Chapter 8: Secrets revealed

Alise had no idea where to even start, that was a lot of info."What do you mean when you say dangerous, how exactly is it dangerous?" Dalvin pointed at his board thingy and a picture of a mushroom cloud appeared,"Making huge errors while commanding the elements can create devastating explosions. That is why all source users are carefully taught. Once you know the basics, this would never happen." Alise was shocked,"Wait so if I mess up ill drop a frigin nuke!" Dalvin sighed heavily,"That is why you won't learn those things till later." Well that was a little relieving but the thought of blowing her whole town to kingdom come was still scary. She sure hoped he was right about this. She also wondered about the augment thing he mentioned, could she be like a superhero,"When you say augments what exactly could you do and how would it affect me. Would I get any real bad side effects or something if I do it?" Dalvin touched the board again and an image of a human body appeared,"For now it would be basic military enhancement as that is the only thing I know I can perform safely. First you optimize the bone and muscles increasing durability, strength, stamina and flexibility. Then of coarse cells and organs will be upgraded to account for the changes to your muscles and bones. Overall there should be about a seventy five percent increase in all physical functions. As for side effects, your overall weight will increase about twenty percent and there will be a similar increase in appetite. That's all we will do for now until my studies progress. So are you interested?" Alise thought about it, none of it seemed to drastic, so she should be able to continue her 'normal' girl act. Besides as with all Dalvins magic stuff it was just too tempting to pass up,"I'm in lets do this." Dalvin smiled,"Good, I will feel much better about training you now that you will be enhanced. The odds of anything fatal happening will be drastically reduced." He opened a drawer on his teachers desk and pulled out a white metal cube with those runes carved all over it,"Even though the army didn't allow me to take my tools with me when I left, I was able to recreate it from memory. This is a body augmentation cube." Wait, what did he just say,"You were in the army. So was my papa, you two will probably get along real well." He shrugged,"On my world it is mandatory to serve fifty years. Because i was studying engineering I wasn't part of the combat unit. Im not sure how it works on your world." Alise wasn't sure either, she knew her papa spent eight years in the army but that was about it. Dalvin interrupted her thoughts,"Alise, there is something I must tell you. You may have been wondering why I came to this world and why I want to train you as a combat user." No, she hadn't thought about that at all but now that he mentioned it like that...."This is why." He lifted a huge source stone from behind his desk. It was about the size of a soccer ball and unlike other stones she saw it was a beautiful pale green that seemed to glow without being activated."Wow, that is amazing, that has to be rare right?" he nodded,"This is known as the Eye of God. Source stones vary in power and range, the Eye however has no meaningful limit. If i drew out its true power I could affect this whole solar system. It is beyond rare this is a legendary artifact. Do you understand what that means?" She could guess. She already knew adults would go crazy if they learned about Dalvins magic but this thing they would kill for. No nations would go to war for it. The same must be true for Dalvin's world,"So you came to earth to hide the power of a God.","Yes and I hope to train you to help me protect it. I am a engineer not a soldier, so I felt that training you would in turn train me. However, I think it is very possible you may end up better than me in that regard. So knowing this I must ask you again, do you wish to train under me?" This did make everything more dangerous and the future chance of her having to fight was high....but magic was too sweet of a temptation,"Yes ill continue but I have some conditions. First once my training is complete we will have a ceremony making me the first knight of Heavens Order. Second and more important at this ceremony I will be presented with a winged unicorn as my trusty steed." Dalvin looked confused,"So I assume we are going to create said ceremony. The same for this Heavens Order as well. Is this more of that manga you showed me before? And where am I to find this unicorn creature?" Alise brought up the picture on her phone and showed it to him,"They are not real, the main part is but it dosnt have wings or a horn. You could make it though right?" Dalvin scratched his beard in thought,"Biological engineering is a field im familiar with. For a creature of that size to fly I would have to embed source stones in it otherwise the wings would only be useful for gliding, if they could even do that. I will need a copy of this creatures genetic code but yes I believe I could make it. Anything else?" Alise was beside herself, she had just thrown that out there, but he could do it. She was going to become a magic wielding paladin of a holy order with a unicorn mount. That was more than she could achieve even in most games but now she would have it and it would be one hundred percent real. Once again excitement and joy filled her to bursting proportions. "No that's everything I could dream of and more, lets get started right away. The sooner I graduate magic academy the better." Dalvin placed the Eye on top his metal cube,"I agree the sooner we finish the better. Come here and place your hand on the Eye. Once this is done we will start your training. Alise approached the orb and placed her hand on it, she wondered what this was going to feel like. She hoped it didn't hurt, she forgot to ask about that. Just as she opened her mouth to ask, Dalvin touched a smaller stone on the side of the cube. A tingling sensation spread through her whole body and mind, then it intensified. It didn't hurt but it didn't feel good either. It reminded her of the time she touched a live wire helping her papa once. Then it grew stronger, she felt herself on the brink of passing out. It grew stronger again and now it hurt. There was a faint pain throbbing through her whole body. She wasnt sure how long it lasted but it all finally stopped. She staggered back to her desk and sat down exhausted. Dalvin was at her side,"Alise are you ok? I'm so sorry I made a careless mistake. I assumed you were similar to humans I already knew. I didn't know