Chapter 14 - I'm Not a Wizard, Hans

  Section 5: Mana/Energy Discipline

  5.1 Mana/Energy are your primary offensive consumable. Both regenerate, but a soldier with depleted pools is considered combat-ineffective and should not be included in current engagement capacity estimates.

  5.2 Personnel are strictly forbidden from depleting their pools below 15% during standard offensive operations unless given commands to the contrary by a Master Sergeant or higher.

  5.3 Mana Regeneration techniques are only to be performed in strictly non-combat settings

  -Snippet for an initial proposal for new U.S. military procedure. Dated one year before The System's descent.

  Solis had a lot to think about for the two days he had been resting inside the dome.

  Samir had needed to continually use [Purify] on him to combat the upticking corruption, which had been miserable, but necessary.

  It was there, writhing in agony, when Solis realized something. Mana and Corruption had to be intrinsically related, and that – in a pinch – Energy and Shielding could be used in place of Mana. He wasn’t able to do anything with that information as it hadn't been on purpose, and he was too busy with the whole writhing thing, but it gave him some ideas for afterward. Namely, if he could take a tiny bit of corruption and eat it as the system suggested.

  There was corruption in the environment, but also mana. If taking the corruption into his chest purified it, he could take in a lot more mana into himself than what he’d get sitting around passively in the [Nominal] zone.

  The other shocking bit of news is that the siblings hadn’t listened when they were told to stay behind and had come out of the cave entrance after he had collapsed. Solis himself wasn’t that surprised by that outcome, but Ira and Samir seemed extremely upset. Thankfully, despite their anger, neither Ira nor the doctor screamed at or berated the children, just firmly told them to go back, and they’d all talk later.

  Which left Solis where he was now. Still lying on the floor of his dome, listening to crickets chitter and crawl over its surface. To the young man, they seemed curious rather than angry, which isn’t what he had expected. Dimitri sat with him. The man was quiet, and not for the first time, Solis felt surprised that Ira was the brawler and not Dimitri. Ira wasn’t a small woman by any means, and she had the proper technique for a boxer, but Dimitri was covered from head to toe in muscles and scars.

  Like before, Solis attempted to sit up, and like before, found his own muscles had entirely failed him. He thought that a pulse of Body could get him sat up, but as soon as he turned it off, he’d go limp. So, he settled for talking from the floor. “Why. Listen?” Solis asked in broken Russian.

  The man frowned and responded in English. “No. Know.”

  “Err. Class. Listen. Why”

  “Scout”

  Solis mulled his next words over, trying to find a way to get to the actual question he was trying to answer.

  “You. Scout. Yes. Why.”

  Dimitri looked away, but Solis didn’t miss the sour expression on his face.

  “Needed. Similar. Water. Needed.”

  Solis let the topic drop. It was clearly a sore spot for the man, and he didn’t feel like pushing it.

  “Need. Stab. Monster.” Solis said instead.

  That got a bark of laughter out of Dimitri, the smile having replaced his previous expression.

  Yes. Stab many. Many Monster. Many stab.”

  There was a brief moment of silence, where the only sound that could be heard was the chittering of crickets. Solis smiled.

  “Me caveman. Caveman see monster. Caveman stab.”

  Both men looked at each other, then burst into laughter, to the point that Solis felt appreciable pain, not just the dull ache of sore muscles and a sore mind.

  “Caveman.” Dimitri reaffirmed, sending another round of fitful laughter through the two.

  The conversation continued like that, both speaking each other's language, albeit poorly, and waiting for Solis to recover.

  —

  “That boy is going to kill himself.” Ira paced as she bit her thumb. Hours had passed since the incident in the forest. They waylaid their immediate water concerns with the bowl, but once that ran out, they’d have to open the dome and deal with the crickets.

  Her husband's words brought her back to the present. “He’s strong, beloved. You worry for nothing.”

  “Nothing! Dimi, he was puking his brains out. Samir said 0.7 corruption killed people, by the end of it he would’ve had 1.3!” She rounded on her love, frustrated by his attitude.

  “Some hair on his chest,” the man tried to joke, and from Ira’s icy glare it obviously hadn’t gone over well. The man cleared his throat, “I know I know, but he saved us there. Maybe we fight our way out of that one. Maybe, but not without cost, and I’m not talking about something Samir could fix. I’m talking limbs.”

  “He’s hardly old enough to drink, not even where he’s from. Let alone risk his life. He should stay back with the other kids.”

