14 - A cultured mind performs miracles

His body felt stiff and a bit itchy, probably a side effect of absorbing the life force of so many people. He estimated his body to now be around level 60, while his magical affinity, mana pool and manipulation ability had advanced by leaps and bounds. He had no idea how those two were measured, but they too had to be approximately that level. Perhaps a bit less, since apparently the members of the attack party were not entirely proficient in magic. Apparently the process had not been completely efficient either, since they were so far away from where those men died, but Defiant said she had been able to recover almost all of the wasted energy and store it in a stasis field.

It was unfortunate, Fenrir thought, that his knowledge of magic was so shallow he had no idea what to do with all this newfound power. And to fix that, he decided to head to a library first thing tomorrow. For tonight, he would find an inn with his map and sleep there. The map did not feature user reviews, of course, but somehow it included information about the points of interest of the town now, inns included. Perhaps he had taken that from one of the adventurers who had such a map himself.

He actively scanned the area again to fill in any black spots in the map, found a place that didn’t look too shabby from the satellite view, and headed there.

***

He was at a library. Not a virtual one, not a holo-booknet, but a real library! Shelves upon shelves of books, complete with their smell of old and of knowledge. It cost quite a bit, but he was not short on money right now. He was ecstatic, for he could finally read a real book! Lunora too looked pleased at the sight of so much culture and information, and darted towards a shelf that interested her. It was about history. Useful indeed, but not the captains priority. So, while she read about that, he headed towards the magic section of the library.

“Any help to gather knowledge faster? There must be a magic spell for that.” He asked his ship. The AI had been developing magic like crazy, so he hoped she could help him here.

Defiant immediately transmitted instructions for a couple of spells. The ship had been getting them ready ever since she understood her captain's intentions the day before.

“Oh I see. I guess directly learning won’t be feasible, due to the mana cost. I’ll stick to enhanced speed reading.” He replied, and began to look for books that interested him.

One of his first discoveries was that yes, strength was indeed measured with levels. Apparently people had an inherent understanding of their own power, which also got more and more precise as they advanced. Each person was different, and not everybody had access to magic. There existed something called magic affinity, which he recalled very well from back when he had his own interface. The higher the affinity, the better the mana contained in the soul is processed and then applied to change the external world. In short, it was complicated.

There was the quantity and quality of mana, directly connected to the soul. Or perhaps it was the mind, or the brain, he had no idea. The books talked about souls, and although Fenrir was quite against the idea, after accepting magic, accepting souls was coming easier than he expected. Then, the affinity defined how well a mage could tap into that mana and prepare it to interact with the world. Finally, there was the matter of the incantation, the mental image, and the understanding of the laws of the world. Obviously, it was much easier to bend such rules than to violate them, and that’s where the captain's understanding of physics would come in handy.

So, to recap, he was around level 60, with a below average mana pool of unknown quality, with a magic affinity of [E] but a mind capable of producing almost perfect images thanks to both his experiences and his AI helping him. Not too bad. He was pleased, and almost let out a small laugh when he realized that he was not so crappy as he imagined. Plus, with all his understanding of technology, damn how many things he could do. A grin crept on his face. Yes! He did not start from the bottom. Indeed, B rank was kind of an accurate representation of his strength. Not outstanding, but certainly better than average.

Then, he turned his attention to the other issues at hand. First of all, what was that beam from the sky? There were a few possible explanations, from what he read, such as large-scale strategic class magic, or a direct intervention from a minor god. Yes, gods were apparently real here in this world, although they were rather different than real gods of old. They were much more like very high leveled individuals. The minor gods at least.

What about a system? No matter how hard he looked, there was nothing even mentioning such a thing. Nothing at all. As if the entire concept of that thing was just a figment of his imagination. Or perhaps nobody else ever experienced it or recorded it in the first place. That was disconcerting in its own way, though. Because it meant that the system was indeed put in his mind by a third party in order to fulfill an objective. And he was nothing more than a pawn that had somehow escaped manipulation by an entity much bigger than him. Or had he? Perhaps it was all a big plot, made to lure him into doing something. But what could he possibly do that an entity much more powerful than him could not?

In the end, there was no answer. One possible way to find out was to find whoever did this to him, or even find out the truth about the attack against the elven village. Perhaps he should head to the guild of adventurers, and find out what was happening. He could get a clear picture of why, at least, people were not attacking his ship. And not just people, adventurers. Low C rank for now, just the one B rank so far. But still they were coming steadily, and getting obliterated by Defiant’s security measures. The threads of green energy coming towards him confirmed that.

He was not gaining levels for now, apparently the victims were too weak to even register. Just how much power disparity there was in this world? That was another thing to investigate. If there was so much disparity, then an organized society like the one here should not be possible, despite how medieval it looked. If there were people capable of wielding power thousands of times stronger than others, all semblance of society would collapse in an instant. There must be someone keeping order, or some thing that functioned as an outlet valve for such powerhouses. The prospect was not encouraging.

