Once again, Jack found himself roleplaying as the human battery. He sat cross-legged on the hard metallic floor of Monty’s vessel. The room was smaller, and while he didn't need the headphones to block out the sound of the engines, he could imagine other things he would rather be doing.
He focused on the large cube-like container in front of him, specifically the large green mana gem inside it. Activating [Imbue], he once again stored the mana he had been generating into the gem. Watching closely as the device it was attached to activated, he traced the flow, trying to sense what was happening.
It all happened too fast for him to work it out. He had a brief sense of the Life mana fading and twisting as sensations merged into it. Then it was done; a tiny fragment of mana raced along the etching on the other side of the device, emitting a red light and giving off the sense of an open fireplace.
Sighing at his failure to grasp the mechanics, he leaned back as he waited for the charge in his body to build up. He had his vortex stretched to amplify as slowly as possible. It took longer, yes, but at least it gave him a moment to think between focusing to store the mana.
After his impromptu nap in Brandt's office, everything seemed to happen very quickly. He got a brief explanation as they were on the way back to the transporter, but Monty’s focus was elsewhere, making plans for the future.
It sounded like Brandt pushed for a substantial payment, something that Monty objected to. There was some back and forth and discussions over the actual wording of the agreement. Eventually, they settled on the loan of the device that Jack was currently using and a flat payment of credits. The numbers meant nothing to Jack still, but it was apparently a low sum.
The actual agreement ended up having nothing to do with closing the rift. Everyone understood the intention and the goals, but the wording was important. Monty's crew would act as bodyguards for Vessara while she entered the rift in search of her husband.
She was a fairly powerful Fire frequency user, at least in terms of Zerra as she described it. Her husband was one of the leaders on the council that had been pushing to keep the rift's evolution a secret. She had some choice words about their foolish pride that Jack had heard while trying to nap; it seemed the love between husband and wife was something that crossed universes.
They raced out of Brandt's office fairly quickly after that. Monty wanted to make arrangements with his crew, and Jack was pulled along. Vessara was making arrangements of her own and had sent the device over shortly after. It was a compact and semi-portable mana converter, supposedly expensive at this size.
This one would take any mana stored in a crystal on one side and then cycle it somehow through frequencies until it spat out Fire mana. Jack had been trying to watch and understand how that happened for the last few hours. So far, all he had been able to work out was… well, he had no idea. Everything happened much too fast for him to grasp. Still, he had a lot of time to observe. Something might click for him at one point or another.
At least this time they had trusted him to do this on his own. That, or Monty was probably too busy to babysit him. Either way, it left him alone with his thoughts, which was something he appreciated. What he was doing was repetitive and simple, but he found it calming.
It was a way to turn off the active part of his mind that had been bombarded with new information and experiences from the moment he left his room a day ago. Jack needed time for things to find their place in his mind, space for them to settle into the relevant jigsaw puzzle of understanding. He found he often had his breakthroughs when learning new things after he had taken a step away.
Which was why he wasn’t actually that surprised when he finished his most recent imbue and felt a tingle at the back of his mind. He immediately acknowledged it to inspect his options.
Mastery of skill has been demonstrated and acknowledged. Skill will be progressed to its next stage.
[Imbue] (Tier 0 -> 1) Harness mana that has been infused with a specific purpose to imbue a target. The effect requirements for activation are dependent on the infused purpose and the relevant target.
Select Tier 1 Upgrade to [Imbue]:
[Efficiency] - Provides a minor increase to the efficiency of the imbuement process, reducing mana loss during transfer.
[Stockpile] - Provides a minor increase to the quantity of mana transferred when using the storage intent.
[Stability] - Provides a minor increase to the stability of the imbued mana, reducing the rate at which mana dissipates from the target object.
Reading over the options, Jack was underwhelmed. His first upgrades being so special and having the ‘Unique’ tag might have set his expectations a little high. If he thought about it, really all he had been doing with Imbue had been charging mana gems. Not really anything exciting or groundbreaking.
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He quickly considered each one, starting with [Stability]. Pretty straightforward: if he made something “Stronger” or “Heavier” then it would stay that way for a tiny bit longer. Useful, but nothing jumped out at him. He did wonder if he might be able to leverage that if he found a way to do something like Monty or Turrel and have two skills activated at once.
Maybe he had been thinking of batteries too much recently given his role in the team, but he likened this one to extending the battery's shelf life.
The next he considered was [Stockpile]. This one was simple, but he liked it. To stick with the battery analogy, this one was like increasing the voltage. His main limiting factor at the moment was the speed of his vortex when at max; if this gave him more throughput for the same amount of effort, then it was a big boost. This seemed like the type of thing that could be amazing long-term and, with additional upgrades, work perfectly with his Domain build.
