Chapter 24: Crafting
After his lesson with Vark Null had unlocked the technomagic skill on his system which unlocked extra options in the library.
Null had spent the last of his EP points buying the knowledge that allowed him to use technomagic to imbue materials with special properties. The knowledge had confirmed his hypothesis on how technomagic worked. Runes, programming and other methods of using technomagic were just methods of supplying the spell with the intent component.
Zallium and like materials just allowed the Intent, energy components to combine to make a spell. Null suspected the creator affinity would affect the final spell power as well. What Null had discovered was it was possible to store intent in any material and if you supplied it with energy while initially storing that intent you could permanently change the property of the material.
Using this method he could develop near-weightless materials, or materials that vibrated at supersonic speeds, etc the uses for this technique was endless. Null had asked Runemagi Vark about this and when Vark had attempted to adopt the same method he didn't get the same results. It appeared that imbuing a material required both technomagic and true magic.
As the days went by everyone worked on improving themselves. Null would alternate between sparing with Jania to develop their combat techniques and practising duel channelling to cast magic missiles. Creating a spell that used 2 fields at once had been harder than Null was expecting it was like trying to pat your head and rub your stomach at the same time. Possible but hard to do perfectly. He still hadn't been able to get the system to acknowledge his work and unlock the apprentice level of true magic.
Lisa and Chris would study the limited databank of knowledge the dwarves had given them access to. Lisa was keen to develop her scientific knowledge while Chris was more interested in the structure and cultures of the outside solar system.
Null had not been idled on the crafting front either. He had programmed the onboard virtual reality pods with new weapons, armour and technomagic spells he believed would be feasible and had each person try them out to determine which style of fighting would best suit them.
Using this knowledge he was able to develop individual weapons and battle suits for each member of the team. He had developed a modular configuration for each suit. Each suit would have up to 6 major modules or components installed. He had spent time developing and testing multiple types of components for each module.
The power generator module controlled the size and strength of the passive spells and the abilities that the suit could use. They currently only had two options. The antimatter reactor or the fusion reactor. The antimatter reactor was able to handle large spikes of energies over a short time which was suitable for rapidly recharging power storage. The downside to this was it had a low sustained output. The Fusion reactor on the other hand was the opposite it only supplied a sustained out which slowed down recharge rates.
The power storage module affected the ability of the wearer to cast Active spells. This also was currently limited to only two options. A superconductive capacitor that could be recharged rapidly and discharged instantaneously but could only be used once per charge. The other option was dwarven storage crystals which Null had reversed engineered. This crystal took longer to charge but could be used multiple times before needing to be recharged.
Armour configurations could also be customised, but each suit was still built with carbon nanotube/wax hybrid muscles and nanogel padding along with a powered exoskeleton. Each of these systems could be modified to allow the wearer greater control. They could add more external armour plating increasing the defence or they could increase power to the exoskeleton to increase power. The wearer could also choose to cover the suit with an active camouflage skin for stealth or they could use a skin made from the mass reduction alloy to increase speed
Every suit was packed with sensors and control systems that could be connected to an AI assistance. These assistance AI could be as simple or as complex as the user wanted. They could even develop their own personalities and specialities.
The suits currently had 4 slots for either active or passive spells. Passive spells could be turned on and off but while engaged would drain a set amount of power from the suit. Before these spells could be implemented Null had to obtain some Zallium.
Null was lacking the funds he required to make even better suits. He would need to acquire more EP and Zallium. His system had an abundance of options he was just dying to try but he lacked the fundamental resources.
It wasn't just new battlesuits being created but also new weapon systems. Chris had gathered information on the state of warfare in the galaxy, between the council's rules and the abundant use of shielding technology, projectile weapons were nearly obsolete. The rules stated that no advanced technology could be left behind on the lower worlds and that included bullets and slugs.
The requirement of policing your ammunition had made Null decide to expand the party arsenal to include lasers. They had developed a compact fiber oscillator laser rifle using a hot-swappable dwarf crystal for power. The rifle could also be connected directly to the suit for continuous power mode but would act as a passive spell and constantly drain a portion of the power.
Null had also developed individual close combat weapons for everyone based on their feedback. He had spent a week building everyone suits and weapons. This had allowed him to imbue each suit separately ensuring they would be effective in battle.
Chris had asked him why he was going to all this trouble to equip the party if they were locked away in this system.
Null didn't why but he knew the council wouldn't just leave him here to rot, they would want to use him in some way otherwise he would have just been killed.
"I don't know, I can just feel that something big is about to happen and we need to be ready."
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
Zeebie
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