Sarah grinned as they got close to Balamb city, the stop where they'd then rent a car or walk to the mercenary Garden at the end of this journey.
Rinoa was beyond hyper!
Maybe it was because they had 'escaped' her dad's guards back in Timber (There was an 'undercover' squadron of about 6 people two cars back being 'sneaky'), maybe it was the chance to explore a bit without feeling guilty about not being back in the thick of things helping out… But it was clear the girl had been spending all her time recently trying to make her new home town better.
This was sort of a working vacation, mostly. The woman had an excuse to travel a bit, do some shopping, hire guards outside of her dad's control to defend her illegal and underground auction selling goods (from a feared and legendary forbidden kingdom), and go check out some hot boys and girls her own age.
Even Angelo was having fun, moving from window to window on the train and very politely NOT barking at everything. She was a good girl, yes she was.
Meanwhile, Sarah was having frustrations.
How long had it been since she had to build something NOT optimised?
Oh, her first designs of the magic cards had worked great. Able to store functionally unlimited amounts and varieties, able to estimate the safe capacity a user could draw if the related spell was already Junctioned to something, and so on and so forth.
They also required impossibly complex materials and cheated a bit with some of her advanced construction skills… And if a normal person tried to make one, assuming it was even possible considering how tiny some of the parts were and how even the thinnest components was structured with uncertainty patterns, the costs were a bit much.
If 'Research' was on the ball, one card from her initial designs would cost… Uh. Well, the number was big. 'Why not buy more islands' big, or more, depending on the local economy.
So, redesigns!
The new cards were dumb. Way dumb.
Using the researched capacity methods of the Junction System to determine the most difficult to [[Draw]], stabilize, and store para-magic (Turned out to be [[Ultima]], it is oh so surprising), the new cards could only hold 10 units. Period.
And it would only ALLOW the user to store 9 total, and transfer or [[Draw]] up to 9 units at a time or less.
That helped simplify things a lot, although transferring para-magic was a bit odd… You could tell the Junctioning system was an active prototype in public testing based on how awkward it was.
Basically, you COULD store and carry para-magic without a GF, but the Junctioning system freaked out a bit. The only way to transfer stuff was to use [[Switch]] from the system to do a '
Junction exchange' with an established Party Network.
When done, the network would let you send ALL your GF's AND ALL your para-magic to someone else. Exchanging with them, if they have something.
Otherwise, the system would freak out a bit. Oh, if everyone had magic but no GF equipped sometimes there was no issues… But even though [[Draw]] was one of the few functions that worked no MATTER what GF you had, due to it being needed to scan and gain your GFs in the FIRST place, well…
Yeah, long story short: If you had a Junction system of any version, even basic abilities get locked down until a GF is hooked up… And that made para-magic gathering, exchange, transfer, and shipment annoying. Complicated.
In the end, Sarah redesigned the magic cards she was designing completely.
Using Adam's super enhanced redesigned Junction system/Warehouse Unit/FF8 Jump Magic Interface/ECHO system monstrosity as a reference, and using Rinoa's mutilated Junction System/Dog Enhancement Suite along with the scanned Galbadian Soldiers hardware to show what local equipment can do?
Well, it made something.
The new cards were metal. Not the strange plastic/slightly too warm almost flesh thing that Triple Triad cards were made of, but thin layers of reinforced copper coated with a basic display layer and a transparent but strong graphene coating.
It was… Theoretically possible to make more with local technology? Though without a custom production machine cranking them out counterfeits would be very unlikely for a decade or two.
Sigh, and that wasn't good enough. Especially as the cost would still be stupid high.
Which meant more cut features.
Each ability removed, each layer of safety and checks helped remove entire layers and whole components from the final design. With the goal of gaining enough 'free' space to scale up the internal parts to reduce the accuracy requirements for construction to something more reasonable.
Now, these things were almost silly simple.
The para-magic storage unit, designed to fail as slowly and non-critically as possible if damaged. A custom [[Draw]] point indication unit, so other Junction systems could easily target the stupid thing… One with a custom signal so future Junction systems could make THEMSELVES less complicated if they wished to better detect these things.
