The System’s Harvester

Early Afternoon - Early Summer : Richmond, Virginia | East Coast United States

-----

*crackle* The crackling of rubber grinding against concrete echoed through the car as we carefully turned down a road so thin it could be classified as an alleyway.

"Huh..?" *tap-tap-tap* Pulling up the map on the dash, Diana zoomed in to double-check if we were on the right road before looking up with a confused expression. "This.. is it?"

In front of us was a long path, just barely wide enough to fit the car, leading to a dead-end: a solid wall of dark, aged concrete.

Or at least, that's what it looked like at first glance.

Looking more closely, I saw that the whole wall was covered with tiny ripple-like distortions, a typical giveaway of light magic. "It's an illusion." -Although I must say it's more convincing than the camouflage of a lot of monsters I've fought...-

"A-Ah.. right... I think the doctor did mention that..." Continuing to roll up to it, Diana hastily pressed a few buttons on the dash before the faint static coming from the car's speakers vanished, and an artificial silence surrounded us.

-Huh..?- It didn't rely on magic as far as I could tell. -How did she just...- But before I could give it much thought, our surroundings were engulfed in darkness, leaving just the bright menu on the car's dash to illuminate us. *Vwoom*

It gave me a sensation similar to being teleported, but...

*Vwoom* As a small wave of energy passed through the car, a smooth, matte white metal structure appeared in the darkness just ahead of us, with its walls plastered with warnings. -Looks like this is the place...-

Quickly continuing into the structure, we passed through several other complex arrays of machinery and magic before finally coming into a sizable room of black metal, where blue lights embedded in the ground outlined what looked like parking spots.

*tst-click* As we finally pulled into one, the eerie silence surrounding us disappeared, and the doors unlocked and pitched open.

"Phew..." Diana's breath of relief was heavy. "We're in... Sorry if I didn't explain enough beforehand... The silence from that 'entrance static' was.. pretty uncomfortable..."

-So that's what that was...-

Gently picking up her helmet, she hastily tapped through the dimly lit menu on the car to disconnect it before the car's screen flashed static and went dark. "Let's try and make this quick..."

Hastily hopping out of the car, I followed her lead through the empty garage, eventually passing through a few more doors that appeared to be additional security checks Diana tricked with her helmet before we finally came into a reasonably sized dark room, lit only by glowing gauges, screens, meters, and the largest of all, what could only be described as a 3D image floating over the center of a table.

-Is that a hologram?- At the center of the room was a huge round table, loaded with devices and buttons I couldn't even begin to guess the use of, with a spanning, dozen-meter wide, colored map seemingly floating in the air.

From what I could tell, it was a map of the city, a colossal circular labyrinth of buildings wrapped in towering walls with exactly three massive railguns perched around its center, which appeared to be a massive dome. -This city is gigantic...- But also on the map were hundreds of tiny pulsating dots, equidistant to one another, forming sets of rings stretching out from the heart of the city to about fifty kilometers beyond the outer walls. -What are these...-

The nodes were all different colors, from a dark crimson to a very pale green that appeared to be near where we were. -Interesting...- "Are these dots the mana sensors?"

Jolting slightly as I broke the silence, Diana nervously looked up from her helmet, holding a thick cable leading to an adjacent table in her hands. "Y..yes, the dots are the sensors and the color corresponds to the mana level... The doctor said if you tap on them, they will show the data to calculate the color, but I don't expect to be able to read it..." Finally turning back to her helmet, she resumed what she was doing. "All I was told to do was relay the numbers on those panels to command."

Is that so? Reaching up and gently tapping the palest dot, the map suddenly shifted so that north was the direction I was facing, and a massive panel appeared directly in front of me.

It was almost identical to a system panel, but instead of being filled with familiar figures, there were many things I had to guess the meaning of, from 'Ring Function', to 'System Status', each with an additional column with expandable details.

The issue was, even after clicking through them, there wasn't an obvious option to view how the color was calculated like Diana said.. leaving one last tab: 'Raw Data' -I guess I misunderstood, thinking it would be simplified...-

*tap-Beep* Casually tapping the details button, a panel taller than me instantaneously appeared, filled to the brim with so many words, numbers, symbols, and constantly changing formulas I didn't recognize that I felt like I was looking at something made by aliens. -W..what the hell?-

Out of the thousands of values, there was almost nothing I recognized, and even for the few I could infer the meaning of, I had no clue what was and wasn't considered normal, meaning there was nothing I could learn from it all.

