With a *bang*, snake-like demon had it's head properly ventilated, while another one had an orb of fire exploding in it's featureless face, but not searing it. But there were six more demons Jack failed to shoot before they entered the hundred meter range, and so used his 40x53mm mounted grenade launcher do stall for time as he reloaded RX-309. As the grenade exploded, it managed to shred the two demons, and confuse the other four for a split second, before they managed to get their bearings and continue rushing at him.

Managing to shoot two more demons was the most he could do at the moment, before he had to swap his rifle for a knife and slice the first incoming demon, simultaneously punching another one in the face, knocking some of it's teeth out. The fire attacks of these demons provide to be mostly ineffective, only damaging the paintjob on Jack's H-54 power armor, and it seemed that they were rather ineffective in close combat as well, with the whip-like attack scratching his shoulder. But the next tail attack was intercepted, and the demon had it's tail tip cut off, before the knife was embedded into it's skull, and other demon had found it's tail caught by the massive metallic hand, and thrown under the boot, which smashed it's chest cavity.

With the last demon dead, Jack emitted a sigh of relief. It was the second demon group today, and it was more numerous than the last, consisting of sixty demons that were searching for a prey in the desert. It only took one bullet to kill a demon, but when they were evading his attacks, as such it took up to three bullets per demon. But for each killed demon he would gain almost 300 credits, save for the Floaters, which were rather rare in the desert, not to mention cheap.

Shrugging, Jack went on converting the corpses from his little skirmish. This desert felt more and more like tutorial than a demon infested zone. Then again, it was the first zone Jack ever set his foot in, so it was bound to be on the easier side.

“Honestly, demons were dangerous in Utopia due to the confined space, but here? They're easy pickings. Though if we had a classic RPG parties instead of exclusively ranged combatants, we could clean them up with barely any casualties.” Jack said finally remembering the deployment in U/T-0. “Except we wouldn't have the mages, but I guess the closest thing to them are grenadiers. Though, why don't I remember the Mastermind encounter?” Jack asked no one in particular, but shook off the question, and as the final, more or less intact corpse, was placed in the inventory, Jack left the armor and got the Q/S pack from the inventory, placing it on the shoulders afterwards, and connecting it to the armor with a power cord. Satisfied with the result, Jack opened up the inventory and grabbed meat pizza with packet of orange juice.

“Sigh. [Dark Tendril].” Jack said creating a shadow tentacle under his armor. “Now, what can you do? Just flail around wildly?” Jack asked as the tentacle didn't move at all. He thought if it could wave at him, but nothing happened. It also lowered his current mana by 175. “What can you do, really? Hm... smash that sand patch?” Jack asked and the tendril stood still. “How does it even work. Sigh.” Jack opened up a shop, looking for magic related books, which were far too many to his taste. “Sure, if they cost like ten credits tops. Why do they cost hundreds of credits each?” Jack asked looking somewhat annoyed.

Playing around with the shop some more, and eating, Jack sighed dejectedly, as there were little information on what books can provide. Eventually, he decided to go with the 'Spellcasting 101' for 500 SC to work with. Maybe then he would figure out what he needed to do later.

Opening said book, he was somewhat surprised to find it in English, but it wasn't printed, instead it had a clean handwriting, which was easy to understand, along with number of pictures of diagrams, circles and some doodles of unknown origin.

“So you want to be a mage. To become a successful magician one needs to know the two main disciplines of any spellcaster. Mana sense and mana manipulation. However, they are only required to cast spells, to increase one's mana recovery, one should also learn meditation, as without it, amount of spells one could cast in a day would be severely limited.” Jack sighed as he read the book. “To begin with, one might want to start with mana sense. Feel surrounding mana in any way imaginable. It is best to have a mage to supervise oneself, but if you have none, fret not, for you will have to kill two knarks with one stone... does it mean birds?” Jack was having issues holding down a sigh.

“The easiest method to acquire a mana sense is to acquire meditation first. It is a lengthy process requiring one to detach from the world at large, and focus on oneself. As you find your being detached from the world, start looking inside oneself, and see the flow of mana through one's body.” Jack shrugged and read some more. “Of course, after one sees the mana of oneself, one should... are you for real?” Jack sighed once more and closed the book. “Basically meditate and feel the mana at the same time. I hate yoga.” Jack said and finished his meal “Sit down for three fucking days and do nothing but stare at your own balls? Who the fuck designed this shitty game?!” Jack roare in frustration, and cleaned his hands. “I can't just sit here, there are demons to harvest. Wait, I'm an esper, shouldn't I have it as passive?” Jack wondered looking over his body. “Almost 60K of credits... what can I actually get with them, I wonder?” Jack looked over the items and shrugged.

