Elias burst onto the hangar deck of the Neo-Kyoto Skyport. The vast, cavernous space smelled of ozone, Mana-fuel, and cold metal. In the center sat the Aether-Cutter, a sleek, matte-black needle of a ship, looking less like a vehicle and more like a kinetic projectile.
Seraphina was already there, suited up, her helmet visor down. She was arguing through a comm-link with a frantic flight controller who was protesting the unauthorized launch.
«The Aether-Cutter is not certified for solo launch, Director! It requires a two-person crew for G-stabilization!» the controller's voice shrieked in Elias's earpiece as he snatched the flight suit Seraphina tossed him.
"Certification is irrelevant when the fate of 100 AC depends on it, Controller," Seraphina retorted, her voice icy. She pointed toward the acceleration harness inside the cockpit. "Get in, Black-I. We are launching in sixty seconds."
Elias wrestled into the suit, which felt heavy and suffocating. As he climbed into the navigator seat, his mind was running Phase 2: G-Force Survival Protocol.
Objective: Maintain consciousness and fine motor control during 7.8 G acceleration. Strategy: Rapid, focused muscular contraction combined with a specialized, short-pulse Mana-shield centered on the carotid arteries to prevent blood pooling.
Seraphina strapped him in, her movements economical and brutal. She saw the intense focus in his eyes.
"You have never experienced this G-force, Elias. The compression will feel like an elephant sitting on your chest. You will blackout, or you will rupture vessels. Just survive the first sixty seconds."
"I've pre-calculated the necessary bio-feedback loop," Elias replied, already pushing a minute amount of Black-I Mana through his Core, reinforcing his capillaries. "Initiating auto-pilot sequence now."
He didn't touch the controls. He simply projected the instantaneous, complex sequence of startup commands into the ship's neural interface. The Aether-Cutter shuddered to life, its Mana-thrusters humming.
20 seconds to launch.
Seraphina hit the launch sequence. The hangar roof peeled open to the predawn sky.
10 seconds.
Elias focused on his Core. He was a low-Mana vessel, so he couldn't generate a true shield, but he could use his Mana to comprehend the precise internal stress points of his body and reinforce them at a cellular level. It was agonizing control.
5… 4… 3…
The launch was not a push; it was an instant, violent hammer blow.
7.8 Gs.
Elias's vision instantly greyed out. A crushing force slammed his body deep into the acceleration couch. Every muscle contracted uncontrollably. The air was violently expelled from his lungs, replaced by a desperate, gasping wheeze.
Error. Simulation accuracy: 99.8%. External environmental variables—ambient G-field fluctuation—0.2% variance. Failure imminent.
The 0.2% variance was enough. Blood instantly pooled in his extremities. His brain was starved. Instant Comprehension was still running, but it was now trapped behind a wall of physical pain and hypoxia. He was seeing the perfect solution—the precise angle to adjust the Mana-thrusters to slightly alleviate the pressure—but he couldn't move a single finger to input the command.
I am dying due to a calculation error.
Seraphina, next to him, was a statue of pure focus, her S-Rank Core absorbing the G-force with professional ease. She spared a glance at Elias. His face was distorted, his eyes bulging, his neck veins taut.
But as Elias's mind screamed in panic, a new mechanism kicked in—a Black-I Override.
His Mana Core, desperate to survive, violently injected the instantaneous Comprehension data directly into his autonomic nervous system. Elias didn't consciously move. His body knew the required counter-movement.
His diaphragm performed a specialized, sudden contraction. The faint Black-I Mana flared, not defensively, but analytically, reading the flow of his own blood and instantly increasing the heart rate by 40 beats per minute to compensate for the G-force pooling.
The grey haze in his vision fractured and retreated. The overwhelming pressure stabilized into a manageable, agonizing weight.
"Stabilization… achieved," Elias managed to gasp, the words tearing from his throat.
60 seconds elapsed. The acceleration began to taper off.
Seraphina was stunned. Most seasoned pilots needed minutes of practice to handle the Aether-Cutter's launch profile. Elias, a civilian, had corrected a near-fatal G-force failure in real-time using nothing but pure biological comprehension.
"Remarkable, Black-I," Seraphina conceded, her tone now carrying profound respect. "But that required immense Mana control and precision. You must be completely drained."
Elias shook his head, pushing back the lingering nausea. "No. The process wasn't Mana-intensive. It was purely informational. It cost me… memory."
He glanced at the terminal screen, which was now displaying their ascent trajectory. He looked at the vast, indigo curve of the Earth outside the viewport. And for a terrifying moment, Elias couldn't remember his own name. He couldn't recall the address of his old apartment. The raw data of his personal life had been overwritten by the G-force survival protocol.
His mind immediately reversed the data flow, recovering the memory fragments. Elias Vance. 16 years old. Neo-Kyoto Sector 3.
"The cost of Instant Comprehension isn't physical Mana exhaustion," Elias explained, clutching the console. "It's cognitive load. To run the calculations, my mind prioritizes. I can access any information, but the sheer computational cost sometimes requires data deletion of non-essential personal information to make room for the answer."
He had literally paid for his survival with pieces of his past.
Seraphina stared at him, chilled. This was a power unlike any other—a power that ate the self to save the world.
"We are approaching the orbital path," Seraphina announced, trying to regain control. "Target is Luminar-1. You have 30 minutes until the Zero-Zone transit window. Prepare the interface patch, Black-I."
Elias nodded, his gaze fixed on the small, spinning speck of the satellite now visible in the immense blackness of space.
"The patch is ready," Elias said, a cold, focused clarity returning. "But I just detected something else. A high-velocity intercept signal. They aren't just firing from the ground. They sent a sleeper agent into orbit hours ago. They are waiting for us."