We ended up in a different safehouse from before. The reason was quite sensible- bringing us back to the same place might allow our detection. The Bunvorixian resistance was confident in their own protections, but that didn't include magical search methods. I was pretty sure that we were protected against that.

I did make Midnight use Nondetection for us though. Because I wasn't certain I wouldn't actually turn it into Detection. Had I so far invented the very meaning of a spell? No, and I wanted to keep it that way.

I was ninety nine point nine nine percent certain I hadn't hurt anyone. I was absolutely certain I hadn't been hit enough to get the thirty or so points of experience that had happened on the mission. My conclusion was that I could probably get experience for breaking things. Maybe only weapons of war like the ships, or possibly any sort of destruction. This was a pretty good place to test that, if the resistance kept giving me targets.

"Do you want any gear upgrades?" Flopan asked. "I can't guarantee we can do whatever you want, but there are quite a number of things we can do. Like lightweight armor."

"I have lightweight armor," I pointed out.

"Isn't that… clothing?" he asked. "I only have heard about humans through propaganda, and how you somehow started a war with us while we were peacefully on your planet. It wasn't even a very good lie, they could have claimed you shot down something in space. Anyway, they mentioned clothing is meant to be protective but not that much."

"What he has," Midnight explained. "Is made by an individual with powers. It is more equivalent to my own suit, though less adaptive. It has one set form with transparency features."

"Fascinating. Could we get scans of it?'

"You'll find the design incomprehensible," Midnight said. "Not that there is no value to be gained from it, but it simply doesn't work according to the laws of physics."

"Ah. I see. Upgrades would be quite difficult, I imagine. And everything similar we have is very tuned to the Bunvorixian form. Perhaps you would want weapons? It seems you would be able to use them."

"While we're here I could use a gun of some sort," I admitted. "In case I need to fight. Conserving mana would be good. I don't think I could keep it back on Earth, though."

"How problematic," Flopan said. "Your cyborg friend seemed less concerned, however."

"It's harder for them to take away something integrated into his power, legally speaking." I wasn't quite certain how people went from 'someone with advanced prosthetics' to 'cyborg', but it seemed to be a sort of activated power, maybe an inherent feature of humans that once brought to the forefront took over power exclusivity. Theoretically, because Flasher was pushing the limits of what made sense even for a high compatibility cyborg and seemed like he might have something more.

With no offense meant to Kick, he was just a worse cyborg. His compatibility factor was significantly less, either because he couldn't or didn't attach as much random junk to himself. It was sort of like training any other power- the more cyborg bits were used, the more capable a user became. Up to a limit, probably. Iron Shell had been particularly high, and Flasher might be even more so. He was worse than her, but the Mod Squad would have been a serious menace if both were still on the streets.

Of another planet. We really needed to get back to that.

Flopan continued. "Your other friend is getting a ranged addition to his weapon. Normally we wouldn't be able to manage that, but the techs think they can fit a power source inside the body of the weapon because he has hands. Um, that is to say we require a more complex and space intensive firing rig."

"I've seen it before," I nodded. These Bunvorixians weren't carrying around back mounted cannons with mouthpieces that they squeezed, but even before the guys at the military base I'd seen some Bunvorixians on Earth. Personally, I thought the Celmothian solution was more elegant, but it was probably more expensive to make self moldable material like Midnight's suit. Though it could get cheap enough that most people seemed to have it to some extent.

"We'll provide what we can, as promised," Flopan said. "We're still working on locating the dimensional suppression hub. While we would like you to remain for longer… we don't intend to take advantage of you like that."

I looked at Midnight. "We should figure out a way to remain in contact. Aside from Sending, I mean. You wouldn't be able to initiate that."

"What is 'Sending'?" Flopan asked.

"Long distance magical communication," Midnight explained. "Limited by audio length, among other things."

"Interesting."

"Can you send messages to Celmothian tech?" I asked.

"Not safely. Our transmitters are short range to avoid interception by the government," Flopan explained. "And they would likely reject any transmissions that reached them."

"Not quite," Midnight said. "But they wouldn't likely respond. Once I get back there, we might manage something."

I nodded. I was tired. No, I'd only been awake for a couple hours after sleeping… enough. I was… low on mana. Which often felt like being tired, but more so now that I was at incorrect amounts of mana. Rather than being 'negative', I think I was learning it was more 'traditionally inaccessible'. "Do you have a safehouse anywhere high up?" I asked.

"Of course not. That would be reckless," Flopan said. "Why? If you want a vantage point, we can access some cameras…"

"Mana gathers naturally in higher places. Or it's more easily accessible, at least."

Could mana be somewhere and not accessible? Was there more here?

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Since the Bunvorixians didn't have a solution, I spent much of the day meditating to try to speed my recovery. It helped, but not proportionately more than normal. So if there was some secret flow to tap into, I wasn't figuring it out.

-----

As it turned out, incorporating high tech upgrades into foreign cyborgs and super tech weapons took time. I was surprised to hear that the Bunvorixians planned to have the work done within twenty-four hours, but that was still a long time to be waiting around. People were probably still looking for us, and I knew that because Midnight and I sensed strain on Nondetection. That meant Spot or perhaps other Bunvorixians with magic.

