Work was boring.
So I spent my time working on increasing my knowledge of my perks!
An unfortunate side effect of running around tinkering, chatting with people, and just generally living life, was that I didn't quite have a lot of time dealing with the Stars the Forge bestowed upon me. Such as Cult of the Gun and Pixie Dust which was what I was planning to use while working.
Walking around the warehouse, I did use Cult of the Gun on a variety of objects. Mostly on things that were out of sight of the cameras and weren't easy to spot.
My main base of operations was in the backroom, where most of the 'warehouse' stuff was stored. The cameras here were busted but the Union didn't particularly care since A. the backroom didn't contain anything important and B. there was a camera covering the area around the entrance anyway. So in essence, what was the point? Inside were palettes, ladders, and the like that would be regularly used and needed a place to chuck them in the meantime. Plus a small armchair for the would-be slacker to relax in. Placing my hand on the wood, I let gun magic seep into the wood.
The palette folded, bending without breaking the wood until it became a tube-like object with a handle near the front. Looking at it, I was reminded of a rocket launcher based on its vague design. Hell, the aiming reticle on its side and it looked like I needed to carry it on my shoulder to fire it.
The Celestial Forge awakened once again. This time missing a swing at the Magical Database Constellation once again. Bleh.
But other than that, the first thing I noticed was that the transformation was based on the rate at which gun magic entered the body it was affecting. I didn't really notice since I was mostly working on small things around my room but with larger objects, it was really noticeable.
The second thing was that I was losing mana fast. The transformation rate was exactly the same looking at my memories. And for that to be true, the rate of gun magic entering the object was faster, which drew most of my mana. It took up… maybe 20% of my mana to convert the palette over the course of 3 seconds.
Which… was a problem.
Namely because I also had Egyptian magic in me, mixing with all the other magics I had acquired. And Egyptian magic had a small, rather unfortunate caveat.
If you ran out of mana while casting magic, it would happily burn your lifeforce to fuel the spell.
Now, I wasn't too sure if that applied to all my magics now, or if this effect was exclusive to Egyptian magic. However, I wasn't exactly keen to check.
Withdrawing the magic also didn't restore my magic, just making it disperse into the atmosphere without much effort. Unfortunate but I wasn't really expecting it to be possible anyway. Taking a short walk around, I tested gun magic on a few other items, ensuring that I topped up on mana in-between tests.
The second item was a wooden chair, which folded in on itself to form a four-barreled gun of some sort? I definitely wasn't willing to pull the trigger on this one. Mainly because multiple barrels either meant 'shotgun' or 'gatling gun' and neither was exactly a silent weapon. As the legs formed into barrels, the seat and backrest turned into a handle to be carried from the top and back… and yep it was a minigun.
What the fuck.
Moving onto a ladder, it became a railgun. I doubted it was an actual railgun but there were two 'rails' and the steps flattened out to a platform of some sort. And the last was a sofa… and the less said about that the better. I doubt anything could survive being shot at by that thing if it was what I thought it was.
Anyway from my testing, 'Conversion to Gun' was the main point of this power. From the palette, chair, ladders, and the sofa, all of them took forms that would allow me to carry it like a 'gun'.
The hypothesis I had in my mind was that the mana drain was contingent on two things. First obviously is the size of the object. But the second was how different the object was from a 'gun-shape'. The reason for this was due to the fact that the ladder took the least amount of mana, about 20% like the palette. However, it was also cheaper than something like the chair which was smaller and cost me about 40% of my mana.
But it could also be completely arbitrary. I already knew that gun magic was semi-sentient with a form of will that could decide how to convert things into 'guns'. What was to say that it was simply fucking with me?
The second hypothesis was that generally the larger the object being converted, the more dangerous and destructive the resulting weapon. Comparing the 'sock-pistol' and 'pen-pistol' of my previous testing to the 'rocket launcher', 'minigun', and 'railgun' of today's testing… I was inclined to believe it.
A frown appeared on my face and I contemplated a thought that popped into my head. Assuming I could grow my mana pool to accommodate it, wouldn't it be possible to convert things like buildings and ships into guns? And if that was the case, couldn't I get Toy Soldier to use those weapons with his 'Kaijubuster' suit?
I couldn't see why that wouldn't be possible. But that would be absolutely terrifying, no? Like imagine a mech suit grabbing a building, tearing it off the ground and firing entire rooms at the enemy. You'd be taking psychological damage from just the sheer awesomeness of it, no??
