“Shen, if I recall correctly, Problem is a Baptist as well?” Alma asked while they were in his little lair set up in one corner of the designated workshop for the Journeys. He had papers and scrolls out in languages Althea didn't know and jargon she couldn't understand.

Althea grumbled, focusing on her task: inputting the spatial distortion data into Alma’s programs. At least she knew how to do this. It gave Alma time to pursue other things. “Yeah,” she said as her fingers danced over the keyboard, “you know him personally?”

“I knew his master more than him. Personally.” Out of the corner of her eye, Alma fondly smiled to himself. “He was a professor of mine: University of Baghdad. You heard of Zuhail Alzahrani, yes?”

“He’s familiar but I’m not too deep into academics. From what I know, he’s—well, was a celebrity. He made countless advancements into cosmology and innovated the appraisal magic system. I dunno what he did or understand what he did, but he was a big name.”

Alma hummed, rapping a pen against a few scrolls. “Yes, I suppose his accomplishments are so astronomical—forgive me for the pun—that his name has entered the mainstream. Which makes his sudden disappearance all the more tragic. Researching the Space Beyond is seen as a fool’s errand in cosmology; it’s one of the reasons why I study magick, specifically foundational magick, because there is no foreseeable destination and I happen to enjoy the endless pursuit.

“But I have to give my respect to those people. Of all his students, Alzahrani’s that is, he told me once that Morgan Hoshino was his brightest and most promising, and had the greatest chance of entering the Space Beyond. Though he followed this with, in his own words, 'Adding a one-one-hundredths to a zero is insignificantly monumental.'"

Althea hummed; she always thought the cosmos, and the multiverse in general, was a pretty neat topic but never dug too deep. She feared she might have an existential crisis. Too bad the Disaster gave her a helluva one. Thanks, otherself. “Problem’s doing well for himself, I guess. Other than the being cursed part.”

Alma chuckled and nodded. “Yes, I can’t imagine reverting back to your pubescent form although your intelligence is decades beyond.”

“How did he get cursed anyway? I always wanted to ask him but, y’know, it’s kinda like asking a disabled person how they ended up disabled.”

“I asked him that myself but he said, ‘I was cursed out of idiocy.’ However he was cursed, my respect for him dwarfs my curiosity.”

Althea hummed along and kept typing. According to Alma earlier, some of the spatial distortions seen today and yesterday had been integrated with everyday objects such as bags or even rifles—things that could easily enter high-populated areas. Whichever Comet infused them, either Wonder or Ikeya, was somehow able to assimilate the spiked objects into traffic and remotely activated them. Or at least that was the running theory.

“You know,” Alma raised after a few minutes of diligent work, “you haven’t once complained after I put you to menial tasks.”

“I mean, I can hardly complain when I’m interning under a Journey.” Althea shrugged. “I thought you’d sweat me like a dog or somethin’, I dunno. As long as I’m getting magic training eventually.”

“What magic are you interested in? As I call from your profile, you’re currently using channeling and runecraft.” Alma picked up a sheet of paper which presumably had her profile printed. “Aha, yes. [Channel - Lightning], [Runecraft - Gravity], and your Growth Potential is high as well. You could get a Systemic Works scholarship in most universities if you so desired.”

“Thanks. I got indoctrinated by my brother so anything System-related was off the table. Who knows, I prolly could've bargained down to being a support or an artisan, but look at us now…” She sighed and leaned back in her chair, arms behind her head. What magic am I interested in anyway…?

Throughout the past week, she had experimented with her combat style. Currently she was fighting like a rogue, a trickster. Planting down runes, sneaking around, whipping and stabbing monsters—it was a style that required speed and precision. While she liked her current path, there was something missing. She couldn't achieve her full potential this way.

“If…” she began, thinking out loud, “...if I had to pick a magick system I’m interested in, it’d be something to do with spirits or magical creatures in general.”

“Specifically…?”

“I dunno.” Althea sat up in her chair. “I think it’d be fun having a few spirits as pets. So summoning? I think I would pick summoning.”

Alma let out a long, contemplative hum. “I see. Summoning in itself is a potent system in the right hands but it largely depends on the secondary system you implement.”