He noticed that tentacle was starting to lose it's shape and mass, making Jack curious as to what might have caused it, and looked intently at it. It seemed to have some sort of dark mist surrounding it, which slowly evaporated, for the lack of better word. As Jack touched the tentacle, it lashed at him, hitting his arm.

“You little... doesn't hurt.” Jack looked at hand, noticing a small trace of dark mist on his skin. “No damage either. And it's gone. What the hell is this mist anyway?” Jack wondered out loud and noticed an icon appearing in his field of vision. Shrugging, he opened it.

New Skill gained

Mana Sense I

Overall ability in sensing mana.

Jack nodded and looked at the black gaseous substance in his hand. It was odd to say the least, it didn't feel like anything, or smelled like anything, it just was there, slowly evaporating in the surrounding area.

“Neat.” Jack said and willed for more of the gaseous substance to appear. He didn't know how it could be done, so he casted another [Dark Tendril] and tried to feel what it was like when mana was moved from his body. “Do I drain the mana out of myself, or what? And how the hell this simulation managed to do this?” He knew there wouldn't be any answer, but it didn't mean he couldn't voice his questions out loud. “Oh, I think I-” Jack said as he felt heavy, as the burst of dark mist shot forth from his body.

The mana release came with a coughing fit, nausea and a splitting migraine that was barely tolerable under better circumstances. Looking through the bars, Jack concluded that the cause of it was mana release, considering his mana bar was sitting at zero percent. It also gave him another notification.

New Skill gained

Mana Manipulation I

Overall ability in manipulating mana.

Which was surprising, as he didn't expect anything to happen, but the outcome was welcome enough for him to look somewhat smug, even if it was uncomfortable feeling.

“So... meditation would work nicely now, considering I don't have any mana left. Oh well.” Jack said and sat in a crosslegged position, as his sister taught him. “Concentrate on breathing, right?” Jack said, looking awfully bored. “Why can't I actually do it in other positions though?” once again, there was no answer. “Close your eyes, concentrate on breathing.” saying that, Jack closed his eyes and started breathing in rhythm.

After some time, Jack became somewhat drowsy, as the odd specs of light moved around him. He opened the eyes, to check what it was, but found nothing. Only when his eyes were closed he could see the lights, and streaks of violet. Sighing, Jack sat there for a while and, eventually, fell asleep.

Waking up was always hard for Jack, and this time wasn't different. If not for the position he slept in, he would be still lying in bed, or on the ground, lazing around. Unfortunately, due to the position he fell asleep, it seemed that he became a bit more energetic. And his mana bar was full, with another icon in his field of vision.

New Skill gained

Meditation I

Overall ability in harnessing and producing mana.

Jack sighed. It was a dumb explanation, but and he had a few questions relating to the vague description. Thinking about it, he had a lot of questions to the persons responsible for it. But considering the lack of input from the ones behind the simulation, the questioning session would have to be postponed.

“There are many types of mana, and it might be a challenge to learn of what you might use without a help of a master, so for start, it is advised you learn how to manipulate the raw mana.” Jack sighed reading through the book. “First you you need mana sense, to see if you are able to do it, but even without one, you may still learn mana manipulation. For the purpose of the book, it will be considered you already learned Mana Sense.”

“First thing one needs to do in order to learn Mana Manipulation is to expell mana into the surroundings. To do that, one needs to see the mana of one's body, and nudge it outside through the mana pathways.” Jack looked slightly confused, but decided to do what the book told him and saw nothing. Just some light blue strands inside him. “Depending on one's innate potential, the pathways may look differently, from threads to rivers.” Jack groaned as he closed the book.

“These little shits are telling me I am no good as a mage?!” Jack shouted as he removed the backpack from the exoskeleton so he could enter it without any issues, and put it back on. “Sigh. I am an Eseper! I am supposed to be natural born mage... though maybe I am a natural born mage, I just never trained myself in it... what am I thinking, it's just a fucking simulation, magic isn't real. Though undead and demons are, which is a bummer.” Jack sighed remembering the two zombie outbreaks. “Or more like virals are, not undead. But demons are still on the table.” Sighing, Jack thought about the book, and shrugged. “Would very much prefer reading it on screen, and not on paper.”

