Masenia: Chapter 4 Physics and the Racial Upgrade (Patreon)

Chapter 4

Physics and a Racial Upgrade

Getting back to class was surprisingly easy, Maria just ran in from the student parking lot and managed to get by with a quick statement of leaving one of her textbooks in the car as to why she was outside anyways. The guard, having known Maria seemed to not to himself before letting the girl who was clearly a bit disheveled on her way to class with little more than a warning.

“Thanks Frank, you’re the best.” She said, and she meant it too. Frank was one of the good ones, too bad about his left arm.

Wait? What about his left arm, it was fine. Even turning back, she could see him still waiving with his left hand. Distractedly she waved back, using her own left hand in some sort of sympathy. Then walking into the school, she could feel it. No, now that she had her tattoo on her shoulder it was like she could taste, touch, and even hold the strangeness that was around her.

Looking around, she could see that mana was seeping everywhere. Though it definitely seemed to flow in an odd pattern, getting thicker and thicker the further in the school she got. If she didn’t know better, it would seem like years of pollen had coated the hallways of the school for years. That is of course if pollen was fluorescent and glowed in every color of the rainbow, and then some. Oddly enough, the light blue particles that were floating in the air all seemed to be drawn to her. For a second she thought she would get burned by the oddly glowing light source suddenly seen in the hallway. Yet, part of her knew that this was the effect of her tattoo. Had she gone for black, she would have been able to absorb all of the colors present, though the extent would likely cause problems later on. What those problems were she didn’t know. At first, it would just be enough to survive, which meant any variation would rise, even black. But as time went on, once a lot of trial and error was done, only those that hadn’t corrupted their bodies with mixing the different forms of mana would be able to evolve further.

Thump.

Someone slammed into Maria’s back, right into the shoulder with her new tattoo.

“HEY! Watch it!” The girl who had just been as distracted as Maria had screamed from the floor, as she fought her way up to her feet, grabbing her papers that flew everywhere.

Yet, the entire thing was so surreal. The memory, it had been so real, so tangible. She could almost imagine the past, one where she was too afraid to go for cultivation, until it was far too late to be truly effective. While she had managed to eventually become one of the strongest, due having waited so long. Many died, too many, to learn the lessons needed to make it so she could succeed.

Going to class, Maria found that this was Physics, a core class she shared with her twin.

As soon as she entered the room, she felt immediately lighter, as the windows were open, letting in the fresh air, on the air floated so many particles of energy, chief among them were the much lighter light blue air particles that had particularly come to inhabit the second story classroom.

Finding her seat, by autopilot more than anything, Maria sat down and began to try to call out to the particles that floated in the air. Her tattoo did most of the work, as it acted like a giant focused magnet drawing in light blue particles, while seemingly filtering out the other particle types from entering her body.

Honestly the whole thing, the sudden need to get a tattoo right then and there during third period, the fact that only afterwards she could see charged particles in the air, but only after going back to class. It all spoke to one thing, she was high. At least that is what her twin would say, if she told her any of this.

“Where were you?” Anita asked, coming into class and all but staring at Maria.

“What do you mean?” Maria asked, although she already realized that her sister had easily spotted her outside the school grounds.

Looking at her sister, she could see that she was already attracting red motes of light, that made sense. Given her fiery personality, she was the one more prone towards destruction, she had also been the one to save everyone, at least according to the reports she heard. Well, the reports from the survivors that is. Maria had technically been one of the survivors, but only because she was inside when it happened.

Bbrriinnnggg!

The chime for class to start rang out. The teacher was about to close the door when suddenly the shuffling of one student who was clearly late came barreling to the door.

“Mr. Price, you are late.”

“Sorry, I was just looking for Maria.” The boy said, as a note of panic filled his voice. Hearing someone call for her, Maria looked up to see a pencil thin boy who had greasy black hair and a severe case of acne on his face. Still despite these blemishes, there was a certain cuteness about the boy, though it was hard to place a finger on why exactly.

“Ms. Alvarez has been here the entire time. Something you would have been aware of, had you yourself been here on time.” The Physics teacher stated.

“Right, I’m very sorry, it won’t happen again.” The boy said, as he peeked in, and then looked at Maria, only for his mouth to drop open in surprise.

“See that it doesn’t. Well, I had wanted to wait for this, but it seems we can all thank Mr. Price here for the need of an impromptu pop-quiz.” The teacher began, “everyone pull out a sheet of paper, and a pen only no calculators, no phones, and answer these problems.”

With that, a fully filled out smart board came to life showing a series of twenty problems.

Maria looked at the problems, and then just began answering them, the formulas coming to her easily as she looked at each. Even the trick questions were relatively easy as they just wanted her to use different expressions that were easy to calculate.

Maria was one of the first ones done, nearly finished after the quiz went up. She made sure to write out the problem, and her steps, which then led her to the solution. After a moment, she brought the sheet forward and placed it on the desk.

