The Machine God Chapter 78 - Will Made Manifest

Chapter 78

Will Made Manifest

Talia woke with the first rays of sunlight peeking through her window.

Glancing down at the injection site, she frowned. She’d expected more from the serum. So dramatic transformation, vivid sensations, or her mind exploding with new understanding. Instead, the injection had felt like nothing. A pinprick, a slight warmth, then... silence.

She’d ditated for hours afterward, making sure to keep her intent focused just in case it took so ti for the process to complete. And to fight the urge to imdiately test for results, to learn if she’d failed or succeeded.

Discipline ant sticking to the schedule. Rest before combat. So she’d forced herself to sleep, even with uncertainty gnawing at her.

Now it was morning. Ti to maintain her routine, and only then would she find out the answer.

The gym was empty when she arrived. She moved through her forms, each strike and block precise despite the distraction of wondering if sothing had changed. Her body felt the sa. Her mind felt the sa. Maybe the serum had failed.

Focus.

After her workout and shower, she found Augustus at the stove making eggs while Annie sat at the table, working through a stack of toast. Three of the aliens sat around the holo with their own als. The blue-gilled one had sothing that looked like fernted kelp, while the crystalline being was dissolving mineral cubes in acid. The sll from both made Talia’s stomach turn slightly, but she also knew their own human foods didn’t exactly sit right with them, either. That’s why they’d established this routine over the past few days, using separate spaces to eat and not cause anyone distress.

“How’d it go?” Annie asked through a mouthful of toast, spraying crumbs.

Augustus turned from the stove, spatula in hand, waiting for the answer.

“Haven’t tried it yet.” Talia poured herself coffee. “I ditated after the injection, then slept. I’ll test it soon.”

Annie nodded, shoving more toast in her mouth. Augustus returned to his eggs.

“Where’s Alex?” she asked.

“Still sleeping.” Augustus plated his eggs. “He probably needs it after the past few days.”

“I checked in on him earlier,” Annie added. “Cracked open his door to peek in, and his drone woke up. Thing floated over and shut the door on ! Totally weird.”

Talia raised an eyebrow. “Really?”

“Yeah. Like it was guarding him or sothing.” Annie shrugged. “Probably sothing new he programd. I bet it’s because of the ti I doodled on his face.”

They ate in companionable silence, the aliens having their own conversation at the holo. The blue-gilled one had learned enough English to occasionally comnt on the weather. Today it ntioned the “bright water-light” outside.

After breakfast, Talia returned to her room.

She sat cross-legged on the floor, considering how to test what might have changed. Her Cognitive Resonance let her understand patterns and connections instantly, while her Mind Palace gave her a space to process, investigate, and build understanding. If the serum had worked, had given her what she wanted, then combining all three should create sothing unprecedented.

The possibilities spiraled outward in her mind. She could theoretically manifest her understanding as physical reality. Make weaknesses real, strengths tangible. It might require an entirely new power classification. And if she succeeded in gaining Faith Enchanting from the combat challenge, she imagined shaping enchantnts within her Mind Palace, then manifesting them instantly through touch.

She’d need to expand her Mind Palace’s boundaries. Work on holding more complex concepts simultaneously. The current limits were—

She stopped herself. This was avoidance dressed as planning. Fear of failure making her overthink instead of act.

Start small. Test first. Theorize later.

She reached for the empty water glass on her nightstand. Silicon dioxide molecules in an amorphous solid structure. Not ordered like crystal, but random, which paradoxically made it stronger in so ways and weaker in others. The rim was thinner than the base, making it a more vulnerable point for the test.

She understood its nature completely, comprehended the material’s properties, its structural vulnerabilities, the physics of how and why glass breaks.

She imagined a hairline fracture at the rim. The weakest point, where daily use would create the most stress. Her Mind Palace expanded slightly, just enough to encompass the glass. She could hold the concept of the fracture perfectly in that space, every detail of how it would propagate.

She tapped the glass with her finger.

Nothing happened.

