The Dao of Magic: Book IV

by Andries Louws

  Letting an automated process form the complex network of chambers, rooms, secret tunnels, majestic hallways, and luxurious stairwells that such an awesome structure needs, I turn my focus downwards. Nestled between the roots of Tree is the mass production assembly line facility I set up to produce my drones. Each platform carved with movement runes, every single changeable area where I can apply temporary formations, and each drill bit set into enchanted frames is immediately clear in my mind’s eye. I shift the entire thing, willing it to be under my castle, turning the entire basement into a lab that would make any mad scientist jealous.

  “Come, my loyal minion. I will now tell you my plan to take over the world!” I know Lola is hopping after me, her little body forming an odd emptiness inside my braincore. For the briefest of moments, I peer inside my braincore. There, I see a miniature replication of the environment I’m in, myself included. Inside that miniature me’s head is also an ethereal braincore, and another even smaller me is inside that one. I try to find an end to the endlessly recursing madness, but it goes far beyond the sixteen smaller versions of myself I had set up when I went to fight with the mana dungeon’s core.

  “As you see, my dear Lola, we have a few things to do first.” I’m snapped awake by the little rabbit bumping into my legs. I immediately resume my tour as we walk into the grand hallway, finely patterned marble arches decorating the grand stairwell that is the first thing you see upon entering. “It’s been a while…” I quickly check with Database, and I’m honestly quite shocked to learn that an entire week has passed since my last little conversation with Lola. “It’s been two weeks now since we left Rhea to her own devices, and we have stuff to do before meeting up with her again.”

  Truth be told, I’d love nothing more than to rush over to the north pole right now, beat the shit out of everyone standing in my way, and wake her up. But, live and let live, we all have our own shit we need to work through. Instead of wallowing in my personal discomforts, I pick up Lola and start stroking her fur like any proper villain should start doing the moment they reach their evil lair. Pressing a few buttons in a random order, I order the secret trapdoor to fall open after I’ve punched in a sufficiently complex combination. Stepping onto the platform, we start to lower slowly, the patterned walls rising ever faster around us.

  “You see, I don’t like getting my ass kicked. And this stupid fucking piece of shit Nexus of a fake moon has been beating me down time and time again. First, it messed with Angeta. Actually, I’m sure it messed with everyone at some point in time. Then it started messing with all the animals, mutants, and big mutants. The straw though, the motherfucking straw that broke the mother fucking camel’s back…”

  I pause as the wall vanishes in a blur, shooting upwards at high speed. Descending into the middle of a very large open area, lit by many glowing formations on the arcing ceiling, we have arrived into the production facilities that Database and Tree have been overseeing and developing. Massive piles of homogenous powder are piled to the side. Hoppers that hold hundreds of tonnes of raw or intermediate materials are placed in endless rows, all of them filled to the brim with refined metals and other resources. The many, many assembly lines look like empty walkways at the moment, but that’s just because only a single of the mass production facilities is being used.

  “…is that Nexus has dared to attack Rhea three times now. I can understand that people have beef with me, I’m a mighty annoying guy at the best of times, but how dare that asshole of a white floating ball of bullshit stone ever dare thinking about…”

  The lights flicker, causing eerie shadows to dance through the piles of prefabricated blocks of alloy. The many transportation holes in the sides, all of them lined with qi-powered rails, look like dark pits to the abyss as their illumination fails with my anger.

  “…hurting her, Angeta, others, indirectly ruining this entire planet by shooting my guts throughout the solar system, and who knows what else. Also, turning the north and south pole into a dumping ground of failed items and experiments is just a dick move in general. Clean up your own trash, for fuck’s sake.”

  The platform we are on slows down gently, the rushing wind kept at bay by inscribed lines of runes and simple formations, powered by a single qi crystal and the ambient power that hangs thick in the air.

  “So first, we need more countermeasures to this planet’s defensive and attack systems. I think you’re too dumb to be influenced by that white asshole up in the sky, but as it has proven time and time again, us qi-empowered mortals seem to be rather sensitive to it.”

  The nearest assembly line – a glowing strip of circulating qi surrounded by a rather malleable material which can be inscribed with ease – is currently slowly churning out drones. I forgot what version number it’s currently on, but comparing the current model with the very first one I designed and made by hand would be like comparing a cut and paste paper prototype with a finished masterpiece. The unibody design makes it rather slow to produce, though. Each step needs to be preceded by all earlier steps, disallowing any form of mass part production. The tests and products I have in mind now have no such limitation.

  I snap my fingers the moment the lift platform I’m standing on clicks into the landing dock. Walking down the three-step stairs, I observe as a dozen or so assembly lines start to glow something fierce. The malleable metal strips of alloy lining the qi power strips – made from silver, tin, and other trace elements – start taking on the designs Database has been working on. I quickly check them over and make some inspired improvements here and there. Large hoppers filled with materials roll themselves to the beginning of the production process. They start pouring their contents onto the designated areas the moment they arrive.

  These materials are then heated through brute force qi usage, the central qi strip of those lines buzzing with activity. The heated globules are transported down the line, complex arrays and rows of runes and formations shaping the materials as they cool.

