Technomancer: Birth of a Goddess
Chapter 186 – Ulea’s Strongest Mage

A few days later, Calypso drops Emily’s new crystals off while collecting another shipment of magazine-fed handguns and bullets for the Defence Force. In anticipation of her next ascension, Emily slowly follows the process of refining all ten greater crystals into compressed gems radiating power.

As the last purple gem is completed, added to a pile with the others that creates a distorted bubble of twisted space, she receives a signal from the factory’s Logic Core, alerting her to the completion of the elixir in the gathering chamber far below.

Emily sweeps the powdered crystal residue from the mana-resistant metal worksurface before her into her belt and leaves her lab. She doesn’t bother calling the elevator down, stepping into the empty shaft and dropping down to the bottom level eagerly.

Mensacus greets her with a flicker of his mana, but Emily barely pays him a second thought as she approaches the elixir cauldron. She presses a palm to the now-dull metal and reaches inside with her magical senses, brushing against the mana-filled liquid within with satisfaction.

“Perfect,” she mutters to herself, withdrawing her mana and casting Forgemaster.

She peels back several layers of metal, forming a thin spout beneath which she holds a glass jar, collecting the glistening blue elixir with care. She doesn’t waste a drop and, once the cauldron is empty, she turns to leave.

‘Good luck,’ Mensacus whispers, brushing the back of Emily’s neck with a strand of his mana as she steps back into the elevator shaft.

A short-lived smile curls her lips as she shoots up the shaft, kicking off the narrow walls repeatedly without bothering to cast any spells. She enters the power generation floor and heads straight to her cultivation chamber, sending Pod a message through the Logic Core to warn him not to enter.

Emily turns the mana and voltage of the room to the max before she steps in, filling the space with crackling charge that laps at her skin like a loyal dog eager to greet her. Settling down in the centre of the room, cross-legged, Emily brings the jar of elixir, a dose large enough to satisfy multiple third circle mages, to her nose and takes a deep breath.

A light, fruity smell fills her senses. It has a slight, salty tang, like the seaside air, and Emily’s mouth begins to water immediately. With a final glance at her system intelligence stat, which stagnated at one hundred and seventy several months earlier, she downs the elixir.

The liquid slips down her throat smoothly, absorbing into her body before it even reaches her stomach and spreading a comforting chill. The relaxing feeling flows through every inch of her flesh, and every cell in her body greedily drinks in the powerful mana that comes with it. The feeling doesn’t spread to her metal arm, planting a small seed of concern in Emily’s heart as her circles swell, drawing in the foreign mana without restraint.

Will the arm affect my ascension?

Her intelligence quickly ticks up, increasing faster than it has in years, and it passes one hundred and eighty within a few minutes. Emily feels something shift deep within her being, and, without the system's prompting, she can suddenly feel that both her cortex and her circles are on the cusp of a new development, bursting with power that wants to be given form.

¯¯¯¯¯

[Status]

[Name:] Emily Coldstone

[Race:] Human

[Age:] 18 > 20

[Magic Circle:] Third Circle

[Machina Cortex:] Third Stage

[Attributes:] Strength 20 > 21 (40), Dexterity 67 > 75 (86), Agility 56 > 68 (80), Vitality 17 > 20 (33), Intelligence 142 > 180

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

[Progression]

[Circle/Stage:] Third

Requirements:

-Intelligence 180/180 (Complete)

-Upgrade Basic Mana Manipulation to Intermediate grade (Complete)

-Create 1/1 unique D rank machine (Complete)

-Complete 3/3 C rank quests (Complete)

-Kill 2/2 fourth circle mages (Complete)

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Progression requirements met.

Would you like to begin stage ascension? [Yes]/[No]

(Warning, it is recommended that User finds a safe area with a high mana density to ensure the best results of ascension)

_____

Her intelligence ticks up again, and Emily ignores the system prompt, shutting her eyes, emptying her mind, and trusting her instincts. She removes The Clock from her arm so she can’t activate it by accident and sets it in her lap before reaching inwards and pulling on the new sensation.

The pressure inside her erupts at once, and her energy reserves burst with power, releasing pulses of mana and machina that flood her being. Her fleeting concern proves unwarranted as both energies flow through her left arm unhindered. The buzzing mana and electricity around her churn, twisting into a vortex with her at the centre and lifting her from the ground.

Emily doesn’t feel any pain this time as power flows into her from the atmosphere, and she carefully guides it through herself, knowing exactly where each drop needs to go. First, the energy rushes to her gut, ripping her organs to pieces and using the empty space to form muscles, blood vessels, nerves, and bones to further reinforce her.