However, that was only for the time being. -When that girl gets her helmet hooked up and starts giving that researcher data, I should be able to pick details out of their conversation...- Although I didn't expect much, eavesdropping costs nothing, so anything would be a huge gain. -But in the meantime.. I have an idea...-

*Woop* Gently waving my hand, the panel closed, and I turned my attention back up to the map.

Ever since I returned to Earth, I had an immense amount of energy flowing out of my body at all times. Of course, I had already suspected it was mana, but as things were, I had absolutely no clue how to control it, and worst of all, I had no way to verify if the feeling of me moving it even did anything. -But if I use these sensors I should be able to see if I'm controlling it at all, right?-

Although I had no experience handling mana on its own, with it being the fuel for upgrades, I was more than a little familiar with the sensation of using it.

The issue was simply how much energy there was. Previously, I would have had a small water well that the system would drop a small bucket into to then go and fuel an upgrade, however, now, simply trying to mimic that sensation made me feel like I was trying to use that same bucket to pull water out of a stormy ocean.

It wasn't that I couldn't fill the bucket, but rather that I couldn't tell that it was filled, and if I simply told myself it was and moved it elsewhere, all I was doing was splashing the bucked back into the ocean some place else.

What I needed to do was either redirect the energy away from one location, or use a bucket big enough for me to feel it move.

But both methods were substantially easier said than done.

*Cl-Cl-Clink* Retracting my gloves, I turned over my worn hand and stared into my palm, where it felt like an immense flow of water was erupting from, before looking between my fingers to see the light rippling as if there was a plume of heat around my hand, and falling into thought.

But it didn't take long for me to remember something.

"Ah..." -Right.. maybe I can try that...- With a short breath, I closed my eyes to recall the sensation of an upgrade called 'The Blanket'. The upgrade was said to reduce the presence of the user, but when it was activated, all I would feel was as if a non-existent part of my abdomen was tensing, so I never thought it did anything. -Could this mana emitting from my body be my presence?-

Trying to partially mimic it, I slowly began tensing half of the imaginary part of my body, but almost instantly, it felt like my head was splitting, like I was trying to use a beaver dam to redirect a river.

"Tch..." But with a click of my tongue, I gritted my teeth and pushed through the pain before finally opening my eyes and looking at the array of sensors again. -Come on...- Not seeing any difference, I reached up and gripped my head before expanding the area of the 'imaginary abdomen' I was tensing. "Ack..."

It was a pain unlike anything I had ever experienced, a completely unique pain I would consider worse than losing an arm.

But when I finally opened my eyes again, I noticed that some of the sensor's colors in the direction I was tensing had become more vibrant, no longer looking so pale and shifting from a light green to deep orange. -Ah, it.. worked..?- Finally relaxing it, a loud ripple-like noise echoed through the room. *VWOOM* And the exact instant I heard it, the sensors returned to their old, pale colors.

It was the opposite of what I expected.

*Rub* *Rub* Gently rubbing my head with an eye closed, I tried to alleviate the pain that still lingered while simultaneously trying to organize my thoughts. -Okay.. so.. this energy is mana.. that mana is my presence.. and I can control it by controlling that.. thing...- Although I couldn't really describe it, it was like my body had another group of muscles I could instinctually control, if only slightly. -But if it's mana.. why did the sensors get more vibrant when I redirected my mana away from it? Shouldn't they get paler when less mana is on it?-

I quickly sank into thought, contemplating if I was misunderstanding the sensor's colors as I held myself up on the table and gripped my head.

"Are you.. alright?"

Hearing Diana's worried voice, I lethargically looked over to see her standing in front of dozens of massive, brightly lit screens covered in menus, images, and diagrams before waving her off. "Y..Yes, sorry..." -Looks like she's about to start...- "Don't mind me."

Her expression quickly turned awkward. "O..Okay... I'm going to try and connect to the tower now... If there is anyone you need to speak with outside of Richmond, I'm sure the tower can relay you to-"

"No." I immediately shook my head. "Don't even tell them I'm here..." -I can't risk them clearing the misunderstanding right now...-

Tensing slightly, she gave me an odd look before slowly turning back to her helmet and finally connecting to a 'communications channel' through the facility's equipment.