  “But to develop countermeasures, we first need to do some more research.” I’m pretty sure I’m grinning like mad now because I sense Lola looking between me and the suddenly bustling production lines with worry in her big black eyes. “Mass producing rockets that I will then launch into space to test the defensive satellites. Destructive research is my favourite type of science, after all.”

  I can’t help but start cackling my best villain laugh as I start up some more assembly lines. I keep stroking Lola as I watch my arsenal grow steadily.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Manducate 4

  “No way, they are never the same, you know. There were plenty of legends about it. This and that immortal finally managing to resurrect their one true love, only for them to have a completely different personality. Sure, they might have retained their memories, but just shoving retained data into a physical shell is not enough to recreate a person. Even adding a soul, and thus allowing them access to their current life of stored memories after sufficient time will create a whole new being.”

  Sitting on top of one of the highest mountains in the Shi-Eit Kingdom, I take another sip of my Nine-Thousand Times Distilled Heartrending Wine. The stuff starts melting my teeth, and I realize I forgot to keep my dental protection formation going. I add some qi to the spell and let my teeth regenerate as I taste more of the fine wine. Its pH should be somewhere below zero, but it tastes too good to ignore it just for that reason. Swallowing, I return to my current conversation partner.

  “We’d need to add all the bits and pieces that make a person a person. I’m not even talking about the facets of someone’s personality, no. Creating a blank brain, and then putting a bunch of memories in there merely creates a shambling mess of a being. They’d have no control over their body and be a baby in every single aspect possible except for their long-term recall centres, which would be a complete and utter useless heap of hardwired neurons.”

  I click another mental button, and one of the many, many cylinders placed j
ust a bit down the slope bursts into flames. The one-metre wide, eight-metre long slender tube spews masses of fire out of its back end, leaving expanding clouds of white in its wake. Its speeds up rather fast, its small size and super lightweight allowing it a rapid ascent. I watch it grow smaller with speed and switch my attention to the high-altitude camera that are circling high above.

  “Take just the motor functions, for example. Certain repeated movements strengthen the connections between certain neurons. Neurons that fire together, wire together. From the various sensors and inputs to the actuating nerves that steer cells, complex networks form for each type of movement. Missing a single part of that complex network will render the entire thing useless until massive efforts to rebuild have been undertaken. And that is provided you have access to the original brain, which in Rhea’s uncle’s case, seems to be the case…”

  Frowning at the way Lola keeps winning her arguments without having to say anything, I focus on the rocket. The blunt nose is leaving vapour trails now. Its qi-enhanced metal plating is carving lines of condensation through the atmosphere. I send this one up as the fastest one yet, and this is the first one that is even coming close to potentially experiencing damaging forces. I mean, they’ve all experienced complete destructive forces so far, but that’s not the point. I set the engine, a rather simple design that forces liquid oxygen and hydrogen together in a combustion chamber, to half power. This seems to be more than enough to examine the atmosphere, but we will see if it’s enough to escape certain doom.

  “So yeah, I can totally resurrect her uncle. I can tape his soul to his body and force it to start functioning again. It might even stick after a while. But I will waste an immense amount of power. I will have to root through his entire body, a horrible violation of privacy, to stitch him back up. Forcing all the cells to start functioning again until the body can keep itself going is a rather simple process now that I’ve studied Rhea’s inner working so much, but the guy just won’t be the same, you know.”

  The rocket shoots ever upwards, the resistance of the atmosphere lessening the higher it goes. I didn’t bother designing any form of a multi-stage system, nor did I bother with strapping any booster rockets to the thing. I kept the design as simple as possible, just a shell containing two pressure containers, a feed system, a combustion chamber, a steerable rocket nozzle, and a few steering fins. It doesn’t even have any reaction control systems or gyroscopic stabilisers.

  I can control the thing through a unique identification number, a rather crude image of Tree as a symbolic link, and a few control actuators hardwired with thin silver strands into the central control system. A few magnitudes less complex than the most basic space-faring rockets I remember from Earth, way back. The only reason the things don’t explode on the launchpad is the copious amounts of qi coursing through the various strengthening formations scrawled across the things.

  “So, a pretty good scenario would be that I manage to thaw the oversized iguana and get him on supernatural life support. His soul will need a field of consciousness to latch onto. Also, talking to discarnate souls in order to ask their permission to be resurrected is a can of worms I want to keep closed at all costs. Just shoving a connection point to a collection of barely accessible data into an otherwise empty consciousness is a great way to spawn cosmic horrors.”

  I clench the cup in my hands as I wait for the inevitable. I force myself to relax while keeping tabs on the ascending rocket.

  “So, yeah, Rhea’s uncle is somehow and miraculously living again now, the damage to his body is repaired, and his chest is sewn shut and healing. I did see a rather severe wound at the back of his head, and I think I saw bits of bone in there, so let’s say that the only damage to his brain is to his occipital lobe. All the other damage to his brain is miraculously gone. No frostbite, no oxygen deprivation degradation, no decomposition, the rest is all peachy.”