“Thank you Ms. Alvarez, by the way, I like the hair. It really suits you.” The teacher said.

Hearing that, Maria smiled, not quite knowing what else to do or say. It had been a nice gesture, and one that she was not used to hearing from the school. Everyone else seemed to think it was her just acting out for attention.

Now with nothing else to do, Maria went back to her seat, and not really having anything else to do, she began focusing her will on drawing in the ambient blue particles of light that floated around the classroom. There was a term for this very thing, but it eluded her, at least she thought there was a word for this, to describe this process, this phenomena, but for the life of her, she could not think of it.

Finally, after a long time more and more students began getting up and turning in their quizzes. Still by this point she felt she had made some headway in further attracting the motes of energy. The process began first with her mind trying to first focus on a spot at the very center of her being. Then focusing on that spot she felt there was a pool of dormant energy, energy that was just waiting to come to life. This energy was similar to, but also different from the outside energy in the classroom. The entire thing was odd, but somehow felt natural, as if it was something she had done by muscle memory for years.

Then slowly over time, she felt it, the moment the trickles of energy were sucked into her body, where they began to gather, like condensation on the outside of a cold glass of liquid on a particularly hot day, only in this case the scenario was reversed, the water, or in this case the motes of light blue energy were condensing into large drops on the inside of her body, where once they got big enough, they seemed to be sucked down long straws that led from her hands and arms to her very center.

It was a natural process, but she knew that if she did something, she would be able to speed up this process, but for the life of her she couldn’t remember what it was.

“Why are you meditating in class?” Anita asked, her voice a hush, as she didn’t want to draw the teacher’s attention during the middle of a still ongoing quiz.

Opening her eyes, Maria realized that this was likely exactly what it looked like. Also, hearing the word, she remembered that this is exactly what this very act was called during her dream, meditation. Though it had been stressed that what we thought we knew about meditation was all wrong, and those that were considered to be experts of meditation, before the fuzzy thing in her mind happened, those were the people that had the hardest time adjusting to the new world. As the old meditation was incorrect, in fact many people didn’t want to call it meditation at all, given how different the two fields were both pre and post, fuzzy time, but the name stook as everyone continued to call the new practice meditation even though it had nothing to do with the old practice.

Again, another random memory but one that she could swear had happened, that or she was high from a drug laced needle used by the machine to give her a tattoo. You know, at this moment Maria could almost go for either option. Though she hoped for the former, as it meant that she didn’t waste most of her money to idly see things while in class. Also if she was being honest, the symbol was entirely stupid, well no, it called to her in a way that she couldn’t quite explain. It was as if that was part of her soul, or maybe how her personal soul would appear to others who could see such things. Then she almost scoffed at the absurdity of the idea, who could see souls?

“Well?” Anita pressed.

Maria paused, as she looked at her sister, here she was trying to figure out how to correctly meditate, while also trying to see if there was a way to actually see souls, then this? What was she even talking about? Then before her mind caught up on the fact that she had been meditating, but likely not what she thought of as meditation, the teacher spoke.

“Time. Everyone that has not already done so, please put down your pens and pencils as turn in what you have. Since this is a pop quiz, I will use it as a replacement quiz, for any quizzes you might have taken prior to now where you did worse. Don’t worry this will only help you in the long run.”

With that, everyone turned in their quizzes, then sat back and grimaced as the teacher went over the material of the quiz. Everyone but Maria, who neither cared for the lesson, nor for the fact that she got a perfect score on the quiz, both of these items were secondary to what was most important to her right now.

“Hey, where were you?” The late boy, Mr. Price, said, during a quiet moment.

“Here.” Maria said.

“No you weren’t I checked our spot and you didn’t show up. Also, you won’t return my texts.”

“I had my phone taken away.” Maria said, holding her hands up in a what can you do gesture.

Anita shook her head, clearly annoyed by something that she had said, but opted to keep her mouth shut for the time being.

“Also, what is up with your hair?”

“It’s a distinction marker letting me know that I am ready for an evolutionary upgrade. This serves as a marker to leadership, letting them know that I should get more resources, while also letting enemies know to target me first, to strike me down before I evolve into my new power set.” Was what she wanted to say, but that foreign thought came to her in a broken train wreck of a thought that got jumbled in her mind. She never thought about it like that, but this would be a clear indication to everyone, friends and rivals alike that she was ready to evolve and that it would be best to take her down now, while she was still relatively weak.

“I don’t know,” was what she ultimately went with.

“All right, I’ll ask again, where were you? You weren’t at third period.” The boy pressed.

“I knew it!” Anita said, as she looked like she had caught her sister lying red-handed.

“Fine, you caught me. I went down to Custom Ink, where I got a tattoo based on an image that came to me on my way to school.” Maria answered truthfully.