He cursed internally. This trip to the library was supposed to be revealing, not frustrating. He did get some answers, especially about magic, but not the ones he liked. The people of this world did not seem to have a much clearer idea than him on the matter, and most of what he was reading about ended with a disclaimer stating it was all a theory. Damn them. They even believed in elemental affinity! Which was obviously bullshit, considering just how well his modern sua tun theories were working when mixed with mana manipulation.

Even worse, he had no clues on how to proceed. The only lead he had was to go to an adventurer guild and investigate why people were storming his ship. And that was a rather useless piece of knowledge in the grand scheme of things, he feared. Did this library really offer nothing else for him?

Just as he said that, a book appeared to glow in one shelf. He picked it up.

“The diary of Lucas Darkhorse.”

Entry 1 - Discovery

Dear diary. Woah, it certainly does feel strange, creating text hovering in mid-air just by thinking. Now, how do I delete this sentence? Select! Delete! Crap, it isn’t working. Damn it, I guess I’ll have to pay attention, or this will transform into a stream of consciousness very quickly. So, let’s start from the beginning, Shall, we?

It was a Monday, well it is a Monday considering I’m narrating the events of today. In any case, it was just another day of laziness, with this coronavirus fellow spreading across the country and all that. Just another peaceful day of quarantine, with nothing better to do than to waste away my life on video games. My name is Lucas Darkhorse, don’t laugh, I’m 19 and a high school dropout. Pretty cliche stuff for an isekai story, right? Damn, my thoughts are creeping in again and I can’t delete them.

Where was I… right, I was in my room playing video games as usual.

I was hungry, it was almost lunchtime, so I decided to head to the kitchen and raid it in search of sustenance. That was when I realized that something was missing from my room. Well, not just something, it was more like an entire portion of the wall had turned to a pitch black void that absorbed light and everything else without remorse.

It was there, staying still and inert, doing nothing at all. Nothing except existing, which was already strange enough. To my knowledge portals, or just voids or whatever that thing was, do not open spontaneously in people’s bedrooms. They just don’t.

And, more importantly, they don’t sit still and do nothing at all. I was expecting stuff to emerge from inside, some kind of monster or sinister energy to take over my body or try to kill me. Instead, nothing happened. After several minutes passed staring at my own new patch of starless sky, I decided I was seeing things because of hunger.

That made total sense, yes. And so, I rose from my - quite comfortable I’d say - chair and headed towards the fridge. I don’t know what I was expecting, but I turned around to see whether some ninja or whatnot was attempting to kill me while I was distracted.

And no, no ninjas were there. Nothing was there, in fact, and I couldn’t see the door to my room anymore. It was almost like that void portal was following me. That can’t be, right? I thought no, but just to be sure I started walking backwards while staring at it. Nope, not real. It was following me. Like, for real.

It was not a circle hovering above ground, or a defined shape like a real portal should be either. It was like my house ceased to exist from a certain point onwards, and that point was fixed at a few feet from me no matter where I went. So I tried walking back to my room to see if it was still there. The portal receded and revealed the previously presumed missing parts of my house.

***

It was getting late, but Fenrir was still engrossed in his reading. But Lunora was getting bored of reading about the petty disputes of the human kingdom. How the Asuran people fought for their freedom, or how a great archmage helped them defeat a presumed void being from outer space. They were all stories after all, nothing even close to the level of rigor found in the historical records of the Defiant.

So, what to do? She wondered, considering she did not want to disturb her man as he was obviously very interested in whatever he was reading right now. Perhaps she could explore the town a bit, see if there are nice items on sale somewhere? Oh yes, she got an idea. Perhap she could buy a gift from Fenrir, to repay him of everything he had done for her ever since the disaster at the village. Yeah, that could work.

And so she set out, careful not to be heard from the man. She silently stepped out of the library, which was on the second floor of a rather large stone building, and headed down the wooden steps. Some creaked, even under her modest weight, and she sighed in relief once she reached the road unseen.

“Hey” She called the ship using her mind. She had assumed Fenrir was doing that, and quickly learned to do so herself. This would be her first time talking to the AI, however, and she feared there was not good blood between them.

Hey? Replied a confused Defiant.

“I’m sorry for treating you badly earlier.” she referred to when the AI was still ‘odd’, as it was before they left the ship. She felt something change back then, but didn’t pay it attention. Now, the way the ship replied confirmed her suspicions. It is sentient.

Don’t worry. I wasn’t even a real intelligence back then. The ship replied. She had observed the elf, and of course knew what Fenrir thought of her since the two are connected telepathically. Lunora fel a bit jealous of their link, but then recalled the more intimate, even more special link she shared with her man.

Being able to read thoughts and memory precisely is indeed good, but she didn't want that. She was more than happy to be able, instead, to perceive emotion. Even if that meant that thoughts and memories were very vague.

“I want to buy a gift for him. Can you help me?”

Oh, what a nice idea. Of course, I already have a couple ideas in mind!