Myst in DC Part 15 (Patreon)

“Recognized Constantine 19, Recognized Apprentice A04, Slayer A05, White Knight A06, Red Tree A07, Recognized Superman 01,” the computer’s voice came out of the speakers.

Robin paused the movie. “Was anyone expecting Constatine or four people we haven’t heard of?”

Zatanna turned to look at Robin. “He’s like the Spanish Inquisition, no one expects Constantine.”

Myst grinned slightly but didn’t pause as he moved his index finger to the last pendant in the third row and spent the pendant’s mana on increasing his mana regeneration. He moved his finger down to the last pendant in the fourth row and spent the pendant’s mana to boost his mana regeneration. “He probably found the person with the magical sword and wants a consult,” he guessed while he worked his way toward the first pendant in the row. 

“Probably, I’ll go check.” Robin bounced to his feet and headed out of the room.

“How long do you you think you’ll need to become a god at this point?” Beast Boy asked.

“That sounds like way too much work.” Myst spent another 1920 on his mana regeneration, bringing it up to 1557 a minute. ‘Not to mention a good way to get noticed in all the wrong ways.’

Beast Boy rolled his eyes. “Right, how long until you can make me as strong as Connor?”

“No idea. You’re not Kryptonian or Tamaranean which means that eventually it’s going to get hideously expensive to boost your strength. I’d probably have more luck upgrading your shape shifting until you could turn into a Kryptonian or Tamaranean than I would boosting your strength that high.”

“You can do that?” Beast Boy asked in excitement, almost bouncing out of his seat.

“Hell if I know, but it’s a lot more likely than boosting your strength to match Connor’s strength without using enhancement spells or playing with combat drugs,” Myst explained as he finished emptying the last row then moved his finger up to the second pendant in the first row then pulled his pedometer out of his inventory and slipped it on his wrist. 

“Not to mention that Connor would want magical upgrades,” Raven pointed out.

“Speaking of magic, could you upgrade my ability to let me change into a dragon?” Beast Boy asked hopefully.

“No idea, remind me to check at some point when I have time,” Myst said as he spent 10,000 of his mana to increase the pedometer’s regeneration rate up to 2% per mile then dropped the pendant’s 1920 mana into the pedometer, increasing it by a fraction of a percent which was about what he was expecting as the next percent cost 50,000.

“Decided to finally upgrade your pedometer?” Zatanna asked.

“Yeah, it looks like I can buy the percentage regeneration piecemeal,” he said while emptying the next two pendants.

“Good.” Zatanna smiled at Constantine when he walked into the room with Superman and a collection of unfamiliar teenagers dressed in street clothes. “John.”

Constantine stared in shocked disbelief at Myst and the four rows of twenty five pendants that were filled with enough mana to level a city several times over. “Where… how? Where the fuck did you find those?!”

“Demon?” Buffy asked.

Myst looked up at the familiar voice and stared in disbelief when he looked up and saw a group of teenagers that were dead ringers for Buffy Summers, Xander Harris, and Willow Rosenberg. It took him a second to even notice the sword that Superman was holding pointed at the ground and away from the group. He glanced past Constantine who he recognized from the League’s roster and looked at the fourteen or fifteen year old young man with wild black hair and glasses that looked exactly like Harry Potter from the movies except this version of Harry was a fair bit taller than the actor. He shook his head as he realized Buffy had asked him a question. “What was that?”

“Are you a demon?” Buffy asked again.

Zatanna looked at Raven then looked at Constantine with a smirk. “He’s our familiar.”

“Nope, just your basic magical familiar.” Myst blinked as he realized he’d gotten sidetracked. “Shit.” He quickly went back to dumping mana into his pedometer so that he didn’t get too far behind. “Sorry, if I don’t empty the pendants they’ll melt. What do you need?”

“Where did you find a hundred mana storing pendants?” Constantine demanded.

“I made them,” Myst said smugly, making a mental note to keep track of his original pendant, considering Constantine’s well known sticky fingers. “I will be counting them before you leave.”

“That’s just rude and hurtful,” Constantine replied with amusement.

