New System, Who Dis?

Saturday, April 27th, 2069

I blinked at the screen and then spun on Smegma. “Healing Skills are some of the rarest ones humans ever get!”

Smegma stared at the screen like it had just insulted his mother, or whoever he cared about with the same level a human loved theirs. The look he wore was so hateful it caused me to scan the screen again. And then after another glance at Smegma, where I saw his teeth bared, another perusal.

“What?” I finally asked.

“Common Healer?! This is a Felhound Shit!” Smegma growled. Blinking, I read the class title again. Eventually, I gave him a look that conveyed my continued confusion. “Common, Brodie, husking common. Look, the very fact that it mentions Stats, tells you that there are Classes that not only unlock other Stats but raise them!”

“Okay,” I said slowly, letting the ‘y’ become drawn out. “Still, you were the one who said that the terms and conditions said I could change Classes. Maybe, I can even Upgrade it?”

Smegma scoffed and looked away, conveying that he was still disgusted by the choice. However, I got the distinct impression he might have forgotten about the Class sub-Skill letting him change selections later.

Wait—where is that feeling coming from?

Eventually I shook off the tangent and hurried to accept the Class, recalling that Jarred could likely use some Minor Healing. When I clicked accept, I felt something begin stirring inside of me—no—in my Mental Universe. It took me steadying my breathing to be able to enter that space, but when I did what I found was the ring around the Saturn-like planet spinning at an ever-increasing pace.

As it rotated faster, the color of the white planet beneath began to go from a striated white to yellow, and finally—golden. The ring itself began to change as well. I watched, fascinated as I tried to distinguish what I was seeing. Had the ring become thicker?

It was impossible to understand what had happened to the ring until the rotation—no until the orbit of the two yellow moons slowed enough that the afterimages resolved and removed the illusion of rings. Where the Classes sub-Skill was a yellow planet orbiting the ‘Sun’ of Demonic Vault, these two ‘moons’ orbited the planet.

The planet's gold color faded from golden to yellow and then to mustard as the moons continued to drop in speed. Finally, the planet became a tan or beige that was distinctly unimpressive when compared to its earlier bright gold.

Staring at the moons and the planet immediately brought an issue to mind. I wanted to use Minor Heal on Jarred—but which one of the two was it, and which one was Cleanse?

Smegma must have been watching as well, and heard my commentary, because he coughed pointedly. Then, in his snootiest voice he said, “I’ve been meaning to talk to you about this, but you never had multiple Skills that needed Mana. Finally, you’ve grown enough to create your Soul Nervous System…”

Exiting my Mental Universe, I found the Demon with his arms crossed and his wings spread wide. He even went as far as to look over the bridge of his nose at me. I licked my teeth and rolled my eyes.

“I’m guessing that the ‘Soul Nervous System’ has something to do with supplying Mana to Skills in a more efficient way than your stupid ‘Straw’ method…” I said dryly, making sure to highlight who had taught me the flawed method in the first place.

“You wouldn’t have been ready to create a Soul Nervous System if you didn’t at least understand the concept of creating conduits to Skills,” Smegma said confidently. However, his nose dropped and he uncrossed his arms, so I counted his attitude change as a minor victory.

“Okay, oh-glorious-one, what is a Soul Nervous System and how do I create one?” I asked when Smegma stopped speaking and the silence became slightly unbearable.

“Well, I’ve seen that you humans have a grasp of your Central Nervous Systems and Peripheral Nervous Systems—so, for simplicity's sake, you can think of it like that. But instead of starting with a series of ‘nerves’ in place and shearing off connections to make them more efficient, you must grow the Soul Nervous System and form pathways that you intrinsically understand. Then when you want to send Mana to Demonic Vault, for example, it’s kind of like hand-picking up that piece of fish.” He made a gesture with his own three fingered hand and it passed through a small crumb of cooked fish that Dave apparently hadn’t finished eating.

My head bobbed in acknowledgment, understanding the concept, but waiting for Smegma to describe how I would ‘grow’ a Soul Nervous System. He, of course, didn’t elaborate, which forced me to verbally encourage him. “And how do I grow one?”

“Thought you’d never ask,” Smegma said smugly. I clenched my jaw knowing he could read my surface thoughts, which should have removed the need for me to ask. “Simply start at your Mana Pool, then envision a conduit, similar to the ‘straw’ but permanent and protected. You humans understand the sheaths that surround nerves, right?”

I personally didn’t understand them, but high school gym class had talked about them briefly. Myelinated? No Michelin? Whatever. It was a sheath that helped not only protect the nerves but also increase signal speed. I nodded, and watched as Smegma smirked at my internal dialogue.

Husker!

Still, my last thought made me ask, “So, can I send Mana faster if I create conduits that are insulated?”

Smegma gave me some odd looking finger-guns in confirmation. I raised an eyebrow and stared at the strange sexual looking gesture. Chuckling, I asked, “What the hell is that?”

“Don’t you need to hurry so you can heal Jarred?” Smegma retorted, as his red decals on his face noticeably darkened.

