Building a magic system on threat of destruction

Deis couldn't tell when Jack returned to his realm, not exactly anyway. His only indicator was a sudden return of feeling. The compound where Jack was staying would suddenly return to focus, his awareness spreading back across all of the inhabitants. Before he went to check on Jack, he quickly assessed what had changed on the surface. Frox was dead, that was unfortunate. But how had it happened?

Deis read the flow of mana in the area. Frox had been freed, seemingly after someone made contact with him. He had been killed in the house, had someone sent him after Jack? He peered closer at the situation. Had it been Queen Evanna? She was a possible candidate. But no...it had been Zrez. So he had decided to take action against Jack after all. He didn't seem to be locked up or in any trouble, so Deis assumed he hadn't been caught. Perhaps Deis could give him some...encouragement in the future.

But those thoughts would have to wait, Jack was back. Deis appeared before the scum, he was already looking at status screens. While Deis appreciated the work ethic, he would rather not deal with Jack anymore.

Jack

"Ah!" Jack jumped at the sound of Deis speaking. "Geez Deis, don't sneak up on me like that."

Deis smiled to himself, he would definitely sneak up on Jack more often. Why have you returned this time?

"I want to make a few more changes to the system before my next big visit. I'm planning to add skill levels and pop-ups."

Deis had been expecting skill levels to come into play soon, they were one of the main features of the system after all. Pop-ups though...He wasn't sure he understood that term. Would the screens become three-dimensional?

Jack seemed to anticipate the question before it was asked. "Ignore the terminology for the moment. Basically, there will be a separate, smaller screen that appears when there is a change to someone's status screen. If they level up a skill as an example, then there will be an indicator that it happened. The point is to help people be more aware of the changes that are happening to them."

Deis considered this. It would be easy enough to make, but there were some small issues with it that he could see. When and how will these appear?

Jack seemed a bit confused by the question. "Well, when they level up a skill a little screen will pop up and inform them of the change."

And what if it happens in the middle of something important, like battle, surgery, or prayer? Won't it be distracting and harmful?

Jack absorbed this information and Deis could see the telltale signs of his mind beginning to turn. "I'll make a mock-up of my ideas, maybe I'll reconfigure the status screen a bit..." He trailed off, mumbling to himself.

Deis could see that this could take some time and decided to leave. He had important things to do. Gerard was going to try and confess his love to Bella today. There was no way he was going to miss it.

Jack broke off some pieces of status screen and began making large blue rectangles. He popped his keyboard onto them and began making different models of how he could change the look and flow of the overall screen to have new additions. Plexion watched him with interest, asking about various details like the close and minimize buttons. He was fascinated by information from the other world and kept distracting Jack from his work.

Jack didn't really like any of the end results he created, so he decided to talk to Plexion for a bit instead. The demon was going on about how he would love to try all the food from Earth after Jack had talked about ice cream. "Hey Plexion, focus for a minute. Talk to me about how you divided the skill levels."

Plexion nodded eagerly. "Well I doubt I could do it for most skills, but magic is easy enough for me to categorize. I could see how you were getting more confident and aware of your casting, it transitioned from something you were trying to learn into something you were trying to practice. When a person starts learning a skill, at some point you leave repetition behind and start experimenting with it. In your case specifically, I could see how you were restraining your movements and magic. I've taught a lot of people magic before, I can see the signs pretty clearly."

Jack was surprised. "Weren't you the king or something? Why were you teaching people magic?"

Plexion was surprised in turn. "Well, I had to impress the former king somehow. I taught magic to most of his troops, his staff, even him. I did so much work that he made me the next King instead of that loser Derexex." Plexion spit as he said the name, the saliva vanishing to nothing as it hit the floor.

"Being king is an assigned position where you're from?"

Plexion nodded. "Yeah, some monarchies are hereditary or something like that, but the king and queen of all demons are the ones who do the most to better their country or impress the current monarch. I developed magic and taught lifestyle magics to huge amounts of the populace. I've seen people on all ends of the spectrum, master casters and pathetic powers alike." He paused, then asked, "How do you decide who gets to be a monarch in your world?"

Jack did his best to describe the nuances of democracy, but Plexion waved it away. He didn't seem particularly impressed with the system. Jack opted to move the conversation back towards the system. "So because you have a ton of experience with magic, you can see how skilled someone is?"

"Sure can, it's even easier using the screens. It's like I can see better looking through it than I could when I was alive. I get all kinds of helpful information." Plexion smiled a toothy grin, apparently very pleased with himself.

Jack was thoughtful for a moment. "You said you...ate one of the butterflies? And now you can see Drowl by touching a screen?"

Plexion grimaced slightly. "It was not easy to get down, dang thing has sharp corners. I can still feel it moving around in my stomach too." He patted his stomach as he spoke, and Jack felt sick. "But yeah, my best guess is that by suffusing myself with the powers that make up the system, I can partially exist within the system as well. I basically became part screen." He said this with the air of a professor explaining something complicated. He was confident and sounded smart, but Jack was just left confused.

"Can I see you touch a screen? I want to know if I can see too."

Plexion reached out and grabbed one of the screens that was floating around, they could be moved easily in this realm. "This is one of the soldiers, looks like he's eating a meal right now."

Jack reached out and touched the screen, but nothing happened. He tried putting a hand on Plexion, but this didn't produce an effect either. He idly wondered if he would need to try and eat a butterfly before one of his system bugs floated off a nearby screen and landed on his shoulder. It flapped its wings and him and rotated in a circle, almost like it was dancing. Jack thought that it was very cute, but didn't know what the bug wanted until words began appearing on its surface.

[If I'm with you, you can see the colorful world.]

The colorful world? Did it mean Drowl? Jack reached a hand out and touched the screen again. Instantly his vision split in two. It was almost like he could see the white void out of one eye, and the surface of Drowl with another. It was incredibly disorienting. He physically closed the eye that he was seeing the white void with and that seemed to help. The vision of the empty sun where Deis lived vanished from his sight, but his sight of Drowl seemed...incomplete. his field of vision was narrower and the edges of his vision distorted slightly, almost like looking through a fisheye lens.

The soldier in front of his sight was indeed sitting down and eating. Jack could see others milling around nearby, but this man was clearly the owner of the screen. Jack's sight hovered in front of the man, around where the status screen would normally be, and when the man moved his head Jack's sight moved with him. It was like being in VR, except Jack wasn't in control of where he was looking.

Jack stopped touching the screen, feeling slightly nauseous from the experience. The butterfly on his shoulder flew off of him, hovering in the air in front of him instead.

[Did I do a good job?] it asked him, the text appearing on its tiny back.

"Yeah," Jack nodded, "that was very helpful. Thank you."

It danced excitedly in the air again. Then it made more text appear. [I also made more bugs, just like you wanted.]

Jack paused at that. More bugs? He looked around, he had made hundreds of the blue butterflies, and most of them were on screens now. There weren't that many floating around the white void that he could see. He looked to Plexion, but the demon just shrugged.

"Where are they?" Jack asked.

[I made them in the colorful world.]

Jack froze, a sudden panic rising within him. That...was probably really bad.