34 - Shen (Patreon)

Author's Note: I revised Chapter 33, added more to the end of it because it didn't feel right the way it ended. so I guess go re-read chapter 33 again. Thx!

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Maya wondered what the state of her brain was these days. Suddenly going unconscious in a normal world meant a lot of bad things. She could only recall once when she had fainted as a kid from heat. Then, she had been rushed to the hospital and given an IV drip. That had been a big deal. 

Since arriving to the rainbow sky hellscape, Maya had been knocked out, knocked herself out, been blasted to unconsciousness by explosions, and all manner of things. A normal person would be really screwed if that happened to them in a five or six week period. 

Maya opened her eyes and closed them again. She sighed and then opened them. The masked face of Shen was looking down at her. That was not something she wanted to see when returning to the wold. The spike of anger, rage, and terror all bubbled in her veins as she stared into the mask. 

It was a different one this time. Before it had been an ivory white mask in the vein of Roman sculptures. The mask showed the same facial features as the previous mask; a wide mouth, four eyes, and a sharp hooked beak for a nose, but this one was colored.  

Was the mask a uniform? The stormtroopers all wore masks, but theirs lacked the facial features and were instead reflective faceplates. Perhaps they were germaphobes. It was something she never really dwelled on, as Bell didn’t seem to have any diseases that he had spread. Were the masks cultural? Who knew what Shen believed in besides being a piece of garbage asshole. 

No, they were hiding something. The image of the Halvara dying to her pulse stunner entered her mind. Someone that strong shouldn’t have succumb to such a tiny weapon. Something else was amiss. The armor, although tough, wasn’t just to protect them from their captives.

“I see you are awake-”

“Where’s Bell!” Maya shot up into a sitting position, nearly colliding with Shen. 

“Where he is and how he is, are irrelevant. I have questions, human.” Shen walked away from her, standing before a computer terminal that grew out of the floor. 

Maya saw that she wasn’t in the white prison cell she had awoke in earlier. This room was similar to the over decorated room she had first met Shen in. Perhaps it was his taste in decor. Maya thought it was too… richly appointed. Too many tapestries and too many gilted edges on everything, Maya leaned more toward minimalism and modern decor. 

On the plus side, she wasn’t naked anymore, so things were looking up. Maya looked down at the jumpsuit or onesie she wore. The cloth was fine and airy, silky smooth, but made of a dark fabric that felt like nothing she had ever touched before. She shook her head and got to her feet. 

Shen didn’t turn as she gingerly walked to where he stood before the computer screens. They displayed her, in all her glory. Maya, at this point, had become used to the lack of privacy she had been subjected to. Everyone, it seemed, had seen her naked and every bit of information on her cells and atoms was shared among her friends, and enemies. 

“Do you know what you are?” Shen asked. 

“Awesome?” Maya replied. “Where’s Bell? Is he alive?” 

Shen ignored her questions. “You are an anomaly,” he said. “Something that should not exist. I wish to know more about you.” 

“Yeah, I’m swiping left on this hookup,” Maya said. 

“Jokes. You make so many jokes. Do all of your species reply in such a manner when terrified?” 

“I-“

Shen suddenly turned to face her, in a second he was towering over her, his long metallic fingers inches from her throat. Maya gulped hard and stepped back unconsciously. 

“Say something funny, child.” 

Maya’s mouth dried out and she could only stare at the leering mask. 

“I have no time for jokes. I have no time for your stilly bravado. I want answers and I want them now. Speak. Plainly. Truthfully. Immediately.” 

Maya felt a pressure in her head, a ball of pain that grew behind her eyes. She cried out and clutched her head and it kept growing more painful. Finally she dropped to her knees and sobbed from the agony. 

“How long have you been in this dimension. What were your levels when you arrived. How did you arrive. When did you create this dimensional scar?” the pain grew in Maya’s mind. “Answer, now.” 

She stuttered out the answers, between bouts of agonized groans. Shen didn’t move, didn’t say anything as she told him about her universe’s Integration, about the dimensional instability, about the dimensional bags she had thrown to destroy Medusa. It all came out in a rambling, barely coherent blubbering. 

