Ronald had just finished breaking down the remains of the campsite that he had first returned to consciousness in. His core felt as if it was close to bursting with energy, and the feeling was close to uncomfortable. His instincts told him that he wouldn’t suffer any negatives completely topping up the reserves, but some other part of him kept urging him to expend the energy to grow larger. He knew that he could grow in size and add material to his wagon body, but that turned out to be prohibitively expensive even for the smallest amount. He tried to focus inward on that part of himself that he had sensed that his abilities lied. There he found he could open a menu, but this time the menu screen was blank, and even after waiting for several minutes and nothing happened Ronald practically screamed inside his own mind, “Do something damn you!”
To his surprise the screen shift and writing appeared, “Please state a request.” At that, he immediately thought to the screen, “Send me home!” To which the swift response was, “Request Denied, mission incomplete.”
Ronald deflated mentally at this. He knew it would be useless, these situations in stories always were. Still, he has hoped for the opposite, no matter how foolishly. After a small moment of cursing his unrealistic hopes to leave, he sent a new request to the menu screen. This time he desired to know more about his abilities, and in response he was immediately overwhelmed with new instincts on how they functioned. He now knew that by assimilating matter he could make different objects if he had enough samples and if he developed the appropriate “modules”.
The information was not clear on what exactly the modules were, but he had the feeling he was being guided to do something specific now. He knew he needed to actively request that a module called a workbench be created. That gave him pause for a moment, as that felt as though someone was planting information into his mind, which after thinking about it was true. Someone, maybe the gods or the system, was actively putting information directly into his mind. And that unsettled him, more than he had ever thought it would.
Again the wagon shook, as Ronald cleared his mind from those darker thoughts. He couldn’t do anything about that right now. Maybe in the future he would be able to create protections against it, but right now he was at the mercy of the strange system and whatever it decided to guide him to do.
Focusing his thoughts, he pushed his intent into the menu, he wanted to create a workbench. No sooner had he sent that thought to the system, a red outline of an object that was similar to something you might see in a woodshop. The outline currently intersected the area that his core and the pedestal the core sat upon. He willed it the outline to move to the left and just as soon as the thought formed, the outline followed his thoughts. He mentally kept the workbench moving to the left until its color shifted from red to green. The instincts also hinted that this was an acceptable location for the workbench. He sent the mental confirmation to the menu screen, and he felt energy rush out of his core. He checked on the energy levels left inside his core now, and while not as much as was needed to create that one inch on the walls, the amount was still significant. After a few more seconds, the blue light died out and in the place of a blue outline set the new wooden workbench.
The workbench closely resembled a workbench that his grandfather had in his old wood shop. A number of carving tools were stored in their locations, just like he had remembered from his childhood. The exception being that none of the tools appeared to be modern. Every tool seemed well used, but also well cared for. They all seemed to be similar to ones that he had seen at a renaissance fair that he had gone to with his friends in college, and he imagined they were used in the same fashion as the man at the fair spent all day demonstrating to the gathered crowds. That left him with another issue he quickly noticed. He had no hands or even a body that could interact with the workbench. Unless he could manipulate things directly using magic, like telekinesis, he had no idea how he would make anything his newest creation.
He thought about trying to try and use magic to move the tools, but then he remembered the menu screen that was still open. He sent the desire to know what he could do with the workbench, and a description appeared for it.
Woodworker’s Bench - Transport core, or an authorized user, is able to craft simple wooden items using this module. The transport core is able to directly interface with the workbench to create items using mana. Authorized users are able to shape wooden items with the system enhanced tools provided. Tools cannot be removed from the workbenches work area, any attempts to do so will alert the transport core and the user’s access will be suspended temporarily.
Ronald took a moment and read over the description again that was provided by the menu. According to what he saw, he could directly interface with the workbench. But no indication was given as to how to do that. Strangely the instincts were quiet on that front as well. He turned his attention again to the menu and sent the question of how to interface with the workbench. The only response that he got was the description of the workbench again.
Ronald tried to sigh, but all that happened was the wagon seemed to move up and down about an inch. It appeared that all he could do was start to experiment with things at the current time.