I would have relished the moment more, but he was right. I fell into myself and moved toward my Mana Pool. Beginning with the Straw I was familiar with seemed like the most appropriate starting point, so I envisioned it.

“Make it smaller,” Smegma coached. “Part of the reason you can’t make permanent connections is that a large Straw construct takes up most of your capacity currently. Since you have a Mental Universe, try thinking of a pathway, like a star chart.”

If I could have blinked in surprise I would have. That was actually helpful. Using the Sun of Demonic Vault and the Black Hole of my Mana Pool for reference, I envisioned a Spaceship. Human’s hadn’t really advanced the concept of space travel since the early two thousands, but that didn’t stop TV and Movies from creating fictional renderings for me to base a ship off of.

I chose the most advanced vessel I could think of, and selected the Starship Energize. Sure, there were some newer movies that tried to one up it, but the Energize was a classic. Now, to add an ability to create Space Tunnels, or Warp-gates, or something that could create a protected space-corridor to travel down at Light-speed.

The Energize gained a ring rotating around it, perpendicular to the crew cabin disc that was also rotating to create gravity. I smiled and launched the spaceship on its mission to explore where no man had gone before.

“Amateur,” Smegma scoffed.

“What the hell are you talking about, you giant flying rat?” I glared. “My ship is husking awesome.”

“Pffft,” the Demon snorted. “The Warp Cores’ obsolete. It’s old tech. Horizontal gravimetric field displacement manifolds? So ‘twenty-second’ century. Move aside, casual. Let me show you how it’s done.”

Incredibly, Smegma husking appeared inside the Starship Energize. Mentally I followed him as he moved through the Engineering Bay, shaking his head and muttering to himself.

He pointed at the matter/antimatter reaction assembly housing the deuterium and antideuterium that reacted inside the dilithium crystal matrix. “You see, in 2269 the Federation came across a revolutionary breakthrough. You need to add a vertical segment to the dilithium crystal converter right, here.” He pointed at a spot bisecting the location of the crystal matrix.

“That’ll never work,” I argued, pointing at the problem. “The nozzles on the antimatter injectors won’t generate the necessary quantum-laminar flow with a setup like that. It’ll introduce too much instability on a very precise system. Are you trying to blow up my ship?”

Smegma’s eyes widened in shock. “You’re still using physical injector nozzles? What are you, nine? Everyone knows they went to magnetic injectors before the turn of the century when they converted to magnetic containment. The magnetic antimatter containment also guides and directs the antimatter through the matter integrator to the injector coils. It then precisely compresses and streams it into a quantum spindle which enters the intermix chamber here. The deuterium, stored in the ship or attracted by the Arva Collectors from highly charged particles during space travel is then funneled in a similar stream from the opposite deuterium injector over there. The resulting energy plasma molecules enter the lattice matrix of the crystallized dilithium chamber, reacting inside and releasing a tuned energy stream in the form of electro-plasma. The plasma gets carried by the magnetic plasma conduits throughout the power transfer system.”

I nodded, warming up to the topic. “Right, that all seems to make sense, but that doesn’t explain how you’re supposed to get the electro-plasma to the warp nacelles. The magnetic field has a little something called polarity, numb nuts. It’s not going to flow on a horizontal axis with this setup.”

Smegma’s eyes were manic. “Exactly! That was the breakthrough! Sure, the vertical conduits travel into the dilithium crystal converter but the resulting warp plasma energy is directed to the nacelles through horizontal conduits leading out from—”

“The rear of the core…” I whispered, awed.

“Yes!” Smegma nearly howled with glee. “It changed everything, allowing for speeds of up to warp factor twelve on the old scale with just the prototype. In fact, the scaling for warp speed had to be revised because of this breakthrough, to account for the logarithmic increases in light speed with the new Cores.”

Quickly, I began making the changes with Smegma giving pointers on precise proportions and modeling.

Wiping my metaphysical brow, I stood back and took in the wondrous changes to the Warp Core. Resting my hands on the Engineering Console, I whispered, “Incredible.”

Placing my palm on the biometric scanner, I began the boot sequence that initiated the gravimetric field displacement matrix.

A gentle hum rumbled through the deck as a cool blue light lit the Engineering Deck like a gentle, dawning sun.

I smiled, turning toward Smegma who’s broad grin was somehow less terrifying with the small tear that traced its way down his Demonic face. He looked over at me, and I raised my hand up for a high-five. Grinning, he swept his three-fingered hand forward. As it passed completely through my arm, we both seemed to realize at the same time what had just happened over the last… minutes.

“Ahem,” Smegma coughed, loudly. “Alright, show’s over, jackass. Go figure out your new stupid Skills, I gotta take a dump.” He glared over his shoulder at me in parting, gesturing at the entire ship and the Warp Core in particular. “Also, don’t think I don’t remember you making fun of me for all this. Not a Star Trip fan, my ass.”

He disappeared through the walls of the ship as I awkwardly rubbed the back of my head, pretending that I’d never offered the high-five in the first place. I wasn’t about to tell him that I was simply extrapolating most of the Star Trip stuff from clips on MeTube. He’d probably never leave the TV or Tablet again if he knew those existed.

