《The OP Adventures of Joe》Chapter 8: Just Your Average Lair, Part 6

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I catch Bass, possibly accidentally feeling her up at the same time but probably not, what are the chances of that happening amirite?

I focus on the hospital once more and this time the passengers of my teleport are my demoness and I. Appearing crouched in a familiar dark corner, I can tell right away the public is freaking the fuck out over something. News reporters line police roadblocks, and men in blue are swarming all over hospital grounds.

I noticed a hungry look coming from the beautiful demon beside me, despite having just woken up and on top of that being in an entirely different place she was staring at all the people like they were juicy steaks.

“Down girl!” I whisper-yelled. Bass let out an incredibly cute whimper that I did my best to ignore. Damn! That was too much, she almost had me taking my words back.

I put my reunion with Elise on hold for a minute as I conducted some much needed research. ‘Analyze’,

Name: Samuel BelliveauStatus: Mana-DeprivedTier: 13Level: 71Profession: Police OfficerAge: 53VIT: 66END: 32Health: 980 (Regen disabled)STR: 68AGI: 75Physical Capacity: Disabled, AlteredINT: 48WIS: 2.3Magical Capacity: DisabledSPI: 0Mana: N/A

… I may be a bit more of an anomaly then I realized.

I analyzed a few more officers from the shadows, getting similar results except for one. An important looking woman in a suit with decorations all over it has an abnormal status by the standards of everyone around her.

Name: Alicia RamirezStatus: Mana-DeprivedTier: 13Level: 86Profession: Special AgentAge: 30VIT: 91END: 57Health: 1480 (Regen partially disabled)STR: 72AGI: 95Physical Capacity: Low, AlteredINT: 138WIS: 7Magical Capacity: NegligibleSPI: 1.5Mana: 26/14500 (Locked)

She was already level 86! The other officer’s levels mostly seemed to hover around their age, though the higher the age the level seems to lag behind more and more, indicators of a peaceful life? Then there was this woman, who has been to hell and back in comparison. On top of that, her magical potential must be extraordinarily high to be able to blossom a little bit despite the harsh environment for mages. However her status is still extremely weak compared to myself or Bass. I peel my gaze from her alluring body and try to refocus.

Expanding my senses to their limit, Elise is nowhere to be found… Not really feeling like finding out what’s going on in this place, I teleport once again, this time to the roof of the local police station. Appearing out of thin air may have caused her some trouble.

Having lived in this town makes it fairly easy to blink around the place. Surprisingly, my teleport is fairly efficient and the cost recovers itself in under 10 seconds.

Like I had suspected, Elise is in a holding cell and the two policemen who aren’t at the hospital don’t seem to know what to do with her. She’s a suspect by association with me, but her circumstances are bringing the legal systems gears to a screeching and awkward halt.

Hmmm, I don’t really want to cause a scene… Well, not a BIG scene anyway… Maybe I’ll just turn her invisible? It’s so simple it just might work, though really just about anything would work and this was just for fun.

I was now getting used to the feeling of mana pouring out of me, and with a little bit of extra guidance from me it could accomplish its task with a bit more efficiency. Though still incredibly inefficient… To surround Elise with my mana took a quarter million units, and another couple thousand to give it its objective. The way I turned her invisible was kinda cool, I made each unit of mana take a certain number of photons, carry it through Elise and wait for them to bounce back, and once again carry it through her to the other side. No photons bounced off of her, rendering her completely invisible.

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Skill Acquired: Photon GuidanceUsing a cloud of mana and the manipulation of light, can render objects invisible. A basic application of the idea.

The two men took a little while to notice, but then finally one looked over and had the anticipated reaction. “Oh my Atlanta!! BERT!! Come look, that chick’s gone! She really can just disappear…” Suddenly he shuddered and a look of fear dominated his eyes. His friend came running over and reacted the same way. “All that stuff she said Rob… Is that all going to h-happen? No way right?? ROB TELL ME WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON!” (Bert) He broke down into a hysterical mess and his friend was quickly overwhelmed and followed suit.

That was much more dramatic than I thought it’d be… Of course I never lost ‘sight’ of Elise, and her sinister expression was adding to the mystery of the situation. Fuck it, I don’t care.

The officers ran out of the building, leaving it completely empty. I jumped down from the roof and leisurely walked in the front door. Bass followed suit and walked in tandem with me down the halls towards Elise’s cell. I made sure to dismiss the invisibility cloud so I could admire her beauty and make our reunion more dramatic.

Bass was made aware of our purpose here as we walked through. She was about to meet her competition (the demoness succumbed to my charisma long ago).

Finally we rounded one last corner that lead to a hall of cells. The steel bars may as well not have even been there as me and the demoness calmly walked into Elise’s cell, the bars strained and groaned but easily gave way under our relentless assault (aka slow walk).