But I don't think it would be in the cards for now. A building was massive and the mana cost to convert even a small one would be ludicrously high. But it was something to dream about for now.
Maybe I should just grab a new suit and start converting everything into gun as I rampaged through a gang's territory… I quirked a lip as I thought about it. Oh man, the PRT would not be happy about a second, more villainous Miss Militia running around, would they? Aw man, that meant I had to do it now.
Ok. Ok. I made a note of it. Just throw on a set of indistinct clothes with reinforcement and durability enchantments and start running. No need for anything too fancy or too noticeable.
Yea… it would be limit testing at its finest.
Putting Cult of the Gun out of my mind, I turned my attention to Pixie Dust instead.
I haven't touched this power ever since I got it but it certainly felt powerful. Just the power of flight and making other things fly was pretty busted. Taking a deep breath, I flicked the mental switch that kept it off since its bestowment.
Immediately, golden light shimmered and floated around my body. Closing my eyes, I sent a command to 'go up' and I could feel the weight leaving my feet. Slowly and ever slower, I drifted up until my feet couldn't touch the floor. Opening my eyes, I gave my fingers a quick flex as I stood a good 10 cm or so off the ground and my clothes shimmered and fluttered in the air.
Well 'stood' was a strong word. It was more like drifting in anti-gravity as I slowly drifted to a parallel position with the ground. Sending another mental command, I could move left and right without any force being applied to my body. Just a simple 'move left' and 'move right' and I would drift left and right as needed.
….Huh…. Altering direction without a discernible force acting on the body.
Pixie Dust didn't… apply a force. Not conventionally at least. It was hard to explain but I don't think that the millions and billions of tiny magic particles were 'pushing' me around to get me to move. Which meant if Amaya studied it, she might be able to get the kinetic shield working…
I need to send a bottle to her.
Well maybe not now… After work. I still wanted to play around with Pixie Dust for now.
The dust itself wasn't being shed from my body. More like appearing around me and drifting around me like an aura. Which meant that if I didn't want the world to detect my presence or have multiple identities, I was going to need to develop other ways of getting around.
Flexing my body, I quickly reorientated myself to a standing position. Testing my movement with Pixie Dust, it was pretty much an intent-based movement as I gathered that much. There wasn't really a limit to how I could move, so as long as I could comprehend how to move it and that it was physically possible.
Things like inertia still affected me though as I violently learnt. So I couldn't stop on a dime and still needed to slow down to a stop. Another thing was that Pixie Dust was shedded constantly but there was a minimum amount of it still needed to even start making something float. It wasn't like you could spend a pinch to get a ship flying, right? So flying around wouldn't cause cars to start flying or some shit like that. Not to mention that active Pixie Dust consumed itself fast enough that it would be used long before it reached any item nearby.
Landing on the ground, I released my Pixie Dust. For a few moments after I stopped my 'production', the Dust continued to fall from my body and disappear into the air. At the very least, I wouldn't have to worry about any Tinkers accidentally finding Pixie Dust to a certain extent of course. Since this was from a Supply Constellation, there was a way to harvest it.
Pixie Dust was… kinda volatile. It wanted to be used and when activated it would keep going until it ran out. So if I imbued a thing with it, I couldn't stop it until the Dust animating it stopped as well. It wasn't too much of a problem if you just threw it onto an object and wanted it to go immediately. However, collecting it was a little bit of a pain.
You needed someone to 'stabilize' the Dust before keeping it, else the Dust would just animate whatever you were putting it in and suddenly you had a floating vial of rapidly-depleting Pixie Dust. Imbuing it with a little will, I could stop it from consuming itself and stay in a stable state. And with a little bit of intent, you could activate it once more and start making things float around.
Scattering the stable Dust, it didn't blow up thankfully nor did it suddenly reignite which was useful. But it did mean that stable Pixie Dust could be stolen. I cocked my head. Well, it shouldn't be a problem if I kept it within my base and Toybox I suppose?
I swiped my finger across the scattered Dust and activated it. The activated Dust quickly started a chain reaction that activated the other stable Dust I had produced until the entire pile burnt away. The table it was on was too heavy to animate with such a small amount of Dust so they simply stayed there, glittering with a golden light until it burnt out.
