Equestria's Inventor

by Yormsky

Chapters

Chapter 1: Ability
Chapter 2: Threat
Chapter 3: Contact
Chapter 4: Modernity
Chapter 5: Advance
Chapter 6: Discarded
Chapter 7: Recurrence
Chapter 8: Interest
Chapter 9: Crisis
Chapter 10: Resolution
Chapter 11: Advent
Chapter 12: Lunch
Chapter 15: Arrival
Chapter 16: Solution
Chapter 17: Disguised
Chapter 18: Hunt
Chapter 19: Surprise
Prologue: Create Your Character
Chapter 13: Test
Chapter 14: Encounter

Chapter 1: Ability

[Character Creation Initializing]
[Evaluating Responses]
[Applying Algorithms]
[...]
[...]
[...]

[Finalizing Creation]
[...]

[Randomizing Unique Ability]
[...]

[Character Creation Complete!]

[Status]
[Level: 21*]
[Name: Victor Hex]
[Race: Human]
[Class: Inventor*]

[Stats]
[Constitution: 3]
[Agility: 3]
[Strength: 3]
[Reflex: 4]
[Understanding: 3]
[Intelligence: 5]
[Magical Potency: N/A]
[Magical Control: N/A]

[Abilities]
[Whispers of the Mechanical God (Level 1) - Unique*]
[Automation (Level 1) - Unique*]

At some point, I realized I was standing in the middle of nowhere. I could remember making a character sheet that somewhat resembled the screen that followed my line of sight even as I gained the awareness to look around.

Somehow, in the blink of an eye, I’d gone from sitting in my room, playing around with the prototype character creation system for Bob’s game, to suddenly being whisked away to a random mountain range? It was eerily discomforting to process how not jarred I ended up being by the sudden change in setting.

Turning my attention away from the mountains around me and back to the holographic screen that continued still to hover about a foot away from my face, I tried to touch it. Apparently, my finger worked somewhat like a cursor as dragging it up and down the screen made its contents scroll in tandem.

I took a deep breath and closed my eyes to think for a moment.

Honestly, I felt like freaking out as a hundred thoughts bordering on paranoia regarding my inexplicable circumstances suddenly rushed in like a raging tsunami.

Where the hell was I? How did I get here? Why was I brought here? I can’t even begin to think of where I should look to find someone, or something, to beg to take me back to my home… I better start moving soon. I need to find a safe source of water while I still have the energy to look around and defend myself. Who knows what kind of wildlife there is out here?

Am I going to have to struggle to survive? What the hell am I going to do?! I’ve never even gone on a camping trip with a group. What the hell did I do to suddenly get cast out to the deep end without a lifeline?!

I took another deep breath and sighed. I didn’t have a mirror or any reflective surface I could look to check, but I was pretty sure I was wearing the most resigned expressions I’d ever put on so far in my life.

Whatever…

No amount of wondering, bitching, or complaining would get me anywhere closer to getting some answers and before I could even think about seeking some of those, what I really needed to do right now was begin preparing myself for what was possibly a long-term survival mission. Water, food, and shelter would have to come before I could even think about seeking out the closest source of civilization, to say nothing else about pondering over why I’d been struck with such an impossible situation.

But first, I considered the holographic screen one more time. There were stars next to the Level, Class and Abilities of my character that shined almost like they were meant to be pressed…

[Level: 21]
[Details: 18 Base Levels, one for each year leading up to full adulthood. This has been maxed out for your Race as a Human. 3 Additional Levels have been gained from acquiring useful competencies and skills throughout your life.]

[Class: Inventor]
[Details: Chosen from your responses and the randomized Unique Abilities you were given. Take the following as your generated life background: You come from a wealthy family. Born and raised with nothing but perfection and success in mind, you turned out more than a little antisocial. But that’s just fine since you’ve never cared for other people in the first place.

From an early age, you’ve always exceeded expectations. You were gifted with great intelligence for studying and applying the skills you read about to practical applications. You were raised to be a politician, but your heart lies in the field of research, development, and creation. As a result, all you want in life is to succeed. Not to follow in your parent’s footsteps, but to continue getting better and better at your craft.

So powerful is that desire that a Divinity has noticed you. The source of your being has been blessed with arcane knowledge and abilities that defy the laws of physics. Alas, nothing can be given or taken freely for the divine and, consequently, you’ve been displaced; physically and immediately.]

[Whispers of the Mechanical God]
[Details: Establishes a metaphysical space of knowledge that stores everything you’ve ever experienced in your life. Effortlessly, you can recall anything you’ve ever experienced with your senses and, more impressively, data from all the information you possess can be compounded in real time to assess everything about the world as you perceive it.]

[Automation]
[Details: Every physical process you’ve manually completed can be performed instantaneously at the cost of the stamina, energy, or resources, you would have expended otherwise.]

“What?” I was so baffled by the nonsense I’d just read that I didn’t even know how to react. Intuitively, my hand went for the top right corner of the screen and before I could stop myself I managed to make contact and close it.

“...” For a long moment, I just stood there unsure if I was better off without the screen before I forced myself into action.

Without the screen as a distraction, I really started to survey my surroundings and immediately, my bombarded with subconscious observations.

Location: Mountainous, forested, at a decent elevation at least several hundred meters from the base of the mountain I currently stand on, yet not too chilly or windy; I can’t be that far up from sea level. By the position of the sun, I must be in the northern hemisphere of the planet. Rough estimates of the height and distance between peaks of the mountains appear to be a match for the Blue Ridge Mountains.

“Blue Ridge Mountains? That’s like thousands of miles away from where I live in Florida!” I frowned.

Wait.

How did I just know all of that off the top of my head? I’m not some geography buff; I barely even know my way around the city I’ve lived in for all of my life!

…I’d say I wouldn’t even be able to list all the capital cities of each of the fifty United States, but at the thought, I found I actually could.

Strange, but convenient… and eerily in line with that “Whispers of the Mechanical God” Ability my character supposedly had. I could leverage this against the bullshit situation I hadn’t signed up for!

Thus I began to move. I took a few steps before my thoughts cleared and with the goal of finding water in mind, I came up with dozens of facts, tips, and tricks I’d read about in books or found through watching random videos which led me to find a stream not an hour later.

On the way to the stream, I picked up tracks I couldn’t immediately identify which I then began to trace in search of food. Unfortunately, after nearly another hour, the tracks suddenly stopped without any further lead for me to pick up on. So, I went back to the stream and stared at the water for a while.

Drinking directly from the source would be risky; entirely too risky unless I had absolutely no other option. But I couldn’t purify the water unless I had a container and even though I knew how to make some from watching videos on primitive technology, I didn’t have any tools to help me.

With a sigh, I took my eyes off the stream and started looking around for a flat stone near the edge. When I found a stone that looked good enough, I picked up another stone and used it to chip away at the flat stone until I had something resembling a rough edge.

At some point, I stopped to check if the edge was sharp enough to my liking against the hairs along my forearm. When the edge I’d made failed spectacularly against the benchmark I’d set, I shook my head in exasperation for the work that would be ahead of me and went on to continue striking away at the stone but was was stopped by a new screen.

[Automate the process: Sharpening (Primitive)?]

I didn’t think about the screen for long and quickly accepted the proposed automation. A moment later, I was left with a considerably sharper stone knife, a more worn-out rock in the other hand, and stricken with an unusual bout of fatigue and soreness running down the arm that held the worn rock.

“So that’s how that works, huh?” I mumbled as I waited on the ground for the fatigue to pass. “Automation” was an amazingly convenient ability to have. Just now, it had saved me at least half an hour in time I would have otherwise spent mindlessly going through the motions of sharpening my terrible knife.

After I’d recovered enough to keep working, I looked around the many trees near the stream for a suitable piece of birch. When I found a thick birch tree, I tried to slice into the bark to strip off a layer and found myself surprised by how easy it was even with my terribly unsharp knife. Well, I guess it was unsharp by modern standards; against the tree and maybe even against raw flesh, it would probably tear easily enough.

When I stripped away a couple of square meters of birch bark, I returned to the edge of the stream and started working on making a basket. I cut a long strip of birch and automated that process to end up with a set of extremely uniform, if slightly jagged, strips. Then with the strips and some larger pieces of birch bark, a decently large container.

I returned to the trees to fish out some fallen branches and any pieces of wood that looked good enough to be either a starter or firewood. I went back to the stream, filled up my surprisingly waterproof birch basket, and then started a fire.

Huh.

It was amazing how quickly everything could come together when you could effortlessly remember every piece of relevant information that might have helped start a fire. I could remember everything from every piece of media I’d consumed, both fiction and nonfiction. There were even a couple of lines from some book on a post-graduate level book I once looked at in my mother’s office regarding thermal-kinetic physics that helped.

Returning my focus to the world outside my thoughts, I realized it was rather cumbersome and uncomfortable to hold up the basket of water over the small fire I’d made. If I didn’t die after boiling and drinking the remarkably clear water I’d scooped up from the stream, I’d add making some sort of contraption to hold the basket for me in the future.

Chapter 2: Threat

So a couple of days passed and I grew somewhat confident in my chances of surviving the wilderness for the long term. With my abilities, it became almost trivially easy to identify safe plants, fruits, and berries to eat. I picked up on hunting small game and so far the bootlegged purification system I had for my water seemed to be working flawlessly.

With my ability to automate anything I’d manually done, I quickly added several more tools and pieces of equipment to my repertoire. At this point, I’d even jerry-rigged up a primitive furnace to smelt some metal gear; like, equipment made of metal, not the fictional war machines that carried nuclear weapons.

[Level Up!]
[Level 21 → 22]
[+1 Stat Point]
[+1 Ability Point]

Not expecting the sudden outburst of screens, I flinched when they appear a foot away from my eyes. I choked down the rest of the water I’d been drinking before setting aside my birch basket and wondered how exactly I was supposed to use either of the two points I’d apparently earned. I wasn’t like I could just conjure up the screens at a whim.

If only I could look over my [Status]—

[Status]
[Level: 22*]
[Name: Victor Hex]
[Race: Human]
[Class: Inventor*]

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

[Abilities]
[Whispers of the Mechanical God (Level 1) - Unique*]
[Automation (Level 1) - Unique*]
[Ability Points: 1*]

Some of my Stats increased since the last time I saw them. Constitution and maybe even Understanding, I could attribute to the whole survival situation I was currently stuck in; Constitution increasing from all the physical activity I’d engaged in and Understanding from all the random knowledge I’d consolidated from the pseudo-Mind-Palace that formed from “Whispers of the Mechanical God.”

But, Intelligence? How the hell could I have gotten smarter when I’d not learned anything new? At best, I was drawing information I’d otherwise never have recalled from the depths of my subconscious with “Whispers of the Mechanical God,” but that couldn’t really be called learning.

Anyways, I had a few new things in my “Status” that could be expanded to reveal details, so I opened them up, one by one.

[Stat Points: 1]
[Details: Allows you to instantly advance one of your Stats, excluding those that are Not Available (N/A), to the next unit. You are given one free Stat Point for each Level achieved, but Stats can be naturally raised through exercising their functional domain. Stats are divided into the four Physical Stats (Constitution, Agility, Strength, and Reflex) and the four Metaphysical Stats (Understanding, Intelligence, Magical Potency, and Magical Control)

Constitution is a measure of the body’s ability to endure. Strength is a measure of the body’s ability to exert force explosively. Agility is a measure of how quickly the body can move. While Reflex is a measure of how quickly the body can process information.

Intelligence is a measure of the depth of all the knowledge you’ve accrued. Understanding is a measure of the complexity with which you can utilize the knowledge you hold. Magic Potency and Magic Control are autological and irrelevant as you do not have the ability to manipulate Magic.]

[Ability Points: 1]
[Details: Allows you to instantly acquire new Abilities based on your Status or advance existing Abilities to their next Level. You are given one free Ability Point for each Level achieved, but Abilities can be naturally raised by achieving feats relevant to the exercised Ability. List of currently available Abilities includes: Identify*]

[Identify (Level 1) - requires Intelligence 5]
[Details: An appraisal-like skill. It automatically scours your “Mind Palace” for every trace of information that might be helpful in learning more about whatever it is you are currently looking at with the intent to learn more about the targeted subject and provides Details that are supplemented by the same logic being applied to your character into “Game Terms.”]

I didn’t really think much about what I’d learned. In understanding that my Stats could grow organically, I did the rational thing and saved my Stat Point and immediately spent my Ability Point on the only Ability I could; the newly unlocked Identify Ability.

I might have debated internally on whether to spend the Ability Point on either of my previously existing Abilities, but that hadn’t been an option as both took two Ability Points to enhance to the next Level. Furthermore, an appraisal Skill was a godsend at this point in time as there were still countless things I’d come across in these last couple days that even my Mind Palace couldn’t identify.

For all my lifelong internet binges, I’d never set aside any time to randomly look over entire encyclopedias on the millions or billions of pieces of flora and fauna that might have existed on the planet. Sure, I knew more than enough to survive, but more often than not since I’d been transported to wherever, I’d still come across some animals, insects, or pieces of vegetation that I that left my mind blank.

Moreover, with Identify, if I read what the Ability did correctly, then I should be able to see…

[Identified Status]
[Name: None (Primitive Knife)]
[Durability: 9/10 (Chipped)]
[Details: A crudely shaped and sharpened piece of stone. If not repaired soon, it might crack and permanently dip in Durability.]

Nice.

Now I just had to test it out against something that I didn’t have knowledge of to see exactly how far the Ability’s usefulness would go. But first… I’d go about resharpening up my knife, of course.

A few hours later an opportunity was presented to me. I’d been looking around for some food when I came across one of the many creatures that occasionally crossed paths with me. I’d never been afforded the chance to take a long enough look at the “black things” as they would usually be too far for me to size up or they would notice me and take off before I could come up with anything.

This time, the moment I caught sight of another one of the creatures, I instantly cast an instance of Identify.

[Status]
[Level: ???]
[Name: ???]
[Race: ???]
[Class: ???]
[Details: Looks like the combination of a small horse and an insect. Standing at around slightly below one and a quarter meters tall (call it four feet) on all fours and armored with a hardened carapace, the petite scale wings on this creature’s back look entirely too small to prove functional for flight. Taking note of the horn on its head and the unsettling deformities along its limbs, it looks like a terrible little monster made for war. And currently, the little monster looks like it's observing you… intently.]

This has been the first “Oh shit,” moment I could recall since I’d gotten over being dumped in the middle of nowhere. Screw my search for more food, I needed to get back to my little base camp and prepare myself for a potential confrontation with whatever the hell I’d just come across.

So far, the bug-horse-things had fled from their every encounter with me, but their biological characteristics suggested they had evolved to be dangerous in a fight. The last thing I wanted was to be gored alive on the end of one of their horns while my punches did nothing against their armored bodies; those things had to weigh over a hundred pounds at their height!

Thus, I ran like hell back to where I’d made my current shelter, picked up my knife, and cringed. “This is definitely not going to be enough to guarantee my safety!” I whined.

Even with a weapon in hand, I didn’t know the first thing about defending myself against anything that could actually put up a fight. The largest thing I’d killed so far were small rodents. I’d never so much as thrown a punch in my life! How the hell was I supposed to survive against a little war machine monsters?!

Even worse — My mind went immediately went to the worst possible scenario — What if I ran into a group of those things?! The last one I’d seen had literally been staring right back at me for who knows how long. So, what if it was like a wolf that hunted in packs? What if it was a carnivorous species that was just appraising its next meal? What if it was just observing me to see if I’d be able to fight back against its pack should it decide I was to become their next meal?!

Shit! Shit!! Shit!!

I needed something better than just some lousy knife I’d haphazardly sharpened out of stone if I was to survive the apocalyptic situation I may or may not have been imagining. It’d be nice if I could just conjure up a gun with Automation, but I’d never so much as put a gun together, never mind made the parts that would make a gun in the first place.

So, for right now, I settled on making a spear. I’d already gone through the process of smelting low-melting-point alloys like bronze. The “sharpening” action I’d already automated technically counted as “hammering” as well. I’d also tied plenty of things around with “birch bark” fashioned into string. So really the only thing I actually needed time to physically do was gather all the material to make the crudest of crude spears.

The next couple minutes, I spent in extreme paranoia as I was constantly distracted from filing the point and edge of my primitive spear’s head against the grainiest stone I could find by looking around for a hoard of black bug-horses. By even after I was long done, there wasn’t any sign of impending doom coming any time soon.

Eventually, the sun went down but it was only it was deep, deep into the night that might paranoid-fueled hysteria died down enough and the crash from a lack of adrenaline knocked me into falling asleep.

…

‘It seems to have finally gone asleep,’ the shadow thought as it continued to survey the area around the anomalous entity it had been studying for the past week. ‘I should report back to the patrol leader of its erratic actions. That strange creature has never once reacted like that after spotting me the last couple of times.’

At that last thought, the shadow connected itself to the local hivemind and relayed its intended message.

‘Continue observing for now, we will capture and disarm the anomaly after the rest of the squad arrives at your location,’ was the response from the hivemind back to the shadow.

Thus, the shadow continued to watch.

For now…

Author's Note

For the few chapters I've already written, there's not going to be many shifts in perspective. Like 99% of the time it'll be the Main Character's First Person POV.

Chapter 3: Contact

When I woke up, it wasn’t to the cave ceiling I’d gotten used to in the last couple of days. For a moment I was confused. Then I tried to move and found myself bound by some sort of hardened muck and subsequently panicked.

“What the fu—” I choked back the rest of my words as I spotted six of those bug-horse things not fifteen paces away. They looked like they had been sleeping and my yelling had startled them awake.

God, I hope I’m not about to be eaten alive… or tortured.

“Three, can you feel that?” To my utter amazement, one of the bug-horses talked.

“Yeah,” the one on its right said, “Even I can sense the sheer terror this thing is experiencing. Are we really that scary?”

Yes. And the fact that you we can communicate with each other in Englishmakes this all the more nightmarish. I’m looking at sentient, intelligent, war-machine little monsters that have captured me. My heart rate is probably spiking to a dangerous level right about now.

“Calm down, would you?” The one called “Three,” told said to me. “Can it even understand me?” it asked itself in exasperation.

“I can,” I responded despite the hammering I still felt in my chest.

“Oh? Uh, good, then…” the bug-horse stammered. “Why are you so afraid of us in the first place? I mean, our race has never come into contact with yours, so we should be neutral to each other, don’t you think?”

“Wh— You— There’s so many things wrong with that statement, I don’t even know where to begin!” I nearly cursed. “I’m alone, captured, and defenseless against a group of intelligent armored aliens, dude! In what universe would I not be scared out of my god-damn mind?!” This was the moment I learned I could even get fear-angry.

“Whoa there, buddy. You’re the freaking alien here! What the hell are you even supposed to be, huh? Some sort of cross between a Minotaur and an ape?!” Three hissed at me.

“Minotaur? What the hell are you on about?” I had half a mind to yell at the thing that I was “a goddamn human,” when I realized that if it didn’t already know that, then there probably weren’t any on the planet. Like, obviously we’d be one of the first things spotted by an alien race given we’d conquered the world as the apex species for centuries… Unless of course, I wasn’t on Earth to begin with.

At this point, where I’d come to understand that I was a living RPG character with a backstory involving getting teleported around by a God, it really shouldn’t be surprising that I got teleported to another planet or even dimension. I mean, Magic was supposedly a thing here too, so why not?

“You know what? Nevermind. Just tell me what you’re going to do with me already,” I slumped limply on my bindings. In the grand scheme of things, there was no point in getting into an argument with one of my captors.

“That really honestly depends on you,” a different bug-horse said. They all kind of looked the same to me, but this one was slightly larger; bulkier too. “You see, Five over there—” it pointed at one of the other bug-horses, which actually waved at me with one of its deformed hooves, “—reported that you have an interesting ability we could use.”

“Proficiency in Alchemical Magic is extremely hard to come by, even for those pretentious Unicorns, so I will offer you the choice to follow us back to our hive and work for us in exchange for safety, guaranteed food, water, and shelter as well.”

I didn’t need to hear the “or else,” so I immediately accepted. A moment later, the same bug-horse that was speaking spat at the binding muck around me and it started to melt.

“You’re… Just going to free me, now?” I asked, shocked that they would do this now a not after I’d been transported and confined to their hive. It may have been six-on-one, but if someone more desperate or irrational had been in my place, they might have acted out and tried to at least take some of the creatures down with them.

“Not only would it be much more convenient for you to walk yourself back to the hive with us, but if you already didn’t know, I used to be an infiltrator.” My confusion remaining must have been noticed as it the went on to add, “Meaning that I can literally smell your intentions. You so much as think about harming me or anyone in my squad and I’ll cut you down before you know it.”

“Right…” And they wonder why I’m scared of them. “So, what are you, anyway? Like as a species. Oh, and also where am I? I’m probably on a foreign planet,” My questions to the bug-horses devolved into mutterings quickly enough; it was a hard habit to get rid of.

“We are Changelings and we’re all on Planet Equus,” Three said as we walked out of… the tent. I just realized we’d been inside a tent this whole time.

“Damn, I guess that you were right. I am the alien here,” I sighed. “Anyway, I hope you don’t intend for me to Magic up some potions or something. My “magic” only works on things I’ve manually made.” It would have been pointless to ask, since the only I could do that others would think of as magic was use “Automation.”

“Would your magic work on making potions after we instructed you on how to make them and gave you all the necessary ingredients?” Three asked back.

“I guess. Though, I’ve never made any potions before, so if the first potion I successfully make turns out to work terribly all the potions I make with my magic will be equally bad until I manage to manually make a better one.”

“...And then all your new magic potions will be made to the better standard?” The bug-horse leader asked.

“Yeah. That’s how my magic works. Also, I won’t be able to just poof out a thousand potions even if you gave me all the materials that would make them. Part of the cost of using my magic is that my body will be subjected to the same amount of effort that would have gone into making whatever it is I’m trying to make with magic.”

“Very interesting…” it replied, “And very convenient to boot. The process of making potions is time-consuming more than anything, so if I’m understanding the process of your magic correctly, you probably won’t have much trouble using it to make dozens, if not hundreds, of potions after making one of a certain standard.”

“Hmm,” I hummed. “How far are we from wherever we’re going?”

“We’re three kilos away from the Hive proper and you can safely add another to get to the Core where we'll have to bring you to our queen to decide where you’ll be stationed.”

“Can I… keep asking you questions on the way?”

“I’ll let you know if you ask about something you shouldn’t have.”

…

Thus, the three-kilometer walk passed faster than I thought possible. Time would always come to pass when you were doing something stimulating, and there was nothing more stimulating than actually being able to talk to someone after being cooped up by myself… without the internet. It was all the more intriguing to be talking to honest-to-god intelligent life that didn’t share 99.9% of my DNA sequence.