*̶̢̮̪͓̫̟͈͖̝̓́͗͌͊̍*̶̗͒͂̈͘*̶̢̯̼̳̗̼̇́͛̇͑͠*̶̬̞̠͖̲̯̌̅̐͌͜*̸̢̯͉͚͉̙͐́́̽̽̾̀͋̎͜*̶͉̽̓̎̋̚̕*̸̼̠̭̦͔̫͕͔̎̓̽̋̽̄̇͝ͅ

Spending close to a week in the demon infested desert, Jack amassed enough kills to purchase another power core. It turned out that the solar backpack provided next to nothing in this type of desert, which made him question his decision about purchasing the solar panels. As such, he decided to remove the rechargeable core from his armor, and instead place the one of the 'restricted' power cores, based on putonium-144, which should keep his armor functional for the next few years, as long as he wasn't using energy weapons. It set him back by a hundred thousand credits, however during the week he managed to gather them without much issues, with fifty more thousands to spare, after deducting the cost of ammunition and explosives.

Main reason behind the plutonium cores being restricted was the fact they could be repurposed for the dirty bomb, not to mention that even in case of operator's demise, the core would most likely be damaged and contaminate the surrounding area. Most factions complied with the ban on plutonium cores, but only on surface level, as there were no benefit in using them during deployment, as they weren't rechargeable and would just drain funds of a faction on producing them. However, Jack used them more than once during his deployments, and on some occasions turning them into nuclear bombs.

Jack sighed as he noted the slow pace of his point and credit acquisition. Mostly points, even if he managed to gather 120 of them during the week, but it felt a lot like MMORPG grinding than anything. He thought that maybe if there were stronger demons, he could increase his points, and consequently, stats, at a faster pace. But even then, it was tolerable, as his stats increased steadily, if somewhat slowly.

Name:

Jack

Delgado

Race:

Homunculus

Class:

None

Titles:

Inquisitor

UP: 0

SC: 51'222

ST: 0

Level:

0/10

HP:

1'350/1'350

MP:

1'605/1'605

Traits

Stubborn, Tough, Esper

Abilities

Grimoire, Soul Siphon, Conversion, Inventory, Auto-Map

Bloodlines

Primary: Human; Secondary: None; Tertiary: None;

Strength

30

Constitution

30

Vitality

30

Agility

40

Dexterity

40

Perception

40

Focus

50

Willpower

71

Attunement

50

Charisma

20

Psyche

20

Luck

100

Fire

Water

Earth

Air

Light

Darkness

Life

Death

15

10

10

10

5

25

5

15

Summoning

Time

Void

Space

Soul

0

0

0

0

5

Jack tested all of the attributes when leveling them up and found out that the strength and vitality increased his health pool by 7 to 8 points each, with constitution increasing it by 30, focus increased mana by 20, while willpower and attunement by 5. He also noticed that the higher his willpower became, the faster his mana recovered, though it wasn't by much. Same was true if he were to improve focus and attunement, but the mana recovery wasn't as noticeable as with the willpower. Also there was an issue with creating the tendril while he was inside of power armor, as the created appendage looked thin and frail, comparing to the times when he was only wearing skinsuit.

Sighing, Jack looked over his skills, which didn't progress much, or at all, aside from meditation, which was now sitting at stage II instead of I. He didn't even meditate, he just looked for a way to pass time while traveling, detaching himself from the world at large, and running various ideas about magic.

Most notable was the question of how will he level up his affinities, or was there a way to increase his attributes without spending points. He saw there was a possibility of improving his stats by one stage, by purchasing a trait, or by purchasing a bloodline, but he was apprehensive of those options at the moment.

“*Howl*” Jack heard some creature howling above him as he was outside of armor, enjoying his launch, and decided to roll away, just in case. His armor was about ten meters away, but it was thrown over by a massive dog-like creature with wings.

“The fuck?” Jack asked as he got the pistol from inventory and fired at the dog two times, which it blocked with it's massive wings, or at least attempted to. The bullets penetrated it's wings, but other than being minor nuisance, the dog snarled and bared it's lamprey like maw. “You're an ugly fucker, you know that?” Jack asked casually as he felt something odd shining around the creature, and tried to sidestep to the side, but it was futile. A gust of wind thrown Jack off his feet, with his left shoulder being dislocated from the sudden force.

Jack groaned as the dog seemed to be more powerful than demons he fought before, or they might have been as strong as it, but he was outside of his power armor and outside of it, he was weak. Way too weak. But like any human, he relied on tools to gain an upper hand against the nature, and as luck would have it, the demon was toying with the weaker prey. Jack sighed as he grabbed a phosphorous grenade from his inventory and quickly casted dark tendril on his position, as the demonic dog jumped at him, intending to suck on his flesh, and dropped a grenade on the ground. The dog glared at it's prey, with it's six eyes, and slowly moved towards the homunculus, baring it's maw for it to see, as the object under it's foot detonated, searing it's front right paw on fire, while humanoid creature delivered three quick shots to it's head, as it fell on the sand.

