Happy Friday, hope everyone is doing good. Here is another chapter for the week.
After Tao dropped off everyone at the facility to get checked out. She went to Theo and picked up a new clone. They stopped by the base to get a tool bag before taking Ezekiel back to the secret base Fantasia led them to. Nothing had really changed yet besides some of the embers were less bright then before.
Ezekiel studied Fantasia's corpses for a few moments before he glanced at Tao as he said, "Let's find whatever passes for a computer, I wanna hack into it."
"Is that even possible? Won’t the programming language be written in Dire Wraith? You could possibly do it, if it was written in binary. But in an alien language, I think it would be highly unlikely."
Ezekiel opened his mouth to respond and then froze for a moment before he looked at Tao as he asked, "How do you even know that?"
Tao laughed as she said, "I like to learn and I have long since memorized the entire library of Kamar Taj along with all the sanctums."
Tao smiled as she said, "Did you think I spent my free time only studying about magic? I've been studying different programming languages for almost twenty years. You have no idea how similar they are to most magic. Especially runic and enchantment magic."
"Wait, magic is just like a computer programming language?"
Tao nodded her head as she said, "About seventy percent or so. Obviously it's a lot different, since if you screw up a line of code you just find the mistake and fix it. If you screw up a complicated spell matrix you could be seriously hurt, die or summon something unpleasant."
Tao studied Ezekiel for a moment before she said, "It's also why I asked if you wanted to study magic before. Besides your body being an excellent conductor for magic, you are already an amazing programmer. Although I have to admit I've never seen a code so complicated before, I assume it's something from your past life?"
Ezekiel smiled smugly as he said, "It was one of the programming languages I created myself."
Tao nodded in understanding as she said, "All the more reason you should learn magic. Once you learn it, you could create your own magic system with your coding knowledge. You could possibly become more powerful than me or even Strange for that matter."
Ezekiel was quiet for a minute as he thought about what Tao said. She had made the offer plenty of times before, but this was the first time she gave Ezekiel a good reason to accept. Ezekiel had always declined because he still needed to train his own powers properly. Even with clones, he thought if he learned magic it would take a lot of time.
Ezekiel finally sighed before he said, "You win, I’ll learn magic from you."
Tao frowned as she said, "I could have saved so much time if I just started with this."
Ezekiel shrugged his shoulders as he said, "Honestly I didn't want to learn because I thought it would be boring and take a long time. Reading a bunch of books on dead languages just to do some magic when I already have powers that should be on par with most magic just seemed counter productive."
"While your powers are strong, compared to a true master of the mystic arts they aren't as strong as you think."
Ezekiel smirked as he said, "Just wait till I master fuinjutsu or my eyes fully develop. Then we can see which is stronger."
Tao returned Ezekiel's smirk as she said, "You will understand after you learn magic."
"We'll see. Anyways, let's find some place where I can connect my tablet to."
Tao glanced around the room then down the long hallway behind them, before she asked, "Should we split up to save time?"
"Are you crazy? Have you never watched a horror movie? Always use the buddy system when exploring weird places."
"First this isn't a movie and second, horror movies are horribly inaccurate depictions of monsters and demons." Tao crossed her arms over her chest as she frowned at Ezekiel.
Ezekiel shook his head as he said, "Really? You have an issue with horror movies because they aren't realistic enough?"
Ezekiel chuckled as he said, "That is ridiculous."
"Do you know how many people die each year because of supernatural and magical threats?"
Ezekiel started to walk back down the hallway as he said, "No idea, but you should call the to help out."
Tao followed along behind him as she asked, "What are you talking about now?"
Ezekiel shook his head as he said, "This is one of the reasons why being reincarnated sucks, no one understands when you reference something."
Tao nodded as she said, "Well explain it and next time I'll know what you are talking about."
Ezekiel shrugged and said, "It's fine, I'll live."
As they explored the area they realized that it wasn't a base they found, but a Dire Wraith spaceship that was somehow buried in the mountain. It took almost an hour, but they found a room on a lower level that was filled with what Ezekiel assumed was computer banks.