Well, there were other applications of Pixie Dust that I could think of such as decreasing the weight of heavy objects. Assuming that I could apply Pixie Dust to portions of an object rather than a whole object, massive structures that wouldn't work due to their slow, cumbersome weight could suddenly be agile superweapons. The Cyberskeleton from Cyberpunk: Edgerunners came to mind.
Actually, let's try a few things.
First! Could I produce Pixie Dust from a specific portion of my body rather than my entire body?
The answer was yes. I could produce it from specific portions of my body like hands, feet, etc. However, I won't be able to fly. Instead they pretty much became weightless and I could throw punches and kicks like nobody's business. Unfortunately, 'weightless' didn't mean that my weight actually became zero. It just meant any force acting on it treated it as practically zero weight. Which meant that kinetic energy was higher due to a higher velocity. And Newton's Third Law made itself known to me.
My fist cracked against the brick wall with a rather concerning noise before my arm was sent flying back. Taking a deep breath, I took a deep breath and let out a long and pained whine. Good thing Gourmet Cells gave me boosted durability. Flexing my fingers, I checked that my bones were still intact before continuing.
Okay. That was good to know. Forces affecting the Dusted object treated the object as 'weightless' but forces imparted by the Dusted object treated the object as 'non-weightless'. The impact of my fist on the wall had the kinetic energy of my actual fist moving at said speed, and the normal reaction force imparted that same energy back into my fist which sent it flying back.
Cool.
There was probably something that could be done there. A high speed railcannon? A 'weightless' 600kg iron bullet moving at hypersonic speed would probably take out most people. Any form of mass drivers really would become insanely powerful by sheer virtue of it, plus it would decrease the energy actually required to get the heavy object to a destructive speed, meaning less time working on maintenance on delicate parts and less gunpowder/electricity/insert-favourite-propellent-here used.
The Celestial Forge awakened once again. This time hitting a perk from the Magitech Skills Constellation called Technomage. Which allowed me to make magic and technology play nice together and not screw each other over. Examples included 'taking a fictional OS and making it in real life' and 'grey goo from magic tissue'.
Not sure where I could be applying this. I mean, there was Egyptian Magic and Enchantment but… Hmm… Maybe I could do something with Statuary Magic? But nothing immediately came to mind
Also, what the fuck Forge? Another magic perk?? Like the past 5 perks were pretty much ALL magic. What the hell? I thought this was the Celestial Forge, not the Celestial Grimoire??
Letting out a sigh, I grimaced and put it out of my mind. The Forge does as the Forge will do. Though my theory that it had no will was declining rapidly at this point.
Anyway! Pretty much anything that was too hard to move with inertia could be moved with this application of Pixie Dust. Disaster relief? I might have to pre-prepare a bunch of vials for Endbringer aftermath. That would certainly be helpful. Maybe not for Simurgh in February but Behemoth and Leviathan? It would be a godsend for the Search and Rescue parahumans.
And it wasn't particularly difficult for me to produce it. Huh.
Anyway… Secondly! And something that I probably would have to conduct in my workshop rather than in this dingy little place was testing how much Pixie Dust it took to negate the weight of 1 gram of material. Did the amount of material affect the amount of Pixie Dust needed to negate its weight? So on and so forth.
Of course there was just the rather obvious solution of dumping all the Dust onto it and hoping for the best. But if I was to incorporate this into machinery, I probably need to keep track of how long it would take before I had to restock it. Honestly thinking about it, I would probably have to develop some sort of specialized formula for such a thing, plotting graphs for the volume, mass, and time and… god I already hate that.
Shaking my head, I checked the time and saw that another shipment should be pulling up soon enough. Exiting from the backroom, I stretched my back and started preparing to receive it while practicing control by applying a small amount of Pixie Dust along my body. Not enough for the effect to be visible, but enough that I was slightly lighter and faster than usual. It would be useful while True Hero Potential was boosting my strength growth and mitigate any control issues that might arise.
After work, I placed a portal near the Docks and took the long way back to my room. Reentering my base, I checked in on Amaya who was making… good-ish progress. Her notes covered a whole wall as she gnawed on the end cap, muttering to herself. Snapping my fingers, I got her attention, breaking her out of her musing. Scowling, she stared at me for a moment before getting up.
"You're back." She stated rather dully. "Is there something you wanna tell me?"
"Mhm." I nodded as I motioned for her to come out of her room. "Lemme show you."