He sent the desire to make a wooden stick, or a dowel as he remembered his grandfather called it, to the menu screen. After waiting what seemed like an eternity, but could not have been more than thirty seconds, Ronald sent the desire to interface with the workbench to the menu screen. Another small time later, Ronald sent the command for the workbench to make a dowel with more specific imagery in his mind. He was beginning to get frustrated with the system that was suddenly unhelpful. He started to mentally yell at the menu, “If I can’t make a dowel on the workbench with you, then what can I make on it using you!”
Ronald expected the same response as before, but instead a list appeared. This both made him happy, but looking at the list also sent a wave of panic through his mind, which caused the wagon to shake as if a chill had run up its non-existent spine. The list contained a single item, a wooden crate. The answer dawned on him at the same time, the boxes were the only majorly wooden thing that he had assimilated since he awoke, that was something that you might craft at a wood workbench.
His mind swiftly catalogued the items that were still around that he had not assimilated, and outside of the three barrels that currently rested just a few feet from his core, the only things left were the bodies and belongings of the goblins. Without thinking about it, he activated and started pulling in the magic that made up the bodies and items of the goblins. As just as thoughts and actions ground to a halt. Without thinking about it, he had started to assimilate the bodies of living thinking creatures, or at least creatures that were once alive. Logically he knew that assimilating them was something he could and probably should do, but ethically should he do that. A part of his mind attempted to justify it claiming that in his old world he ate meat, and this close enough to count. A different part contended that the goblins were obviously sapient because they didn’t act like a non-sapient animal would have. Thoughts warred inside his mind, different parts of his being arguing for both sides. Then another thought came to light, what if assimilating them would be considered illegal or some form of war crime. He had no idea how many more things like himself existed out there in the world and what laws surrounded them.
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Thirty minutes passed as Ronald argued internally on whether he should or should not assimilate the bodies, when he decided that he needed the energy right now. He would have to deal with the issues that arose from his choices later. He had no idea if or rather when more of those creatures would show up and he needed something more than being an unassuming wagon. Even if he was larger than any wagon he had ever seen in his previous life.
He activated his assimilate ability and reached out to everything in the surrounding area that would provide him with energy and began to drag it all back into his core. He focused inward to measure how much he would be getting for the corpses and was shocked to notice that they provided a substantial amount of magic. So much so that he would replace the amount spent on creating the workbench very quickly and that he would be approaching full once more.
He turned off the ability once again and internally went back to the menu screen. Now that he committed himself to assimilating the bodies, he wanted to make sure that energy would be put to good use. He had the feeling that even with the potent energy stored in the bodies, he would not be able to grow his wagon body very much, so he wanted another solution. He sent his desire for more storage for the magic energy to the screen. Again, as soon as the thought manifested the screen displayed a list. On it were a few different things, all but one grayed out. Without the instincts giving any reasoning as to why they appeared gray, and without the screen displaying a reason either, he could only assume that the reason had to do with him not meeting some prerequisite, such as some undisclosed module.
The one option currently available was mana battery. He thought for a moment and then sent to the menu the desire to know more about the mana battery option. However, unlike before when he asked about the workbench no information came forward about the mana battery. He thought that maybe he had to create something before the system would give him a description for it. He was beginning to think that maybe the system needed a more helpful interface. Despite himself, he pushed forward his desire to build one of the mana batteries and the red outline appeared in his sight once more.
The battery itself was not all that large, the outline appeared as one foot long, and about 4 inches in diameter. As he moved the battery around it turned green once it was more than two feet away from the core. Ronald concluded that his core needed to have nothing placed within that area. He continued to move the battery trying to understand the limitations that he had for creating these modules. He attempted to spin it so that instead of standing on the flat bottom the battery was lying on its curved side, and as soon as the outline no longer had a solid portion on the flooring, it turned red. Even when you placed the battery up against the wall of the wagon, unless the flat portion of the cylinder was flush against a surface the outline remained red. This did spark an idea for Ronald though, could he make smaller additions to the wagon, similar to when he grew the extra inch. He reached like before when forced the walls to grow, but instead of wanting the walls to go upwards, he tried to raise just a small 1 inch by 1 inch section of the wood from the floor nearby his core.
