11 - Tests

“No! NO! Don’t take it away, please… please…”

Fenrir woke up, finding himself covered in sweat and with tears in his eyes. Beside him was an alarmed Lunora, who had barely just woken up herself, but was already patting his head and caressing his face to try and calm him. He looked at her and felt his mind relax already, every bad thought and dream slowly melt and dissipate into nothing. After enjoying their ‘morning routine’, they headed down to have breakfast, and then slowly made their way towards the bridge. The last few days had been rather productive for them both: Luna had learned a lot about human culture and history in the other world, using the chair’s interface. She found it much more interesting than learning about the ship itself, and the knowledge she had obtained earlier seemed to be enough for her. The captain, on the other hand, had fiddled with magic and repaired most of the main systems and was dedicated to restoring as much of the ship as possible. Of course, without extensive repairs, the ship would never fly again.

Suddenly the constant hum of the shields ceased. The reactor diminished its energy output, and the computer dismissed the red alert status in favor of a more energy friendly idleness. The firestorm outside had disappeared into nothing, leaving behind a desolate landscape of blacks, grays and red. The ground was glassy obsidian, the trees were chunks of black carbon, and everything else was gone from the face of this earth. All around, in every crevasse and depression, lava flowed like from a volcano. From his vantage point on the bridge he could now see as far as the small hill that separated him from the former elven village. There were some minuscule patches of green that had survived there, hidden away in crevices and chasms in the rock. But everything else was fire and scorching heat.

He activated his interface to check the progress on his mission. He had decided to keep it deactivated and not have it around all the time, as it was fairly distracting and at times even annoying. He didn’t want a message to pop up while he was repairing a critical ship system, or while he was enjoying some alone time with his girl.

Mission: survive the firestorm [Day 5 / 5] [Completed.] [Issuring reward.] Reward: Feature: mana-energy conversion.

He smiled as he felt the new feature unlock something inside of himself. He wasn’t sure what exactly, but it was as if he could now feel the energy all around him, in the ship’s conduits, in the air and in his body. It was much clearer than before, much more detailed and a lot more in quantity.

“Hey.” said the elf, as she joined him on the deck. They had managed to straighten the ship, and were no longer risking their necks just to get to the window.

“Hey.” He replied softly.

“So this is all that’s left?” she asked, pointing at the desolation outside. Several charcoal trees were still on fire, and the lava streams were constantly producing a foul looking yellow smoke.

“I’m not sure. It’s like this as far as my scans can go.” He consulted the map, just in case. Suddenly, as he thought about it, the ship sent a powered pulse to scan the surrounding fifty miles. The captain was momentarily taken aback by the sudden fact. He knew the ship’s scans could update his map, but had no idea he could order the ship to perform one just by thinking. It was as if his system had integrated with his ship somehow.

He examined the new, bigger portion of the map. It was a circle fifty miles in radius, centered on his position, and surrounded by black all around, since it covered all the land he had explored already and then some.

“I can see the edge of the destruction. It seems the beam turned all the land to lava in a 35 miles radius. It means we’re roughly 15 miles from the border.” he said. Then he remembered he could pull up a ship interface to show her and did so. The holographic view was very similar to his own map, almost identical even. Compared to the other ship interfaces, it was different than how it was supposed to be. Perhaps the system not only integrated, but even overwrote some of the computer systems of the ship. The master AI was still there, fortunately.

Lunora looked at the map, barely holding back the tears. Fenrir felt the surge of emotions, but did not try to suppress it. He simply made her understand that he was there with her, and if she wanted a shoulder to cry in, he was here. After a few minutes, she raised her head.

“What do we do now?” she asked.

“Isn’t it obvious? I’m gonna find the bastard responsible for this, and I’m gonna massacre him.” he replied. His eyes glowed dangerously for the briefest of times before returning to their original color. This time he managed to keep his anger in check.

***

He was standing at the edge of the shielded area. The contrast was stark: in one point there was lush grass, the air was cool and moist and a pleasant breeze was blowing. A few centimeters ahead, outside of the shield, it was hell. The air was noxious, the temperature oppressing and the ground was almost to the point of melting. The captain could feel the residual magic particles as a sort of mist that hovered above the area, preventing the ground from cooling down.

[Passo ghiacciato] Said Fenrir. He took a step forward, and the red hot obsidian beneath his foot cracked and sizzled until a small slab of ice formed on its surface. The entire process took more than a minute.

“Not bad, this time it was twice as fast, and less than half as costly. I had no idea language could be so important.” he said. The notification confirmed his train of thought.

New chant registered for [Frozen step] 2 Skill identification changed to most efficient chanting method: [Passo ghiacciato] 2 Efficiency 2.2x, cost 0.446x [Passo ghiacciato] 2 -> 3

“What language was that?” asked a curious Lunora.

“It was Italian. I’m pretty sure Latin or Greek would be even better but, well, they are quite difficult.”

“And it worked better? I’ve never heard of magic doing that.”

“Why not? Do you not have your chants in High Elvish?” he retorted.