A custom signal unit connected to a false party member system. It would claim to be a new person with a valid but as of yet undetermined GF Junctioned, but the equipment only had enough features to allow the owner to transfer their para-magic to the card or regain it without needing the [[Draw]] features. So even those without a Junctioned GF could do some basic para-magic inventory management.
And finally, the smallest and least heat generating customised Junction system operating system Sarah could squeeze together.
Together, it SHOULD use the energy of the stored para-magic being correctly quarantined to detect the magic within, display the name, current amount, and a stored image of the spell in question on the front… And use the remaining power to ensure the interface modules work for the users.
That managed to bring down the local cost per card to… Something like 88 Gil or so. A bit more than shotgun ammo but still cheaper than a basic potion. And these things weren't disposable, if you used them up they became empty storage units for future magic which was still useful…
Hmm. Let's try reducing some part complexity a little bit, even if it makes some of these components larger and slightly thicker. The new parts were a bit more costly yet a simpler design... Still around 95 Gil? Acceptable.
Well, these versions would certainly have a lower shelf life due to the cheaper materials… But if carefully stored and shipped, shouldn't fall apart for a very long time or a stupid number of uses. Thankfully the transfer and storage of para-magic didn't require any moving parts, and those were always the bits that broke first.
Sarah mocked up the design and sent it to 'Research' to play with. While restricted to 100 Gil or less, try and simplify the parts design wise and increase the amount of production errors possible that wouldn't compromise the base statistics.
And hell, let's only guarantee these things for five years. That would be five years of continuous use, which should last over a lifetime depending on how much you fiddle with magic, but the lower requirements could help 'Research' make these things easier to make and easier to repair and recycle.
Now, a high end model. Even
Potions had an enhanced version with better quality, and the
Hi-Potion wasn't even the most
advanced stuff out on the market either… Having magic cards of higher cost and quality would let her relax some of the self made limits while letting locals make the stupid things.
Right, keep in mind the limits though.
Why?
Because Sarah didn't want to have to make these things herself.
Sure, she can introduce them to her auction and even make custom high quality cards from the Lunar Kingdom, and she was going to do so… But Rinoa had brought up a good point earlier. That it would bring a lot of attention to Timber, attention it might not be able to shoulder alone without Sarah having to take certain a͈̞͇̪c͎̼̻t̠̻i̙̺̼͙̳̭o͕͔̫̖̜̜n͚̬̰̩̯s͍̖̻͚͉͈.̮͙̰̜
So, if this Headmaster Cid isn't an asshole? Let's make HIM produce these things! His people helped make the Junction systems in the first place, so they have the hardware and facilities to develop these cards for a cut of the profit.
Sarah wouldn't even ask for a big cut either, as having lots of these low quality magic cards on the market would just show off how awesome the Lunar magic cards would be. Hopefully it would make the auction gather more Gil in the process if the world was already gaga over these earlier products first!
Right, so uh… For now? Call them MCards, Hi-MCards, and X-MCards. That seems to be how the market worked, right? And her own stuff would be Lunar-MCards. And with no cost or complexity or size requirements, it would be hilarious watching people try to examine her personal products and attempt to steal the design. Or even detect the materials used.
Oh. Shit, did they even have reliable and cheap methods of creating stable graphene layers? They SHOULD, based on the materials used over here… Unless Junction systems were subsidised by leadership organizations and governments?
Shit. Uh. Well, if she HAD to she could use some much lower quality substitutes, but then even a basic sledge hammer could easily scratch these things.
Sigh, future problems. Focus on the basic stuff for now.
Right, MCards were pretty much done depending on what 'Research' modified, and would be produced at around 100 Gil, sold for around 150 Gill or so depending on who prices it. Because unlike HER, they would care about profit.
She paused. Cell phones had a profit margin of 50%, right? But they also cost more to initially build… You could probably charge more Gil based on what magic is on the thing too, even without considering how little it cost to make.
