Tutorial - 3.3

January 4, 2011, Instant Dimension, 5:31 AM

After slaughtering and capturing hundreds of mooks (while constantly reminding myself that these are simulacrums and not people), gaining a level, 2 STR, 1 VIT and 3 DEX, not to mention gaining lots of levels in Martial Arts, Mana Constructs, Mana Conversion, and devising quite a few lethal and non lethal attacks, I came back to my room. Defeating multiple mooks at a time gave a lower cumulative XP than single takedowns, figures though, dick AI wouldn't let me farm them en masse for levels.

The AI had outdone itself in its efforts to troll me, from using fictional names for attacks (Seriously, Shinra Tensei? Reducto? Force choke?!), to an incident involving getting slapped for half my HP after my hand slipped and landed on the, um, assets, of an attractive female mook (AI assist gave me a message saying that 'Eroge mode is not yet unlocked'!) - which shall never be spoken of ever again. I was sorely tempted to turn off the AI personality, but who was I kidding? It was fun!

I was totally filthy after all the fighting though, covered in greyish blood, dust, and whatnot. I tried another experiment, I gathered around 100MP uniformly all over my skin, then exuded the mana out with the intent to remove everything that's not me or my clothes. It worked! After a blue lightshow I felt as clean as I've never felt before! The AI gave me the option to name the newly formed skill 'Prestidigitation' or 'AT field' - hmm, big clues there, or it just might be trolling. For the time being I just named it Mana Cleanse.

There was still some time left till I'd planned to meet Taylor, I practiced making some construct knives, whips and swords. The constructs' MP cost had reduced, but they were still mana hogs. The complexity resolution was currently at around 10 microns, so the blades were not extraordinarily sharp either. A bit of training and Mana Construct finally reached level 20, range went up to 50cm, resolution increased to 1μm and a new subskill was added, Persistent Constructs, at level 1 it would allow the constructs to remain completely outside my range for upto 1 second. I made a construct shuriken and threw it at the wall, it embedded with a solid thunk and then dissipated, the mana did not return like a normal dissipating construct though.

That gave me another idea, I went out again, some mooks had respawned, I jumped up to our rooftop (at the current level while mana boosting I was easily a brute/mover 2), formed a ball of pure mana with the intent to convert to electricity upon contact (worth 85MP, the optimal amount of electric conversion to tase someone), then aimed the ball at a wandering mook down the street and launched it with 10mp of force, it was slow, it fizzled midway. Tried again with 100mp of force, and bingo! Taser bolts!

Final experiment of the session, I gathered mana all over my body, and started releasing it at a constant upwards force on my body itself, I felt lighter. I kept increasing the force till I started hovering, I was flying! It drained all of my mana in about 12 seconds though, but I got the Flight skill! Fuck yeah! Grinding would reduce the costs and increase the speed at higher levels. This was beyond awesome!

I went back to my room and collapsed the ID. The world was real again. I started meditating and opened the scan file of Amy healing me. It opened without warnings this time, I started analyzing it. The method was pretty elegant, the biomass was moved using minute forces at molecular levels, and shunted through an alternate dimension at times, reconstruction was done by pushing tissues at a macro level, then shunting the right molecules in the right place at the nano level and simply letting the natural bonds take over.

I came out of meditation, constructed and materialized a razor blade. Then I engaged the anonymity protocols and made a slice on my palm, it hurt. I infused my arm with both sensing and raw mana, then delved into it, mimicking the method I just studied, letting the AI assist with the exact levels of force to push the tissues together and the shunting for the reconstruction. It took about 3 minutes just to close the cut. But I healed it! Aaaand there was the skill.

It was not healing.

I got FleshCrafting as a crafting subskill!

The slow speed would probably increase with grinding, but I still lacked the vast innate knowledge of Biology that Amy had. I'll have to heavily upgrade my Biology, Microbiology and associated skills to be able to do this on the fly. But then again, I'm a munchkin! I remembered that constructing something from a scan as opposed to freeform construction took much less time, focus and even let me push the complexity requirements a bit.

I ran a mana scan on my own body, cut my palm again, and infused it with raw mana, this time I just pointed to the hand in the scan and prepared the intent to rebuild as per scan. Blue flash and done! Yes! I got the Heal skill! It only worked on previously scanned targets at level 1 though, it asked me to collect enough healthy people scans so that it could build an average, till then I could not heal someone without having scanned them prior. But I could just pump enough mana and restore any damage for scanned targets! Even including brains - though it might reset their memory to the time of the scan, all things to be tested in time! I hit myself with a mana-shotgun blast (I'm not calling it Reducto!), down 200 HP, then applied Heal - huh, for me the AI just exchanged MP for HP. I had to try this on someone who's not a mana-person like me, where was dada?

I went down, he hadn't gotten up yet, so I plonked myself on the living room couch, created a note (I just materialized a piece of paper with nice printed letters, like a boss) for him to wake me up. Opened my phone, downloaded advanced medical books and papers and started absorbing them.

