A Budding Scientist in a Fantasy World

The twitching, shivering mass of stone looked at them, and Alice shivered as a strange sense of disquiet settled in the pit of her stomach. It was like no living thing she had ever seen before. The bits of chaotic rainbow mana it emanated were unsettling. It looked like someone had tried and failed to create some sort of… half-baked System mana. However, dozens of parts were missing, and the structure was completely wrong.

If Alice compared it to a painting, it was as if someone had heard about the Mona Lisa, and then, without ever seeing the painting, had tried to replicate it using a completely different color palette. Then, halfway through the painting process, they had accidentally dumped several buckets of paint onto the canvas, decided it looked better that way, and called it a day. The strange statue was both familiar and unfamiliar in a deeply unsettling way.

However, there was a strange beauty to it, hiding underneath the nightmarish, twisted surface of the strange System mana. Alice was reminded of her own first attempts at creating System mana. Her current attempts to replicate the System were also bizarre, twisted mockeries of the original System - even after all this time, she hadn’t figured out how to perfectly replicate the System, even if she was able to ‘replace’ most of it with semi-effective solutions.

Alice saw a pair of rainbow chunks of mana snap around their group, isolating the [Mercenaries] from the rest of the group. Then, Allira and Ethan glared at the statue, as if it owed them money and refused to return it.

“What the hell is this?” asked Allira, finally breaking Alice out of her stupor. “This… I don’t even know what I’m looking at.” Allira’s eyes were locked on the twitching, writhing mass of stone. Even though Allira couldn’t see mana as far as Alice knew, the woman still seemed disturbed by the bizarre image.

“It looks like a cult,” said Ethan, softly. “They’re very rare, since the church of the System is dominant on the southern continent and most of the central continent. Even those that spurn the Church of the System usually turn to the Church of Mana instead. However, occasionally, a few people stop worshipping either the System or mana, and worship something… else. Usually an exceptionally powerful monster. I’ve heard it’s particularly common in societies that get isolated for long periods of time but manage to survive - though there are only a few cases that I know of. Most ‘cults’ appeared before the colonization of the southern continent, and disappeared on their own. Not much future in worshipping a monster, after all.” Ethan grimaced. “I have no idea why a ‘cult’ would appear in the Society, though. As far as I know, they don’t worship anything. They just want power and don’t care how they get it.”

“What are the people here even worshipping?” asked Jonathan, as he also gazed at the twisted, messy chunks of mana and stone, as well as the half-dead worshippers. “It looks almost like they offered their own bodies to their ‘god’ as sustenance or something. Are you sure this stone thing isn’t a monster? Or a manaborn or something?”

Alice shook her head. “The stone looks like it was carved,” said Alice. “I think this is sort of like a manaborn, but not quite the same. It seems like it was artificially made.” Alice took a single, hesitant step forward, and squinted at the statue. “I think the Society was trying to recreate the System, but in a completely different way from what I’ve been trying.” At first, her voice was unsteady. However, the more she spoke, the more confident Alice became.

“That’s…” Cecilia’s eyes widened, as she looked at the space in front of them. “Did they try what I think they tried? That’s… insane. But also kind of brilliant.”

Alice nodded. “I hadn’t thought of trying to fix the System like this,” she said, as she saw Jonathan’s confused expression. “I’ve been trying to fix the actual, underlying mechanisms behind how the System works, but I’ve always approached it from the ‘underlying logic’ of mana. I thought that just made sense. The System is made of mana, and so I just thought it made sense to fix it based on the same principles. But the Society tried to repair the System using human belief,” said Alice. “If everyone believes that something is true, then at least to some extent, it will be true. That’s a big part of how mana and belief interact with each other. If you can convince everyone that the pile of rocks in front of you is a manifestation of the System, or some sort of substitute…”

“Ah. I see,” said Jonathan.

Ethan shook his head in disgust. “That’s actually kind of clever. But what the hell is up with the people here?” He looked at the half-dead, delirious worshippers, as well as the numerous corpses, and then snorted. Then, he glanced at Alice. “Did it work? Do you know?”

Alice leaned closer to one of the little snippets of pseudo-System mana that the living pile of stone had emitted, and then frowned.

“No. At least, I don’t think so,” she said. Even though Alice wasn’t quite sure what the statue’s pseudo-System mana did, it definitely didn’t work the way the System was supposed to. The System mana she was familiar with was a compound mana. It combined several different types of mana together to create a specific series of magic effects, all of which together formed the System. It was carefully organized and structured.

The stone statue’s rainbow mana looked more like slurry. It was disorganized, chaotic madness that would have fit better in a Lovecraftian horror story, instead of the System. There were some chunks of mana that Alice recognized from the actual System, such as organic mana and pure mana, but they were barely connected at all. Worse, several types of mana that she had identified were completely missing, making the statue’s knockoff System mana dubious at best.

