Another week had passed in the desert. Jack was spending a lot of time reading and exercising, training himself in close quarters combat with occasionally survived demon, while the rest of his day would be spent on practicing magic until his mana reserves were mostly depleted, shaping mana into various forms and dismantling them, as per instructions in 'Spellcasting 101'. He also had finished it by the end of the week, forcing him to buy another book on the magic, this time, it turned to be a children book in disguise, or a book for somewhat disabled spellcasters.

'Elemental Magic and You' introduced him to the 'mixing' of affinities, how each affinity 'mixed' with another, and what these affinities represented. Much to his surprise, the light and darkness both had an illusion subcategory, though it was explained briefly and with a lot of unnecessary details. But that's something one would expect of children's book. He also learned that it was possible to increase one's affinity by training, but he didn't think it was for him. He already grinded the hell out of demons, bringing his Agility, Dexterity and Perception to 100, with Strength, Constitution and vitality finally being upped to 40.

As to his gear, Jack failed to fix the grenade launcher. It sustained more damage than he initially thought, forcing Jack to manually remove all the grenades from the ammo compartment, leaving the hunk of metal on the shoulder. The armor was balanced with it in mind, not to mention that removing the grenade launcher and attaching a generic shoulderpad would require access to the power armor workshop, which he didn't have access to at the moment.

Of course, after a week of fighting demons, Jack managed to acquire almost 120K of system credits, after combining them with the previous funds and deducting the cost of ammo and explosives. And most of these credits were spent on purchasing new traits and abilities.

Durable

1'500 SC

Further increases the toughness of skin and bones, as well as increasing density of muscles.

Health increases by 100%, Pain resistance is increased by 25%

Replaces Tough

Requirements:

Tough

Lesser Regeneration

500 SC

You regenerate wounds at a slightly increased rate and it's easier to mend bones. Only deep wounds leave scars from now on.

Regeneration

1'500 SC

You regenerate wounds much faster, and bones don't need to be forced back in place in order to heal. No scars will remain unless the wound was life threatening. Can mend heavily damaged limbs without long lasting negative consequences.

Replaces Lesser Regeneration.

Requirements:

Lesser Regeneration

Greater Attributes

15'000 SC

Increases the power of one's attributes by 50%.

Greater Regeneration

5'000 SC

You are now able to regenerate lost limbs, however it will take a lot of time to do so. Still, it is advised to keep your innards 'in'.

Replaces Regeneration.

Requirements:

Regeneration, Greater Attributes

Elemental Possession

5'000 SC

Become one with the element of your choosing. The affinity will be risen by 200% and the cost of spells will be 25% of their initial cost. However other affinities are divided by four for the duration of the possession. You also won't be able to combine affinities while the effect is active.

It is possible to use multiple affinities, but the bonuses will be reduced for each affinity added. At most half of the unlocked primary affinities can be used during Elemental Possession.

Requirements:

Two primary affinities unlocked.

Omnikinesis

80'000 SC

This is the collection of kinesis abilities, ranging from the simple pyro, cryo and tele, to some rare like umbra, photo or psycho kinesis. Be warned that just being able to use any type of kinesis doesn't mean it's safe. You now also can use multiple kinesis types simultaneously.

Requirements:

Esper

Initially, he wasn't sure about purchasing any of them, they seemed to be a waste of money, especially Omnikinesis, but after finding out that he could utilize it in his armor for minimal mana cost, and delivering grenades inside demon ranks, he found using it more than he expected to. Still, his new character sheet was getting better everyday and soon he might even be able to kill demons without support of his power armor.

