Project Seraphina [LitRPG, Magitech, GL]
2.62 Final Preparations III

Chloe and I sit down for lunch, which today consists of some day-old barbecued meats that were generously donated from a nearby restaurant. And that seems to be a common occurrence over the past two days. A lot of donations of food or supplies from various people or businesses. I think the attack at the capitol was simply too big, too explosive, and too much of an encroachment upon the lives of the city’s residents. Especially those more well off, not unlike Chloe’s mother, who have thus far been able to live their lives more or less as before.

Not all of these items are of much use; the ordinary guns and weapons are pretty useless as they are, and I simply haven’t the time to give them a proper enchanting before the big clash to determine the fate of Red Clay City. The thoughtful gesture is appreciated, and it’s nice to know that we have support from the people living in the area.

Never going to stop being weird, though, going from a rebel to some sort of angelic paragon.

Kristil ends up taking the seat across from me shortly after Chloe and I sit down. After we exchange a few brief pleasantries, I hand over the necklace and ask her to try it on.

“Chloe, are you okay with this?” Kristil asks. “Your girlfriend is just handing over jewelry to other women, without a care in the world.”

Chloe flashes her ring. “I got one as well. But don’t worry about it; she has assured me that she’s only doing this because they are accessories containing specialized glyph arrays that will augment our combat capabilities.”

Kristil chuckles. “That makes me feel a bit better, actually. Especially since I’m more into guys.”

“Your loss,” Chloe says. She grips my arm a little tighter for emphasis.

“I’ll live.” She sticks her tongue out at Chloe, causing all three of us to laugh like the schoolgirls we were mere months ago.

“By the way, Kristil,” I ask. “What have you been up to lately? Sorry I’ve not been paying much attention to, well, pretty much anything except my crafting the last couple of days.”

“Just taking some time to grieve my cousin.”

I nod. I realize as she says this that I’ve not had much opportunity to grieve my mother. Or my father, whom I’ve still not heard from since the System’s arrival. I still want to hold out hope that he’s alive somewhere. But with every day that goes by, that hope grows a little bit dimmer.

I check my phone, just to be sure there hasn’t been anything from him. Nothing once again from him or from Chloe’s mom, though at least Chloe and her mother have been in contact every few days. I blush at what I do see, a snippet of a rather raunchy text from Chloe, but I ignore it as best I can. That kind of fun can wait until after we’re done with this.

“May I ask one question?” Kristil asks.

“Uh, sure,” I say.

“Is there a reason you’re still wearing those wings? They look kinda silly in here.”

“Same reason I’m still wearing this arm,” I say. “I feel more comfortable with them on than off. If not for how unwieldy they are in the bath or bed, I don’t think I’d ever take them off.”

We all three giggle. But in saying so, I realize a truth I should have known a long time ago. The rest of my evening needs to be spent modifying the [Wings of Icarus] into a more suitable variant, one that properly encapsulates what my class is all about. And it’s a good chance to really dive into System-generated tech, now that I have a stronger Ethertech Skill. I have tried modifying and refilling the [Ether Canisters] previously, but to this point, I’ve had no success with it or anything else.

“I understand,” Kristil says. “I was hardly one for an outfit like this before the System, either.”

It does make me wonder: to what extent are our classes and Skills influencing our personality? I think it’s mostly the other way around; we are assigned our class options based on our actions and worldview. But if what Kristil says is accurate, there’s a nonzero amount of reverse causality as well. Maybe some analogue of how brains work to reduce cognitive dissonance?

After finishing up my meal, I head back to my workshop. The heat outside has gotten to the point where it’s far more comfortable with the windows closed and the air conditioning set to full blast. And since I’m not planning to use my little forge today, I actually get to avail myself of that joyousness for a change.

With some reluctance and grumbling, I deactivate the harness holding my wings affixed to my body and set them onto the table before me. A part of me wants to rush in and start building whatever apparatus I need in order to graft it onto my spine, taking full advantage of my [Cybernetic Body] skill. Unfortunately, my knowledge of Ethertech is far from sufficient, and I’d like to make sure I don’t need to fully rely on System Skills when I can help it. At some point in the near future, though.

For now, though, I start looking through all of the glyphs that are etched into my wings. And it’s a ton of them. Thousands of them at least, all on the order of mere microns across. I can’t make them all out, even with my eyes as improved as they are. I do see my trusty [Repulsion] glyph, often linked to another glyph that I assume has to be associated with gravity in some capacity.

It’s quite an odd shape, a sort of cross between a circle and a triple helix curling inward toward an inner circle that looks nearly black. Intuitively, I have to imagine it’s even more complex than what I can discern— what appears to be a black circle in the center probably has a number of grooves and conduits and sluices so tiny that I can’t see. But I jot what I can down in my sketchpad nonetheless, reasoning that it’s at least some clue as to the nature of the overall functioning of the device.

Some other glyphs are— unsurprisingly enough— related to the Wind element. It seems like the natural choice for flight. And, like everything else, that realization brings up other questions. Could I still fly on these wings in outer space, or some other near-vacuum? Excluding the whole ‘surviving in a vacuum’ question, of course. Intuitively, I shouldn’t be able to, although if this mysterious new glyph really does relate to [Gravity], maybe I actually could.

