Magical Engineering

“Dammit, Timon, I said we were going to discuss it with him, not just throw him into the deep end! I’ve done that enough ta him already,” Mel said at the same time I got the new message.

“You do that, and Dave’s just going to get stuck in his own head for too long. The man already overthinks everything,” Timon said back.

“You know I can still hear both of you, right? Why do I have an option to overwrite the class orb? I assume that isn’t the normal thing that happens when someone holds a class orb,” I asked, annoyed that I had even more strangeness to deal with. Did it never end?

“So they just filled me in on your core affinity, and we all suspected something like that might happen. There is a good chance this is even further my fault than I initially realized, Dave. I don’t remember everything that happened. When my core was shattered into the state it’s currently in, it had a cascading effect into my brain. I have no idea how long I spent in this universe, essentially catatonic, before something caused my soul-core reaction to reignite ever so slightly. It was just enough to slowly bring me to the state I am now in over a very long time. So, understand that I do not remember nearly enough to tell you anything in full, but from what I do remember and understand, the System and I were friends. I don’t know how it happened or why, and from what these two have told me, the idea of anyone being friends with the System isn’t a thing. Sometimes the System does seem to play favorites, but actual friends is apparently a very different matter,” Sanquar explained. I thought I was finally beginning to understand why the System had taken such a strange interest in me.

“And because you sent me to the Spiral with your insignia, the moment I was registered in the Arena and entered the System’s path, something triggered in its processing somewhere connected to you, and I became a special project. Well, at least that finally explains a lot,” I said. It didn’t really explain much beyond the System’s interest in me. Hell, it didn’t even touch on the core experiments. Had those just been chosen because my knowledge base meshed best with them? Were there millions of potential unexplored paths out there that I could have ended on if I had had a different background? I had no idea, and we now had the giant mystery of how Sanquar had been tied to the System and just how much freewill the System even had of its own to add to our growing pile of questions. I was starting to get pretty tired of the mysteries at this point, too.

“So I ain’t met many of the people the System has favored; they don’t usually make it far. The factions don’t want that kind of person running around. But sometimes, and possibly more than sometimes, yer type gets a special class. Now, I don’t think ya have to take it. You can just pick a regular old class if you want, but I do think it’s in yer best interest to give whatever it offers a try, especially considering we ain’t gonna have time to find something better before the Arena,” Mel said. He had a point. I could always just change the class later if I didn’t like it. The System had been pretty nice to me so far, and I was between a rock and a hard place now anyway, so what was the harm in another experiment?

“Alright, I’m going to overwrite the orb and see what happens,” I said, as I confirmed that, yes, I did want to do that in the menu. My vision went a little weird, and things suddenly felt similar to when I was doing my core fortification.

Class Orb Wipe In Progress, Please Wait…

Wipe Sucessful, Uploading Core Information, Please Wait…

Analyzing…

Analyzing…

Analyzing…

Analyzing…

Analyzing…

Data Analysis Complete, Class Orb Overwrite In Progress, Please Wait…

Class Orb Restructured

Class Orb: Core Architect Socketed

I felt something new inside of my core, similar to a mana orb, but slightly more energy-dense, maybe? The class orb seemed to sit in between my core and the mana circuitry that connected to all the sockets. I didn’t know if that was a lucky coincidence or just the way it worked for normal sockets as well. I opened my eyes and for yet another moment of my life, was greeted by several pairs of eyes staring back at me intently. I was not a fan of the experience the first time, and I still wasn’t now.

“It worked, I think, I have a Core Architect class orb socketed now,” I said, feeling Mel begin his own scan of my body the moment I had said it worked.

“Yer sure it says Core Architect?” Mel asked. I pulled up my interface and saw a new menu for class. I selected it, and sure enough, it confirmed that the class orb was a Core Architect one.

“Yep, just double-checked, and it says Core Architect. Why? Do I have some legendary, forbidden class now, too?” I asked sarcastically.

“No idea, can’t read that class at all on ya. You just keep coming up as Deep Scout, specialized marsh. Which is what the orb was before ya touched it,” Mel answered.

“Huh, that seems weird. I guess I can go check what options I have, and throw some experience in it. With the simulator, I can probably beef it up a little, at least,” I said.

“Go for it, though keep in mind that if that thing is unique, it’s gonna be a bitch to change anything ya pick, so be sure with your selections,” Mel said. While I didn’t know how to even change selections in a normal orb, I understood his point nonetheless.