Activating Pixie Dust, I hovered in the air as I showed off my flight by floating in every direction without moving my body. Humming to herself, Amaya narrowed her eyes as she pulled out a fresh set of paper.
"Could you head left again then right?" She started giving me instructions on how to move, looping around before making me snap around on a dime. Writing some notes on her paper, she cocked her head as she continued testing my movements.
"Oh– OH!?" She clapped her hands together. "I see! Thanks, Master!" The scientist practically threw herself onto me. Hastily deactivating Pixie Dust to not snap my spine, I caught her as she pulled me into a hug and darted off to her new findings. Closing my eyes, I took a deep breath and shook my head.
I wasn't sure what she found out, but clearly she had put two and two together. I made a note to check in on her to ensure that she didn't work through the night or something but judging by her eyes, I was pretty sure that she would be done with the kinetic shield sooner rather than later. I also brought out a few bottles and stocked up on some Pixie Dust and set them aside before heading into my workshop.
Today was finally the day I could go out as a… hero? Villain? A Cape. I guess I could strike one thing off my bucket list. Unfortunately, there was no epic suit up sequence as I carefully pulled on my equipment and ensured that nothing chaffed, or snagged, or otherwise rubbed against my body the wrong way.
Adjusting it with Painted On, I gave one last check to ensure that all my equipment was working just right. With that out of the way, I headed through the portal I made earlier and slipped into the Docks. Wiping the portal away, I let Pixie Dust activate and floated onto one of the rooftops.
That golden aura was going to get really annoying, really quickly. But alas, I didn't have a good movement option for now. Using it on its most subdued level, I hopped from roof to roof, making my way out of the Union's 'territory'.
Unfortunately, it wasn't like the gangs were illuminating entire warehouses, notifying everyone of their presence. I had to check each house individually in the hopes that one of them had some sort of gang operation. Armoury, drug storage or whatever. Occasionally I did spot a ravehouse, with enough bass that I could feel it but there wasn't really a need to break it up.
Plus, there didn't look to be any Merchants so I just made an anonymous report and moved on.
Heading to another warehouse, I landed on the roof and felt like it was a little more promising. A group of dealers moving sacks of what I assumed to be some sort of illegal drug. But all I really saw was a white powder which didn't really narrow it down. One of the boxes, a man cut lines and took a deep snort before staggering back.
Well. I guess it wasn't 'flour'.
Raising a palm, I restricted the power and blasted a red beam straight through the opening and sent the man breaking his back against the wall. The box exploded into splinters while the bags inside split and spilled their contents onto the floor. Using Pixie Dust, I kicked out and out of the way as one of the men looked up. A cry of 'Cape!' resounded through the warehouse before the gunshots started.
'Well… Let's go another way…' I thought to myself as the men inside started shouting profanities at me. Using Pixie, I hovered just outside a window as I watched all the men slowly gather, guns pointed at the skylight.
"Don't stop shooting until I hear them drop!" One of the men, likely the boss, shouted. Without much thinking, the men nodded and continued squeezing the trigger. Shaking my head, I leaned against the outer wall and waited. If they were so kind as to empty their guns, who am I to stop them?
Peeking out through the window again, I heard the first reload and I unleashed another crimson blast. This time the man was face-planted into the ground from the force of the hit. Heading out of the way, even more shots erupted as the men kept firing. Holes appeared into corrugated steel as the gangsters blasted in the vague general direction I was in.
This repeated a few more times, floating around and siding a point where I could pick one off one by one.
"Idiots!" The leader shouted as the fourth one was sniped, his body blown back and sent crashing into the wall. "Catch him outside!"
Not… the best idea either.
Floating back to the roof, I watched as they rushed out and looked up to see two crimson lights staring right back at them. Releasing, I blasted them into the dirt and swept around, ensuring that I caught them all in the blast. All of them were groaning on the ground but I kept one palm ready to shoot as I walked on their states.
Relieving them of their money and guns, I counted six guns and a variety of makeshift melee weapons. I made a note to buy some zip ties or something since I didn't have anything to really tie them up with. I considered breaking their legs but I decided against that. Instead, I did the same thing I did with Leet, stripping them and tying them up with their own clothes.
"Get your fucking han–" His words were cut off as I unleashed a stronger red beam that tore through a wall of the warehouse. Literally tearing through. I could see the rough edges of the material shearing apart as well as a good portion into the warehouse as the beam continued on, breaking apart everything along the way.