During our short walk, I learned a lot. I learned mostly about the changeling Race, but I also learned enough to know that I was probably in a completely different universe. Changelings weren’t the only sentient lifeforms excluding myself and the world supposedly housed living gods that moved the sun and the moon.

I learned most Changelings didn’t actually have definite names, only the most important or powerful. They usually went by a number ascribed by the leader of whatever force they were a part of. “Two,” one of the drones of the squad that was transporting me, provided very insightful information on the political landscape of the world at the mention of the “Alicorn Princesses.”

Apparently, all but the triumvirate Pony Race were locked in a cold war of sorts against each other for thousands of years. While the Ponies lived in a pseudo-utopia of sorts due to their all-mighty princesses, all the leaders of the various factions of the world were in fierce competition with each other to get whatever resources were left over.

The closest thing to the current political landscape that I could imagine would be like if the United States took over the world immediately after developing the Atom bomb post World War 2 while allowing foreign countries to be countries in name only and then maintained absolute authority of the world under duress of imminent death by nukes. At least that was the picture painted by Two’s words, which all the other changelings silently agreed by way of nodding along to his tirade.

By the time Two was finished, we’d come up to the base of the Hive Colony. It was a massive structure that spanned for nearly a hundred meters underground and almost a three kilometers in diameter. It looked like a cave system from the inside, only much more organized and without random tunneling in vertical directions.

As we passed further in to reach the Core, I must have been stared at by every single changeling we came across, yet we probably didn’t run into more than a few dozen by the time we reached our destination. I could understand why so few crossed our path as the Changelings Race were only a few thousand strong and almost half were infiltrators or spies for the crown; the rest were probably busy behind closed doors or in other parts of the Hive’s territory at work.

I was brought to the throne room at the very center of the Core, where I first saw the Changeling Queen perched upon her throne.

[Identified Status]
[Level: ???]
[Name: Chrysalis]
[Race: Changeling
[Class: Hive Mother]
[Details: Appears to be bigger, better, and overall stronger than most, if not all, Changelings. She is the only Changeling thus far to have thin scale-like protrusions similar to changeling Wings flowing down her head in a manner reminiscent of a horse’s mane. There’s no telling how dangerous she is without more information or personal observations of capable feats.]

“Human,” her voice was deep, husky, and naturally seemed to be underlined by a resonating vibrato, “I’ve heard many things about you. I’d welcome you to the Hive… But first, you must prove to me your worth.”

Chrysalis stomped a hoof and a large box was brought before me by one of her retainers. As she gave me the go-ahead to open the box she said, “Inside the box are a set of instructions on how to prepare a special ointment that’s used by my troops to recover from physical training and minor wounds. You have an hour to read through the instructions and make at least five kilograms worth of medicine starting now.”

With a nod, I sat down and started by reading through the instructions. Rather quickly, it became apparent why the task at hand had been given to test my ability. There were dozens of ingredients that needed to be carefully measured and then prepared with a variety of methods to reach precisely defined consistencies before being emulsified together into the ointment.

All I had to work with was a mortar and pestle, a cutting board, a knife, and my hands. It took me twenty minutes for me to make my first batch and I could only make about half a kilogram of product all at once.

“...So how do you test if it’s good enough?” I asked as I put a few dozen ounces worth of ointment into one of the many empty containers that took up most of the space of the box.

“Bring me a sample,” Chrysalis demanded.

When I walked up to her, she swiped the container out of my hand… and then sliced a shallow cut on the back of my hand with her horn. Frozen in shock at her actions, I didn’t resist when she spread some of the ointment I’d made on the fresh wound.

After a few seconds passed she rubbed away the excess ointment on my hand and miraculously the cut was just a barely noticeable line that was just the slightest bit lighter than the rest of my skin.

“Impressive,” She actually sounded genuine as she said, “That’s a premium grade result. And to think that you only took half as long as I imagined to make it.” She grinned, “Even if that specialty of yours fails to prove valuable, just the precision granted to you from those hands of yours will welcome you into my ranks.”

“...” I stayed quiet even as she shoved me back and made a gesture to get on with what was left of my given task.

From all I’d seen of her thus far, I couldn’t tell if her behavior towards me was simply to due me being of a different Race than her or if she was just that tyrannical towards everyone under her. Honestly, I couldn’t tell which possible verion of the truth I preferred. In any case, for the sake of my continued existence in the world of the living, I hurried back over to box and used Automation to quickly process as much ointment as I could with the time I had remaining.

With a look, I converted several bags of herbs into their prepared states. Some were as chopped up as fine as dust while others were far less processed. Some herbs were left in strips and ribbons, while others were mostly left whole. In a few seconds, I’d completed what would have otherwise taken hours of processing as many bundles as I could handle with the size of the cutting board.

All the remaining steps that would go into making the ointment would be completed with the mortar and pestle but it took a considerable amount of effort to get through even a tenth of the total amount of ingredients I could work with.

I needed to take a few minutes of rest before continuing on as I’d just done the equivalent of fully making several dozen batches of ointment up to the point of packaging them away into nearly thirty containers. It wasn’t even that my arms were tired from the process, so much as it was the mental fatigue of going through nearly a whole day’s worth of work in mere moments.

It was a good thing I had already gotten used to overcoming mental fatigue. Whether it was from running my business back on Earth or spending way too much time browsing the internet, I could recover from using Automation faster than I probably should have otherwise.

Naturally, I couldn’t fully recover in just a couple of minutes, so the next time I used Automation I could only manage to make twenty-six containers of ointment. Then it was twenty-two, then nineteen, sixteen…

“Stop,” Chrysalis said. “It’s been an hour and you’ve made much more ointment than I’d been hoping for.” She paused for a second and looked at me with an unreadable expression before she continued, “I will have your work properly appraised. In the meantime, you may follow this one—” She gestured to a Changeling that took a few steps forward, “—and retire to your new home. He will see to it that all your needs are met and will act as a line of communication to me directly.”

“Thank you,” I said, aiming to say as little as possible to lower the risk of antagonizing her. After she grunted in acknowledgement, I was led out of the room with only a single thought left permeating my mind.

I wonder what’s going to happen to me next…

Chapter 4: Modernity

“Here we are,” the Changeling leading me said.

“Nice,” I muttered as I passed through the door and found my room to be much larger than I expected. Aside from the sheer volume of the space, I was impressed to find a desk, stool, and bed that I imagined must have been custom-made for someone my size.

“Now, before I take my leave, I’m going to need you to list your dietary requirements,” the changeling said.

“I can eat pretty much whatever so long as it's not poisonous. Humans are omnivores. Though, even though there’s a lot of food we can raw, most of it has to be cooked or prepared for us to digest it properly. So… how is this going to work?”

“Her Majesty instructed me to take care of your needs. Your abilities and potential have been seen fit to appoint you the value of a Commander. As such, I can arrange for you to be brought a feast of cooked meat, fruits, and vegetables every day if you’d like.”

“...That’s cool and all, but could you just set aside my food for me to prepare? Only I know how I like my food prepared and frankly, I doubt you guys would know most of the recipes I’m used to.”

“Done,” the changeling said with the most deadpan stare I’d ever seen. “Now, because us Changelings don’t sustain ourselves with physical food, we don’t have anything prepared right now. So if you could please list off anything you’d like for us to search for.”

“Uh, what? You don’t eat food? What are you, like a plant that photosynthesizes or something?” I asked, more than a little baffled by the casual verbal bomb that had just been dropped.

“No,” he shook his head, “We consume emotions to sustain ourselves.”

When he didn’t further elaborate after a long pause of me just staring dazedly at him, I said, “...I’m just going to ignore the implications of that for now and move on from this line of conversation, but first I need to know: Are you going to try to eat my emotions? And if so is it going to mentally impair me or be painful?”

“No to all of your questions. Your body fundamentally lacks a magical conduit for us to siphon out your emotions for our consumption. It wouldn’t be painful or render you any harm even if we could and at worst, you’d just be left apathetic until you were given more stimulus to feel something again.”

“Anyways…” I followed through with my pledge, “I don’t care what food you get for me so long as it doesn’t come in the form of insects. Oh, and also don’t give me anything that comes from sentient life; I’d rather not have that hanging over my conscience.”

“Anything else?” He asked.

“Yeah, uh… What am allowed to do besides, you know, work and stuff.”

He paused for a moment before saying, “Your status allows you entry to any part of the Colony excluding the Queen’s personal chambers. If your question is regarding whether or not you can leave the Hive proper, the Queen has already declared that you are free to do so.”

“...I’ll have to ask her about that some other time. Right now, I just want to get some sleep,” I said. I hadn’t been able to make sense of the situation since we started this conversation, but I was honestly too tired to try investigating further.

I thought was supposed to be a prisoner or slave of some sort. Instead, I’m being treated like royalty and allowed to go wherever I please. My would-be owners are taking care of my every need and further indulging me by letting me have my pick at whatever I want with no limit yet discovered.

Was Automation really worth all this respect and status?

…

Hours later, after I’d been left alone in my new room, I woke up rejuvenated and entirely unsure as to what I should do first. I was a little hungry, a bit thirsty, I’d sooner rather than later prefer a shower, my clothes could use some washing, there was a lot I wanted to learn about this new world I’d been thrust into… But before all of that, I really needed to use the bathroom.

So I walked outside of my room and walked up to the first Changeling I saw. “Hey, uh…You do guys have any bathrooms in here?” I wouldn’t have asked if I was confident I could make it through the nearly mile-long trek that led to the entrance of the Hive Colony that I was familiar with.

“Of course,” the Changeling said without much fanfare; like, it didn’t care that I was an alien that’d probably never been seen on the planet since I’d been dumped on it. It led me to a room that was marked with a signpost depicting what I can only describe as “a blob.”

Inside the room, I found a few stalls and what looked like a sink… only there wasn’t any plumbing anywhere within the Hive Colony so the sink was filled with a gel-like substance that constantly wiggled and the stall only had a hole in the ground along with a bunch of banana tree leaves - presumably for wiping after one took care of their business.

[Identified Status]
[Level: ???]
[Name: ???]
[Race: Blue Slime
[Class: ???]
[Details: Looks like a stereotypical slime monster one would encounter at the start of a classic RPG. Currently occupies the sink-like appliance within the bathroom. Implicitly, it looks like it’s being used as a substitute for water and soap; you know… for the Changelings to clean their hooves]

[Identified Status]
[Level: ???]
[Name: ???]
[Race: White Slime
[Class: ???]
[Details: A White Clone of the Blue Slime that sits in the sink. This one is being kept in the hole within the bathroom stall. Implicitly, it looks like it’s being used as a decomposition agent to eliminate biological waste products. It would certainly explain why there are no offensive smells nor trace of anything else within the stall.]

For all the confidence I had in my Identify Ability, I wasn’t comfortable with messing around with either of the two Slimes without asking for more information. But, apparently I inferred everything in the bathroom almost perfectly. The only thing the Changeling I asked had to add to my evaluations was that the White Slime was more than just a decomposer and could also digest most plants it came into contact with; ergo, it also ate the used toilet paper substituted.

Anyway, I used the bathroom, cleaned my hands by submerging them for a few seconds in the Blue Slime, and then walked back to my room. There, by my door was a Changling waiting with a cart that was attached to itself. The cart looked to be carrying a massive duffle bag.

As I approached, the Changling called out to me, “I’ll be running a few trips for the next couple of hours to get your room filled with materials for you to start working with. Can you open the door for me?”

As I nodded and held the door open for him to come in, he added, “I plan to also bring in some cooking equipment and food at the very end. If you get hungry or thirsty before then, let me know.”

I thanked the Changeling as I picked up the duffle bag out of the cart and set it aside for him to move on with his next trip. Inside the duffle bag, I Identified a few kilos of familiar herbs and ingredients for that ointment I’d already learned how to make. But in a compartment on the side of the duffle bag, there were also quite a few written recipes for a few more products that I decided to look over while the Changeling continued to fill up my room.

“Potions, Binding Agents, Binding Solvents, Poison Antidotes…” The variety was certainly nothing to sneeze at as I came across everything from building materials to combat stimulants.

As I read through the various recipes I helped the Changeling unload his cart whenever he reappeared in my room. At first, he just brought ingredients and materials for me to work with, but eventually, he started carting in equipment and appliances that looked entirely out of place within the neolithic Hive Colony.

The cutting board, knife, mortar, pestle, and even a furnace I had come to expect. But then I started seeing electric food processors, a microwave, a bunsen burner, and even a goddamn refrigerator!

“Hey, um… Where did you get this kind of tech?” I couldn’t help but ask as a microgram scale was being placed down on my workstation by the Changeling.

“Canterlot. The capital city of Equestria,” the Changeling responded with hardly an ounce of emotion.

“If you guys have access to this kind of equipment why isn’t it more widely used inside the Hive Colony?”

“Most of it isn’t useful for us,” the Changeling gave me a questioning look. “A lot of this stuff is for the betterment of a pony’s quality of life. It would be useful to you because your needs are similar enough to that of a pony’s, but us Changelings don’t really need anything but the equipment to keep us building, infiltrating, and stealing sources of food to expand the hive.”

I didn’t say anything else in retort as I honestly couldn’t say I knew enough about the Changelings to be criticizing their ways. It hadn’t even been a full day since I even discovered they were a thing. For all I knew, they could simply prefer a more tribalistic approach to life. One that didn’t chase after the latest technological advances like those Amish people back on Earth did.

The only thing I was sure of was that I was going to take full advantage of every modern piece of tech I was given. My Class was that of an Inventor; it would be wrong not to, after all.

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.

Chapter 6: Discarded

Wow, I looked down at my still-smoking gun and couldn’t believe I had actually built it all by myself. Compared to modern firearms it was honestly garbage, but it was a freaking gun that I’d pretty much “magicked” into existence.

With Synthsize Alloy I’d even gotten away with making the compounds that would go into a working bullet, but it was only thanks to Danger Analysis that I’d forgone testing of the first… three, maybe four, versions of my gun and ammo.

As it turns out, messing around with explosive compounds had a tendency of being dangerous; this was especially true when you didn’t know the exact ratio or purity of the explosives you were working with. One wrong move and I could be looking at anything from a slightly burned hand, to becoming a one-handed cripple.

At the sound of footsteps approaching from behind me, I turned around. “Heeey…” I cringed as I found myself standing before a Changeling with my damn gun still smoking. I’d hoped I could test out the gun before disassembling it or stowing it far from any prying eyes. It’d be a nightmare if I was the reason firearms became widespread in this world.

“Care to explain what that is?” The Changeling asked me.

“This?” I waved the gun, keeping the barrel pointed at the sky, as I said, “It’s a little project I’ve been working on. It can’t compare to the guns the people where I come from use, but it’s served its purpose.”

“And what purpose would that be? From where I stand it looks like you’re carrying a weapon of sorts and weapons only serve a purpose on a battlefield.”

“You’d be right to assume the gun is a weapon, but I built it for two reasons. The first was to test myself and see if I could actually make it given the limited amount of resources I have and the second reason is to gain experience to prepare myself for working on more dangerous projects. I used the gun to learn as much as I could about keeping myself safe while experimenting with potentially dangerous compounds and objects.”

“You made a weapon to learn about safety?” I could see the Changeling's non-existant eyebrow raise in suspicion.

“Of course,” I didn’t bat an eye. “Making guns and their ammunition is dangerous. Testing an untested gun is even more dangerous. The fact that I’m standing here all in one piece is as good a sign as any that I’ve been careful enough to even try my hand at building some of the machines I’ve been wanting to get my hands on.”

“So, what are you going to do with the gun now that it’s served its purpose?”

Seizing the opportunity, I used Element Isolation to destroy the gun right in front of the Changeling and let him watch the pieces fall to the ground. “I have no use for weapons with my current position in the Hive Colony. The only times you'd even find me around here, outside, I mean, is when I’m testing new projects,” I honestly said.

He dropped the matter and walked with me back to the Hive Colony. Apparently, he had come across my path while returning from one of his spying missions in Griffon territory.

…

The days continued to pass with the human remaining as agreeable as always and Queen Chrysalis could almost start to feel the tension she felt about him start to leave when disaster struck one night.

By the time that the spy that contacted her through the hivemind was in range to warn her about the impending assault from a Company of several hundred Thestrals, she had at most a few minutes to organize a prompt relocation of the entire Hive. She had to take advantage of every second to make an entire society vanish without a trace while securing as many sources of food — the most precious resource of the Hive — as she could and unfortunately, she couldn’t see a way to do so while also moving the human.

To attempt to do so would risk compromising the entire Hive and would almost certainly require at least a full squadron’s worth of Changelings to even make an attempt. That squadron could instead almost certainly guarantee the relocation of at least ten food subjects which would go a long way when they next settled.

There wasn’t even a debate on the matter. The human, for all his usefulness, wasn’t worth the risk his attempted relocation would cost. He wasn’t worth the ten food subjects that would have to be given up, which would feed at least a hundred of her worker drones. His help up until this point had been enough to hasten her plans and was even appreciated, but Chrysalis could not jeopardize everything to secure him.

It would be a terrible loss to leave him behind. It would probably set back her plans for a couple of weeks. But overall, she would still be in a net position ahead of her original plans.

Now, even she had to physically contribute to the escape plan to relocate the Hive to another location.

At least, the absurd surplus of binding agents the human had made for her a few weeks beforehand would soon be put to use.

…

“Hey,” a voice woke me up from my sleep. This — having someone else wake me — had never happened to me before, so for a few seconds, I was stuck in a limbo of being half awake and half asleep.

When I finally regained enough consciousness to understand that I was awake, I was surprised to find my torso had been secured by a rope. “What the—” I choked on my words as I looked around the room and found myself surrounded by… uh, bat-ponies? They all looked like little horses with bat wings — a kind that looked just as impractical as the Changeling's wings only more avian and less bug-like — and all had coats of various shades of black and purple.

“So it talks,” one of the bat-ponies said.

“Uh, yeah…” I never thought I’d regret having destroyed my gun as much as I did at this very moment. I mean, despite all I’d learned during my time with the Changelings, there was still a lot I didn’t know like… what species were particularly dangerous and might try to murder or eat me. In retrospect, I’d gotten very lucky to first encounter the Changelings who didn’t even eat solid foods.

“Care to tell us why you were sleeping without a care in the world in the middle of a Changeling Hive? From everything I know, anypony caught by the Changelings would get incubated and fed on. The fact that you aren’t, suggests that you were in cahoots with them and yet for the life of me, I can’t figure out why they would just leave you behind without at least alerting you…”

“I’ll tell you about our, uh… relationship if you tell me what happened to them first,” I proposed.

“There's not much to it,” the bat-pony said with an exasperated sigh. “We were going to raid them to rescue some of our captured citizens, but they were long gone by the time we got here. Aside from some of their victims that they couldn’t carry away with them, you are the only one they left behind.”

“Oh,” I guessed they decided it pragmatic to not even try to take me with them since I’d learned that their magic didn’t work on me. It was either that or they just took advantage of this situation to at least get rid of me while it was convenient for them to do so.

“Well, they kind of just let me live here as long as I worked for them. I used my Abilities to manufacture a lot of things for them.” I didn’t bother with lying since there was no benefit in doing so, and there was a chance that this information might spare me from potential hostility. Perhaps knowing what I was capable of could dissuade them from eating me if that was their original intention.

“Is that all you have to say for yourself?” The bat-pony asked.

“I mean, that’s all there was to our arrangement,” I shrugged. “Before I met the Changelings, I’d been living in the wild alone. I didn’t have anyone to look out for me or help me survive. I only helped them because it was mutually beneficial to do so and they didn’t involve me in their business beyond what my abilities could provide.”

“Is that right? Well, why don’t you follow us back to Equestria? I’m sure if you have Abilities that were useful to the Changelings, you could find a suitable position by our Princess. It’d be better than going back to living all alone out in the middle of nowhere, wouldn’t it?”

“Probably,” I sighed as a sense of deja vu hit me like a runaway semi-truck.

The bat-pony gave me an uncanny grin as he gave a nod to someone. A moment later the rope that tied my arms to my body slid off me telekinetically. The massive conglomerate of invading bat-ponies then escorted me outside.

“Hop on,” the same bat-pony I’d been talking to this entire time said as he gave a gesture to his back.

“I can walk,” I said, unsure if I should feel offended or not. If he’d offered a few weeks prior I might have at least had to consider the distance, but all the physical work I’d done since coming into Equus had increased my Constitution to what it currently was which would probably leave me able to walk indefinitely, even through my sleep, and still not get tired.

“But can you fly?” He shook his head and snorted.

“No? But… You’re not seriously suggesting you want to fly me to wherever it is we’re going, are you? I weigh close to 90 kilos (~200 pounds).” Unsaid was the fact that I didn’t believe the bat-ponies could fly at all. The reason most things could fly was because they barely weighed anything, but these were solid, muscle-bound horses and as I gave the one before me a quick look over, I couldn’t find a jet engine attached anywhere on its body.

“Please,” he snickered, “we are trained by flying laps around the capital while strapped to half-ton weights. Even a Private fresh off of base camp could carry you to Canterlot and back without breaking a sweat.”

“If you say so,” I said as I hesitantly swung my leg over him and prepared myself for what was sure to be a nightmarish ride if he really could fly us. This wouldn’t be like taking an airplane ride. I wouldn’t have some sort of safety harness keeping me from plummeting to my death and there wouldn’t be a hull of metal protecting me from the effects of air resistance or a waning atmospheric pressure.

The bat-ponies finished whatever was left of their business at the abandoned Hive Colony… and then we were off.

I was really being flown by a horde of magical bat-ponies.

Chapter 7: Recurrence

When we arrived at Canterlot I was taken aback by the sights. It was one thing to read about the Ponies’ modern-ish civilization and another thing entirely to see it firsthand. It was especially amazing to see the fabled capital city and exactly how it managed to be built into the side of a precipitous mountain.

I could see a train approaching a train station. A city that lived on even in the darkness of the night, where light posts lit up every hundred paces or so across the more commercial areas. The royal castle had towers that were even accented with what I Identified as pure gold!

Then, when I didn’t think it was possible to be any more surprised, the bat-ponies touched down on the castle grounds and led me to their ruler.

…

[Identified Status]
[Level: 500+]
[Name: Celestia
[Race: Alicorn
[Class: Goddess of the Sun]
[Details: An immortal pony in the form of the ultimate fusion between the three Pony tribes. Celestia maintains the cycle of the sun, leads the kingdom of Equestria, and has almost uncontestable political influence across the entire world. She has been described as benevolent to some and ruthless to others. It would be wise to tread carefully.]

I felt a jolt as one of the guards shoved me.

“What?” I asked.

“I asked you what your name is,” the almighty Princess of the Ponies said.

