Technomancer: Birth of a Goddess

“Good enough?” Austin responds, eagerly ticking something on her form with a pen he pulls from behind his back. “Girlie, I ain’t never seen no one shoot that good. If you’re even halfway close to that in the other tests, you’ll get the highest rank possible for those like you and I.”

Emily nods with satisfaction, dropping the mag from her gun and reloading it quickly before holstering it again, drawing the man’s attention to it.

“Your shooter there, it an Earnie? It don’t look familiar,” he asks, gesturing for her to follow him out of the range.

“No, it’s my own creation,” Emily replies calmly. “I did show him though, so you may see him producing similar things soon.”

The big mage looks like he wants to ask something else about her weapon-making, but Emily interrupts his thoughts when she asks: “What next?”

“Testin’ all your physical and magical capabilities,” he answers swiftly.

“So, we spar?” Emily asks, glancing at the muscular giant with an interested gleam in her eye.

I wonder if all those muscles will actually make him stronger than me?

“In part, yes,” Austin responds, stopping and gesturing to a door beside them with ‘Environmental Training Hall’ scribed on its plaque. “In here.”

He opens the door, and they step into a large, open hall with a familiar floor of packed earth in the centre, and several zones of different surfaces surrounding it, from stone and sand to mud and small pools of water. There are a few groups spread across the room fighting with cold weapons and fists, and Emily even notices a group where a single woman is in the centre of a pool, bending two flexible whips of water around herself to defend against two men attacking her with a spear and a sword.

“This here’s one of our training halls available to all C ranks and above. Obviously, not all of them qualify,” he says nodding at a random group training. “If you qualify for the room, you can bring anyone you want to train with you.”

It’s already better than the training rooms in The Dome in that regard.

“Is the environment in here fixed?” Emily asks.

“No. The set-up’s randomised every few weeks. Only A ranks can request changes whenever they want, but that don’t really matter since the Company Leader’s the only A rank we have.”

“I see. I assume they’re fourth circle?”

“That he is. Now, the first thing we need to check is your hand-to-hand skill,” Austin says, stepping away and turning to face her, raising his open hands primed for a grab before gesturing for her to approach. “Just show me what you got.”

Emily closes the distance with a calm, soundless gait, stepping into her opponent’s reach without hesitation. The muscular mage’s right arm snaps out, aiming straight for Emily’s face, but it’s far too slow to phase her and she narrowly slips past it with a sudden burst of speed. She sticks close to his arm and slides in towards his body before he can react, lifting a hand and lightly poking him in the side of the neck with two fingers before dropping to the floor when he tries to close his arms around her in reaction.

Emily plants one elbow against the floor and twists her body, driving one of her legs upwards in a kick far beyond any normal human’s range of flexibility. Her foot slams into Austin’s chest, launching him halfway across the hall where he hits the floor with a thud and tumbles.

“Whoops,” Emily mutters, standing up and noticing the astonished glances from several of the mercenaries who were training around them. “I didn’t think he’d feel so… light?”

“Damn!” Austin barks with a half chuckle, sitting up and rubbing his chest while looking at Emily in surprise, slowly sliding his hand up to rest where she tapped his neck. “I woulda died if you had a knife.”

He pushes himself off the ground and brushes himself off before walking back over.

“I think you pass,” he says as he reaches Emily again, ignoring the curious gazes of their peers around them. “How’d you even move like that?”

“A lot of practice,” Emily replies. “Sorry for hitting you so hard. I wasn’t expecting you to be so light. My old training partner was twice as heavy and half your size.”

“Who were you fighting?” Austin asks with a look of shock. “I weigh at least twice most normal folk.”

“Agnes Olea.”

“The Iron Valkyrie?” he responds with a look of realisation. “That makes sense. I’ve heard she’s a master of metal magic. Her magic probably makes her heavier. After all, mine makes me lighter.”

He lifts his hand and a swirling breeze forms above it for a few seconds to illustrate his point.

“Anyway, I would say next is a cold weapons test, but I’m not sure I need it. What’s your weapon of choice?”

Emily raises an arm and silently ejects a Claw, letting the shimmering blade speak for itself.

