Author's Notes: Chapter edited and corrected by Scott Fellman.
Serena POV - Day 23 since Bella joined Miach
Honestly, Mixing is completely unfair. I had been able to copy Mixing from Naaza the day before, but I hadn't been able to try it out that night because Rebecca wouldn't let me go all night—not that I was complaining—so only now did I have time to try it out under a time bubble.
Every time I thought my potions couldn't be improved, I found a way to reach a new level. I relied on my talent and experience as a potion maker to create potions so perfect they seemed unbeatable, but that paled in comparison to using the permanent Six Eyes that were now my new eyes.
Six Eyes was too valuable not to permanently affix to my eyes with The Darkness, and it had already proven its worth even with something as simple as potion-making. The ability to see the quantity of an ingredient down to a terrifying level had somehow made perfect potions completely flawless.
Seeing the magic and reactions of the ingredients helped a lot when stirring, mixing ingredients and regulating the exact amount of magic infused into the potions.
Although, since my potions were already perfect enough for someone without the very illegal ability granted by the Six Eyes, the improvements with them were 'relatively' small, definitely not comparable to what I could achieve if I prepared them with Sky Flame to harmonize the ingredients.
I thought that was its new limit—talent, experience, Six Eyes, and Sky Flames—but Mixing was truly unfair. Somehow, it pushed the potion to an even higher level. I didn't even know what it was actually doing. It wasn't like Mixing controlled my movements to prepare the potions in some special way; it simply activated when the potion ran out, magically enhanced itself, and that was it.
That was it. Really, soft magic without clear rules and details was a headache, but I couldn't deny its usefulness.
My potions started at 100% effectiveness, increased to 150% with Six Eyes, most of them reach 550% with Sky Flame, and finally reach 700% with Mixing.
And those were averages; some potions could even double that level of effectiveness. It was truly incredible and totally unfair to people who didn't have those abilities. I really wanted to see what other ways I could improve my potions.
I was also able to replicate something quite interesting from Naaza: her prosthetic arm. Naaza kept it hidden under sleeves and gloves, but the slightest opening was enough for my Reality Marble to copy the prosthesis magically.
I thought GLaDOS would be interested, and I was right. She had been trying to decipher it and attempting to modify it to create other magical prosthetics.
And the next thing I was able to replicate was creating a Falna, even though I couldn't do it myself. It wasn't something inherent to a god; you needed to be a god for it to work. But it was more like a ritual than anything else—an extremely simple one, requiring only the blood of a god.
And I wasn't a god. The Traveler was listed as a deity in The Company, but I definitely wasn't one. The Traveler was a primordial entity, yes, but not a god in the true sense of the word. He had been worshipped as a god by many civilizations, but in and of himself, he wasn't a god.
Something was missing for it to be considered a god in its own right, despite being a primordial cosmic entity, but I didn't know what it was, and I, as such, couldn't be classified as a god, so the Falna was impossible to place. Perhaps in the future, as I progressed further with the template, I might gain the divinity by faith that I had obtained from the Traveler; I truly had no idea what would happen in that regard.
Even so, it was good to know the mechanics behind the Falna; I still had Dionysus's blood, so I could try to improvise some things.
Unfortunately, I had to step out of my time bubble to meet with the others and couldn't continue experimenting any further.
"So, what will you do?" I asked the girls after breakfast. "I was planning to go around the city looking for a few things. I'll go with Riveria since she contacted me about some adventurers who agreed to demonstrate their skills so I could replicate them, although she didn't give any details. I was planning to go through Hephaestus' territory before."
"I wanted to find Welf Crozzo, I wanted to replicate the Blacksmith skill, on the one hand, and see if I can replicate Crozzo Blood, it's supposed to be a Skill, but I have no idea if it works for someone who isn't a Crozzo, and I have no idea if my Reality Marble will be able to replicate bloodlines, although I'm almost certain it will."
"And finally, I'll go to Ishtar's Entertainment District to look for Haruhime." I said easily while sipping some tea.
"A busy day, I see." Rebecca snorted. "Sounds mostly boring, so I'll pass." She added with a grimace. I simply nodded.
"I was going to head down to the dungeon. Come if you want." Bella said easily, and Rebecca's eyes sparkled slightly.
"Alright, choom! We're going monster hunting! " Rebecca said cheerfully. "Are you coming, Lucy?" Rebecca asked. Lucy frowned slightly.
"No thanks, I was planning to go with Serena. I want to see more of... Orario," Lucy said, sounding intrigued by the city. "We couldn't see much yesterday since it was late in the day. Unlike Night City, where the city comes alive at night, most of Orario seems to operate during the day," Lucy said matter-of-factly. Rebecca shrugged.
"Very well, Choom, your decision." Rebecca said, unconcerned.
"Actually, I had something for you, Lucyna." GLaDOS said, appearing from a teleportation circle. Lucy wrinkled her nose at her full name, but still looked at her curiously.
"Something for me?" she asked curiously. GLaDOS nodded, raised her hand, and showed her two purple video game cartridges.
"I finished replicating Aether Editing, I thought you'd want it." GLaDOS said easily, Lucy's eyes widening in surprise, as did mine.
"So fast?" I asked curiously, GLaDOS smiled mockingly.
"I used a time bubble. It took me 152 days, 7 hours, 43 minutes, and 18 seconds to finish replicating them," GLaDOS said simply. I grimaced at the number of days. Five months inside a time bubble—really, GLaDOS handled time in a very different way.
Now, it also showed how ridiculous Aether Editing was; I'm almost certain that GLaDOS was already more than 50% through its analysis before entering that time bubble. I didn't want to imagine the real-time GLaDOS needed to replicate it, especially if she used her processing capacity to the maximum. The fact that a Prüfer unit took so many months to replicate that ability showed how complicated it was.
"So, how do you use them?" I asked curiously as I approached GLaDOS. GLaDOS looked at Lucy, who nodded almost eagerly as she stood up and walked over. GLaDOS simply waved her hand, and several holographic displays made of magic appeared in front of her.
She began rapidly tapping the holographic keyboard until she finally grabbed one of the video game cartridges and somehow inserted it into a holographic screen.
"You're going to have to lower your defenses, ready?" GLaDOS asked simply. Lucy nodded. GLaDOS just pushed the cartridge into the holographic display with her finger. The cartridge seemed to disintegrate as the display absorbed it.
I watched the entire process with curiosity, letting my eyes scan every possible realm: physical, magical, spiritual, and cognitive. I could see how whatever GLaDOS had done had been implemented at a fundamental level within Lucy.
It definitely wasn't harmful, but now it was a part of Lucy, as if she'd been born with it. Lucy opened her eyes in wonder, then reached out slightly, and several screens appeared in front of her.
A huge, bright smile spread across Lucy's face. Without hesitation, she raised both hands and began typing away on the keyboard of her new Aether Editing machine. I chuckled softly, walked over to her, and firmly grasped her hands. Lucy looked at me, confused. I simply projected a Perfector for Lucy in the shape of a pair of sterile, fingerless white gloves and quickly released her grip.
Lucy looked confused before hitting the keyboard again, her eyes opening before the wide, almost childlike smile returned to her face as her fingers blurred in the air.
"Nova, we lost her; she'll be like this all day." Rebecca said mockingly, although I could see she had a huge smile. She was happy for Lucy, and so was I.
"What do you say, do you want to go for a spin in Orario to see what you can do? I don't think you can use Daemons or Quickhacks on normal people, but it would be good to get used to Aether Editing and try to figure out how Aether Information works, if you even have access to it. Aether Editing might be there on its own." I said to Lucy, looking curiously at GLaDOS. She frowned as she considered it. Lucy just kept engrossed in the new console before blinking slightly.
"Access to Aether Editing? I have it, and it's terribly easy. I have all the information about reality available here, or so I think. It's taking me a little while to figure it out because it's all so overloaded. There's... an infinite amount of information, from what I understand, but yes, it's terribly easy to access." Lucy pointed out as she grabbed a small square and threw it into the air. A huge screen appeared in front of her.
GLaDOS and I frowned as we approached her. I began reading through all the lines of code, my eyes widening. Lucy wasn't lying; it was all there, but I wasn't understanding 90% of it.
"What the hell?" I muttered as I reached out to touch the holographic keyboard, only for my hand to pass right through it. GLaDOS snorted and lifted the game cartridge still in her hands. I snorted and just stared at her. GLaDOS smiled at me petulantly before placing the cartridge in the air.
I lowered my defenses as I felt the Aether Editing implant itself within me. I grimaced at the amount of information that began to circulate through me before it stopped. I seized the new energy and joined Lucy, extending the keyboard in front of her and typing rapidly.
"This... Aether Editing is like this, this is what Aether Information looks like, GLaDOS?" I asked, frowning. GLaDOS joined in the tapping of the keyboard as she split the screen.
"No, Aether Information is something completely different, and to begin with, almost impossible to perceive without the right abilities. Everyone in Punklorde varies in their perception of Aether Information, but most are almost the same; they treat it like a 'video game,' that is, I can see different things about an object or a person."
" I can see things like states, variables, flags, buffers, editable parameters, geometric outlines on objects, floating icons, bars, numbers, symbols, and visual structures when something is 'editable'."
"I literally have an entire dedicated interface for that, something I can't modify because it's not understandable even with my current computing abilities. You can think of it as being in a video game with access to certain administrator settings, but not the entire system."
"I can see how Aether, magic, demonic power, or any paracausal energy changes an object, how the world is rewritten when someone uses 'magic,' and I can do the same, but in a different way, not by channeling, but by directly modifying states."
"I can grab an object, usurp its 'administrator rights' and start modifying as many parameters as I can, but even that has a limit; I can't rewrite entire laws, I can't completely hack a human to change them entirely and make them completely unrecognizable."
"So this... this is the complete opposite, this interface is a whole new language I've never seen before, it seems like the code itself twists and turns, it changes instantly, symbols and words completely incomprehensible but somehow... understandable, it seems alive in a way, like... like reality itself is being encoded."
"This... this would give her complete access to the codebase of reality." GLaDOS said in amazement as she typed rapidly.
"That's... very interesting, but... what is Backyard?" Lucy asked, frowning as she pointed to a spot in the corner. We looked directly at that spot and saw that it was the name of the interface we were looking at, the one Lucy had access to.
"That... doesn't exist in my programming. It's not something I put in, or that existed." GLaDOS said quickly, a second keyboard and screen appearing beside her as she tried to find the interface. I frowned and did the same, though much more slowly.
My manipulation of my own Aether Editing was more clumsy, but I was finally able to find everything I was looking for, or rather, not find it; Backyard, whatever it is, was not present in my Aether Editing.
"Backyard..." I muttered to myself as I glanced at Lucy's interface once more. I frowned deeply; it must be something... something inherent to Lucy. But... Lucy was absolutely nothing special.
I wasn't being critical in any way. Lucy was just a human with cyberware, period. A completely normal human. There shouldn't be anything supernatural in Cyberpunk 2077, and there was absolutely no template placed on Lucy. And the powers she had access to, GLaDOS and I also had access to.
So Backyard was something of itself. But… access to all the information of reality as something natural? That… that was-
My mind went blank.
"Backyard." I murmured incredulously aloud. "A dimension composed of pure information and the source of all existence." I said as the realization dawned on me. "Everything that exists in the real world is defined as information in the backyard—no, it's defined first as information. The backyard is the source code of the universe; the universe is the visible program." I said incredulously.
"Do you know it?" Lucy asked, surprised.
"Yes, yes, now, yes. Guilty Gear." I said immediately, surprised, before looking at Lucy incredulously. "You! In my world, there was a collab, a crossover between Cyberpunk Edgerunners and Guilty Gear. A Lucy was sent to the world of Guilty Gear, a fighting game, for her to maintain her fighting skills, specifically her Netrunning. The developers gave her access to the Backyard so that Lucy could hack people without cybernetics."
"That... I'd forgotten about that. When a partner is sealed in an early version of itself, The Company, it boosts and grants all of that person's abilities at their peak. I... I didn't think Collabs or Crossovers counted. Your ability to see, understand, and manipulate the Backyard comes from that Collaboration." I said quickly while looking at Lucy incredulously.