“Oh, uh, it’s Victor,” I said. I would have told her my actual name, but since the only references to my name that I could recall from the last couple of months had been every time I checked my Status, it seems I’d subconsciously accepted “Victor Hex” as my name. This being the first time I’d been asked my name since I’d arrived in this world — the Changelings hadn’t bothered — I spoke without really thinking. Honestly, I was still trying to catch up with all the thoughts I had about what I’d seen since we’d arrived at Canterlot.

“I don’t think I’ve met another of your kind,” Celestia said.

When she didn’t continue speaking, I said, “I wouldn’t be surprised if I were the only one of my kind here. I’m not too sure how I got here myself. In this world I mean.”

“You’re an alien?” She kept an unreadable poker face.

“Something like that,” I gestured halfheartedly. “Where I come from we don’t have magic or species beside ourselves intelligent or capable enough to speak.”

“I’d like to ask you more about that, but that will have to wait for another time. Right now, we must discuss what you plan on doing for the foreseeable future,” Celestia said.

“They haven’t already told you?” I looked at the small group of bat-ponies that stood to the side. “All I want is to settle down and work on my projects. I offer my services to anyone that values them and plan on providing for myself.”

“Hmm… The report I received from the Lieutenant of the Night Shade Battalion mentioned you provided “manufacturing services” to the Queen of the Changelings herself. What exactly can you make?”

“As long as I know and have made something once, I can easily replicate the process. Queen Chrysalis usually requested several dozen kilograms worth of products on a daily basis. Most days, I was asked to make potions and building materials.”

“Would you care to show me your proficiency in alchemy? A competent alchemist is valued anywhere and nowhere is that more true in the lands of Equestria than right here in Canterlot. The most prestigious institute for alchemy in the entire country is directly attached to the castle, after all,” Celestia said.

“Sure thing. Just give me something to work with and tell me what you want,” I suggested. It wasn’t like I had anything to work on, or with, on hand. Also despite my apparent cockiness, or what some might call arrogance, I had a reason to be so nonchalant, given I’d read and practiced enough alchemy to be able to work with pretty much anything.

And I did mean anything. Alchemy, in essence, was just a way of exploiting the effects of magic while performing chemical reactions. For me, it was like playing the role of a real chemist, but with tons of handicaps; an easy mode, to put it in game terms. Thanks to my perfect memory and the hundreds of encyclopedic tomes I’d read during my time with the Changelings, I knew all but the most esoteric information there regarding the topic of alchemy.

So, along with an escort of two guards, I walked with the princess through the impressively large castle. When we eventually reached our destination, I felt my eye twitch at the pristine condition of the alchemy workstation I was presumably going to be allowed to use. The room was formatted exactly like a chemistry lab one could find in a university and had all the equipment one would expect from such a room as well.

“Could you make us a health potion? It’s been a while since I dabbled in alchemy,” She coughed and muttered under her breath, “maybe a few hundred years,” before continuing to speak normally, “so I’ll need one of my researchers to appraise your work.”

“There are seven… no, eight different ways I can think of synthesizing a health potion from the ingredients I’ve seen since entering the room. I’ve never had the opportunity to work in these conditions, though, so please excuse me if I take a bit longer than normal to get used to using this level of equipment.”

Celestia gave me a patient nod and let me start the process.

With the warning that I’d probably take a while to finish said and accepted, I took full advantage of the situation to set a new standard for my ability to Automate health potions. Starting with the chopped herbs and plants, I hand-cut and processed all the ingredients much more uniformly than I’d ever been able to before.

The ingredients that needed to be crushed were borderline liquified by the time I was done, while the ingredients that were tempered were done so with more precision and for a longer time.

I took my time and worked as carefully as I possibly could to get everything within the slightest margin of error possible and I believe that the results showed as much.

[Identified Status]
[Name: Health Potion (Ultra Premier Grade)]
[Details: As long as you’re not already dead, drinking this will keep you from dying any time soon. Takes a minute to undo fatal wounds and a second to regenerate anything less severe. It can’t restore missing blood or erase non-physical illnesses, though.]

“Not too shabby,” I nodded in pride as I waved my hand and nine more identical potions appeared on the table for Celestia to observe.

The researcher that had been brought to appraise my potion looked filled with apprehension as he took one of the potions to take a closer look. He had seen me make the original, so he should have somewhat expected the results. It became pretty clear that he simply couldn’t believe I could be so competent when his expression only worsened as he continued making his tests.

Eventually, the researcher made an audible gulp and said, “This is a Health Potion that only the work of our best alchemists can match… and all of the copies appear to be of the same quality. The potions’ purity borders on Consumate Grade.”

When Celestia turned to me all I had to say was, “So… Good enough to be hired by you, I hope?” I admit I was being cheeky, but how could I not be when I’d been praised so heavily to my face?

“I’ll offer you one better than what I initially considered. How about a position as an official royal alchemist? Aside from a decent salary, your compensation package will include a suite in the castle, three weeks of paid leave, as well as free you from a non-compete agreement.”

I can not express how unsettling it is to be negotiating with a literal Goddess regarding the terms of my own compensation package. It was disturbing enough to hear such jargon from a mythical creature. It was another thing entirely to be the recipient of such negotiations.

“That works great for me. Saves me the time and effort of looking into a place to stay, which I really appreciate. Just… let me know where I can safely test my projects when I get to the point where testing becomes viable. Oh, and let me know who I should warn about the potential explosions.”

“I’ll be sure to discuss the subject with you in the future. For now, I must raise the sun and begin my royal duties.”

I watched her walk over to the window that provided a view to the east. The horn on her head began to glow a radiant yellow and to my rising horror, I watched the sun rise at a pace that was visible to the naked eye.

So many questions ran through my head at that exact moment. Like, how far was the sun from the planet for the light coming off of it to be able to reach it almost instantly? On Earth, the distance from the sun was so great that it took light more than eight minutes to make the trip.

How much smaller and cooler was this sun to provide a similar enough temperature-scape to the one that allowed for life to exist? What other planets were there on this world’s solar system and how was the balance of gravity kept with a sun that was so different than the one I was familiar with?

How much energy in terms of joules was Celestia capable of exerting if she could literally move a star? On second thought… I don’t think I wanted an answer to that last one as I was sure it was the primary source of fear for a lot of intelligent life.

She really was a living Goddess and I wasn’t sure how I felt about the fact that she could probably erase me from existence at a whim.

…

A few hours into my switch from the Changelings to the Ponies, I started mentally recording a list of the differences and similarities between what I’d seen between the two. I did so because while at a glance, there wasn’t much of a difference to how I was being treated, once I started paying attention and thinking critically the deviations were startling.

For example, with both Ponies and Changelings, my abilities and skills were prized and thus I was valued. I was given a place to stay and more privileges than anyone in my position back on Earth would be afforded.

However… While the Changelings as a whole had treated me with absolute neutrality, my reception with the Ponies was a mixed bag. Where all of the Changelings treated me as I would anyone else, there was no telling how a Pony would react to me if it were the first time we were meeting.

Some Ponies treated me as I’d come to expect by the Changelings, while others recoiled with fear evident in their expressions. Some would scream, gasp, and or try to put as much distance as they could from me, while others couldn’t help but approach curiously and ask me about myself and what I was.

While I could understand the sentiment behind being afraid of an alien, the extent to which some ponies would express their fear got very annoying very quickly. I mean, sure, be afraid of me if you want, but don’t cry out your despair for all to hear while I’m within earshot. It almost feels like a taunt; like you’re begging me to try something!

In any case, I didn’t complain to anyone besides myself in my thoughts. Overall, I considered the “change in management” to be an overwhelming net positive. Yeah, it was going to be annoying having to deal with some scared ponies, but I got to move into a god-damn castle! Where there was electricity! Plumbing! And access to the latest and greatest tech that was accessible on the planet!

It had taken me two months and more luck than I thought I’d ever encounter in my entire life but I had finally reached the goal I’d set out after being dumped on this world; on a technicality, but I counted it! I wouldn’t be able to make it back home, likely a whole universe or dimension away, but I’d at least made it back to a modern society.

I wasn’t even sure I still wanted to go back to Earth anyway. I mean, I missed my friends and family, but it wasn’t like they were what drove me in my life. It was unfortunate that they would have to live without knowing what had happened to me and not being able to see them ever again was a tough pill to swallow.

But at least I got to live on and experience the most insane opportunity life had given me. I don’t think I’d ever get bored again with there being so much to do and learn. I was a god-damn video game character with borderline superpowers in a land of mythical, magical, talking creatures!

As far as I was concerned I’d already done right by my parents when I sold off one of the companies I built from the ground up and used a few million from the proceeds to boost them right into retirement. And as for my friends? While I did have a few that were lifelong and considered to be just as close to me as I was with my family, they would never truly be equal in my eyes; family would always be at least one degree of intensity more important.

Moreover, I could always make a couple more.

Author's Note

In response to some of the comments I've been getting, I just want to make it clear that I have very little direct knowledge of the MLP FiM series. I got into writing this story because I've found some really great content from the fandom, but I could only make it through like two and a half episodes of the first season of the show before giving up. Like 99% of the world-building and "lore" of this story is going to be coming from a mix of the MLP Fandom Wiki as well as what I've read from other fanfictions.

If anything is canonically wrong with what I've written (e.g. Changelings don't have a hivemind system in the show) just treat it as an AU aspect for an expanded world. I'm probably going to be writing in a bunch of stuff that has no trace of mentioning anywhere on the MLP wiki if only to make the story have more action and be more exciting.

Chapter 8: Interest

A few days passed since I started living and working in Canterlot. In that time, not much had changed besides the massive leap in quality of life I experienced. A few Ponies that frequented the areas I would pass while on my way around the castle appeared to have gotten somewhat used to my presence. But for the most part, it was business as usual for me.

I worked far less than ever before at the behest of the Canterlot’s Institute of Alchemy — They clearly didn’t want me overrunning the market for potions with my ability to replicate hundreds or thousands of Ultra Premier Grade products — and when I was done with what little work I needed to get done in the day, I spent the rest of my time messing around with my Abilities to build my projects.

I got paid at the end of every day and I got paid big, so I had already acquired all the materials that would go into my next project.

I was going to make myself a motorcycle.

…

For Celestia, the day started out like any other. Her decision to employ Victor at the castle had come to pass exactly as she had imagined. His inclusion had yet to show any malignant signs beyond the protests of the capital’s greatest alchemists lobbying against him, but that was par for the course in the political hellscape that pervaded Canterlot in general.

So far, all the man had done was work, sleep, eat, and seclude himself in his room. He hadn’t even put up a protest when the maid that attended him and his room offered the castle’s priority delivery services, when he had asked where he could go to requisition the materials for his “projects.”

Nothing he had asked for was dangerous by any means, so Celestia had yet to inquire of him whatever it was he was building behind closed doors. She hadn’t planned on even bringing him to the forefront of her mind for at least a few more days as she was as swamped as always with work from Day Court.

But then came along Twilight Sparkle…

“You are mistaken,” Celestia said with a shake of her head. “Victor is not some malformed or disfigured Minotaur. He’s a Human, an entirely different Race of beings entirely.”

“A what? I don’t think I’ve ever heard of them,” Twilight said with an expression clear with confusion.

“He’s…” Celestia raised her head from her paperwork and heaved a heavy sigh, “unique. He claims to be from a world unlike our own and I’m inclined to believe him. In all my years he’s also the first of his kind that I’ve come across and then there’s also the fact that his body is entirely devoid of thaumatological pathways. He’s the only living being I’ve ever seen that can live without the aid of Magic.”

“...We have an alien in the castle?” Twilight eventually asked after taking no less than a minute to recover enough of her mental faculties to speak. When Celestia nodded, she further asked, “Can I—”

“Yes,” Celestia sighed again. “Just try not to overwhelm him. Please?”

Without another word, Twilight ran out of the room in search of the closest pony that could point her in Victor’s direction. She didn’t think anything could excite her more than the prospect of learning from an otherworldly alien.

…

Knock, knock, knock…

I heard a knocking at my door and promptly set aside the notebook I was writing on. It wasn’t like I wasn’t already used to being called upon to discuss my alchemy work or accept some of the materials I asked to be delivered, so I didn’t think much about going to meet whoever it was that needed something from me.

After opening the door, however, I wasn’t met with the usual maid who brought things over to me. In fact, before me, there was a Unicorn I’d never even met.

“Hello?” I asked with some hesitation as the Unicorn had this disturbed look in her eye. “Do you need something from me?”

“Yes! Information! Please! I want to talk to you and learn about you, and your kind, and your history, and your culture, and—”

“I think I get it,” I cut her off before she started frothing at the mouth. “Though, I have to ask: Who’s putting you up to this? I mean, I can’t say I wasn’t expecting someone to do this. I just thought it’d be done, you know, sooner.”

It had been well over a week and this crazed unicorn was the only one interested enough to come to me with questions. All the other ponies I regularly interacted with, at best, only tolerated having to speak to me by way of professionalism. Even the most accepting of me in Pony society only asked what I was and what my name was; that latter bit being more of an afterthought than anything.

“Nobody told me to come here. I did so on my own. How could I turn down an opportunity this good? To get to be one of the first to learn about an alien! Oh, there’s just so much I want to learn about you!”

“Really? Well, I guess I can answer some of your questions and maybe also learn more about this world and you Ponies from you as well.” Waving her into my room I added, “Just, don’t be surprised if it turns out all I have to say isn’t very interesting. If you didn’t already know, where I come from we don’t have magic.”

“How does that work?” Twilight asked as she summoned a notebook and pen, and looked at me expectantly. “How is life in your world sustained without magic?”

“...If you’re asking how life came to be in my world, I don’t have a definite answer. But, I do know that the best guess our scientists had was that billions of years before we came to be, life started to form in the ocean. As far as I know, the world back then was really chaotic and unstable, and the conditions were just right for the first kinds of protobacteria to emerge. After that, I guess it just came down to evolution and darwinism picking out the most fit organism to survive and reproduce.”

“Fascinating,” Twilight furiously scribbled telekinetically without even looking at her notebook as she explained, “After only one question you’ve already provided evidence for Knighting Gale’s Alternate Origin’s Conjecture. If not for the fact that we have records of the Original Gods and the passing of their knowledge to the successors about the origins of our universe, many scholars have stated that they would fall back on Knighting Gale’s Conjecture as a theory of how life might have come to be on Equus.”

“You have records of “the Original Gods?”” I honestly couldn’t tell why I was so hung up on this particular detail. I probably had to do with the fact that there was literally no piece of media I’d ever come across where “Original/”Ancient/Elder Gods were anything but eldrich monsters you were better off not knowing about.

“Mhmm,” Twilight nodded at me as she explained, “The Source God of our reality was an entity named Faust. She made the universe and populated it with the stars, planets, and all other objects that made up the cosmic background. But that world was devoid of any meaning or change, so she made the rest of the Original Gods with the rest of her powers. The rest of the Original Gods sacrificed themselves to allow for mortal life to begin and thrive and the remnants of their powers are passed on to their successors.”

I would have asked more about the topic, but Twilight was quicker on the draw and said, “Anyway, tell me more about yourself.” She all but whined, “Tell me about your life before coming here and what your world’s culture was like. Tell me about how you managed your relationships and what you did for a living. I want to know—”

“Alright, alright,” I huffed. This unicorn probably wasn’t going to leave me be for a while, though, so I added, “I’ll be working on my project while I answer your questions though.”

So I picked up my notebook and continued writing where I’d left off with one of the split pieces of my consciousness while starting what was destined to be a long, long conversation with Twilight, “Where to even begin? I guess, I’ll start with my former occupation. I was actually the owner of a couple small software companies. I’d gotten into programming to make my own games when I was sixteen, so by the time I graduated college, I had more than enough experience and know-how to find a job at any company…”

“...So I can’t really tell you how different my world’s culture is from yours just yet. You see—” I’d been talking with Twilight for so long that I’d finished making all the calculations needed to move on to the prototype phase of building my future motorcycle’s engine. Consequently, even as I continued talking I started working with the metals and tools strewn all around the room, “—I haven’t really been exposed to much since I started working from inside the castle. The only real difference I’ve noticed so far is that you ponies aren’t as integrated with technology as my kind back on Earth are. Though, I guess it makes sense since you have magic and we don’t.”

“In what ways would you say that our lesser connection with technology separates our culture?” Twilight asked. Even hours later, she was still as enthusiastic as she’d been when I first let her into my room.

“Eh,” I finished using my Abilities to create the parts and compounds that would go into a working engine and started the assembly process, “In pretty much every way imaginable. I mean, humans pretty much depended on technology for everything; computers especially. All but the jobs that required manual labor were done on computers and even those that weren’t were probably automated with heavy industrial machinery. Computers were where we mostly got our sources of news, communication, and entertainment too.”

After that, for the next several hours she had me list out just about every way I could think of where computers could be used and to my shock, the overwhelming majority of them seemed to have blown her mind.

By the time I ran out of ways to exhort the myriad benefits that came from using computers, I’d nearly finished building the rest of my motorcycle prototype. More importantly, half the day had come to pass with the moon hanging ever closer to its zenith.

Even Twilight, despite her overwhelming excitement, had to admit that she was getting tired and needed to leave to go to bed. It didn’t stop her from stating that she’d be back as soon as possible to continue asking me more questions. Not that I really minded.

It was nice to be able to just talk to someone as I did with her. Even if it was just about mundane aspects of humanity. To Twilight, I imagine every new bit of information was as fascinating as the little bits of “lore” that she slipped in about Equus when she sometimes commented on the similarities and differences between our worlds.

Whatever the case, it was nice talking to someone who seemed genuinely interested in what I had to say. It was nice talking to someone who didn’t evoke a sense of existential dread simply by being in their presence or express emotions at their extremes when we met. Twilight was neither a Changeling drone nor the average pony.

Twilight was… someone I could see myself eventually befriending. It’d all depend on how her attitude changed the moment I ran out of new things to tell her. Only then would I see whether she’d be true friend material or just another smiling face that was content with acting friendly until they got what they wanted.

For as young as I was, I’d learned a lot from managing the businesses I’d built up or bought, so this wouldn’t be the first time I came across that personality type.

Author's Note

There is no update schedule for this story. The rate I upload depends mostly on how much free time I have to write new chapters. That said, I have quite a few chapters already pre-written. I just want to keep a reserve of chapters to maintain a buffer for when my lack of planning inevitably leads me into writing myself into a corner.

Anyway, for now, I probably won't upload much since I'm currently spending most of my time either working (I'm a full-time tax accountant) or studying to sit for several of the sections of the CPA exam. I probably won't get most of my free time back for a couple of months.

Chapter 9: Crisis

[Feat Achieved!]
[Whispers of the Mechanical God (Level 2 → 3) - Unique*]

I honestly couldn’t say I was all that surprised. It hadn’t been that long since I’d increased Whispers of the Mechanical God to Level 2, but as it turns out creating a motorcycle and then reinventing the way it used fuel was good enough to increase my Unique Ability again. It wasn’t even all that hard when I had Twilight to bounce around my theories and ideas with. Now, I was the owner of the first and only self-sustaining motorcycle in either world.

To the ponies of Equus, it might have been an interesting, if novel, idea to make a single — maybe two-person — vehicle. Many probably wouldn’t even see any use out of it since it was designed for human use. But on Earth? Even an idiot could see that I’d made a god-damn miracle that defied the laws of physics.

Honestly, I was making my accomplishment out to be way bigger than it actually was, since on Equus all living things were capable of miracles that defied the laws of physics; at least, how I have come to know them from Earth’s standards.

The point was that the first successful version of my motorcycle operated on a gas engine. It probably wouldn’t have mattered to anyone if I’d kept it that way, since one functioning motorcycle wouldn’t bring about a climate apocalypse when there was an alicorn goddess around and countless weather-manipulating pegasi.

I thought I could do better in a world of magic, though, so… with Twilight’s help and enough books to help a college graduate complete their PhD in Thaumatology, I built the Magic Engine. The result was a completely emission-free source of power that hilariously I had to redesign into the Magic Engine Mk. 0.5 to not kill myself while using.

Seriously, the original Magic Engine Twilight helped me build was strong enough to upgrade the train that ran through Canterlot. The first time I ran it through my motorcycle I nearly pissed my pants when I went zero to one-sixty kilometers per hour (100 in freedom units) in the span of a second. The G-forces acting on my body were one thing, the fact that I was doing the test run on a cobblestone road meant the potential for death had I hit a disagreeable bump.

The Mk. 0.5 boasted much tamer acceleration and enough power to travel at dangerous speeds. But the best part about either Magic Engine was the fact that they were self-sustained by the ambient magic that pervaded the world. In theory, they could run out of energy, but that would require maximum power loads to be sustained for hours on end, and even then it would only take another couple hours to fully recharge with the same ambient energy that powered them.

Thus, after completing a lap around the outermost streets of Canterlot on my bike, I unlocked Whispers of the Mechanical God Level 3.

On the one hand, I was pleasantly surprised by the effects despite having somewhat anticipated what they might have been from experiencing the change from Level 1 to Level 2. I’d gone from knowing about all Industrial Era (Mid 1800s) Tech to all Modern Era Tech (Early 2000s). On the other hand… I was absolutely horrified by the sheer depth not even two hundred years' worth of human progress had accomplished from all the information I’d suddenly gained.

Most of the things I learned about were great: Advances in modern medicine, modern programming techniques and applications for robotics, quantum physics know-how and rocket science…

Other things honestly scared me: Nuclear and Theoretical WMD weapons designs, recipes for Nerve Agents and Biohacking protocols… There was honestly a lot of stuff I feel I would have been better off not knowing about.

Fortunately, as the only one in possession of some of those more sinister uses of Modern Tech, I managed to convince myself there was nothing to worry about. Only I could make the worst of the knowledge I’d gained come to life and I couldn’t think up a reason for ever having an intention of doing so.

…

“What the— How many new projects are you starting?” Twilight asked as she entered my room. She’d been coming so frequently, that I’d started leaving the door open for her when I figured out she operated on a rigid routine.

“Huh?” I looked up at her from a piece of metal I was fiddling with and said, “Just two. I know this looks like a lot, but honestly, a lot of these are just part of the music studio set I’m classifying as one of those two projects.” I looked back down to keep working on the subwoofers I was trying to design.

Before I’d reached Level 3 in the Whispers of the Mechanical God, I wouldn’t have said that the quality of musical electronics on Equus was lacking. But, with what I knew now, it really couldn’t compare to state-of-the-art Modern Tech, could it? Let’s just say that there was a lot of functionality that hadn’t been developed yet.

Even before I’d finished my mystical magic-powered motorcycle, I’d decided that I would have taken some time to enjoy myself with one of my favorite pastimes on Earth; playing instruments and listening to music. But, since I’d suddenly gained knowledge on how to make some of the best versions of electrical instruments and digital audio studios…

I wasn’t not going to be working with the best things I could get my hands on.