That was when I first heard the researcher's voice, filling the facility as he instructed Diana to do various things on the supersized computer before finally turning her attention to the map of sensors.

From there, the explanations began, starting with how to read the map itself.

As it turned out, I was actually reading it somewhat correctly: the colors themselves ranged from white to dark red, with the vibrant red indicating a potentially poisonous amount of mana for humans, while white meant none at all.

The opacity, or paleness, however, was actually something totally independent.

"The pale readings are the ones we need to worry about right now." His voice was firm, but he spoke with haste. "The opacity of the sensor's color generally coincides with the amount of aura that is messing with the sensor. It has to do with how the runes the sensors use to detect mana cannot use or detect aura.. it basically just clouds the sensor's readings and, in extreme cases, can even displace the mana around the sensor and mess with the color itself. In any case, now knowing that, I need you to start by describing the patterns in opacity between the sensors, if there is any pattern at all. After that, we will look at the raw data to get specifics."

"U..Uh..." Diana's voice shook slightly. "Where should I start..."

*crackle* "Well, auras exude in a circle around creatures, so try and look for anything like the edge of a circle in the sensors. Like where-"

"I-It's not that..." She paused before pressing on the map and rotating it so she could look straight down at it from above. "I see.. a full circle..." The comm instantly fell silent, leaving just the faint sound of static. "There's a full circle inside the city... The center node's colors are distorted like you mentioned too... They're green while the outer ones are red..."

There was a long silence before the researcher continued with a quiver in his voice. "H..How many nodes are affected?"

"H..Hundreds? Maybe more..." She sounded like she wanted to break down and cry. "From edge to edge, it's.. almost the width of the city... And the center is right next to where I am..."

"That means it's.. beneath the city..." The sound of frantic clicking and writing instantly leaked through the comm as the researcher began to panic. "O-Okay," He eventually continued in a frenzy. "I need you to download the current raw data to your helmet; since it's already connected, you should be able to go to the center console, open the command prompt, and put in, '-adm_download_snapshot -pd Diana -pass 18erf'. It should download the current map, nodes, and their data. We need that data urgently."

Diana, slowly beginning to panic as well, instantly ran back to the computer before frantically typing.

"Once it's downloaded, break communication and head to the airport! I'll contact the ATC through the facility and issue an evacuation using the still air-worthy European airship, but you need to get there ASAP! Getting that helmet out of Richmond needs to be your top priority!"

*cl-cl-click* "W-What about my cardinal?! Can you not get fuel to it?!"

"The Sergeant spoke with the local military base, but they can't move their refueling trucks at all. The mana wave was so strong in Richmond that it killed several people and even damaged some mechanical equipment... For now, just focus on getting the hell out of there. Now that I'm connected to the facility, I don't need to relay through your helmet anymore, so go the moment the download finishes."

"R-Roger!" *Beep* The static from the researcher's communications channel instantly vanished as Diana frantically worked to unplug the helmet and get moving.

It was finally time for us to leave, but while I didn't get all the information I wanted relating to the raw data, I was more than satisfied with everything else. -Now, the issue is my presence...- *Cl-Cl-Clink* Closing the armor back around my hand, I idly spoke with Diana while we quickly made our way back to the car, but my thoughts were elsewhere. -If the humans find out I'm the target of the regional quest before I can 'settle' things with an admin, I'll be caught in a tight spot...-

Unfortunately though, even simply contacting an administrator was going to be a struggle.

Or at least..that's how my past experiences had been.

*Crackle-humm* As the hum of the car's electric motors filled the cabin and we turned back onto the main road, getting ready to return to the airport, a gate suddenly appeared in front of us, only maybe 3 meters wide, and a white line was instantaneously drawn through the middle of the car. *CREAAK*

Before Diana could even register the existence of the gate, the car was cleanly split in half, as if done so by a laser, and the gate dissipated to reveal a man donning bright white and silver armor with an ethereal cloud-like aura around him and a golden halo over his head, pointing a black straight-bladed katana at me.

-Well...- As my head tilted and laid my cheek on my knuckles, I stared straight into his eyes. -This.. might be a problem...-

-----

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Read up to 5 weeks ahead of schedule, and get early access to artwork (when it is made) on My Patreon!

(In case Embedded Link doesn't work: https://www.patreon.com/TDOD )

-------------

Also, please feel free to check out our discord for all updates related to TSH releases! https://discord.gg/Dv7G5bQD4v

All are welcome!