  Dimitri sucked in a breath, and Ira glared.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  His eyes flicked to the crack for only a brief moment, but Ira caught it.

  “No. You can not be serious.”

  “I may have caught them going to talk with Solis.”

  “DIMITRI!”

  “Hey hey, let’s sit down. You’re working yourself up over nothing. They’re just talking. I made them promise just to talk, not even to try killing the crickets.”

  Exasperated, Ira sat next to her husband and rested her head in the crook of his neck. It was something she always liked about him, how large he was. The muscles were nice too; she felt encapsulated. It comforted her a bit.

  “I just treat them like our boys. You know how they are. As strong in the heart as in the head.”

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  “We’re in America,” Ira said, and the words and their unspoken implication hung in the air. Their boys were in Russia, half the world away, before it expanded by a factor of fifteen.

  Dimitri held Ira’s hand in his and gently kissed her knuckles. “I don’t care if there are gods or leviathans in the way. We’ll find them Ira.”

  Ira nestled further into Dimitri, and he wrapped both hands around her.

  “I’m scared for them. All of them.”

  “I am too, but we raised our kids well. Strong. Smart. I’d be more worried about Solis. For as smart as he seems … he sure acts like he’s invincible. Even the siblings seem more responsible.”

  “Not helping,” Ira playfully pushed Dimitri away, and he made himself shoot backwards as if he had been hit by a train. Ira was pretty sure he had activated [Body] for that joke.

  “Oh ow. You wound me. I am injured and can not go on.”

  “Pffft,” Ira let out a snort and held out a hand, “get up little fool.”

  Accepting the helping hand, Dimitri brought his wife into another hug, “We’ll be fine. I know we will. I believe in you, so believe in me a little bit too, okay?”

  Ira nodded and tilted her head up to look Dimitri in the eyes, and leaned in for a kiss. She stopped a hair's breadth away. “Always”

  —

  “I was really hoping we could do the caveman thing him and Dimitri do.” Ana offered from one side of the prone Solis

  “I don’t think he speaks any German,” Hans said from the opposite side.

  “Well, he didn’t speak any Russian before this if all of Ira’s scolding is anything to go by.”

  “Do you guys know what personal space is?” Solis groaned, and to the two teens' ears it sounded like perfect German. They knew it wasn’t, but that’s what their mutation did; it made the translation skill permanent and always active. Ana still kicked rocks whenever she remembered it. The siblings had both gained too much [Corruption] in the early days, back when everyone was still confused.

  It had happened over time: being bedridden due to corruption for a week, the System had decided to just eat one of their enhancement points and force them to select a mutation. What was worse is that the System said that the enhancement point had been permanently locked and couldn’t be regained under any circumstances.

  There were no good options for one point in mutation, and universal translation was the most useful one they could buy

  Which is why both siblings were staring back at the crack, with the intense desire to be anywhere but where they were right then. The crickets were talking.

  Food

  Food

  Food

  Food

  Food

  Anathema

  Food

  It caused Ana to shiver. She hated those fucking things. She had hated the monsters before, but after getting the mutation, they never shut up. They weren’t thinking, breathing, or feeling things. They were monsters, plain and simple. Even the birds she had seen had more complex conversations than monsters.

  That wasn’t to say monsters were stupid, just simple. They had their goal. Kill humans. Ana had hers. Kill monsters. They needed no more complex understanding than two things wanting to murder each other.

  “We should probably tell them about the mutation. Solis would probably want to take it at least,” Hans offered, his eyes never straying far from the bugs.

  “Hell no. That’s embarrassing. Plus, they’re talking just fine without it. It’s a waste of a point they’d never get back.”

  “So that’s how you’re always listening.” Solis said, startling both of the siblings – Ana actually falling over due to the surprise.

  “Wh- how long were you listening?” Hans asked with an accusing finger.

  “Not long. Just got real lucky. I’ve found I can pulse [Translate] like I can [Resonance]. If I take less than a second it only takes a portion of the mana. So, I can tune in for a few milliseconds to see if there’s anything interesting happening.”

  “Eavesdropper!” Ana accused.

  Solis gave her a flat look and turned to Hans.

  “Neither of you have a leg to stand on. I’m turning off translate now. You can do charades for me if you want to ask a question, otherwise I’ll just ramble at you.”

  “Wait wait wait,” Hans said, “we do have a question for you.”

  Solis closed his eyes, but Ana could tell it was because the bastard was trying to suppress a laugh, not because he was annoyed. “Sorry,” he started, “I turned it off before that last sentence.”