“You’re making a music studio? And… Is that that fictional power armor stuff you once mentioned!” Twilight nearly shrieked as she looked at the other project I was going to be working on in conjunction with getting my music studio set up.

“Not quite,” I explained as I examined my work on the subwoofers. “Power Armor is like two or three degrees of complexity ahead of what I’m currently capable of making. So, I’m currently just trying to get a working mechanical exoskeleton suit.” I put the subwoofer down when I was satisfied that I was as good as I could make it.

“Anyway, you have any more questions you want to ask? I think we got through most of modern history before you left yesterday,” I said as I turned to look at her.

“No, um,” Twilight stammered, “I mean, I do have more questions, but I came to let you know that I’m going to have to leave for a few days to help with the Summer Sun Celebration in Ponyville. The Princess herself asked me to, so…”

“Ah, I get it,” I said as I got up and approached her. “It’s to let me know why you won’t be showing up and to not wonder why you’ve gone missing.”

“Something like that,” Twilight sighed, looking like she really didn’t want to go, but I knew from interacting with her for so long just how much Celestia’s words meant to her. “You could come with me and Spike if you want. I got permission from the Princess and everything.” She said while looking at me with hopeful eyes.

“Yeah, I’m going to have to pass on that,” I said. Even if she wasn’t looking at me so distraught, I would have explained, “You might not know since I rarely get out of my room, but many ponies don’t receive me as well as you do. To them, I’m this big scary monstrous alien. Even here at the Castle, it took weeks for all the staff to get used to me. I don’t think it’s a good idea to show up unannounced, during a celebration of all things, at a town that’s never even heard of me, Twi.”

“That’s… awful,” Twilight said as her ears flattened against her head.

“Eh,” I shrugged, “You know how I am. It doesn’t really bother me all that much. So, don’t worry about me while you’re away on your trip.”

“Ok, then. Goodbye Victor,” she said as she stood up on her hind legs and offered me a hug.

“Goodbye,” I accepted her hug and… Wow, there was a lot that I hadn’t been expecting. This had been the first time I’d hugged anything since coming to Equus and it wasn’t like I was much of an affectionate person back on Earth, but… Just, wow.

Twilight’s body was a lot lighter than I expected for a pony her size; especially after she stood up on her hind legs to nearly reach my height of 190 centimeters (~6’3). Her fur coat was also a lot softer than I’d expected from an animal. What really took the cake, though, was how she smelled. It was disconcerting how much she smelled exactly like a fusion of lavender and vanilla; not the “scent of lavender and vanilla” that things would get after washing with body wash or shampoo products that were artificially scented, but the actual products themselves.

“I’ll see you around, I guess,” I said as Twilight broke off the hug and turned to leave. She then nodded and closed the door behind her.

…

A day passed since Twilight had left. All seemed to have been going as well as it had been before I’d met the purple unicorn when the world was blindsided by an apocalypse. Pretty much everyone noticed right away as the day suddenly turned into midnight for no apparent reason.

Outside of the window from my room, I could see the streets of Canterlot devolve into sheer chaos as ponies of all the three different Races were running around, some even shouting in hysterics. Even within the castle, when I tried to get a hold of someone, anyone, to explain just what was going on, I was met with guards and the castle staff running all over the place, looking much too preoccupied to bother.

More than a little worried by everything I’d seen thus far, I thought it prudent to see if Celestia could tell me what was happening. I didn’t actually expect to make it all the way to hearing from her specifically, but there was bound to be one of her personal guards or someone else with answers for me.

Imagine my shock when on my way to the Courtroom, I found a group of pegasi carrying Celestia away on a stretcher.

“What the hell is going on?!” I barely manage to contain my spiking anxiety as there is a literal goddess that’s been struck unconscious!

“We don’t know!” One pegasi guard shouts back as he continues to hustle with the others. I decide to jog alongside them as he continues saying, “The Princess just fainted all of a sudden, and then the sun and moon were repositioned, and— and…”

“Oh shit,” I’m seriously panicking now as I calm down enough to try casting Identify on Celestia.

[Identified Status]
[Level: 500+]
[Name: Celestia
[Race: Alicorn
[Class: Goddess of the Sun]
[Details: An immortal pony… Currently suffering from the backlash of a broken Sealing Spell. Estimated time to make a natural full recovery is over a month long. This can be exponentially reduced by: being targeted with (at minimum) High Tier Healing Spells, taking Ultra Premier Grade Healing Potions, making a lifeforce sacrifice…]

I didn’t even bother considering the rest of the options as they only got more and more extreme in their cost. Moreover, Ultra Premier Grade was a standard of potion-making that I’d already achieved so all I needed to do was—

“Where do you plan on taking her?” I asked.

“To her personal doctor, where else?!” The pegasus snarked back, understandably given the uncertainty of the situation.

“I’m going to go make some medicines I think will help her recover,” and without waiting for a response I sprinted away from the group of ponies carrying the Princess and over to the alchemy lab that I was most familiar with.

Chapter 10: Resolution

“I think…” The monochrome Earth Pony looked hesitantly at me, “I think this is too much,” she finished as she looked back down to the crate I’d brought over. “Waayyy too much,” She emphasized as she shook her head and finished testing the last of the potions I’d made to help Celestia recover.

I may have gone a little overboard with replicating ten of each of the Ultra Premier Grade Potions I’d thought would help with the Princess’ recovery, but how was I supposed to know what was considered an effective dose for a goddess? If anything, before I’d met with the royal head doctor, I thought I might have actually had to go back to the lab to work on making Consumate Grade potions.

“One of each is more than enough to restore the Princess’ damaged thaumatological pathways. The only difference between Ultra Premier and Consummate Grade would be how quickly the effects take place. Whereas with your potions the Princess will probably need a whole day to fully recover and perhaps only half that time to wake up, Consummate Grade potions would bring her back to peak condition in minutes,” the doctor explained as she fed the potions into Celestia intravenously.

“I’m actually surprised you managed to bring just the medical potions she needed. Do you have some sort of medical background?” The doctor asked.

“Not really,” I shook my head. “Though, I do know a lot more than most about medicine. It’s kind of a prerequisite to be able to work on some of the projects I have lined up for the future.”

“Well, I’d say it’s serving you well enough for now,” the doctor smiled. “I’m sure the Princess will be up and able to handle whatever’s been going on in no time.”

With nothing else to say, we remained silently waiting for Celestia to wake up. The doctor, remaining monitoring her patient’s vitals and biomarkers, while I… I was left to reconsider a lot of my choices.

For a third time, I’d been completely helpless to do anything about a crisis. I hadn’t been able to do anything against the Changelings or Thestrals that captured me in my sleep and now I was being forced to wait for Celestia to wake up to do anything about the situation going on outside.

It was maddening to know that even when she woke up, there would be nothing I could do to further assist if there was some sort of threat against us. I mean, really? What could I even do against something that managed to affect her?

Honestly, thinking about it, my logic kept cycling through a depressing train of thought. As I was, I wouldn’t be able to do anything in a fight. Deciding to get stronger would probably be pointless, because how long would it even take to be a match for Level 500+ enemies? And really, that was the crux of the issue: Level 500+ potential enemies. Because what else could threaten Celestia?

Maybe I was going about this the wrong way, maybe I wasn’t. I couldn’t really tell because so far I hadn’t done anything to really understand how much a person’s Level played into their effective strength. I mean, back when I made my gun I was still the same Level regardless of whether or not it was in my possession; that much, I remember.

For all I knew, Celestia’s Level 500+ might have come substantially from her experience living several millennia as an immortal. For all I knew, despite her ability to move the sun, she might not be able to literally harness all of its powers for a direct confrontation against other beings on Equus.

In any case, no matter which way I looked at it, the root of my problem boiled down to me personally being completely useless in a direct confrontation. And, no amount of fancy gadgets and military-grade weapons would help if my base state was about as competent as a boiled potato.

Maybe… If I survived whatever was going on in the world… Maybe it was time to stop being so passive with my RPG powers. Maybe, I should at least try to get stronger. I mean, if not even the capital of the supposedly strongest kingdom on the planet was safe, then…

BOOM!!!

The wall on the left side of the room exploded.

“There she is, mine foolish sister,” A deep, feminine voice that resonated with power called out while I was picking myself off of the floor and checking to make sure I was still in one piece.

“Quite presumptuous of thee to have underestimated mine patience. Now, tis thine turn to rot in space.”

When I finally caught a look at the voice’s owner I was instantly cowed by the overwhelming pressure just looking at her inspired.

[Identified Status]
[Level: ???]
[Name: Nightmare Moon
[Race: Alicorn
[Class: ???]
[Details: A corrupted soul virus that’s taken possession of Luna, Celestia’s sister. It is an entity with the body of Luna and the personification of all her negative emotions, thoughts, and desires.]

With just a look, this Nightmare Moon thing telekinetically lifted Celestia’s unconscious form before doing something — probably sealing her powers if the magical chains meant anything — and sending her body way over the horizon so quickly that I couldn’t make out her form in just seconds.

Nightmare Moon didn’t even look around the room before she shot off the ground with equally baffling speed.

…

The next couple of hours were just, wild. First, the doctor who had been monitoring Celestia and I had been swarmed with guards. If not for the doctor being a witness who actively defended me, I’m quite sure I would have been executed, if not at the very least taken as prisoner for the Princess’ sudden and violent disappearance.

When we told the guard of what happened, the chaos in the palace only got worse as different factions of the guard started fighting over taking leadership during this emergency situation. There were even a couple pretty nasty fights that broke out, which might have terrified me less and amazed me more, if I hadn’t been worrying about being a casualty to the in-fighting between the ultra-powerful Earth Ponies, unbelievably agile Pegasi, and absolutely overpowered Unicorns that made up present military factions.

Before anyone could take the reigns and do anything meaningful in Canterlot, however, the sun and moons’ positions had returned to their normal spots — and since this was over half a day after this whole thing started, that meant their positions set to just after dawn. Just this phenomenon alone caused all of the in-fighting to stop and the general level of chaos in the city to calm noticeably.

Then, less than an hour later, Celestia returned with Luna and announced the return of Equstria’s diarchy after explaining — in none too great a detail — what had happened over the course of the prior “day.”

After a thousand years, Nightmare Moon had regained enough strength in the magically inert environment of the moon to break the seal that had kept her there. Then, she had returned to Equus and took advantage of Celestia’s state to send her to the Sun.

Her next step would have been to destroy, if not at the very least hide away, the artifacts that had allowed Celestia to best her a thousand years ago back at their old castle near Ponyville. But Twilight Sparkle had led a group of six total and they managed to both retrieve the artifacts in time and summon their transcendental power to literally vaporize the evil out of Luna; expunging Nightmare Moon as a parasite from her host.

It was the most insane thing I’d ever heard which I still found myself believing. I mean, I still had very very withdrawn reservations as to how much of Celestia’s retelling of what went down really happened how she said it did.

It was kind of hard to believe that six normal ponies — even if one of them was the genius that helped me develop the Magic Engine — managed to defeat an entity in the same league as Celestia. But, at the same time, I found myself wanting to believe it was possible, because, really? If they could do it, I could see a point in trying to get stronger.

I might not be able to use mythical artifacts of the Pony race, but maybe I could Invent a similarly strong superweapon. It’d be almost entirely useless if I wasn’t competent enough to use it in a fight against beings that moved at supersonic speeds. But then again, I was a living RPG Character without a limit in sight as to how high my stats could be raised.

If Twilight and five other, let’s call them relatively normal, ponies could overcome a god-like entity, why would I not be able to follow suit?

Author's Note

Oof, I try to make my chapters at least 1,500 words long and this one just barely managed to fall short of that. The next one will be a lot longer than normal to compensate for that; like ~2,500+ words long, excluding Status prompts/System messages.

Chapter 11: Advent

“Is there a reason, you can’t, I don’t know, just work out here with the rest of us?” Shining Armor, the Captain of the Royal Guard asked. “I can’t imagine it’s all that comfortable lugging around all those weights to and from your room.”

“Isn’t this area supposed to be restricted to military personnel only?” I asked as I finished setting back the last of the thirty-kilogram dumbbells I’d been returning.

“Technically speaking, this area is called the Royal Guard’s Gymnasium. Usually, that means that my branch of the Guard is the only one using it. But anyone employed by the castle as well as any visiting members of other branches of the military are free to use our equipment as well.”

“Oh, well… I guess it would be nice if I had access to some of these machines. Speaking of, why exactly do you guys even have ones like that?” I pointed at the Hack Squat machine as an example, “That one specifically looks like it’s been made to train a humanoid body type.”

“It’s to accommodate any visiting Minotaur foreign dignitaries,” Shining said.

“Cool.”

“Mhmm.”

Thus, I started working out in the Royal Gymnasium. It hadn’t been more than a couple days since the whole incident with Nightmare Moon and Luna’s return, and already I’d more than doubled all my Physical Stats.

How?

Well, it’s amazing what the human mind can accomplish — read “endure” — when it’s being fed a constant positive feedback loop. I wouldn’t have been able to deal with the constant exhaustion and borderline mania I’d at times fall into from working myself so hard, if not for the fact that I could literally see the results happen at an almost visible rate.

I definitely wouldn’t have been able to get anywhere near as far as I did if not for the Ultra Premier Grade potions I constantly drank to instantly recoup the gains from my training sessions. The fact that I didn’t have to wait for hours on end for my torn muscle fibers to grow back stronger, meant I was only limited by the amount of misery I could put myself under; which surprisingly was a lot.

How much was “a lot?”

Well… During my first attempt at a dumbbell chest press, I maxed out at eight reps with twenty kilograms on both my hands. On my first time working out in the Royal Gymnasium, less than five days later, I managed to pump out twelve barbell chest presses loaded up on eighty kilograms of weight. On Earth, you didn’t see that kind of growth unless you trained consistently for months and that was only if you were a complete newbie to strength training or on steroids; or both at the same time.

I stayed in the gym for almost the entire day since I felt like I was still at least a couple days away from reaching the point where I started seeing diminishing returns. It was honestly kind of amusing to see the looks the other ponies gave me over the course of their own workouts.

Usually, it was a guard that was going to be doing their hour or two of daily physical training to stay in shape. They would walk in and at most just nod or shrug at the sight of me. I’d catch them occasionally look over to see how I was doing. Then, inevitably, they would finish long before I was due to leave the gym and look at me like I was some sort of unnatural creature; which, admittedly, I kind of was as the resident alien from another universe.

“Bro… Who hurt you?” A pitch black thestral asked as I was finishing what had to be my fifth Recovery Potion of the day.

“Uh, what?” I nearly choked as I swallowed the rest of the potion.

“Why are you working out so hard? It’s almost dusk out and I first saw you in here just before I went to sleep at nine in the morning. The only times I’ve ever seen someone throw themselves so hard on a workout session is when a mare’s been rejected, hard. Do you, like, need someone to talk to or something? Because this can’t be healthy…”

“Nooo?” I struggled to find the words to say in response to… whatever that was. “I wasn’t rejected or heartbroken, or anything else. I’m just, you know, trying to get a little stronger. I didn’t like how helpless I felt when we were all stuck waiting to see what would happen with Nightmare Moon and it’s not like my body can’t handle this kind of training, so… Yeah.”

“You want to get stronger… To help out during an emergency like Nightmare Moon’s return?” I couldn’t quite place the kind of look the thestral was giving me.

“Yeah. I mean, I know that no amount of physical training will ever (probably) put me on the level of goddess like the princesses, but I just need to be fit enough to react if we ever had to fight those kinds of threats. I might not have magic, but I think I can make do with my inventions if I was given enough time to prepare… which is what I’m doing now.”

“Well, you’re going to need a lot more than just a fit body for those lofty goals, friend,” he patted me on the shoulder. “It’s one thing to be strong and fast, and another thing entirely to put that ability to use in a fight. So, whenever you feel ready to get some practical training in, you can come look for me. Just ask around for Chasing Haze.”

And with that, he left.

Weird…

…

[Level Up!]
[Level 30 → 40]
[+10 Stat Point]
[+10 Ability Point]
[Level Threshold Met!]
[+1 Subclass Point]

Upon receiving the notifications, I slowly set down the barbell I’d been shoulder pressing.

Crash!

Yeah… Even the small drop of a few couple centimeters from my back to the barbell rack was enough to make a harsh noise when it was coming from a hundred-twenty or so kilograms of solid metal. If not for the untold days of suffering I’d subjected myself to, I wouldn’t have been able to believe that it was already time again to pick out a new Subclass.

Anyway, it was time to look at my Status again.

[Status]
[Level: 40*]
[Name: Victor Hex]
[Race: Human]
[Class: Inventor — Metallurgy Specialist*]
[Subclass Points: 1*]

[Stats]
[Constitution: 7 → 41]
[Agility: 5 → 35]
[Strength: 6 → 39]
[Reflex: 6 → 37]
[Understanding: 12 → 43]
[Intelligence: 15 → 45]
[Magical Potency: N/A]
[Magical Control: N/A]
[Stat Points: 9 → 19*]

[Abilities]
[Whispers of the Mechanical God (Level 3) - Unique*]
[Automation (Level 2 → 3) - Unique*]
[Elemental Isolation (Level 1 → 2) - Unique*]
[Synthesize Alloy (Level 1 → 2) - Unique*]
[Identify (Level 2 → 3) - Intelligence 20*]
[Brainstorm (Level 1 → 2) - Intelligence 20*]
[Second Opinion (Level 1 → 2) - Understanding 25*]
[Danger Analysis (Level 1 → 2) - Understanding 20*]
[Ability Points: 3 → 13*]

[Subclass Points: 1]
[Details: Grants you access…. List of currently available Subclasses includes: Specialist (Chemistry, Physics), Technopath*, Runesmith*]

It’s times like these where I appreciate how infrequent I check up on my Status. It makes the large increases in numbers feel all the more worthwhile. More importantly, it pleases me in a way that’s just indescribable when I get to pursue through tons of new information, even if in the end I will have to make choices and not be able to have everything all at once; case in point:

[Technopath - Metallurgy Progression Path]
[Details: This Subclass and Runesmith are mutually exclusive. Once either is chosen you will not be able to change them. The way of the technopath is the way of internal development with one’s attunement to the Magic of Electricity, Lightning, Thunder, Magnetism, Metal, and Earth. Choosing this Progression Path will allow you to naturally cultivate Magic. This unlocks the Magic Potency and Magic Control Stat but restricts you to only being able to use the aforementioned types of Magic and their derivatives.]

[Runesmith - Metallurgy Progression Path]
[Details: This Subclass and Technopath are mutually exclusive. Once either is chosen you will not be able to change them. The way of the runesmith is the way of external development and of one’s ability to subvert the Natural Law. Choosing this Progression Path will grant you esoteric knowledge on Runsmithing which will allow you to make consumable Magic sources and spells of all kinds. Anything will be possible, so long as you have the resources and prep required.]

Oof, these were both really impressive options. One would finally give me access to my own magic, but tie me down to only being able to use certain types of spells. While the other would keep me as a non-magical human, but give me access to just about any magic in a different — almost certainly more costly — way.

Fortunately for me, the choice was simple since the Runesmith Subclass had countless times more potential than the Technopath alternative. With the way my Class was set up and the fact that I had Whispers of the Mechanical God especially, alongside all my other currently existing Abilities, there really wasn’t any reason not to choose Runesmith.

The Magic Engine Twilight and I made was already something of a proof of what a crude version of Runesmithing would be capable of. I can’t even begin to imagine how much more busted my inventions might be if I actually had a systematic understanding of what could be done to integrate Magic with technology. Because, really, that’s all Runesmithing was: A way to make non-tangible magic into a physical, malleable form.

Yoink.

Now I just had to look over my list of available Abilitie— Oh, god… That’s a frightening small scroll wheel, there.

[Ability Points: 13]
[Details: List of currently available Abilities includes: Toughen Skin, Physical Resistance, Magical Resistance, Force Concentrate, Reinforced Muscles, Extra Dense Bones, Bypass Acceleration, Contortionism, Double Time, Hypersensitivity, Bullet Time, Precognition, Reverse Engineer, Download, Runesmith: Neutral, Runesmith: Elemental, Metaphysical Link]

Even after collapsing out the details of all the Abilities I had available, I was still left with a rather sizeable amount of nifty new powers to choose from. Still, even if now I wasn’t completely against the idea of getting personally stronger, I wasn’t about to buy all the Abilities I had access to.

No, I would still be leaning into my already established strengths as an Inventor and only supplement what would otherwise be very difficult, if not impossible, to compensate with my inventions. For example, all the Abilities that were unlocked by reaching Stat Milestones with Strength and Constitution could be completely ignored. Having any of them would probably go a long way in making me considerably more likely to survive a conflict, but wouldn’t I be better off if I could just make myself a bunch of magical gadgets?

I already had an exoskeleton suit in the works. I’d certainly be taking the new Runesmith Abilities, which would only expand the limits of what I could achieve. So, it really wouldn’t be worthwhile to invest in any of the Abilities that made me physically stronger or more durable.

I mean, it could turn out that after leveling up any of those abilities, their effects would get so impressive that almost no degree of technology could be a match. But to get there I’d have to spend who knows how long developing the abilities. As I was, I’d rather just take my chances with focusing on Whispers of the Mechanical God and bank on continually getting increasingly advanced tech.

All that said… I took all the other Abilities. They simply offered way too much utility to pass up.

[Bypass Acceleration (Level 1) - requires Agility 5]
[Details: At triple the cost of the effort otherwise required, you may make movements with an effective acceleration rate double of what you would maximally be able to reach.]

[Contortionism (Level 1) - requires Agility 10]
[Details: The flexibility of your muscle fibers can no longer atrophy for any reason. Any development of flexibility will remain with you no matter how much time passes without you stretching.]

[Double Time (Level 1) - requires Agility 25]
[Details: You may ignore your body’s natural limiters on muscle contractions to move up to 50% faster. After ten seconds of sustained use, your muscles will begin to tear. After a minute, your body will begin to bleed internally. After three minutes, your organs will begin to shut down.]

[Hypersensitivity (Level 1) - requires Reflex 5]
[Details: All your senses are now twice as powerful. Your body has also been retrofitted with the ability to naturally dial in the degree to which you want to intensify your heightened sensitivity.]

[Bullet Time (Level 1) - requires Reflex 10]
[Details: Once every minute, you can dilate your perception of time to process up to three seconds of real-time twice as quickly.]

[Precognition (Level 1) - requires Reflex 25]
[Details: Within an effective range of 100 meters from your body, you will feel a sharp jolt of dread half a second before anything (that you don’t already perceive) threatens to deal any damage to you.]