Like, a one use and disposable magically enhanced and self defended tent with healing facilities was only 1000 Gil, and these cards could be used for a whole career if you don't treat them like trash.
Meh, let other people worry about economics. Let's figure out Hi-MCards!
Better materials, keep the same height and width as the lower quality cards for easier storage in the future, but double the thickness. That would more than double the space to work with, since components could be more than two dimensional if she did this right.
Hmm. Right, let's boost the para-magic capacity up to the max 100 limit cap restricted by the current Junction system, that way one card would let anyone top off that spell entirely.
With this amount of room to work with, it COULD store a bit more than that (648 units if she used up all the rest of the space), but not only would the final unit be very difficult for local manufacturers to reproduce but, even if Sarah didn't care about the one para-magic per card limit? The final cost would go up pretty high to include the needed shielding and rare materials.
After all, para-magic acted a bit odd when too much of one spell was gathered. It was part of the reason why there were caps per spell in the FIRST place, although that was compounded since each Junction system user could only equip a certain number of units per stat before problems popped up.
Instead, let's use the rest of this space to improve the false party unit!
First, a stronger signal range to let authorized users access it from a short distance, a meter or so. It was actually a bit of a benefit that the cheaper cards had to be held to interact with them, as otherwise a jerk roommate could just [[Draw]] your para-magic from across the room and flee your vengeance or something, especially as the MCard didn't have room for the authentication hardware without jacking up the price.
The new range would let the user store these Hi-MCards in their inventories or backpacks, even with a friend or a designated supply supporter, and basically treat that location, person, or space like a bank.
A bit of software would let all Hi-MCards with matching authorized users to network together when targeted for using [[Draw]] or the false party magic swapping system. And lets add the software so a Hi-MCard can be shifted into 'Unregistered', 'Public', and 'Transfer' mode.
That way you can either lock it down to touch use only when 'Unregistered', let anyone use it like a free public [[Draw]] point, or mark someone else as the Authorized owner.
That would drastically simplify selling the things without risking someone trying to remotely steal the contents.
Huh, [[Draw]] was… A bit too unstable for that actually. It WAS the
most complicated part of the Junctioning system, the main component that was actually designed by humans with nearly no reliance on GFs since this is how you worked the GFs into the system in the first place…
Yeah, it would be best to limit the Hi-MCards showing only the 3 most commonly accessed para-magics in the local authorized cluster when someone tries to access the [[Draw]] point.
And, just to keep things stable, Sarah was still going to keep the [[Draw]] max limit to nine. Like, that was just good consistency!
Right, store a 100 units, network a batch into a single 'database', even if you need around 500 Gil per slot in that network. That was still pretty cost efficient, right?
Like, the standard Junction system could only store 32 distinct spells in the first place, so for around 16,000 Gil you could back up your whole setup to your room or something. Or if you space for all, what? Wait, how many spells are there?
Sarah blinked. Fifty? Really?
Huh, some of these were only theoretical, according to 'Research'. Like, no one has even proven [[
Apocalypse]] officially existed yet, it was only suggested based on other para-magic research.
Neat!
So if you wanted a big bank of all possible spells for one user, it would cost around 25,000 Gil depending on what the end amount of discovered para-magic would be.
But more likely people would only use one or two Hi-MCards for the rare and hard to find stuff and use several duplicates so they could keep a stockpile of 500 or more of the basics.
After all, it sucked using up a [[Cure]] and lowering your vitality for however long it took to hunt down the right monster, find a [[Draw]] point, or convince a team mate to share the love as it were.
So let 'Research' play with the design, try to optimise it with the cost limit of 500 Gil, and see what we can do with an X-MCard budget, as X-Potions was made with the good stuff and sold for 5,000 Gil a pop.
Boost material quality again, double the thickness (It was now four times thicker than a MCard), and… Hmm.
Right, let's make these long term storage options.
Remove the [[Draw]] ability entirely, no remote access for this at all. Drastically improve shielding, too much similar magic will cause power resonance. Nearly all interactions with this aside from the false party system will be locked down, a few units here and there to ensure relatively safe failures if someone damages this thing, more layers of shock absorption and heat distribution and signal shielding.