Jack sneered at the demon, which was now lying face front in the sand and reloaded his gun. Or attempted to. His left arm was unresponsive after the brief encounter, and with a shrug, he rolled out the cylinder, and inserted five rounds directly from inventory. Noting that it was possible to reload gun directly from the inventory, Jack put it away and took out one of the stimpacks, and after removing the cap, plunged it into his shoulder, and with a satisfying plop, the liquid was transmitted into his bloodstream.

“You bastard just cost me 1K for the fixing. And then you also damaged my tights. Anything to say?” Jack asked the demon lying on the ground. “Oh, wait, you're dead. Asshole.” Jack said and came over and tried to convert the creature, only to find it still being alive. Jack sighed and shot the creature five more times, aiming for it eyes at point blank range. Surprisingly, that still wasn't enough damage to kill the creature, as it was still alive, but unresponsive. “Well, shooting you more will just waste my ammo. And considering that using power armor in this state will hurt a lot, I might actually test this dumb ability. Wonder what life force is.” Jack said and grabbed the creature by the thigh, as it looked to be the least protected area, and activated . “Wait a sec... I'm recovering health and mana at an increased rate because of the siphon, or because I used stims?” Jack asked no one in particular and shrugged. “Not that it matters, for now at least.” Jack said noticing that his arm was quickly being fixed, along with his health pool, which was lowered by 400 hp from damage, and found a more or less nice resting position, and opened a book on magic to read a bit more.

One would think that he could be a bit more careful about the creatures roaming the desert, but in reality, Jack deployed proximity mines whenever he was starting a camp since third day. The fact that the creature was able to fly was an unfortunate circumstance. The fact it also targeted his armor first was a blessing in disguise however, as he managed to quickly adjust to the situation, without being instantly killed. Now that he thought about it, it might be a better idea to equip armor first, in case another creature like this appears, but on the other hand, Jack felt somewhat relieved that this creature worked alone, just like Mastermind he met on the second day.

By the time Jack was done draining life from the demon, almost nine hours had passed. Jack felt invigorated, and hopeful about the loot the demon dog would produce. Now that he thought, it was more of a flying lamprey dog demon, than anything. Similar to the creatures he would see in some cosmic horror stories. He sighed. Clearly, whoever designed the simulation had a weird imagination.

Demon (Flying Lamprey Dog) converted

SC gained

10'312

Jack looked slightly surprised by the outcome, just like with the mastermind, but he didn't question his luck. Instead he opted to assign whatever points he gained from the encounter with the demon. And there were 60 free points in his possession

“Neat. Though my arm doesn't hurt anymore, I suppose getting regeneration is a must.” Saying that, Jack moved to his fallen armor, and put it inside his inventory, before popping it out once again. It's weight was close to 500 kilograms, and no human could lift it up without help. As he entered the armor, he opened up his status screen and distributed the points.

Name:

Jack

Delgado

Race:

Homunculus

Class:

None

Titles:

Inquisitor

UP: 0

SC: 61'534

ST: 0

Level:

0/10

HP:

1'350/1'350

MP:

1'605/1'605

Traits

Stubborn, Tough, Esper

Abilities

Grimoire, Soul Siphon, Conversion, Inventory, Auto-Map

Bloodlines

Primary: Human; Secondary: None; Tertiary: None;

Strength

30

Constitution

30

Vitality

30

Agility

60

Dexterity

60

Perception

60

Focus

50

Willpower

71

Attunement

50

Charisma

20

Psyche

20

Luck

100

Fire

Water

Earth

Air

Light

Darkness

Life

Death

15

10

10

10

5

25

5

15

Summoning

Time

Void

Space

Soul

0

0

0

0

5

With that done, Jack ran diagnostics on his armor, and found a couple negative effects. One, the exoskeleton sustained minor dents and scratches, second, his mounted grenade launcher was registered as faulty, the attack by demonic dog damaged the loading mechanism.

“Well, first casualty. Asshole. Couldn't it attack me while I was inside armor? Shitty random encounter.” Jack mumbled as he moved through the desert, looking somewhat dejected. He never liked when someone broke his toys. “Ah, fuck it. I have enough ammo and explosives to take care of myself. I'll probably fix the launcher later, if it's something I can do. Sigh. There were a few modifications I saw previously, so I might actually buy them. In case similar shit happens.”