chapter 110
The flame representing Lola was slowly dying down. I think it will go back to normal, but just in case, I continued to observe it.
“Captain, why did we do that?” Sam asked, while Lola was slowly gaining consciousness.
It was hard to try to listen and watch at the same time, so it took me a bit to understand what he was asking.
“Just wait a bit longer.”
Lola was moving again and saying something, but I continued to observe. This skill took too much; while I could use it was still difficult to do anything else. Minutes went by, but finally the flame that represented her soul stabilised, acting exactly the same as before.
Finally, I let go of the skill, the sound rushing back in. Looking around, everyone was already here. They were all confused as to what was happening. Lola’s face showed a mixture of anger and worry.
“I guess it’s time to reveal some things to you all.”
“An explanation would be nice, Captain. That was not a nice experience,” Lola said as she got into a more comfortable position while crossing her arms. Her posture promised pain if she didn’t like what I was about to say.
“I don’t know exactly where to start, but let’s begin where I got my first hint that something was happening. It was when those cultists couldn’t crack your mind, Dean. There is no way you should have been able to resist that.”
It was not something Dean liked to hear; none of them did, but I forged ahead.
“Normally AI cores should not have anything that would keep their personal self from intrusions. In fact, usually that’s one of the first things you attack when you're trying to forcefully hack into an AI. I didn’t find anything logical to explain this, so I moved on while keeping that at the back of my head.”
“Then we started to clear portals, and I continued to grow stronger. Slowly, I started to get a better sense of what was happening, but I wasn’t entirely sure. I just knew that all of you felt more like me.”
That seemed to make Bob a bit uncomfortable. Lola was still waiting for a good enough explanation. Sam seemed quite eager to understand what was going on, while Dean just seemed to want to know what was going on.
“As you all know, I have been able to rank up some of my aspects, which allowed me to finally start using my Sense Aura skill. Like with Mana Sense, it shows me a different world where souls are represented by flames.”
“Only you, the crew members and the ship seem to have a strong enough soul connection to me that I could see the faint light from me to you that takes the same pathway as our bond. Then I saw each one of you through this skill.”
“All of you have a tiny flame that is constantly flickering out. It indicates the presence of an extremely weak soul; for a normal person, it would mean that they’re on the verge of death.”
“Wait, we have a soul?” Sam asked.
“Not exactly. Extremely weak, but obviously strong enough to protect your personality from intrusion. But it's not entirely your soul. It’s basically a smaller, weaker version of mine. The flame colours and the way it moves seem to be an exact copy of mine.”
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“It’s good to have an explanation as to why our minds are better protected, but that doesn't explain why Lola had to switch back to her old body, and why you didn’t tell any of us this earlier.”
“Don’t call me old, Dean.” Lola’s words made Dean flinch just a tiny bit.
“Brother, you cannot be that dense. If we have a soul, even if it's just borrowed, that means that we could feel, absorb, and control mana, and of course, we should be able to then have skills as well.”
“Not to disagree with you, Sam, but I have not felt any inklings of mana,” Bob chimed in.
“That’s the reason why I haven’t told you. All of your souls are too weak, they aren't enough to do anything active like control mana.”
“You still haven’t explained why I had to switch back,” Lola once again asked.
“That’s because your soul started to get stronger as soon as you were in that body. It started to grow quite fast. The flame was barely flickering, and I’m pretty sure mana was starting to move towards you.”
“What? Why did I switch back then? Wouldn’t it be really good if I could use skills as well?” she asked, the last of her anger gone, replaced by bewilderment.
I was about to speak up, but Sam spoke before me.
“That’s a simple answer. When you go through mana rebirth, your body dictates a lot of what kind of strength you will have. To a lesser degree, it even affects what affinity you might have. But that’s how regular rebirths work, I do not exactly know how this one would go.”
“Exactly that. That body is still a prototype. We should add features to it that might help you gain some specific strength. My own cybernetics are definitely one of the reasons why I can have so many bonds. I also don’t think that we will have another try at that, pretty sure hopping bodies will not be doable so easily after a rebirth.”
Lola now understood completely, her posture relaxing. Seems like I was saved from a lot of tests that were most definitely going to hurt a lot.
“That still doesn’t explain why her soul started to grow as soon as she was in that body,” Dean asked.
“Captain explained that souls looked like they were flames. It seems that for a soul to grow, it needs biological tinder, and her new body was exactly that,” Bob said so confidently that it seemed like he had known that answer all his life.
All of us looked towards him. His explanation seemed to describe perfectly what was happening.
“You are probably correct,” I said, still trying to figure out how he came up with that answer so fast.
“Wait, that means that all of us could get skills. We need to plan our builds. I think I—”
“Whoa, Sam, don’t get ahead of yourself. We don’t even know what will actually happen and if you could use skills like I can.” I said, trying to control everyone’s expectations.
“You’re right, Captain, nothing is certain, but we should plan for it just in case anyways. We should have time. Right Lola, as that’s still just a prototype?”
“Yes, Sam, it’s a prototype. I definitely wouldn’t want that to be my forever body. In fact, that might be quite a big problem, because at higher-ranked portals, we would most definitely get even better raw materials to make even stronger bodies. Should we wait until you reach that far?”
Lola made a good point. “We can test it out on me. We might have to slowly incorporate stronger parts, but if I can switch out mine to these newer ones, that means that you all should be able to do that as well in the future.”
“That I can definitely do. The bio-cybernetic neural net is the one that I would say is closest to being ready. We could test it out on your left arm, switching your current wiring out.” Lola explained radiating excitement.
“We would also have to worry about keeping this a secret. If we have mana, others could detect it.” Dean was correct, that could be a big problem. What could the solution for that be?
“Mana tech,” Bob said, getting all of our attention.
“If we had mana tech on board, everyone would just think they are detecting that. While it would make us more vulnerable, as we would be more easily detected and tracked, if we stayed at the vicinity of this moon and planet it shouldn't be a problem. Also, we should be able to potentially get skills that would help us mask our nature.”
“Good thinking, Bob,” I said, already starting to plan out what types of mana tech I should buy that would best mask what we were doing.
“Captain, you should also figure out how to build portal stabilisers.” I looked towards Sam, giving him a questioning eyebrow raise.
“With all the data that we have gotten from clearing portals. We know that getting an inventory skill on the first try is most definitely not guaranteed. We would need to run that particular portal when we find it multiple times, but now if we can, we should farm more than just one of those skills if all of us can use skills.”
Bob’s arms fell to his side when he heard that. “An inventory skill for the ship. Think how much we could fit. Wait, Captain, that's why you didn't want to use the Expansive Swarm skill. You were hoping that FH could use it?”
“Is that correct, Captain?” FH asked me.
“Yes, FH, that was the plan. It would allow you to store a lot more drones than should be possible for a ship of this size.”
The conversation devolved from something useful into speculation and dreaming after that, but I let them enjoy it.
We will have a lot of work ahead of us, all of it experimental. It seems that we will have to wait until the power struggle happens to proceed further, but that should give me enough time to start figuring out mana tech.
I could already feel the headaches I was about to have, as the little bit I have looked into how mana tech worked just didn’t make sense to me. Perhaps there might be a skill that I’m missing that would help make sense of all of it. I should talk to Bob afterwards, see if he could help track something down.