your kind was so under evolved. I should have checked I'm so sorry." Her mind was still foggy she wasn't entirely sure what he was talking about. After she wiped her tears away her blurred vision cleared,"I'm ok....I think" Then she noticed. Her vision was better. Dalvin had installed lighting but to her it had been poorly lit. Not anymore, she could make out every detail of the training cave. Her body felt different, almost afraid she looked down at herself. The muscles in her arms were well-defined. Flexing her hands and arms she could feel a strength that wasn't there before. Other things felt different to like her whole body was alien to her. Slowly she raised her shirt to reveal her stomach. Oh my god she had a frigin six-pack." Umm...all this is gonna be a little hard to hide. I don't think you thought this one through Dalvin." He patted her shoulder,"Im just glad you are ok. I couldn't stop the process once it started but as soon as I saw how your body was reacting I knew it was making a huge leap. I should have checked your condition it was a careless mistake. I allowed myself to get too excited and now you must shoulder that mistake. I'm so sorry Alise." She looked up at him reassuringly,"It's ok, I'm still here just a little more buff than normal. I can wear a hooded sweater and sweat pants and tell my parents I'm training like Rocky. That could explain my arms and legs maybe. But it does look like no swimming for me this year....that's too bad.","I'm afraid its more than that Alise the effects are about double what I estimated. You need to be careful how you interact with others. Going by the measurements you showed me I estimate that you can now lift three hundred pounds. Your running speed is probably close to thirty miles per hour. Also you are young as you mature those numbers could double especially with the training you will be doing." Alise just noticed Dalvin had what looked like a magnifying lens and was studying her intently. He looked very concerned, that's what she liked about him. He was honest and strait forward. So many people hid their true selves nowadays Dalvin was like a breath of fresh air."So whats the news Doc am I gonna make it." He was still studying her,"Everything looks stabilized. Apart from the strong reaction I don't see any other.....wait what is this. No no no no, this isn't right. Stay still ill be right back I need some more tools." Dalvin hurried away leaving her there. She wondered what got him worked up she really did feel fine...well for the most part. Sitting in the chair she stretched her arms and legs out.Yea she definitely felt stronger. She stood up and did a few stretches, she was a little sore it seemed. Probably cause her muscles grew so much, she gave a little test hop and was stunned she had gone at least a foot in the air. She tried jumping with all her strength and left the ground at least two or three feet behind. She laughed to herself, guess she could join the girl's basketball team now.. Dalvin had come back before she could do any more tests,"Sit down don't move any more than you have to I need to run some diagnostic tests." She sat getting more worried,"So what exactly did you see that is worrying you?" He sat several devices on her desk and began activating them,"It was an anomaly in your genetic structure, I don't know what it was. That is why I need to run some tests" He began to use several lenses to look at her, the more he studied the deeper the furrow in his brows grew. She couldn't take it anymore,"So find anything? Don't keep me in the dark here." He looked straight into her eyes,"You have encoded rune script in the sub layers of your DNA. It appears to be old Odinian script." And what the hell was that supposed to mean to her. He seemed to sense her confusion,"That means your race is like mine its source forged. Unlike mine however yours seems to be coded to respond to source being directly applied." Alise frowned, why would someone do that? She had suspected humans were made if their planet was, so that part didn't surprise her much. But the part about responding to source made no sense, Dalvin had said there wasn't any on earth. As if responding to her mental inquiry Dalvin began speaking,"Perhaps this world wasn't a biological experiment as I had previously thought. I had assumed the lack of its creators presense meant this world was a toy or game, perhaps even idle curiosity or experimentation. But it appears there was more to it than that...perhaps this world's creator intended to deify themselves and this is a mechanic to bestow divine favor or power." Well that would explain some of the things she had heard of from stories but,"Why would the creator leave us after going through all that trouble?" Dalvin scratched his beard again,"It is impossible to do all this without an Eye of God, so it is more likely that it was stolen, or they were forced to flee." Did that mean that who they called God could have died here on earth after his source powers were stolen from him...the very idea of it was crazy. She could only imagine what kind of religion that could start."All the guessing aside what exactly got triggered inside me?" He sat his lenses down,"From what I can see the body enhancement unlocked your'divine might'. That is to say your adrenal gland is optimized for source input. So if you have access to source your body will act like a rune machine and enhance your strength. The output level seems to be about tenfold but that may also increase as well, I'm not to sure ill have to decode this script to know the exact specs." Alise's eyes went wide, if her new body could lift three hundred pounds that meant with source she would be able to lift three thousand pounds. Then as she grew up that would double,"So basically I'm Hercules, well that's not so bad is it?","I'm not sure who that is but as I said we will have to wait to know all the details, until then we shouldn't expose you to any more source. I have already made enough mistakes for one day. You need to go home and eat and rest." Alise acknowledged him reluctantly,"Ok ill go home but you get this sorted out. I'll die I have to wait any longer for my magical training","ok I will try". Alise left the cave and ran home and boy did she run. She had never felt so alive, she was so fast and could leap so high. Her arms were so strong she could grab a branch and swing herself to a nearby tree. All her senses and reflexes seemed sharper too. She was probably one of the top athletes in the world right now, it was a shame she had to keep it secret. So this is how a superhero feels huh?