Ezekiel seated himself in front of what he assumed was some type of maintenance terminal. The terminal itself stood only four feet tall and had a weirdly designed chair placed in front of it. The only thing of note was some small ports on the side along with some holes near the top. No screen, keyboard or buttons were present on the device.
Ezekiel glanced at Tao as he asked, "Do you have a way to open this up?"
Tao never moved but a spell circle appeared around the terminal and removed all of the cover pieces from it. Ezekiel glanced from the terminal back to Tao as he asked, "You can do wordless casting? I didn't think it was possible."
Tao smiled as she said, "That's part of your problem. You think this world is like the comics and movies you watched. But that is very far from the truth. Wordless and gesture-less casting are hard to master. But the people who do manage it are extremely dangerous."
Ezekiel started to look at the internals of the terminal as he said, "I get it, you’re a badass."
Ezekiel paused what he was doing to look back at Tao as he asked, "Wait, why do you always put up with my antics then?"
Tao shrugged her shoulders as she said, "I have nothing else to do currently and I've been hoping to take you as a personal student. It looks like my persistence has finally paid off."
Ezekiel smirked a little as he said, "So should I call you teacher or master now? Sensei? Onee-chan? Or maybe Obaasan?”
"Stop it with the Japanese, just call me master or teacher."
Ezekiel bowed slightly as he said, "Yes sensei."
Tao glared slightly at Ezekiel as he smiled and started to look through the internals of the machine again. After ten minutes passed he found some wires he assumed was for data and pulled out a multimeter which he used to test each wire for voltage. Tao watched quietly as Ezekiel worked for a few minutes separating a few wires from the main wire harness.
Once finished Ezekiel pulled out a pair of wire strippers and cut the ends off the wires and stripping them to bare metal. He reached into his bag and pulled out a weird looking pcb board connected to a USB dongle. Taking the eight wires he stripped, Ezekiel connected them into slots on the pcb board.
As he finished locking the last wire in place Tao asked, "I have an idea of what you are trying to do, but what exactly is this device?"
Ezekiel held up the fully connected pcb as he said, "We never gave them a name, but Hank and Bill helped build a few of these things. They are mostly meant to act as a connection hub, so my tablet can connect to anything electronic. I have a few different types. This one is specifically made for making connections with alien devices. Fury let us borrow some tech from the and to test it on.”
Ezekiel connected the USB dongle portion of it into his tablet and started typing away. When a loading bar appeared on the screen, Ezekiel set the tablet down. He turned to look at Tao as he said, "Alright we have a few hours to kill while this translates the Dire Wraith's language. What do you want to do till then?"
Tao glanced at the tablet for a moment before she asked, "That seems incredibly fast for a little tablet. Is it connected to your personal network to help it out?"
Ezekiel pointed to three switches on the side of his tablet as he said, "No, the tablet is currently separated from all networks. I don't want to have some alien computer virus let loose on the internet."
Tao nodded in understanding as she asked, "Then how is it so powerful?"
Ezekiel smiled as he said, "Hank custom made it for me. The tablet was made using a set of shrunken super computers along with a power plant and cooling system as the base. He then made everything else from exotic materials and shrunk it down to make it extremely sturdy."
Tao eyed the tablet for a few moments before she asked, "Do you think Hank could make me one?"
"Probably, but it will have to wait till after he finds his wife. He should be busy fabricating the quantum tunnel for a while."
Ezekiel relaxed into the weird alien chair as he said, "Should we do the introduction to the mystic arts while we wait?"
Tao raised a single eyebrow as she asked, "You already know about the mystic arts."
"I don't need to do the whole astral projection pushed out of my body and sent on a mind trip?"
"It's no fun if you already know what's coming. Plus you don't have a soul, it would only work on your real body." Tao frowned in disappointment when she finished.
Ezekiel opened his mouth to respond, then stopped and nodded his head in understanding. He looked back at his tablet which only displayed one percent completed and said, "Do you want to explore the rest of this place while we wait?"