Luca DR
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Accidentally summoned 09
🕑 Added 2024-02-06 23:04:25 +0000 UTC09 – Farcast trouble
Ishrin stood in the middle of the ritual, feet wide open with the large Tier 4 healing attuned mana core on the ground between them. He studied the shape of the ritual one last time, then flexed his mind and will.
With a word of power, the treasures at the edges of the angular lines in the dirt sublimated into a stream of energy. The stream of energy entered his body, reforging what was broken, cleansing the leftovers of his old core, purging them from his flesh through paths that were not yet there.
Lisette and Melina stood to the side. Lisette, at Tier 4, had the least developed mana sight of the two. But even she could tell that the remnants of his broken core were being ejected through paths that one day would become meridians, the pathways of power through one person’s body. She had developed meridians by herself on her journey to Noctis, much to Melina’s later surprise, and was quite familiar with them.
Melina was at Tier 6, and not only had she glimpsed reality through a lens much deeper than that of an ordinary person, but she had a soul imprint too. With that, her vision was greatly enhanced, and she could see exactly to what degree Ishrin was imposing his will onto reality.
Impossible, her instincts seemed to scream at her. Even as she literally watched him reset himself to Tier 0, she knew that his weight onto the world was much greater than her own. That his will was of a mountain compared to a pebble. He had seen things. He knew things. Before he even took the actual combat test, she knew that he was powerful.
She remembered him talking about things as he explained the ritual earlier. About his hometown. Not really a place close by, was it?
Then the ritual was over, and the faint glow of the medicinal ingredients and the shimmer of magic faded. There was a pile of gunk lying on the ground where the Tier 4 crystal had previously been, and burnt-out ritual lines fanned out of the epicenter like trails of a controlled fire.
The spectacle was not over. In a matter of seconds, Ishrin took control of the leftover energy from the ritual, as well as a sizable chunk of ambient energy that saturated the air. The ambient energy was artificially created by the orb that had transported them into the parallel space, but the artifact was Tier 8, and Melina knew that there was nobody in Noctis who could deplete its internal supply faster than it could generate it. Not even Ishrin, although her mouth still hung open at the sight.
A Tier 0, a regular human devoid of all magic was using his own will and nothing else to seize control of mana and force it into his own body. He then crammed it where his old core had been, compressed it and finally let go of the breath he had been holding. With a sigh of relief, Ishrin opened his eyes to the world, once again a Tier 1 mage.
Melina shook her head theatrically. “What I witnessed today was impossible on so many levels, Ishrin.”
Ishrin shrugged, calling Liù to him and letting her perch on his shoulder. Rolling it he felt that it was nice and loose, like the rest of his whole body, a veritable boon after spending days crippled and in pain.
“You have seen it,” he said, “the Dirac Sea. It was your Tier 5 bottleneck, after all.”
How does he know, her face seemed to ask, but he kept talking: “I know you can see it still, or you wouldn’t have kept your cultivation tier. Tell me, what did I do that’s so impossible?”
Lisette was standing very still to the side as Melina spoke again, listening intently. “You tapped into it,” the foxgirl said, “without even using magic.”
“I did not tap it,” Ishrin said, “I used it to direct ambient magic. Ambient magic and the Dirac Sea are as related as a thin fog is to an actual sea. But no more, I am more tired than I thought. Can we postpone the test?”
Melina nodded, and with a flicker of her hand the orb activated again and released them from the faux dimension they had been inhabiting. The sky went from flat gray to overcast gray in a matter of moments, and a strong gale pregnant with rain picked up all around them. Ishrin shivered, wishing he had the environmental protections that came with higher tiers of cultivation, or with several spells he knew but could not cast yet. He had none, and was barely clad in suitable clothes. No matter. Pain, especially this mild, did not inconvenience him much anymore. Not after dying gruesomely to a god.
In the orb all had been quiet, but in the real world noise was king. Shouts of people, merchants still working despite the incoming storm, the smells coming from the food stalls trying to overpower the smell of rain and sulfur that permeated the air around the volcano. They managed to win the battle, and for a moment the trio grew hungry, but then another gust of wind returned the smell of rotten eggs and took their hunger with it.
They separated for the day. Lisette followed Melina back to the guild, Ishrin stayed behind with Liù, watching the girls go. They talked together animatedly, from what he could see, but he had other things to do to get ready for tomorrow and frankly did not care much. He had done his share of talking for the day, it was time to meditate.