“Thought so,” Austin mutters, rubbing his neck. “We’ll move on to magic. I don’t fancy dying today.”

“Sure, what should I do?”

“First off, I’d like to confirm your affinities. Please show me a basic spell or manifestation for each.”

Emily nods and raises a single finger, forming a small, flickering orange flame with countless bright white sparks burning away in its core. She flicks her finger, throwing the flame up and forming it into a contained, fist-sized orb that hovers above her head.

Next, a clear water droplet forms, bubbling as it swells in size and rises to float beneath the orb of fire. The water orb is smaller than the fire orb by a good twenty per cent, and it’s matched in size by the orbs of earth and wind that she manifests next, sending them up to float between the fire and water orbs, split apart to form a diamond.

Austin watches with wide eyes, joined by most of the other mercenaries in the room, as Emily continues her demonstration, next forming a glistening orb of ice, half the size of the water orb. She places this element between water and earth before moving up to form a solid orb of metal between fire and earth.

The metal orb reaches one and a half fists in size, and she follows it with a small, coin-sized portal between water and wind. Finally, she creates a glistening orb of light between fire and wind, nearly reaching the same size as the latter. Finally, she places a large crackling ball of lightning in the centre of the formation.

“There you go,” Emily says with a satisfied curl to her lips. “That’s all of my affinities in rough size order.”

“Amazin’!” Austin exclaims, his accent becoming even stronger in his surprise. “Are those all manifestations?”

“Yes. I also know several spells for each element if you need further demonstration.”

Austin pulls her registration form from the pocket he crammed it into before their spar and quickly ticks several things off.

“I don’t need one for each element, but I will need to see one defensive spell, one high-damage single-target attack spell, one high-damage wide-area attack spell, one healin’ spell, and at least one detection spell. Damn, that’s a mouthful, you really are an all-rounder, ain’t you?” he says looking up from the sheet with an excited grin. “Whichever order suits you.”

“That’s easy enough,” Emily replies, raising both arms towards the open hall and pouring out mana.

Arc’s crackling blue magic circle forms above her head, and guardian’s glistening silver circle forms in the air in front of her. The spells burst with power, transforming into a buzzing orb of lightning and a floating orb of liquid metal fast enough to shock the onlookers.

Emily gestures lightly with one of her hands, pouring more mana into guardian to grow its mass as she splits it apart into a dozen thick, floating rods that she disperses into the air.

Satisfied with her setup, she snaps the fingers of her other hand, setting arc free and letting the orb fling streaks of scorching plasma between the rods, creating a net of indiscriminate destruction.

After letting the attack continue for a few moments, Emily snaps her fingers again, instantly cutting the tendrils emanating from the orb to end the light show.

She moves her hands as everyone watches with rapt attention, bending arc’s magic circle, condensing the large orb into a glistening marble of power, ready to unleash arc-bolt. At the same time, she draws guardian back into a single mass, forming it into a large half-dome a short distance away from herself.

Her hands freeze, her fingers snap, and a raging bolt of lightning tears through the air, slamming into guardian with a crack that makes everyone in the room wince, most of them reaching up to cover their ears. As everyone blinks away the line burned into their vision, they see guardian standing strong with a smoking, half-melted crater in the centre.

Single target, wide area, and defence. All that’s left now is healing and detection.

Emily claps her hands, dispersing guardian before turning to Austin and holding out an open palm, slashing it open with her opposite Claw. She casts healing light, wrapping her hand in a white glow that knits the wound back together.

She lowers her hands, drawing her examiner’s attention down to earthen detection’s magic circle glowing at her feet.

“This spell helps me track through vibrations in the ground. I can tell you there are exactly twenty-three people in here right now if that helps prove it,” she says with a shrug, reaching into her belt and pulling out one of her birds in its closed, egg form. “My real tracking capabilities come from these guys though.”

“What is it?” Austin asks, already tucking her form away into his pocket.

Emily injects a spark of machina into the scout, unravelling it into its usual birdlike form.

“They’re small scouts. I have tracking arrays connected that allow me to look through their eyes, and I can even apply effects like heat or motion tracking to them,” she explains, unfurling the bird’s wings and flapping them, sending the small mechanical craft up to fly around the hall.