“The Society tried something interesting, but it doesn’t look like they got it to work. I guess that for ‘worship’ to create a functioning variant of System mana, the worshippers need to understand what they’re worshipping. Or at least, they need to have a rough understanding of it,” said Alice.

“That’s… both relieving and disappointing,” said Ethan. “If this had worked, it would have been a good way to fix some of the smaller issues in your progress…” he said, as he glanced at Alice. Alice also sighed. As disgusting as this scene was, it represented a potential path to resolving the crisis. Unfortunately, it had failed.

“How did the Society even do this?” Ethan surveyed the mad worshippers, and then shook his head. “It’s impossible to overwrite someone else’s free will with any sort of Perk. There is no direct ‘mind control’ Perk, or anything of the sort. Since that’s the case, I have absolutely no idea how they managed to make a large group of people believe a stone statue is a sapient being,” said Ethan, as he gestured towards their surroundings. “Nothing I know of should have allowed for…this.”

Alice shuddered. The scene around them was a horrifying mess. And now that she was paying more attention to this insane cathedral, she had also started to notice that it reeked. It smelled like human feces, fear, and a strange, somewhat briny smell that reminded her of the ocean back on Earth.

“Forget it. Let’s start rescuing some of these people first. We can figure out how to undo the damage when they’re back in the city, in a clinic where a more specialized [Organic Mage] can check over our conclusions and ideas,” said Alice. She started making her way towards the nearest person, and after a moment, the anti-eavesdropping Perks disappeared. Ethan, Allira, Jonathan, and Cecilia fell into step beside her as she moved forward. As they walked, Alice eyed the living, giant statue of stone that sat in the center of the room. If that thing made a hostile move, she was prepared to immediately dive behind Ethan. There were some enemies she was wholly unprepared to fight, and a giant, manaborn monstrosity of stone was one of them. Even if it looked like a mess, the raw amount of mana it contained was reminiscent of some of the truly terrifying monsters that she had read about in this world’s historical records. The type that took an Immortal to bring down.

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Fortunately, the creature didn’t move, or display any sort of awareness towards her existence at all. It was clearly alive, but it didn’t seem very aware of its surroundings - or perhaps it simply saw no reason to bother them. Instead, it kept emitting messy, broken fragments of pseudo-System mana.

“I wonder if the Society made this thing a ‘living’ being so that it would keep generating mana,” said Alice, as she started to relax. The statue didn’t look like it was going to attack them, at least. “Maybe the Society was trying to create a fake Mage core, so that they didn’t have to keep generating more mana?”

“That could be it,” said Cecilia, as she also observed the statue.

Finally, the group reached the first living worshipper. The worshipper was a woman who appeared to be in her early thirties, and had sickly, faded brown hair. Alice couldn’t see her eyes very well, because the woman’s eyes were shut. She was kneeling in her spot, and deliriously mumbling words Alice couldn’t make out over and over again. Alice hesitated for a moment, before she used {Burst of Multitasking} to send a few magic tendrils into the woman’s body. Before she got a good idea what had been done, she didn’t want to move her around, just in case doing so caused her organs to collapse or something.

Through {Burst of Multitasking}, Alice confirmed that this woman’s condition was even worse than she first imagined. The woman’s bone and muscle structure weer utterly ruined. Much of it didn’t even conform to human biology anymore - and Alice was pretty sure that was by design.It looked almost like someone had gone into the woman’s body using organic magic, and then systematically wiped out a variety of specific tendons, ligaments, and nerves. The end result was that the woman’s body was locked in place. She had almost no ability to move on her own. She couldn’t stand, or walk, or even roll around - instead, the one and only position she could hold was to kneel in place, with her hands collapsed together in fervent prayer. Her arms were similarly warped, making it hard for the woman to even unclasp her hands.

Alice suddenly understood why this room smelled so much like human waste. These people couldn’t even walk to the bathroom on their own anymore. At the same time, she resisted the urge to throw up. What had been done to this woman was… revolting. It must have hurt the woman a lot when it was happening - Alice doubted the Society would have bothered with something like Anesthesia. Now, the woman was essentially locked out of controlling her own body. The idea of being even semi-conscious while her body moved around without her consent, or failed to move when she wanted it to, was horrifying for Alice.

The most horrible modification was the woman’s jaws and throat. Various parts of her throat, tongue, and jawbone had been modified as if they were mechanical hinges. Without any sort of input on the woman’s part, her voice would keep repeating the same ‘prayer’ over and over again. Alice shuddered.

No wonder everyone’s ‘prayers’ sounded like mumbled, delirious nonsense. The people here didn’t have any control over what they were saying - so the words came out slurred and incomprehensible. Combined with their half-delirious state, Alice suspected that these people were drugged. She wasn’t entirely sure whether this would actually create beliefs that warped reality - after all, her understanding of how reality and beliefs interacted with each other still had some missing spots. However, she could see what the Society had been trying to do here - and it was disgusting.

