Hacking the world's magic

"I will start with something that you need to just take my word for. Magic, in its very nature, is rooted in the world's mythos. To help you imagine it-" Leo hesitated for a second, taking his time to figure out the right approach, "-no, I think showing will be many times easier to explain it than just using my words."

Leo reached for the clay discs that, more or less, hardened to the desired level. 

"Runes, in essence, are just letters. They can take any form and the ones I use are no better or worse than any others. It's like a separate alphabet and dictionary. And each and every one of those runes carries an intent."

"So, just like coding?" Tina asked as she sat down to the side, just far enough not to be in a way but close enough to get a good look at the space within Leo's arm's reach. 

"To a degree, yes." Leo nodded his head. "Coding was my inspiration when I developed it. Anyway," Leo cut the chatter as he looked back to the plates while also grabbing the thin, scalpel-like sculpting knife. 

"The biggest issue I encountered when trying to figure it out, was how to incorporate magic into a physical world. My modern education, in a sense, stood in the way," he laughed. "What you need to just accept for it is long too early for me to explain it, magic has both physical and metaphysical nature."

Tina squinted her eyes while looking down. On the other hand, the sparks in Millie's eyes only grew even more intense. 

"How do you intend to turn those plates into crystals, though?" Millie asked, noticing the discrepancy in Leo's words and results thus far. 

"Oh, that," Leo turned over to the side where he organized all the tools and resources he prepared beforehand. And, while aware of Millie's excitement, he picked out a… toothpick. 

Without even the slightest hint of delicacy, Leo then slammed it right into the middle of all the clay discs he just prepared before sitting down to tear into the bigger discs with his knife. 

"Well, we will need to get into the portal to complete the process and the real end-product, but…" 

After a few moments of intense scribbling in the clay, Leo pulled the knife away before grabbing the toothpick from before. 

"Now we put it like this…" he muttered as he nailed the three discs into the pick. 

"Now, this is the base of a rune crystal," Leo explained, pointing his hand at the artifact he completed and gently put down on the floor. "Now, we need to root in the mythos. And for that, could one of you open the window?" Leo suddenly requested. 

"Huh?" Given the gravity of Leo's revelations in a world where magic only appeared a few hours ago, his request couldn't be any more surprising. 

"I don't want us to choke on all the smoke," Leo explained as he picked the pack of smokes open before grabbing five of them at once. 

Not done yet, he then dripped a drop of another chemical to the bottom of each smoke before putting the lighter nearby and moving on to the next task without a word. 

Before long, two spoons of freshly opened cans of coffee awaited its meeting with the hot water while the bible lay open. The five cigarettes now stood erected around the rune piece, the cup of coffee, and the holy book. 

"Smoking, drinking morning coffee, reading the bible, even the very act of acting serious while conducting this ritual," Leo lightly shook his head before taking a breath to calm down. "This is all an act of anchoring the runes into the mythos of this world. A sort of hack that exploits the rules of magic rather than its natural course."

Without a word of further explanation, Leo carefully lit up all the cigarettes before gracefully filling the cup with the instant coffee powder to the brim. He then put the electric kettle aside before sitting down on his knees and picking up the holy book with all the grace and dignity he could muster. 

"Book of Aculeus, chapter seventh, eighteenth line."

Leo's dignified voice filled the room as the smoke started to rise above the clay artifact. 

"And the great fear befell all when His wrath rang through the skies."

By now, Leo was pumping as much of his recently recovered mana into his voice as he could. 

The study of mythos went far deeper than what he could reveal to the girls. But within the total of four types of mythos he introduced, anchoring mana element of the magic in the mythos of the divine came with as many great boons as it came with restrictions and limitations. 

For the project at hand, though, the rites Leo made use of perfectly aligned with the purpose of his hack. 

The smoke from the cigarettes somewhat intensified, growing thicker over Leo's small artifact. At the same time, the smell of freshly brewed coffee filled the room. The sound of the verse he recited lingered in the place. 

A chill went down Leo's spine as he sensed a… presence. 

'That's why I fucking hate using the divine,' Leo groaned in his thoughts, struggling to remain indifferent in the presence of a being perfectly fitting the divine mythos. But… 

'This is all a damn illusion!' Leo screamed out on the inside, pooling all of his willpower together to resist the urge to prostrate himself and praise whatever mighty being the divine element just mimicked. 

That was the worst part of using this extremely beneficial mythos. 

By breaking this taboo, Leo would struggle to chase those creatures away.