***
Melina was a convoluted swarm of lightning-quick thoughts, theories and ideas on her way back to the guild. And she was not the only one, it seemed, for while they trudged back to the dinghy old wooden shack that the people of this shithole called Noctis christened as the guild, Lisette was barely able to take a single breath in-between a torrent of words.
The usually composed, inexpressive, emotionless and silent woman was utterly unrecognizable. Melina knew that she alone in the whole city had ever had the pleasure – or responsibility – of seeing a part of her character that was not the utterly impenetrable stone wall she presented to the rest of the world. But even she had never seen the young woman so engrossed in the one task she always avoided the most: talking.
Not even talking about spells, magic and cultivation, which where topics Lisette occasionally chose to talk about. Talking about Ishrin.Utterly insane.
She thought back to that conversation she had with Paradise’s guild master when he asked her to look over the promising young and, at the time, Tier 3 C-rank adventurer he was sending over to Noctis.
“I know you have a lot on your plate, but please look over her. Take it as a personal favor, will you? She just couldn’t thrive here in Paradise, not after what happened to… well. You know the story as well as I do. Help her out, keep her company if you can stomach her presence. If not… at least don’t mistreat her like everyone else does. She deserves better.”
And thus, when Lisette had arrived in Noctis, Melina had taken her under her wing. Already a Tier 4, and so tight lipped as to how she had managed to create meridians all alone while traveling to almost look like she had no idea herself, Lisette proved to be even worse than Melina’s worst fears. And yet, the foxgirl slowly came to like her.
She felt a pang of something in her chest. Was that jealousy? Happiness? It couldn’t be. Why both at the same time? Or rather, why would she ever feel jealous? Of who, Ishrin? A nobody Tier 1 who could barely—
She crushed that carriage of thought. Useless, inaccurate and ultimately counterproductive. She had her orders, she had her job, and too many things on her plate already. She would evaluate him tomorrow, find out what she could learn about his allegedly more powerful magic, and move on.
Thus, as she sat on her desk, she heaved a deep sigh and allowed her eyes to briefly close. She had sent Lisette on a preliminary mission to the volcano – more to keep her busy until tomorrow than anything else – and could afford a minute to gather her thoughts and set her mind in order.
It was while she had her eyes closed that the orb, which she had set on the desk close to the farcasting apparatus she used to keep in contact with Paradise and the other guild branches, briefly glowed white. A small beam of tight information packets, encoded using algorithms that – had she seen them – she would have not recognized as being from this world, was sent to the farcaster. And out into the ether. Out into the Network.
Words materialized in the air, hovering there in patient wait for their intended recipient to wake up from her unplanned nap.
>>Suspected universe hopper. Original universe: UNKNOWN – outside of Guild Network reach. Flagged as possible threat. Flagged as source of information. Orders are to attempt integration. If integration fails, suppress at all costs.<<
>>Sending call to action. Please stand by for more orders.<<
>>Orders SUPPRESSED. Please reach out to the closest guild superv---------------------------<<
Then, another set of words, smaller, less formal.
>>Melina, I saw the recordings. This guy might not be dangerous but he will bring danger. I don’t know what happened, but there was a whole system override just moments ago. Somebody very high up. You know that the local supervisor has been stuck at his Tier for a long time, right? He won’t stop at anything to step into godhood and you know it.
Then later,
>>Fuck, this is a mess. I just learned that multiversal travel is possible, and that this is but a small universe the Network controls. What else might lie out there? If I know, then the supervisor knows, along with many others who probably shouldn’t.
The system reset was a clusterfuck, revealing information to everyone. Encryption algorithms older than time cracked like they weren’t there. And it came and went in an instant. Untraceable. Someone is messing with the whole Network, and this will open a whole other can of worms. Expect trouble to come knocking at your door, and soon.
I won’t be able to help beside this last message. Do not evaluate him inside the orb. I repeat: don’t. Evaluate him. Inside the orb. Keep his cards hidden from the guild for as long as you can.
Remember what we talked about all those years ago, when I made you a Guild Master. This is not a happy family. We cannot even fathom what purpose the guild really serves. Remember to always be careful.
***
In the room below, at the quest board where the adventurers came and went in search of profitable adventures, the system glitched. Were anyone to pay attention, they would have realized that the glitch happened exactly at the same time as it did in the whole Network. But nobody was.
A single new quest was put up on the board following this glitch. Waiting for the right person to pick it up.
A whole other can of worms.