Finally the pain vanished and Maya collapsed to the floor. She felt her tears soaking the thick carpeting. 

“No levels?” Shen mused. He walked back to the computer screens and looked at them. From the ceiling, robotic arms began to descend. Maya watched in horror, then terror as they clamped down upon her legs, arms, and body. She tried to struggle, but they were immoveable. 

A blue orb followed the robotic arms, it floated above her navel and began to pulse light across her. Maya felt heat and then a cold sensation that burned its way through her body. It wasn’t painful, but shocking. 

The readings upon the computer screens changed. Maya realized she couldn’t read what was being displayed. She could understand Shen and he could understand her. There had been no other signs or writing anywhere, she realized. The stormtroopers didn’t talk and she had been too busy terrified for Bell in the chapel to notice what was being displayed on the altar. The universal translator should have updated when coming across other languages.

“What…” Maya could only muster. 

“Silence.”  

The machine withdrew, dropping Maya. 

“Impossible. You’ve just gained a level,” Shen said. “Dimensional Awareness III? True Mana Draw? [Essence Mana Channeler]?” 

Shen turned and towered over where she still lay on the carpeting. He seemed to peer at her from behind the mask, as if finally seeing her for the first time. 

He began laughing. “I see now,” he said. 

“What do you see?” Maya finally managed to ask. He knew something about her. He could read her levels, skills, and abilities. That meant he had to be much higher in Evaluation than she was. “What do you see?” 

“Do you know what [Essence Mana Channeler] is?” Shen asked. He didn’t wait for her to answer. “It’s a Tier 4 System Ability. It is what separates normal SIL from godlike beings.” 

“I’m a godlike being?” 

“Hardly. What separates a Tier 3 SIL from a Tier 4 being is being able to tap into the essence mana that makes up the multiverse. There are only a handful of Tier 4 beings in all of the multiverse. They are ageless and they are all powerful, that is because they control essence mana.”

Maya blinked. 

“I can control essence mana?” she asked. 

“Barely,” Shen walked back to his computers. “It all makes a kind of sense, when you look at it. The amount of essence mana that is channeled into a Point of Contact world is incomprehensible. Those weak creatures that have barely been Integrated can’t even feel it or notice it surging around them.” Shen chuckled. “Combine that with your being sucked into a dimensional instability, the fact that essence mana was already destroying your body…” He turned back to her. “You are something rarely seen, Maya Sullivan.” 

“What is that?” 

“Do you know why your mana channels are nearly destroyed?” 

“Nanaseto said it was due to me flaring up when the Integration occurred. I would have probably died from it.” 

“Perhaps. But never trust a Tier 1 AI. It cannot see anything, it is a trash machine trying to delve into the mysteries of the System and SIL. The ultimate goal of System Identified Lifeforms is to begin channeling essence mana. At those levels you become godlike in your abilities, you transcend the mortal coil and have all of creation at your command,” Shen announced, his distorted voice screeching with madness. “Yet so few, so very few, ever managed to accomplish such a thing.” He looked at her, stalking once more to tower over her. “You, on the other hand, seem to have achieved a shortcut.” 

“A shortcut?”

“I have been in this place for a hundred years. I have studied all that have arrived through the dimensional instabilities, those that survived, those that did not.” 

“There are more living people out there?” Maya asked hopefully.

“You’ve seen them. Halvara was such a living person.” 

“But…” 

“In time they all serve me,” Shen stated. “Knowledge requires sacrifice.” 

“What did you do to them?” Maya demanded. Her thoughts turned back to what Bell had endured. The machine, the mana that was burning through him, the fact it would eventually sear him of his channels. It all clicked. “You seared them? You did what you were doing to Bell to them. You destroyed their mana channels in an attempt to what? To power that machine that was forming?” 

“I call it the dimensional cage,” Shen said, a bit of pride in his distorted voice. “It is the cumulation of fifty years of work.” 

“What the hell are you doing?” Maya demanded. 