“You know what, if you don’t want to answer, just tell me.” The boy said, sounding kind of hurt.

There was a moment of silence, no doubt this was where Maria was supposed to say something, but honestly what could she say. She barely recognized the boy as the cute kid who she had a crush on in middle school. The same kid who now looked like he hadn’t seen the sun in months. It was sad, as this was an amazing day.

“Are you okay?” The boy asked.

“Yeah.” Maria answered truthfully.

“Okay.” The boy seemed to nod as if in agreement with himself.

“You’re still going to band practice right?” He asked.

“Sorry, I apparently have to try out for sports teams now.” Maria said, though looking at it, being outside on the different fields would put her right at ground zero of where all the mana was coming from. Just seeing that much unclaimed energy caused her heart to race, as part of her realized that she could influence the direction that this node could develop. At least that was a prevailing theory, the first person to claim a node would be able to permanently alter the orientation of energy that the node produced. Or something like that, the thoughts and memories confused her.

It was clear from her sister’s face that she had either done something to upset her, that or Maria was clearly missing a cue. She was acting oddly, that much was for certain, but to be honest she felt like she was mostly just going through life on autopilot to this point, that her academic career had all been some sort of cheap backdrop that had slowly faded. That when she awoke from her dream, well more like her nightmare, she felt that she had never truly awoken today. Like she was just going through life on some half-awakened dream. A dream where her body seemed to be more responsive than ever, while her mind kept getting input from external and internal sources.

Yet, despite everything, she felt that the world before her, the world of magic and energy was the real world, or rather a layer of the world that would soon be available, for years this magic had been there, constantly in the background just slowly saturating the world, until it would finally take over, and judging by the amount of build up of energy, it had been doing so for quite a long time.

“Are you okay?” The boy asked again.

“I think so.” Maria answered truthfully. Honestly she had done a lot today, and the worst part, she felt that the strange oddities that she was now dealing with would only continue to get odder.

Whoosh.

There was a pulse of energy as the light blue energy she had been filtering into her body finally made its way to her core. The minute the energy did, there was a violent reaction.

World First Notice: The First Cultivator Has Awoken.

Title Gained: First Cultivator: You have seen the energy of the universe and were the first to consume it from your planet. +10 to all Attributes, +50 to Meditation.

World First Notice: The First Seer Has Awoken.

Title Gained: First Seer: You were the first to harness your soul to only take in the light-blue mana available to your world. +15 All Attributes, Visions.

Okay, it was official, she was tripping.

Her mind blurred as she felt a surge of energy fuse into her. This seemed to be expressed by the world around her, as her hair began rising like her body was suddenly being suffused with static electricity.

Everyone around here, whether awakened or not began to tilt back from her.

Warning: Your body has reached its maximum evolution point. Evolution imminent. Select from one of the following choices.

Advanced Human (Unlocked).

Ethereal Human (Unlocked).

Divine Human (Unlocked).

Prophetic Human (Unlocked).

*** (Unlocked).

Blinking.

Maria tried to blink away the notification, but regardless of whether she closed her eyes or not, the message still stayed. Worse, the energy infusing her body was having a profound effect on her mind, as she felt even more woozy as time went on. Worse, she knew that she absolutely needed to make a decision, as the pressure she was now feeling would only intensify the longer she waited. For the longer she waited, the more she felt her body beginning to stretch under the increased pressure she was now under. Focusing on her options, she knew most of them were terrible choices for her. Advanced human were just the automatic advancement, the sort of jack of all trades, but master of none. Not the best source if one wanted to truly be able to achieve greatness. The Divine and Prophetic humans were also powerful, but not something she wanted to base her life on. The Divine humans were ones that received their blessings from the very gods who set this whole thing in motion, they were the first betrayers. No Ethereal Human was the only safe option, also it seemed to be oriented towards her light blue mana build. Holding out her hand, she woozily reached a hand out towards it, until she felt her mind turn drastically, and suddenly the ground beneath her began to spin as she felt reality twist on her. Realistically, she knew it was her mind suddenly receiving an intense growth spike from her new titles that threw off her whole coordination, but that was hard to process. Instead, she felt the world shift around her. As she fell forward, her body also fell forward, causing her entire body to collapse, with her hand out stretched towards the last and final option.

By the time she hit the ground her mind was in such a deteriorated state that she could no longer move, it was as if she was hit by a sudden heart attack right then and there wand was unable to deal with the pain she now felt. Meanwhile, the system being the system continued to count down, as she could only stare vacantly at the choice that was before her. Her fingers were at the floor, and as she moved so too did her selection screen, meaning the item she now had her hand over while in a debilitated state was the wildcard race evolution.

The screen flashed once, twice, then finally at the third the choices all went away.

Racial change to *** has been selected.

Warning: Get to a safe space, as you will be vulnerable during this transformation process.

“HELP!” A familiar voice called out from so far away, then darkness.