The Over-Break System

"I don't bother focusing on any one thought for too long, as even I am not capable of that level of processing power…yet. However, in my insanity, there is brilliance, and through experimentation hidden behind the panic and craziness, I find the perfect idea to work through every now and then. That is how I pulled this awesome shit off!" Clenching his fist and punching at the air, Cynrik stated with a smirk on his lips.

-I hate how you summarize feats of grandeur with such lackluster words, Cynrik. Would it kill you for once to admit you have no idea how or why things work the way they do?-

"Tsk, that would simply be lying, and you know better than I do how that skill formed, but if we get down into the nitty-gritty and throw away sugar-coated words like "I followed my heart," then the easiest way to explain would be as such…."

Unclenching the fist of his left hand, Cynrik turned it palm side up and manifested four pitch-black and intimidating orbs of Umbra Mana, followed by four slightly smaller balls of BlueFire.

"When Brance first formulated his [White Dwarf] skill, he could only break it down in the simplest terms for me. First, he created a Mana Construct shell and injected a second Mana Type into it to form a core of sorts."

As he narrated, Cynrik attempted the same process; only how he went about it was slightly different than how he described it. The somewhat larger orb of Umbra Mana split open like a capsule revealing a hollowed-out center. With the open shell of Umbra Mana exposed, he gently coaxed the BlueFire ball into the Umbra Shell; however, when the two came in contact, both orbs bubbled, cracked, and disintegrated.

"I am not sure if it was because Terra and Light Particles are considered stable or if the disintegration of my two constructs indicates a conflicting interaction, but the result is as you can see."

Unperturbed by the loss of two of the eight orbs, Cynrik quickly replaced them and spun them a few times in his palm, like marbles, before allowing them to float away and join their respective groupings.

-I watched you do something similar, but it all happened so fast that it was hard to keep track of. Not to mention, the way your brain works is too sophisticated to keep track of a single train of thought.-

Tobs sighed loudly, a sign for Cynrik to continue explaining the results of his experiment.

"As I said before, Tobs, don't let the storm of bees confuse you, and try throwing a lasso around one before hanging on for the ride of your life." Cynrik chuckled for a couple of seconds, then continued his lesson.

"The thing is, when I tried generating the desired effect, I noticed something that piqued my interest. The reason for the failed product was simple; the Umbra Mana eradicated the Fire Mana. It was as simple as that; the Umbra Particles are just too high up on the food chain for something as low as my BlueFire to fuse with. Thus I needed to come up with a new theory."

Rubbing his index fingers against the respective thumbs on both hands, Cynrik caused the four balls of BlueFire to quiver a couple of times before condensing to 1/4th their original size.

"The next idea I had was to leave some space, a gap between the shell and the gooey fire center. This experiment, unfortunately too, failed spectacularly. At that time, I remembered a missing key ingredient—the Runic Diagram."

-Ah, yeah, that would be a problem. Since you already know the gist of it, I will clarify a little. The Runic Diagrams carved into your Soul represent every skill, ability, and even Stat you possess. This includes your sword technique, and essentially this means if you are missing the correct inscriptions on your Soul, the result will be a failure, no matter how many times you try.-

"Exactly, but unlike you, my fateful AI companion, it took a lot of trial and error to come to this conclusion. Eventually, while I was trying to develop a good concept for manifesting my new skill in another part of my consciousness, or mind, if you will, I was musing on the idea of Runic Diagrams, more importantly, how they are formed and carved."

"With my attention already split in two places, the central processing of my brain was put into what I like to call, Over-Clocking mode. You witnessed the partial mental breakdown I already had when dealing with the newfound powers of the rest of the team, so I won't scratch that festering wound more than necessary."

"Setting aside the other ten or so topics bouncing around my head, when I noticed the reaction between the two elements, everything else was set to "low-priority mode" in my mind. This act freed up the bulk of my attention, leaving most of my mental processing to be directed toward defining the parameters of my skill and figuring out how Runic Diagrams are formed."

"Upon realizing that I needed a Runic Diagram to represent my new skill, several new thoughts arose. In the past, I simply had to find a way to manifest something, such as my Sword Forms, visually, and it would instantly work."

"This thought led me to conclude that the completion of new Diagrams was handled by you, my System AI. Since I had left the Mortal Stage and moved on to the Supernatural Stage, where everything is put into "Manual Mode," it fell on me to inscribe new Runic Diagrams."