[Download (Level 1) - requires Intelligence 25]
[Details: Gain information from any source simply by coming into contact with a target. The more complex and voluminous the amount of information there is to absorb, the longer it will take to absorb. Inanimate objects are exponentially easier to target.]

[Reverse Engineer (Level 1) - requires Understanding 25]
[Details: Allows you to take what you know about a theoretical object or application and come up with the ways to make it a viable, practical, or tangible asset.]

[Runesmith: Neutral (Level 1) - Unique]
[Details: Grants you knowledge of the archaic script for Runesmithing aspects of “Shape,” “Size” “Texture” and “Capacity.”]

[Runesmith: Elemental (Level 1) - Unique]
[Details: Grants you knowledge of the archaic script for Runesmithing aspects of “Earth,” “Wind” “Fire” and “Water.”]

[Metaphysical Link (Level 1) - Unique]
[Details: Allows you to bridge the gap between the “Physical” and “Magical.” This is the basis for your ability to use Magic despite not possessing any personal magic of your own.]

…

“...Are you doing alright over there?” Baked Fresh, one of the cooks in the royal castle’s kitchen, asked me.

“Yeah,” I sigh and forgo the attempt to use a combination of Double Time, Bullet Time, and Bypass Acceleration while in the middle of preparing my food. In retrospect, I can imagine just how unhinged I might come across while trying to kneed a dough at hypersonic speeds.

“Right, um… What are you even making?” The Earth Pony asked out of sheer awkwardness.

“Fettucine. I saw some shrimps and scallops in the fridge, so I’m making an alfredo seafood dinner,” I said as I strong-armed a stand mixer from within one of the cupboards and started screwing in a pasta attachment.

“You’re making dinner at two in the afternoon?” The pony asked, one of his eyebrows peaking in a way that blatantly showed his skepticism.

“Yes, but that’s only because I don’t plan to eat anything else for the rest of the day. I just call the dish a “seafood dinner” even if I plan on eating it for lunch.” Seeing that he was still confused, I added, “Where I come from, restaurants usually wouldn’t serve it unless it was during dinner.”

“Oh,” Baked’s face seemed to say.

“You know… You sure eat a lot of strange things,” Baked commented, his eyebrows scrunched up as he watched me continue preparing my food. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard anybody making pasta with egg in it.”

“Right,” I started heating up a pot to make the alfredo sauce. “You guys, er, ponies I mean, pretty much make most of your food with hay. If I remember right, the only pasta you make here is either raw hay pasta, hay wheat pasta, or vegetable pasta from zucchini.”

“We can make carrot, butternut squash, and cucumber pasta as well. But, zucchini is what the Princess asks for when she isn’t in the mood for a hay pasta.”

“Both of them?” I asked, noticing he used the singular “princess” instead of referring to both Celestia and Luna.

“No, um… Since her return, Princess Luna hasn’t made her preferences for food known to the castle chefs. In fact, now that you mention it,” a look of apprehension appeared on his face as he said, “I haven’t been given a single order by the Entremetier to prepare a meal for her.”

“So?” I gave him an odd look. “Didn’t she just come from a thousand-year exile on the moon? Maybe she’s lost a desire for food. If anything, I think it’s weird that Princess Celestia eats at all since she is immortal.”

“I don’t know,” he seemed really nervous as he said, “Immortal or not, isn’t it kind of… what’s the word… unseemly to be catering to just one of the Princesses? I know it hasn’t been long since Princess Luna came back, but… What if it isn’t that she doesn’t want to eat and instead it’s that nobody has bothered to ask her about it?”

“Hmm,” I hummed as I thought over his question. “You know what, I think I’m going to try asking Princess Luna directly. Don’t let anyone try to clean up the food I’m still in the middle of preparing, please.”

And with that said, I turned off the stove and began walking out of the kitchen. I knew from first-hand experience that in situations like these — where questions needed to be asked — it was infinitely better to try to get answers firsthand, than remain idling while waiting for someone else to fish for answers at their own pace.

Having learned a bit more history on Princess Luna as a proxy to understand Nightmare Moon a bit better after the whole incident involving her, I knew there were a couple other possible reasons for why Princess Luna hadn’t apparently had any food since her return.

Perhaps she really had just lost a desire to eat anything after a thousand years without any food. Perhaps… No one in the castle had bothered to ask her if she wanted to eat because the only people they catered to was Celestia and the staff under her employment. Perhaps no one thought Princess Luna to be a legitimate princess with her history as Nightmare Moon.

I wouldn’t know for sure unless I asked Princess Luna directly and this whole situation was a pretty good excuse to strike up a conversation with her. While I was at it, I might even learn enough about her to figure out what her specific Level was as well as how much more work I’d need to get through to stand a chance against this world’s god-like entities.

Author's Note

Sorry about the wall of text. It probably won't ever get that long again.

Chapter 12: Lunch

It did not inspire any confidence in me what I’d seen in my short journey to discovering where Princess Luna was. For starters, nobody seemed to know exactly where she was at all and it was only on my third attempt at asking one of the castle’s maids in the hallways that I learned where the princess’ chambers were.

It took nearly half an hour just to get a possible location of Princess Luna’s whereabouts and to add insult to injury, her room wasn’t even located on the same wing as Celestia’s chambers. To make matters even worse, I noticed that there were no guards apparent as I approached the Moon Princess’ room.

Knock, knock, knock…

A few seconds passed before I heard, “Come in.” I could just barely make out the muffled voice through the door.

I opened the door and was met with a peculiar sight. In the middle of the room, atop a massive pillar-laden bed, Princess Luna was sitting or maybe lying down while looking in my direction. A fleeting glance around the room was enough to tell that she was at least being accommodated as much as I’d expect given her Princess status, but it was odd to me that she was just idling about; had I been in her position, the last thing I’d want would be to sequester myself to a room, no matter how extravagant or luxurious it may have been.

“Hello,” I said.

“Greetings,” she responded and at that moment I started noticing the differences between her and Nightmare Moon. Like how her voice wasn’t as deep and free from underlying malignant intent or how her coat was a shade of purple just shy of the pitch-black that Nightmare Moon had.

“Doth thou require our assistance? For what purpose has thou approached us?” Princess Luna asked.

“To be honest, I wasn’t expecting to actually get to talk to you. But since I’ve made it this far and you’ve already decided to… entertain a conversation with me, I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions about yourself.”

“We would not be opposed to a simple conversation,” she said as she lowered her head to rest on her bed. At that same time, a flash of light blinded me momentarily and when my sight returned I saw a chair had appeared a few feet away from the bed.

It was a bittersweet feeling to have not spent even a minute talking to Luna and already learned of yet another power of hers to add to the catalog. So far my understanding of her abilities included: superstrength, superspeed, flight, sealing magic, celestial magic and now there was either conjuration or summoning magic that could be added to the more-than-likely incomplete list.

“Thanks,” I said before getting to my questions. “Now, the main reason I decided to come look for you was to ask if you’ve eaten anything since your return. I was chatting with one of the cooks while making my own food in the kitchen and he made a passing comment that he hadn’t received a single order from the chef he works under about a meal for you.”

“Thou dost know we art an immortal alicorn, correct? We have no need for mortal sustenance.”

“You know, I actually said something along those lines when I was talking to Baked. In any case, what I really wanted to know is if you’ve actually gone out of your way to not receive any food. Like, have any of the castle servants asked if or what you’d like to eat? Or have you simply turned them down by your own choice?”

“This isn’t to say that I can completely relate to your situation, but I wasn’t exactly well received by the majority of ponies when I first started living in the castle. Please excuse me if I’m imposing, but… after reading about your history, I’d like to think I can imagine how you’d be received much worse than me,” I said.

For a time, the lunar princess just stared at me expressionlessly. I was beginning to feel sweat start to form from the thought that I’d insulted her when she sighed. “T’was it that obvious? We know not whether to laugh or cry to behold one such as thyself being the first to notice.”

The look of intense melancholy that shined through her eyes made me break eye contact as I said, “So they have been ignoring you, are afraid, or it's something else. Whatever the case, presuming you haven’t eaten anything since your return, do you want me to make you something?”

“Perhaps. T’would depend entirely on your ability to satiate my palate. Doth thou presume competent enough, sir… pony whose name I’ve yet to learn?”

“My name is Victor Hex, I’m a human, and yes… I’d like to think I’m not arrogant for believing I’d be able to make food that’s good enough for you. As a royal alchemist, I think of cooking as just another form of alchemy and even if I’m more proficient in making potions and the food that I regularly eat, it shouldn’t be much of a problem to adjust to your requests,” I said, fully believing everything.

“Royal alchemist?” Princess Luna’s head rose as her eyebrows reached their peaks. “Art thou jesting with us? Thou hasn’t a trace of magic in thine body. Wait… How dost thou not have a trace of magic in thine body? Tis an impossibility!” Before I could even perceive her movements, she had risen from her resting position to all fours.

“Yeah, it’s kind of a thing that’s unique to me. Technically speaking, I’m an extradimensional alien from a different dimension where magic doesn’t exist at all. Also, before you ask, I don’t know how or why I was brought to this world,” I said, sighing as I was reminded of the countless questions and tests Twilight had conducted to verify the truth of my statements.

At the thought of her, I made a mental note to ask Celestia about her whereabouts whenever the opportunity arose. Ever since she’d left for that festival she’d mentioned, I’d not seen nor heard from her and I could clearly recall that the event she left for was only supposed to take a few days for her to get through. She didn’t even look like she wanted to participate, so I couldn’t imagine what might be holding her up from returning to drown me in more questions.

“Verily?” Princess Luna asked. When I nodded, she continued, “Then we simply must see your skill firsthand. Let us go henceforth to the kitchen and after a meal, then the laboratory!”

Much like I didn’t expect that I’d be getting to talk to her at all, I never would have imagined a situation where the princess was actually interested in talking with me all the way from her room to the kitchen. Like Twilight, she was the second pony I’d found who found potent interest in my existence.

…

“You want something novel?” I took a second to consider her request before asking, “How about a bread-bowl soup?”

When she nodded excitedly, I shrugged and started pulling out the required ingredients. Since I no longer cared to try using my new Abilities in the kitchen, I spared no effort in spamming Automation to prepare the food faster than anyone else could.

“Oh dear, you’re making another one of those strange dishes again, aren’t you?” Baked Fresh asked as he looked nervously between the ebony princess who waited from the other side of the room and the rapidly changing ingredients that were quickly processed and incorporated into the food I was making.

“Call it strange if you want. Until you try it, you just won’t understand how amazing a cheesy broccoli soup tastes when eaten straight out of a bread bowl,” I said, right as I got through the most time-consuming part; picking out the last ingredient.

“Thou’s power mirrors those of chronomancy! Fascinating,” Princess Luna said as she saw the various pieces of diced raw vegetables get turned into a steaming soup in the pot after I used an instance of Automation. She wasn’t really wrong, since the most impressive part of my Automation Ability was the aspect of it that let me skip the time involved in any manual process.

It took a minute for the soup to come together and two for me to finish my own dish as well as “magic” up a bread to turn into her bread bowl. In more or less three minutes total, we found ourselves in the dinning hall right outside the kitchen with our food plated in front of us.

I ate a forkful of my alfredo seafood dinner and waited for Luna to take a bit of her own meal before asking, “So? How is it?”

“Tis most… unusual, though not without its own merits. We quite like it,” She said as she telekinetically manipulated a spoon to drink the soup. Her face lit up when she paired the soup with bits of bread that she cut up with a floating pair of fork and knife. “Thine food tis much more complex in flavors than we anticipated.”

“I’m glad you like it,” I said before properly getting into enjoying my own meal.

Every so often, Princess Luna or I would pause to ask or answer a question. My questions revolved around the extent of her abilities and hers would reflect regarding the extent of my Automation’s utility.

Everything was progressing swimmingly as I tentatively ignored the mostly negative attitudes of the ponies that passed through the kitchen. At best a servant or staff that passed by would ignore myself and Luna, and at worst… I had to physically restrain the urge to roll my eyes as the height of melodrama played out from behind Princess Luna in the form of horrified expressions and almost palpable fear wafting off of the same ponies who gave me similar reactions.

Then Celestia walked into the dining hall, escorted by a host of personal guards and the executive chef of the castle with her meal.

“Oh? I didn’t expect to see you out and about at this time, sister,” were the first words to come out of Celestia’s mouth. She then turned to me and with even more surprise, said, “And eating a meal with Victor in the dining hall as well? This is a most unusual turn of events.”

“We weren’t expecting one such as himself to be approaching us either, but his company has thus far been most appreciated. Quite the interesting, er… man, he is,” Princess Luna said. And no, her praise did not cause my face to light up; everyone in the room was just hallucinating if they tried to tell you otherwise.

“You,” Celestia looked at me. “Went out of your way to look for her?” She looked back at her sister. After turning to me again, she asked, “Why?”

“After you, she’s the next best person for me to learn more about Alicorns and since you’re always busy, I thought I would go see if she was available,” I said, lying by omitting the original reason I’d gone to Princess Luna in the first place.

I don’t think it’d end well for me to say the truth and potentially undermine Celestia’s competency if she’d been unaware of her sister’s treatment. It’d also be bad if she did know what was going on, actively did nothing about it, and then I brought attention to the matter against her wishes.

“What do you want to know about Alicorns?” Celestia asked as she started eating her salad.

“Summarily, it seems that from our conversation he wants to know nearly everything there is to tell regarding our kind,” Princess Luna said. “In the short time we’ve spoken with him, he’s asked us about everything ranging from anatomical questions to historical ones.”

“I thought your attention was completely dominated by those machines you constantly work on. Even for my little ponies, very few would find any interest in studying equinology,” Celestia said.

“What can I say?” I gestured helplessly. “I’m an alien in a world full of different sentient magical creatures. It’s hard to put into words just how interesting I find even the most mundane things about ponies like yourselves. Especially after having my brain picked endlessly over the last couple of weeks with Twilight.”

“Speaking of, do you know what’s been holding her off?” I asked. “It’s been well over a week since I saw her off and from our last conversation it didn’t sound like she wanted to be far from the castle for long.”

“My student has taken a permanent residence in Ponyville,” Celestia said. “Ever since she became the Element of Magic, she has been studying the Magic of Friendship alongside the five others who make up the Elements of Harmony.”

Ping…

I dropped my fork as I struggled to keep my expression as still as possible. It was taking all of my willpower to not let my impulses drive me into laughing in the face of the most inane sentence I’d ever heard.

Study the Magic of Friendship? By virtue of my Runesmithing Abilities, magic as I understood it could not possibly get that abstract. Magic was about manipulating and transforming the free-floating energy that made up the fabric of reality. Magic was about bending the laws of the universe to your will. The world was supposed to be running on a hard magic system, not a soft one with ambiguous potential.

“Is that so? Well, I guess I'll have to visit her the next time I get a chance,” I said after ensuring that my countenance wouldn’t break.

“Are you too caught up with your next project?” Celestia asked as she dabbed her mouth with a napkin, having finished her meal. “With your abilities and proficiency in alchemy, you wouldn’t even need to ask for time off to go visit her if you just left us with the amount of potions you’d normally make for the time you plan on being away.”

With a nod, I said, “I’ve been making very good progress with my goals lately and I don’t want to ruin the sort of flow-state I’ve fallen into. I think it will be another week or two before I think I’ll be ready to take a break from my projects and visit her.”

“What are these goals and projects thou art pursuing?” Princess Luna asked as she too finished eating the last piece of bread from her bread bowl.

“To be honest, I have too many to count. But, the earliest I plan on getting through before taking a break include: Rounding out the last of the gains I can make from physical training before the diminishing returns become too cumbersome to continue. I want to finish the music studio and exoskeleton suit I’ve been building for the last couple of days. Lastly, I’ve come across a kind of casting system for magic that in theory I should be able to use. I want to see if I can actually put that theory into practice and cast something simple like a fireball spell.”

“If there was ever anyone with the ingenuity to pull that off, it’d have to be the creator of the Magic Engine,” Celestia said as she smiled at me. “Please inform me if you manage such a feat despite lacking a thaumatological system. It could very well revolutionize the study of magic as we know it.”

“Sure thing,” I said, and with that, we said our farewell and went our separate ways.

I didn’t mind sharing the secrets of Runecrafting with anyone. Not like anyone but me would ever likely understand the meaning of the archaic script. And really, it was in Understanding that there were any benefits to be reaped from studying the art of Runesmithing. In the unlikely case that someone managed to crack the meaning for themselves, there wouldn’t really be much of a point to using Rune-based magic if one was inherently capable of evoking magic by themselves in the first place.

Using the language of runes was just a proxy for natural spell casting; at least that was the theory behind it. To compare casting with runes with normal spellcasting would be like comparing writing code in C++ to writing code in binary. Where a unicorn would logically be able to sequence the transformation of magic as if they were writing in a C++ within a fully fleshed out Code Editor, the way Runecasting would work for me would be like slaving away on a Notepad trying to hardcode a barebones program in binary.

I really hoped it wouldn’t be that bad. But the knowledge of the Ability in my head said otherwise…

Chapter 15: Arrival

“Do you know not the meaning of ‘rest?’” Princess Luna asked, breaking me out of my meditative trance. She’d been making an effort to speak with modern terms, but she was still a ways away from sounding like anything other than a Shakespearean noble.

“What do you mean? I am resting,” I opened my eyes and made eye contact with her. “If I wasn’t, I’d have ran the whole way to Ponyville or maybe taken my bike. Instead, I’m on the train with you.”

“Yet the potency of thine— your magic script constantly blazes as if being put to use. Whatever do you hope to accomplish?” She asked.

“You can actually feel that?” I balked, “I just… was feeling bored doing nothing but waiting for the train to reach our destination, so I started tinkering with my Runes. Despite how strong their effects might seem, to be honest, they’re just a bunch of rudimentary power concentrated into a single point right now. I was trying to add an element of finesse and technique to them. Am I bothering you?”

“No… Tis but a mystery to us the vehemence with which you pursue your goals. Doth thou… Do you not ever simply relax to pass the time or perhaps occupy yourself in fleeting conversations?”

“I guess,” I shrugged. “Why? Do you have something on your mind?”

With a nod she said, “We’ve been at a loss trying to find other music similar to what thou hast shown us. We’ve tried looking for other electronic music out in the market, but none art as aggressive nor emotionally charged as the piece you showed me.”

“Hmm… I haven’t really checked out any of the electronic music native to this world, so I don’t know if the genres you’re looking for have even been developed. But…” I pulled out my music player and handed it over to her, “Check this out.”

“After I got the first iteration of my exoskeleton suit and music studio completed, I managed to make a working quantum computer chip.” I won’t say it was easy, but it was simple enough with the resources I had at my disposal as well as the comprehensive knowledge that allowed me to understand how to build it.

“It might not mean much to you, but with the processing power of the quantum computer chip, I managed to implement a pretty advanced machine learning AI to… You’re not understanding anything I’m saying, are you?” I asked as I took note of the look of utter confusion on her face.

Yeah, I probably shouldn’t be spouting off all this technological jargon to the recently returned princess who had almost literally been living under a rock for the past thousand years.

“Anyway, I finished another project of mine and that allowed me to recreate more songs for you to listen to if you want. The point I was trying to make about the chip is that it also allowed me to reproduce the voices of some of the artists from my world, pretty much identically. So, there are also some songs with lyrics on them.”

For the next couple of minutes, I introduced her to some other songs I quite liked. Of course, with the emotional outburst she made last time still clear on my mind, I methodically picked the least offensive songs I could think of while slowly showing her more impressionable music.

Everything seemed fine enough when I started her off with “Levels” by Avicii. But by the time we reached Ponyville, where I was due to exit the train, she looked more than a little distraught after hearing the first half of “Fresh Static Snow” by Porter Robinson. In hindsight, I probably shouldn’t have let her listen to the Live version of the song which had pretty intense drop growls.

In any case, she had business elsewhere to attend to, so we said our farewells and I deboarded the train.

…

“Ok, this is straight up ridiculous,” I mumbled under my breath as I watched in irritation as the last few straggling ponies finished making their retreats.

I’d taken maybe six steps outside the train before I’d been noticed by the locals. The moment the first pony took off like her life was on the line, the rest quickly followed as they made their fear of me very, very clear.

They ran fast enough to kick up dust trails. Running into the closest building they could find before slamming the door shut and following up by slamming any open widows too. More than one unicorn teleported away, while some of the pegasi shot into the sky.

In a matter of seconds, the bustling village center — smack dab in the middle of where the train stop was located — turned into a ghost town with nary a sound or sight to suggest otherwise.

“Damn,” I muttered as the realization dawned on me. How was I going to find Twilight if literally no one was around willing to give me the time of day to ask?

Taking a look around, I was taken aback by the lack of any guard presence; the one group I was confident my status as a royal alchemist would give me an in with. I probably shouldn’t, given the only guard I knew about was the E.U.P. (Earth Pony, Unicorn, and Pegasus) Royal Guard, but there should at least be some sort of local police presence. What the hell were these ponies supposed to do if I really had been the threat they’d thought I was?

At a loss as to what I was supposed to do, I started wandering around the deserted roads of Ponyville. My destination was supposed to be a library, so I decided to just visit random large buildings until I stumbled into Twilight.

“Oh. My. Goodness.” A voice drew my attention. “Is that a human!” The same voice said followed by a furious stomping that grew louder with every passing moment.

The charging mint-colored Unicorn just barely managed to stop before crashing into me. It didn’t stop her from giving me this unhinged look as she circled around me, muttering incoherent ramblings.

“You’re familiar with humans?” I asked, ignoring the signs of lunacy as there was a good chance the crazed pony knew Twilight, knowing that she should be the only person in the village in the know about my existence.

“Of course I know about humans! I’m one of the very few anthropologists in the world. I just never imagined I’d actually get to see a real person in my life. You’re kind are creatures of myth and legends.”

How ironic for a Unicorn of all things, to be saying that.

“Oh, could you please let me touch your hands! Pleeease…”

“Sure, um… Just, so long as you help me out. I came here, looking for someone,” I said, somewhat amused to feel the unicorn fiddle around with my right hand and fingers.

“Oh?! Have you come to enact vengeance on one of your mortal enemies? Who in Ponyville could be so foolish as to invoke the undying wrath of a human?!” The unicorn asked. For reasons I could not even begin to conceive, she looked even more excited even as she spoke of my coming to her home to hurt or kill someone. Was the correct reaction to her own insane conclusions not to run away in fear?

“No? I have a friend who recently relocated here from Canterlot. I haven’t seen her in a couple of weeks, so I decided to come pay her a visit. And, maybe take a little vacation from my job while I’m at it.”

“Are you talking about Twilight Sparkle? She’s the last pony I can remember that’s moved here from Canterlot. Though, it would make sense if the Element of Magic is the one who’s managed to befriend a human like you.”