Dada woke me up after one book and two papers on cellular biology. I was literally bouncing with excitement, "dada, dada! You need to help me do SCIENCE!"

He was well acquainted with my SCIENCE! mood, "Yeah yeah sure, just as long as you don't poke me with sharp objects."

...I blinked.

"Wait, you're going to poke me with sharp objects aren't you?"

I nodded eagerly.

He threw his hands up and sat down, utterly resigned, "Me and my big mouth! Get on with it then!"

I first gave him a mana cleanse, sterilize before scanning! He flashed blue and actually looked cleaner, "Whoa! Dude, you need to train this skill right?"

"Yes, why?"

"Do this to me everytime you can! This feels awesome!"

"I know right? Anyway, now sit quiet."

I mana scanned him. Then manifested a razor and slashed his hand, he gave me a deadpan look and monotoned, "Ow."

I paid it no heed and applied Heal using his scan. Blue flash and done!

"Congratulations, you're a flashy Panacea now."

"Heh, I actually learnt it from her, but guess what, as long as I have scanned somebody while healthy, I can even do their brains!"

"That still means you're useless against congenital defects and chronic diseases though."

"In time dada. In time."

"Good, now aren't you supposed to go add Taylor to your party today?"

"Yeesh, she's not a collectible y'know? have some respect!"

"Hey, your words, now go make some tea."

I brought out two steaming cups of tea from the inventory, had made a few extra cups and stored them last evening.

"Huh, neat."

We had the tea and I gave him all the new updates on last night's developments, even took him into a blank ID to show off. He immediately started reciting how it could be used for covert movements, I reminded him that I didn't yet have a way to see into the real world from the ID yet. Had to research dimensional holes for that.

Soon it was morning proper, dada left for work. I went over to the Heberts'. They were still having breakfast. I was offered some and joined in, I told them about the Gamer theme of my powers. Danny completely out-nerded us, he was apparently a D&D enthusiast, I gave him the details, he was totally chuffed. I gave him another warning not to divulge anything even under torture, it would not be too difficult knowing he was mostly immortal now and that I was a healer, I scanned him and Taylor too.

I showed off some basic FleshCrafting by healing up her scars and bruises from the locker, the police had taken all evidence pictures at the hospital itself, so no worries on that. When I took a fresh scan of her after healing, both FleshCrafting and Heal leveled up, I got a message that now I could use Heal for basic cuts, scrapes and bruises without prior scans. I had to get in touch with Amy in my cape identity as soon as possible. To do that I had to create a new persona too. So much to do, so little time.

He was leaving for work, on his way out he turned to us with a mock glare, "Now kids, play safe, keep it PG. No hanky panky!"

Taylor groaned and blushed, "Daaad!"

Okay, I had to nip this in the bud, I clamped down on my embarrassment, "Sir, my intentions towards Taylor are entirely of the nature of a friend and a fellow power user. I respect her for her intelligence and mental strength, I have no doubts she'd be very desirable to her peers but from me there are no inklings of romance on the horizon."

Taylor looked mortified, she was leaking embarrassment, relief and mild disappointment, understandable completely.

Danny looked embarrassed now, "I, I know that! I was just teasing you."

I loosened Gamer's Mind a bit, "Sure sir, just thought I'd clarify."

He nodded, "Well, we're absolutely on the same page young man, I'll be off then, have fun you two." He hugged Taylor, shook my hand and left.

Taylor turned towards me, "So, how come you don't have any mites on your body?"

I gave her an inquisitive look, "Huh?"

"I can sense people in my range by all the different kinds of mites they have all over their body, you had them too yesterday, now you don't. How come?"

"Ah, must be the mana cleansing."

"Huh, show me?"

I took her hand and applied a mana cleanse. She flashed blue, "Uh, wow! Listen, Aveek, repeated use improves your skills right?"

"Let me guess, you want me to apply this every time I meet you?"

She nodded eagerly.

"Sure, anyway, let's get on with the show. You ready?"

She nodded again, oozing both eagerness and trepidation.

"Don't worry, you'll have a choice, here you go." I targeted her and sent her a party invite. A blue window formed in front of her, she took a few startled steps back. I came around to see what it said.


Invitation to join Aveek's Gamer Party

Welcome potential gamer!

Do you want to join in adventuring with Aveek and enjoy and grow in life as a game?

Please note that accepting will convert and augment your body and mind with extraUniversal Mana! Your memories, powers and personality will not be directly affected unless you change them with your stats and skills. This process is reversible, but you'll also lose all the benefits accrued if you choose to leave the party.

[ACCEPT/Y] [DECLINE/N]


Fucking son of a bitch AI was only a dick to me! That was so unfair!

Taylor took her time to read it through. Then looked at me, "So I tap accept here?"

I nodded, "Or you can say that you accept, vocal commands work too."

She gulped, "I accept." Then she flashed blinding bright Cherenkov Blue and promptly collapsed on the floor.

Oops!


A/N: Thanks to sleepyGuy and ForumWarrior for inspiring certain lines.