Chapter 264: Futureproof

Chapter 264: Futureproof

Ihn’ar was understanding. It was vision beyond vision, comprehension of things not meant to be understood. It was breaking the veils and looking past them.

Zeyjn was the splitting of the mind into perfect pieces, able to operate and rest and focus on different things, all working in harmony as one whole. It was preparation, malleability, and quantity.

Ystirs were structures. Tiny pieces of maintained order, rigidly holding something in place. They are routines, repetitive motions executed flawlessly.

Rijn was strength. It was a hardening of the mind, a filling of a shape, casting forceless violence. A shaping of the material world.

And rezil was… resonance. It was amber, casting out mana and holding and shifting threads. It was a shaping of the immaterial, of existence itself, the change of natural order, manipulating… the laws of physics?

Mercury hitched at that last one. It was almost right, but not quite, and that bothered him. But he didn’t have enough practice yet to nail it down. For the first time, though, he was thinking of all his mental exercises at the same time. The ramifications of each of them.

Strangely, there was a reaction that happened when he was comparing them. Mercury had quite a few skills set for finding little connections, and when <Tapestry>, <Truth>, and <Seeker Of Secrets> all activated, there was no doubt that something was afoot.

Following the sensation, Mercury thought about the things a little more deeply. He had been mostly using them in tandem, especially his zeyjn, ystirs and rijn. Ystirs were great for spellcasting, or doing lots of things at once that weren’t too complex. He could control his <Force of the Hecatoncheires> with them, for example. 

Often, he used a zeyjn to manage them. Each zeyjn could also manipulate one rijn, so he could swing five invisible hammers around at the speed of thought, by now. But how was that connected to ihn’ar? Or rezil?

They were all mental exercises, of course, so they were all connected in the sense that each trained his mind. It wasn’t a stat that stood anywhere on his sheet, but the amount of parallel thought processes he could maintain had grown. The strength, flexibility, and range of his rijn had grown. At the beginning he had barely managed shapes, and by now he could easily manipulate the hardened pieces of his mind into hammers, chisels, platforms for him to stand on, and so forth. Even his ystirs had grown able to handle more complex tasks.

From scanning mana to manipulating complex constructs of force… they’d come a long way. 

But his ihn’ar was the odd one out, then. He didn’t really use it in conjunction with the other pieces, did he? How would they even fit together?

<Tapestry> let him see the golden threads connecting the practices. He understood that they were linked, but he couldn’t see how they fit together. There were more skills he was missing, but he didn’t quite understand what they could be. 

For a little while he kept prodding the connection, trying to make it give him more answers, but he came up short. He sighed, and eventually stopped poking at it, focusing his efforts on the new ability he was meant to master again. 

Rezin. Resonance. In a way, it was a skill that he had cheated his way around. Whenever he needed to change the threads in a world, infect them, eat them, whatever, he had simply plugged the gaps with his Stifled Silence. The amber from it, which he noted could also be called a resin, was enough to fill the gaps, temporarily. 

And when he was done with those worlds, well. There were no more gaps to fill. They were either in order, or ruined. Because that was what he’d started to do to worlds, apparently.

Mercury sighed again, softly, and settled down in his hammock. The sun still felt uncomfortable against his skin, so he used the Storm’s Raiment to cloud the window a little. When filtered through that, the rays returned to their usual homely warmth.

Yes, he was very aware that the sun should not generally be angry at him, but he ignored it for now. He already knew trouble was approaching him again, and being blasted by light itself was something he could put off for a little while. All he needed to do, after all, was wait.

And so, wait he did.

- - -

Mercury had cultivated more patience in these last few years than he had in his entire life back on Earth. That was, however, also much easier here. He didn’t have deadlines, or bosses. There was no real need to work much to secure his livelihood, if he was short on cash he could just do a run in a permanent arch, or do some construction work, some blacksmithing…

Frankly, there was always someone to buy from him. And in the end, he didn’t really need to eat. He owned his own house. He could summon endless water from his own mana without trouble. 

