255 Manatech 1

"Dax! Wake up!"

About an hour before first light, Dax's meditating was suddenly and rudely interrupted by Ra, the older of the Avoaxian sisters.

"I am awake, I don't sleep, remember?"

Lazily opening his eyes Dax found Ra right in front of his face, her large, bright blue eyes stared right into Dax's with excitement clearly visible. Having known Ra for some time, Dax knew full well that there was only one thing that would make her so happy.

"Ah yeah, that's right… Anyway, come on, you have to see this!"

Half dragging Dax out of his room Ra continued spouting all sorts of complicated formulas and quantum mechanics while talking about concepts way too complicated for Dax to understand. Reaching the lab that Ra and Mu had claimed as their own, Mu who was waiting immediately started a demonstration with the same kind of excited smile on her face that her sister had. In the centre of the laboratory behind several layers of slightly singed safety barriers was a single pedestal with a see through crystal.

"Now commencing test number…. Eh, whatever, it doesn't matter anyway since this is just a formality."

Activating whatever device they had been working on for some time, Dax felt a large power surge build for a few seconds before the crystal in the middle of the room light up slightly.

"Is that?..."

"It is. Awesome, right?~"

Other than the dim light the crystal was emitting something else seemed to emerge from the crystal, the otherworldly and irrational power of mana.

"... So you guys finished analysing the mana producing relic and made a prototype in only 14 hours?"

"Huh? Did you have such a thing?"

Checking both Ra and Mu's expression Dax clearly saw the surprise visible on both their faces and realized something.

"So you didn't analyse the mana producing relic and made a prototype in only 14 hours, you guys developed a fully working mana generating prototype in only 14 hours…"

In some ways, the two Avoaxian sisters were simply amazing while in others they left much to be desired.

(Do you guys have any idea how much trouble I went tough to recover that thing? I fought a fucking immortal killing machine to a standstill before almost burning out the Jug's offensive drive to throw it into the fucking sun… Well, even if I said that it wouldn't really change anything…)

Left with too much to say about the current situation Dax chose to simply remain silent while rubbing the bridge of his nose in a slightly irritated manner, suppressing his feeling until he eventually calmed down and looked at the positive in the situation.

"So? How does it work?"

"By manipulating subspace virtual particles and forcing them to-"

"Yeah no, give me more a practical explanation. What's the input, what's how's the output with what amount of waste heat generation?"

That's how their dynamic had been for the last 500 years.

"That one there is the 0th generation, so the waste heat is pretty much off the charts. Along with that, it has terrible energy efficiency and isn't really suited for practical use."

"Which means there's a practical generation already developed, right?"

"Exactly, here is the 5th generation, already ready for practical use. As no technology even comes close to something like this has ever existed we've taken the liberty of naming it 'manatech', just to keep it simple~"

Having seen right through Mu's horseplay with a smile, Mu showed Dax some prototype amour with a black gem integrated as a centrepiece.

"Is it really a good idea to have the weak point of the entire system on display like that?"

"It is a prototype after all. The armour contains both mana generating and a spell formulating device that integrates with that old neural interface standard you're still running, of course as soon as you connect to it it'll give you the rundown of how to use it. Why don't you give it a try?"

"Sure."

Putting on the prototype armour it seamlessly integrated with Dax's cybernetic implant.

"What about the ICI standard?"

"Ah, that. Yeah, we've made it to flawlessly integrate with all ICI systems without issue using a new type of interface. IMI, or Integrated Management Intelligence, wanna upgrade?"

"Nah, just integrate it as is."

"Okay… Done, give it a try."

Unplugging the console she had used to create a brand new interface on the fly, Ra looked at Dax with expectation clearly overflowing from her eyes.

(Basically I'm the genie pig huh? Well, not that that's anything new.)

Focusing on the interface, Dax held out his hand and created a small light using mana that was generated by Ra and Mu's newest device.

""Well, at least it didn't explode.""

With both Mu and Dax saying the exact same thing at the same time, a smile formed on both their faces.

"I'm gonna go to a place where I can go a bit wilder than that, wanna watch?"

""Sure~""

-

Standing in the middle of a field of flowers the only thing that dotted the horizon was the multiple 540 mill railgun turrets Dax had built about a year earlier.

[Go for test one?]

"Go."

As Dax heard Ra's excited voice over the radio he already had a bad feeling, but when one of the 540 mill turrets was disconnected from his network and suddenly started to power up without approval Dax's suspicion turned out to be true.

[Do your best to survive~]

"Motherfuc-"

With his words being cut short by the first subsonic practice round landing about a metre from him and knocking up a cloud of dirt, Dax realized he couldn't do anything other than his very best to survive this 'test'. after all, there was a very good chance the next round fired by the turret wouldn't be a practice round.

(This is actually strangely nostalgic…)

With that final thought, Dax shut out anything unnecessary before powering up the so called 'manatech' prototype.

(This output is unlike anything I've ever seen… It should be fine if I go just a little crazy, right?)

With mana flaring around him with an unprecedented intensity Dax clenched his fists before stomping his foot into the ground, sending a wave of mana trough it which painted the ground with black runes, reinforcing the ground so it would be able to withstand his next move.

(Reload of that type of turret is about 5 seconds for a 2 minute emergency shot burst fire mode utilizing the built in supercapacitors, 2.5 seconds until it'll fire again!)

As Dax already knew his opponent by heart all he needed to do was prepare appropriate countermeasures.

(... And, fire. God, that fire control system really is slow...)

Running down the milliseconds until the railgun fired, Dax pivoted his foot as he let strengthening magic serval magnitudes more powerful than anything else he had ever attempted. Putting strength into his foot the ground beneath him cracked as he disappeared from view, then the 540 mill fired. 

As expected it shoot a wide angle anti personal canister type round, pelting the flower field with tungsten rounds the size of a fist.

(That was closer than I would have liked, but it worked!)

By knowing exactly what type of ammunition the railgun would fire, Dax prepared appropriately. Using strengthening magic to get out of the line of fire where the highest concentration of tungsten pellets would land, Dax then created multiple barriers of golden crystal between himself and the railgun, the layered barrier working not to absorb the shoots, but deflect them just enough that they didn't hit him.

(The second shot will be solid ultra high velocity armour pricing, even if that one misses me by 20 metres the air pressure it'll create will disable me.)

Holding out his hand, Dax drew in the surrounding air like a black hole, compressing the air and heating it up until plasma formed while using another spell to stabilize the mana using a localized magnetic field before finally compressing the 10 metre wide ball of plasma into a sphere that could fit within the palm of his hand.

"Now for disabling the turret!"

Extending the magnetic field out like a cannon Dax pointed the compressed ball of plasma towards the railgun turret while preparing another spell at the same time, pushing the manatech prototype to its limits.

(As if I would destroy it~)

Timing his spell to detonate the moment the railgun fired, Dax exploded the densely compacted ball of plasma about 50 metres in front of the tungsten alloy penetrator that was flying towards him, heating the air to such extremes that it could partially melt the tip of the penetrator, throwing off its trajectory and making it miss its intended target by a significant margin.

"This is easy Mu! Feel free to use all of them until I burn this thing out completely!"

[Okay~]