“Meaning…?”

“I’m referring to the method of summoning. You can recite incantations to summon your beasts, use rituals, invoke your contracts or use infused objects, teleport them into this world, manifesting them into existence—the possibilities really are endless. To this day, summoners are at each other's throats arguing whose method is superior; in my opinion, little are. Each has their own benefits and drawbacks but I'll stop there to prevent myself from rambling. What made you interested anyhow? I'm curious."

Because I’m the Spirit Beast Queen apparently. “Uh, I just think spirits are cool, that’s all. Since I’m prolly gonna become a full-fledged Slayer after this, I wanna to get a head-start on my development, y’know? I’m trying to explore my options.”

Alma chuckled, nodding. “I understand. I was aimless, too, at your age; unlike you however, I wanted many things and couldn't settle. Consequently that led to countless humbling lessons—painful lessons—but I came out the better man for it. A good man knows his limitations and excels what he's strong in."

“Yeah…” Althea’s thoughts wandered to Professor Hei and Firebrand, about their [Honor]. “Weird question, what do you think about Gul’s and Firebrand’s [Honor]?”

“Gul’s and Firebrand’s…” he mumbled to himself, taking a few seconds to jog his memory. “Oh, I understand where you’re getting at. What an astute question. Well, Gul and Firebrand both merged with magical spirits, monstrous ones at that: a great water fairy and Phoenix-Ifrit respectively. The only difference, here, is that it’s not summoning. They merged their bodies with dying magical creatures and inherited their powers. There is nothing that they summon.”

“But what if you merge your body with a living spirit, using yourself a means to summon ‘em?”

“In that case, yes, it’d be summoning through infusion. You aren’t the first one who thought about that, nor the first who use that method. It's one of the most efficient methods, in my opinion."

Althea leaned forward. “But…?”

“But it’s also the most dangerous if brought to its maximum potential. You’re infusing a magical beast inside you. Gul and Firebrand, supreme high-rankers as they stand, had infused with beasts matching their attuned elements. Any less and they’d experience a painful death. As a future A-Rank, you wouldn’t be able to merge with anything high-grade. Well, unless…”

“Unless what?”

“Unless you were born with a special constitution designed for spirit infusion.”

The oddest feeling came over Althea. “That’s possible?”

Alma hummed, tapping his cheek. “Of course. There exists a massive research effort to categorize various conditions—you may have learned about this in your high school biology class perhaps—it's the Systemic Anomalous Conditions Catalog, or SACC as many would humorously refer to it as; currently, they have identified hundreds of conditions with each having several levels of intensities. As fortune would have it, there is the [Spirit Beast Physique], first found in China, ranked in four levels from weakest to strongest: [Mortal], [Ruler], [Divine], and [Sovereign].”

“Ah.” Oh, don’t fucking tell me. Althea cleared her throat and asked more annoying questions, “Is there a way to figure out if I have a condition or not?”

“There is: a general systemic constitution test. I have a version that has been more altered for to search for conditions typically found in Asia.” Alma opened a blue screen and scrolled through. “And I have the necessary equipment to do it right now, actually. Roll your chair over, for me.”

“Are you sure? You don't need to do this—”

“It’s my pleasure. Now, no more arguing. Come, come.”

Her heart started to thump. “If you say so.” She scooched her chair over. But this swivel chair was an actual piece of shit so it took some effort.

Alma helped her the rest of the way, positioned her against a table for extra support. Strange devices were taken out of his [Inventory], placing them on top of the various documents he had laid out without fear of damaging them.

“Talk to me like I’m at the doctor’s,” she told him, waiting.

“To entertain you…” Alma checked his equipment, wiping off the dust that collected there. “Not all conditions are positive like the [Spirit Beast Physique]. Many are negative: mana conduit blockages, faulty Kraits, body rejection phenomenon, all awful conditions that will make your life as a Slayer a living hell. Kosmos, according to rumors, had the worst of the last example I mentioned: [Total Body Rejection].