“Lise, baby, I’ve come to save you.” I put on a cheesy grin and did my best to distract her from the beauty at my side.

“Oh yeah? And who’s this?” She gave Bass a cold and calculating look from head to toe, and the demoness reciprocated.

“Hmph, impressive for a puny human master, but what is this one’s significance?” Bass’ tone was so haughty and arrogant it nearly made me cringe, she sure knew how to belittle someone. But why would she find Elise impressive?.. No offence to her. ‘Analyze’

Name: Elise PelletierStatus: HeightenedTier: 13Level: 31Profession: ConsortAge: 23VIT: 39 (+200)END: 24 (+200)Health: 980 (Regen disabled)STR: 31 (+200)AGI: 58 (+200)Physical Capacity: High, AlteredINT: 214 (+300)WIS: 15Magical Capacity: 7.71MtSPI: 9Mana: 51526/52900 (Regen: 900/s)^Maximum values calculated at dangerous levels to individualSkillsProfession bonus: +500 CHR, +100 INT, passive increase to beauty.Body Enhancement (Mana induced): +200 VIT, +200 END, +200 STR, +200 AGI, +200 INT.

Wow! Not bad at all, she even has a skill like my [Extreme Body Enhancement] though a bit weaker… Oh, that was probably my doing… I don’t know if I unlocked her mage potential for her or not, but she is already fairly powerful in that area!

I had assumed before when analyzing the police force that I couldn’t see if they had skills or not, but Elise’s status changes that. Skills must just be extremely rare, not even that special agent had one. Besides the one I gave her, she has another from her profession, consort… Consort to who?! That two timing bitch!

Analyzation'Consort', Consort to Joseph Ashton. Duh, dumbass, you are technically nobility.

I knew she wouldn’t cheat on me… Wait, are we even an official thing yet? I assumed so and so did the System looks like.

I interrupt their war of words and stares “Let’s leave the getting acquainted for later, this is my demoness slave, her nickname is Bass.” They’re cheeks both tinged red upon the first half of my sentence, though I think they misunderstood me… A happy misunderstanding, I’m sure.

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Recovering from the bout of embarrassment, Elise pouts at me “You find a demoness that looks like Albedo, make her your slave and name her after a damn fish!? The hell happened after you sent me away? THANKS FOR THAT BY THE WAY!! Do you know how weird that was for me?? And some of those policemen were real assholes, I had to deal with so much shit-”

“Will you relax? It all worked out and I sent you away for your own safety. I don’t know if you remember that big guy attacking us, but that was Bass and we had a somewhat epic battle. Anyways I have a lot on my mind right now and I really just need to go build a huge underground base and start a little project I’ve been thinking of.” Everything I was saying went over as well as one would expect, until we got to the last part. My girls had very different reactions, Elise looking very surprised and Bass looking very excited. Of course I did not fail to notice that Elise must have watched Overlord. This must be looked into later.

“When do we start? I can’t wait to see my Lord’s magnificent lair.” Bass spoke with reverence and reverted to a more formal tone as she sometimes does. Elise’s face spoke volumes of her dissatisfaction with a beautiful demon revering me as her Master. However she didn’t say anything about it, and looked like she was thinking of ways to outshine her competition.

I’ll let her mind stew on it for a little while, hehehe. “Ahem, alright girls let’s get going. I’m thinking someplace secluded, how about Antarctica?” (Joe)

“Of course he needs a lair in Antarctica, this guy is drunk on power and going full super villain… Yeah I don’t see why not.” Elise tried to mumble to herself but I easily heard her, and she must have known I would be able to… Try as I might I can’t figure out why she would say that out loud, or what her end goal was. That calculating look is telling me she is more than she seems.

Bass can tell through our contract’s selective telepathic link that I am a bit apathetic to mostly everything, and probably assumed I was a super villain already. Thus Elise’s words she also heard had no meaningful impact on her.

Unceremoniously I wrapped us all up my mana and focused on rematerializing the three of us in Antarctica. I knew it was to our north, it was far away and just a white expanse. Having only ever seen pictures of the place I used this rough guide and hoped for the best.

COLD! COLD COLD COLD! Okay it’s actually not that bad, the temperature difference is just shocking. Compared to my companions my reaction was incredibly subdued. Where I just shivered, they both fell to the ground hugging themselves. Unexpectedly Bass was the one who looked to be in more pain. Though I suppose she does have the title [From the Flames].

I wrapped them up in warmth, probably using mana but it was just a natural thought and feeling for me. All around us was an endless sea of white. The snow beneath us was harsh and unforgiving and the air felt like a blade in the lungs. Elise was the first to comment.

