Things were different.
Zeke knew that the moment he stepped into the common areas of the tower. But nothing made it clearer than when he decided to visit the Pillar at the center of the Residential District. Normally, the area was teeming with kobolds, beastkin, or the humans he’d taken in during his conquest of Adontis. But now, the wide streets were nearly empty, save for a few stragglers.
“They’re exploring their paths,” Eveline pointed out. Her input was unnecessary, as Zeke had already made that connection. Even so, he was still a little shocked at how universal it seemed to be.
“How much do you think this will affect their power?” he asked, striding from the teleportation pad toward the Pillar.
“Right now? Minimally. But it will grow more prominent as time goes by,” she answered. “It will be even more impactful once you finish your quest and develop the Hall of Affinity.”
Zeke had been thinking the same thing, which just highlighted how much he needed to focus on completing the quest. He still had quite a ways to go before that point, but he didn’t know where he was going to find the remaining natural treasures. Sure, it wasn’t that difficult to find attuned items, but he’d established a certain standard of quality. As a result, he wasn’t willing to compromise just to complete the quest more quickly.
With that in mind, he crossed the Residential District and entered the Pillar. Thankfully, it wasn’t as empty as the rest of the city, and Zeke found Kianma and Silik on the floor that held his force’s organizational hub. Predictably, they were still hard at work. Connecting to their paths wasn’t enough to dissuade them from meeting the terms of their responsibilities.
However, the meeting that followed did give him a little insight into the repercussions of his new skill. [Prosperity] affected everyone in his force, but it seemed to be limited by loyalty, which was such an ephemeral characteristic that Zeke couldn’t quite understand how the Framework determined who benefited and who didn’t. Yet, there was a clear line of demarcation. Most of the kobolds had been affected, and many of the beastkin as well. Very few of the humans had, though. And none of the centaurs, even among the few who lived in the tower.
But that was fine with Zeke. The last thing he wanted was to waste power on people whose loyalties might change at the drop of a hat. For better or worse, the kobolds were dedicated to him, and he owed it to them to reward their loyalty with his support. It was one of the reasons he’d chosen [Prosperity] in the first place. They were his people, and they deserved every opportunity he could give them.
According to Kianma, the vast majority of the kobolds had manifested a path associated with light. That was unsurprising, given the flavor of their skills. However, there were a few – especially in the farms on the Artisan’s Terrace – who’d connected with different paths, like nature or growth. A few budding craftspeople had developed other paths as well.
In short, most people connected to paths that would accentuate the things they already did, which would hopefully make the entire operation – whether it was in a combat capacity or not – more efficient.
After discussing it with Kianma for a little while, Zeke went to find Talia. Somewhat predictably, she was in the Crimson Spring, where she was visiting her still-comatose friend while recovering from the dungeon. The quest reward she’d received had helped with Adriel’s condition, but it was not an immediate cure. Instead, it would take some time before the vampiric woman completed her recovery.
Seeing that Talia was in no condition for conversation, Zeke moved on to checking on his other friends. Pudge and Sasha were both out of the tower – they were doing something in the Muk’ti Plains – and everyone else Zeke might’ve visited was busy. That left him with nothing to focus on but his own goals and recovery.
“You could go fight a war,” Eveline suggested. “Those expansionist undead are still out there.”
“Are you suggesting that I don’t know what to do with myself unless I’m fighting someone?” he asked.
“I’m saying it outright, not suggesting it.”
Zeke sighed. She wasn’t altogether wrong. There was a time when his life was about more than just finding the next fight. Or preparing for the next battle. But after separating from Abby – or maybe even before that – he’d begun to hyperfocus on those things. It was a very real problem, and one he didn’t know how to combat.
“You could go find that half-orc girl you seemed to admire so much,” Eveline suggested. “I won’t even watch. Much.”
“Pervert.”
“I’m a succubus. It comes with the territory,” she said without a hint of shame. “But seriously, Ezekiel – you need to find a way to let off some steam that doesn’t involve decimating entire populations of enemies. You’ve got more willpower than anyone I’ve ever seen, but eventually, your momentum is going to run out. When it does, you’re going to flounder. I’ve seen people –”
“I’m fine,” Zeke insisted.
“You really aren’t.”
“I don’t want to talk about this,” he said as he made his way back to the manor. He still hadn’t fully recovered, so he intended to spend the next couple of days resting. However, when he got back to his home, he didn’t head to his bedroom. Instead, he went to his meditation chamber. The way he saw it was that he could waste time lying in bed, or he could kill two birds with one stone by resting and working on his skills. He had two slots open, not to mention a couple of old skills he intended to evolve. So, he couldn’t afford to just sit around and do nothing when he could rest and work at the same time.
“That’s not how rest works,” Eveline pointed out.
Zeke ignored her.