Now, how much space can we fit in? Sarah would still cap all transfers at 100 units or less, although it was trivial to let the X-MCard connect to an authenticated Hi-MCards network, so that specific spells would get topped off when in range.
Aside from software enhancements (Warnings about which X-MCards should be checked for issues, sensors sending data to logs for Hi-MCards to keep an eye on, alerts if certain quotas were hit or reserves are running low, etc), any and all remaining space was basically thrown to 'Research' to focus on better protection.
Pass that to 'Research', and it should be good! Though Sarah would like to find a GF to scan and ensure that she fully understood how [[HP-J]], [[Eva-J]] and [[Luck-J]] worked on her own time, the existing Junction system was good enough to fake the MCard network being a person with an unknown GF that allowed access to all of those.
True, when you tried to 'Junction exchange' with that fake person the custom error checking software would ensure it doesn't attempt to Junction spells to a slot your actual GF doesn't know how to handle (Best to avoid people popping), but this should be good enough to simplify life for customers.
Theoretically, a user could have a duplicate Junction system setup at home (without their GF of course), have it automatically refill those spell units to the optimum levels their body can handle when they cast them in the field, and just do a swap when they get back from a mission.
Their 40 [[Fire]] would swap with the fake user's 88 [[Fire]], and the 44 missing spells on the Hi-MCard network would refill from the other Hi-Mcards and X-MCards that focus on [[Fire]]. In fact, let's double check the code…
Yeah, Sarah could make the limit a software thing! The owner could say 'I only want 32 [[Holy]] equipped to my strength at a time' and it would hold the remaining 68 [[Holy]] on the Hi-MCard when the user Swaps that maxed amount with their own system.
That would save some money, since you wouldn't have to waste a whole Hi-MCard if you could only Junction like 7 [[Flare]] to your magic stat or something but managed to get a full 9 from a lucky [[Draw]]. It could all be stored on a single device instead of having to have two at home to ensure quick swapping after work.
Especially since that stupid [[Draw]] system was designed currently to just throw the excess magic away if you hit the 100 spell cap OR you hit your 'safety' cap on a Junctioned para-magic.
Sarah blinked. Wait.
Right, [[Draw]] could only pull 9 units at a time, but the Junction System could hold 100 units of magic. Damn it.
Sarah went back, altered the MCards to store 10 units at a time (Bumped the price up to 98 Gil), and sighed.
Right, MCards for basic magic sale and handling. Could even be used as an additional [[Draw]] target during an actual fight, if you had one within touch distance, though that would drastically lower the life expectancy of the cards and put them at risk due to the ongoing fight.
Stores 10 units of magic, anyone touching it can [[Draw]] 9 at a time or less or transfer magic to and from them as desired. Well, when out of combat.
Current design cost of 98 Gil so far, can only guarantee use for 7 years, 4 years if used in combat.
Hi-MCards act like a modular para-magic network, with authenticated users and ranged access when the Junction system was NOT in combat mode. The device was considered too powerful for the default [[Draw]] mechanics to recognize it as an acceptable target during a fight, and the party based exchange system locks up during a fight anyway, so no unlimited spells during battle.
Stores 100 spell units, out of combat authorized users can [[Draw]] 9 at a time or less, and can act as a manikin for your magic by duplicating your current Junction system setup to swap with. Guaranteed for 30 years, off the record much longer depending on the quality of production and materials.
Finally X-MCards act as para-magic reservoirs and reserves. The new software should store a number of units based on the first unit transferred… So a weak spell like [[Fire]] could be stored in thousands of units easily, while the more fragile and deadly stuff like [[
Pain]] or [[
Meteor]] could at least hold a few hundred. Maybe a couple of thousand, but uh… Probably not.
Not even remotely accessible during a fight, nor could you even [[Draw]] from them at all. Risking these things getting damaged might be a death sentence anyway, despite all the safety standards she had added.