“When he emerged as a Slayer, his body had recognized his mana nervous system as a foreign threat and tried to exterminate it. In other words, constant, horrible pain.”

“You’re scaring me here.”

“Oh.” He shook his head, chuckling, rapping his hand against the back of Althea's chair. “I apologize but since you made it this far, I’m certain you have no negative conditions. Let’s talk about the other positive conditions: [Magi-photographic Memory], where you can effortlessly remember ritual circles or runes and so on; [Second Mind], where you can naturally split your thinking as though you had two minds, very useful for certain systems; [Alchemical Physique], where you are able to ingest as many potions as you want.”

“What about [Great Psionic Aura]?" asked Althea, being reminded of Kaiya.

Alma raised an eyebrow. “That's one. It's the positive condition that Sorayama Kaiya has, correct?"

"The one and only."

"How fortunate. It's exactly the positive condition you'd want as an esper; however, it takes years of effort to refine the aura into something useable. Almost always, it's too much energy for the esper initially."

"Yeah. Even though Kaiya's a B-Rank, she's constantly getting headaches and nosebleeds."

"That'll happen, I'm afraid."

“Anyway..." Althea absent-mindedly tapped away at her legs. "Is the [Spirit Beast Physique] something found in Asia only?”

“Mostly. There are a few exceptions but yes, the condition is found mainly in China and Korea.”

Lucky me. Despite being half-American, I’m Chinese enough to have a chance, Althea thought to herself.

Alma held a strange object up. “It’s ready. Stay still for me.”

Althea sat still as Alma put an odd, bulky metal bracelet around her wrist, and attached to it were tubes connecting to a shelf of small vials each with ominous-looking substances.

Suddenly she felt worried about her kidneys.

He noticed her apprehension. “Don’t worry, this is standard practice. These vials contain liquid mana with different properties. They’ll be directly injected through the bracelet via small needles. Here, we are taking advantage of the Slayer System. Any significant changes will be noticed and registered; if not, well, you’re normal as normal can be. There should not be any serious side effects even if a negative condition is recognized. If there is, you can sue me for all I'm worth."

"Ha, don't tempt me."

Alma chuckled and continued, "The duration of the test varies depending on how quickly your body processes the mana and whatnot, but either way, tell me if the System reacts.”

“Okay—ow!” Althea whined. She hated needles. There was a strange warmth spreading throughout her body like she drank hot chocolate. Her Krait especially was reactive to the substances, churning inside her chest.

Alma returned to work while Althea patiently waited for the results to come back, fuming since the pain went from unpleasant to uncomfortable.

Althea managed to fetch his laptop and continued to plug the data in, also keeping an eye on public channels and seeing what the current talk in Ordo was.

More of the same: hard times. Slayers were discussing their experiences across the city: complaining about incompetent leadership, getting shit off their chest, sometimes bantering just to lighten the mood. Some even spoke about Seraph and the Dawn Baptists, wondering if they could get any results.

That was why she was here.

She took occasional peeks at the Journey. He had a focused, stoic expression. Probably didn’t expect anything to come out of this test but at least he wasn’t being an asshole about it. Considering how much he rambled, Althea guessed he was happy to have someone to act as a backboard.

“Sheesh..." she muttered, thinking that this test was going to be a bust.

But about two minutes later…

[You have developed a new skill!]

“Woah!” she exclaimed, immediately getting his attention. “I got something!”

Alma raced to her side as she read out the summary.

[Skill]

Incomplete Sovereign Spirit Beast Physique

Your Constitution has been blessed with the physique to withstand almost any creatures of Heaven or Earth. Whether that be the lowest of spirits or the beasts that roam the clouds, they are yours to tame and conquer, and become one with your body.

All spiritual infusion processes will be streamlined.

You are able to maintain a profound connection to your Spirit Beasts.

You are able to infuse with countless Spirit Beasts.

Any infused Magical Beasts will experience greater development.

Due to the lack of development, the effects of this skill has been reduced dramatically. Once the necessary conditions are met, it is possible that the skill can ascend into an [Honor].

The effects of this skill is active even if it is not equipped.

Current Spirit Beasts:

N/A

Alma was completely silent.