She tried again, pressing harder.

Still nothing.

Frustration flared. Three days of ditation, perfect visualization, and now—

She steadied her breathing. She was trying to force it. They’d all learned by now that it was Willpower that made reality bend to their desires.

It was the reason she thought Faith Enchanting would suit her skills perfectly; she did not need to be limited by what was likely a culturally constructed belief system defining what enchantnts could achieve, or to what they could be applied.

Not when she could shape that belief with her own Will.

Their equipnt showed their cultural rigidity. Why were the swords and armor of the knights enchanted, but not the bows and arrows of the soldiers? The shields? The mounts?

Why not the knights themselves? Magic that could reinforce steel, repair it over ti, could surely be shaped to do the sa for people. And if their magic could reinforce, why couldn’t it do the inverse?

Augustus had suggested the knights they faced were rely a probing force. Perhaps he was right, but their castle and the people had also appeared wealthy. Which ant resources could not be the only reason they failed to give their warriors every edge possible, even if their losses were part of a calculated opening move.

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She stopped again, realizing once more that she was still avoiding what needed to co next.

Closing her eyes, she returned her thoughts to the glass. To the image of the structural weakness she’d envisioned. Not imagined.

Real.

Focus and intent channeled through words. “Manifestation.”

She tapped the glass again. This ti she felt the fracture spreading from her touch, invisible but perfectly mapped to the one in her mind.

She flicked the rim with her fingernail.

The glass shattered, splitting cleanly along the fracture line before crumbling into precise fragnts.

“Perfect,” she murmured, studying the remains. Each piece had broken exactly as intended. Controlled failure at predetermined points.

She could work with that. Pulling up her status, she saw the new power sitting there neatly as if it had always belonged.

Manifest Resonance.

Augustus had found his training spot a ten-minute walk from the house, where scrub gave way to older growth. Evidence of his morning sessions littered the area. Scorch marks blackened tree trunks. Others lay toppled, cut clean through as if by an impossibly sharp blade. One oak had been split vertically, its halves pushed apart by so trendous force.

His drone hovered nearby, following a programd patrol pattern until needed.

Augustus pointed his wand at a fresh target, an olive tree with a trunk as thick as his thigh. “Designate.”

The drone chirped acknowledgnt and zipped between him and the tree, weaving erratically. Ready to intercept any counterattack from an opponent that would never co. But muscle mory didn’t care that trees couldn’t fight back. Practice was practice.

Alexander had assured them the drones would learn, not with true intelligence but sothing like it. Basic pattern recognition that would analyze successes and failures, gradually optimizing responses. Even after just three days of training, Augustus had noticed minor improvents. The drone’s defensive positioning had grown more efficient, wasting less ti on unnecessary movents.

“Attack.”

The drone shot forward, wings snapping horizontal to beco spinning blades. It carved through the bark in a smooth arc before pulling back.

Augustus flicked his wand. A concentrated force blast struck where the drone had weakened the trunk. The tree groaned and toppled, crashing through the underbrush.

“Defend.”

The drone returned to position, now slowly rotating around him, scanning for threats that weren’t there.

He’d run this sequence dozens of tis over the past three days. Each iteration smoother as the coordination grew more natural. Alexander’s design was brilliant in its simplicity. The drone responded to simple commands but executed them with tactical intelligence he hadn’t expected.

Augustus aid his wand at the drone itself, channeling his Will through the focus. A bubble of blue energy traced around its form, conforming to its shape.

“Retract.”

The drone’s wings snapped inward, reducing its profile. The shield contracted with it, maintaining coverage while presenting a smaller target.

“Extend.”

Wings spread wide again, the energy field expanding to match. A mobile barrier he could position wherever needed.

“Reposition,” he said, finally, aiming the wand to his left.

The drone swiftly shifted its defensive pattern, prioritizing his left flank.

Ten hours until the quest tir was up. He was as ready as three days could make him.