Name:

Jack

Delgado

Race:

Homunculus

Class:

None

Titles:

Inquisitor

UP: 0

SC: 11'488

ST: 0

Level:

0/10

HP:

3'000/3'000

MP:

2'407/2'407

Traits

Stubborn, Durable, Esper, Greater Regeneration

Abilities

Grimoire, Soul Siphon, Conversion, Inventory, Auto-Map, Elemental Possession, Omnikinesis

Bloodlines

Primary: Human; Secondary: None; Tertiary: None;

Greater Strength

40

Greater Constitution

40

Greater Vitality

40

Greater Agility

100

Greater Dexterity

100

Greater Perception

100

Greater Focus

50

Greater Willpower

71

Greater Attunement

50

Charisma

20

Psyche

20

Luck

100

Fire

Water

Earth

Air

Light

Darkness

Life

Death

15

10

10

10

5

25

5

15

Summoning

Time

Void

Space

Soul

0

0

0

0

5

And while at the moment Jack was still considered relatively weak, at least by his standards, his health was already at the top of what a human with fully maxed attributes would have. Not to mention the fact he could regenerate his limbs akin to lizard, though he was apprehensive of trying.

Regardless, he now had extra 50% mana capacity, which he was using to get better hang on the spells, or, to be precise, mana manipulation. According to 'Spellcasting 101', mana manipulation was required to 'shape' mana into spells, with own will, or by employing magical formations, which more often than not, could be found in circle forms, which gave birth the the common misconceptions about magic users utilizing magic circles. The more complex the spell was however, the more 'circles' one required to utilize, ending with a sphere for the 'end' tier spells.

Unfortunately, Jack only knew one such array, which was located in his , the [Dark Tendril] spell, which came with it's own magical circle, Jack tried to modify, once. The result was the same [Tendril] but of water element instead of darkness one, and drastically increased mana cost.

But the shaping technique was a bit more straightforward. It mainly relied on molding the mana of a desired element and then utilizing the resulting shape offensively. Or mold the mana and element for the purpose of utility, as he learned with the hardened ashen colored sand chair. It was very crude at the first few attempts, but after gaining , Jack managed to create a more robust and refined chair at a fraction of the cost, even if it was 70% of the original, he still considered it a fraction.

Regarding , Jack discovered that he could use it regardless of the mana manipulation, and more often than not, he was able to mold surrounding mana instead of using his own with Mana Manipulation, though he only theorized it, as there was no way to confirm that, aside from the higher amount of molded mana for the fraction of a price, in this particular case it was about 10% for raw mana, and 40-50% for elemental mana.

This in turn, led him to a discovery of various states of mana, though not without an input from the 'Elemental Magic and You', particularly, the topic on water mana. Mana, in general, was gaseous. It could be even said that the mana was in the air, or mixed with air, and when he meditated, he would harness the gases from the surroundings, and filter mana from them, before expelling his mana lacking breath, if his mana reserves weren't filled.

Unfortunately, the mana didn't behave in the 'logical' pattern, and it took Jack some time to figure out how to turn it into liquid. It turned out to be as easy as willing it to become a liquid, but then there was an issue with storing the resulting mana. Whenever it contacted a living tissue, the tissue will rapidly absorb the mana, unless one had topped off mana reserves, and upon contact with metal, the said metal would slowly absorb the mana, which might, or might not, provided his canteen with magical properties.

The liquid mana also, for some reason or another, would make plastic quickly deteriorate, turning it into a mana 'ooze', which would then absorb surrounding mana until it eventually burst, staining the surroundings with liquid mana, which would quickly evaporate, unless it was placed inside a metallic or glass container.

Saying all of that, Jack actually disliked magic in this simulation. Despite the interesting research he conducted, it just wasn't feasible with his current mana reserves, not to mention the limits of his spells. His guns outperformed any spells he could currently use, be it rate of fire, firepower or cost efficiency, the latter was due to the fact his magic couldn't kill even a single disabled demon, but it could distract them for a few seconds at the very least.