  Surprisingly, most of all to Ana, that elicited a reaction from the typically stoic and well-mannered Hans. He kicked a rock.

  Ana blinked, pointed, and then laughed at her brother, who glowered at her. She took over from there. “Translate … we want to join you guys next time. Killing those crickets brought us up to three. I’m sure if we kill a few more, we can get to at least six. Then we’ll have more skills to work with. Ira’s the only fighter we have, if we do this we’ll have two more. Easy fix.”

  Solis considered for a moment before speaking. “Like I said, this is going to be rambling. Also, no more translate. I’m serious. I want to save as much as I can. I’ve been in this Rank Zone for hours, but it’s not enough for what I want to try here in a bit.”

  He took a breath, “As for your request. Yeah. Sure. I’m fine with that, but I’m not the one you need to convince. That’s Ira and Samir, but for all intents and purposes, I agree that our current strategy won’t work. You have my vote and likely Dimitri’s, but not if Ira is absolutely opposed. So really, you just need to convince Ira and then Samir will be outvoted.”

  “Jeez. He really is a rambler. You think the mana fried his brain.” Ana nudged her brother, “You won’t have to worry about that though. Pretty sure yours already is.”

  “Oh shut it.” Hans grumbled.

  “Hold up how many fingers per enhancement point you have?” Both siblings held up a big fat zero.

  “So the first order of business would be getting you two to level four. You can pick up a ranged skill or a damage-dealing skill. It can be temporary, just need a skill to get more EXP, and you can swap it out later.”

  Ana nodded. She and Hans had basically said the same thing, so really, Solis was just riffing off of them.

  Solis looked from the siblings to the crickets and back to the kids. It was clear to them that his mind was racing with possibilities. “So there’s a formula. I’m not sure exactly what it is, but I kept track in my notes. To level from 2 to 3 you need 1,169, and from 3 to 4, that’s another 1,631, for a total of 2,800. I have no clue how much these crickets give since I was also at my cap, but I made a note here that a level 5 I killed gave 500. My guess is that one cricket will give you 45 EXP, but I typically avoid swarms. So, to level up to four, you need to kill 63 crickets, which should be the maximum.”

  “Too many numbers.” Hans grumbled.

  Ana agreed. That was a lot of crickets.

  “Also,” Hans continued, getting Solis’s attention. “We’re already level three, the cap had us level up instantly once we increased it, so just that 1,631 number.”

  Solis thought for a moment, then nodded. “You’re right. I forgot to check, but I’m level eight now. Huh. Good catch. Well that makes it easier. So, you get EXP just from regenerating Mana, Shielding, and Energy too. Equal to one point per of Pool regenerated. What’s your [Pools] at now? The maximums, write them in the dirt please.”

  The siblings did as the older boy asked.

  Ana

  Discernment: 1

  Division: 1

  Shielding: 86

  Energy: 106

  Mana: 186

  Hans

  Resonance: 2

  Shielding: 67

  Energy: 60

  Mana: 374

  Solis began rambling again. Talking about regeneration rates for specific ranked zones. Ana didn’t much care, and so sat silently picking up small pieces here and there. At the end of the older boy's rant, he gave them solid numbers.

  If Ana constantly drained her pools and let them regenerate, she could gain a whopping 5.31 EXP per hour, and Hans could gain 7.1 EXP per hour. His saying it out loud, as if he had just solved a great problem of humanity, made Ana want to strangle Solis.

  “Stop glaring at me, it’s not that bad. For doing nothing you could level up in thirteen days. Isn’t that amazing?”

  She put on the most withering look she could manage, and Solis held up his hands in surrender. “Yeah, didn’t imagine that would go over too well. How about we kill some of these crickets and see how much EXP that gives us?”

  Ana shifted uncomfortably for a moment. “Dimitri made us promise we’d only talk.”

  Solis shrugged. “Yeah, well… hmm that that's a problem. Did you actually promise?”

  “Yeah,” Hans nodded his head.

  “Damn. Well, if you want to win anyone over, I can’t exactly encourage either of you to just do whatever. So, just watch instead.

  Solis waved his hand, and a wall materialized, cutting the dome in half. Nothing else happened for a moment, then the air began to waver as if there were a heat haze. A moment later, crickets fell onto the other side of the wall, dropping with surprised chitters. They started running around their enclosed space and Ana could see them through kill holes in the newly minted walls.

  She turned to Solis, slack-jawed and confused. “Did you just phase them through a wall?”