Transfers of magic are limited to 100 units at a time, and when in a network the safeties will ensure that when multiple unrelated X-MCards were used the overall amount of para-magic being transferred would be roughly equivalent to around 50 units or so, since some spells are 'bigger' than others.
Customers would probably have to stock up on Hi-MCards to make the best of these X-MCards honestly, but considering each one of these suckers would cost 5,000 Gil Sarah couldn't see anyone easily splurging on a full set of 50 and then gripping over a few hundred more.
She snorted at the thought. 'Oh, I only spent 160,000 Gil so far but asking for 1,000!? I say good day to you!' Hell, some of the more popular magazines could cost a grand alone, and 'Pet Pals Vol. 1' wasn't nearly as useful as carrying around 200 spell units, no matter what Rinoa says about the silly things.
Seriously, that woman manages to teach her dog with her mutated Junction system how to sumo slam monsters with [[
Limit: Angelo Strike]] and was like 'No, the tips in there were super helpful! I just had to think about it while hiking for a while.'
Like, you can read adorable pet magazines! Sarah wouldn't judge you! Rinoa was a good girl.
Mmm.
The sudden slowing of the train made Sarah focus. "Oh?"
Rinoa was ecstatic! "We're here! Come on Angelo, who's ready for walkies!? Are YOU ready for walkies!?"
Schematics saved, queue up a few thousand MCards of each type for production, load up the basic version with a selection of her spells to show Rinoa later when she got done ruffling her dog and nearly vibrating out of her own skin.
No reason to show off her unlimited amounts of discovered spells so far either, so a few cards with ten units each would be good enough and would let her display the functionality of the more expensive MCard variants.
Idly, she pulled one of the new MCards out and pushed S̺̘̞̳p̠͎̯ͅac͖̱̙̫̟e̺ into it.
And blinked. "Huh."
So THAT'S how you make [[
Demi]]. Also neat!
The card had capped off with 10 units, with the silver material (And yes, the back had an image of the Lunar Kingdom on it, shut up!) now showing heavy black text and an empty spiral in the center.
Welp, send it over to Adam to get a stockpile setup for it. Also, better update the code so that white or silver or transparent magics won't cause the text to be unreadable… Still, nice effect.
Rinoa was looking at her. "You ready to go Sarah? Oh! Can I drive!? Let's get a car and then I can drive! I've seen people do that before, it should be awesome!"
Sending her MCard to her inventory, she shrugged. "Sure, why not?" It was only like what, 3,500 Gil to rent one? And she would be able to [[Cure]] her if anything happened.
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
BAD IDEA! "GO RIGHT! MORE RIGHT!" Shit shit shit!
Angelo was loving this in the back seat, but Rinoa was still FAR too confident. "I missed them, don't worry! And I'm sure the car would have squished those
Bite Bugs anyway."
At least don't go so fast, how they had missed those trees was an actual miracle.
FUCK! "EYES ON THE ROAD!"
Rinoa swerved around a WAY too close tree. "There is no road, that was like way back there. Oh wait! Did you see another road back there!?"
And she fucking TURNED AROUND TO LOOK!
Oh god. "EYES FORWARD! FOCUS!"
The bitch actually rolled her eyes. "Relax, I've seen people do this all the time."
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
Rinoa walked along the path blushing.
At least Angelo was having fun.
Sarah was also staying quiet.
Rinoa coughed. "Lovely weather? Like, clear skies and everything!"
A monster tried to leap at the dog and was skewered instantly by a massive spike of ice from below.
A few seconds later, Sarah waved. "[[
Blizzara]] or whatever."
Rinoa sighed. "You're mad about the accident?"
Silent.
Angelo was trying to lick the monster-sicle.
Rinoa slumped. "Yeah, I thought so."
It was a nice day. And at least Sarah managed to scan a [[
Sleep]] from one of those
ground fish. And, if she could find a stronger
Caterchipillar, maybe get some [[Slow]].
It was going to be a long walk.
Rinoa walked a bit closer. "At least we weren't hurt? You didn't even need to heal us or anything!"
