When Penny woke up in the morning she was still feeling a little sleepy, but most of her aches were gone, so overall she was feeling pretty good. She went through her usual morning routine and took a shower, after which she ate eggs with a double portion of bacon, just so she could fil up on protein to recover her muscles.

When she got to her lab her two assistants were waiting for her, holding one heavily chipped samurai sword, one lightly chipped Japanese sword and a pristine magic katana. Penny examined them one by one, paying close attention at the cracks and trying to figure out what caused them. Under a microscope, she found very dense bone fragments still sticking to the metal. The traditional blade, with only steel in its creation was almost completely destroyed. The one made by tool steel, with its content of rarer and sturdier metals fared much better, but it still couldn’t bare the constant abuse against hard monster bones and had multiple cracks across its body. The third, magic blade didn’t have even a scratch and had a shiny new look to it.

Penny dismantled the traditional blade into its building elements using her magic and set them aside for the next time she wanted to make something. She grabbed some extra metals and repaired and slightly modified the modern sword, making a long sheath with a parasol at the other end and changing the look of the handle. In the end it was completely concealed and looked nothing like a weapon. Just when she was wondering what she could do to make the last weapon better, she remembered something from an anime she watched last year. She made half an enchantment on the sheath and the other on the handle, so they could activate when the sword was sheathed and would project an AOE sleep spell around the user. She put some variable parameters like avoiding certain magic signatures, not activating when not circulating magic power through the blade and only doing one cast of the spell instead of casting in constantly while the handle touches the sheath. While she was at it, Penny also enchanted the back of the blade to put anyone slashed with it to sleep. It would look so clichéd to watch someone fall down and the user say ‘Don’t worry, I used the back of the blade.’

And now that Penny was finished modifying the blades, she could go back to work and continue planning on her secret project. And right now, her project needed a submarine that could withstand very deep waters. Or did it need something else?

-I could design a submarine and use magic and alien metals and technology to make it the best in the world, but that would take days to assemble. Not that I am in a hurry. I could steal one from the navy, but where should I keep it between missions? I don’t have enough space in my pocket dimension. I need something small, but able to withstand tons of pressure and I know just the thing. A.I.C.A. download the last episode of Aquila and put it on the screen in the DTR.-

Penny packed her infiltration AI and multi tools after which she fast forwarded the episode, then paused, cast selective invisibility on herself and dimension traveled. She found Dunstan and waited until he left his computer alone, then she used her multi tool to connect to it and used her infiltration AI to download the alien language, program language running the ship, translations to English and a couple other things, then deleted all traces of her presence and then dimension traveled back. Why did she not steal the life pod Aquila? Why steal damaged equipment when you could steal brand new life pod from the battle cruiser orbiting the sun? Penny dressed herself in a spacesuit she stole from a game, because hers was uncomfortable and that one looked sleek and shiny and very comfortable. She did slightly regret spending the money to buy a spacesuit when she could just steal one, but what was done was done. Now Penny fast forwarded to the end of the episode where she could see the alien battle cruiser and dimension traveled to the space ship.

Penny was sticking to the hull of the ship, staying in its shadow for protection from the sun, while searching for an access hatch, port or any other opening to enter. Her spacesuit had plenty of oxygen for hours, but this close to the sun she didn’t know how long she could take the radiation and temperature, so she tried to hurry. Fortunately for her, she downloaded rudimentary plans for the ship from Aquila and had rough idea where to find an entrance, so after a few minutes she was using her multi tool and infiltration AI to interface with the ship and telling it to open for her and prepare suitable atmospheric conditions inside.

When she exited the venting chamber, she scanned the air, checked the pressure and gravity and after making sure it could sustain her life, released the locks on her helmet and after activating a command the helmet faded into the suit. Even though she got the suit from a game, she still made a few modifications, like including micro bots to it, so in case of emergency or breach the suit could seal itself and if it detected depressurization the helmet would immediately mold around her head and pressurize the suit. There were other safety features added to the mix, but let’s leave them be a surprise when they are needed.

