Equestria's Inventor

by Yormsky

Chapter 5: Advance

Chapter 5: Advance

[Level Up!]
[Level 22 → 30]
[+8 Stat Point]
[+8 Ability Point]

(Author’s Note: Unless otherwise mentioned, these large leaps in power/numbers are gained over a long period of time; like over the course of days, weeks or months.)

[Level Threshold Met!]
[+1 Subclass Point]

I slowly closed the book I was reading to investigate and probably spend some of the Points I’d been purposefully ignoring since I’d entered the Changeling Hive Colony.

I’d been putting that endeavor off for as long as possible as I was most preoccupied with learning as much as I could about the world of Equus and couldn’t afford to be distracting myself with the nonsense that would come from indulging in my gamified lived experience. If I started obsessing over increasing my Level and Stats, I’d probably get myself killed before I even knew how or why.

Most importantly, I was currently living a pretty enviable life with my position in the Changeling society. For my work, I was treated with respect and had all my needs as well as most of my wants fulfilled. I had no reason to not take full advantage of the situation to learn as much as I could while under their protection before I decided to go mad in the pursuit of endless power; not that I was even sure I wanted that.

[Status]
[Level: 30*]
[Name: Victor Hex]
[Race: Human]
[Class: Inventor*]
[Subclass Points: 1*]

[Stats]
[Constitution: 4 → 7]
[Agility: 3 → 5]
[Strength: 3 → 6]
[Reflex: 4 → 6]
[Understanding: 4 → 12]
[Intelligence: 6 → 15]
[Magical Potency: N/A]
[Magical Control: N/A]
[Stat Points: 1 → 9*]

[Abilities]
[Whispers of the Mechanical God (Level 1 → 2) - Unique*]
[Automation (Level 1 → 2) - Unique*]
[Identify (Level 1 → 2) - Intelligence 10*]
[Ability Points: 0 → 8*]

[Subclass Points: 1]
[Details: Grants you access to Unique Abilities based on disciplines that are derived from your Given Class. Every ten levels starting on Level 30 will grant you one additional Subclass Point. List of currently available Subclasses includes: Specialist (Metallurgy, Chemistry, Physics)]

Oh? So the Subclass I choose will give me more Unique Abilities? Seeing as the two that I currently have are basically magic in everything but name, I took a few moments to consider everything I’d learned thus far before making my decision.

Equus, despite what I’d seen from the Changelings and what pieces of tech they’d stolen for me from other Races, wasn’t very technologically advanced. Because of the prevalence of magic and the overall lower scale of sapient life — even with all the sentient, sapient species put together, there weren’t even ten million altogether — certain aspects of technology had progressed more than others.

The Ponies, who were the best off, were the best-case example. They didn’t have cars or television, but they had state-of-the-art chemical appliances. Their capital was designed with a sort of hybrid gothic-post-modern architecture and yet built with standards that were common on modern-day Earth.

Hell, the concept of a firearm hadn’t even been introduced to the world, and yet Cancer as a disease had long since become easily curable.

Any rational person could see that the most valuable Specialization I could choose from had to be Metallurgy; magic had already proven to trounce what human technology could accomplish in the fields of Physics and Chemistry.

[Ability Points: 8]
[Details: List of currently available Abilities includes: Toughen Skin, Force Concentrate, Bypass Acceleration, Hypersensitivity, Second Opinion, Danger Analysis, Brainstorm, Elemental Isolation, Synthsize Alloy.]

Reading through the list of new Abilities I could choose from, I didn’t even waste a thought on enhancing any of the Abilities I currently had. None of them had been hard to improve naturally. Whispers of the Mechanical God had been raised when I’d disassembled some of the pieces scavenged tech I’d asked the Changelings to start bringing me whenever they had the chance and turned those scraps into a bootlegged computer; and not even an impressive one at that.

Despite the fact that it could only run on binary code, it was considered a feat worthy of advancing my Ability and oh boy was the upgrade glorious. Level 2 of Whispers of the Mechanical God gave me access to every piece of knowledge on Industrial Age technology and advancements in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Maths).

Automation had improved after I’d used it for what seemed like the millionth time — not literally — and the same was true with using Identify on things I hadn’t encountered before; my Status also suggested that it also required a minimum Intelligence Stat of 10. The fact that it would take four points to increase Level 2 Abilities to Level 3 also played a large part in dissuading me.