Next, it rises up to shred her lungs, reducing them to barely a fraction of their original size as Emily continues to breathe in mana, completely unaffected. Then, the external force ripples through her skin and muscles, seeping into them along with her metal limb.

Finally, her heart and cortex begin to absorb the energy, pulling it into two intense vortices that draw all of her attention and drown out all other sensations in her body. Emily’s eyes snap open, and she sees the intimately familiar cosmic stream of energy wrapped around her, pouring inspiration into her mind and slowly pushing her closer and closer to an ephemeral understanding of its workings.

Her third circle stabilises with the external pressure, and the vortex of mana around it condenses into a fourth holding as much energy as the first three combined, despite its unstable state. Her cortex condenses and splits, growing more cores and improving the strength of the existing ones in the same breath.

Emily’s instincts scream a warning as she pushes the energy flooding her body towards the emotional centre of her cortex, so she makes a snap decision to isolate it. She carefully leads the energy around the emotional vault, leaving it annoyingly unchanged as the rest of her body pushes closer to perfection.

With a final pulse of power, the process ends, and Emily drops to the floor.

¯¯¯¯¯

Congratulations! Ascension successful.

[Status]

[Name:] Emily Coldstone

[Race:] Human

[Age:] 20

[Magic Circle:] Third > Fourth Circle

[Machina Cortex:] Third > Fourth Stage

[Attributes:] Strength 21 > 23 (42), Dexterity 75 > 142 (153), Agility 68 > 110 (122), Vitality 20 > 21 (34), Intelligence 181 > 342

[Health:] 330/330

[Stamina:] 880/880

[Mana:] 82080/82080

[Machina:] 80080/82080

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Sub-system updated: Progression

[Progression]

[Circle/Stage:] Fourth

Requirements:

-Intelligence 342/450 (Not Complete)

-Create and integrate an innate defensive technique (Not Complete)

-Clear a fifth circle dungeon (Not Complete)

-Receive a natural blessing (Not Complete)

-Decide upon and realise your development pathway (Not Complete)

>Replace twenty per cent of your mass with metal (Not Complete) {Optional}

>Restore your body to exclusively flesh (Not Complete) {Optional}

>Consume the essence of your chosen element(s) (Not Complete) {Optional}

>Attribute your mana circles (Not Complete) {Optional}

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Mechanic skill unlocked!

[Overclock (active)]

[Cost:] Variable Machina and Stamina

An intermediate ability of mechanics to utilise machina to improve their own performance at the cost of their energy and health. Depends on the mechanic’s stage, the amount of machina used, and the resilience of their body and cortex.

-Grants variable % increase to reflexes and processing speed.

-Stresses the body proportionally to the improvement of performance.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Mage skill unlocked!

[Subconscious Casting (passive)]

An intermediate ability of mages to imbue their spells into their bodies and movements.

-Grants the ability to cast spells without conscious effort.

_____

Emily stares at the system window with a hint of surprise, her eight cores churning through the influx of information and utilising eight threads each.

“As I thought,” she mutters aloud to herself. “Pushing strength and vitality past twenty is difficult for mages and mechanics. Is there another system for cultivating them?”

She tosses the thought to the back of her mind and focuses on her physical changes first.

Most of my organs have been removed, but my body’s still functioning as intended.

She lifts her right hand and turns it, inspecting her impossibly smooth skin and tracing the faint scars and calluses etched across it. She watches with fascination as the thrumming energy in the room is slowly drawn into her pale flesh, seeping through and joining her body’s internal circulation.

It’s like my skin’s breathing.

Her hand drifts up to rest on her still chest, feeling the beating heart beneath but not the familiar rise and fall of her breath.

But I’m not. Do I not need oxygen anymore? Why’s my heart still beating then… to aid mana circulation? Then the shrunken lungs must just be for speech. Can I modify my voice box to remove them as well?

Emily’s gaze drifts to her left arm, and she slides up the edge of her Second Skin, the new skin-tight under armour she developed. The connection between her metal arm and her flesh has blurred, with creeping, metallic silver veins tracing her skin like streaks of lightning, from the cuff at her bicep to the base of her neck.

She can feel that the deeper connections have also extended, weaving further into her flesh and making it harder to remove, intentionally or not. She slots The Clock back into place, lifting the spring-loaded trigger above it with machina and holding it in place, a small modification she made to ensure the failsafe will activate on loss of consciousness or life.