Normally my mana would have filled up several times over in a day. Here, it was just… so bad. Still, I was close to full and pondering if I should try Gate. I didn't sense any deception about the perils of the dimensional suppression hub, though. Even if it worked, if I couldn't immediately grab the others it might not work twice.

Plus, Midnight was still working out how to remain in contact. The Bunvorixian resistance wasn't worried about Celmothians, because they had a better understanding of the propaganda fed to them and how it twisted things. They were, however, a very small part of the population. There was a lot of work to get anything done.

Aside from blowing up a bunch of ships. Though I guess they also couldn't easily do that. I could, and I even volunteered to help more. I wanted to test my destructive powers somewhere appropriate. If I could get another level… well, it wouldn't hurt to test Meteor Swarm too would it?

I pulled up the status menu. It was sluggish.

Turlough (No surname)

Level: 42

Experience: 4623/4730

Storage +11 (7|4)

Firebolt +8 (5|3)

Shocking Grasp +8 (4|4)

Grease +5 (2|3)

Force Armor +12 (7|5)

Mage's Reach +6 (3|3)

Translation +6 (1|5)

Alter Time Flow +11 (6|5)

Disguise +1 (0|1)

Familiar Bond +12 (5|7)

Size Shift +6 (2|4)

Energy Ward +9 (5|4)

Sonic Lance +5 (3|2)

Advanced Divination Magic +7 (3|4)

Shield +3 (1|2)

Stoneskin +8 (4|4)

Mana Manipulation +10 (2|8)

Water Breathing

Variable Freedom +4 (2|2)

Basic Light Magic +4 (1|3)

Alter Portal +6 (0|6)

Gate +6 (2|4)

Sending +3 (0|3)

Chain Lightning +5 (3|2)

Clean +1 (0|1)

Shelter +2 (0|2)

Assistive Familiar Casting +6 (0|6)

Multicasting +5 (0|5)

Enhance +2 (1|1)

Nondetection +5 (0|5)

Water Blast +6 (5|1)

Blizzard +1 (0|1)

Fly +1 (0|1)

Dimensional Anchor +1 (0|1)

Knock

Teleport +1 (0|1)

Dispel +1 (0|1)

Fire Shield

Contingency +1 (0|1)

Summon Minor Elemental

Spatial Rift

Remaining Points: 27

I had to pay more attention to the window to keep it active. It only took trivial amounts of mana if any, but it just didn't want to hang around.

Frankly, I didn't blame it. This place wasn't great, and all there was to eat was dog food. Plus what Midnight and I had stashed, but after determining the food was safe for our consumption with his suit we did consume it. The Bunvorixians did have better food, but the resistance was being frugal. Flopan did look a bit regretful he couldn't offer better, but I wasn't here for a cuisine tour.

I was here to save Midnight. That was nearly done, and honestly facing danger with him was totally fine for me. He certainly wasn't relaxed, though, so we were going to rip apart whatever might be holding us here and get home as soon as possible.

Looking at my status window, I wondered if there was something I could do that I wasn't considering. I had so many spells, but I didn't yet have a fused form of Spatial magic. If only-

Advanced? Spatial Magic +11 or 17 or something

What? I'd never seen my status window shift before. What was happening?

And since when did it not know?

Oh. I got it. I didn't know. And once I relaxed my thought, things returned to normal. I wasn't happy to find out that I could lie to myself with my own status window now, but it seemed to be correct if I was more careful about things. When it even existed.

Or maybe I was just seeing what I expected to see. I guess there was no longer a way to prove otherwise except- Midnight wasn't broken.

"Can you check your Status window?"

He did. And even when I actively manipulated it to say the wrong things, his was right. And his status window was my status window, except for name and level. Unless we actually managed to diverge from the briefly subdued bond, which probably wasn't the case. And we should return to sync at some point.

Strangely, whatever I'd done wasn't in the status window.

I added another line at the top, thought it might not stay there.

Magic Status: Busted

While I was 'adding' things, I might as well take other notes. Though I was basically just copying things from elsewhere, it was interesting to manipulate it.

Max Mana

61.5 (x2?)

Fatigue Point

23.5 (x2?)

Just for the sake of thorough testing, I did 'alter' the number of upgrades Clean had. I figured it would be one of the least destructive things. I tested my maximum ability first, cleaning a patch of grunge in the hideout. It was a couple feet across.

Then I altered the number to display 13 point upgrades. If I really screwed up and actually spent them on accident, which I was intentionally trying not to, it would be a waste but I shouldn't put myself in some sort of horrible point debt. I tested the spell again and… got exactly the same results, even though I tried to do more. I used the same amount of mana, so if the upgrades were actually real the results would have been blatantly obvious, more than quadrupling the area.

When I relaxed my grip, it returned to the correct point value. Though maybe that was me doing it on purpose. It was difficult to tell, but at least it appeared I couldn't accidentally cause serious damage. At most, I would lose a cosmetic display and slightly confuse myself.

"This isn't supposed to work like this," I commented to Midnight.

"I am quite aware," he said. "But this isn't the first time you've said that about magic in general. So I'm not surprised."

And he wasn't. Not that I expected him to lie, but he might have exaggerated his opinion on the matter. He really wasn't surprised that I took one more absurd step towards magical madness. It bothered me more because I'd grown up with certain beliefs, but he didn't even know magic existed until shortly before I discovered the first thing that didn't fit what I was told.

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