Sarah stayed as calm as she could. "You managed to swerve through an entire forest. An army of monsters. By inches in some cases, and while not looking forward half the time, but still. I could deal with that."
The woman perked up! "See? Just because there was a bit of an issue at the end there…"
She stared the overly peppy girl down. "Tell me. How can you easily avoid tree trunks, boulders, monsters the size of small cars, and huge gaps and cracks in the road… And then NOT notice the ocean."
Rinoa threw her hands up! "It jumped at me out of nowhere!"
No! "It is the god damn SEA!"
She pointed right back. "Then it needs a sign or something!"
For fucks sake! "What, 'Please do not drive here, water is wet'!?"
She sniffed. "Well anything sounds silly if you say it like that."
Oh, you are SO lucky you're adorable.
Another spike of ice! "And fuck YOU ALL, you stupid damned flying gnats of idiocy! [[
Blizzaga!]]"
Oops, too much ice… Meh, fuck it.
Fucking things saw instant death and an army of bug corpses and was like 'But what`s the dog doing?', why not go run to my death too? Stupid freaking bugs.
Shiva snickered in her mind, but SHE hadn't had to ride with this woman! "You are banned from cars."
Rinoa blinked. "What?"
Nope, case closed: Banned driver. "You will be chauffeured everywhere, forever."
She flinched. "Huh!? No! I was just getting good at it!"
Never again. "I'll trust Angelo to drive before you. You are banned."
The woman pouted. "Aww… But I lasted much longer this time!"
Don't bother with those puppy eyes.
That won't work on Sarah, she was stronger than that.
Wait. "Hang on, THAT wasn't your first time driving!?"
And the girl looked shifty. "Well, after Dad got involved it was much harder to get away and convince people to let me practice. And paying those medical bills really cut into my allowance, so uh..."
Shut up Shiva, your cackling is making it hard to focus! "Keep talking, let's see if you lose your walking privileges too."
Ignoring her 'Aww', Sarah focused on keeping the area secure and then roughly heading the right direction.
And so help her, if another fucking bug showed up.
How far away WAS Balamb Garden!? "I could just teleport us there. It would be beyond easy."
Rinoa threw another stick for Angelo to chase. "We can't, your bone wings pop out when you use anything related to Space and we are trying to be discreet."
The living road hazzard saw Sarah's dry look and rolled her eyes again. "Like, with the locals and normal people I mean. See, they know we are HERE, and maybe that my driving needs some work, but they don't know you are an all powerful sexy moon Sorceress coming to sell them fruit. See? Discreet!"
~~~Broken Adventure~~~
The Galbadian soldiers (ones under cover and, theoretically at least, on protection detail) examined the beach.
The weary one sighed. "I swear, the tracking tag says they are here. Like, twenty feet that way."
For fucks sake. "I am not seeing any boats, or hidden passages, and I KNOW her dog is fine because the Junction system is marked as active, even if we can't track it. So where are they!?"
The other slumped. "I swear it's her years of training. How are some guys like us supposed to follow a master spy and infiltrator like the leader of the Forest Owls!?"
Another nodded. "Left our sight for minutes after getting in a vehicle and was gone. That route had to be planned for months, and had all kinds of hazards and stuff waiting for us. Not to mention the surprisingly large number of monsters."
Damn it. "So… Probably a disposable boat then?" But that wouldn't support a car's weight…. Oh for pete's sake! "Lieutenant, can you verify if the car was disposed of here?"
The tired man blinked. "I'm sorry?"
He pointed at the sea. "Just… Did she ditch the car and the tracking unit in the ocean itself. We can begin tracking down the schedules for the local waters and shipping routes later."
SOMEONE had to have seen which vessel she had gotten on! Still… "Just in case, two of you take our backup to the Station, in case we can't track her until her scheduled return."
Better safe than sorry.
The wiseass whistled. "I told you! Always five steps ahead! Probably knows that we paid the insurance for the damn thing too due to her Dad's standing orders."
Sigh. Fucking idiots. "We're burning daylight! Move it!"