Wish upon the Stars (Original Superhero cultivation sci fi litrpg)

[Malcolm Tent]

Another two weeks passed without much incident. Train, class, train, sleep (with some time for stockpiling scrolls in between). With the demons out doing jobs, I managed to pull in some credits, but it wasn't nearly enough. I was focused mostly on the midterms for income, and I only had a month left to train. Still, I'd made some serious progress, as evidenced by the object currently sitting in front of me.

"So, this is a manifestation of a demon?" Callie asked from where she lay on the table in my conference room. "It looks kind of messy."

"It's…sort of a halfway point," I admitted. I'm trying to recreate Overlay in this form. Once that's done, I can use Brad to insert the timepiece in Owen and anchor him to it the same way I did with Phil and the candle. It's ALMOST done. I just need to have Dantalion scan it to verify."

Overlay was…simplistic. It was a fairly barebones design for a demon, as far as I could tell, albeit surprisingly economical. There were actually a few attributes present. Mostly time, but not just that. One that I was pretty sure was information, one that I suspected was fate (which WAS a different thing), a few more basic ones like light for the representation.

It was fascinating to study it, because I hadn't actually MADE Overlay the way I made a lot of my demons. The DS Mastery skill had essentially designed the subskill spontaneously. It made me so curious about the system as a whole. Where did skills come from? I knew some of them, like my Goetia Staff Art, were created by people and then sort of natural disseminated, but something like DS Mastery, which was only possibly by mashing together the accumulated knowledge of a bunch of die hard players, didn't seem like it had existed before.

Regardless, Overlay wasn't complicated, but it was efficient. Or he was. It was strange to think of the subskill as a person while constructing the timepiece that represented him. I glanced over it. "Twelve movements," I said slowly as I studied it. "Decent balance of attributes."

"Don't you want more time?" Callie asked with interest. "You've got a natural affinity for it now, right?"

"Yes, but that's not how it works," I told her as I studied the device. "Balance is important for function. Attributes are complicated, but also very simple. They do something. You can bully them into doing other things with form, but they mainly serve a specific purpose. In order to make the most of them, you need other attributes to shape that purpose alongside the form. Mythcrafting techniques from just one attribute produces extremely basic techniques."

And that was another tough part of this whole thing. Overlay had been a skill originally, which meant it was constructed from stats. Stats were more stable and discrete portions of mythology, but they were rigid. Remaking the demon into a timepiece was giving me far more flexibility, but it was forcing me to adapt my mythcrafting to fit into the niche of skillmaking. Which I suspect was the whole point of the exercise Professor Hawkins gave me. Showing me how to mythcraft from the ground up, as it were.

My construct wasn't made of stats, but I had to study and learn from the stat aspects of skill construction to make the elements of the timepiece, and that was showing me a bit about how the system combined its mythology. It was making my individual movements more refined and stable as I internalized their construction.

I passed it to Dantalion. "So…what do you think?" I asked the older demon. "Take your time."

He nodded solemnly, picking up the timepiece. Slowly, he lifted it to his eye and began to study it. "I've been keeping up with your lessons of course, my lord," he said as he eyed the timepiece. "And making generous use of the Pillar of Goetia to simulate research. I've needed to confirm quite a few things for myself in realtime, and of course, I'm nowhere close to proficient, but I have at least as firm a grasp on this subject as yourself."

"I figured," I laughed. "I also figure that you're being humble. You probably have a much firmer grasp on this stuff than me. And I don't mind that. After all, your knowledge is my knowledge. Once I incarnate you, everything you've learned will become my own knowledge."

He laughed, not even bothering to look up at me. "This looks functional. And more importantly, it looks ACCURATE."

I shrugged. "It wasn't that hard. I mean, yeah, learning to replicate a skill with mythcrafting was tougher than I expected, but it's kind of basic, and Overlay was the MOST basic subskill I had access to. I've got a long way to go."

"True," Dantalion admitted as he set the timepiece down. "But I think you're underestimating exactly how big an accomplishment this is. While you may be thinking this is a pathetic pace, your only real point of reference for beginner Mythcrafting is Professor Hawkins. What might seem trivial to him is fiendishly complicated to others. Based on context clues, I suspect that this level of progress would take a normal person YEARS of effort."

I blinked at that. "Huh. Not sure how. Constructing the mechanism elements was a bit annoying, but it wasn't that hard. It's all just visualization at the base of it. Anyone can do that. Learning to layer those visualizations on top of each other was tough, but Piece of Mind made it a lot simpler to keep up once I got the hang of it."

"Because visualizations are the area of Mythcrafting where your talent shines the most," he said patiently. "You remember that even your advisor called you a savant. A natural, as it were. The fact that you've continued to improve at this speed proves his words correct. It is also worth noting that he hasn't actually said anything negative about your progress in at least a week, which for someone like him, is its own form of praise."

