Quest of Automata King

True Eyes

“Ouch!”

Mui flinched as his finger that touching Goettia suddenly getting cut. He wanted to take it away and look at that wound, but Goettia suddenly stopping him.

“Don’t be like a baby, this is the first step to turn you into a noble,” said him, following the book’s instruction, Mui decide to stay still, and pointing his finger forward. Suddenly, Mui feels the blood around his hand run towards the cut of his finger.

Blood gushing out, but they are not dripping to the ground right away. Instead, it turned into some sort of string that floating, just like Goettia.

Mui watched in awe, does not know what is happening, and what will happen after that. The string of blood then floating toward Goettia, and then touching it’s cover. The book did not say anything, other than letting the blood is flowing to his cover.

After that, suddenly the leather belts that are supposed to lock that book away are stripped open. Finally Mui were able to see what is written inside, but turns out the papers are empty.

“Why is the book empty?” asked Mui, his finger is still pointing forward.

“It will be filled later,” said Goettia. “Boy, don’t forget that what I will do, is to give you a ‘system’ that will reward every effort that you did.”

“System?” Mui replying back that words.

“Yes. In reality, sometimes no matter how hard our effort is, the outcome is not matching with our expectation. Nothing are absolute, and that’s how life is,” Goettia paused a moment, it float even closer to Mui, making the situation more dramatic.

“Yet, the power that I’ll give to you is the ability to bypass those limitation. With this power, you will able to meet every expectation, as long as you trying hard to push yourself forward.”

Mui gulp. If it is about doing his best to improving himself, then he have done it since the start of his school years. But if there is a way to make sure that all of his effort will paid up, then he would definitely accept that ability.

“Oh, for some addition, you’ll also receive my previous abilty, True Eye,” said Goettia.

“What is that?” Mui lift his eyebrow, showing a questioning look.

“This is my most prized ability from the past,” said Goettia, “This eye help me looked into the structure of the world, even better than what other mages could do. To put it simply, this was what makes me able to build such an army of war machines,” Goettia speak proudly.

The floating book then opened it’s pages. It suddenly jumped to the middle page, where nothing is written over there. Suddenly, an eye appeared in the middle of that page, the same eye that Mui see at the cover of Goettia.

“The preparation is complete,” said Goettia. The eye is looking at Mui, as if asking for his agreement once again.

Mui takes a deep breath, his finger is still pointed, and string made from his blood is still dancing in the air.

“There is no turning back,” he said with determination. Behind his eye, he remember Julius, Challender, and the rest of teacher and students which are in the different realm than him. A Devil.

The string of blood flowing into the pages of Goettia. Color of red crawling into that parched blank paper, becoming one with the book.

Suddenly, Mui feels his heart throbbing. His gaze filled with red, and his ear is ringing, but the most important this is his head. It was hurt. Severely.

“AAAARRRGGGHHH!!!”

Mui dropped to his knee, both of his hand were grapping his head, the pain keep flowing inside and outside his body. If Mui could put it into words, it feels like his head is being pounded by multipe stick, and then squashed only to be remake again, just like how baker kneading the dough before it get into the oven.

It does not get better with his eyes, when he opened them, Mui sees lot of things he cannot explain. His pupil inflated and deflated at alarming rate, as his vision is filled with only red.

“B...o...y...!” voice coming into his ear, and he looked to the object in front of him.

“You... Have... To... Stay ... Focused...” said that voice in a very slow voice. The object in front of Mui is looking like a square. On top of that square is circle, and triangle.

“What... What happening to me? Who are you... Where is Goettia!?” he shout, but those shape is the one that speak to him.

“Calm... Down...!” it said. At that moment, Mui turned quiet, he still breathing heavily, but he know that the sound is coming from Goettia.

Slowly, line appeared at every corner of his vision. It’s all then sticking to those shapes, and rearrange themselves. Now those square, circle, and triangle is no more, instead, it’s a model of a book, made by those lines that appear out of nowhere.

“Goet...tia?” asked Mui.

“Finally, such a nighmare, huh?” replied Goettia. Right now, Mui and the book is in a empty pith-black space, with the dots above them that look like stars. Goettia is shaped like a book, but it’s body does not have color, and instead, it is consist of lines that are roughly shaping it’s form.

“What happened to you?” asked Mui.

“Nothing, but you should take a look at yourselves,” said it.

