It’s not a good System. The more I dig into it, the more I notice the slipshodness, the haste with which it seems to have been implemented. There are errors, but the errors are covered by expenditures of Mana such that no one notices them in the moment. Until an Administrator or the System itself puts in a more permanent patch. Sometimes causing even more trouble further down the line.
It’s not a fair System. But I don’t think it cares to be fair. Or just. There’s no overarching edict, no rules or conditions.
Yet for all the information I glean, for all my new understanding, even when muttered out loud, I gain no change in my System Quest. That Quest, that question lies unanswered.
What is the System?
I know what it is in terms of Mana, in terms of function. I can see the code. But I don’t know the why. And the deeper secrets of what it is, what the System truly means. Or so the System judges.
Perhaps just as important, what is Mana? And why does the System go through so much effort to integrate it, control it? Why can it do what it does, change the very fabric of reality?
“And why does it keep increasing?” I say softly.
Because it’s very, very clear, looking at the information provided to me here, that the Mana keeps increasing. Every second, every moment, the numbers climb. And it’s been going on for thousands, hundreds of thousands of years. Eventually, at some point, like the heat death of the universe, Mana itself will fill the world and kill us all.
If there is an answer, it’s not one that I can find here. Once more, my gaze drifts to the simple map notification.
Administrative Center 14-1-1 (Security Access Level 1*)
If there’s an answer, it’s there. An end to the road. Just a hop, skip, and jump away. Past the yellow brick road, at the end of the rainbow. Over the eastern sea where the immortals live.
All I have to do is get there…
“And be willing to sacrifice everyone else along the way.”
Because that’s what it would mean. I can see it now, the Administrators beginning their purge. Sending armies to destroy Earth. Bounty Hunters and assassins after the Questors. The Galactic Council’s army, their guards searching down everyone connected to my quest.
“But I’d have my answer.”
For why they have to die. For why a world had to be twisted. For all the death and destruction. Why, after all this time, I’m still standing. Still here, where so many others who should be alive are dead. Individuals more deserving, more virtuous.
An answer.
An ending.
I close my eyes, searching for my anger, my conviction. And finding it missing, banked. Anger has no answer for me here, rage no solution. Desperate action can only take you so far before it sputters to an end, leaving you standing empty and hollow. Gutted of dreams and hopes, lost in the blaze of energy and action, washed away in streams of weeping blood and unshed tears.
In the desert of my soul, I search for something to hold on to, some compass to give me an answer. Resolution or benediction.
Time passes, and in that hollow space, I find it. The simple truth of my own existence.
My eyes snap open. And I laugh softly at the simple answer I have found. Because there was never really a choice. Not and be who I am, what I have forged myself into after all these years.
“What is, is. And it’s time to make that clear too.”
I look up at the softly glowing, blank ceiling. I crane my head, searching for a sign of the Root Administrator that might be watching.
I find nothing, but still, I speak. “Fair warning given then. I’m coming for you and for my answers.
“And if I have to, I’ll let your Council burn to get it.”
Chapter 20
Of course, it’s not that simple. Time dilation means I have time to kill. To learn and Level. Prepare and plan. I make full use of it. Because there’s more to be done to ensure I’ll be able to do what I need, to reach where I have to go.
First things first, I use the communication hack I have to coordinate with Mikito and those I need to work with. Katherine’s initial list, of those who oppose us and those who might be swayed, becomes my guide as I make calls.
There aren’t many, just a few here and there. People who have what I need, who might be open to gaining a lead over their opponents by betting right, by having some information provided to them earlier.
I ask them to do certain things, to open up gaps in security cordons, to provide aid. When we get down to the brass tacks, I tap into my Skills. Forced Link with System Edit and Shackles of Eternity to cross the gap between them and me, riding along the communication and control lines of the Administrative Center. It’s a pain and I do it only a few times, but it’s sufficient to lock down the help. They might be able to break my Skills, but there’s so little time that it doesn’t matter. I don’t bet on any single person anyway.
All of that is ancillary, things that are done while I work on the truly important aspect of my plan—leveling my Junior Administrator Class. I spend hours Leveling via the ticketing board. I pick my tickets with more care now, finding ones that might have something to teach me. That are more than just simple patches. The ones that give the most experience.
I find tickets to help create programs to fix minor tickets, to build processes to sort and fix regular issues. I spend interminable hours building the programs, debugging its code, and spitting blood when I overdraw System Mana. Eventually, I release the program as a completed solution.
Even more hours are spent debugging the program as it runs into more unforeseen issues and interactions. I untangle the snarl of error codes and new tickets when my program runs into other automated solutions, recode priority signals, trim down my program in its scope, and save the hacked code for future use. I delete other programs and incorporate their functions into mine.
Hours, interminable hours, when I eat on the move, pacing, lounging in the air, then snapping to attention as a solution comes to me. Reworking strings of Mana, watching my hands tremble, bleed, and crisp as my vision doubles or triples while Mana ravages my body and code refuses to function as I wish.
Never-ending hours working base tickets to understand what I did wrong, what I needed to learn. Gaining experience, fixing problems, and finishing ticket after ticket.
Levels fly past me, as do days, and when I release the program, I receive another surge of experience. A surge of gratitude as it goes to work with minimal errors. Immediately, the program begins the process of cleaning up snarled processes, conflicting Skills, and more.
My Level as a Junior Administrator climbs again, overtaking my Level as a Grand Paladin. It jumps as I’m gifted experience for the final program, but not for the tickets it solves. Annoying, but understandable.
As I Level, additional Skill points arrive, only to be allocated just as quickly. There’s a bare moment of anger at the loss, at the lack of options given. Then I shove it aside, for I know now which is the greater Skill.
When my body cannot take anymore, when even my will and drive is insufficient to push me further into the jaws of System Mana as it shreds my body and soul repeatedly, I sit and meditate. I find my center, and I contemplate the fight. I investigate the dregs of Kasva’s Affinity, query my feelings and the System for what it logged. I pull at my own Affinity and pit it against my memory of the battle, searching for a solution.
Then I experiment on my own body.
I bleed. I tear. I burn. I scream and roll across the floor in pain. But I inch toward a solution, an understanding of a counter. In the near-timeless space of the Administrative Center, in the safety of Leveling, coding, and experimentation, I find what could be a solution.
And when I’m healed, when the Mana overflow is cleansed and my mind restored, I get back to coding. I throw myself back into the flood of Mana and swim, doing the best I can to make my way to the source, to an answer.