Chapter 7 – Scouring the System
Clearing the window from in front of her eyes, Emily looks over to the clock on her desk. The clock sits at 7:48 pm, matching the pocket watch in her hand.
<em>Yep, that said 7:50 when I hit rewind. This is insane. I’m insane.</em>
Staring intently at the Clockwork of Time, she debates testing its function again to confirm her sanity but decides to take a breather and have a look at the mysterious new system instead.
<em>Status</em>
She calls out in her mind and sees the floating popup appear again.
ˉˉˉˉˉ
[Name:] Emily Coldstone
[Race:] Human
[Magic Circle:] First Circle
[Machina Cortex:] First Stage
[Attributes:] Strength 7, Dexterity 15, Agility 12, Vitality 8, Intelligence 22
[Health:] 115/115
[Stamina:] 175/175
[Mana:] 330/330
[Machina:] 330/330
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
{Please focus here to expand}
_____
The window has changed slightly since she first viewed it, the long list at the bottom now shrunk down until she focuses on it. She tries reaching out to touch the system, only for her hand to pass straight through, staying faintly visible on the other side.
<em>Definitely not physical, I wonder if anyone else can see it? Is it being projected in front of me or in my mind? Only one way to find out!</em>
She stands up and moves to her bedroom, leaving the watch on the desk behind her as she leaves. Reaching her bedroom, she shuts the door and stands in front of the mirror. Calling out for the system again, which shut the second she lost focus on it, she looks at her reflection and sees only empty air where the blue window should be.
<em>Okay, it’s in my mind. I wonder if that’s what the pain in the back of my head was. </em>
Emilyys down in bed and stares at the floating window above her.
<em>Right, let’s go through this from the top. I just need to focus on something for further exnation, right?</em>
She tries focusing on her name only for nothing in the window to change.
<em>I guess there isn’t much else for it to say about that. How about my race?</em>
This time the window does shift.
ˉˉˉˉˉ
[Race:] Human
[Traits:] Carbon-based lifeform, high adaptability, weak fleshy bodies
The mostmon sentient species spread across the cosmos.
_____
<em>Spread across the cosmos… I don’t think anything else can surprise me after today. First, I time travel, then I find out there are other intelligent species in space, and now I think about it, I guess magic is real... like one of the stories Dad used to tell us when we were kids.</em>
Laughing to herself, Emily focuses on her attributes next.
ˉˉˉˉˉ
[Attributes]
The numerical values to represent the user''s body.
All attributes increase with each increase in [Magic Circle] and [Machina Cortex]
Some attributes can be increased with meditation, training or elixirs.
_____
<em>Thank Goddess there are no surprises here. I wonder which attributes are rted to my role as a technomancer. What is a technomancer? Also, what’s a magic circle and a machina cortex?</em>
With her curiosity sparked, Emily reads through the rest of the visible options for full exnations.
ˉˉˉˉˉ
[Magic Circle]
The mage’s power organ.
A circle of pure mana condensed around the heart that disys a mage’s level of enlightenment.
Generates [Mana] and allows mages a connection to the world around them.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
[Machina Cortex]
The mechanic’s power organ.
A mechanic’s brain, optimised andpartmentalised by machina, that disys a mechanic’s stage of development.
Generates [Machina] and allows a mechanic a connection to machines around them.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
[Mana]
Energy of the universe in its base conceptual state.
Through gathering and transmutation of mana, mages can impart their truths on the world around them.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
[Machina]
Energy of the universe in an altered state, fused with a being’s bioelectricity.
Through the expenditure of machina, mechanics can empower and connect with their machines or enhance their reflexes and processing speed.
_____
<em>All this wording is so weird! Impart their truths!? What is that supposed to mean? What’s bioelectricity? And why don’t health and stamina have exnations, are they just self-exnatory? </em>
“Urgh my head!” Emily whines and rolls over to bury her face in her pillow.
She breathes slowly to try and clear the endless questions building up in her head.
<em>Slow deep breaths. Just like Anna taught you.</em>
<em>Breath in. Hold for three seconds.</em>
<em>Breath out. Hold for two.</em>
<em>Breath in. Hold for three seconds.</em>
<em>Breath out. Hold for two.</em>
<em>“</em>Hhaaaaa.” Emily focuses and enters a meditative state. Losing track of time, she begins to feel the ethereal flow around her again.
It’s faint this time. If before it was a raging torrent, now it’s a calm brook.
Seeing the flow again surprises Emily enough that she almost loses her rhythm and breaks her meditation. The warm sense offort she feels though, instead of the splitting pain she was expecting, calms her nerves.
The stream of energy flows around her, gently caressing her body. A small part of the stream enters her mouth, so she allows her focus to follow it and be guided within herself.
As the flow hits her lungs it’s immediately pulled to her heart, where it cycles around her magic circle once before continuing to the rest of her body. Through twisting channels and pathways lined with lightning, the energy slowly washes through Emily’s entire body, small strands splitting off intermittently to nourish her muscles and organs.
Seeing the energy gently helping her body assuages most of her concerns about the changes she’s undergoing.
<em>I think… This is mana... It’s beautiful.</em>
Emily takes a pause to empty her mind again and follows the flow once more.
Once the flow reaches her cortex, Emily sees the mana undergo a fundamental change. The smooth flow is methodically taken apart, part of it continuing back to the lungs to leave the body, the other part being transmuted into lightning. The lightning shoots back through all the channels she just followed mana through slowly.
In an instant, Emily perceives her entire body at the same time.
It’s not an overwhelming feeling; instead, it’s a soothing sense of oneness. Her whole body brought together by this strangework of lightning shooting along beneath her skin.