“Is this…” Althea gestured to the screen. “Is this a good thing…?”

Alma began ranting in the most furious Arabic.

~~~

Vernon wished he had headphones. Thunderstrike Hammer was using power tools on a transport truck where, according to Yatsar, he was preparing it to hold the eventual superweapon that they were going to make. Since it was likely that they needed the [Godslayer Claymore] because, where even in its fractured state, it retained its anti-divinity properties.

Exactly how they were going to use it wasn’t explained out of security concerns. Vernon respected that. They weren’t going to trust a random nineteen-year-old with detailed plans of a superweapon that could take out an enemy commander.

So instead, Vernon was stuck on organization duty of the boxes of material they brought in. While he was supposed to get some training from the two Journeys, this project was top priority. A part of him had hoped to listen to some of their wisdom regarding magical engineering but oh well, standing in the same hanger as them was a gift enough. Even the bits and pieces of conversation he heard between Thunderstrike and Yatsar were valuable; they would normally cost tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands of standards.

It sucked though, couldn’t help but feel a tiny bit disappointed.

He sighed. At least he got a good system going on. All the motors went into that pile, all the cables and wires over there, and the wild assortment of weapons were against the wall. Thunderstrike had (fumingly) told him that a good portion were brought out from the underground arsenal. Stuff that Vernon shouldn’t be looking at, let alone touching, but protocols had been broken since the beginning.

Besides, judging from the accompanying paperwork, none of these weapons went beyond a B-Rank. They looked ordinary, like the ones a typical artisan would craft or what you’d find in an average expedition. The Journeys had high-ranking weapons and items but they returned them to the vault. Guess it made sense: you didn’t want these things laying around waiting for an accident to happen. But these average-ranked scrap metal? no one would care.

Vernon looked at some of them in particular: really long lances, swords with glowing runes etched into the blade, staffs and staves whose crystals had gone dark, bows of the finest wood, firearms that ranged from practical to downright silly.

He turned to the front of the hanger where the Journeys were, hearing the power tools rattling the metal walls, then he looked at the boxes he hadn’t gone through yet. Well, time to go to work then.

Getting off his lazy ass, he put on his work gloves—made the mistake of going without them at the beginning—and dug through, keeping a mental list of what he found. Sometimes Thunderstrike would stomp in and shout for this part or that, and he’d stop everything to fetch it like a boy-servant. It took a few tries to get the exact part Thunderstrike wanted where each failure merited more yelling and snatched away what last remaining shreds of his self-confidence that Vernon didn’t know he had.

Man, was this how interns were treated on a daily basis?

Eventually, after an hour and a half, there was nothing else to be organized. Things and knick-knacks had been organized in neat little groups and rows. Didn’t take that long. All the heavy stuff was out front with the Journeys luckily; since they were high-rankers, their Power was enough to carry most things if not all of them.

“So…” he muttered to himself, “...now what?” He couldn’t (didn’t want to) bother the Journeys so the next best thing he did was roam around, double-checking everything.

There, he found an empty box and kicked it. Something shook inside. Looking in, there was another box. Smaller, like one of those Russian dolls.

He took the smaller box out and gave it a little rustle, hearing something jostle inside.

“What are you…?” Finding the nearest table, he took the object out: in his two hands was a rough, spherical item that had various dents and cracks layering the surface. Surrounding the sphere was a gray metallic ring about the width of a few fingers. Outside the first ring were five more rings surrounding the circumference, identical but smaller. Nothing connected the outer rings with the inner ring. Must be magic.

He dragged a finger on one of the outer rings, building a brownish mound on the fingertip, and discovered that the original color was supposed to be a shade of gold.

What did the System had to say about this?

[Construct]

Five Ring Atlas [C]

An automatic construct that fires the Five Greek Elements (Air, Earth, Water, Fire, Aether).

Status: Deactivated

Owner: Park Byung-ho

“A construct?” Vernon had seen dozens of different constructs back in Scorcher. Machinists or artificers—both meant roughly the same thing but people would argue on the specifics—often utilized constructs in combat. These were machines that produced a constant effect whether that be offensive, defensive, or supportive, or anything in-between.

