Setup 2.3

December 27, 2010, Hebert House - Brockton Bay, 5:47 PM

Taylor was giving me a weird look. Because I was staring the book with a startled expression... Right, recovery mode!

"Ah, these circuits, mix of serial and parallel, there's a trick to it, let me remember." I changed the startled expression to a thoughtful one and took the book.

Okay, time bought. Skill Books! How could I've not thought of that! Now as far as I remembered, in almost all the RPG's I've played, consuming skill books disintegrated them in a lightshow, and I'm sure the dick AI would exactly do that to this book if I accepted. Dammit, I declined for now. But wow! Skill books! This changes everything!

I spent some time teaching Taylor the tricks of circuits. Danny came in after a while, Taylor mentioned the cellphone, he looked indecisive, I gave him the same line about hydrophobia again. It worked, he said he wanted one too. I was more than glad to offer my help in choosing the right device. We decided to go the day after next. I had no books at my place, so I asked them if they knew any secondhand bookstore, Taylor gave me a weird look again. I explained I wanted to gift dada something, and he liked old books. Phew! Recovery successful, but I didn't get any more charisma points, I guess this is the problem when stats went higher, they get much harder to train. Anyway, they mentioned a local bookstore which had a second hand section. I thanked them and left. Oh, and my Taylor friendship quest completed, one more levelup, awesome!

I went home, asked dada for a wad of cash, he quirked an eyebrow. I just said "I can absorb books", he just said "Ah.", went to his room came back with a wad of cash, an actual wad of cash! Coolest. Brother. Ever.

I located the bookstore in the maps, about 3 blocks away, sped off towards it in a fast run. The bookstore was still open, thank heavens. I went in, asked for the second hand self help, DIY, and used textbooks sections. The clerk lady pointed vaguely at 2 directions and I was off like a rocket, kept running my hands through the spines and picking out whatever gave a prompt, not even bothering what the prompts were. It took me a total of something like 20 minutes to round up around a hundred books. Then I went through them again, removed about 12 skills I absolutely didn't care for. I mean I didn't really want to learn Curling, neither did I give a damn about Horse Breeding, nor making party decorations for that matter.

The lady was giving me suspicious looks, I gave her an exasperated smile and said, "Book exchange theme party, guest list suddenly shot up way beyond estimate." She gave me an understanding nod, I pointed her to the pile and she started checking them out. I took a more sedate pace around the more expensive non-used section, picking up sword-crafting (The skill actually said Crafting: Swords), Mnemonic techniques, Criminal Psychology, Software Architecture and Aikido (I'd already gotten Krav Maga and Jeet Kune do in the Second hand pile).

I went back to the counter grinning like a loon. The tally came up to a heavy $776, I leveled up my Negotiation skill once more and got a bulk discount, paying $600 for it all. I helped her pack the books in a couple of cartons, lifted it feigning some difficulty, refused her help to take it to the car which she obviously assumed I had. Got out, rounded the corner, found a deserted alley, couldn't inventory the cartons whole, so opened them and inventoried the books. It took inhuman control to not absorb one just to see what happens, didn't need to attract any attention with blue flashes.

I ran back home, gave back $400 to dada, then ran up to my room. Took out Aikido, accepted the prompt, yes, blue flash and it's gone, good, otherwise I'd just have had wasted a ton of money (Or did the AI disintegrate the book just because I expected it to? Dammit! Bad thought! Bad thought!)... I had the insatiable urge to go to dada and say, "I know kung-fu", but sadly, he would just reply, "huh. Good for you." Instead of, "show me." He had no appreciation for the classics. But in my head bloomed concepts of locks, blocks, throws, joints and pressure points... Wow, what a headrush! I then absorbed Krav Maga, Jeet Kune Do, and MMA, They didn't count as individual skills, just leveled up my Unarmed Combat skill to level 17. But so much information, so many ways to hurt and kill people! My head was swimming, and I could tell absorbing even one more book would actually overwhelm me. I went into meditation and let the information sort itself out, watching all that data fit into my mind, literally turning into muscle memory! It was almost complete when I was shaken awake by dada, it had been two hours already?! Wow, okay, he had already made dinner, so I went down with him and dined. I told him about my acquisitions, he actually said, "Huh, that's pretty cool. Did you buy any books on Accounting or Economics?" Goddamn one-track mind!

After dining, I went back to the books, I tried a spot of shadow boxing and it was beautiful! The previous books had already settled, so I tried one more, took out a university level Nuclear Physics textbook, trying to absorb it told me that I didn't have enough physics skill to absorb it, fair enough. Instead I took out the Sword Smithing book and absorbed it, I got the Crafting skill, and blueprints for numerous types of swords, the knowledge of exactly how to make a sword filled me. But the blueprints didn't exactly seem linked to the crafting skill, what did that mean?

I focused on a katana blueprint, opened my palm, channeled as much mana as I could with the goal of creating the katana in the blueprint. Huh, not sufficient mana, but there was definitely potential there, I rummaged through my desk and picked up a pencil. Scanned it, got a pencil blueprint, then focused on that blueprint and tried to materialize it, this time I got sufficient mana, but too much complexity. Dammit! I found an eraser, scanned it. Then tried to materialize it. It was working, I felt mana pool in my palm and try to form something, I focused harder on the shape, the nature of rubber, the functionality of erasing pencil marks, the tangled chains of hydrocarbons, linked together by sulphur molecules. I put all my focus into the being of a pencil eraser. I could feel the mana taking shape, the form solidified, then something clicked! And I had a glowing blue eraser on my palm.