“Y-You d-d-dick… You c-could h-haf done t-that first..” Her teeth chattered and her pronunciation was bad, though I guess she can’t be blamed as she was still warming up. Whoops, probably could have. I made a mental note.

Bass was much quicker to recover, and refused to do such an embarrassing thing as chatter her teeth or comment on the scenery. “Master, that magic you use is quite strange. I don’t sense any pattern at all, ofcourseIamnotquestioningyourmightymagic as I must just not be able to comprehend its complexity.” (Don’t hit me face)

Something was telling me once again that honesty is the key here. “Well how do you use magic? I just kind of throw around mana with a goal in mind.”

Her eyes popped out of her head, and we proceeded to have a lengthy conversation about our magics.

According to Bass she’s never seen anyone do anything like what I do with my mana. Other people have to chant or use magic formations to give their mana a will, whereas I can just use a lot of it to get the point across… Bass herself being a demon has natural demonic affinities, and a talent in runic magic. The tattoos swirling on her body allow her to do the things she does.

“Hey, that’s great for you two, but let’s just do what we came here to okay?!” Seems Elise got a bit fed up listening to us.

“Don’t be jealous babe, she’s just a slave after all.” (Casual Pimp Joe) This caused Bass to let out a little ‘Muu’ but visibly cheered up Elise.

“Then without further ado” I spread my arms wide, “Let’s get base building!”

Rapidly releasing 1.5 million mana into the air with the goal of construction… Was explosive. A door opened in front of us, looking like a little igloo, which only contained stairs moving down at a 45 degree angle.

“Stairs?!” Elise started groaning and complaining, but I paid her no mind.

The construction of the stairs was easy, the inside of the base however was taking all of my concentration. At 1km below the cold barren surface a luxurious hotel with 2 rooms was taking form. After a quick 2km walk down some stairs another door opens into a giant spacious room, carved right out of the earth. This spacious room was one of two, and was the general living area. Though it lacked any form of furnishings at the moment, I could easily see a big couch near one of the corners with a giant T.V. to match. Maybe some consoles, virtual reality headsets, super computers… I CAN SEE IT NOW!

But with ‘only’ 1.5 million mana to work with for the moment, I held off and just focused on carving the earth out to my specifications. After walking along the spacious room’s path down the middle, and through an intricate looking arc made of shiny polished rocks, we arrive at the ‘Master’ bedroom. For now it literally just has a huge bed with no sheets in an empty cubic room. The square footage of the whole place discounting the stairs was probably around 5500. Not bad, not bad.

In ignorance to Elise’s pleas, I decided we shall walk down the stairs at a nice slow pace. This was so I could have time to recover my mana, but Elise must have thought I was trying to torture her. She has a weirdly strong dislike of stairs…

--A long and complaint filled walk later--

Now with the underground lair complete and a full tank of mana, of course it’s time to… GET EVEN STRONGER!!! BAHAHAHAHAH!

“Alright, sorry ladies but I’m going to need some alone time now. You guys can just hang out in here, get to know eachother and such…” Oh shit they are going to have nothing in common, wow that will be awkward. I mentally apologized to Lise, but I had some big ambitions and they were not going to be useful in achieving them. I made them a couch to sit on together at least though. No, I couldn’t be bothered to give them something to entertain themselves with, sue me.

I’ve been thinking about this for a while now, I have so much mana that I throw it around in the 100’s of thousands with reckless abandon. This allowed me to make broken skills, but while amazing they are also wasteful. If I can achieve the same broken effects with less mana, my skill set will become many times more combat feasible in a conflict I can’t resolve after a few moves.

However since I have no magic teacher, I’m just going to make it up as I go along. As my man Waldo once said “Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.” I have a feeling that I’m going to get a ton of notifications, so I’ll ignore those for now.

First I have to get a good look at what I’m working with. I find a suitable corner of the cave and turn it into a lab so sterile and contained that even the world’s best scientists would be jealous. I shape it like a sphere with a 10m radius around myself in the center, the material I use is mana repellant and once I am fully enclosed by it the mana density in the room becomes manyfold stronger. This makes the construction of a platform of an entirely different material much easier. The goal I had in mind when telling my mana the material was ‘Something that won’t get in the way of energy, but also won’t divert it from its path. No idea what that will be.

The platform goes across the spherical rooms center all the way across, with sealed exits to the cave at either ends. There are no railings, and the sides flair out as they touch the wall and connect seamlessly.

I had started to get a weird feeling in the middle of building, and it only grew in intensity as I went along. I fell to my knees in the center of my new room. “Cough, aghh, Cough ughhh.” My vision swam and my stomach felt like emptying. I used almost all of my mana, with a measly 500 left out of nearly 1.65 million. My regen however brings me back up to the amount an average human has in total in a handful of seconds.