The last one was [Efficiency]. It seemed pretty similar to Stockpile, but this one seemed to be more focused on ensuring that more of the original mana was transferred than it was about increasing the input volume. The overall effect on the imbued item might end up the same, but Jack was trying to take some of Turrel's advice.
He was trying to consider potential future options, thinking about what it was he wanted to achieve with the skill. How would the upgrade influence how he saw it and how he used it himself? Worrying about wasted or lost mana might be a big deal for most people in the universe, but it was not likely to be a concern for Jack.
He couldn't shake the idea of giant power pylon trees from his mind. Ever since he had settled on Turrel's domain build and seen how quickly that tree had grown, the thought had been circling. He picked apart everything he had seen Monty do so far. He knew he could store mana in wood; that was how Monty had made his impromptu wooden explosives.
Jack had seen a documentary about some weird science projects. One of them was about a "Fruit Salad Tree" that produced something like forty different types of fruit. It was a botanical oddity created by grafting plants onto one base plant.
If they could do that on Earth, then there had to be a way for him to create a tree that stored mana like a mana crystal. Imagine a grove of trees, not bearing fruit, but glowing with stored mana. A living power grid that grew stronger every season. That was if it didn't already exist; he would have to ask Turrel about that at some point.
Shaking his head, he tried to get back on track. If his end goal was some version of his powers that relied on an overabundance of mana, his best option was [Stockpile]. Jack knew how these things worked from years of gaming. A small percentage multiplier was the beginning of a broken build; he just needed more opportunity to get them to stack.
Locking his decision in, he confirmed [Stockpile]. The buzz in his mind faded, and he pulled up his status screen for the first time in a while.
STATUS
—--------------------------------
Name: Jack Davies
Race: Human
Age: 33
Origin: Earth
Modification Level: Tier 3
Shards Consumed: 9
Shards Required:15
Credits : 35
BODY ENHANCEMENTS
—--------------------------------
Capacity: Tier 2
Flow: Tier 1
Reinforcement: Tier 1
FREQUENCIES
—--------------------------------
Mana: Life
Prime: ??Amplification??
TRAITS
—--------------------------------
Prismatic Sensitivity: Tier 1
Prismatic Mana Skin : Tier 2
SKILLS:
—--------------------------------
Mana Sense (Internal): Tier 1 - [Bulk]
Shockwave: Tier 1 - [Overcharge]
Purge Mana: Tier 2 - [Passive][Control]
Growth: Tier 0
Imbue: Tier 0 -> Tier 1 - [Stockpile]
Any progress was good progress. It had only been about a month, as much as it felt like much longer. He felt the buildup of mana again, which temporarily interrupted his thoughts. He activated [Imbue] once more and charged the gem.
He missed the process of the mana changing frequency again but noticed the fire gem was full. Part of the device had a handy little indicator so he didn't have to risk exploding it to know when it was charged. This was his third one so far; the box next to him held three more, so this marked the halfway point.
Noticing his back feeling a little stiff, the thought of another few hours repeating the process was less appealing. He modified his vortex slightly to speed up the process as he swapped out the charged gem for an empty one.
He locked in and focused. Once he finished this crate, he was due food and a sleep. Times like this, he really missed not having music to occupy his mind.
Jack opened the hatch to his designated room and walked inside. Feeling stuffed and mentally drained, he flopped down onto the couch in front of his bed and stretched out. He liked his routine and grabbed the tablet, intending to get at least thirty minutes of reading practice in before bed.
As he turned the screen on, he saw a flashing symbol at the bottom of the display. As he clicked on it, a picture of Monty filled the screen. After a moment, sound came out of the speakers in the corners of his room.
“Jack, thanks for helping out with the converter. I am sorry to ask you to do it again, but it is more help than you understand. I wanted to have a talk with you beforehand, but organising the preparations is taking more time than expected. We have a full briefing for the expedition tomorrow morning at 0800. Can you meet me in the briefing chamber beforehand, around 0730? I need to ask you something before the briefing starts.”
Jack stared at the tablet. He guessed that Monty wanted to know if he was going to join them or not. He had already decided he would go, but Monty wanted him to take his time to consider it more. Either way, his thoughts of sleeping in were dashed; he decided it was time to turn in.
He fell asleep wondering to himself why he hadn't thought to ask if they had video call capabilities yet. Maybe he could get some cool space games on the tablet. There had to be some universal MMO out there, right?