“Incredible. Those’ll be real helpful on the field. Do you create them yourself too? Lookin’ to sell any?”

“I haven’t considered selling my creations yet. I may think about it if I find myself in need of extra coin, but for now I would rather focus on my own development.”

“Understood,” Austin says with a nod, waving off the shocked onlookers who are still staring at them before gesturing for Emily to follow him out. “Let’s go get you all registered then.”

“How’d I do?” Emily asks, walking alongside the massive man, taking two steps for his every one.

“Passed with flyin’ colours. I’ll put my word in, and you’ll be granted B rank without issue after your first contract.”

“I have to complete a job first?”

“Yes. Everyone’s given F rank when they first join and sent on a single deployment contract to the main front. You’re given your appropriate rank upon return.”

“That’s reasonable,” Emily says with a shrug as they step out of the training hall. “How do the ranks actually work here?”

“It’s pretty simple really. F to D ranks are for weak folks, usually the unawakened and those stuck at first circle,” Austin explains with a casual tone. “C rank is where you start to see more elite mercs, typically those at second circle. B rank is pretty much exclusively saved for competent third circle folk like us, and as I mentioned earlier, A rank is for fourth.”

They step out into the main reception again, heading back to the receptionist who is waiting for them patiently with a small, closed sign on her counter.

Austin hands her Emily’s form and she starts gathering several tools from the drawers, sliding the completed form into a slot on a machine with several enchantments that pulse with mana as the receptionist works, attaching another machine to it and placing a blank card into that machine.

“Please inject some mana into this crystal here,” the receptionist explains, pointing to a blank crystal above the card.

Emily does as she’s asked, recognising the similarities to registration in The Dome.

Archiving my mana signature and linking it to the card?

Information is burned into the signature card’s surface with mana before the machine stops and the receptionist pulls out a finished card to hand to Emily.

Silver Moon Mercenary

Name: Emily Coldstone (17)

Specialisations: Magic (All), Melee combat, Ranged combat

Circle: Third

Rank: F

Emily reads the information printed on the face as Austin takes over the receptionist’s job of explaining the card to her.

“Unawakened folk can check their information at a terminal, but you just need to give it some mana.”

Emily injects mana into the card and receives a short package of information from it.

No contracts completed, no contribution, and no money. How sad.

“Would you like to register for your first deployment now?” the receptionist asks politely after Austin falls silent.

“Sure. When’s the soonest I can leave?” Emily asks, tucking her signature card into her belt.

“One moment please,” the receptionist says, tucking the signature card scribe away before filling in a small card from a stack on her desk and pressing it to a blank slot on the desk.

The desk pulses with mana and the card catches fire, burning away into nothing. A moment later, Emily feels space twist in front of her, and a sheet of paper appears on the desk.

Controlled teleportation for information transfer?

Emily’s eyes practically glow with envy at the prospect.

This has to be the work of one of their Elders. Even with the knowledge I gained from looking at blink, that’s still out of my reach for now.

“There is a squad preparing to leave in a week if you would like to join them,” the receptionist says, looking up from the paper.

“Sign me up for that then please,” Emily replies without hesitation.

“Okay. In that case, please report to this foyer at zero eight hundred sharp on the sixteenth day of the month, and one of our staff team will direct you towards your squad.”

“Got it, thanks.”

Austin steps up and gestures an offer to walk Emily to the door. She steps past him, glancing over at him as he falls in step with her.

“Welcome to the company,” he says cheerfully. “I look forward to hearing about your deeds on the battlefield, and maybe eventually seeing them if they let me out of this place.”

“You aren’t here by choice?” Emily asks with a raised brow.

“It’s not like that. I’m perfectly happy here, but I’m one of the only B-rankers willing to train newbies, so I get told off if I take contracts that take me away from headquarters for too long. It feels a little restrictive after a while is all.”

“I see. Well, I’ll do my best to make sure the reports stay exciting then. It was nice to meet you, Austin,” Emily says with a small wave as she steps out.

She glances down at The Clock and sees it’s still far too early to collect her parts from Earnie.

Ah well, he won’t complain if I drop in to borrow his workshop.

With a shrug, she heads towards the station.