Building a magic system on threat of destruction

"Status granted!" Jack finished the cast and felt completely exhausted. Using [Status Granting] fifteen times had pushed him to some kind of limit. He felt empty like he had no energy left in his body.

Reph had been observing him and the spell. He had been interested in [Status Granting] but turned his attention to Jack as he mentioned feeling tired. "Good thing we finished. Looks like you used up all your mana reserves. If you cast anything else you'll probably collapse again, there won't be enough internal mana to keep your body running."

Jack nodded tiredly. Even without the warning, there was no way he felt up to performing the minutes-long ritual again. He was standing in the middle of a group of people, screens in front of their faces. A handful were trying to perform the trick Jeler had done earlier. They attempted to leap off the screen as they rotated their bodies in midair. The result was them falling to the ground while Jeler laughed at their efforts.

Jack had just finished granting all the status screens to the mercenaries but he had already learned some things. The animal people that included Jeler were called 'animalus', and the race seemed to encompass any type of animal. There was a dog, a crow, and a chameleon person in the assembled group. Each had the characteristics of the animal they resembled, fur, feathers, and leathery skin present respectively. There was no uniformity to the placement or type of eyes and ears, each seeming to be nothing more than lightly humanized versions of the animals they were based on.

Only one other demon had volunteered. A male who was much shorter than Riniox. His skin was a dark red and while he lacked horns he had a pointed tail emerging from just above his hips.

None of the lizard-like people had joined in. They had all been a bit distinct from the chameleon man, looking far more similar to each other in the basic arrangement of their features. But he was able to find out that they were called 'draconids.'

As for the giants who stood over nine feet tall, two had volunteered. They were a race called 'bigguns.' The species had skin that resembled hard stone, rough to the touch, and grey in color. They apparently lived on mountains and were deeply religious.

Lastly was the humans. They resembled people from Earth, having no physical difference that Jack could see. Most had dark brown skin and dark hair, but there were two lighter-skinned people as well.

It was a diverse group, but he had multiple sources to gather information from. He was a little disappointed that none of the bore-bots had joined, but Reph told him that he would have Jack perform the status ritual for the group of three later. His secret objective of finding a ducol was a failure as well. He hadn't asked anyone directly yet but he hadn't seen any other races present in the compound so far. His hunt would have to wait for now.

"Alright everyone, I want to try an experiment for now. I need a volunteer." Jack called out to the group, and one of the humans stepped forward. The man was named Mills and he had been the first to volunteer to receive a status. "I'm going to remove one of the skills from your list temporarily, and see what effect it has on you."

Mills gave him a thumbs up, smiling confidently. Jack removed his keyboard from his screen and attached it to Mills' screen. After a moment of thought, he removed the [Walking] skill. Then, disconnecting his keyboard, Jack minimized the screen and stepped back from the other man. "Can you walk forward for me please?"

Mills took a step forward...and fell. The group laughed as he tried to get up and walk forward, only to trip up over and over. Jack watched the man for a moment before asking him to stop. Mills sat on the ground, face flushed in embarrassment as Jack came back over. Jack clicked the floating blue minimized screen, and it returned to its full size. Looking at the skill list, he saw that Mills had a [Running] skill.

Helping Mills up, Jack asked him to try something else. "Can you try running this time? Don't start slowly, just start running."

Mills looked skeptical but did as asked. He ran forward...and kept running. He looked shocked as his feet actually landed one in front of the other. Only when he tried to slow down and walk to a stop did he trip up and fall over again. Jack took pity on him and put the [Walking] skill back on his skill list.

"Thank you very much. Now for the next experiment." Mills glanced back over his shoulder, silently begging someone else to volunteer. "I'm going to try and add something to your skill list." Then Jack yelled out, "Jeler! Can you come here?"

Jeler didn't seem eager to join the experiments. Most of the people who had laughed at Mills were now watching Jeler, hoping he would make a fool of himself next. But he obediently walked over and opened his status screen.

"Do either of you have a skill that the other doesn't, something easy to test right now?" The two briefly looked at their lists before Jeler found something.

"You ever tried to handstand, Mills?"

The man shook his head. Jack checked the status screen and saw that Mills did not have any skills related to handstands (of which there were several). So, he added the [Handstand] skill to Mills' screen. Jack and Jeler both took a step back and gestured for Mills to try a handstand. After minimizing the screen again the man raised his arms and quickly bent forward, kicking off the ground as he did so. His hands made contact with the ground and his legs went up. Then he lost his balance and fell over, the handstand incomplete.

Jack frowned. This was a similar reaction to when he had tried to add skills to his own status. There seemed to be some logic at least. Not having a skill indicated that you couldn't perform the related action, but adding the skill manually didn't automatically grant the chosen ability.