Anyway, after reading through the details of all the new Abilities I could get I decided on taking Second Opinion, Danger Analysis, Brainstorm, Element Isolation, and Synthesize Alloy. I decided to save the three remaining points for a rainy day or, more likely, to use once I unlocked better options.

Tough Skin, which came from raising Constitution, was the magic equivalent of an active (temporary) physical armor buff. Force Concentrated, which came from raising Strength, worked similarly to give me a power buff. Hypersensitivity gave me a permanent passive buff to my five senses, while Bypass Acceleration made it so I could temporarily move my body faster than it had any right to be moving from relative to a static position — Think of it as being able to suddenly move from standing still to reaching full sprint in the blink of an eye. I wouldn’t be able to sprint any faster, only reach that max velocity at an ungodly rate.

As an Inventor with no dire need to be physically stronger any time soon. I made my options with the full intention of playing into my given Class.

[Second Opinion (Level 1) - requires Understanding 5]
[Details: Splits your consciousness safely into two. Both of your “minds” can be controlled effortlessly to concentrate on separate tasks.]

[Danger Analysis (Level 1) - requires Understanding 10]
[Details: Combines information from your subconsciousness with contextual information regarding any given situation, object, or entity to provide you with a description of its inherent danger.]

[Brainstorm (Level 1) - requires Intelligence 10]
[Details: Permanently increases mental resilience and fosters heightened creativity. Distorts your sense of time while meditating on solving any problem.]

[Elemental Isolation (Level 1) - Unique]
[Details: Consumes stamina to physically separate solid elements with a 50% efficiency rating. Only useable on materials with solid metals.]

[Synthesize Alloy (Level 1) - Unique]
[Details: Consumes stamina to transmute/catalyze metals into different alloys. The heavier or more complex the resulting metallic compound, the more stamina consumed.]

After accepting all those new Abilities, I felt… weird. It would definitely take some time to get used to suddenly having the equivalent of a second mind.

I got up from my bed and picked up a few pieces of scavenged tech I had lying around to test my new Unique Abilities. With a use of Elemental Isolation, I destroyed the microwave I’d picked up and gathered about a hundred grams of iron into a solid cube. With a subsequent use of Synthesize Alloy, I combined the cube of iron with the carbon, in the form of graphite from a pack of pencils, into steel.

After using Identify to confirm that the steel at hand was genuine steel, I lost myself to the effects of Brainstorm as I checked the clock I’d built and saw that nearly three hours had passed since I started to fantasize about all the ways I could leverage my ridiculously broken Abilities.

I could now see a path to building a lot of modern conveniences which had previously eluded me thanks in no small part to my access to equipment being limited to what the Changelings could steal for me. With the existence of their entire species dependent on staying hidden from their prey, they obviously couldn’t run the risk of stealing anything too big or important for me that could only be made with heavy industrial equipment.

Now, I could just make almost anything I wanted by myself, and if I couldn’t because of a gap in my knowledge, I could just keep working towards innovating things I knew about to eventually advance the level of Whispers of the Mechanical God which would almost certainly have the answers for any question I could be looking for.

…

About two months after she recruited the human, as it had been identified to her by one of the drones that had discovered him, Queen Chrysalis found herself revising all of her plans for what felt like the hundredth time. What she had once thought to be a useful little pawn to her grand plans of taking over Equestria had slowly but surely proven itself to be much too powerful to be treated as such.

She never imagined that the human’s unique bastardization of Alchemical Magic could prove to be so… potent. It simply didn’t follow any of the normal restrictions associated with traditional Magic, being applicable to far more than just traditional alchemy. For someone who didn’t have a Thaumatolocal System, the human sure had an unbelievable amount of energy to be consistently using his abilities; especially at the rate he worked at.

It almost scared her how clearly she could see the linear rate of growth of his powers. Where at the point of his initial “employment” he could only manage a few dozen kilos of products a day, nowadays he was effortlessly delivering hundreds of kilos worth of anything she requested. It had gotten to the point where he was taking in enough work to reduce the need for worker drones.

What did this mean for her and the Changelings?

The fact that she couldn’t decide was entirely the issue currently plaguing her thoughts at all hours of the day.

It was entirely too reckless to just depend on the human to continue growing in competence and usefulness. If she laid all her eggs into that basket, it would become the undoing of her entire hive the moment anything happened to him.