-Eh, I follow, and you are correct in your thinking. After the tutorial is disengaged, everything is in the hands of the Being. Because of this, most Vinestrians that break free of the Mortal Stage stall out in Tier-3.-

-Mainly because they find themselves completely helpless, and with the severe restrictions on knowledge imposed by the majority of nations in the world, they never learn the reason behind their inability to grow.-

"Tsk, with the way these bastards in power conduct themselves, it amazes me that this world hasn't been completely razed to the ground by LCs already. Going from the proverbial "Easy Mode" straight into "Hard Mode" without warning or explanation is annoyingly aggressive. But let's not talk about these bald old men with sticks up their asses and get back on topic."

Cynrik rolled his eyes in annoyance, and it took him a few seconds to remember where he had left off.

"So, with the reason behind my failure discovered, I realized that without your assistance, the difficulty in creating new skills was raised astronomically, yet with this information in hand, instead of being left flustered, a whole new world of possibilities was available."

"The first thing I did was observe the Runic Diagram descriptions for the two manifestations, mainly the one for my Umbra Orb, from there I noticed a shit ton of similarities between…." Before Cynrik could continue that thought, he was cut off rudely by Tobs.

-HOLD ON A SECOND! Did you just say you observed the descriptions of your Runic Diagrams? How is that…no way, you can see things with that ocular skill of yours? No, it makes sense; Mana is everything, and everything is Mana, so if you could find a way to zoom in far enough, in theory, you would be able to see the Diagrams inscribed on your body.-

-Even so, you aren't versed or even able to see your Soul yet, so you still shouldn't be able to view the intricated inner workings.-

"Erm, if you didn't keep interrupting, you would have your answer. Yes, I used [Mana Sight], but not in the way you are predicting. Through the Mind Link, Brance replayed your lesson earlier, which was how I got a visual representation of what the Runic Diagrams look like."

"It took some effort, but after tinkering with my [Mana Sight] output and keeping my eyes closed with the memory of those silhouettes you showed, I located what I can only describe as my Soul. Don't get me wrong, it hurts my eyes like a mother fucker to pull off, and everything except the Diagrams is hazy, but I can clearly see or feel what the Runic Diagrams look like."

"Partner that with my perfect memory and subconsciously knowing each Diagram, and Booyah, we got descriptions. From there, all that was left was the process of elimination and a bit of copy-paste action from Brance, and voila, I made a rudimentary rough draft."

"When I say rudimentary, I mean it. However, I learned a valuable lesson from my tinkering. Every little movement and fluxuation of Mana needed to be accounted for, so that is why you saw me causing so many explosions. With this knowledge in hand, I was forced to start from scratch multiple times until I came up with the basic design of the Mana Construct."

"With that part done, it was a matter of translating my limited knowledge of nuclear physics into Diagram form, adding some rotations, and building the new skill by applying or inscribing the New Diagram into a free spot in the silhouette." With a satisfied smile, Cynrik twisted his left hand, merged the four Fire orbs with the Umbral Orbs, started their conflicting rotations, and threw the newly formed [Umbral Tailed Beast Bomb] into the distance, where it soon exploded extravagantly.

However, Cynrik didn't account for one thing when using his skill again: mental fatigue. Although UTBB didn't have a high cooldown or Cost, it required a high level of concentration to execute, and after firing it, he felt his Resource stats plummet and his head spin.

"Fucking shitty descriptions never tell the full story," Cynrik complained after the dizzy spell ended several minutes later.

-I mean, to be fair…-

"TOOOO BEEE FAIIIIIIRRRRRR!" Cynrik interrupted Tobs before falling into a hysterical fit of laughter.

-WILL YOU SHUT THE HELL UP? I was about to say, how can a skill that transcends your Tier not have a heavy drawback, but NOOO, you just have to turn my sentences into pop culture references.-

-Just because the skill doesn't have a high cooldown or high Cost doesn't mean it won't affect you in some other way. In this case, you need a high level of concentration to keep the orbs spinning in their proper orbits. Not to mention getting them to collide before impacting the target. It would have been my problem if you had tried this with the tutorial, but now it's your problem.-

Hearing the evident agitation in her voice, Cynrik didn't continue teasing Tobs further and instead chose to float in the void of the Shadow Realm on his back with his eyes closed, falling into a state of being half awake and half asleep. While not optimal for rest, this state allowed his body and mind to recover over time while allowing him to operate his brain on "Lite Mode."

-This series is exclusively published on Web if you are reading it anywhere else...You Wrong, Fam. PS Check out the Discord, https://discord.gg/dcxKNJEMwg-