“Noo, this is a good thingg, it gave me a great idea on how to do the next part.” I guess I’m talking to myself now, but I am a bit delirious at the moment. I focused on trying to cause something like a reverse mana explosion- “AGH!” All of the sudden I feel a bit more mana leaving me to do my bidding and it leaves me feeling even worse than before… I am an idiot, why did I think that would work when I don’t even have enough energy to make it happen.

I sat my ass down on the uncomfortable material of the catwalk and began ‘meditating’.

I close my eyes and clear my mind, only allowing meditation.exe to remain running.

Mana………………………………..…Mana………………………………………………………………. Come to me…………………………………. you bitch……………………… Get inside my tummy…………………………………………I’m gonna eat your ass up…………………………………………………………………Ooh it’s working!.................................Whoa chill mana…………………………………………I’m still here……………………………………………………..Nah girl I wouldn’t do you like that……………………………………… No, baby, come back………………………………………………..BABY!!!

I snapped out of my meditative state in a panic, wondering why she would abandon me… Before quickly realizing I have already drained my room, and being sealed off it has no way to replenish itself. I have some kind of womanizing complex don’t I…

This whole room gave me 180 thousand mana. I have no idea if that’s how much I used for the platform and finishing touches, or even how much was in the ambient air before. I’ll abandon that train of thought for now.

But this is exactly what I wanted anyways, my natural regen will do me fine for now. With my goal of completely voiding the room of mana complete, it was time for phase 2 of my project for getting stronger. I didn’t want any mana in the air messing with my results as I perform experiments.

I already understand that my mana can follow my will, so by that logic if I have a set of guidelines already in place the possibilities are endless. Essentially I plan to create a programming language my mana will know how to read, and create giant 3D ‘magic’ formations in this room. Using the English language as my base, I assign all 26 letters their own 3 dimensional shape. Starting with A being a normal 6 sided cube, to Z being a 31 sided triacontakaihenagon. I had to google all of my shapes names.

With my magical language complete, I just need a way to bring it to life and then power the sentences to force the world’s energy to carry out my request. I’m not sure yet if I will have to continuously power it to keep my effect active or if it will be self-sustaining.

I figure the best material to make my formations out of will be mana, extremely thin wires of it to be exact. Using this method I drew the formation for ‘Flame’ and just in case it’s overpowered I also drew ‘Do not harm your creator’, which hopefully works…

The shapes all wrap around a little revolving core of much denser mana. Now in front of me I have a jumbled mess of wire. I need to find a way to power all of my words and continue powering them continuously…

-Hours of tinkering later-

“MOTHERFUCKIN EUREKAAAAA!!!” Drunk on joy I yelled the phrase I had been thinking of since I started actually struggling to figure something out. It was all about the rpms!

My formation took on a beautiful quality after many iterations and successes in disguise (failures). The outer layer consists of two spinning bands that encase my ‘words’ into a spherical ball. While the bands are in motion it looks ghostly and ominous, like it contains unlimited power. The dense mana ball I had put in the center to look cool at first turned out to actually be useful in the end. It’s a bit complicated to explain how it works… But try to imagine something like an electromagnetic field made of mana being projected within the entire area of itself, then being reversed back through my formations by the little ball. I can compound the effect at this stage by adding a burst of energy, allowing me to essentially charge up spells exponentially. Though this takes a lot of mana, and even without using the compound effect, these formations are incredibly useful.

I found out earlier it doesn’t matter if you ask it not to burn you… And that I shouldn’t write anything dramatic. I had tried ‘All consuming flame’, and I was even using a different iteration of my formations which used a shell of spinning bands instead of just 2. It ran me dry before I could burn a hole in the fabric of space.. Good thing I hadn’t been on a full tank. Once again I tried the formation of plain old ‘Flame’.

The whole design was as big as my head and obediently stayed in place in the air, having no concept of gravity. I moved it 5 meters away from my face and sent a stream of mana to get it started. A few hundred mana is all I will be using at first. The bands begin their hectic rotations and fade from sight. And in their place a flame comes roaring to life! It is as big as the formation was (it was designed with this amount of mana in mind), and a faint pulsing can be seen coming from the center. Though the fire is fairly spherical in shape, the flames licking off of its sides and top are reaching for the skies. This flame is feeding itself with mana and oxygen, since I did not specify in its instructions to purely use mana. It’s more efficient this way.

Now to test the charging ability… Timing a release of my mana with another pulse, the fire easily doubles in size. However it does not take double the mana, more like 1.1 times more and it is now self-sustaining on top of that… This magic is broken, I can’t wait to see what happens when I try it outside the lab.

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:D Random bout of inspiration haha, let me know how you`d like to see the girls POV`s (Their own chapters, squeezed in or somewhere in between).

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