“You know where I can find her? Great,” I said, strategically choosing not to clear any of her preconceived notions on humanity. I mean, despite making me out to be some sort of monster, she wasn’t put off by her own beliefs, so… yeah.

…

“—never imagined you’re kind would have transcended the need for magic entirely. Though, it would be just like the stories said about humans being inherently incapable of personally possessing any magic themselves,” Lyra said as she came to a stop. “I’ll have to let you get to your business with Twilight here at the Golden Oak Library, but hopefully you can spare me some more of your time before you have to leave?”

“This is the library?” I asked, bemused by the sight of a literal tree house. I couldn’t imagine there being enough space in the domicile before me to contain an entire library; and certainly not one large enough to contain the bookworm force that was Twilight Sparkle.

“That’s right. Twilight and her assistant Spike have been living here for the last couple of weeks,” Lyra said.

“If you say so,” I shrugged. “Also, about your request. Let me know when and where you want to meet, since, like I already mentioned, I’m going to be staying in Ponyville for some time off my normal work. Besides seeing Twilight, I don’t have much else to do.”

Enthusiastically, Lyra Heartstrings, as she finally introduced herself to me, conjured up a paper and pen and wrote her details for me. She then happily trotted away, leaving me all alone before the “library.”

Knock, knock, knock…

When the door opened, I smiled as I said, “Spike, nice to see you again, bud.” And really, it was; to see a familiar face as well as one belonging to a dragon that didn’t want to kill me arbitrarily.

“Victor? What are you doing here?” Spike asked as he met my extended fist with his own in greeting.

“I thought it’d be nice to pay you and Twilight a visit. I was also due for a vacation, so I decided to do both at the same time. Are you and Twilight too busy? Or… You know, busier than she normally keeps the both of you,” I asked.

“Not really,” Spike said as he led me inside the library and— What kind of insane magic is expanding the space inside the tree house to fit all of this! I just about tripped as I quickly calculated that the inside of the tree had to have been at least ten times larger than it appeared on the outside.

“Ever since she made friends with all the other Elements of Harmony, she’s actually slowed down on her studying and started hanging out with them like she does with you. It’s pretty much gotten rid of half the work I did in Canterlot.”

“Uh huh,” I nodded along. “Sounds like you have a lot more free time now. A good, hardworking kid like you deserves it.”

He led me into the kitchen where Twilight and a few other ponies were standing before a table and eating meals. To Twilight's left, there was a white unicorn with a purple mane. To her right there was a yellow pegasus with a pink mane. And across from her—

*Warning*

My pupils shrunk to pinpricks as my body instinctively shot itself to the left and just barely managed to dodge the prismatic blur that passed by the spot I’d previously been in. Body Strengthning Runes activated and with the rest of my Elemental Runes sublimating under my skin in anticipation for an unfavorable combat engagement, I tried to hone in on the last pony that had been eating in the kitchen that for some reason decided to attack me.

[Identified Status]
[Level: ??? (Current Estimated Level: 70+)]
[Name: ???
[Race: Pegasus
[Class: ???]
[Details: Though unassuming at a glance, this light blue pegasus with a rainbow-streaked mane has in one move shown extreme finesse when it comes to movement. Capable of accelerating to hundreds of kilometers an hour and stopping just as quickly in fractions of a second within an environment as constrained as the library. Even through her coat of fur, tight rippling muscles comparable to a trained Earth Pony can be seen. Current Estimated Level is probably a low-ball.]

Even with the insane reading speed I’d developed over the last couple of months, having processed all the information from Identify in milliseconds, just as I willed the prompt to close and focused back on the threat at hand, I was struck by the blue blur of a pegasus and knocked down on the ground.

“Oof,” It honestly hurt a lot less than I expected, but I was still wheezing from having the wind knocked out of me. Clearly, the pegasus wasn’t aiming to kill me, considering she used her ungodly control over her speed to not hit me full force, but since I was panicked from how quickly it was all happening, I tried to get her off me like my life depended on it.

Palming her underside as she held me down in a pin, I activated my Wind Rune and blasted her with enough pressurized air to launch her into the ceiling. My next move would have been to create some distance to minimize her advantage in outmaneuvering me, but before I could do anything, a purple forcefield entrapped me and the pegasus, where she landed.

“Stop fighting!” Twilight said as she galloped over to me.

“I was just defending myself,” I said as I raised my hands up in mock surrender. It might as well have been a real surrender considering Twilight could easily beat me in a fight if she wanted to; even if I had my exoskeleton suit, her mastery of magic made her much more of a threat than she appeared.

“I know,” she gave me an apologetic smile, before turning to glare at the blue pegasus. “Why did you attack him, Rainbow Dash?!” She shouted.

“I don’t know? Seemed like a good idea at the time. I mean, whatever that is clearly isn’t a pony. My gut reaction was to assume it was a monster and attack it before it attacked us,” Rainbow Dash said.

“Spike literally led me into the kitchen,” I deadpanned at her. “Wouldn’t I have, I don’t know… Attacked him first if I was going to attack any of you?”

“Uh… Yes?” To me, it didn’t look like she even knew what she was answering.

“Right,” I rolled my eyes before turning back to address Twilight. “Anyway, I came by to see how you were doing, since you apparently decided to abandon me and Celestia back at the castle,” I snickered.

“I— I did not!” Twilight said with indignation. “I just… It’s complicated.”

“Relax,” I said as I ruffled her mane playfully, “I know you’re here on some super secret mission to learn about the Magic of Friendship or whatever. It’s good that you’ve found some friends here, is what I’m trying to say,” I laughed and took a step back when she started to glower at me.

“Hmph,” She didn’t deign me a response.

The other three ponies that until now had been excluded from the exchange, however, looked like they had a lot they wanted to say. Or ask.

Yeah, the way they were looking at me, I could already see I was in for a long conversation…

Chapter 16: Solution

“Darling, if you could please introduce us to your friend? I’d quite like to get to know someone who appreciates fashion around here,” the white unicorn said, addressing Twilight, though she kept her eyes firmly on me. Er… my body, or clothes more likely.

“Of course!” Twilight perked right up as she dragged me over to the table, where the other unicorn looked at me expectantly while the yellow pegasus… I think she’s trying to hide behind her hair.

“This is my human friend, Victor Hex, from Canterlot!” She pointed at me with a hoof. “And these are my new friends in Ponyville, Rarity,” she pointed to the white unicorn, “Fluttershy,” she pointed to the yellow pegasus, who responded by shrinking further into herself, “...and Rainbow Dash,” Twilight finished lamely as she looked at the rainbow-maned pony who trotted over the table.

“Mhmm,” I nodded along as I offered a hand/hoof-shake to Rarity, “I can be your go-to for any alchemical needs, technological innovations, information on humans… and I guess monster eliminations now, too.”

Technically, by Equestrian Law, I was an honorary Monster Slayer after taking out the dragon that had tried to kill me. All it took was to kill a Monster, and the definition of the term was unbelievably ambiguous; literally any living being with an unjust intent to kill (as defined by a bunch of laws or the Princess’ discretion…) would be classified as a Monster.

“You’ve killed Monsters?” Rainbow Dash gave me an unimpressed look.

“One, and it was self-defense,” I sighed. “I mean, sure, it might have been a little bit my fault for having gone all the way over to the Badlands. But, what else was I supposed to do when a freaking dragon tried to assassinate me and then tried to eat me anyway after I tried to get it to stop?”

“You killed a dragon?!” Rainbow Dash, Twilight, and Spike all yelled at the same time. Though, their tones were completely different from one another. Rainbow Dash was looking at me with newfound respect, Twilight looked even more skeptical than Rainbow Dash did previously, and Spike was currently taking discrete steps away from the table.

“Yes,” I said. “It wasn’t difficult at all because I was wearing my exoskeleton suit at the time and it severely underestimated me. And, no Spike, it wasn’t a dragon like you. It was a Sky Wyvern Monster that tried to kill me just because it wanted a snack. You’re still a friend in my eyes.”

At that, Spike relaxed and returned to the table. He looked like he wanted to say something, but Rainbow Dash beat him to it. “How’d you kill a dragon?! Unless it was a little colt or filly dragon like Spike, those things grow to be huge and wicked strong!”

“I built a suit that makes me physically stronger,” I said. “I’d never been in a real fight before, so when I was attacked by the Monster, I hit it as hard as I could.”

“That alone killed a dragon?” Twilight’s look of doubt only intensified. “Sky Wyverns may not be considered True Dragons, but even their decade-old young have reinforced hides that can protect them against the average Earth Pony mare or stallion.”

“Twilight, I know it hasn’t been that long since we last saw each other, but I’ve gotten pretty strong. I even managed to develop my own way to use Magic, so it’s kind of hard to put into words exactly how hard I managed to hit the dragon to kill it.”

For a moment, all was quiet. But eventually, Twilight slowly said, “...You what?! How! Wait. Just now you used magic to throw Rainbow Dash off of you!” She made her way over to me and started poking and prodding at me with her hooves and tactile telekinetic magic. “How can you do that when you’re body is completely devoid of magic and thaumatological pathways?”

“I use Runes,” I said as I shook her off me and activated my Body Strengthening Rune for her to examine. “You can think of them as temporary, artificial “magic veins” that are encoded to utilize magic in a very specific way.” If it were anyone else, I would have dumbed down the explanation, but this was Twilight, so…

Seeing as she started salivating while devolving into an incoherent rambling fit at the mere thought of discussing the matter further, I cut my connection to my Rune off and gently shook Twilight back to the world outside her head. “Later, Twilight. Later…”

“Um… I don’t quite think I’ll be needing most of your services,” Rarity said. “Of all the things you mentioned, the bit about human information interests me the most; specifically that marvelous style you’re currently sporting. If you’d indulge me, I’d like to know more about that.”

“The clothes?” I asked, looking down to remind myself which set of clothes I’d picked for the day. When she nodded, I said, “They’re nothing special, just a polyester t-shirt and cargo shorts. If you want to count my shoes, they’re plain high-top sneakers.”

“Poly-what-now? I’ve never heard any of these terms,” Rarity said with a sad frown.

“Makes sense to me,” I shrugged. “Everything I wear, I made myself based on what the people where I’m from normally wear. They’re not considered very fashionable where I’m from; most of it is common everyday wear for utility.”

“Oh, I’d just love to take you down to the boutique and learn all about your clothes.” Rarity sighed as she took a look out the window to the evening, setting, sun, “Unfortunately, it looks like the last of my free time for this week will soon run out and I’ll be all caught up with work for who-knows how many days…”

“I’ll probably stick around Ponyville for at least ten days. I’ll be staying at the town inn, so if you find yourself with some of that precious time, you can find me there… unless I’ve wandered off somewhere.” It was times like this when I realized just how badly I missed having my phone.

Perhaps, one of my next big projects will be to recreate radio telecommunications towers. Would that be too small scale? Maybe, ramp up directly to the point where we have satellites and an internet? It’d probably make Celestia’s work countless times more efficient… at the cost of making her life that much more miserable from having to keep with everyone who would then be able to contact her.

I mean, could you image how much more overworked she’d be if foreign dignitaries could call her at the drop of a hat? Maybe she’d finally get around to establishing a proper government with a secretary and some administrators; she’d have to if she didn’t want to be overrun with work.

“Um… Well… I also have to go.” Fluttershy quietly said. “It’s almost dinner and, and… My animal friends are waiting for me.” Without any context, I had no idea what she was talking about. Consequently, I was more invested in knowing why she was so skittish or dare I say shy.

On second thought, the answer was obvious. When in doubt, you could always count on the abstract, incorporeal force that seemed to compel parents into naming their newborns with striking predictive accuracy as to what their future Cutie Mark or matured personality would be. I hadn’t met a single pony that wasn’t implicated by this force and that went doubly so for Celestia and Luna.

“Yeah, I should probably go, too,” I said. “I should get checked in and drop off all my things. Can someone point me towards the inn?”

Spike ended up leading me to the Ponyville Inn personally. For some morbid reason, he seemed particularly interested in asking me all kinds of questions as to how strong the dragon I killed was. He gained this glint in his eyes that only seemed to intensify after he asked me to confirm the extent of my powers, especially after I included details about my exoskeleton suit.

…

After getting a room and unpacking my things, I sat on top of the much-too-small bed and sighed. It was going to be a miserable vacation for me if I had to constantly deal with the inexplicable fear most of the ponies in town had against me. If not for Spike, I doubt I would have even been able to get a room at the inn without the owners running away for their lives.

I wouldn’t always have someone to help me out, so I had to resolve the issue as soon as possible. Fortunately, I had an idea in mind that should fix things quite nicely. I just had to make sure it was possible first.

I fiddled around with my Runes for a moment and… Uh, Surely, it couldn’t be that easy?

Right?

I was running both my minds through all the details I’d included in the Rune I’d taken minutes to create, going so far as to enter a meditative trance to utilize Brainstorm in the process. Danger Analysis nor Precognition didn’t so much as hint that there would be any possibility of backlash. But even then, I decided to comb over just about everything I knew about magic to make sure I wasn’t unknowingly about to kill myself.

Three hours later, deep into the night, I found myself right where I’d started. There was nothing to suggest that the “simple” Rune I’d created could harm me with its activation. I was just about ready to throw caution to the wind and activate it to see the results firsthand, when one of my two minds pondered using Identify on the Rune as an afterthought.

Logically, since I was the creator of the Rune and knew all the details that went into its creation, there shouldn’t be anything Identify could tell me that I didn’t already know. But, just in case…

[Identified Status]
[Name: Unnamed Rune]
[Composition: 98% Shape, 2% Capacity]
[Tier: ???]
[Details: Comparable to a simple Transformation Spell, this Rune transforms the caster such that their Race temporarily becomes that of a Pony. Ingrained in the Rune is a safety circuit to undo the transformation with just a thought. It is powered by a Capacity script that should power the spell for up to one hour. Pony Type and physical details are not defined in the Shape script. Final form will therefore be random upon first use, but ultimately fixed and known afterward.]

Welp, that was the last thing I could think of to postpone testing the rune. Thus, with that last confirmation that, yes, the Rune was probably safe as can be, I decided to power it with my Metaphysical Link and see what would become of me after I turned into a Pony.

I galvanized the Rune with magic in front of a mirror to see exactly what would happen and to my chagrin, the transformation happened faster than I could perceive. There wasn’t a puff of smoke or really any indication that I’d used magic besides maybe a pulse that I couldn’t detect. One moment, I was my normal human self and in the next, I found my line of sight lower by about a foot and my body get replaced by—

The transformation undid itself before I could even get a good look at myself.

“Hmm?” I took another look at the Rune with Identify to check what the problem and after another hour of “debugging” the problem, I realized what I needed to do.

Apparently, for whatever reason, the form I naturally took after using the Rune was that of an Alicorn. I hadn’t even considered that was possible considering their godly nature, so when I turned into one, the hour’s worth of magic that would have been used to maintain the form of a “lesser” Pony was used up in an instant.

There were two ways around the issue. Either I beef up the existing Rune’s Capacity Runescript to hold a veritable ocean’s worth of magic to sustain my Alicorn form. Or I could redesign a variant of the Rune to specify that I want to transform into a normal Unicorn, Pegasus, or Earth Pony.

It didn’t take more than a second to decide it was infinitely more convenient to pick the latter over the former. I mean, a big part of the reason I wanted to transform in the first place was to become inconspicuous. I couldn’t really do that if I turned myself into the rarest type of Pony of which there were only three in the current era.

Oh well, it’s not like I couldn't continue working on the original transformation Rune on the side. Who knows, maybe someday I’d need a reason to pretend to be a Pony God?

Probably not, but maybe Celestia or Luna would get a kick out of seeing the transformation. They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, after all.

Chapter 17: Disguised

“Hmm…” I hummed as I looked at my transformed self.

It had taken the better part of the night to get a version of the Transformation Rune to turn me into an Earth Pony, but now that I was looking at the results, I was more than satisfied with what I got. Not that I had any right to complain to begin with, it had only taken mere hours to completely rewrite my biology from a Human into a magical, talking Pony. If anything, I was blown away by how good the final result was.

I had literally turned into a Pony. Not covered myself with the illusion of becoming a pony. No… Everything down to an anatomical level was changed. My vision, field of view especially, was better, and my sense of smell was better. I’d taken a bite out of a piece of a hay-and-oats bar that was part of the complimentary snacks provided by the inn, and the otherwise inedible bar to my Human counterpart actually tasted great.

Hell, even my Status had changed.

[Status]
[Level: 45 (60) (Effective Combat Level: ~Level 45)]
[Name: Victor Hex]
[Race: Human (Earth Pony)]
…

[Stats]
[Constitution: 41 → 42 (92)]
[Agility: 35 → 37 (57)]
[Strength: 39 (89)]
[Reflex: 37 → 38 (58)]
[Understanding: 43 → 44]
[Intelligence: 45 → 46]
[Magical Potency: N/A → 0 (10)]
[Magical Control: N/A → 8 (18)]
…

[Abilities]
…
[Earth Pony Form (Level Max) - Tentative Ability]
[Details: Changes your Race to Earth Pony, giving you access to acquire any of the Unique Abilities of a natural Earth Pony. Retroactively applies the following bonuses to your Stats: +50 Strength & Constitution, +20 Agility & Reflex, +10 Magic Potency & Magic Control. Furthermore, changes Level Calculation by changing Inherent Levels to 33]

Unless I explicitly told others, I doubt anyone — bar maybe some Unicorn going out of their way to experiment on me — would be able to tell that I was actually a transformed Human. Walking outside of my room and into the streets once morning came, I no longer had to worry about Ponies running for their lives after taking so much as one glance in my direction.

No… Now, instead of running away in fear for their lives, I was simply getting stared at by most Ponies. There were a few reasons I could think of for why this might have been the case.

In a town as small as Ponyville, perhaps, they were all simply curious as to who the stranger was in town. Perhaps the fact that I was a rather large, even as an Earth Pony, stallion was the cause for most of the looks. Maybe, it was a combination of the two…

Or, it could just be the fact that as I tried to walk around, I kept tripping over my hooves like a newborn — That would certainly explain the precipitous drop in my effective combat level. Pony foals were supposedly able to walk as soon as a few hours after they were born, so I can imagine what I must have looked like as a fully grown stallion who constantly stumbled as if it were the first time I was talking a stroll; which, was exactly the case for me.

Anyway, now that I was no longer unable to interact with the locals, I made my way over to the marketplace at the center of the town. I didn’t really have much to do aside from rest, relax and maybe wait for someone to come around looking for me, so I was going to be focusing on simple projects until I got back to Canterlot.

First, I went to the local blacksmith — because of course those were still a thing in a world that primarily ran without the aid of computers and electronics. Usually, I had the maid who attended to me in Canterlot Castle do this for me, so this would be the first time I bought raw materials for myself.

“Welcome, to my shop, er… You new in town, or something?” The stallion stationed behind the blacksmith’s storefront said as I entered the store.

“Only for a little while. I’m here on vacation and to see some of my friends,” I said as I approached.

“You’re visiting a blacksmith during your vacation? You’re an odd one, stranger. I’m Ferrum Forte by the way,” he said as he extended his hoof.

“My idea of fun is definitely considered odd to many,” I acknowledged as I accepted his hoofshake. “Victor Hex, by the way.”

“Well, Mr. Hex, what can I get for you today?”

“Here, I made a list of everything I need,” I said as I handed him a piece of paper I’d been carrying from the inn.

“Uh… I have a few of these items, but, er… I gotta ask: What the heck are you planning to do with all this stuff? To me, it looks like a bunch of random raw materials.”

I admit that it certainly would look like that to anyone who didn’t know I could use Automation.

“I make my own equipment. I’m going to use most of those materials to make a few “cooking devices.” Ever heard of an espresso machine or a fermentation chamber?”

“Coffee and booze?” Ferrum looked at me like I was crazy.

“Exactly! Those are just two of the things I plan on making. It’d be a shame to not have good coffee or booze when I’m supposed to be on vacation, right?”

“Sure… Just, you know this is going to cost a fortune, right? Just the barrels and piles of metals you can buy from me is going to cost you a hefty 2,779 Bits. Also, unless you want to be making a hundred trips, you’re also going to need a wagon which will cost another 5,000 if you want one big enough to carry everything you’re asking to buy.”

“Damn. How could I have forgotten,” I lamented as I reached over to my wallet/pouch-turned-saddlebag and handed over 78 Rainbow-colored Bits — The standard Gold Bit was worth one Bit, the Platinum Bit was worth 10 Bits, while the Royal Rainbow Bit was worth 100 Bits.

“Well damn! Are you loaded or something, mister?” Ferrum asked as he handed me back my change of 21 Bits. “That kind of money is more than enough to cover a few months' worth of living expenses here in Ponyville.”

“The Princess pays me a very good wage,” I said as it dawned on me how unbelievably wealthy I must have been if his words were true.

My daily salary was 8,500 Bits and I could effortlessly increase that if I made more than the standard 10 potions that were required from me per day. Before coming here, I thought I was just moderately well off. How utterly naive of me to not realize I was making “fuck-you” levels of money. Most likely, Canterlot’s cost of living was absurd, I mean it was the capital of Pony society and home to the overwhelming majority of the Pony nobility.

“You work directly for the Princess?” Ferrum asked. “What’s that like?”

“She’s busy all the time, so I don’t really see her and to be honest, there’s not much to my job. I just make a couple of potions for her and call it a day.”

“Jeez, man. No need to be so humble,” Ferrum shook his head. “An Earth Pony making potions for the Princess? You must be crazy talented to pull that off.”

“I mean, she hasn’t complained yet,” I said and left it at that.

…

Walking around Ponyville after getting all the things from Ferrum, I dragged my wagon all over the town until I finished buying the last thing on my list, near noon. Long before then, my theory that Canterlot’s cost of living was astronomical was confirmed and as I was walking back to the inn, I calculated that it was nearly twenty-eight times higher than that of Ponyville.

That was… something. I mean, even back on Earth, I couldn’t think of a country that was nearly thirty times cheaper to live in than in the U.S. Some, I could recall, were seven, maybe eight or even nine times cheaper, but even third-world countries weren’t any cheaper to live in than that. Then again, the U.S. wasn’t even the most expensive country to live in on Earth, so maybe there was a much larger disparity I wasn’t aware of.

Fortunately, it seemed the disparity in cost of living between Canterlot and Ponyville didn’t impact quality of life that much. Granted, I wasn’t exactly seeing any rows upon rows of extravagant mansions or luxury vendors anywhere in the town. But by that same token, there weren’t any signs of overt poverty either.