It also explained why so many worshipers were dead. Alice was honestly shocked that so many people were even alive, since their mouth and tongue were entirely out of their control. How did these people eat, or sleep? Did the Society help them stay alive, or did these people just get tossed in here, to contribute their ‘worship’ until they died?

Alice took a closer look at the woman’s brain, to see if she could identify any obvious signs of being drugged - and then recoiled.

This woman’s brain was also messed up. Alice didn’t understand exactly how the human brain worked - sadly, back on Earth, there were still a lot of smaller details regarding the human brain that had yet to be explored in full detail. However, she could tell that the woman’s brain was somehow altered.

It was also clear that the Society had no damn clue how the human brain worked. Their understanding was about as good as the humans back on Earth - nowhere near enough to properly modify someone’s brain safely. The Society hadn’t cared. They had taken a trial and error approach to the whole thing, by using magic to rip out chunks of the woman’s brain and then tried to keep her alive using organic magic. Then, they had used some kind of psychedelic drug to keep the woman in a state of near-complete delirium. Alice wasn’t even sure how much there was left to save here. After seeing the wreckage of the woman’s formerly perfectly functional body, Alice felt hot bile rise up in her throat. Finally, Alice leaned over and heaved, until there was nothing left in her stomach.

A moment later, Ethan gently nudged Alice aside, and took his own look at the woman’s body. Meanwhile, Cecilia gently rubbed Alice’s back as she tried to stop the roiling in her stomach.

A moment later, Ethan’s face darkened. “Even for me, this is pretty bad,” he said. “I don’t know if there’s anything we can do here. We’ll still try, but…” he shook his head.

Alice nodded, while Allira started humming. A few shadows started gently picking up all of the other people, before they started to transport them out of the room.

Meanwhile, Alice finally got her stomach back under control, and glared at the vile room.

Based on her understanding of how beliefs and mana interacted with each other, this shouldn’t have been enough to animate the statue in the center of the room. The Society would have still somehow needed to establish a firm idea that the statue in the center of the room was both alive, and the System. Currently, she didn’t see any way for them to have accomplished that. There didn’t seem to be any direct link between the people’s beliefs and the statue. What was the missing link here?

Alice stepped closer to the giant statue. “Ethan?” she asked. “If I try to investigate that statue, can you protect me if something goes wrong and it tries to kill me?”

Ethan squinted at the statue.

“Hmm… I have to admit, I’m not sure,” he said. “I’d like to say yes, but I’ve never seen anything quite like this before. I could probably keep you safe if something went wrong - but I’m not going to risk your safety on a ‘probably’ unless we have no other choice. That thing is weird, and I don’t know what it can do.”

Alice winced. That was… reasonable. She was asking Ethan if he could keep her safe from something he had never seen before, with totally unknown abilities. The situation was as unpredictable as it could possibly get.

She hesitated. The statue might be able to give her more information - but she also didn’t want to get killed by it. Ethan, seeing her hesitate, sighed.

“I’ll go up to it,” said Ethan. “I’m mostly confident that I’ll be fine if I try to interact with the statue - I’m just not sure if I could pull you out if it moved fast enough and it targeted you. You’re much less resilient against assassination attempts or sudden, dangerous attacks than the rest of us. If I can get a better handle on its abilities and decide it’s not dangerous, you can take a look then. I know you won’t get anywhere near as much information as if you used your own Perks to investigate it while it’s still alive - but if you die, we won’t get any data at all.”

Alice sighed, but nodded. It wasn’t a perfect solution, but it was probably the best one she would get. Without the protection of an Immortal, she really didn’t want to mess with the statue too much. It hadn’t reacted to their attempts to save people so far - but it was impossible to say what would set it off.

Ethan moved out of the group and started making his way towards the statue. The moment he stepped within a certain range of the statue, it finally stopped ignoring them. It perked up, before it started to move.

Alice had never seen such an unnatural, inorganic method of movement before. As the statue twisted and bent to face Ethan, Alice realized that her earlier assessment was wrong. She had thought the statue was made entirely of stone, but now, she could see that wasn’t entirely true. The statue had little bits of mana-flesh stuck in between other parts of its body - but nowhere near enough to allow it ‘normal’ movement. So instead, it grated, and screeched, and twisted as it turned towards Ethan. It moved more like something out of a child’s nightmare, rather than a real, living thing.

Ethan froze, and forty magic tendrils sprouted out of his body as he stared at the statue. Before either Ethan or the statue moved, Alice heard a clicking sound on the side of the room. She turned towards it, and saw another batch of Society members. Unlike the previous group of Society members they had fought, these Society members were high level, elite Mages. Alice estimated the lowest level one was level 60, and most were probably level 70 or 80. There were over a hundred of them.

At their front, there were four people that Alice immediately realized were either Immortals, or very close. She even recognized one of them - the near Immortal that had ambushed her when she and Ethan were returning from Cyra. The man who led them gave Alice a strangely courteous nod.

“Miss Alice, as well as Immortal Allira and Ethan. It took you longer than expected to arrive here,” he said.

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