Then again, with as useful as he was, he was already allowing her to ramp up her efforts of expanding the hive and preparing for an assault on Canterlot. His efforts in reducing the need for as many worker drones meant that many more of her Changelings could be trained to become elite infiltrators.

It wouldn’t be long before she had all the information and resources required to enact her plan.

Before she could continue deliberating further on her schemes for the future, she was interrupted by the call of the Hivemind.

“My Queen,” she instantly recognized the voice as the one belonging to the personal guard she had tasked with clandestinely protecting the human at all times.

“Make your report,” Chrysalis sighed as the stress that weighed down on her had a moment to settle.

“There’s been a noticeable change in my target’s behavior. For some reason, he’s suddenly become obsessed with, uh… these strange metal contraptions he’s been building,” the Changeling reported telepathically.

“And why exactly is there a need for me to know about this? He’s always been a little odd with his interests,” Chrysalis said.

“I think he’s making weapons. Just now he seems to be testing one of his machines that works like smaller metallic crossbows. The contraption operates with explosions and the projectiles fired move faster than I can even see.”

At that, the Queen was stumped. From what she knew about the human, she couldn’t make heads or tails of why he’d be messing around with weapons. Not once in the two months he’d lived as a part of her hive had he even shown an instance of aggression. She went out of her way to give him special treatment to cement his loyalties to her kind.

For a split second her mind went to a darker place, imagining the possibility that he was preparing for an assassination attempt on her head or a battle against her subjects. But that idea could be safely thrown aside as she considered the human’s abject openness.

The human had been the one to reveal his progression and the extent of his powers to her. He had come to her on several occasions to ask to volunteer his services beyond what she had asked for. And he was far from stupid enough to recklessly pick a fight with the entire Changeling Race out of sheer irrationality.

“Reveal yourself to him. Be prepared for a possible confrontation, but approach without hostility and learn from him about what he’s doing,” Chrysalis instructed.

One way or another she was going to get answers even if it meant risking the life of one of her best stealth experts.

Comments

[DingoAte]

Well, this will be quite fascinating! Thank you for writing it:D

[GreatDragonLord]

Well, let's see what comes of this.

[Poparakelis]

Chrysalis needs to tone down, I think the Mc can help with that by improving the badlands, turning equestria into something non desirable for her

[Scottish-Otter]

Quite a interesting story. I do hope to see more of it, especially the way this is going. He reminds me of Viktor from Arcane and the like.

[Aiwhisper]

Interesting so far, I’m curious if it will lead to an improvement of the badlands to draw ponies in or lead to a successful takeover of Equestria.

[f0st3r21]

Moar plez!!

[Shanashie]

Interesting thus far.
Can't help but feel he's chosen poorly with that subclass, given that everything ends up at physics eventually.

Reminds me of a joke an old acquaintance of mine used to tell. Three scientists are in a bar, arguing over what whose field was more relivent.
The biologist says biology can explain the mechanisms that drive all life. All anyone needs to know is biology.
The chemist retorts that biology is just organic chemistry, so all anyone needs to know is chemistry.
The physicist sighs and says "Hold my beer."

[ThatGuyTookMyUserName]

11686002
A hand press down on the physicist's shoulder.

"Sit down, amateur," says the mathematician.

[redandready45]

At that, the Queen was stumped. From what she knew about the human, she couldn’t make heads or tails of why he’d be messing around with weapons. Not once in the two months he’d lived as a part of her hive had he even shown an instance of aggression. She went out of her way to give him special treatment to cement his loyalties to her kind.

Smart Chrysalis is Best Chrysalis!

[MurderP0n7]

Any rational person could see that the most valuable Specialization I could choose from had to be Metallurgy; magic had already proven to trounce what human technology could accomplish in the fields of Physics and Chemistry.

Chemistry? Maybe... But I need... *Looks at the black hole created in a "controlled" environment* a button that will ensure my final "fuck you son of a bitch!" if I ever die and for this I will need damn physics...

[MurderP0n7]

For a split second her mind went to a darker place, imagining the possibility that he was preparing for an assassination attempt on her head or a battle against her subjects. But that idea could be safely thrown aside as she considered the human’s abject openness.

Although fun to cause a short-term genocide with your own hands... It's not worth the consequences, so the best way to do it is to simulate it!!! That's why I love first-person shooter games or fighting games with medium difficulty!!! Not hard enough to stress me out, not hard enough to bore me

Although a survival game, like Terraria or Minecraft, isn't so bad either, right?