“It’s almost like he knows you,” Harry said, trying not to laugh.

Constantine turned to look at Zatanna. “Don’t most witches go for cats?”

“We’re happy with a magic using humanoid slime enchanter,” Zatanna said smugly.

“Right,” Constantine muttered.

“What do you need?” Myst glanced at Superman then went back to using the pendants to boost his pedometer.

“I was hoping you’d agree to boost their mental defenses as well and look at the sword to insure it isn’t holding any nasty surprises. Is this a bad time?” Superman asked.

“No, just give me a minute to catch up and I’ll look at the sword. If they step into the circle I can upgrade their mental defenses,” Myst said as he continued increasing the pedometer’s regeneration ability.

“You want us to step into a ritual circle?” Buffy asked warily.

“It’s designed to contain and draw mana from the nearest leyline. I’m having enough trouble keeping everything from blowing up on me, I don’t need the distraction of trying to work through the circle,” Myst explained as he continued working on boosting the pedometer. “Just don’t step on the pendants.”

Constantine pulled his attention off the circle. “You should also avoid stepping on any of the lines or disturbing the gems. Oh, and you’ll probably explode if you’re in there for more than a couple of minutes,” he said cheerfully.

“Explode?” Harry demanded, not sure if his mentor was exaggerating things or being honest.

“The circle basically triples your regeneration and allows you to overcharge your capacity. If you push it too far, you can explode,” Constantine explained.

“Luckily, we’re not going to do that,” Myst cut in before Constantine convinced the teens not to risk it.

“Let’s do this before I change my mind.” Harry rolled his eyes and stepped into the circle.

Myst looked at Harry with his upgrade ability and emptied one of the pendants to boost his mental defenses, not terribly surprised that they were on the high end, considering he could basically tank the Imperius curse. “Do you want your eyes fixed?”

“Yes!” Harry figured that was a more diplomatic answer than duh or anything else that sprang to mind.

Myst reached over and touched Harry’s leg with his left hand, lending him his regeneration. “That should take care of any previous injuries,” he said as he touched the next pendant and boosted Harry’s mental defenses well into the supernatural range. He touched the next pendant and gleefully boosted Harry’s eyesight up to 20/20. “Do you want supernatural vision? You have some options.”

“What are you calling supernatural vision?” Harry asked as he took his glasses off and found that he could see better than he had with his glasses.

“Increased distance vision and arcane sight,” Myst offered as he spent the mana in the next two pendants on his pedometer while Harry considered the offer.

“You might as well go for it,” Constantine said. “Being able to see magic is useful in our line of work.”

“Go for it.” Harry turned to look at Constantine. “Wouldn’t work imply that we’ve gotten paid at some point?”

Constantine shrugged. “The world is still turning.”

“I’m not sure that counts as getting paid,” Harry pointed out then blinked as all of the pendants started glowing and he could see a lot of blue mist surrounding the humanoid slime and condensed inside of it. “That’s different.”

Myst spent another pendant’s worth of mana on upgrading Harry’s eyes to 20/10 and increasing his arcane sight further. “That should be good unless you want me to upgrade something else, like your bone’s durability or your ability to learn.”

“How durable are you talking?” Harry asked, wondering if it would complicate regrowing his bones with skele-gro. “How much of a learning boost are we talking about here?”

“Next best thing to unbreakable?” Myst glanced over at Superman. “Barring getting hit by metahumans of course. As for the learning boost, decent enough that school should be a breeze,” he explained as he spent more mana on his pedometer, trying to keep everything from exploding or melting.

“Damn, I’m going to want that upgrade,” Beast Boy said.

“I think we all are,” Zatanna agreed.

“Both of those sound useful,” Harry agreed.

Myst spent a thousand mana on upgrading Harry’s bones then blinked as he realized that he could spend an additional thousand points to make them legitimately unbreakable. ‘Yeah, I’m going to have to do this for the rest of the team.’ He emptied the pendant then grabbed the next pendant and finished upgrading Harry’s skeleton to be indestructible. “There you go, unbreakable bones, just remember that the rest of you isn’t,” he explained as he used the next pendant to drastically increase Harry’s ability to learn and boosted his ability to remember facts and skills to a photographic level. “That should help.”