“If reaching fourth circle is achieving perfection like Gaius believed, fifth must be exceeding it,” she hums in thought, scanning back through her new progression requirements. “I’m being given the options to do that by removing the metal, or furthering its spread…”

Her tongue flickers out across the hoop on her lip, tasting the comforting tang of metal and sealing her decision within an instant.

It’s not even an option.

Her attention snaps to the other optional requirements.

“Essence and attributed circles… That must be for if I choose to narrow my focus as an elementalist. Why are they separate, though? Can I consume the essence and still maintain a balanced development?”

Emily rises to her feet and starts to pace, mulling over the other set requirements.

“A natural blessing and a fifth circle dungeon.”

She pulls up the system’s description of her scarf.

“It referred to the oasis’s help as nature’s hand, so maybe those two are linked. Finding a fifth circle dungeon on this planet may be impossible though; I’ll have to start work on the Universal Transmitter once I’m finished waging war.”

Machina starts burning in her head and her thoughts accelerate as she tests her new active skill.

The defensive technique is almost certainly related to subconscious casting.

The memory of her first encounter with the Mandrago Patriarch rises to the forefront of her thoughts, and she calmly analyses the movements he made as he cast his spells, flicking his fingers before each invisible blade of wind struck her or Herber. She skims through her other encounters with the cruel man, and in the absence of emotion Emily’s able to carefully track something she didn’t consciously notice when the memories first formed: the way wind mana curled around his fingers constantly, even as his shattered circles were falling to pieces, just waiting to be used.

It looks like it can be used for offensive spells, but that’s just a substitute for perfect silent casting or gesture casting. Subconscious casting is significant enough to be exclusive to fourth circle mages: it’s definitely linked to reaching fifth. I’ll have to experiment with imbuing myself with defensive spells to see if that completes the requirement, though I suspect I’ll have to link it to my machina somehow since it calls it a technique, not a spell.

Emily stops burning machina, feeling a slight warmth in her head from the momentary exertion, as if her cortex were a muscle stretched a little too far. Glancing at her system stats, she confirms her health hasn’t changed before turning to leave.

There was no thunderclap this time. I received one for my awakening, my ascension from second circle, and for forming my first elemental connection. Why not now? They appear to mark achievements in some way, but then why did my ascension to second circle in record time not warrant one?

She passes the Source and ascends to her main workshop, where she runs into Pod.

“Woah,” he mutters in awe as Emily steps out of the elevator, not holding in her newly risen energy level. “It feels like I’m standing in front of a loaded railgun.”

A ghost of a smile flickers across Emily’s face at the compliment. She leads her apprentice to the window of the workshop, activating the motors hidden in the floor and ceiling to part the glass so she can step out into the open air.

Pod watches with rapt attention, sealing the window behind her to protect their creations as Emily rises up to stand high above the ocean under the setting sun. She shuts her eyes and reaches inwards for the permanent connection linking her and lightning and, a moment later, she erupts with charge, plasma pouring from her eyes.

Without restraint, Emily releases her mana, holding her hands out before her and gathering the energy into a single, crackling orb. Her energy flows out ceaselessly and, as the mana value in her system drops below seventy thousand, dark clouds gather.

As it passes sixty thousand, thunder rolls across the ocean. Fifty thousand, and blistering arcs of plasma shoot down from above, slamming into Emily and flowing through her outstretched arms.

As it reaches forty thousand, the blazing orb of charge before her grows increasingly unstable, and Emily grits her teeth to hold it together with a quarter of her total reserves packed into it.

At thirty thousand, the burning plasma starts rippling back along Emily’s arms, singeing the skin of her right and threatening to melt the metal shell of her left despite her high natural resistance.

With a wide grin, Emily unleashes her spell on the world, shattering the far side of the contained orb and letting it out unrestrained. Tongues of lightning lash out, blanketing the horizon and tearing through the ocean below.

A deafening thunderclap shakes Emily to the core as her attack exposes the seabed, stretching out before her for several kilometres as the air fills with steam. Only a few of the stronger sea creatures fall to the exposed ocean bed as smoking corpses, with most of the ocean’s inhabitants being reduced to ash before they even realise what’s happening.

Pod’s jaw falls open in shock and, just as the ringing in his ears begins to fade, he hears the roar of crashing water as the sea rushes in to fill the space Emily has cleared.

Emily deactivates her lightning connection, gazing at the aftermath of her attack with immense satisfaction and wrapping her flesh arm in bandages of light. Her communicator buzzes as she’s drinking in the destruction, so she pulls it from her belt and answers Old Man Silver’s call without a thought.

“What in Ulea’s name did you do!?”