And if that’s the case, perhaps these wings also hold the key to far more. Forget rockets or trying to make the theory of a solar sail work. If Ether permeates the cosmos and can be siphoned into a fuel source, we could be looking at a way to actually travel to new star systems after all. Just as soon as I also find a way to close the distance between them or learn how to travel at faster-than-light speeds so… I suppose I’m not that close after all.

The next glyph I find is one I actually recognize. It’s one that I studied during my time working with Dr. Reynolds. I’ve been calling it [Repetition], and it causes a previously-specified action to, well, repeat itself. It has some potential applications in doublecasting, for instance, but without a sufficient reservoir of [Ether] to draw from, it’s not a particularly useful glyph for a [Glyphcaster] at my level.

From the looks of it, [Repetition] is being used to handle the mechanical action of flapping the wings in rapid succession. This… [Creation]? It has a similar effect as my inherent power of Manifestation… [Conjuration] might be more apt. [Repetition] of the motion array is being used as the input energy to [Conjure] Wind energy, which is then used as a fuel source of sorts with [Repulsion].

Despite appearing near one another, the [Gravity] glyph seems to have an almost entirely separate apparatus linked to it. And I can’t make out most of the functionality behind it. No, wait, I do see a [Control] glyph. I believe, with low confidence, that the glyph is responsible for interlinking with the wearer’s mental commands, allowing them to move in accordance with their will.

That would make sense. Unlike my [Glyphcasting] spells, which are instantaneous, or the accessories I’ve crafted, which only require a single user input to activate, the [Wings of Icarus] require constant influx of information from the wearer’s will. This glyph, when activated by the wearer’s [Ether], converts that will into the various actions that move the user around in the air. A pretty ingenious way of simulating some sort of neuron-machine synapse. Although I’ll need to do a lot more research and understand the rest of these glyphs and how they’re linked together if I want to build my cybernetics properly.

The bad news is, Operation ‘Build Angelic Wings’ is a dud. I could decorate them with feathers and maybe add on a couple of [Light] glyphs, maybe build some rudimentary glamor to make them look a little more angelic. But it wouldn’t be functional. And right now, I need functional.

Although I do have an idea. I gaze upon the [Gravity] glyph and attempt to Manifest it directly into my hand. It’s a process which strains my mind like no single glyph ever has. The number of individual strokes and curves is at least an order of magnitude larger than anything I’ve worked with before.

Elemental glyphs are easy. A few dozen strokes, and a fair bit of tolerance on a lot of them. A degree or two in the angles. Not a lot by the standards of Earth writing, but for magical incantations that have to be perfect, that much tolerance is as vast as the ocean. Change [Fire] a bit, and you get a bit different of a color, or temperature, but it’s still fire. Still goes brr, still burns and heats and does whatever else a fire does.

Glyphs like [Impulse] and [Repulsion] are a bit more complicated. About twice as many strokes compared with [Lightning], itself a bit more complex than [Fire] or [Light]. And there’s a bit less tolerance for error. Still workable for an apprentice [Glyphcaster] or [Mechanist].

But [Gravity] is two steps harder in both regards. First, since the associated force is so weak, any deviations of more than a few arcseconds will completely collapse the entire glyph. And second, there are so damn many lines. And plenty of curves as well, all of which have the same lack of tolerance for error anywhere along the arc length.

My [Angelic Insight] and [Basic Glyph Manifestation] Skills are both pulling their weight, though. With a lot of work and sweat and mental exertion the shape of the glyph slowly starts to form in the palm of my hand. It’s honestly pretty beautiful, a spiraling fractal in some fractional dimensional space which has been projected into Euclidean geometry. Certainly one way of representing how gravity is seen as a curvature of spacetime caused by objects with mass-energy.

I don’t try to use the glyph. I certainly don’t try to slot it into a [Glyphcasting] array. My mind is already at its limit just Manifesting the glyph in place. But this is a form of practice in and of itself, and so I maintain my mental link on the glyph.

It gets no easier as time goes by. To the extent I start to acclimate myself to holding the power of [Gravity] in my mind, the fatigue I’ve experienced more than offsets the ease associated. Much as I want to practice holding both it and the [Intensify] glyph together, forming a rudimentary ‘Gravitational Crush’ type of spell, I cannot. This single glyph on its own is the limit of my mental capabilities, and even my power as 「The Anomaly」 does not enable me to overcome them so easily.

So instead, I just practice. With the exception of my two Chloe-mandated five minute breaks, I practice holding the glyph all afternoon. I practice moving it about a bit, spinning it, adjusting its orientation. That goes pretty well. I try shrinking and expanding the physical size of the glyph. That does less well, although as I expand it, I get a better view of its labyrinthine central area. Yeah, an endless, spiraling labyrinth. That’s a great descriptor of what it looks like.

But soon enough, dinner arrives, and with it, the end of two long, tiring days of work. As the day’s System notifications come in, I have but a single thought: will all my work be enough against forces more numerous, stronger, better equipped, and more prepared than I can hope to be? It’s upon this dim hope that we all end up heading to an early sleep tonight.

[Your [Angelic Insight (Rank III)] has upgraded to [Angelic Insight (Rank IV)].]

[Your [Basic Glyph Manifestation (Rank VIII)] has upgraded to [Basic Glyph Manifestation (Rank X)].]

[Your [Glyphcasting (Rank XIII)] has upgraded to [Glyphcasting (Rank XIV)].]

[Your [Intermediate Ether Manipulation (Rank IX)] has upgraded to [Intermediate Ether Manipulation (Rank XI).]