“Yes, because it’s a nobler language and lets us express our mental images better.”

“Well, this is the same. English ain’t noble. Italian is! A lingua romanza is much better than this awful mix known as english. Furthermore, I have no idea whether what I perceive as English is actually that or another language. Since you can understand me, I think someone overwrote it with some kind of universal language of this world.”

She frowned, but seemed to understand. Fenrir examined himself, and since he still had more than half of his mana available, he decided to keep playing around in order to find a suitable way out of this fiery inferno.

By the end of the day, his power had grown considerably.

Fenrir [Level: 6] Magic affinity: [E] Unique skills: Transcendent; System Version 1.1.0, Magic conversion, Mana-energy conversion Active Skills: Pulse scan 3, Spirit arrow 5 (elemental modifiers: fire 4, lightning 8, darkness 2, light 2), Seduction 5, Passo ghiacciato (frozen step) 3 Passive Skills: Endurance 8, Strength 5, Genetic augment (body) 3, Strategic map 2, Fusion energy expert 1, Charm resistance 7

***

“It’s time.” he said. He put a waypoint in his minimap, threw his backpack over his shoulder and walked towards the edge of the protected area.

Lunora was training with her bow made of solid mana, shooting ethereal arrows at a metal target nailed onto the ship’s hull. There were a few arrows lodged deep in the metal. Apparently, they were powerful enough to pierce a hull made to withstand outer space. The captain raised his eyebrows and tried not to think about the damage that was being done to his poor ship.

“Don’t be late for dinner!” She said, grinning. God knew what she had in mind. Well, it wasn’t like Fenrir wasn’t actually looking forward to it.

“Don’t worry, my mana will run out much earlier than that.” he replied, and took a minute to look at her train. He was sure he’d never grow tired of her. After a while, he began to wonder. How strong was she supposed to be? By his understanding, he was the only one with access to a level system and such, but it wasn’t like other people could not grow more powerful with time. He focused his eyes on her, and tried to use his mana to analyze her.

New skill: Inspect 1 created. No chant set, no keyword set. Identification set to default.

Nice, he was pleased by the speed he acquired such a skill. Was it because the system probably considered it a beginner skill? The other one, frozen step, had not been so easy to create. It took him the greater part of a day just to come to terms with how the mana was supposed to move, let alone formulate the magic. Luckily, after the first use the system took care of invoking and organising the mana movement whenever Fenrir casted the spell. Otherwise magic would be an impossible hurdle to use. He wondered for a moment how skills could grow in level, increasing their power and efficiency. He was pretty sure the system took inputs from his brain, ways he thought he could improve the magic, and incorporated them into the skill. But how could it do that? And why?

He refocused on the present, and used the skill on the elf.

Lunora [Level: ???] Magic affinity: [A] ???

It was not much, but enough to understand that right now, she was much more powerful than him. She did not show it, and since she never used her full power he had no idea just how much of it she had. But he had no doubt it was a lot.

Finally, he decided it was time. He would have loved to spend the whole day looking at the woman he loved, but he had to scout the area and test a few possible ways to get out of this hell.

“[Passo ghiacciato] (Frozen step)” The ground began to harden and cool down under his feet. This time, the process was over in less than ten seconds. He began to walk forward, one step after the other, as fast as his magic could keep up. He could feel the speed of the effect increasing by a tiny bit with each step, as the skill improved itself and became more refined. Once he even tried to inspect the flow of mana personally and improved it, causing the skill to immediately gain a level. But it was not easy. His understanding of science, which was one of his strengths, was now playing against him. He had a hard time accepting what was happening as something normal, and he soon learned that doubt was the greatest enemy of a magic user. Every time his brain decided it was too much, the skill weakened, and he could feel the system desperately trying to keep up the flow of mana and prevent it from going haywire. Had he not had that to help him, he could have died from the backlash. He grunted, and took another step forward.

He steadied his resolve, cleared his mind. It was alright to doubt things, but right now he had the proof that magic was indeed real. It really worked, and its effects were right here for him to see. And he could replicate them, easily even. Was it not the fundamental principle of the scientific method? It was just a matter of accepting a new paradigm and welcoming it, instead of fighting it.

“Okay. I’ve been playing with toys so far. Now it’s time to see if I can make real magic work.” He said, while standing on top of a small hill. He had been walking in the direction of the edge of the molten zone for an hour, but he had covered less than a mile.

He took out a small cylinder from his backpack: it was filled to the brim with fusion energy directly from the core of his starship.

“Activate mana-energy conversion.” The system complied, and merged his mana pool with the energy that was inside the fuel cell. He instantly felt a huge amount of power, his fingertips tingling as if wanting to unleash it.

“[Dominio del freddo] (Cold domain)” He said, and drew every last joule of energy out of the fuel cell. By comparison, that cell had enough juice in it to blow up entire mountains, and yet it barely had an effect on the environment here. Fenrir got a new skill, but he was not very happy with the results. Too much leftover particles in the area, he concluded. For now at least, there was no way to get rid of the lava and the heat.