"Jeler, can you walk him through how to do a handstand?" Jack asked, curious.

Jeler and Mills started practicing, and in less than a minute Mills was able to perform a handstand. Mills seemed shocked. Almost like he hadn't actually believed he could do it. His balance was a bit poor and he was having a hard time keeping his legs straight, but he was doing a handstand.

Jack called out to the rest of the group. "Anyone else who can't do a handstand come over here!" six others wandered over, and Jack added the [Handstand] skill to each of their screens. Some of them had better first attempts than Mills, but none of them could do it until Jeler stepped in. Once given some instruction in the proper form, all six were able to do a handstand. Jack noticed that some people had better balance, or could keep their legs straight and asked to look at the status sheets. After a bit of digging, he found some skills that seemed partially related. The [Balance] skill likely helped with all forms of balance and was one Mills didn't have but some of the others did. Similarly, the [Abdominal Muscle Control] skill was likely why people could keep their legs straight up in the air.

Then he called out to the remaining observers. "Alright, everyone else come over here. I need all of you to line up and do a handstand."

They complied, all moving nearly in synch to perform handstands. A couple of them seemed to be as good as Jeler, their bodies completely straight in the air as they stood on their hands. Others among them struggled a bit like the people who had just acquired the skill. Jack called a halt to the handstands and everyone stopped. He once again checked over all the skill lists and found similar results as before.

It seemed like the quality of a skill was also dependent on other skills. The more skills someone had that related to each other, the better all of those skills performed. Jeler had the most acrobatic and balance-related skills of anyone in the group and it showed. His grace and dexterity were far more apparent than the other assembled people. Interestingly though, by adding a skill to a skill sheet, someone could be taught a skill far easier than if they didn't have it. Riniox hadn't participated in the handstand experiment, and when Jeler walked her through how to do one, it took far more attempts than anyone else.

Jack felt like he would need a bigger sample size to be sure, but decided to refrain from adding skills to people's status screens for now. He turned back to the group, "Does anyone have something they know how to do that isn't on their skill list?" The group all observed their screens and searched for anything.

The only positive answer came from Riniox. "Well, I've spent about ten minutes to learn to handstand. I can do it now but I don't have the skill listed." Jack checked her skill list and then asked her to perform a handstand. She did so, but the skill was still absent.

Jack was getting curious. This situation made him think of his own, able to do a wide variety of things but not having the skills listed. "Riniox, I'm going to add the [Handstand] skill, then remove it. Then I'll have you try again if that's okay." She agreed to try it.

So the skill was added and tested. Riniox was able to perform a handstand and even claimed that it was easier now than it had been before. Then Jack removed the skill...and Riniox fell to the ground when she attempted the maneuver. She tried multiple times but was not able to perform a handstand, no matter how much Jeler coached her or how much she tried. Only when Jack put the skill back on the list was she able to do it again.

This was exactly what Jack had wanted to test. It appeared as though people could learn new skills and abilities without the system. However, once the system recorded them as having the skill and capable of using it, removing the skill kept them from being able to use it. This is why Jack hadn't been able to walk without the [Walking] skill, but could still think, move, and experiment. It meant that anything he added to his skill list would likely have to stay there and that he would need to be careful with his experiments. If he had tried to test removing the [Thinking] skill...he shuddered at the thought.

"This is really good stuff! I'd love to get people's opinions on a couple of other things if we have time." He looked to Riniox. The woman had been accommodating, but he knew that this was a militant group. They likely had other tasks and duties to perform instead of experimenting with him.

She looked at Jack, an amused smile on her face. "This lot? You can have them for another two hours. I'll see if I can find anyone coming off duty that can assist you after that. Though you'll need to give them status sheets too. You have the mana for that?"

Jack had slowly been feeling better over the course of the testing but was still tired. Reph stepped in to help. "Two hours? He could probably manage a few casts by then, three, maybe four. I don't want him to push too hard though, my group needs to check over his internals tonight and make sure we didn't miss any damage."

Jack wasn't sure what 'checking internals' entailed, but he wasn't about to waste time asking. He had two more hours to run tests and ask questions. He was about to address the group again when Jeler and Mills came over to him. "Hey Jack, we have a slight problem," Jeler said.

"What's wrong?"

"It's Mills. He closed his screen and can't get it back open." Jeler looked awkward as if the topic bothered him slightly.

Jack frowned. "Did he cast the status spell again?"

Jeler flinched slightly as Mills shook his head. Then Jeler spoke for the man, "It won't work. You need to say 'status' for it to activate, and well...Mills is mute. He can't use the [Status] skill."