After scoring a meeting or two with a real deity, he knew better than to leave his sanity undefended against those petty tricks of the mythos. 

And what greater insult could a true deity receive than some wicked power trying to imitate the true deal to receive worship?

"Haaa…." Leo exhaled heavily when the sense of foreign, overwhelming presence started to fade. 

The price of using the divine mythos was the worship those fakes demanded in return. And only when one was strong enough to resist their pressure, would one stop their wish from twisting into a wicked form. 

"What was that…?" Looking around, Tina instinctively reached down to where her gun should be… 

But dressed in loose pajamas, she obviously didn't have her holster attached to her hip. 

"Just a fake god," Leo calmly replied before waving his head over the smoke-covered alter, pushing all the thick, white smoke away. 

"WHAT?!" Tina jumped up to her feet, right as Leo reached out and picked the artifact. 

"Normally, we should go to a portal to go through with this last step, but…" 

Leo closed his eyes before opening up the rift in the dimension and releasing most of all the mana he stored in there. 

In a world still devoid of serious mana presence, roaming with free mana would only lead to the power dissolving into the mana-less world. 

Still, the amount of mana Leo stole from the portal was abysmal when compared to just sucking it out from the air of a mana-rich world. 

For just one, crude crystal, he had enough. 

Contrary to when he pumped his energy into his voice, Leo unleashed the majority of his reserves all at once, infusing them, at force, into the crystal. 

"Now, I'm feeding it enough mana to root it into the mythos of the world."

No visual hinted at something happening. If anything, Leo simply stared at the small artifact in his hand as if he couldn't decide whether to kiss or eat it. 

And in the very next moment, a silvery film suddenly stretched out from the edges of the discs, closing the space between them and turning the three clay discs on a toothpick into a see-through, pyramid-shaped crystal. 

But Leo didn't move. 

'Just a little more…' he thought, squeezing himself dry, save for the small reserve he needed just for safety's sake. 

The clean hue of the crystal started to shine a little bit brighter… Only for this shine to quickly vanish, stabilizing as the crystal gained a slight, gray color. 

"It's done," Leo muttered, before shaking his head and picking up the crystal. 

He then turned his head and looked at the two girls. 

"On one hand, Millie, you already used your system so I'm curious how it would work with you, but…" Leo turned his eyes over to Tina. "So far, you only have guns to defend yourself. And that can't stand," he stated before reaching out with his hand and passing the freshly minted crystal toward the older of the girls. 

"Take it and then crush it in your hand," Leo requested. 

Looking down at the crystal, Tina gulped her saliva down before reaching out, stopping… and then reaching out again and grabbing the piece. 

"Do you really mean for me to…" Tina asked, her face full of reluctance as he looked up to Leo. 

"Yeah," the young man nodded his head with an encouraging smile. "Crush it."

Still full of doubts, Tina looked down at her palm before taking a deep breath… and easily crushing the slightly shiny crystal. 

Her eyes twitched before turning over to the side, locking on some unspecified point in space. 

"That's…" Tina muttered, her face freezing in shock. 

"Tina, how many stat points did you get after doing just half of the portal we were in?" Leo suddenly asked. 

"Huh?" the girl hesitated for a second before raising her hand to her chin as she thought. "I think I got one level and four stat points," she revealed as soon as she recalled the details. 

"Huh?" Tina gawked, her jaw trembling as her stare locked at the unspecified point in space with even more intensity. 

"Yeah, now do you get why I'm so confident?" Leo laughed out, despite not even feeling sure what kind of benefit this crushing the crystal offered. "So? What did you get?"

Tina lifelessly turned her head over as she stared blankly at Leo. She then blinked her eyes a few times, in a desperate bid to regain her wits. 

"I've gained four levels," she revealed before gulping her saliva down. "And a total of sixteen statistic points…" 

The smile on Leo's lips flickered a tiny little bit. 

'That's rather on the lower side of things…' he thought, before taking a moment to think. 'Or, maybe this circuit is far more advanced than I thought?'

Rather than pondering over the issue, Leo simply shook his head before raising his eyes back to the girls. 

"Now, I need an hour to prepare the next few. Then, about a week to prepare the optimal amount of better-grade crystals. But that means," Leo reaffirmed his smile while sparks of mischief appeared in his eyes. "In an hour, we are going to a portal before the military closes them all off. And then, in a week," Leo's gaze locked on Tina's face, "I need you to get the military to give up on one portal for us."