Wow, just that cost 284 MP! And I got two skills, Mana Projection and Mana Construct. Creating mana constructs cost 10 MP per gram, and a maximum complexity of 5mm resolution only! That was highway robbery! And the current mana projection range was only upto 2cm from my body, that was no good! I put the eraser on the table, and slowly started taking my hand away, when my finger was about 2cm away from it, it lost cohesion, fizzled out into motes of mana and came back into my hand, my MP topped back up. I got the distinct feeling as it disintegrated that I could turn those motes into any form of energy I wanted. Okay, both these skills needed a lot of training before they could be of any use.

Time for a different experiment. Without focusing on any blueprints, I put out 100MP of mana and focused on the concept of Lithium, a lot of focusing on its nature gave me a tiny metal ball, glowing blue. I held the ball and tapped it to the desk, it was solid, I then mana scanned it. Checked the scan, it was a metal ball alright, except - it wasn't real, it was just a mana projection that interacted with reality exactly as if a metal ball would. Huh, so anyway, freeform construction was doable, just needed more focus than using a blueprint.

Then I tried turning the ball into cotton, that was actually easier, I didn't focus on the positioning of the individual cellulose fibers, just their presence, their homogeneity, it would possibly not be considered as complex. It wasn't, changing the nature required lesser focus than constructing it, the metal ball turned into a much larger cotton ball, bigger than my palm almost. Okay, so as long as it was a single construct the far end of it didn't need to be closer than 2cm, just the near end, now try flattening into a sheet, it worked and drooped around my hand like cloth, but the sheet was unnecesarily thick, exactly 5mm thick I'd bet. I tried shrinking it in size and pulled mana out of it, that too worked, I stopped at a tiny ball of cotton, then turned it into pure mana. I had a ball of shimmering Cherenkov Blue on my palm, I brought it to my fingertip, then dissipated it.

Again, I constructed 1mp worth of aerogel. It took a bit more focus than cotton, possibly because I had less tangible experience of its properties. Clear ball, about a marble's size, incredibly lightweight, glowing blue. Good, now the harder part, I pumped mana into it, focusing on the goal to turn it into Reality. It was incredibly mentally taxing, I actually had a momentary glimpse of the nature of Matter, a set of equations incredibly complex, pure energy condensed into a pattern, pure Concepts condensed into a form. It clicked into place, and I was down 100 MP. The ball stopped glowing. I let it drop, it fell to the floor.

...Wow.

I got a new skill called Mana Conversion. Apparently it had '?' marked subskills, and I'd learnt Matter Conversion, which was last on the list of question marks. Okay, I kept the aerogel ball on my desk. Again I projected a 1MP mote, and willed the mote to turn into white light. Ow! Eyes almost blinded, that was lot of light for 1MP, almost like a camera flash. And I'd learnt Radiation Conversion. I tried sound, producing a 'pop' like a bottle opening, I tried force, and produced a more audible pop and felt a mild shockwave travel outwards from my fingertip. Ah, both of them were aspects of Kinetic Conversion. Huh, okay, I tried that again, but this time, I just focused 1MP of mana into my fingertip, pointed it at the eraser, and willed it into pure force, just aimed at the eraser, this time there was almost no sound, but the eraser flew off the desk as if flicked. I retrieved the eraser and put it on the floor, and put 10mp into a force beam from above, the eraser had a 5mm round deep dent, more of a hole that almost went halfway through.

I thought of a lot more experiments, but I'd need a more controlled environment for that. Oh what the heck! I pointed my finger again, and manifested 10MP of coherent infrared aimed at another part of the eraser. Neat charred 5mm wide hole, smell of burnt rubber, less than halfway through.

Really, wow. But amidst all of this I constantly kept having that nagging bad thought. This was all so much intent based! The AI loves to yank my chain... And I totally intended for the books to disappear!

Steeling myself, I took out the Software Architechture book. It was worth quite a lot of money, it was a subject I liked, it was a very valuable book. I didn't want it destroyed, I didn't want any lightshows. I didn't want anything visible. I touched the book, and accepted the prompt.

I got a level 26 Programming skill. Database planning, solution approach, enterpise architecture, class modeling, execution layers, dependency injection, closures - I finally understood closures... I knew coding-fu!

The book was still there.

"FUUUUCK!"

"Aveek! Everything alright?" I heard dada knock and poke his head in. I was standing defeated.

"I just wasted your 600 dollars."

"Nah, it's coming out of your allowance. I thought you asked for a loan."

"FUUUUUUUCK!"

He shrugged and went away... And then I had an even worse thought.

Hands shaking, I rummaged around the peripherals box and brought out a fresh memory chip. Put it in the phone, deleted everything else, put in a single copy of the Anarchist's Cookbook. Took the chip out, I was touching it, no effect. I sighed in relief.

On a whim, I channeled a speck of scanning mana into it.

You've found a skill book!

Would you like to learn the knowledge skill Explosives?

[ACCEPT/Y] [DECLINE/N]

FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU...