Manifest Fantasy

Chapter 20: Magical Theory

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Armstrong Base, Grenden Plains

December 9, 2024

Henry yawned, blinking away the gritty feeling behind his eyes. A week of downtime, Harding had said. Some downtime that turned out to be. Between setting up Sera's crash course, cramming magical theory with Kelmithus, and endless briefings on the Ovinne Mountain Campaign, he'd barely had time to breathe. He could probably say the same for Sera, who should be halfway through JTRS training by now. At least he could take solace in the fact that he wasn't alone in this misery.

The IVAS unit beeped, finally finishing its boot sequence. He blinked as his standard HUD template filled the corners of his visor. Apparently, they'd managed to slap an EMF meter onto the helmet and connect it to the IVAS itself. It wasn't pretty, but he'd take this makeshift mana detector over nothing at all.

"Dude," Ron said, trudging along beside him. "You notice the EMF overlay's eating up half the FOV?"

Henry found the EMF overlay and activated it. Ron wasn't kidding. It dominated the center of the screen, completely taking up the bottom third and cutting into the temperature and humidity readings on his left. "Yeah, it's cluttered as hell. Bet some intern back home pushed this update."

"Real," Ron muttered. "Wonder what they were told. See all these new widgets? The hell is 'field density gradient'?"

Henry cycled through the menu, eyes narrowing as he focused on the new readout. "Hold up. This shit might lowkey be useful."

Ron glanced over. "Yeah? How so?"

"Turn it on, and then uh..." Henry looked around. How could it be useful? Then he saw it – a fluctuation between a nearby tree and a JLTV parked under it. He pointed. "Look over there. See how the gradient changes when I move closer? Bet you this could help pinpoint spell sources or something."

Ron nodded, studying his own display. "Predict incoming attacks?"

"Yeah."

"Yeah, I see it," Ron confirmed. "Still cluttered as hell though, but... yeah, you right. This shit might just be useful."

"Exactly," Henry agreed. "Whoever coded this probably thought they were making a fancy EMF detector for ghost hunters or something. Little do they know..."

Ron chuckled. "Little do they know, we out here living the dream."

Maybe not the past week, but Henry could see where Ron was coming from. Actually, he couldn't agree more. Chilling on an alien planet that just so happened to be a fantasy world, getting live magic shows, doing stuff Indiana Jones probably wished he could do – life on Gaerra beat anything else on Earth.

They trudged up the hill, the base's perimeter fence fading behind them. Henry narrowed his eyes as he caught sight of Ryan, Isaac, and the Doc huddled under a tree at the top of the hill. All three seem to be preoccupied, gawking at something like kids at a circus.