Penny wandered around the ship, scanning stuff, translating writhing on the walls and searching for new technology and spacecraft. It took her hours of wandering around, but in the end she found the thing she came here for. A life pod the same as Aquila, but in better shape and having al its parts intact. She took a few photos of the interior of the ship in case she ever wanted to return here and didn’t want to take the long way, put the life pod in her pocket dimension and dimension traveled back home happy with her new acquisitions.

When she returned to the lab, Penny took the pod out and started by converting all options to English with the help of her infiltration AI and the onboard computer. After that she connected her AI collective to the computer and left them to exchange information and technology, while she got back to working on her other projects. And the first one wasn’t her secret project, but improving the body of Aica.

Penny dimension traveled to the Magi Craft Meister dimension, bough or stole some materials and then started working on creating an Ether Converter and Mana Drive, then experimented on a method to connect them to the electronic brain containing the AI processor. It took her hours of trial and error, but she did manage to give Aica the ability to use magic power and even teach her a few spells in the process. Now she could wield the magic katana, cast magic and in the future possibly even work with magic guns if Penny ever got the motivation to build some. And of course to test the changes, Penny gave her the magic katana, the return trigger and this time with an access to her pocket dimension and left her in the world of Diablo 2 with the instructions of gathering some samples of magic weapons and runes for study while she was testing her modifications.

-Now I think it is finally time to see about that dream catcher and some other magic. M.A.L.A. what did you find when studying this world’s magic?-

-Most of your magic practices have a very high similarity to alchemy practices. The shamans, witches and druids of old would use natural ingredients and with careful application of magic would strengthen or weaken effects from the materials when mixing them and end up with potions elixirs or concoctions that were very effective. Other types of magic worked on offering magic power to the world and praying or wishing for certain effects to happen and that combined with certain actions or gestures mostly led to the desired result. The most fascinating form of magic is maybe the one using focusing tools for the belief and magic power to gather in. The dreamcatcher you found is one such example. Voodoo dolls, talismans and objects of power are another. By the looks of thing with the progression of technology, magic power users gradually lost their ability to awaken their magic power and the effects of alchemical concoctions gradually lessened until it started relying on only the chemical effects of the ingredients. Other forms of magic lost their effect completely. Burning wood to summon rain still works to some degree because of the ash in the atmosphere gathering the water molecules or something, but in the past, with the inclusion of magic power, shamans could summon storms and lightning. Well, there seems to still be some magic power users out there, evidenced by the dreamcatcher you found. It isn’t old enough to be from the age of magic. There may still be shamans or witches out there that practice real magic even now. If you want to learn more I suggest learning their rituals and practices and experimenting or finding these magic users to teach you. This is the most I can help you with.-

-That was plenty. Thank you for your hard work. Did you find anything on Egyptian or Celtic magic? Runes, glyphs or anything else?-

-There are plenty of both, but without translations and knowing how they were used in magic, you may end up exploding yourself if you experiment with them. Maybe entrust the experimenting on a golem, or an automata and often make backups of their cores in case of an explosion.-

-Something to think about. Now I am going back to work.-

For the next hour, Penny researched the ocean floor, dimension traveled to Minecraft and a few other games and installed dimension traveling enchantments in a few of the games, then connected them to a magic conductive plate. The exchange of information and technologies between the life pod and the AIs was also over, so now was the time to proceed with her plans. Penny gave Aica tablets with all the games with enchantments open on them, the enchanted plate for the dimensional travel and the life pod and showed her a map of the ocean floor, then instructed her what to do there. With that taken care of now Penny could take a break until Aica finished her assignment. Besides, she only had a few days before she had to go to the skateboard event and present her hover board and scooter in front of a crowd of reporters and sport enthusiasts. Maybe she could think about and write a speech and get ready for all the questions that could be asked about her technology. Things were going to become busy again and she could hardly wait to start inventing for the public again.