System Programmer

Since this was a training session, Joshua quickly altered the room to make it look they were outside on a grass field. He took a fighting stance, waiting for Catherine to make her move. She looked at him confused and said:

"I'm glad you so eager to learn, but I'm not sure what you're expecting me to do here."

"Oh I see, we need to work on your tropes knowledge. Give me a second."

Joshua created a piece of paper and wrote something on it and then handed it over to Catherine. She read it, her face adopted a weird expression and she asked:

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"Hmm… Are you sure about this?"

"Yes, please!"

"If that's really what you want… Fine."

She rolled her eyes and took a fighting stance. Before Joshua could react she appeared in front of him, punched him in the stomach, then did a roundhouse kick projecting him backward several meters. Joshua rolled on the ground for a moment and eventually came to a still, his face eating the dirt. Catherine came up to him and planted her foot on his head, pushing his face further down.

She took out the paper and read the lines, her face red of embarrassment.

"So little worm, do you understand how pathetic you are? As you are now even my dead grandmother could easily beat you. But don't worry, when I'm done with you, no one will dare to stand in your way."

Joshua, his face still in the ground suddenly put one arm in the air and did a thumb's up. Catherine could hear muffled giggles coming from him and rolled her eyes.

"Are you some kind of masochist?" she asked, the whole situation had made her curious.

He finally raised his head with a big grin on his face and said:

"Not at all, it just felt appropriate. By making me feel completely worthless, you make me realize how much I have room for improvement." he answered.

"But… you already realized that by fighting that snake."

".... Whoops. Oh well, that was fun anyway."

He stood up and said:

"OK, enough fooling around. Let's get dangerous!"

"We should have started with this... Anyway, do you understand the difference between a first and second level technique?"

"Indeed", she replied, nodding, "For example, the boat I created today was a block of ice that I maintained for hours."

"I can't exactly solidify lightning though…"

"True, but you've proven me several times you can be very creative. I'm sure you'll find something that suits you. I'll help you out if needed."

"You're placing a lot of faith in my imagination. Aren't you afraid I'll make something weird?"

"A bit… but I'm starting to look forward to the next thing that will blow up in your face." she said with a smile.

"Héhé, don"t worry, sweetie, I won't let you down."

Talking to Catherine had given him a few ideas. He went back outside and materialized his body. He checked his reserves, thanks to the bots constantly upgrading his soul world, he still had about 20% of energy left. This was a relief, his body used to suck his reserve dry.

With the remaining energy, he made a few objects appear in his hand. He was glad to see making little things wasn't an issue, he still had some leeway before he ran out.

He dismissed all the junk he had made and focused on making his first serious item. His materialized body wasn't fit for battle so he opted to make a ranged weapon. He opted to start with a simple pistol, which Luna helped him visualize. It was a bit more tricky but after playing around for a few minutes, he ended up having a firearm in his hand.

Joshua had never shot a gun in his life though, so he wondered how he would hit something. Unsure, he aimed at one of the mushrooms and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. Right, he had to remove the security first. He did so and shot again. This time a shot was fired, but the mushroom was unaffected. Clearly, he had missed. He used Luna to locate the bullet, it ended up being 3 mushrooms behind the one he had aimed for.

'Oh boy, this isn't glorious.' he thought.

When he died, Luna was still in beta. While the company he was working with was in contact with the military and the police force in order to have Luna incorporate some target assist mode, the development of such features hadn't started yet as Joshua was much more interested in making a system that would help the everyday life of people rather than a killing machine.

The situation had changed though, he went back inside the soul world and spent some time developing a basic aiming function. It wasn't complicated. Basically, Luna had to see how a weapon worked once to record the speed of the bullet as well as the direction it would be launched. It also projected a line going from the weapon to the target. Finally, it took into account the target's moving speed, giving an estimate chance of hitting.

With this done, he resumed his test against the giant mushroom. Joshua fired a few bullets and with the new aiming function, he managed to hit with all of them. Of course, a mere pistol would never work against a giant creature like the snake, but it was a start.

He dismissed the pistol and proceeded to register his lightning attack with the aiming function. Finally, he demonstrated it to Catherine. Unfortunately, she wasn't very impressed.

"That's all good and well, but it merely increases your chance to hit. It won't help you do more damage." she said, a bit disappointed.

"Don't worry this is just the first step of my little project. I'm demonstrating it to you so you can register your own attacks to this function."

Catherine nodded and materialized an ice projectile which she threw at the mushroom. Luna notified them it had registered a new type of attack. Catherine proceeded to perform a few tests, to familiarize herself with this new ability. In the end, she found it not too bad.

"Try to register every type of attack you know, it should be useful." Joshua told her before continuing his experiments.

The next thing he tried was making a machine gun. He started shooting the mushroom he had used as a target and was glad to see he could keep shooting as long as he kept making bullets of energy. This looked a little more promising so he decided to do a live test. He did warn Catherine, just in case, and headed toward the coast of the island. He took out his new toy and waited for the snake to be in sight. When it noticed Joshua, it immediately swam toward him. Soon, the snake was standing in front of him, its neck sticking a few meters out of the water, almost hitting the ceiling of the cavern.

'All right, time to see how efficient this thing is.' he thought while he pressed the trigger. It's important to note that for the occasion he had put a red bandana on his head and was shirtless.

With the aiming function, he had no trouble hitting the snake. The problem was, the bullets merely bounced off. He could swear the snake was laughing at him as it dived toward him. In a flash, Joshua dismissed his body and hid his soul in the ground. The snake couldn't stop in time and knocked its head against a rock, although it didn't seem to damage it.

Disappointed by the result, Joshua returned to the others. By now it was late at night and everyone had eaten dinner.

"How did it go?" Catherine asked.

"I didn't get First Blood on that damn snake, "he said, "back to the drawing board."

"I see... Do you have other plans or do you need help?"

"There are still a few things I can try, don't worry."

Joshua returned to the soul world, it was clear firearms were useless against anything stronger than regular humans. Ergo, he gave up on using them, for human enemies his lightning strike was effective anyway. He wasn't a fan of using weapons, so it didn't bother him much. For starters, if he had to hold a weapon, he had to manifest his body first which took most of his resources hostage just to maintain it. In other words, he should materialize something that he could handle without his physical body present.

He considered making something Catherine would use but quickly dropped the idea. While them combining their powers was interesting at certain points, it was also capital Joshua learned to attack with his own strength. He made a drawing board appear and started to scribble a lot of nonsense for a while. Then he scrapped everything and drew something more serious. When he was done he had a big grin on his face.