“Silence.” Pain blossomed in Maya’s skull again. “I was explaining something to you. You, weak human, have achieved a shortcut that no one has done in living memory. You have cheated the System.” 

“What are you talking about?” Maya gasped. 

“The [Essence Mana Channeler] ability you’ve gained. At level 11? In low grade, Tier 1? Unheard of. But I understand what has happened, how the System failed to maintain order.” Shen laughed and stalked back to his computer screen. “Your body was under immense strain, it was changing and charged with so much essence mana, then you were brought here. In this near manaless dimensional plane. But the thing is that essence mana can cross dimensions, it can be anywhere and do anything. So it came with you, it burned through your body. In a normal world, you would have flared up. Your body was too sensitive to mana, it would have tried absorbing everything around you, but then you were brought here. Here where the mana is so low.” 

Shen brought up a holographic screen of Maya. In it were strange lines, glyphs, and symbols etched across her body. It was like a circulatory system, but not… it was her mana channels. 

“The purified mana we all use burned through your channels without you knowing it, but the essence mana was trapped in your body when you came here. The dimensional instability didn’t allow it to leave as it should have normally. Instead it coalesced into your body, but the body cannot handle two forms of mana at once..” 

The display changed, the lines, glyphs, and symbols faded and a few were burned away.

“The pathetic therapy you have been undergoing was only damaging you. Your body isn’t supposed to be channeling mana, it has been building essence mana channels this whole time.” The display changed, overlaying the fading mana channels with a brilliant golden set of glyphs and symbols. “Your body was so weak and so malleable when it arrived here, no levels, no skills and abilities. No idea what you were doing. Essence mana creates everything and destroys everything, it was trapped within you. So it began building channels. Channels that are only built when a SIL reaches the heights of Tier 3.” Shen laughed. “This is interesting. This will revolutionize Tier changes. Do you know how many struggle to rise to Tier 4? Billions, trillions. The most powerful beings in the multiverse are stuck trying to achieve true greatness.”

“So what does it mean?”

“You fool,” Shen snapped. “Do you know why there are levels, why there are the hard to change stats like Luck, Fortitude, and Foundation? Why your stats are broken up into Physical, Mental, and Soul?” Maya remained quiet, knowing it was all rhetorical. “It is broken down in that manner to stagger and weaken the essence mana that is changing you. It is to prevent it from burning you root and stem. It is the System’s doing. Harnessing all that power and throttling it enough to allow our weak bodies to adapt and handle the strain of it all. Every level, every attribute point, it is all essence mana being shaped into something your weak form can handle. Every time you channel mana to make something, every point of experience you gain from destroying a monster, even every universal credit you gain, it is all essence mana that has been harnessed and shaped by the System so that you can use it.” 

“Okay, so I can channel essence mana. Does that mean my stats are useless?” Maya asked. 

Shen laughed again. “Fool. Your channeling is raw and horrific. You ability to shape mana is pathetic. It will take decades to even begin doing the most basic of things with it.” 

“I burned Jo pretty good,” Maya grinned. 

Shen stopped his mocking and looked at her. She could almost see the scowl he had on behind the mask. “She is no more,” he stated. 

“What?” 

“Mana Burn, do you even know what it is?” Shen demanded. “It is an unstoppable fire that can only be extinguished until the target is destroyed. Once Jomallava was aflame, there was nothing anyone under Tier 3 could do to stop the flame from consuming her.” 

“I didn’t get a kill notification,” Maya said. 

“You didn’t kill her, you destroyed her. Everything. All the mana that made her up, all the mana that formed her body, it was all destroyed by the flame. There was nothing left, there was no mana left for a notification or experience gains.”

“Jesus,” Maya gaped horrified. 

“It is an amazing Tier 3 Skill,” Shen said. “Not very useful in large scale combat, but in small engagements, very good.” He waved a hand and returned to his screens. 

“What,” Maya began. “What now?”

“Now? Now, you will take your friend’s place. You will create the opening for the dimensional cage. You will bridge this dimension and the multiverse at large.” 