It was comfortable. Living like this was easy, so he didn’t hurry and took things slow. Impatience was washed away like leaves travelling on a <Babbling Brook>. Granted, having a magic Skill that helped keep his mental state calm was definitely also helpful in that regard, but it really was only a bonus.

That thought also led back to the endless question of whether the system granted powers or classified earned ones. Perhaps a bit of both? Perhaps one or the other.

Not that it particularly mattered. Still, Mercury was curious, so he asked. “Hey, system. Do you grant me these Skills or do you just classify them?”

Usually this would have been an exercise in futility, but Mercury’s situation was a little unique. In what may, in hindsight, be a slightly risky decision, he triggered <Answer>. 

Instantly, the skill latched onto <Seeker Of Secrets>, his most obvious connection to the system. Appy, however, had control over his Skills, too, so as <Answer> latched on, he could feel it hesitate until granted permission.

Once again, he was happy that he had given her the ability to manage some of his Skills, because that could have been really gross, otherwise! With her assistance, though, the Skill burrowed into the bowels of the system, flowing along mana-woven pathways that stretched across… everywhere.

It raced through spell constructs and magic circles so complex that Mercury shivered at the thought of them, down through tunnels and channels and backdoors. And then, it bounced back, right into his skull.

[The System aids in crystallizing potential. All Skills originate from within the bearer. Structures catalogue and channel desire.]

He blinked for a second. 

[<Answer> has levelled up! <Answer lv. 1 -> 2>]

Mercury blinked again. His senses were… misaligned, he noted distantly. The world was both close and far away. Colours melted into each other. His sight went blurry, and didn’t improve even as he blinked. He smelled… burnt bread?

And then, his insides lurched back into place. Each time he focused on a sense, it <Resolved> itself back into existence. His body that had melted apart like wax under a flame suddenly flowed back into itself, and his thoughts regained their clarity.

The enormity of the message he’d read reached him. The enormity of space it had taken up in its mind. When asked, the system had answered, and it had answered with force. He felt his ears ring from the noise, from the gravity of that notification. 

Still, it hung in the air in front of him. Usually, when he touched system messages, they felt like nothing, but this one was heavy. It was brutal, a weight on his mind, a knowledge burrowing into him about what potential was, what it meant to have it realized.

All at once he comprehended a core part of what it meant to grow in this universe.

Desire feeds potential feeds growth.

A simple string of words that had overclocked his brain and been to enormous for his body to bear. Even now, it threatened to slip from his grasp, searing his mind when he reached for it. He felt like a regular person again, reaching for a white hot piece of metal with his bare hands. 

It hurt, but the pain was meaningless to him. It seared his thoughts, shearing them apart, but that was fine, too, he simply split his mind and made more.

The <Truth> fought him. It wanted to escape, but he had learnt it, and he refused to let it go. He wouldn’t forget, nothing, not ever. Every memory was part of him, even the ones that hurt-

Even this one that hurt like a bitch!

[<Babbling Brook> has levelled up! <Babbling Brook lv. 1 -> 2>]

He wrangled and fought, holding onto the knowledge as it wanted to slip through his fingers, he bled as his body struggled to hold itself together, as his very existence strained. He felt like a sieve trying to hold water, and yet, somehow, he managed. Not fully, some bits of it slipped away in grinding agony, but he held onto some.

Bit by bit, the strain lessened as he lost and gained more. Mercury felt himself grow more realized, more complete as he tackled the truth. As he internalised that simple chain of words. Desire feeds potential. Potential feeds growth. 

That was what he was left with. Words and understandings at the edges of his mind, leaving him panting and ragged. “Hey, Appy?” he rasped, voice sore.

[Yes, dum-dum?] came the mechanical reply

He smiled a little. “Remind me to not ask the system questions too often,” he said, slumping into his mattress.

