Chương 73: The Source Code of Magic

[Title Equipped: Endurance Engine V] [The propensity that you will break has been reduced by 20%]"Wow," Kelly said to the dissolving air, looking at the notification.

"So that's what... the full blast... feels like from... the inside." And they say you can't buy good life insurance. The floor beneath her was mostly philosophy and ash, and her lungs coughed out something that definitely wasn't air. Kelly didn't break, but she sure as hell bent, folded, and fractured. It burned, quite badly if Kelly had to describe it, and if she turned on her pain receptors, Kelly knew she'd be feeling like a circuit board shoved into a blast furnace.

But her most impressive Resistance title, Fortress of Endurance, had already slammed into a major milestone: fifth grade. The title wasn't perfect, but at this level, it not only multiplied her base durability—it occasionally just told reality to sit down and shut up, refusing to let her break about twenty percent of the time. Essentially, it was a gacha roll for temporary invincibility. Unfortunately, the lack of perfection came from the title's interpretation of "breaking," which was… somewhat interpretive.

Her current condition—crispy, crumpled, unmoving, and generally resembling the aftermath of a microwave experiment—made that abundantly clear. Kelly sprawled across scorched earth, bones screaming complaints. Nothing snapped. Nothing gave. Everything else, though? Completely shredded. She flexed a hand, looked at the mess around her, and muttered, "Somebody call a medic. Oh wait, that's me." The air thickened with dense mana, still rattling from the blast. A massive snake devoured the sky somewhere in the distance.

Kelly squinted at glimpses of the blue behind it. Fortress of Vitality slotted in without ceremony. Healing kicked in, patching broken bits that insisted on trying to ruin her day. Half an hour to full health? Waste of time. She yanked out her new Mana Vacuum title and pulled mana toward herself in a storm. Natural regeneration skyrocketed. Fifth-grade Titles were rare. Low-grade Titles leveled fast. Fifth grade? Each rank at that level and above required actions so insane most people would die before trying.

Kelly was amused by the thought. Insane shit? Check. If she wanted these Titles to grow, she would have to push further—harder, faster, more chaotic than anything she had done yet. And so she lay there, in the ashes of the east side, the last living thing for hundreds of miles, maybe for the next hour. The horizon burned to ash. The ground cracked and shattered, full of remnants of the familiar chromatic multicolored chaotic visible energy furiously flitting about. She muttered, "Perfect." Kelly raised her hand.

Her mimic skin had transformed it into a mana-amplifying crystal, flames licking the edges. The crystal flickered, then became ice, then obsidian, then shifted through forms she hadn't named yet. As far as she knew, the mimic skin could copy any material. Living tissue wasn't on the menu at grade one. Which was the grade every single one of her traits seemed permanently, stubbornly stuck at. A higher grade might let her mimic living tissue. It would probably stack with her primordial blood trait.

Let her steal traits with a touch. Creatures had traits of all kinds—some horrifying, some useless, some unpredictable. Kelly was picky for a reason: she could grab anything by accident. Tentacles, doppelgangers with questionable appetites, who knows what else. She liked to scan the galaxy of magical data in invader cells and pick exactly what would wreak the most havoc.

"Fire. Ice. Steel hits like a truck. Obsidian… that's annoying." A shift ran through the crystal hand, then shot out perfectly hexagonal structures of metal and ice.

"Okay, maybe that one's worth a spin." A constant stream flew from her hand like a magician, only the audience screamed instead of applauded. Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

"Hmm. A 'nuke amplifier crystal' would be nice." She tutted, letting her hand shift back to normal. These crystals they had were basic. Amateur stuff. Playing with matches. Kelly wanted to make rockets. She needed to take fire and turn it into thrust. That meant tearing the whole concept down to its bones. Finding the pieces that mattered. Cutting out everything that didn't. The rest was just decoration. Something to work on. The east district was completely wiped off the map. Gone. Properly gone.

Mana bled into the soil, twisting the air into visible, multicolored patterns. Kelly watched it. Things were going to grow here, eventually. They would be spectacularly wrong. [Title Fortress of Flame IV → Fortress of Flame V] A deep, cellular nausea settled in.

"Right. Reset button." She said it to the smoldering crater. Still, knowing the stakes of her failure now put one of her end goals in her mind. She had grown to like Rowena, and her long-term promise was to ensure that she perfectly stopped the explosion and saved Rowena—oh yeah, and East New York, too. As far as she had come, this place was still her home. She liked a few of the people here. Sure, millions lived here, not just the ones she liked, but who cared about that?

Nobody messed with Kelly's home or her people. Especially not some magical spell-slinging tourists. But the moment for watching was over. She had work to do. And as the menacing giant leviathan snaked over the apocalyptic, half-destroyed landscape, she intentionally triggered her title for the second time—the one that would kill her if she stopped moving. Then she prepared to trigger her other failsafes—just in case. The circumstances were safer than the last time, by a margin. Her body accepted the invitation.

Internal combustion was a very fast process. She had a half-second to appreciate the engineering before the flames tore through her ribs. The world went white, then black. [Magic Tinkerer II → Magic Tinkerer III] [Mana Focused Student I → Mana Focused Student II] [New Title: Mana Gardener (Extremely Rare, Grade-I)] Her new Titles leveled up to grades 2 and 3 over the course of her next loops and constant GMO experimentation, which had also gained a brand-new title labeling her as a magical gardener.

Rowena leaned back in her chair, scanning the console.

"I have to admit… I'm impressed." A lab assistant gasped and spun around. Rowena ignored her and continued, "Not bad, Dr. Voss. Not bad at all. Have you done plant GMO work before Vaughn? I don't see it on your resume. Wasn't aware you were this experienced… a personal project, maybe?" You could say that again. Kelly leaned against the counter, arms crossed.

"I've dabbled here and there. Mostly trying to keep things alive that shouldn't be." Rowena's eyebrows shot up.

"Honestly… you're in the wrong field. You could be leading the plant GMO initiative for a bigger company, or even an off-world nation. After today, there's no way you're still an intern." Kelly shrugged.

"I'm still figuring things out. Just been at Vaughn for a month. Graduated last year." Rowena blinked.

"I mean… seriously. One of the most talented people I've come across in years, and you're just here, barely a month in? How is that even possible?" Kelly tilted her head, smirking.

"Guess I like to stick around and see what breaks next." She paused, then added, "Now then, if you don't mind, I'm about to do something that will advance mankind and make a seven-foot pigeon swear." Rowena blinked.

"A seven-foot pigeon?" Kelly gave a knowing look.

"Yes. It taught me that patience is for losers—and a seven-foot pigeon has no right to boss me around." With that, Kelly turned back to her console and began one of her greatest experiments yet. She tried to find the right combination of crystals to generate power. None worked. But she did try several different experiments. Then she found something that changed everything. Symbols. Every crystal had them. A microscopic magical language written in pure mana. At first, she had missed it.

Her ocular mana scanners alone weren't enough. Only when paired with the lab's machines and signal boosters did the hidden patterns emerge, peeling back the crystal's skin. Inside were the fractals—fixed, static patterns. A language. A code. It was simple. Basic math. One-plus-one-equals-fire. Portal creature DNA was different—dense, living encryption, the neural-net-dense architecture that built Traits and Skills. This was the crude blueprint. The kindergarten version.

Small and elegant, but powerful in its simplicity. Kelly had discovered something: Runes.