Augustus lowered his wand, looking at the devastation around him. Two dozen trees destroyed in various ways. If a wizard from another world fought anything like Earth’s fiction suggested, he’d need every trick.

“Reset.”

The drone settled into a gentle hover beside him. He reached up and patted its smooth surface.

“Good work,” he said quietly, then headed back toward the house.

Annie floated on her pizza-slice pool inflatable, wearing a new shirt that declared, “I SURVIVED A MULTIVERSAL INVASION AND ALL I GOT WAS THIS STUPID QUEST.” The heart-shaped sunglasses from the estate’s questionable basent inventory sat crooked on her face.

She watched two aliens working at the garden’s edge, clearing back overgrowth with careful precision. The rock being pulled weeds with patient, thodical motions while the tentacled one trimd branches up high.

“We need coconut trees,” she announced to nobody in particular.

Of course, Talia had already explained that coconuts couldn’t grow in the diterranean climate. But that just ant they needed soone with plant powers to make it work. Or Alexander could build a special greenhouse. Then they could fix up the tiki bar and serve drinks with little umbrellas.

She was definitely not thinking about fighting a dinosaur in six hours.

The blue-gilled alien appeared from the ocean access path. “Annie-friend! Water here is good today too! Much salt, very pleasant!”

“That’s great, Gilly!” She didn’t move from her float. Moving would an acknowledging reality.

Her tablet showed a Barkforce compilation playing on loop. She wasn’t watching it. Instead, her mind kept circling back to the sa problem.

tal skin versus teeth backed by a crushing force that could probably break her. tal spikes versus thick hide that had evolved to withstand spikes and claws and teeth from other dinosaurs. She’d be fighting sothing perfectly designed to counter everything she could do. All of that before they had been System-ized. And Talia insisted they were probably intelligent, too, because how else could they understand the System and its quests?

Everyone else had clear paths. Alexander would use his new gauntlets to blast the cultivator or sothing. Augustus had magic. Literal magic. Talia was Talia.

And Annie? Annie was going to punch a T-Rex.

She groaned and pulled off her sunglasses. This was pathetic. She was Annette fucking Sheridan. She’d survived years basically raising herself and Sasha. Survived a prison break. Survived Flashpoint, and taken the asshole’s eye in the process! Survived knights from another dinsion.

She sat up so fast she nearly flipped the float.

“You know what?” she said loud enough for the aliens to hear. “How many other people will ever get to say they fought a dinosaur! An actual dinosaur! How cool is that?”

The rock being rumbled sothing that might have been agreent.

“And when I win,” she continued, building montum, “I’ll have dinosaur powers. I’ll be taller. Way taller. Like ten feet tall with teeth and claws and scales!”

She stood on the float, wobbling dangerously. “Then we’ll see who the real sidekick is!”

The float flipped. She hit the water with a splash that sent Gilly running to check on her.

Annie surfaced, spitting water, hair plastered to her face. The aliens stared at her with expressions she couldn’t read but chose to interpret as admiration.

“Totally ant to do that,” she said.

She swam to the edge and hauled herself out, water streaming from her clothes. Six hours. In six hours, she’d either be dead or have the coolest power upgrade ever.

No pressure.

Alexander woke to the dipping evening sunlight and the sound of his stomach attempting to digest itself. Every muscle ached from three days of barely sleeping, but his mind felt clear for the first ti since starting the workshop marathon.

Droney floated beside the bed, having apparently stood vigil the entire ti.

“Hey, buddy,” he muttered, voice rough from sleep.

A single beep.

He checked the ti through the System interface and felt his chest tighten.

Four hours until the individual combat quest began.

Four hours to decide if he was really going to fight a cultivator to the death for the power he’d need to keep up with a world gone mad.

His stomach growled again, making the imdiate decision for him.

Food first. Existential crisis later.

He swung his legs out of bed, taking in the new room Annie had saved for him. Corner windows looked out over the diterranean, the evening sun painting the water in beautiful hues. She’d been right about the view.

Four hours.

The countdown was coming to an end.