[This consciousness will make sure to prompt the dum-dum with a reminder upon their next impending poor decision.]

Despite everything, though, he felt pleased. That had been probably the most painful experience of his life, to be fair, but then again, pain was kind of meaningless these days. His body reformed, and he could simply let the agony wash over him.

Still, though. It had hurt. A lot. Enough to let his <Babbling Brook> level up. And even there, he did see that the Skill was almost full. A thick sheet of dark grime and decomposing leaves was slowly travelling down the river. It would become meaningless in only a few minutes, but it was the first time he’d seen the Skill get close to overflowing.

That would have most likely been an uncomfortable experience. Well, it had been uncomfortable despite the Skill working, but he was alive. And that was what mattered.

[<Truth> has levelled up! <Truth lv. 4 -> 5>]

But the gains were there. Mercury wondered, then, for a brief moment, if he could use the existential weight that came with understanding the system to grow stronger? 

That thought sent a shiver down his spine. A foreboding sensation of doom. It felt as though there would be dire consequences if he considered the act of asking the system for answers as a simple vehicle to push himself forward. No, it was not meant to be used as a trivial tool for that, and he sensed that it would be rather displeased if he used it that way.

And, frankly, he didn’t really want to, either. 

Questions were meant to be answered, but finding those answers through exploration was simply more fun. He wanted to do that more than just ask everything in one place. And since desire brought potential, and he didn’t have that strong a desire to simply have all his answers handed to him, that’d probably stagnate his potential.

He snickered at that. Already, he was understanding how to move forward better because of what he’d learnt, and yet, that answer was annoyingly simple: To pursue the things he wanted to pursue. 

A soft sigh left Mercury’s lips, and he laid his face down on his paws again. He wanted to travel again, really. That was one of his greatest joys, after all. But before he could do that, he wanted to deal with the rest of the sins. Only about half of them left. All he needed to do was wait.

- - -

And wait he did. Days turned to pages, and time passed. Elliot came to visit him, bringing Breeze along. The two had become swift friends, and often played together. Elliot had become a rather proficient mage, too, since the last time he and Mercury worked together, in the years that had passed since.

“Hello Mercury,” Elliot greeted with a happy smile. “I’ve come to ask for your help today!”

At that, the mopaaw raised an eyebrow. “Oh? My help?” he asked. “What do you need?”

Breeze shifted on his feet, as if the topic was a little more sensitive, but Ellio seemed entirely unbothered. “I want you to help me transition!” he, no, she said, so bluntly that Mercury double checked if he’d used <Answer>. He had not.

“Okay, come on in then,” Mercury said, heading into the house. Once he was seated around the kitchen table with both the kids - Elliot was nineteen, but that still made her a kid in his mind - he continued the conversation. “What would my help look like?”

“I’ve picked out a new name I want you to weave into me,” the kid replied, sliding a letter towards Mercury. It was wrapped in a plain envelope, though it had a few flowers drawn onto it. He gently picked it up and read the contents. “And I want you to try to change my body, though I can also manage that by learning some fleshcrafting spells later, so no hurry.”

Shaking his head slightly at how straightforward she was being, he regarded the kid. “Alright,” he said. “Luckily for you, I can probably reverse anything I do here. You’re confident about this?”

She nodded. “Completely.”

“Alright,” Mercury nodded. If she was sure, then he saw no reason to overly question her. This shouldn’t be too troublesome a procedure. “Whenever you’re ready,” he said gently.

The girl leaned back in the chair, making sure she was comfortable. “Breeze, give me your hand,” she demanded easily, and the storm-boy obliged. “Ready,” she said with a smile.

And with a nod, Mercury sank into ihn’ar, and triggered <Unravel>.

Instantly, Mercury saw the world change. Everything came apart into a tangled mess of threads. Especially, though, the girl in the chair in front of him. Her entire existence spilled forth in a nested ball of yarn, intertwined and endlessly complex.

In short, nothing Mercury hadn’t worked with before.