For example, he’d seen offensive constructs such as turrets that fired purple magic missiles; defensive constructs like a box that emitted large barriers; supportive constructs shaped like a beehive, shooting out needles that gave Slayers buffs.

There was such a large variety that it could be overwhelming for newcomers, but all you need to know about a construct was this: method of transportation, how does your construct move? method of effect, what does your construct do? method of energy, how is your construct powered, either independently or linked, and how so? and method of use, which is either automatic or manual, or both.

Judging from first impressions, the [Five Ring Atlas] probably levitated and thus was mobile, not stationary. The description said it used the Five Greek Elements, so it had an offensive effect. The summary said it was an automatic construct, so it attacked without needing a manual trigger. Its power source was yet to be determined but most likely independently-powered.

“But where is it…? Could it be this?” He tapped the drained core a few times. It was hollow. The sphere wasn’t the energy source itself but merely a shell housing all the necessary components.

Question was, then: how could he open this? Given the fact that this was a magical construct, there were a few universal ways of opening it. So he dragged his finger along the shell, checking every groove until he found a small rune etched at the bottom. Flipping it over, he channeled a small bit of mana to his finger and into the construct.

The rune illuminated (no biometric lock? poor security). The shell split open and automatically slid down the sides. The internal components were revealed: at the very center of the hollow space was a chunk of gray crystal suspended by small scaffolding, connected by wires to five distinct spell formation plates. He recognized the carvings: they corresponded to the Five Greek Elements and looked to form basic bolts. But he wasn’t fluent in this script so he wasn't entirely sure.

What else? Sensors, the controller—was that a linked targeting module?—oh, there was the movement piece. Vernon didn’t see it before but there was a sixth spell formation plate at the bottom of the scaffolding, attached to a smaller crystal. Vernon thought tying the levitation plate to the main power source was the smarter decision but he wasn’t the one who made this. Besides, his knowledge of constructs was dwarfed by, you know, people who were actually in the field.

Judging from what he discovered, he formulated a working theory about the [Five Ring Atlas]: it was an independent, automatic construct specializing in single-target combat through linked-targeting. Linked-targeting meant this: when you attack an enemy, they'd be marked and the construct will automatically start firing upon them.

"Although it's a C-Rank, it has no stat restrictions so it's independently-powered... If I can get it up and running, then—wait, I don’t have ownership. It belongs to Park Byung-ho, whoever that is. But…” Vernon racked his mind. He had heard of a way to transfer ownership of a construct without the owner’s permission…

He snapped his fingers and opened the [Construct Settings].

[Construct Settings]

Five Ring Atlas - Settings

> Activation Settings

> Construct Report

> Troubleshoot

> SSCRIPT

> Components

> LLN

> Access Settings

Most were self-explanatory, but for the ones that weren’t: the [Construct Report] essentially functioned as the [Skill Breakdown] for constructs. SSCRIPT was short for SystemScript, one of the programming languages used in the Slayer System, designed for magitech. The option opened to the files. LLN was ‘Leyline Network’ where you could connect your construct to leylines or something, he knew next-to-nothing about leylines so he needed to do research later.

He opened the [Access Settings] and went down to [Ownership Status].

[Ownership Status]

Owner: Park Byung-ho

Collaborators: None

Last Access: 26-08-20XX (Three Years Ago)

Construct Status: Derelict

Transfer Ownership

Vernon smiled. Since it had been three years since [Five Ring Atlas] was last accessed,, its status was now derelict. Meaning, it was practically abandoned and anyone could claim ownership.

There was one thing to do then.

[SLAYER SYSTEM ALERT]

You are now the owner of the [Five Ring Atlas]!

Oh, how much he wanted to hop around. Not now! Now was the hard part: figuring out the problems. Next was to [Troubleshoot] and run a [Construct Diagnostic]—

[Diagnostic Complete!]

Vernon blinked at what he was reading.

There were at least seven catastrophic errors and several more. Most of the components had to be replaced.

“Oh, this is going to take a while…”

But at least he had a warehouse full of parts. Maybe he could find something here.