Jack was thrown out of his thoughts by being literally thrown up in the air, by an unknown force. It was commendable if he were to be honest, as the amount of effort one would need to exert to lift almost six hundred kilos were to be tremendous, and to throw this mass in the air, even more so. But when Jack looked down to see what it was, he had little to no doubt that in case of THAT thing, this amount of effort might be actually quite negligeble, before being swallowed whole, by the massive sand dwelling creature, as his consciousness faded.

*

Jack was surprised that he was still alive after being swallowed by a sandworm, which looked to be from a work of fiction, a game or a movie most likely, with it's name eluding him. Much to the annoyance of Jack, his optical sensors were damaged by something, most likely during the swallowing process, and there were low to none amount of oxygen intake, forcing Jack to rely on the emergency supply, which would last him for a few minutes. His situation was bad, not dire just yet.

Thinking to himself, Jack opened the shop and quickly scrolled over to the oxygen tanks, but then discarded the idea. Moving his armor was also near to impossible, as it seemed that the worm had a high internal pressure, and he no longer could feel his right arm, as it was crushed under the metal. Sighing, Jack opted to try and use on the worm from the inside, but it proved to be impossible.

Siphon requires direct skin contact to work.

Which was understandable. On the other hand, it looked like the tutorial was messing with him, a lot. Sighing, Jack noted that his power armor screen flashed.

>>>WARNING<<<

Power core damaged. Self Destruct initiated.

Jack rolled his eyes. Of course he would be forced out of his power armor by some stupid script. It did took long enough for the people running this simulation to come up with something, meaning he would soon won't be able to use his weapons and... he shrugged. It didn't matter if he were dead now, was it?

Opening his inventory, Jack coverted his initial power core, Bringing his credits up by 20'000, followed by purchasing three Auto-Map extensions.

Sonar

5'000 SC

Spice up your mapping abilities by adding sonar to it. Allows you to survey larger areas and in more detail.

Requirements:

Auto-Map

Map Scanner

Auto-Map

1'500 SC

Bored of surveying local area all by yourself? Do you have an old map somewhere? Or digital one? With this brand new Map Scanner you can just copy someone's map into your database!

You can also store books in System.

Requirements:

Auto-Map

Long Range Teleportation

5'000 SC

Tired of travelling by the mundane means? Then don't! Teleport to any place you want, as long as you have enough mana for it.

Requirements:

Auto-Map, Space affinity

Total Costs: 11'500 SC

He quickly downloaded the map he had of the Earth, just in case the second part would drop him somewhere there, it was more of a precaution. He groaned as he felt a sudden jolt of pain in his right elbow, feeling as if his skin started melting, and looked through the map he had. He only had one chance of escaping the worm, and so he activated his sonar, unveiling the map of surrounding areas, and without thinking much about it, placed a marker on the closest surface area, and activated , as the timer on the screen was at 4 seconds.

Jack felt weak. Way too weak, and nauseous. His head was splitting, his left arm was shattered, and when he looked at his right arm, he saw only a stump below the elbow, not even bone remained. Then the ground shook, and a massive chocolate brown worm, emerged from the ground. Or part of it, leaking purple ooze from it's torn body. Jack didn't even bother joking about the monster, as he grabbed a stimpack from his inventory, and applied it to his neck.

It seemed to work, and in two mintues, the head splitting migraine became slightly more tolerable, causing the rest of his body flaring up with pain.

“Not dead yet...” Jack said gritting his teeth. “Fuck... whoever made this simulation sure were sadists. Is it even legal?” Jack asked looking at his very well detailed bones and muscles slowly growing from his stump. “Hah... quite detailed.” Jack said jokingly, as he got up from his position and looked at the worm's part. “You... You better be worth something... wait... why didn't I explode?” Jack asked looking over himself, noticing that for the first time, he was naked, with his surprisingly intact junk dangling for all the desert to see. “Sure... now I lost my power armor. Visor as well, I reckon. Fuck.” Jack sat in the sound and looked into the purple sun, before averting his eyes. “Still don't get the glare from looking at that star. For fuck's sake, this simulation would be fucking realistic if not for that feature.” Jack grumbled and opened his status screen.