Ronald felt that familiar rush of energy that accompanied his previous attempts at creating additions. Much to his delight just what he had wanted to create formed nearby. He also noticed that this time, a significantly smaller amount of energy was siphoned away for the creation. Ronald felt relieved at this new information. He might be able to make minor changes to the wagon without completely draining his reserves.
Ronald focused back on the outline for the mana battery and moved it onto the newly raised portion of the floor. Just like before, as soon as areas of the flattened portion of the cylinder stopped touching the wagon the outline turned red. He then quickly spun the outline so that it was sideways again and moved it to the wagon siding. As soon as one of the flat sides came into contact and was flush against the wagon, it turned green. This meant that he could have the batteries placed other than just the floor, but it still had to be flush up against the wagon. This gave him another idea, and he hoped that it would not be prohibitively expensive. Before testing his newer idea though, he wondered if he could reclaim the magic spent on his most recent addition.
He pushed his will out to reclaim that small piece that he had made, and he watched as the small section dissolved away into that familiar transparent blue light. He watched as the energy slowly rose from the floor and floated its way back into his core. Once it was finished, he couldn’t even tell it had been there. The floor appeared as it had been before he did his little test. He moved his attention to his core and got a feel for his mana levels again, and he got the feeling that he had gotten most if not all of the energy back. He believed there might be a small amount that was lost, but he couldn’t confirm it without actual numbers from the system. Which it still seemed to hold out on giving to him. The only explanation that he could come up with, was the system tried to hide a lot of the details or that the numbers might not make sense to most people. He might be able to develop a module that will give him numbers in the future, but he was distracting himself and decided to get back to his tests.
For his next test, he wanted to make a bracket to hold the battery in place. He was unsure if when he ran into something or someone that he couldn’t or wouldn’t run over if they would see the batteries and try to break them off. The magic energy seemed to be all over the place here, but he remembered from many stories back on Earth that something to store the energy was always something rare. He wanted to find a way to hide the batteries, preferably in a safe location, like under the floorboards. That thought brought a different idea together. What if he could make a false floor and hide them under that. That would be only if he could turn them sideways, they were a foot tall, which was too obvious if he wanted a false floor.
He turned back to the blueprint in his view and moved it to as close to his core as he could get it and then began the process of creating a small section of raised flooring. He imagined it as a one-inch-thick block that was 5 inches long and 5 inches tall. The cylinder was only 4 inches in diameter, but he wanted a little wiggle room in case he had other ideas in the future.
After pushing the desire out, he was shocked at how much more energy this portion required from the previous test. It wasn’t as much as his expansion by a long shot, but it still was a lot more than what he felt it should have been. His mind instantly came up with a few reasons it could happen that way. Either the amount needed for creation was exponential with the more material being created at once, or that it might be the magic being used to create items comes from inside his core and outside in the environment. Possibly making large scale additions at a time implausible, and it would be better to do the expansions slowly over longer periods of time. Still, the energy needed to create the workbench wasn’t nearly as expensive as the small piece of wood he had made just now if you took the size of the workbench into account. The workbench had taken more energy overall, but for its size, it was not nearly as mana hungry.
Putting aside his desire to know the specifics of why certain aspects of his life made no sense, he brought his focus back to the outline of the mana battery. He moved it so that it was flush against the newly raised portion of the wagon. Just like he had hoped, the outline turned green, meaning he could indeed have a false floor with mana batteries hidden underneath. He noticed that the amount of energy used to create the battery was substantially more than the workbench. That had to have something to do with whatever material the battery was made of, he was almost positive.
After it was finished, he reached out to his core to get a feeling for how much more energy he could store and was pleased to see that the amount was generous, but still less than what his core would be able to store. Ronald nodded his non-existent head, causing the wagon to rock forward and back, and decided he would need to get to work to make as much of the false floor as he could before he moved on from this area. He wasn’t sure what other monsters were awaiting him out there on this road, but he wanted to make sure that he had plenty of energy stored away to deal with it.