Following Goettia’s instruction, Mui looked to his hand, and he can’t hide his confusion. Just like Goettia, his hand now are filled with lines that are roughly sketching the shape of his arm, so does his entire body. Almost all of his body, from head to toe are turned into rough shape model.

“True Eyes, is the ability to see the real shapes of the universe,” said Goettia without waiting for Mui to ask. “This is just one of it, the shape of world, through the eye of the chosen one.”

“Real shape...” Mui muttered those words as if some kind of mantra.

“I bet as an magician appreantice you learned that the world is formed by mana isn’t it?” asked Goettia, Mui answer with a small nod.

“Although it is not wrong, mana are there, to imbue life to the things in this world. Humans, Devils, Dwarves, Beasmen, Elves. Even animals and plants, they live because mana are inside them. But since the beginning of time, there are something else that act as foundation of all things to exist,” said Goettia.

“Foundation of existence... What does it called?” asked Mui.

“Honestly, I don’t know about it myself. Instead, there is someone that I met, telling me what this ‘foundation’ is called. I think, he named it ‘data’,” said Goettia.

“Data?” replied Mui. Suddenly the world around them is changing again, and this time, they turned into symbols of ‘0’ and ‘1’.

“Wait, what is happening?” asked Mui.

“This is the ‘data’ that I said. The previous one, is just renderation of the data that turned into image and shapes,” said Goettia.

“...I have no idea what are you just saying,” replied Mui.

“Wait a moment, let me change here, and there.”

After Goettia said that, suddenly some symbols on Mui’s body started to glowing up. Some of the zero and one, then switched place and Mui feels different sensation throughout his body.

Suddenly, everything is brighten up, and they returned to the Gehenna Forrest. Goettia is in front of Mui, floating with the page opened, and a drop of red liquid on it. Mui does not feel the headache or ringing sound again, he feels normal...

Except for his vision.

“What... is this?”

At the top left corner of his vision, Mui seeing three bars with different color. The very top is red, middle is blue, and the bottom one is green.

He swing his hand trying to grab that ‘thing’. Nevertheless, his hand did not touch anything other than the air.

“That’s your body indicator,” said Goettia casually.

“My body what!?” Mui turned to the magic book, but when he focused to him, a name appeared on his vision.

‘Goettia, King of Automata

Health: 100% | Ally’

“Something... Also appear on your head,” said Mui, startled.

“I know, I know. Those are what I see back in the day too,” replied Goettia. “Listen to me, Mui. They are basically the indicators that bridging your consciousness to the world around you. Those bars are representing your health, mana, and stamina. When the red bad reach zero, you will die, so watch out for that, ok?”

Mui nodding while also looked confused.

“Great, then I’ll teach you more about how to use magic with this ability,” said Goettia, but suddenly a voice stopped him from more talking.

***

“Hey! What are you doing lurking inside the forbidden forrest!?”

That voice comes from the adult that wearing academy’s prefect uniform. He have fire ball casted on his right hand that he use light the way.

“Talking about luck... This is a good way to learn how to use your new ability,” said Goettia. “On your vision, look to the bottom right corner,” it said.

“Here?” Mui looked to the firection that Goettia said, and he see squares written with ‘equipped magic’, ‘equipped weapon’, and ‘active item’.

“Now, focus to the ‘equipped magic’, and you’ll see the list of abilities that you can use. For now, use the petrification,” said Goettia.

“L-like this?” Mui do what Goettia just said, suddenly, the box with ‘equipped magic’ expanded and showing list of spells that Mui have and haven’t heard.

“Hey! I say who are you!? Don’t dare to not respond me!” shout the prefect again. He lift his hand, preparing to shoot that fireball.

“There!” said Mui as he found the spell that Goettia is talking about. When he chooses it, suddenly a pattern appear right in front of his eye.

“Now connect these pattern using mana from your finger, quick!” said Goettia. Mui a little bit startled, but collecting mana to one point of his body is not difficult after his training.

Burst of fire started fly from the hand of that prefect. But when it almost reach Mui, the fire suddenly gone.

Mui freezed in place. His hand is stopped midair after making that pattern, and in front of him, that prefect is standing still with his hand reaching forward. His breath is panting.

His body turned into stone, with the exception of the cloak that he wear.

“You did it boy!” said Goettia excited.