Chapter 218: Getting Into the Role

"No, no, no, don’t do this to me." On his knees, Magna helplessly watched his mana reserves fall to 9% and keep dropping.

The spell didn’t even have a safety mechanism.

He had thought it would last for a set duration after being cast, then stop on its own, requiring him to chant again if he wanted to cast it a second time.

But for some reason, it kept going without stopping, as if it had sworn to drain him completely.

His mind raced to figure out what had gone wrong and why he couldn’t cancel the spell.

’Is it because I cast it without chanting? Am I being punished?’

There was certainly a reason why Witches had to chant those names before casting spells, although he had no idea what the consequences of casting one without them might be or whether anything like that had ever happened before.

He didn’t even know whom he was supposed to ask for forgiveness for his sin.

Actually, one name came to mind.

"Gaia," he called out immediately, hoping the AI would respond.

After all, she was the goddess, all 5 of them, in fact, who had created the entire realm and its mana in this universe.

He practically had a direct support line to the creator of the realm, someone he could complain to about his problem.

Yet, as always, no response came.

Thinking it might work through AI commands, the way it had when he first created it, he tried a different approach.

"Gaia, cancel active spellcasting."

Against all expectations, the command actually worked, bringing a voice into his mind that sounded like 5 women speaking at once, their voices overlapping.

[Command acknowledged... Terminating mana output.]

The bluish beam coming from his palm abruptly stopped, and the mana pattern within him broke apart, returning the remaining mana to his reserves, which were now at 8%.

Magna first checked how much mana he had left, pained by the loss, then his eyes widened in realization.

This was the first time Gaia had responded to his command. He had tried many times before, only to be met with silence each time.

"Gaia, are you sentient now?" he asked, wanting to test something.

Once again, there was no response, making him raise an eyebrow. His suspicion appeared to be correct.

To make sure, he tried again, this time phrasing it as a command. "Gaia, run a consciousness check."

Just as he had guessed, text began to appear as the voice rang in his ears.

[Executing Consciousness Assessment...]

[Consciousness Detected: No.]

[Self-Awareness: None.]

[Independent Thought: Unavailable.]

Whatever had happened seemed to have helped Gaia upgrade itself enough to recognize commands, but it still hadn’t reached the level of a proper artificial intelligence.

That was good enough for now. It could communicate, however crudely, which meant he might finally get answers to some of his questions.

He started with the first. "Gaia, provide system identification."

He wanted to be sure the AI really was the one he had created with his own hands.

As he waited excitedly, the voice filled his ears, and lines of text began to appear.

[Retrieving System Information...]

[System Name: Gaia.]

[System Type: Personal Assistant Program.]

[Creator: ???]

[Primary Function: Assisting the user with daily tasks.]

Apart from the ??? beside the creator field, all the information looked normal until the last line appeared.

[Current Active Task: Continuation of Host Existence.]

"What does that mean?" Magna asked, then corrected his phrasing. "Gaia, explain the current active task."

This time, the voice came through garbled, as if mixed with static, while the text flickered like a faulty light.

"Hey, did you break?" If it were a television, Magna would have given it a slap to fix it, but all he could do was watch as it fell silent and the text blinked to life, then went out completely.

He tried a few more commands, but none of them worked. The AI had fallen completely silent, apparently reverting to its previous, unresponsive state.

"Great..." Once again, he was left with a ton of questions and no one around to answer them.

There was someone nearby, though. They had come to ask questions rather than answer his.

"Sir, are you okay?"

Magna had been so focused on his AI that he hadn’t noticed anyone approaching. When he raised his head, he saw 3 figures looking down at him from above.

They were all men wearing full suits of metal armor with lines running across them like magma.

Magna had seen similar armor on Corvo, Rowena’s Shadow, and immediately recognized them as the Shadows of the Witches he had seen earlier.

"Ah, yeah, I’m good." He slowly stood up, thinking about what to do.

He had definitely been caught completely off guard.

When he looked around, everything was covered in frost.

He had no way to explain that to them. It looked like his ability to cast spells would no longer be a secret.

’Anyway, I’m not that child who needs to keep secrets anymore,’ he thought, feeling quite good at the thought alone.

Until now, he had always been the one getting beaten up, but with his current power, he was sure that if he faced that Drakon girl, or even Melisandre and Azelith again, he would have a good chance of fighting back, maybe even beating their asses.

With that newfound confidence, he jumped out of the crater and landed in front of the Shadows waiting above.

Seeing him clear such a deep pit in a single jump briefly took them all aback again.

They had already mentally prepared themselves on the way here to check on the man who could destroy a mountain with a punch. Still, they couldn’t help feeling shaken.

It wasn’t only Magna’s sheer power that intimidated them.

His half-naked body looked like a machine carefully designed by a pair of hands to kill and destroy.

Every muscle, even his skin, looked as though it had been made from the finest materials.

And his eyes...

When they met those golden eyes regarding them so casually, their hearts began to beat faster, and their instincts warned them to run or submit to whatever they were facing.

Their reaction wasn’t caused by his appearance alone. Magna was currently using one of his earlier mutation traits, his intimidating aura.

Since his power had already been exposed and he had decided to stop hiding it, he also needed to back it up.

He already learned one thing about the universe he was in. The Witch World respected power.

Azelith’s words came to his mind. She had once told him that what this world lacked most was consequence.

’As long as you are powerful enough, there is no consequence you will ever have to face.’

Those had been the 12th Trial Witch’s exact words.

So, as long as Magna was powerful and acted the part, he was sure he wouldn’t face any consequences now, even if others discovered he could cast spells.

What he hadn’t realized yet was that it wasn’t only his body that had grown and changed. His mentality was also beginning to change, becoming more like the God of Games whose role he had once played.