The streets were clean, every building I’d been in was furnished with working electricity and plumbing, and I’d not come across even a hint of homelessness or crime, uh… Ever since I was taken in by the Changelings now that I thought about it. In neither the Changeling’s Hive Colony, Canterlot, nor Ponyville, I’d not seen anyone so down on their luck.

Weird… But, more than acceptable. Equus was far from a true utopia, but at least in this regard, it was much better off than on Earth.

In any case, as I finally returned to the inn, I parked my carriage, went back to my room, transformed back to my normal Human self, and put on some goddamn clothes before I returned to the carrige to start working with what I’d bought. Turns out, I would have to heavily invest in modifying the Transformation Rune before I’d get to the point where I could get it to magically store and re-equip my human clothes when I transformed.

On my way back to the carriage, I stopped by the innkeeper’s desk and sure enough, the mare standing at attention was the only Pony who hadn’t already run off at the sight of me. While commendable, she was currently sweating through her coat to the point where I could notice, so I decided to skip the pleasantries and get to the point immediately.

“Say, I was planning on listening to my music while I, uh… work” I rolled my eyes. “Are there any noise ordinance laws I should know of before I turn up my speakers?”

“Um… T-there shouldn’t b-be. Vinyl Scratch hosts her DJ shows a-all the time a-and she n-never g-gets in trouble. But, er… , I wouldn’t really k-know. Maybe she get’s special permission to be so loud because it’s for her job?” She said, seemingly asking herself before her nerves returned and she addressed me once again, “Y-you’d have better luck asking M-Mayor Mare.

Waving her off, I started to walk away as I said, “I’ll just keep the music at a reasonable level until someone starts complaining.”

When I returned to the carriage, I hooked up my music player, selected a song arbitrarily from my “Safe For Pony Ears” playlist, and started working on making tools for brewing alcohol. Ever since I’d increased Automation to Level 3, I’d earned the ability to bypass time as a part of any action involving manufacturing or production.

Unfortunately, it cost a lot of “physical stamina” to use that particular aspect of Automation, such that if I tried to age anything for more than a few weeks, I’d feel like I’d just finish sprinting a marathon at max speed. So, after I made all the equipment for making a few barrels worth of alcohol, I worked on making all my other appliances; actually aging the alcohol would be the last thing I did on any given day.

I made myself a miniature freezer, filled it up with water, and by the time I was done with making myself the espresso machine, I had the ice to make myself a nice Iced Coffee. Back on Earth, I’d been called a “psycho” for being able to stomach pure unadulterated coffee, but that was more out of laziness than actual preference.

The truth was that back when I still had a day job at a nine-to-five, the office always had a fresh pot of coffee for anyone to take. They didn’t provide any milk or sugar, though, and since I was too lazy to pack my own and too frugal with my money to not take advantage of the opportunity, I got used to drinking straight-up black coffee after months of going to the office.

Now that I had more than enough energy, time, and money to actually make what I liked, I made the most basic iced latte imaginable and… I enjoyed it for about three seconds before I noticed the group of Ponies that had surrounded my carriage.

Author's Note

It's a goddamn Christmas miracle!

I actually managed to come back to a story I stopped writing for and complete not one, not two, but three whole chapters. Unfortunately, picking up this story again ended up feeling more like work than it did make me happy to keep writing and the call of a new story drew me away. I mentioned in the new story I've already started to publish chapters for that I'd been working on this one and thought it'd be rude to hold out on the chapters I'd been saving. So... here's the first one. I'll upload the next two between today and tomorrow.

Chapter 18: Hunt

“...Hello?” I asked as I put down the glass of mostly full iced coffee and paused the music.

All at once, the group of Ponies surrounding me seemed to become aware of their actions, as if they hadn’t known they were surrounding me until I’d announced it. They grew visibly nervous until Lyra, who had been in the crowd, asked, “Why’d you stop it?”

“Um… The music?” I asked.

“Yeah! It was soo good! I couldn’t even hear it when the magic drew me over here,” her eyes shined.

“...There’s magic? In my music?” I asked slowly as I stood there, uncomprehending of the situation.

“Mhmm,” Lyra nodded her head as she trotted around impatiently for me to continue playing music from my speakers.

At her insistence and with more than a little curiosity to test what I’d just been told, I resumed the song that had been playing and watched the Ponies slowly lose their anxiety around me as they nodded their heads along to the music.

Interesting… I waited for the song to end. They had been listening to one of the most milquetoast pop songs I could stomach, if only from the positive memories they inspired from my adolescence, “Happy - Pharrell Williams.” This made me wonder what would happen if they heard something a little… Maybe a lot more intense.

Unlike with Luna, where I didn’t want to risk upsetting the friendly Lunar Deity, I felt no such reservation against the group of mostly xenophobic Ponies that congregated around me. Lyra was the only one I might feel a bit bad for if my little experiment went sideways, but given how much she knew about me as a Human, a little bit of “mischief” was likely to be expected.

So, as the last few bars of “Happy” ended, I transitioned from the end of that song to start playing “My Only Chance - The Toxic Avenger.”

The moment the song started, I could see a tonal shift in the audience. Dozens of ponies suddenly froze up as the chopped-up vocal clip that looped throughout the entire song accompanied a few pads and synths. Then, the bass and drums kicked in and I could almost see the apprehension turn to dread throughout the crowd.

It only got worse as the song progressed and the full extent of the variations to the melody and arpeggiation of the synth arp resounded from my speakers. Now, personally, I couldn’t understand how the ponies picked up on that distinction of tone from the song, considering that the first time I heard it, I had no context and just assumed it was a badass final boss theme.

Ironically, that was more or less what the song was, just with a depressing twist at the end of the game Furi. Without knowing the plot of that game, I would have never associated the song with anything even remotely “sad.”

The crowd around me, however, looked pretty bummed out. Despite their non-human face, they made pretty empathic frowns, their body language turning withdrawn and reserved. Some were even openly crying. Whether it was from the power of magic or the sadness of the deeper context of the music they shouldn’t have known about, I couldn’t tell.

Almost seven minutes later, the song came to an end. As I found myself standing in a depressed congregation of Ponies, I felt guilt-tripped enough to return to the “Safe For Pony Ears” playlist.

Amazingly, despite sitting through what looked like a terrible experience for them, just about all the ponies that had stuck through “My Only Chance,” remained as I kept the music going. For the next couple hours, those with enough free time to kill stuck around to listen to the majority of the songs I’d recreated by DJ Okawari.

…

Near the time evening started to set into dusk, I finished making the last of the appliances and tools I wanted for my stay in Ponyville. It was to the discontent of many a Pony, that I stopped playing music from my speakers, right in the middle of a song from the Sonic R OST. With hours having passed since I started my “not-work” in the wagon, the group of Ponies had grown from a couple dozen to nearly a hundred.

“Alright, everyone. The show’s over,” I said as I used Automate for one last time to turn the assortment of parts I’d been making for my last “tool” into a hunting rifle. As I slung the assembled weapon over my shoulder, I said, “It’s getting late and I need to get going if I want to finish the last of my, uh, errands today.”

To the chorus of groans and grumbles from the dispersing Ponies, I just laughed. To think that in just a few hours they could all go from being ill at ease and unnerved by my presence, to now openly groaning and moaning their displeasure without a care for how I might react.

Shaking my head, I got out of the carriage and headed south towards the Everfree Forest. I’d already confirmed that no one in town sold meat, so if I wanted my own, my best bet was hunting in a neutral zone where Monsters and non-sentient wildlife were fair game.

Unfortunately, by the time I reached the outskirts of the Everfree Forest, the setting sun was about to bring about dusk; meaning, I’d only have an hour or so of natural lighting to work with. Of course, with my experience roughing it out in the wilderness in my first few weeks in Equestria paired with my enhanced senses — courtesy of Hypersensitivity — I should have more than enough time to work with.

It didn’t even take five minutes to pick up on a promising trail. But, after tracking down the source, I was left wanting.

[Identified Status]
[Level: 50+]
[Name: ???
[Race: Cursed Spirit
[Class: Timberwolf Alpha (Common)]
[Details: Formed from Chaos Magic that animates the branches of a magically conductive tree. Reminiscent of a wolf in appearance, it is actually a construct of various gradients of soil, fused branches, bushes, tree leaves and chaos magic. Leads a pack of 15 total. Likely resistant to most forms of Magic and conventional physical attacks. Known to possess extensive regenerative capabilities and a weakness to flames of any kind.]

“Well, damn,” I mumbled as the pack of wolves noticed me while I appraised their leader and started stalking their way over to me.

Calmer than I expected, I brandished my hunting rifle and used Automate on the scope to detach and store it away in preparation for a close-quarters engagement. At the same time, a particularly impatient Timberwolf decided to charge me alone.

With its teeth bared and its clawed paws outstretched to gut me, I activated Bullet Time, took aim, and fired. Wincing from the recoil, I re-racked the bolt action rifle, aimed at another Timberwolf and obliterated the top half of its body similarly to what happened to its fallen comrade.

Did I mention my hunting rifle was chambered in 50 BMG? It seemed like a good decision to make my weapon have at least that amount of firepower when I knew there were fully grown Hydras and Manticores prowling in the Everfree Forest. Against those apex predators, I had a moderate amount of confidence when put against my rifle. Against the Timberwolves, though?

Boom! Boom! Boom!

It was beyond overkill as a single well-placed body shot turned the wooden constructs into piles of sawdust and dirt. Even the Alpha, whose body didn’t just straight up evaporate upon getting hit, had its entire head blown cleanly off and since that was where the core of its magic previously existed, the rest of its body simply keeled over as an inanimate pile of wood and dirt.

Fortunately, after eliminating the Alpha, the rest of the Timberwolves fled for their questionable lives; I was still on the fence regarding whether they technically counted as living/sentient beings. It was a good thing for me because I didn’t come geared with high-capacity magazines. With five shots spent, I only had three left in the gun.

I had extra magazines to pull off a few reloads, but unlike in a video game where the remaining ammo in my magazines got cycled into the rest and my character always followed a preset animation neither would apply to me in real life. In a real firefight, I had no experience in reloading under pressure. I was also responsible for keeping track of the number of bullets I shot, had remaining, and when it was time to reload.

Luckily, I came out of the exchange with the Timberwolf pack unscathed and without a single missed shot. Hopefully, that good luck would continue with me leaving the Forest with a big haul soon.

…

“O-ok, this is getting ridiculous” I gulped as I loaded up my last magazine into the hunting rifle, disbelieving in how quickly my luck could turn.

*Danger*

By the skin of my teeth, I managed to propel myself back in time while under the effects of my Body Strengthening Rune to avoid getting skewered by the Manticore’s nearly foot-long claws. I’d already shot the damn thing no less than twelve times and though it looked a bloody and gory mess, it was still fighting completely unimpeded by the injuries.

[Identified Status]
[Level: 120+]
[Name: ???
[Race: Everfree Manticore
[Class: Raging Monster (Rare)]
[Details: Tainted by Chaos Magic for an untold amount of time, this Manticore has lost its ability to reason and communicate intelligently. It acts only on its baser instincts and its insatiable gluttony for anything it can consider food. Known possible abilities include: Body Strengthening and Transformation Magic, Berserking, and Manifest Chaos Poison. Inherently weak to the extremely cold temperatures.]

At the rate I was going, my chances of winning weren’t looking too good with just eight shots left if twelve apparently amounted to jack squat. So, while I was at an impasse and my mind raced towards any answer to my current crisis, I came upon a plausible, if only slightly insane, idea.

It would take precise timing, expose me to great risk of bodily harm, and more likely than not fail. But… If I wasn’t wrong in trying to exploit the potential loophole I’d just conceived of for my Metaphysical Link Ability, I should be able to manifest a Rune on one of the few bullets I still had.

If it worked, though, and I managed to get a round to go any further than skin deep into the raging Manticore, then I would have a much better chance at finally dealing enough internal damage to either kill it outright or get it to flee.

Even with my Body Strengthening Rune, I wasn’t confident in being able to outrun the Manticore. So, it was either a battle of endurance — of waiting for the monster to exhaust itself enough to feel confident in trying to run away. Or I could take the risk of trying to empower my weapon with a different Rune at the cost of having to give up the Body Strengthening Rune that was currently allowing me to keep up with the beast’s speed.

It was either risk making a mistake while fighting against the preternaturally fast multi-ton monster for who-knows-how-long, or gamble on my own Abilities and potentially make out like a bandit right away.

It took until the Manticore managed to score a moderately deep cut horizontally across the left side of my face for me to place my hopes on using a Rune on my weapon. We must have been “fighting” for less than three minutes, and though the cut wasn’t the worst of my injuries, there was no telling how much longer it would take for the magically enhanced monster to start running out of steam.

So, I continued to bide my time, dodging and weaving through its attacks as best as I could until the Manticore tried lunging at me for what felt like the hundredth time. Right after I managed to evade it, I turned off my Body Strengthening Rune and tried applying an “Ice” Rune to the bullet through the hunting rifle I held.

[Feat Achieved!]
[Metaphysical Link (Level 1 → 2) - Unique*]

It happened in a literal blink of an eye, but the process was deceptively complex. Only possible through spamming Automate, I manifested a Wind Rune and a Water Rune, aiming to reformat their default properties to jury rig the bootleg prototype of an Ice Rune while fitting in a Capacity Rune to pump the spell with as much power as possible.

Having worked with micro-inscription tools for some of my other projects, the runescript for the Rune came out small enough to fit on the surface of one of the larger caliber bullet’s casing. From creation to application, the Rune took milliseconds to form. That was also roughly the amount of time it took me to fire its payload after making it.

The bullet left the barrel of the rifle with a distinctly sharper whistle than all the other bullets I had fired and a remarkably low bang. It hit the Manticore right on the center of its chest while it was just about to finish another leaping bound towards me which I would have no hope of dodging now that my Body Strengthening Rune was inactive.

For a split second, I grimaced as the Manticore tanked the bullet like it had the dozen others I’d shot at it and leaped at me to seemingly no further hindrance. Then, about halfway along its jump towards me the Magic contained in the Rune discharged all at once and a lance-like icicle spear formed out of the spot the Manticore had been shot all the way through to its back.

The icicle exploded just as quickly as it appeared in a burst of crystalline pieces of ice and I quickly deduced it must have been because the ratio of Wind to Water runescript must have been off.

“And there goes—” I panted, winded from having struggled to dodge the felled Manticore for the past couple of minutes at maximum effort, “—half of the damn haul.”

As I caught my breath, I stayed on my feet and kept a lookout for any potential scavengers that might have been lurking, drawn by the sounds of my gun during the fight. Eventually, I felt composed enough to take off my backpack and begin field-dressing the corpse. I had come prepared with a slew of knives, a cutting board, and an excessive amount of large opaque plastic bags so that the return trip to Ponyville did not end up obliterating all the goodwill I’d earned through playing my music by showing up with monster’s corpse dragging behind me.

It was almost completely dark out by the time I finished packing away the last meat-filled bag I could fit inside my backpack. By the heft of the backpack I felt as I slung it over my shoulders it must have been several hundred pounds and even then, I probably left a good 30% to 40% of the total yield I could have gotten if I had come with a bigger backpack.

Oh well, I didn’t feel too bad about leaving so much food to waste. Surely in a place as chaotic as the Everfree Forest, something would quickly make use of what I discarded. Moreover, “waste” was a pretty ironic thing to call it considering I definitely wasn’t going to be able to eat all the meat I was bringing back before I returned to Canterlot.

I would be happy eating a steak every day of my life, but not for every meal over the course of the next couple weeks.

Chapter 19: Surprise

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Prologue: Create Your Character

I didn’t think twice about opening the link to the otherwise suspiciously blank email. I just assumed it was yet another one of Bob’s projects he wanted some help with. I’d helped him out with his game development journey for years now and was used to it.

When the link opened up a new browser, I was taken aback by what appeared on the screen. He’d never sent me anything about a character creation sheet, never mind one with such a refined UI.

“Hmm?” I hummed, somewhat amused as I barely had to scroll to reach the bottom of the page. I guess it makes sense that the first draft I received wouldn’t have much to offer despite how good it looked at first glance.

I scrolled back up and decided to play around with what little options there were available.

[Pick a name] [Given Name, Surname]

Clicking on the two available prompts, I felt my lips quirk upwards yet again from amusement.

[Given Name: Air, Trebol, Hammerfist, Angel, Button, Soliloquy, Timeworn, …]

“What the hell kind of names…” I mumbled as I accidentally clicked outside the list and closed out of it. When I clicked over the option to choose a Given Name again, an entirely new list of “Names” was generated. After repeating the same actions of clicking outside before refreshing the list, I realized Bob was probably going for a random name generator for both the Given Name and Surname options.

“Ugh,” I rolled my eyes as I scanned through my options. I made a note to let Bob know he should add the option to write out a desired name before shrugging my shoulders mentally and just picking the least obtuse-sounding name I was comfortable with.

[Name: Victor Hex]

Moving along with the character creation process, I was given a few options on how to change what the default character looked like.

[Choose appearance] [Hair, Eyes, Scars, Tattoos, Accessories]

“...Must have only gotten part of the way through with all the options for changing the character’s head,” I nodded as I looked through my options with an appreciative eye. For a moment I was going to make another note to remind Bob to add more generic options — like for changing the structure of cheeks, nose, eyebrows, etc. — but after looking at how many options there were for what was available I decided otherwise.

I chose to give my character [Medium Long, Wavy, Brown Hair], not unlike my own, with similarly [Light Brown Eyes], [No Scars], a [Barcode Tattoo] along the cheeks, and a set of [Monoblock Sunglasses] to complete a sort of cyberpunk aesthetic.

Next on the character creation list was what looked like the alpha version of the questionnaire Bob had told me would decide the character’s Class, beginning stats and abilities. He mentioned something about wanting it to resemble some Pokemon Dungeon Colosseum game I’d never heard of… I think? Whatever.

Anyways, the first question:

[Question 1: You have some free time. What do you do?]

[Answer 1: Call up some friends and hang out!]

[Answer 2: Free time? What free time?! I’m always working or studying or doing something productive!]

[Answer 3: Return to sleep…]

I went with the second option. Not because I related to the hyperbolized sentiment, but because it went with the image I was building for my character. If I had to describe the kind of background I wanted to give my character it’d be something like the Corpo Lifestyle from Cyberpunk 2077.

[Question 2: If you had to choose, which would you say closest matches a major goal in your life?]

[Answer 1: Become famous! Or powerful! Ideally, both! I want my name known to all! I want to be a living legend!]

[Answer 2: Get rich! I want to be able to do whatever I want and not care about the consequences to my bank account!]

[Answer 3: Find love! Riches, fame, and power… What are they good for if I don’t have someone to cherish? Maybe more than just someone.]

Again, the second option made the most sense. An aspiring corporate bigshot would value money and resources over just about everything else. Fame would be anathema to the roguish combat style I imagined my character would have. The only power they would be interested in was political power. And the less there was to say about a cold psychopathic killer’s thoughts on love… the better.

[Question 3: You find yourself threatened by a drunk at the bar. How do you respond?]

[Answer 1: Curse the moron out and put up my fists. There’s an idiot that’s about to get a beating!]

[Answer 2: Try to pacify the situation. Even if it means taking a few insults or paying my way out, I’m not about to risk my well-being or reputation on some drunkard.]

[Answer 3: Grin as I shatter a bottle against the bartop. Then I calmly give an ultimatum, “piss off or die!”]

Three times in a row? I made a note to let Bob know he should probably rearrange the order of the options since it seemed to me like they were set up in an unsatisfying way. I wasn’t sure why, since the fact that there seemed to be a pattern shouldn’t have detracted anything from the “descriptively humorous” options players could choose from.

[Question 4: If you had to fight, which would you rather do?]

[Answer 1: Charge the enemy! Close combat all the way!]

[Answer 2: Fight from after! Magic or not, I’d rather not risk the damage.]

[Answer 3: Can I run support? I’d rather not be in a fight if I can help it.]

At last, I changed from choosing the second option for a fourth time and instead went for the third option. I mean, if the game were even remotely playable and my options now actually mattered I’d probably never choose to play a supporting role. But thematically? Yeah, my would-be cyberpunk would better fit the role of someone who hands out the dirty work; not the one involved in said dirty work.

[*Chain* Question 5: So, what kind of support are you talking about?]

[Answer 1: I can’t stand the sight of someone hurt! I’m a healer, through and through!]

[Answer 2: Be it by blessing my companions or cursing my enemies, I want to be in control of the combat engagements I get embroiled in!]

[Answer 3: Is there a stealth option? I want to hide in the shadows and get rid of my enemies before they even know they're in danger!]

[Answer 4: Can I just not be anywhere near the fight? I’d rather make and maintain the gear of my group.]

“Oh? A follow up question and a fourth option?” My eyebrows rose just the slightest bit as I thought about my options before going with the fourth one. Everyone knows corporate shills would do anything but get anywhere near even the slightest conflict. Unless of course… There was a “suitable” reward for the accompanying risk.

[Question 6: What do you have to say about your parents? What would you say about the way they raised you?]

[Answer 1: I love my parents! Sure, we might not have always seen eye to eye on everything, but looking back, I think they did their best to raise me.]

[Answer 2: Parents? What parents?! I wouldn’t call the lousy pieces of crap that raised me “parents,” and I definitely wouldn’t say that the bare minimum effort they put into me can even be called “raising!”]

[Answer 3: Eh, they were there, I guess…]

[Answer 4: I’m an orphan/adopted.]

Snorting lightly, I picked the third option. I didn’t know much about Bob’s history with his parents, but seeing how the second option was written seemed to suggest he might have some issue with them.

[*Chain* Question 7: What would you say about your friends?]

[Answer 1: I’ve made a lot of friends in a lot of places! Even when I’m somewhere new where I don’t know anyone, I try to meet people to better fit in!]

[Answer 2: I don’t really have friends. At most, I tolerate my family and keep a professional relationship with my acquaintances at work.]

[Answer 3: I have a few close friends I’d die for. Knowing them, I’d like to believe they’d do the same for me.]

Choice two was the way to go even if in real life I had more in common with answer choice three. Maybe when I was a little younger and adopted a considerably more cringeworthy and edgy personality, I might have wholeheartedly aligned myself with the second option. I’m glad I mellowed out in my adulthood.

[Question 8: Walking along the street at dawn, when no one else is around, you see a jogger drop their wallet. How do you react?]

[Answer 1: I call out to the jogger and tell them they dropped their wallet. It’s the right thing to do.]

[Answer 2: I make sure no one else is around and wait for the jogger to leave before pocketing the wallet. The idiot should have been more careful.]

[Answer 3: I continue about my business without a second glance. It’s not my problem and I don’t want to get involved.]

“Damn,” I muttered. For once, I was stumped as to which choice I should pick. I mean, realistically my character could just as easily pick either the second or third option given the scenario. Even when I considered how I would personally react to the situation if I were actively playing the game, my decision would depend entirely on how far along the game I was.

