me to save on my propulsion. The only real change is in the repulsion keeping me aloft. The economic mode may be useful, but not needed with now, nor do I want to be limited to a few inches of height. With the rune extending from my head to my toe, I can levitate nearly 6 meters high or a little over three-fold the length of the engraving.

The trip goes very quickly and I just enter the mud hut, already aware that nothing had happened to it, nor did anybody enter it in my absence. The root network and my private surveillance apparatus were useful that way. The only drawback are the security concerns, but I just need to keep ahead of any malcontents.

I find a nice dry spot in the middle of my mud hut before dragging my meditation mat over. The instinctual search is no longer required, but the habit had been ingrained in me for the last few months and it would take me a few more days to get rid of it.

I ask Aspen’s help to center myself using a bit of Aether and Qi to connect with him, but even as I try to head deeper, something stops me.

I’m even more dazed than before. Not in a threat of me losing balance, but some gains I had made with my perception stat were shaved away and the fog is a little deeper.

This short trip of mine seemed to have made things worse than they were before. Coming to an isolated place tended to improve things and my ability to really meditate deeply and for longer.

This is WRONG.

There is an underlying problem that I have just begun to unravel and as the minutes and hours pass, it gets clear and clear.

I use Mana, Health and Stamina, but every point I use is like a pass of fine sandpaper in the glass box I’m sealed within.

So I just stop using them.

I connect with myself, with the part that I reach for whenever I seek to improve my stats a little, though I don’t have any significant improvements to make considering I didn’t put off this meditation while inside the trial grounds. I even got about 100 stat points from that exercise alone. That is nearly one stat a day without dedicating more than a few minutes to it.

Letting it come deeply from within, I try to use my own resources and Aether to remove the scratches all over the glass surrounding me. Using fine sandpaper, I start my work.

I make the effort, trying to impart my will behind it. Not like the bored and mechanical movements of a tired worker simply washing a window while he curses his own job but closer to the efforts of a master craftsman hand polishing the main mirror for a telescope scheduled for orbit.

I burst out laughing.

Though hand sanding was more common for smaller telescopes and tended to produce better results than the very best of machines, as we increased our dexterity and discovered new ways of using magic if we ever start making telescopes again, doing it by hand would not just be the better choice, but likely the only reasonable choice all the way from the cheapest knockoff to the most accurate and precise instrument.

Unless magic also brings a marked improvement in quality and price to the mechanical polishers.

The mental image of me sanding the protective glass like I’m making a mirror is the perfect choice. Both pliable and helpful in my work.

Though I wish I could take a sledgehammer to the glass around me, I have the distinct feeling that would be a bad idea. The system didn’t need to scuff the surface and make seeing anything outside harder, but that doesn't mean the glass is just junk. It may not even be the system’s creation, and the closer I look at it, and play with it, the more it feels like something else, something from time immemorial. The mental image of the glass as a protective barrier seems… Accurate. There is no other way to describe it.

Though this seemed to be around my very mind and being instead of being something I can touch the longer I interact with it, the more real it seems, like the very fact I gave it an image made it real and tangible. But in the end, it is just a way to interact with it instead of being an accurate representation of what it is.

Even with a lot of elbow grease, it is still not perfectly clear, but the effort was not wasted. I need to find higher grit sandpaper. 10000 is not enough nor is the polishing paste I turn to at the end. I either need a better polishing paste or another solution.

Two days of tireless work gave me a marked improvement, but I also find the limitations of my current toolset and that is when I stop. If I’m to stop using Mana, at least directly, I need to have Qi stores, real droves of it, or maybe a way of converting Mana into Qi.

I could use Qi along with Mana while relying on Aspen or runic works to handle the mana, but without my will behind the mana against the HLZ beasts, the effort becomes nearly useless.

In an emergency, it is fine, but not as a routine thing. If I need to use my will, a few hours polishing the layer between me and reality afterward doesn’t sound so bad as the cost of saving someone’s life my life or somebody else’s.

I begin to test how I can use mana without completely marring the glass casing around me and to my surprise, Aspen can freely wield mana as I wield my Qi in conjunction given both resources are fairly similar.

Can he use Qi?

I send a thin stream to him, but even as he grabs it and it seemingly melds with him. The feeling I would have gotten with mana being taken from my purview never arrives. Instead, I just watch it slowly floating freely curious about what it will do.

Its behavior is similar to mana, but after it spreads and swirls like splotches of ink through water, it just floats back to me and my pool.