“Isn’t this just another part of the multiverse?” Maya asked. 

“Fool. This is not anywhere in the multiverse. This is the space between the multiverse, outside of the existence where the System controls mana. This place, devoid of mana, is not connected to the System. The System does not know what it is and where it is, it can only guess and use the mana that is inside of us, the weak ambient mana around us, to barely function.” 

“Then why do I still gain levels and get notices?” Maya asked. 

“Integration, child. Integration is not just the System changing the world, it is the System entering you. It is inside of you. Some small part of the overall machine is functioning within you, sending messages, receiving messages, connected to the over all greater machine.” 

“It’s a machine?” 

“It is not a god,” Shen scoffed. 

Maya sighed. “You’re trying to get back to the multiverse?” Maya asked. 

“Of course. I have spent a century in this place. I have learned all I need to know. I shall return and continue my research. I will find the core of the System.” 

“If I do this. If I create this bridge for you, then you’ll let me and Bell through too?” 

Shen leaned toward her, his mask leering. “I can just make you open the gateway. I can force your body to do what I need it to do.” He hissed. Then he straightened up and looked at her. “But sure, I’ll let you and your friend come with me.” 

Maya shuddered and nodded. “You’re high leveled right? Tier 2?” 

“What of it?” he demanded. 

“Why can’t you do it?” she asked. 

“I do not wish to.”

“You’ve got all these people, all these SIL who survived the dimensional instability, yet all you did was sear them of their mana channels for what? An effort to create this gateway? Why can’t you do it? Your levels would allow you to, right? A high level means strong mana channels. Bell is only level 30, but he’s stated before that mana channels grow as you level up. I don’t understand it.” 

“You do not need to. You just have to do it.” Shen stated. “You don’t have mana channels, but you have essence mana channels, more power will be able to course through you. Long enough for the cage to activate and the gateway to open. You, Maya Sullivan, are what I have been looking for. You’ll open the gateway and I’ll be free of this place.” 

Maya shook her head still not comprehending. Why did Bell have to suffer? Why were all these poor people committed to Shen’s goal? After he had seared them. They were like… 

She stopped as her thoughts tumbled into place. Bell had said cybernetics wasn’t good because they messed with mana channels, but a good high grade, Tier 2 System Tech could bridge some of that gaps left behind. If their mana channels were seared, they could use system tech to rebuild some of it, a semblance of mana channeling. 

Bell and her had fought the two invaders and they had been fought, but they should have been tougher. The difference between grade levels wasn’t just about levels, it was about skills and powers that they obtained from channeling. If they were fully able to channel, they wouldn’t have had a chance. It was the reason why she could defeat rogue AIs that had higher levels than she did. 

They couldn’t channel mana and they couldn’t use their full potential. They resorted to alternate means to supplement their power. 

Maya looked at Shen and the thoughts continued to click together. He hadn’t channeled anything since she had arrived. Bell’s teachings had included a little bit about feeling mana channeling. It was the survival skill that everyone had to know. She wasn’t good at it though, due to her weak mana channels, but she occasionally could feel Bell channeling when he had been working on Junior. 

For all his power and cruelty, Maya realized that Shen hadn’t been channeling around her. He could fix mana channels, he had stated that he would fix her channels so he could use her as he had used Bell. 

Yet, he hadn’t channel. That only meant…

“You’re seared,” Maya blurted out. 

Shen snapped his head toward her. 

“You can’t channel mana, can you?” 

“Silence.” 

“High grade, Tier 2 system tech can make a slight effort in cobbling together mana channels for mid grade, Tier 1 SIL, but not for anything in Tier 2, right? You’re Tier 2, but can’t channel.” 

“Silence!” Shen snarled. 

“That’s why you need me or Bell to make the bridge. You can’t channel mana to form it, you have to force it to be made.” Maya’s mouth was running away from her, she knew it but she couldn’t stop. Then it clicked. The mask, the computers, the system tech, all of it. “You’re not even a SIL. You’re a rogue AI.” 

“SILENCE!” Shen snarled and launched himself at her.