If I was in the early to mid-stage of the game, I’d probably go the “evil” route (Choice 2) to pad my wallet freely, even if it was for a negligible amount. But, if was at the end game, with all the best loot and resources, I’d probably ignore the NPC and their entirely irrelevant wallet.

Bob’s game was still an RPG though, so I picked the second choice in the end. After all, everyone knows that when in doubt, you always choose to hoard loot. In fact, at just that thought, I could recall that my latest Level 66 Skyrim character was still lugging around like a hundred and fifty pounds worth of veritable garbage in their inventory despite being an Overpowered demigod that was decked out in some of the most valuable gear in the game.

[Question 9: Which would you rather have?]

[Answer 1: Elemental Magic. You can’t beat the classics.]

[Answer 2: Blood Ki. The only thing I trust is my own strength.]

[Answer 3: Unique Ability. Why follow someone else's path when I can have one all of my own?]

Without hesitation for any character I made, I would always go with the third option on my first playthrough. Even for the purely theoretical character I was currently making, I saw no reason not to pick it.

[Question 10: Choose your difficulty setting (FINAL)]

[Answer 1: Like Taking Candy From A Baby]

[Answer 2: The Standard Experience]

[Answer 3: Is It Just Me Or Is This A Little Unfair?]

[Answer 4: This Is God Damn Impossible!!!]

[Answer 5: Realistic]

Really? I rolled my eyes as I picked “Realistic” as the supposed most difficult setting, somehow even above, “This Is God Damn Impossible!!!” It wouldn’t matter anyway as I moved my cursor over to the “Create Character” link. When I clicked the link the source code was currently designed to refresh the character creation since there wasn’t a component of memory link to the code to store the character information.

Click…

And then everything went black.

Author's Note

I don't know what this story is supposed to be.
There's no Outline.
There's no real plan.
I'm just writing for fun.
I hope the story will turn out as fun to read for you as it was for me to write.

Chapter 13: Test

Unsurprisingly, the first of the projects I was working on that I managed to complete was the creation of my music studio. It hadn’t been far from completion before I decided to power load myself with a bunch of new abilities whose presence only hasten its eventual realization. Reverse Engineer in particular was an Ability that would exponentially cut down the time it took me to complete all projects subsequent to its acquisition.

With the music studio present, I was only a few hours away from recreating some of my favorite music which would go a long way in keeping me entertained while I worked on my other projects. I didn’t really need the music, seeing as I’d gotten this far without it — and I could technically hear any of my favorite songs whenever thanks to the Mind Palace like function of Whispers of the Mechanical God. But there was just something about hearing your favorite song while working towards your goals that really motivated me to keep grinding away.

On Earth, despite having chosen to be a software engineer and businessman as my professions, my true passions lied in more artistic ventures. Don’t get me wrong, I definitely played my fair share of games and browsed the internet in a way that most would call “excessively.” But my hobbies, where I spent most of my free time, centered around creating pieces of art.

To be more specific, I enjoyed re-creating the art that I enjoyed. If I found a song I liked, I tried to remake it digitally. If I found an impressive enough illustration, I either tried to redraw it or find similar art pieces on the internet. I had a history of making fan games for some of my favorite video game series. I followed the recipes of my favorite celebrity chefs, etc.

The one thing that was beyond me — until recently… — was going out of my way to make something new. Looking back, I can confidently say that the reason had everything to do with the fact that I placed my work on a pedestal. I poured every ounce of my creativity into coding day-to-day, and though the results showed in the end, it also left me running on fumes for pretty much everything else.

All the way until the day I was brought over to Equus, I’d never had the chance to divert most of my energy away from my job. Even with all my accomplishments and success, it wasn’t like I got anywhere close to being the best at what I did. I made my money and built my companies, but there was always more I could have had.

Now, as a royal alchemist in Equestria, I was in the complete opposite situation. On Earth, I was one of the millions of millionaires worldwide, but in Equestria, I was one of the royal alchemists whose cumulated total members hadn’t reached the four-digit mark since the founding of the country.

When I created the Magic Engine with Twilight, the two of us literally became the founding experts of an entirely new branch of engineering. Moreover, I had access to pretty much any resource that could be bought and produced on the planet with what I was being paid. So, there wasn’t anything but continued innovation for me to work towards.

The point was, that while my new purpose in life might as well have been to create and improve my own pieces of tech. The fact that I could do so on my own time, mostly free from any external pressures, meant that I took small breaks every once in a while to indulge in my favorite pastimes.

Which leads me to the current zugzwang of a situation I managed to stumble into. I was on my way to confirm the results of the completion of my exoskeleton suit and the third goal I’d been striving for — pushing all my Stats to at least a minimum of 50 — when it happened.

“Are you alright?” I was genuinely very worried for several reasons, when for seemingly no reason, Princess Luna who had asked to listen to some of my music became catatonic after donning the headphones I had connected to my music player. Worry turned to fear after she remained unresponsive for several seconds.

…Then tears started streaming uncontrollably down her face.

“Tis… Tis a most emotionally charged piece,” she muttered as she telekinetically handed over the headphones and music player.

The first thing I did when I received them was to check what could have possibly invoked such a reaction out of her.

[Now Playing: Dysphoria - Sewerslvt]

What? I can only imagine the expression I must have been showing as incomprehension flooded my thoughts. I mean, yes, of course, it was a good song — why else would I have gone through the effort of remaking it otherwise? But, like… Really?

It was very, very likely that this was the first introduction Princess Luna had to electronic music and it was aggressive EDM Hardcore music, at that. I could understand her being impressed at best or finding it distasteful at worst. But there weren’t even any lyrics to the song! For what reason could she have possibly reacted like that?!

“Are you going to be alright?” I asked her as she dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief she had conjured out of thin air.

“Yes. Let us… continue to our destination,” she said before a flash of light was cast eliminating any evidence of the handkerchief she’d just used.

I dropped the matter at that, content with neither myself nor the lunar princess having come out of the exchange damaged in any truly meaningful way. It was great that she quickly recovered from whatever it was that made her emotional and I was happy to find that turning her into such an emotional wreck hadn't landed me in any trouble. But I would be damned if I let something like this happen again.

I had to be more careful with who I let listen to my music. At least until I figured out who and why it was capable of effecting.

…

“Alright, I guess we should start by establishing a baseline for what I can do without any augmentations,” I said after Princess Luna announced that we had reached our destination, far and away from anyone who might potentially get caught up in my tests.

“Let’s start with speed,” I suggested. When she nodded, I took off in a sprint until I felt myself incapable of going any faster before I took a lapping route to bleed off my momentum until I came around by her side.

“A maximal velocity of 39 kilometers per hour (~24 mph). Most impressive for a plantigrade species of thine size,” she said.

“Thanks?” I shrugged, “It’s definitely significantly better than what I was capable of a few weeks ago, yet still inferior against, well, pretty much anyone here… Let's try again with Ability augmentations.”

I redid the test with Bypass Acceleration and Double Time in effect and the results were more or less in line with what I expected. Bypass Acceleration didn’t make me any faster than I was capable of, it just let me reach my top speed twice as quickly — and didn’t that have horrifying implications regarding how hard I could throw a punch or kick… But Double Time made me about 1.5 times faster.

“A new maximal velocity approaching 58 kilometers per hour. Tis always a marvel to see thine non-magical Abilities in action,” Princess Luna commented. By her measurement, I didn’t manage the full 50% increase that Double Time was supposed to give me but rarely did anyone manage to squeeze out a full 100% of their effort even when they tried to.

“Oh, this is nothing. I’m just getting warmed up,” I said.

I then put on my exoskeleton suit and redid the test a third time.

“88 kilometers per hour? By what mechanism could thine swiftness increase after donning extra weight?” Princess Luna asked.

“The suit is being powered by a smaller version of the Magic Engine. The Magic Engine Mk. 1.25 is about twice as powerful as the one that currently powers the train that runs through Canterlot and a small enough to fit in this chest slot. It powers all the servos that facilitate my movements.”

“That diminutive chest piece has double the power of the train’s engine?” Princess Luna looked like she very much doubted my statements.

“I know it doesn’t look like it, but this exoskeleton suit is extremely heavy; like three tons heavy. I made it with a magically enriched hyperdense tungsten alloy. It requires a lot of power to move, though, and even then, if not for the various safety mechanisms I put in place to suppress the Magic Engine’s power I could theoretically push the movement capabilities of the suit to an additional 40% to 50% of what they currently are.

“I’m just not comfortable with running what’s essentially a magical reactor in my chest anywhere near its maximum output. Especially not when I can just do this,” I said before taking off again while using Bypass Acceleration and Double Time.

Again, my maximum speed rose by around 50% twice as quickly as before. Apparently, the “Game Logic” that ran my Abilities, seemed to treat anything I wore or any weapon I used as part of my Equipment. Truly, the idea that I was an RPG character was being affirmed at every turn.

“Now, if this also works, then I think we might both be very surprised,” I said as I activated the Ability “Metaphysical Link” in preparation for bringing out the Runes I had prepared beforehand into the physical world.

It was subtle but I could feel the newfound sense I had in connection with the Magic I’d created as well as the Magic that existed in everything in the world.

I looked within myself and brought out the Rune I’d created for “simple” Body Strengthening. After feeling the Rune take effect, I ran for what was probably going to be my last time — for the purpose of these tests, I mean — and—

“Holy fu—” I don’t know how fast I went, but before I could approach my absolute limit, I stopped in fear of losing control and crashing head-first into the tree… which had to have been hundreds of meters away from where I’d started running from; a distance I’d crossed in seconds.

“Unbelievable,” Princess Luna said, showing no effort in having crossed the same distance before I could even react. “Such speed is a rarity even for the average diving pegasus. To think thou could replicate it on land with such expeditious acceleration is nothing short of impossible; especially so for a—” She stopped herself and leaned her head closer to me while looking intently at something on my face.

“Wh— Hast thou manifested a Cutie Mark?!” She cried out as she continued to stare right above my eyes.

“I don’t think that’s possible,” I dismissed her concerns after I managed to catch my breath. “It’s probably…” I brought up the arm and looked at the polished, reflective metal that made up the plating of the exoskeleton suit, “Yeah, that’s just Runesmithing script. It’s not a Cutie Mark. It’ll probably go away the moment I stop channeling the power of the Rune. See?”

She calmed down after the tattoo-like archaic script of the Runesmithing language faded away from my forehead. She did not remain calm as we continued on to test the rest of my physical strength and then the extent of the Runes I’d created.

“Simple” Body Strengthening Rune aside, I apparently had the magic of a decent combat mage with the rudimentary Elemental Runes I’d made for Earth, Wind, Fire, and Water. Seperately, Princess Luna said that I’d just barely be competent enough to try out for the royal guard. But, together?

Well… I had the speed of a Pegasus, the strength of an Earth Pony, and the magic of a Unicorn. Average I may be, but by technicality that was almost word for word the definition of an Alicorn, and though I was nowhere even remotely close to being “average” for an alicorn, by virtue of the versatility I was capable of, I would be worth a lot if I was turned into a military asset. If I wanted to become one, that is. I didn’t, but it was nice to know how I measured up in terms of this world’s power hierarchy.

Chapter 14: Encounter

To conclude the last test of my current absolute limits, I bade Princess Luna farewell and began to run. Endurance and stamina were the two physical aspects of myself and I didn’t have even the slightest clue as to how far along they might have progressed. It was pretty much a guessing game after I put on my exoskeleton suit which had various mechanisms built in to conserve momentum while moving, along with the whole Magic Engine-powered insanity which made the whole thing feel practically weightless to me.

I had no idea how long I was going to be able to run before tiring. I couldn’t even narrow down the distance I expected to travel. And I was almost certainly not going to be able to just travel in a straight flat path the entire way through, so there was also a factor of terrain to take into consideration. Not that I was going to even try with that last one, it was beyond impractical to attempt.

So instead, I did the next best thing and just… started running.

I’d gone through enough books with maps to know approximately how far certain places were from one another, so I started from just outside Canterlot proper and began following the train tracks down the mountain.

In about eight minutes I made it through the five-mile spiraling path that took the train from the base of the mountain to Canterlot. From there, the ballast under the train became less gravelly and more dirt and grass-like, with the track straightening out into an almost perfect line.

I was exerting about the same amount of energy as I would by power walking before being brought to Equus, so I decided to steadily speed up until it started feeling like a light jog.

I went east towards Baltimare and continued for another twenty minutes before the lack of exhaustion led me to impulsively blitz forward with a combination of all my speed augments. For three seconds every minute once in a while, I would go all out with my Runes, Double Time, and Bypass Acceleration.

After the fifth time, I noticed that, hilariously, jogging at what had to be around 75 kilometers an hour (47 mph~) was still slow enough for me to be recovering from the sprints. At least to me, it felt like what little shortness of breath I started developing from sprinting around at max power lessened if I just jogged.

Two hours later, as I came upon the sight of the Badlands Mountain Range in the distance, I slowed to a stop and began to reconsider the practicality of continuing the test. After all this time running, at times sprinting like a madman, I was pretty confident in asserting that I would inevitably get more mentally drained than physically tired.

I probably should have come to this conclusion seeing Dodge Junction nearly half an hour prior, but—

*Danger*

Despite this being the first time Precognition had ever kicked in for me, I managed to instinctively understand exactly what it was and wasted no time in kicking things into Bullet Time. After dashing to the right, I turned back and just barely caught the tail end of a condensed ball of fire crashing into the spot I’d previously been standing on and scorching it an ashen black.

In my heightened state of alertness, I pushed my senses to their limits and spotted the threat a second later.

[Identified Status]
[Level: 80+]
[Name: ???
[Race: Dragon
[Class: 100 Years Sky Wyvern]
[Details: At ten feet tall, this dragon just barely passes the threshold for adulthood for its species. Though not a True Dragon as it lacks a set of arms and merely possesses wings, it's shown remarkably potent skill in stealth and fire magic. Known possible abilities include: Magic Insulation, Body Strengthening, Transformation, Wind and Fire Magic, and Innate Fire Breath.]

“...Why did you do that?” I asked after the dragon and I held a staredown for several seconds.

“You look like you’d make a nice snack and I am hungry. I’m going to kill and eat you,” the dragon calmly said.

“Really now?” I felt the corners of my mouth turn upwards. It’d been a while since this terribly bad habit of mine had reared its ugly head, but I was far too amused to care. I quite liked to think myself to be pretty reasonable most of the time, but when confronted with bullshit that I didn’t have to tolerate…

Well, I supposed I could get just a little sadistic.

“Face your death and die!” The dragon sneered as it opened its mouth and launched another fireball at me.

I raised my hand and conjured my own ball of water to counter and the resulting collision resulted in the water blowing up like a pack of C4 as the steam produced covered everything in a couple dozen meter radius.

“I will give you one last chance to back down and fuck off. Attack me again and I will no—” I cut myself off as the dragon charged towards me in a fit of rage.

Eyes narrowed with a frown firmly placed on my face, I somewhat expected this to happen and resolved myself to kill the dragon as efficiently and quickly as possible. I wasn’t going to hold back at all and would instead try to catch the dragon by surprise with all my most potent combat Abilities.

Bang!

To my surprise, it had been all too easy, and perhaps with a smidge of overkill that Double Time, Bypass Acceleration, and a Fire Rune-enhanced punch to the chest managed to spear a foot-wide hole into the dragon’s chest. Before the chunks of viscera, flesh, and bone fragments hit the floor the intense fire effect of my punch even cauterized the wound. Not that it would do much to stop the dragon from dying, what with its heart completely obliterated.

“Ack!” The dragon coughed up a macabre splatter of bloody spit. Impressively, it did not immediately perish outright. Even with such a grievous wound, its magic and lifeforce were potent enough to give it a bit more time in the mortal plane.

“You shouldn't have pushed your luck,” I said while shaking my head at the dying dragon. “You could have gone for another prey, maybe hunted something familiar, or even traded for food with some of the neighboring ponies. But no, you just had to try to kill what should have been a complete unknown to you.”

“Spare me your insults, whelp!” The dragon hissed. I could respect its unyielding nature given it was unflinching in the face of its own impending doom. “Nothing in the world would — ack! — force down my will. Not you, not those insufferable ponies, not even death!”

“Damn, I read you dragons were prideful but this… this is a bit much, is it not?” I could only continue to shake my head.

“It is as nature wills it to be,” the dragon coughed up even more blood; it was probably over a gallon at this point. “I will die…” He was starting to weaken at a visible rate, “because I was not strong enough… and I accept that. Continue… roaming my clan’s… domain… and… you too… will… eventually… die…”

[Feat Achieved!]
[Combat Level System Activated]
[Level 42 → Level 44 (Effective Combat Level: Level 89)]

For a time, I stared at the dragon carcass while lost in thought. I could admit that ever since relocating to Canterlot, I’d considered the possibility that I’d eventually have to kill a sentient creature. But, I never imagined it would happen, of all the time for it to happen, while I was out doing an otherwise routine test. I definitely didn’t expect my first kill to be a dragon and yet, here I was with not a scratch on me.

I wasn’t really feeling much of anything while staring down at the dragon. There wasn’t any regret for my actions nor sadness for a lost life. I also wasn’t cheerful, enthusiastic, or happy to have grown so powerful so quickly.

If anything, I was annoyed to have been forced into this position because the idiot wanted to make me a snack. What the hell was I supposed to do now? Leave the carcass to rot in the middle of nowhere? Maybe incinerate it with the use of Fire Runes?

No…

As I contemplated where to go from here, I circled back to the dragon’s words and logic. To it, I was just a snack to be consumed. I was worth nothing but the nutrition and taste my body could provide. Why the hell should I treat its remains any differently? Why limit myself to human customs for a being who never intended to extend the same courtesy to me?

I was neither going to leave the carcass to rot, bury it, nor even cremate it. No, instead, I was going to do what it had been intending to do to me and make use of its body for my personal gain.

Dragon Blood would make for a strong general alchemical catalyst and was the key ingredient to several highly prized potions. Dragonhide could be incorporated into my exoskeleton suit to boost its magic-resistant properties and go a long way toward turning it into fully-fledged power armor. Dragon Bones could be forged into nearly unbreakable weapons. Even the Dragon Meat could be either kept for my own dietary needs or exported to the Griffon Kingdom for a fortune.

One of the most surprising things I’d come to learn while staying at Catnerlot was that even if they were inherently averse to all things non-vegetarian, the ponies of Equestria were full of pragmatic ponies who understood the needs and opportunities in dealing with carnivorous intelligent life like the Griffons and Minotaurs. If not, I wouldn’t even consider my choice.

With my decision made, the only problem left was the matter of how I was going to bring the dragon carcass back. I reached over to try to pick up the dragon and… Oh boy, was it heavy even with the exoskeleton suit doing the overwhelming majority of the lifting. To me, it felt like I’d picked up a fifty-kilogram boulder.

Maybe if I jogged back to Cantorlot while carrying it, I’d finally feel tired.

…

“Oh my,” Celestia said as she descended from the sky. “You really are carrying around a dead dragon? Why?” She was infinitely more at ease than the dozens of guards that surrounded me and forced me to stop before I could get back into the capital.

“It tried to kill me while I was testing my endurance. I gave it a chance to leave me alone even after it attacked me a second time. The third time, I attacked it back and now it’s dead,” I explained.

“I do recall my sister regaling me with the results of your tests,” Celestia said with a nod. “But that doesn’t explain why you’ve decided to return with the body. How far did you go to have even encountered a dragon?”

“I stopped right as the Badlands Mountain Range was coming into view when the dragon ambushed me and to be honest, I wasn’t really sure what to do after I killed it. But, since it decided to try to make a snack out of me, I thought it fair to respond in kind and process its body over here. By the way, do you mind selling most of the meat for me to the Griffons?”

“That can be arranged,” Celestia said as she had the guards stand down and disperse. “Just… Try not to scare my little ponies so much. Had you explained that you had been attacked in the Badlands the guards wouldn’t have kept you;probably. The various Dragon Clans have restricted themselves to that area in the understanding that it is a neutral zone as far as the laws are concerned.”

“So there’s no political implications if the Sky Wyvern Clan finds out one of Equestria’s royal alchemist killed one of their own?”

“No. You might be made an enemy of that particular dragon’s direct next of kin,” she pointed to the dead dragon I’d placed next to me. “But the rest of the Clan would probably remain as indifferent as they are to anyone else. They certainly wouldn’t raise a problem with me.”

“Cool. Anyway, I’m going to go butcher this thing up in the kitchen. After I finish sorting that out, I think I’m going to rest for the rest of the day and maybe take the train down to Ponyville to visit Twilight tomorrow. I could use the break.”

“I’m sure she would be thrilled to learn of all the things you’ve been up to since she left; well, except for this latest engagement... I’ll give you my condolences now for the interrogation you’ll be put through after you tell her about your working Rune Magic,” Celestia said with a cheeky smile.

“That’ll be... something, alright.” I winced at the thought and shook my head. “I’ll be going now. Sorry, you had to take time out of your schedule to deal with this situation.”

“Think nothing of it. If anything I’m glad whenever I have an excuse to escape the drudgery that makes up most of my Day Court.”

After that, I ignored all the strange — mostly horrified — looks I received as I walked through the streets with a dead dragon over my shoulders. It wasn’t until I got all the way into the kitchen with a knife in hand that the weight of my would-be actions hit me.

For the first time in possibly years, I felt palpably uncomfortable with the idea of committing to something. This wasn’t some random chicken or fish I was about to butcher up, but the body of a sentient creature. Logically, it shouldn’t even register as it didn’t look anything like a person, but… I couldn’t help but think of it as one.

Try as I might, the moment I went to start cutting, I felt like I was going to be cutting up a dead human body like some unhinged serial killer.

“Ugh…” I had to swallow down a bit of bile that rose up my throat and blink the tears that threatened to leak out of my eyes. Frowning, I grit my teeth and started processing the dragon anyway.

After all, this was the world I now lived in. One where for trivial reasons someone had tried to kill me. If anything, I suppose I should be glad that it was this of all things that finally got to me. Fighting and killing the dragon? I didn’t even blink an eye. Talking and listening to it as it died before my very eyes? I couldn’t have cared less.

But this? How ironic that it was making use of my spoils of war that tugged at my morality.

I could only hope that I’d get over it with time and experience even if I sincerely hoped I’d never need to.

Author's Note

So... That was a pretty drastic shift in tone for the story. I'm not really sure if it warrants changing the story from a Teen rating to Mature, or adding a Gore Tag.

This is probably the upper limit of how graphic I'll get when it comes to violent battles (punching chunks out of the dragon) or describing "disgusting but practical" events (butchering up the corpse of a previously sentient monster).