Compared to Bael or the skinwalkers, her structure was almost easy. She was human, after all, and Mercury had known being human once, too. Yes, it was complex. It was full of contradictions and endlessly complicated, but there were trends to the structure, threads he could follow to find what he needed to find.

With quick motions, he made his way to the place where he found her name, and he changed it. It was a small alteration, really, since she’d been scared of too big a change. But it was also easy. Instead of Elliot, her name was Ellen, and the change was made within a few quick twists.

Of course, it wouldn’t automatically have everyone use that name for her, but it would be acknowledged by the system, probably, and it would give others some… intuition, maybe, on what name suited her? Something like that. 

Then, he looked over some of the threads that decided the blueprint for her physical make-up, and that was a little more complex. He wasn’t an expert in biology, after all, but he knew reasonably enough, and in this world of intent, he could also rely on the world doing a good bit of shaping.

All he really did was alter some things about who she was, and what her body was. Her hormone distribution would be different, and some parts of her appearance would shift a bit with time. Anything else could be done with her own spells, he just needed to give her body a little push to help it figure itself out.

And with that, the operation was already done.

It took barely ten minutes until Mercury withdrew, and all the threads spooled back into each other, snapping into the person that was Ellen. He’d made the changes she’d asked for, and she quickly opened her status sheet, then gave him a beaming smile. “Thank you, Mercury!” she said.

Rolling his eyes, the mopaaw nodded. “Yes, yes, you can hug me now.”

Without hesitation, the girl wrapped her arms around his neck, squeezing the poor mopaaw. He quickly returned the hug with his ghost-hands, then pulled away. “All good?” he asked, carefully. “Feeling anything weird?”

“I am feeling happy,” she said, giggling. “Though that was expected. No, nothing too weird right now.”

“Alright,” Mercury said. “Changes should start happening slowly, but let me know if anything feels weird, and I’ll have another look.”

“Mhm!” she nodded eagerly. “I’ll let you know. Thanks again.”

He smiled. “No prob. Got anything planned for the rest of the day?” he asked.

“Oh, yes,” Ellen nodded. “I’m gonna build an ice-castle. To be a princess in.”

Snickering slightly, Mercury nodded along. “Right, of course. Have fun with that,” he said, then ruffled her hair with a ghost-hand. Not too long after, Ellen and Breeze went out into the world again, a little happier than before.

For his own part, Mercury was glad to have helped. In fact, he felt like doing some more things, so he went about what he usually did when he got bored. Using some spells to see if he could make life a bit better in stormbraver.

There was something rather nice about searching for problems and solving them. <Tapestry>, especially, had a habit of pointing him into the right direction, and usually he learnt a little bit from that. So, Mercury helped.

He went to the farms outside the city and helped with the dry fields, refilling reservoirs with a bit of <Rainfall>. An older farmer even showed him a trick of how to infuse the ability with some stamina, to help the plants grow faster. <Grain of Infinity> quickly chugged along to refill Mercury’s resources, of course.

Then, he brought food to some of the temporary housing. He visited the healer’s quarters, and treated a few patients that couldn’t pay. He helped another mopaaw off a tree, though he only got a hiss in reply.

It was fun, using his Skills to help people. He even got to do a bit of blacksmithing to help people fix up some tools, and a tiny bit of woodworking where he patched up a leaking roof. He was really rather glad that <Grass> worked on dead plants, too, letting him regrow wooden beams and framework.

[<Novice Woodworking> has levelled up! <Novice Woodworking 1 -> 2>]

He paid the courts a visit as a truth detector for a little while, too. And while it made cases extremely cut and clear, it was also a bit uncomfortable to have people get so desperate and try to lie more and more, so he stopped doing it after a bit. 

Instead, he followed another thread that had appeared in his tapestry. A new one. 

Well, not quite new, but new to Stormbraver. A problem that had just recently popped up. He could tell it was small, but at the same time, it smelled of lots of magic, so he was rather interested in it. 