Lucy was looking at me the same way.
"Wait, does that mean I could hack into completely organic people even without Aether Editing?" Lucy asked, frowning. I grimaced.
"Honestly? I have no idea. I... I don't remember the finer details of that collaboration; I only remember a couple of bits of information about it." I said, frowning, and took out my phone, quickly starting to search for the information.
"While on my way to Netrunning, I somehow ended up in the Backyard through unknown means. Someone created a temporary body to act as a link between the physical world, but I still needed to maintain a constant connection to the Backyard to stay alive?" Lucy asked incredulously as she read over my shoulder.
"Yes, that connection is what theoretically allows you to hack completely organic people, but... I have no idea if you have full access." I said, frowning.
I quickly began to look at Lucy's soul before expanding my vision to examine its connections. There were hundreds, thousands of connections attached to Lucy; they looked like threads or cords, invisible lines whose intensity and color varied widely. Several were anchored to me, several went to other people, and I could even see some disappearing from the dimension to reach Night City and the people there.
I scanned all the connections until I found one, it was… really strange, it looked like a tiny thread disappearing into nothingness, as if it were going to another dimension, but I quickly noticed the difference, it was immutable, impossible to modify, break or suppress, it was there and there it would stay, as if the connection were permanent, something completely inherent to Lucy.
This was her connection to the Backyard, but… it was much weaker than she expected. I studied it carefully before wrinkling my nose.
"It's... weaker than I expected your connection," I said honestly. Lucy frowned.
"But I can see everything inside Backyard, I just... need to learn where to look." Lucy said as she looked at her holographic screen. I nodded.
"Yes, you can do it. The connection you have is weak, but it's still a connection to the Backyard. It seems that all you can do is see the Backyard, but not interact directly with that dimension. You could observe all the information you want, everything that makes up the universe in its most basic form, but you can't manually modify it." I said honestly. Lucy frowned.
"But... Aether Editing can do it." Lucy pointed out as she began typing rapidly, in front of her, a small flame appeared and remained suspended in the air.
It was quite interesting to watch; you don't even see magic or alchemy, yet both left traces of energy, whether generating fire from nothing or transforming matter into something flammable. Thanks to Six Eyes, I was more than able to see how the molecules in the air literally caught fire out of nowhere.
It didn't change matter; It didn't generate fire. It didn't matter that the chosen molecules weren't flammable; they simply began to ignite when Lucy altered their states. They weren't even burning themselves.
The molecules remained perfectly intact while still burning. It was truly baffling to see how casually the laws of physics were violated.
"It's incredible! You can use the code obtained from the Backyard and use it to rewrite the entire base code of an object," GLaDOS said in amazement. Lucy smiled broadly.
"Yes, but it's hard to keep up. Identifying that group of molecules was terribly complicated. I don't even want to think about how difficult it would be to find a person in this sea of information," Lucy said with a grimace.
"Don't worry, you just need to tune in so your interface can capture and understand the code coming from the Backyard." GLaDOS said excitedly while typing rapidly, then, out of nowhere, she pulled out some purple glasses that I immediately recognized as Silver Wolf's and handed them to Lucy, who just raised an eyebrow but put them on.
"Wow, nice interface." Lucy whistled, impressed. GLaDOS nodded.
"It's something created by Silver Wolf; she encountered the same problem. The glasses can identify, mark, and store all information about targets within the scope, especially their weaknesses. I replicated it in my optics so I wouldn't need them."
"You can use them; they just need a little modification, and it should allow them to grab all the information within the Backyard about a target. We need an interface to share the information. You're the only one with access to the Backyard, so you could transmit the information in real time to take advantage of it together." GLaDOS said cheerfully, Lucy's eyes sparkling even through her dark glasses.
I smiled slightly and went over to help them. I could feel my RM copying the glasses; maybe I could modify them to my liking. I looked up at Bellatrix and Rebecca only to find both places empty. It seemed they had both decided to leave when we started our nerdy chat.
I chuckled and shook my head as I refocused my attention on the holographic screens. I placed a time bubble. I had several commitments to attend to and was sure I'd be late if I didn't. I had a feeling we'd be here for several hours.