<em>I guess this is machina, does that mean bioelectricity is just tamed lightning?</em>
Emily’s calm meditation is forcefully shattered as she feels four zing suns of mana entering the building. Her eyes snap open and she shoots to her feet as she btedly hears the doorbell ring.
<em>Shit, they know. </em>
ˉˉˉˉˉ
Skill created: Basic Meditation (active)
_____
Blinking away the system notification, she quickly heads through the hallway, past Anna’s closed door and into the kitchen.
Approaching the door to the shopfront she slows, quietening her steps and listening carefully to the conversation she hears.
“-thought you could steal from the Mandrago family and get away with it? What do you have to say for yourself?” A voice she recognises as the tall man from before questions.
“I swear I don’t know what you’re talking about! We gave over everything we took from the Hollow Warden!”
Emily peeks through the doorway into the shop and sees Herber kneeling on the floor sweating profusely as the tall man res down at him.
“We felt the magical signature of one of our crystals from this shop, there’s no use lying.”
“What crystals? Also, magic isn’t real, why do you keep mentioning it?” Herber asks, visibly confused.
Seeing Herber’s confusion, the tall man frowns and turns to one of the short men behind him.
“Miguel, is he telling the truth?”
Miguel steps forward, cing a hand on Herber’s forehead, closing his eyes and beginning a chant.
“Heed my words and my blessings of light…”
Strange shimmering white runes begin forming in the air around Miguel’s hand.
“…with honesty as my guiding might. With lies banished and my conscience clean…”
Thin white lines carve themselves into the air around the runes, forming aplicatedttice of mana.
“…let the light prevail and the truth be seen!”
A glowing white light spreads from the runic circle to encase Herber, sitting calmly in the air around him.
“Are you hiding our magic crystals knowingly?” the tall man asks again.
“No!” Herber says, his voice quivering in fear as he looks at the supernatural phenomenon urring around him. The white light remains for a few seconds as Emily sits with bated breath, then fades out of existence as Miguel opens his eyes and turns around.
“He’s telling the truth, Diego.”
“I see, in that case, it must be someone else in the shop. We don’t need him anymore, Carlos!” The tall man, Diego, says while stepping aside to allow the muscr man behind him to approach Herber.
“No one in this shop has your crystals. I think I’d know if my daughters were using magic!” Herber says with anger, struggling to his feet.
Carlos says nothing, simply approaching Herber, producing a knife from within his robes and jamming it into Herber’s throat in a smooth motion as he rises.
“AAHH,“ Emily lets out a scream in shock before quickly covering her mouth, Herber’s fallen form ovepping with the long-suppressed image of her parents bleeding out in front of her.
<em>Not again.</em>
Her heart drops, her breath catching in her throat as panic threatens to overwhelm her.
“Tsk,” Diego clicks his tongue. ”Miguel, Jose, capture her for questioning.”
<em>No, the watch can turn back time, it’s fine, Dad will be fine. I can do something this time!</em>
Taking onest nce at Herber falling to the ground, clutching his throat as blood pours out, cold resolve settles in Emily’s gut, dragging her back from the brink of despair as she turns and runs into the hallway with tears streaming down her face. Two pairs of footsteps chase after her, but she doesn’t look back to see her pursuers, focused only on reaching her workshop.
She bursts through the workshop door and scrambles to her desk, but instead of seeing the Clockwork of Time where she left it, she sees nothing but her notes and a few scattered tools.
<em>Damn it, I left it right here, where did it go?</em>
Feeling her panic build, Emily pulls the chair away from the desk and looks at the floor, finding nothing there she nces around the room and sees Miguel and Jose walk in.
Taking a deep breath, Emily calms her nerves and calls up the system interface, navigating down to the Clockwork of Time again.
ˉˉˉˉˉ
[Clockwork of Time]
[Rank:] Exclusive (bound)
[Description:] The first marvel of technology and magic created by the Technomancer Emily Coldstone and blessed by the universe upon inception.
[Effect:] Upon activation, rewind time by up to twenty-four hours
_____
Reading through the description, she focuses on (bound).
ˉˉˉˉˉ
Bound items can’t be removed from the user.
Upon separation, the item will automatically return to the user.
_____
<em>If it returned to me when I left the room, then it has to be in one of my pockets!</em>
The two Mandrago mages are two steps into the room, eight steps away from Emily.
Emily pats her trouser pockets and finds nothing.
Six steps away.
She reaches for her breast pocket and finds a familiar shape beneath the cloth.
Five steps away.
Pulling out The Clock she presses the button on top while ncing down at the time.
Tick!
Four steps away.
It’s 8:15 pm, only thirty minutes have passed since she first turned back time.
Tick!
Three steps away.
Emily looks back up at the two men approaching, now moving in slow motion.
Tick!
Two steps away.
She grins at them as thest of her panic washes away, reced by a calm confidence as she findsfort in the familiar pressure wrapping her body.
Tick!
One step away, and Jose reaches a hand towards Emily.
Tick!
The hand never reaches her.
Time stops when Jose’s hand is a few centimetres away from Emily’s arm, then begins to wind backwards.
Tick! Tick! Tick!
Emily watches the men moving in reverse with fascination.
Tick!
Then space splits around her, and her perception is once again twisted to pieces.
Tick! Tick! Tick! Tick!
A wave of force once again bursts from Emily along with a crack of thunder, as the clocks hit 7:45 pm.
<em>I have thirty minutes to make sure Dad doesn’t die.</em>
Hurried footsteps charge towards her workshop as Emily stands up and walks towards the door. The second Herber pushes it open, she dives into his arms and starts crying.