[<Greater Perception> has levelled up! <Greater Perception lv. 2 -> 3>]

He followed the string of connection down to Ruvah’s lake, finding the elemental standing at its side, gently swishing their tail. Mercury looked at the lake, and nodded.

“You can feel it too, huh?” he asked him.

Ruvah nodded. He’d assumed the cat-like form of copying Mercury, even mimicking his newest evolution. His eyes stared at the lake, as if trying to peer into its depths from the surface. “I do,” he said, “and I don’t like it.”

Mercury gave the waters another glance, and he narrowed his eyes. The connection was stronger, and he even felt a gentle pull. It was connected to him, specifically, huh? But it didn’t wanna spend the effort to reach him. Or the effort to climb any higher than the lowest spot around, the bottom of the lakebed.

“I can see why you wouldn’t,” Mercury said. “Want me to check it out?” His shadow rippled gently, Juno making her presence known as another companion. 

Ruvah nodded slowly. “Yes. Though I may wish to come along.”

“Why?” Mercury asked.

“It settled in my lake. It reminds me of-” their face twisted in pain. “Of my last loss. This time, if there is to be butchery, I want to have the strength to stop it.”

With a soft hum, Mercury regarded the ice-encased elemental. That wound hadn’t healed, then. Not even close. Ruvah was still aching, hurting to be better, to do better, to make sure they didn’t lose people that same way again. So, Mercury smiled gently. “Of course you can come along.”

“We should have some kind of connection, Mercury,” Ruvah said, glancing at Juno.

The mopaaw tilted his head a little. “We do, already. We are friends.”

Smiling gently, Ruvah shook his head. “Friends? You have saved my life multiple times. Brought me to a new home. Helped me find belonging when I was abandoned.”

“I don’t think I can take credit for all of that,” Mercury said with a soft snicker. “You’ve done plenty of that yourself. You saved me, too.” 

“Indeed. That would make us companions, then, wouldn’t it?” he said.

Mercury nodded slowly. “I suppose so.”

“Then let me be your companion, Mercury,” they said. “You have your shadow, Juno. Allow me to be your… droplet?” 

At that, the mopaaw froze. He looked at Ruvah, and his calm cracked. Shit. Fucking… damn it. His own wound hadn’t healed either. It still hurt. Why did it still hurt? He was good at living with it, but then things like this happened, and…

Juno emerged from his shadow in full. Very gently, she pressed her head into his side. Mercury felt his own heartbeat, his own hitching breath, and he forced his muscles to relax. He took a long, deep breath. Held it for a few seconds, then let it go. All sliding down the <Babbling Brook> in his mind. 

“Are you sure about this, Ruvah?” he asked.

The elemental only smiled. “I can break the bond if I want to,” he said. “Do not babysit me, Mercury. I am making my own choice.”

Once more, Mercury glanced at Juno, and seeing his familiar nod at him, he gave a long, suffering sigh. “Alright, then,” he said, and slowly pressed his snout against Ruvah’s forehead. For the first time in years, he triggered <Beast King>, and a moment later, he felt the connection take hold. And his status updated.

Beast familiars: 2/2

Ruvah smiled at him. He seemed so pleased with himself, and Mercury gave a sad smile. It hurt, but he was also glad, at the same time, to still have people who wanted to be with him. He took another deep breath, letting a few seconds pass. “Thank you,” he whispered eventually.

“You as well,” Ruvah replied, his tail swishing through the air, softly crackling with ice. And then, after letting the moment linger, the elemental turned to the thing that was in the lake.

Mercury did the same thing, and let his emotions pass onwards. Deep down there was a rift. A tiny, lazy tear in reality, unmoving, not even spilling. Just an invitation, a terribly bored manifestation, just rolling with its instincts.

And since it called to Mercury, he would answer. Summoning more air into his lungs with <Rainfall>, he dove into the water to meet what awaited him down there.

Sloth.