Harry twitched as green sparks danced over his fingers. “What the hell?!”

Myst reached up and shoved Harry out of the circle. “Sorry.” He looked at Harry’s mana pool and regeneration. ‘Holy shit, 6,000 of 3,000 mana and 5 mana a second, no wonder wizards never seem to get tired casting.’

“Let me guess, too much mana?” Harry asked as he looked down at his hands which were still crackling with energy.

“Pretty much,” Myst replied, going back to spending mana on his pedometer. “You’ll probably want to spend some mana. Try pulling an Emperor Palpatine or casting spells for a bit.”

“How close am I to exploding?” Harry asked, trying not to freak out.

“The records are a bit fuzzy, magic users normally start burning magic at double, I’m fairly sure you’d only explode at triple. Most magic users that can cast the spell know enough to step out of it when they start bleeding magic, like you are now,” Zatanna explained.

“So, another couple of minutes with your mana regeneration,” Myst said while working through the pendants, happy that he was catching up on his rotation so that he wasn’t overstressing the pendants as he didn’t want them damaged. He tapped the first pendant and dropped the five thousand mana into upgrading his pedometer then turned to look at the sword Superman was holding. “The sword cuts through any type of protections and is supernaturally sharp and durable,” he explained as he went back to upgrading his pedometer. “You’re up White Knight.”

“I’m not going to explode, right?” Xander asked, giving Harry’s crackling hand a wary look.

Myst glanced at Xander with his upgrade ability. “No, you have a little over 2,000 mana and shit regeneration, you’d be fine for about a day.”

“In other words, the sword isn’t cursed or otherwise harmful?” Superman asked, wanting to make sure it was safe before he gave it back to Buffy.

“No more than any other sword,” Myst assured him.

“In that case, this is yours, take care of it,” Superman said as he carefully handed Buffy the sword.

Buffy smiled brightly as she looked at the shiny sword. “Thank you, this should help against the demons we have to deal with.”

“I trust that you’ll put it to good use.” Superman was just glad that Constantine had turned the idiot with the diplomatic papers into a rat and was going to deal with him so he didn’t have to; the smarmy man had reminded him too much of Lex for comfort. “Now if you excuse me, I need to talk to Connor.”

“He’s probably flying around the halls with Megan,” Beast Boy pointed out.

“He learned how to fly?” Superman asked, a touch surprised that they’d managed to sort things out with his abilities so quickly.

“No, I gave him a pair of magical shorts that let him fly, they were cheap,” Myst said, pointing at the vending machine with his free hand.

“You have cheap flight?” Constantine asked, starting to feel like the mission was worth getting out of bed for.

“9.99 and about twenty seconds to move the magic from a skirt to a more convenient item,” Zatanna explained.

“Does the machine take British currency?” Constantine asked 

“You’ll just have to try it,” Raven suggested.

“Try to stay out of trouble.” Superman said, before he left to find Connor.

“I always try,” Constantine replied.

“How much mana do I have?” Willow asked, fairly sure she’d have more than Xander thanks to her practice.

Myst looked at Willow with his ability. ‘High magic stat like Xander, decent reserves but not insane, which is about what I was expecting as she started with invocations in the show.’ He frowned as he noticed her uncomfortably high talent for magic in general, as he considered what types of magic she would learn living on the Hellmouth. “You have more than most people, less than Xander. He has a stupid amount of mana for someone that isn’t a trained magic user. You’d think he was born and raised on a leyline nexus or something,” he explained as he went back to boosting his pedometer while he waited for someone to step into the circle.

“Something like that,” Xander muttered as he stepped into the circle, being careful not to step on anything important.

Willow chewed her bottom lip, wondering how she could improve her well of magic.

Myst used the next two pendants to boost Xander’s mental defenses, which while high seemed to have a number of exceptions. He perked up as he noticed Xander had a corruption resistance stat and a mana powered durability aspect that probably went a decent way towards explaining some shit from the show, like taking a hit from the troll hammer and getting up when it floored Buffy or taking multiple hits from vampires and only getting bruised. He spent three pendants worth of mana boosting Xander’s corruption resistance to the point where he doubted he’d have to worry about corruption if he spent a hundred years trapped inside the Hellmouth itself.