  The moment I’ve been waiting for happens in a glorious flash. The smooth rocket is steadily gathering speed one moment, riddled with holes the next, and a fireball in the last. The previously majestically white missile turns into a streaky fireball moments after it is crisscrossed with bright lances of fire, several gouts of fuel separating into forking streaks of flames. The sensor drones circling my launching site track all the parts and bits, sending the data directly to Database through Tree. Instead of having to mentally request that information, I just know it. I feel the numbers, images, and coordinates arrive through the symbolic links. I know where the data is stored without even looking consciously. As I said before, super weird.

  “Just this one part of his brain being severely damaged will cripple the man. Qi will allow a person to recover, but there needs to be something to recover. A hand can only be regrown if the invalid person in question knows that something is wrong. A person that is born without legs, for example, will not suddenly sprout legs if they start cultivating. Nor will that part of that dragon’s brain suddenly grow back if he no longer remembers what is supposed to be there. That dragon will no longer be able to process sight if the back of his brain is severely damaged. Nor will he be able to recognize anyone without many, many years of intensive recovery and therapy.”

  The tertiary swarm of drones, all of them small flyers dragging fine webs around, move into position. A couple of dozen kilometres up in the sky, every single fragment and detected items are caught before it can reach the ground. All the things the scanning drones have detected are dropped into the waiting nets of the dedicated carrier drones. These carry all the items back to the ground, where they are dumped into the big pile to my right before the cargo drones shoot back up.

  “So, long story short, I do not like resurrecting people. The drastic shifts that happen in brain chemistry even after short periods of being soulless will guarantee major personality shifts. If you’ve known someone for hundreds of years, having to learn that this person is now someone totally different can be devastating. I just fear that…” Looking at Lola, I see her sleepily yawning. I smile and keep petting her, glad that she at least listens to my worries.

  A brief mental command sends another rocket skywards, and I squint my eyes against the back blast of the blazing exhaust fumes. Standing up, I look at the growing pile of debris and oddly shaped pieces of stone. I drop Lola to the ground and pick up one of the pencil-sized projectiles that my drones have managed to catch. I see glittering rock and shining streaks on the smooth surface of the projectile. Small flakes of metal are scattered through the circular patches of multicoloured rock, confirming my suspicions.

  “Also, I haven’t even covered the psychotic breaks that come with the disconnect from having a soul that was previously separated. The unshakable truth that your mortal coil is just an anchoring point for some entropy-storage plane is not a great truth to know. Soul rejection is a super ugly condition to have, and I don’t know of a single case that managed to overcome one of those episodes.”

  Spinning one of the oddly heavy cylinders through my fingers, I pull the entire pile of scrap metal and carved asteroid into Tree, into my core. I feel the foreign collection of stuff settle, the distinct heap of foreign items slowly being taken over by my core. I stroke the necklace that’s still around my neck. The dimensional link to Tree’s entire plane seems to be my core now, but keeping the item that started the entire slice of additional reality around my neck just tickles my funny bone. Also, the tree embedded inside the black stone is still part of Tree’s previous corporeal form, so I don’t want to leave such a massively important link to my cultivation base laying around.

  “But Lola, thanks for listening. I know I keep moaning and bitching about this stuff, but it isn’t as if I have truly weighty objections to trying to heal technically dead people. Frozen sperm is as dead as they come, yet you let the goop thaw, and they start swimming for their life. So let’s just look at her uncle as a frozen single-celled organism, just to ease the few moral objections I can come up with, okay?”

  I wonder
idly why some of the pencil-shaped projectiles inside my core take so long to become mine when it hits me. As if on demand, the remaining bits and pieces of the next rocket are dropped off. I ignore the charred and well-cooked metal fragments and shrapnel and focus on the small dozen bits of extra terrestrial stone. Grabbing one, I immediately douse it with my augur. A chaotic mix of atomic action greets my mind’s eye at a hundred times the density of normal matter. Why would this dumbass Nexus make such high spec ammo, for fuck’s sake?

  “Right. Lola, I’m done talking about depressing stuff like death. This is the new priority number one.”

  Grabbing and scanning another one, I notice a similar density. Sending small threads of augur into my braincore, I sample the bullets in Tree, and find that they are of similar density. I immediately spot a small pattern. None are the same density. Pulling the projectile I found inside the guts of the sandworm from my ring – the very first bullet I came across – I scan it, and see it’s the densest of the lot. The next batch comes down, whirring drones dropping the debris into the rapidly growing pile, and I see that all of these are even less dense than before.

  My mind, tickled by this new mystery, keeps finding odd things. I’m pretty sure that I was shot by a couple dozen projectiles. Only re-entering the atmosphere at speed prevented me from being pierced by more than one of the bullets. Why are my testing vehicles being hit by multiple ones at the same time? Why are my rockets shot when they are still inside the atmosphere, way below the elevation where I was hit?

  To my relief, temporary answers to those questions, at least, are found relatively easy. The entire system was at a low ready level back then. I confirmed the existence of five states of readiness with the Mana Dungeon’s core. Then why are these cores of lessening densities? Wouldn’t you want to test your intruders out first with normal bullets before you start pounding them with the good stuff that’s a hundred times more massive than mere ordinary matter?