Perhaps with a little more training, he could do it, but it doesn’t feel likely. But it may be just too much to expect him to wield Qi the very first time he comes across it. It might also be something so individual that it’s not even worth teaching him to use it and he would be better served using Mana or making his own version of the resource to suit his own way of thinking and skills.

Sometimes our connection is so deep that I forget that we are two different beings.

Shaking my head I start work on a Qi battery.

At first glance it looks easy, just make a mana battery and modify it until it works for Qi. After all, if all other runes work with it well enough why the ‘capacitor’ rune would be any different.?

How wrong was I…

Any Qi heading inside can not be contained for more than a minute, as it shows its impatient and kinetic nature spins and meanders through every corner of the battery finding all the cracks until every droplet is on the ground. The yellowish pearl color coalesces into ‘solid smoke’ and rolls on the ground until it is back in my pool.

I didn't see this on the trial, but it makes so much sense.

Any time I use Mana, I’m borrowing something that doesn’t belong to me. I’m converting my ‘will’ into Mana, which belongs to the system.

But with Qi, it is like ‘I’m the system’ and any unused mana returns to me. If I transform Qi into another form of energy, like heat or Kinectic energy the story is different, but my pool is the natural place for Qi and to where it wants to return. Entropy will always bring it back, with the possible exception of when the system actively interferes.

I went from simply a user transforming raw ingredients into something beautiful and into the realms of creators bringing to life something that didn’t exist before. In reality, it is all just shades on a spectrum, but I’m cognizant of the profound and fundamental shift that Qi has for me. This large step up the color spectrum just fuels my desires.

How can I cheat the system even more with this new tool?

I start experimenting by extending a tendril of Qi and nearly emptying my Pool all at once. My connection senses a powerful sucking force, that puls the System’s Mana faster than usual and effectively increases my regen rate.

As it enters my body, it is transformed into my energy and I leave it as it is or I can ‘transform’ into Qi as I use it.

The specifics are still fuzzy even after months under the system, but watching my pool refiling faster than ever without even needing to enter a profound state of meditation brings it all into perspective.

I just discovered at least 2 benefits to having my own resource.

A larger effective pool of energy, as it takes only a modicum of attention to keep a lot of Qi cycling out of my pool, and the Regen rate increases if I do things the right way after all it wasn’t just about emptying my pool, but doing it very quickly and continually pulling to keep momentum up.

This is the power of free will, of decisions of my own without the interference of our benevolent rulers.

Now I just need to figure out the intricacies.

--------------------

Wolf’s POV

Run, run wildly in the suddenly small area around the two-legged’s village. Something bothers me, this unconscious limitation put in my mind.

I had nights to think and plan and now was time to act.

I pass many other wolves, lesser wolves. Not in their core or being, but lesser in body, mind and understanding. Their concerns are limited in scope to their immediate vicinity and the present, not concerns about all who howl and tread this strange land. My race is so… Instinctive. They don’t have the mental awareness to change their environment, they are only used to making the most of it while leaving the two leggeds to their own endeavors.

There is nothing wrong with instinct, it is an amazingly useful tool, but it is only one tool.

I saw the white furry things that look so tasty inside the strange place. I spend moon cycles with them, even if there was no moon to count them. It is clear that wolves may run as a pack, but a pack is tiny.

I need more.

I need to alter my environment for the puppies to come.

I need to call out to the world and claim my place.

There can be no doubt, for I’m Onix.

My predecessors may no longer roam the Earth having long become a part of it. Something no other even recalls, if they knew of it in the first place, but I hold the blood of giants and it was time to rise above it all, to come into my heritage and maybe just maybe step beyond the limited boundaries set by the eye in the sky.

The ruthless eye in the sky.

I climb atop the highest peak around, barely an anthill but it is what I have available and prepared. Other endeavors were nice, but I can always play with the tasty bunnies later.

I arch my whole body raising my maw and Call.

I Call once, twice, thrice.

Wolves start to surround the base of the hill not even guessing what I have really done to them. They want to approach more, but reverence and fear fill their very being under my gaze. They don’t know why they are so drawn to me, nor do they realize that I add more in my skull every moon cycle they have in the totality of their abstract experience, but neither do they care.

The minutes pass and increasingly tired wolves begin to pool at the base of my domain. I need to pay attention to the muscles of my jaws and tail and keep them freely swishing around as I stand imperiously trying to hide my surprise at the ever larger group. I knew my Call was always stronger and reached farther them others in the pack, but this is no pack.

Hundreds have already arrived and thousands follow behind.

If this is the very first of my attempts, perhaps I can help them free themselves of their own chains.

This is my HORDE.