After he’d left, I turned back toward my new Warp Core with a proud, fatherly grin.

Sadly, despite the remodel, I discovered the vessel couldn’t reach a speed higher than what felt like a snail crawling across a counter. I frowned at it, even as I tried to encourage it to use Warp, or a Stardrive.

“Stop!” Smegma shouted, suddenly reappearing and startling me, and not only stopping my attempts to speed up the ship, but also having it freeze in place. “Look behind it, you moron! If it’s a snail, think of what it’s leaving behind…”

My heart racing, I did as instructed. Behind the spaceship was a blue tube—or if I wanted to continue the snail analogy—a slime trail. I swallowed to wet my dry mouth and throat, as I realized what I had almost done. The ship wasn’t going slow because it couldn’t go faster—it was building this stable corridor for future expediency!

“You’re basically building a wormhole. Let it take its time,” Smegma added, his voice now calm and consoling. I nodded sheepishly and chose to watch as it began to map out a ‘star route.’

The first indication that something was odd was when instead of moving directly to the tan moons surrounding the Classes Sub-skill it tracked toward Demonic Vault. While I needed that connection eventually—I didn’t exactly have an immediate need for it.

“Remember, when you tried to connect Demonic Vault to the Classes’ planet?” Smegma explained, clearly feeling and hearing my distressed thoughts. “If your intentions are to form a connection to your new Skills, then what’s happening is the most efficient way. Those are sub-Skills of a sub-Skill—maybe?”

Sure enough, fifteen minutes later the ship reached the Sun of Demonic Vault, created something like a waypoint, or perhaps a synapse and continued toward the Tan Classes Planet. This trip was much shorter and within five minutes, another synapse was made. The connection from there to the first moon was the work of a minute at most. Then the ship vanished, startling me. Until I saw it begin tracing its way from the waypoint on the Classes Planet to the other moon.

It was exactly like a synapse! The ship had just used the Warp Gate back to the Class Planet! I felt myself squee mentally.

Once everything connected I felt something change, even as the ship vanished again. What had changed didn’t become apparent until I opened my eyes in the grow room.

Minor Heal (1)

Low-F-Rank

Minor Heal can only be used on others, and heals the individual's Health Pool at a rate of one health per one Mana expended.

Cleanse (1)

Low-F-Rank

Cleanse can only be used on others and removes contaminants, poisons, venoms and diseases from the individual. Limited to Common or Uncommon maladies.

Costs 10 Mana per use.

Seeing screens for my Skills, I immediately wanted to jump back into my Mental Universe and try to connect more. Surely Mental Fortitude, Heat Sense, Recovery, Dragon Heart and—wait, Demonic Vault was already connected.

“Correct,” Smegma began. “Not only will you not get description windows for Demonic Vault, you won’t get any for Passive Skills or Skills that haven’t manifested…”

“But Demonic Vault has manifested as a planet, kind of, hasn’t it?”

“It has, and I’m not sure why you don’t have a description for it, but honestly it isn’t a traditional Skill…Plus I’m guessing you can only see these two because they are Class Skills.”

I tilted my head a bit acknowledging that point, even as I stood up and moved to Jarred. “So, if I want to add more healing?”

“Just intend to do so and allow your Mana to find the right path,” Smegma said encouragingly.

I laid my hand on Jarred and felt my Mana seem to flow into the man almost immediately. Something happened to the Mana long before it even began to run through my body, causing it to feel different. Perhaps, the green glow was a hint?

“It is,” Smegma answered the unspoken question. “Your Mana is being converted to Health. This is why the Common Healer is so sad. First, you have to touch the individual, but more so, you use one Mana to heal one Health Point. That’s extremely inefficient.”

The feeling of the Skill activating was too amazing to get bogged down in whatever mire Smegma was on about. I was healing Jarred, simply by husking touching him! I could heal people. Just the thought of that was invigorating. If that wasn’t awesome enough, add to it the pay of a Healer back on Earth, and I could be set for life—

“Don’t you dare!” Smegma interjected. “If you’re going to be satisfied with being a husking Healer and not get any better, I’m going to—“

He cut off as he likely realized he couldn’t really do anything to me. I shook my head and chuckled at his deductions. “Smegma, I still want to become a Hunter, but having the ability to make money this easily is something to celebrate. Essentially, I could fund all my lawyer fees, business plans and more with just this!”

“Okay, but you can be so much more!”

“And I wi—” My response was frozen as something changed. The pull on my Mana Pool and the green energy stopped. I checked in on my Mental Universe and found at least twenty-five blue orbs circling the black hole. So, I wasn’t out of Mana…

“He’s full Health,” Smegma explained.

Oh! For a moment I considered sitting back down, but then thought better of it. Instead, I moved one by one to my sleeping group members, starting with Dave.

In the end, Dave took the most Mana to heal, after Jarred—consuming five Mana in total, where my father and Willa both only needed two each.

“Perhaps when they all wake up they’ll be feeling ‘well rested.’” I joked to Smegma. I could tell he didn’t understand the reference but he did seem to at least infer something because he pointed to Dave.

“At least the newbie will be able to set aside his wheelchair.”