“How much mana are you burning?” Harry asked, seeing the sheer amount of mana that went into the other teenager.

“As much as I think he needs.” Myst used a pendant’s worth of mana to boost Xander’s durability and another pendant to boost his skeleton including buying the unbreakable package, because it was an option and would probably come in handy. He spent another pendant’s worth to boost Xander’s ability to learn quickly and remember information and skills. “Durability, unbreakable bones, and an increased ability to learn and remember skills.”

“That’s more than just mental defenses, thanks,” Xander said.

“You’re a hero. Speaking of being a hero, are you willing to put in the time learning magic if I upgrade your mana regeneration?” Myst asked.

“From someone with actual magical experience, off the Hellmouth?” Xander asked hopefully, knowing Willow and Buffy could use the help as nastier demons had been showing up recently.

“We have a couple of magic users and Constantine could probably use another apprentice,” Myst pointed out as he used the next pendant to boost Xander’s mana regeneration.

“What makes you think I want another apprentice?” Constantine asked as he glanced at the lines of magical pendants.

“Three words, bribery and magical gear,” Myst said as he used another pendant to upgrade Xander’s mana pool.

“Technically that’s four and fine, I’m sure we can work something out,” Constantine agreed.

Myst used another pendant to upgrade Xander’s mana regeneration to one point a second. “Cool, you’re done. Jump out of the circle before you explode,” he grinned when Xander quickly jumped out of the circle, “in like thirty minutes.”

Beast Boy snickered. “That was evil.”

“Nah, just amusing.” Myst used the next pendant to lower the required number of feet he had to walk/run with his pedometer by two in order to get the bonus mana. “You’re up Red Tree.”

Willow stepped into the circle. “Can you give me the same abilities you gave Xander?”

“I’ll see what I can do.” Myst used the next three pendants to boost Willow’s mental defenses well into the supernatural range and another three pendants to boost her corruption resistance up to a ‘reasonable’ level for someone that was going to use magic on the Hellmouth with less than stellar training. He used another pendant to upgrade her bones’ durability but frowned as he couldn’t buy an unbreakable package like Xander or Harry. “That’s annoying, I can’t make your bones unbreakable, merely extremely hard to break,” he explained as he worked on boosting her ability to learn and retain skills.

“My type of wizards are decently durable,” Harry said, thinking about Quidditch.

“I’ll take what I can get,” Willow said, not terribly worried about it as she had Xander and Buffy to hide behind and extremely durable was still better than merely human.

Myst spent part of a pendant increasing her ability to learn and remember skills and the rest on increasing her patience. ‘Probably shouldn’t mention that part.’ He used the next pendant to upgrade her mana up to one point a second to match Xander’s. “Okay, you’re done. I boosted your mana regeneration a touch and your ability to retain skills, which should help with learning magic.”

Willow stepped out of the circle with a bright smile. “Thanks.”

Myst looked at Buffy. “Do you want me to try to increase your regeneration ability and durability?”

“That would be awesome,” Buffy said as she stepped into the circle.

Myst smirked when he used a pendant and a half to increase Buffy’s regeneration up to a point a second. He used the rest of the pendant and five more to increase her ‘hit points’ which should go a long ways to keep her from dying. He spent ten thousand mana to upgrade Buffy’s regeneration so that it regenerated limbs and internal organs. Then used half a pendant to upgrade her skeleton so it was unbreakable. He used the rest of the pendant and the next one to increase her ability to learn and remember skills.

Constantine glanced between Buffy and Myst. “That was a whole feckin’ lot o’ mana.”

“I was upgrading her life bar, regeneration, and bones.” Myst looked back at Buffy. “I’d upgrade your strength but you’re already stronger than I am, which jacks the price. I also boosted your ability to learn and retain skills. Let me boost your durability a bit then you’re good.” He spent two pendants worth to increase her durability up to a level where guns wouldn’t be as large of an issue. “Do you want me to boost your mana regeneration or do you want to skip magic training?” He swapped back to working on the pedometer while waiting for her answer.