I…hadn't actually noticed that. He was right though. The Professor hadn't made a single snide crack about my work ethic or productivity in several days. Compared to his previous annoyingly critical manner, it was basically doing a congratulatory dance in my honor, not that I was stupid enough to say that to him. I probably should have noticed that myself, actually, but I'd been so caught up in work and training I hadn't even given it a second thought.

"Alright," I sighed. "If it's ready, we should call Brad in. Are you sure this is going to work? It's not…exactly the same."

He waggled a hand. "It's conceptual, so it should. We can conceive of it working, so there's no reason to expect it won't. Besides, the item in question isn't overly complicated. It's not exactly replacing his current structure, more sort of…melding with it. Then we can remove it when needed for upgrades and it'll act as a sort of talisman. You know this. You came up with the plan."

"Yeah," I grinned. "But it sounds so much more convincing coming from you. It's the extra years. They add gravitas."

He laughed at that, and I sent one of the passing demons to call for Owen and Brad. It didn't take them long to arrive, and as soon as they did, the two of them all but lungs across the table to examine the timepiece. I rolled my eyes, snatching them up. "Stop that, you two," I snapped. "You're grown…demons. Act like it."

Brad and Owen had taken to spending time together, presumably because they were the youngest of my demons, at least in terms of experience and physicality. Brad was proving to be a bad influence on Owen, but honestly I didn't dislike it. The kid might not be any chronologically younger than me, but he seemed so…green. It was nice to see him making friends, and to see Brad bonding with someone.

"Is that it?" he said eagerly, staring at the device in my hands. It was honestly kind of fascinating to look at. Inside the Domain, mental constructs could function to their fullest. Each of the unique elements of the timepiece were a strange, shimmering substance composed of raw attributes. Some of them were interesting colors, and some of them couldn't really be described by a term that pedestrian, but they were all breathtaking to behold.

I nodded, tossing it in the air and catching it. "Of course," I nodded cheerfully. "Take a look. See what you feel."

I tossed him the timepiece, made based on his own construction. My initial schematics had required quite a bit of referencing of the book in the library that represented Owen, and despite being one of the first, trying to unravel the whole thing had been fiendishly difficult. But given the transition, the two items should be VERY similar, if distinct, and since the book WAS Owen for all intents and purposes, the timepiece…

"It feels like me," he said in awe. "I mean. Not me. Because it's a watch. But it is me. It's gorgeous. I feel like it's ticking along to the beat of my heart."

I glanced at Brad. "Heartbeat, huh? Can you use that?"

He squinted between us. "I mean…probably. Where the hole opens is sort of academic. But if he can feel that, then moving it should create a pit where that sensation used to be. I'm not exactly positive how this whole thing works, I'm sort of going off instinct here." He reached out and snatched the timepiece from Owen, who let out a whimper and reached for it.

Brad, not even bothering to ask if it was time, shot his hand forward clutching the watch. Before my eyes, a hole opened in the air over Owen's chest, and Brad shoved his closed fist and the watch both into the gap, before immediately removing his hand. Once it was out, the hold snapped shut with a pop, vanishing as if it had never existed. We all froze, staring at Owen. He stared back, looking shocked, but not hurt or uncertain about anything.

Watching his face closely, Brad nodded slowly, then his hand shot back out and the hold opened. He withdrew the timepiece, then turned and handed it to me.

I took it carefully, staring down at it in awe. It looked…better. Different. Like someone had overhauled it and adjust all the pieces to be just a bit more perfect. Gears were slimmer, movements smoother, it just looked like it was made by a better artificer. More than that though, it felt alive. I could feel the pulse of a pounding heart through the gears, like a being breathed alongside the mechanism, a physical vessel of life contained in a watch.

Turning, I passed it to Dantalion, being very careful not to damage or jar it. He studied it for about a minute before handing it back, and Brad placed it back inside of Owen's chest. "This bears further study," Dantalion said solemnly. "Something…changed. That might seem like a good thing, but it means we don't have enough of a grasp on the mechanics of this process. The Domain altered the timepiece to fit your intent."

I grimaced. "Which means it was a failure. That's not systematic. The Professor is going to be so disappointed. It's fine. I have three chances to get this done. And the changes will help us refine the process, right?"

"They will," he confirmed. "By studying the before and after, we can learn what differences we overlooked between the initial input and the final product. I imagine this experience will advance our Mythcrafting capabilities by quite a bit. Obviously, we won't be tampering with the device until we fully understand its creation and the logic behind it, but until we've completed the analysis, we can learn much from it in preparation for working on the next one."

I nodded. "Sounds good. Well then, if we're done here let's break for the night. Tomorrow, we can get started on studying Limbo." Hopefully my Divination classes would be helpful in deciphering those abilities.