They quickly quieted down after that.
Ensuring that running and escaping wouldn't be easy for them, I stood at the door and thought for a moment. I wasn't too sure what to do with the crates of drugs either… I didn't have much use for them and disposal wasn't exactly easy.
The best I could do was jury rigging the electrical system to start an electric fire… After walking around to ensure that it was cleared of any more Merchant members (There were three who were too high to do anything and one hiding who I blasted), I shorted the system and watched as the warehouse went up in flames.
I even used my laser blasts to break apart the crates to ensure that the fire was really spreading.
Tying the rest up, I made a report and took a quick fly around to ensure that the drugs were indeed burning away before flying to the next warehouse.
However, finding warehouses with actual gang activities was surprisingly difficult. It was mostly homeless people using the abandoned buildings as a place to sleep or just empty. I did find another drug warehouse which I did the same thing to. Sniping the more dangerous individuals, tying them all up and burning the place down.
Eventually, my path brought me to the Boat Graveyard. And it was definitely a Boat Graveyard. Originally a drydock, most of the ships here were laid to waste away, corroded by the passage of time and the seawater that enveloped their sides. However, there were a good portion of them still above water.
Scientific Specialization could finally show its worth in this instance. With a material science specialization, I flew around, marking out sections that could be reclaimed safely and sections that would cause the entire thing to collapse in on itself if I took it out. Furthermore, I had a general sense of what was salvageable in a reasonable timeframe and what would take far too much effort.
Combined with Savant's Understanding to keep track of it all, I essentially split the entire ship into a giant unblock puzzle. Now was to carefully–
And… it tore through the metal. Huh.
As it turned out, fist produced a much stronger blast than expected. Then again, there was rotting metal so it wasn't really winning any prizes in 'structural integrity'. Controlling my next blasts a little more carefully, I managed to blast apart some metal sheets. Using Pixie Dust, I nulled the weight of them and chucked them onto the road to move later.
A few hours later and the entire top section of the ship was gone, with most of the salvageable metal acquired and the rest at the bottom of the ship. Reclaimer even helped by picking out the more valuable 'not as badly corroded metal' the ship's hull. Humming to myself, I landed back on shore with my haul. Taking a quick look, I continued trimming down the metal with more lasers, removing all the parts that looked too troublesome to deal with.
The Celestial Forge awakened while I was cleaning up. Smithing. Just Smithing. From the Metallurgy Constellation. A wide smile broke on my face. This was just fucking perfect wasn't it? Originally this metal was going to be used as a casing for my projects but since the Forge was kind enough to give me a forging perk… Why shouldn't I use it?
Unfortunately, this was stuck to rather… primitive equipment. Swords, shields, and armour. The armour sounded useful but a sword? Ehhh… Maybe not. It was also a partial design perk given that anything that I smithed also would look 'beautiful' according to the description. Maybe a magic knight sort of build? Though I would likely have to train True Hero Potential to a much higher level than I was currently. As well as improve Enchantment.
Humming in contentment, I started chucking metal into my workshop. I would think about it afterwards. From a quick estimate, there were about 70 or so kilograms of reclaimed metal of varying pieces which I thought was a pretty good haul. Certainly would take some time to salvage but… it's fine. I still had a bit of cash to set up a simple forge.
Though… the ventilation was going to be a pain…
Let's not think about that.
Anyway, it took quite a bit of effort and time to break down even just a portion of a ship. Ensuring things didn't collapse in on itself, making sure that I could move the metal to shore… It was approaching midnight now… I hummed for a moment. I think I could keep going for another hour or so?
Shutting the portal, I floated up into the air and glanced around for a moment. Before a rather loud, rather disgusting squelch reached my ears. Dodging around, I watched as a rather large mound of trash and scrap metal swung overhead and slammed into the ground.
A mess of trash and waste slowly got up, less of a 'golem' and more of a slime with a humanoid torso. Mush's voice echoed out from the hulking mass with no small amount of annoyance. "You didn't think your little light show wouldn't attract any attention? You're on Merchant territory, bitch! Pay your–"
I cut him off as a blast of crimson light slammed into his torso. He had braced his arms in front , blocking most of the damage but bits and pieces of his 'suit' were blasted away. "Finally. I thought you were all too high to notice." I called back as I flew into the air, gloves glowing with power.
"Come on! Let's have some fun!"