Name:

Jack

Delgado

Race:

Homunculus

Class:

None

Titles:

Inquisitor

UP: 577

SC: 19'988

ST: 2

Level:

0/10

HP:

711/3'000

MP:

-56/2'407

Traits

Undying, Durable, Esper, Greater Regeneration

Abilities

Grimoire, Soul Siphon, Conversion, Inventory, Auto-Map, Elemental Possession, Omnikinesis

Bloodlines

Primary: Human; Secondary: None; Tertiary: None;

Greater Strength

40

Greater Constitution

40

Greater Vitality

40

Greater Agility

100

Greater Dexterity

100

Greater Perception

100

Greater Focus

51

Greater Willpower

72

Greater Attunement

50

Charisma

20

Psyche

20

Luck

100

Fire

Water

Earth

Air

Light

Darkness

Life

Death

15

10

10

10

5

25

5

15

Summoning

Time

Void

Space

Soul

0

0

0

0

5

“... negative amount of mana?” Jack wondered out loud, ignoring the amount of points he now had at his disposal. “You're shitting me. What the actual fuck?! Hey, don't you need to, you know... sigh. No wonder my head is killing me.”

Jack dropped down into the sand, not bothering to get up and fell into a slumber.

*

“Wake the fuck up Chief!” Jack opened his eyes, feeling numb. “Orders!”

“The fuck should I-”

“Establish defensive barrier, let none pass through.” Jack heard himself saying, as one of the grunts asked for orders. It was... surreal to say the least. “Reactor status?”

“At 145% sir!” he heard a voice of a newbie engineer, Raynolds, answering. He knew that man, he was the one who was going to be assigned to either Beholders or Troglodytes after the mission was over, maybe even Wolves, seeing that the man wasn't good with warfare. “This is a fucking suicide sir!”

“ETA on the sub?”

“Ten minutes. We're fucking dead-”

“This is a Leuchtstab class reactor. They will enter a meltdown after reaching 150% output, and it will go on for half an hour, rookie. Enough time to get the fuck out.”

“But-”

“If we fail, it will bring demons down with us. If we don't, then demons are screwed and I am getting the title of Demon Slayer.” Jack chuckled remembering the conversation, as everything went black.

Jack looked confused, opening his eyes. He was naked, laying in the sand, with a massive worm to the side, that would be towering over the Androseus class battleship.

“Huh... so... did I finish tutorial?” Jack asked coming over the worm, with his schlong feeling slight breeze on it's tender skin. “Seriously. I fucking killed a giant worm.” sighing, Jack put his hand on the creature. “Well, whatever.” Jack looked at the worm and felt himself salivating.

Feats performed

Giant Slayer

Slay a collossal creature using any means necessary.

Naked Brutality

Slay a creature 50+ levels higher than you while being naked.

Titles acquired

Berserker

The lower your health the stronger you become. As long as the title is active you gain a bonus of 1% to strength and agility for every 1% of health missing.

Traits gained

Undying

Nothing can bring you down. Enter critical state upon hitting 0% with your health or mana pool. Getting below -15% health will kill you, while dropping below -15% mana will knock you unconscious.

“Huh... neat. That's why I have two tokens all of a sudden? Or points?” Jack wondered as he placed the hand on the worm and converted a part of it's corpse to credits.

Demon (Sandworm) converted

SC gained: 434'596

Jack emitted a low whistle. He just got quite a sum with the killing of the worm, and if he was being so hopeful, another part of it were somewhere in the sand, waiting to be converted. But first, he had to spend some of that hard earned cash on the basic necessities. And to level up his attributes. He had more than enough points to do so.

“On the other hand... I should leave the area ASAP. I dread what amount of radiation there are in the area. Even if I really wanted to snack on the worm's remains... oh shit, I slept in an irradiated area, I am so screwed. Better shop for rad-aways.”