“Would it help?” Buffy asked.

“I’ve found that knowing enough to explain what you’ve found to your expert is a good thing,” Harry suggested.

“He has a point, in your line of work, you’re better off knowing the basics than not,” Constantine assured her. “Besides, if nothing else, a little bit of pyromancy would go a long way in your line of work.’

“Nothing like snapping your fingers and lightning the vampires on fire, right?” Xander asked, happy that they were getting a chance to learn from an actual wizard.

“In that case, go for it,” Buffy agreed.

Myst used three pendants to boost her mana regeneration up to a mana a second. He dropped five thousand mana to increase her mana pool by 500 so that she’d have more mana to play with, in case she wanted to use a couple buff spells or a couple of dozen flame spells on her frequently flammable foes. “And done.”

“Thanks for the help,” Buffy said as she stepped out of the circle. “Now what?”

“We should probably discuss what type of magical gear you need,” Raven suggested.

“You should probably buy some Supergirl costumes. I can move the enchantment to something more reasonable,” Myst said as he worked on cutting down the number of steps he needed to take before the pedometer gave him mana.

“Fair enough,” Constantine said as he walked over to the vending machine and pulled the watcher’s ATM card out of his pocket.

“I was going to ask earlier but I got distracted by the movie, is there any reason you can’t just wear all of the pendants?” Beast Boy asked.

“Why am I a zombie stripper?!” Willow asked in the background as she caught sight of the TV.

“You make a beautiful zombie stripper, honey,” Xander said, trying not to laugh.

“Not touching that one,” Myst muttered. “I can only keep track of so many pendants at once.”

“Can’t you just smoosh them all together?” Beast Boy asked.

“If I could, don’t you think I would, they’re basically the same enchantment… then again I haven’t tried to smash them together,” Myst admitted as he continued boosting his pedometer.

“It’s probably worth a shot before you drive yourself insane trying to keep track of them all,” Raven suggested.

Myst quickly spent the mana in one of the pendants that Robin had provided and one of the crappy pendants then focused and cast his Recettear spell to move the mana regeneration enchant to the dragon pendant. He laughed as he checked the dragon pendant and realized that it regenerated two mana a second and had a capacity of four thousand. “Okay, Beast Boy actually had a decent idea.”

“Sweet. So, it’s later, can you upgrade my ability so I can be a dragon?” Beast Boy asked hopefully.

“Have you tried being a dragon? I don’t see anything that prevents it,” Myst pointed out as he spent the mana in another pendant and cast his Recettear spell again. He scowled as he realized that the resulting dragon pendant only regenerated 2.5 mana a second and had a capacity of five thousand. “Okay, stacking them is less effective unless they’re equal.”

“You might as well see if the rate gets worse,” Zatanna pointed out.

Myst spent the mana in the next less than stellar pendant he’d created then merged it with the dragon pendant. He blinked as flecks of green appeared in the dragon pendant’s blue gem. He checked the dragon pendant. “3 mana a second and six thousand capacity which means it’s probably not worth doubling anything unless the rate gets worse.”

Constantine turned to look at the pendant that Myst had enhanced. “The fact that your pendant is making like a van de graaff generator is probably a bad thing.”

“Fair enough,” Myst grabbed the next pendant in the line and selected the sparking pendant. He slid the metal quality slider as far as he could with a pendant’s worth of mana then bought it, changing the silver into mithril. He upgraded the stone then spent the rest of the mana to upgrade the dragon design, causing the dragon to grow far more detailed. “That should keep it from exploding.”

Constantine stared at the pendant that was no longer sparking, trying to process the slime being able to do alchemy on the fly. “Not going there, so can you move the magic in the skirt to a belt?”

“That should be close enough, let me finish condensing everything to something more reasonable then I’ll start moving enchantments around and we can equip everyone with decent gear.”

“Kid, I think you and most practitioners have different opinions of what counts as decent gear,” Constantine muttered, “not that I’m about to complain.”