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Instead, he settled down in his meditation chamber, crossed his legs, and dove into a world of symbols and glyphs. In his old life, Zeke had always enjoyed doing puzzles with his little brother, and that hobby had translated to the new world in the form of runecrafting. The only difference was that instead of putting together pre-defined components, runecrafting required him to create his own pieces. Then, he needed to slot them into place, all the while remaining cognizant of how each glyph affected the ones around it.
In a three-dimensional space.
It was the world’s most complex puzzle, and it required every ounce of Zeke’s concentration to make any appreciable progress. But that was part of why he loved it. If it was easy, then everyone could do it. The fact that it taxed even his abilities was what made it such an attractive pastime.
Gradually, he worked his way through the skill he was building. He’d already made a ton of progress on it – after all, he’d been working on the foundation well before he’d even begun the dungeon – so while it wasn’t completely mindless, it wasn’t nearly as onerous as it would’ve been if he’d had to start it from scratch. That wasn’t to imply that it was effortless. It most assuredly required quite a high degree of labor. Yet, Zeke took solace in it.
“You’ve found your happy place,” Eveline remarked during one of Zeke’s short breaks. If he kept at it too long, his head started pounding, and it would only get worse until he allowed himself to recover. And [Touch of Divinity] did nothing to assuage that pain. “Most people enjoy hanging out with friends or reading good books, but you? You like to spend your free time putting together a puzzle that’s so complex that it literally wounds your soul if you don’t take breaks.”
“Is that a bad thing?”
“Yes!” she hissed in exasperation. “That’s literally the point, Ezekiel.”
He shrugged. He couldn’t help his interests. He’d tried to focus on other things like baking, but it just hadn’t filled him in the same way that runecrafting did. If he were a little more introspective, he might’ve acknowledged the feelings that accompanied any leisure activities. No matter how much he enjoyed himself, those times were always laced with the feeling that he was just wasting time.
Was he always like that?
Maybe. Back on Earth, he’d focused on baseball to the exclusion of all else. Now, it was similar. If he wasn’t working on runecrafting or fighting battles that furthered his goals, he felt like he was doing nothing worthwhile.
Days passed, and as his body continued to recover, he slowly pieced the skill together until, at last, the last glyph fell into place.
Congratulations! You have constructed a skill [Storm of Hammers].
Finally, he opened his eyes and let out a sigh. Before he could truly relax, he needed to inspect the description to ensure that it would work the way he’d intended:
[Storm of Hammers] (C) – Blunt force is the solution to most problems. Using your bonded weapon as a template, summon a storm of destructive hammers to assault a foe. Upgradeable.
“Close,” he said to himself. “Very, very close.”
“It seems a little like [Hammerfall],” Eveline remarked.
Indeed, it did. The skill the Framework had offered had provided the inspiration for a slight change in the expression of the skill. Before that, Zeke had intended for it to use earth as its base, creating a localized earthquake. However, after seeing the description of the offered skill, he’d switched gears and adjusted his plans.
And he couldn’t have been happier with the result, assuming he was reading the description correctly.
“You know you need to be a little more judicious with these skills,” Eveline pointed out. “You won’t get any new ones after you reach the peak.”
“Huh?” he asked.
“After that, it’s all evolutions,” she said. “From what I understand, at least. You and your weird class might be different, but I don’t think so.”
“Damn,” he muttered. It didn’t change anything. Not really, at least. He was happy with the skills he had, and what’s more, he still had a few more opportunities to expand his repertoire in the near future. Three, to be exact.
“That’s assuming that those aren’t upgrade opportunities.”
“Yeah.”
Still, he was happy with the skill, and he wasn’t going to let Eveline rob him of that. So, without further hesitation, he climbed to his feet. And very nearly tipped over the moment he pushed himself to his full height.
“Woah,” he said, barely catching himself before he fell.
“It’s probably best if you rest for a little before you go testing things out,” Eveline suggested.
Zeke agreed, so he finally retreated to his bed, where he quickly fell asleep. What followed was two days of dreamless sleep that, in retrospect, he would have admitted that he desperately needed. Regardless, when he finally awoke, he did so with more grogginess than he expected. It took another day – during which Zeke just took it easy, a state which nearly drove him mad – before, at last, he felt up to testing the skill out.
To do so, he left the tower via the true exit, which lead to the Muk’ti plains. Then, he set off across the landscape at a trot. Notably, the team of assassin kobolds followed him. What they thought they would do that he could not was a mystery, but they remained silent, so he didn’t mind the company.
After around thirty miles, Zeke came to a stop. He’d learned his lesson with [Wrath of Annihilation], so he didn’t dare use any new skills close to the tower. [Storm of Hammers] didn’t seem quite as powerful as that skill, but he wasn’t going to take any chances with the tower and the people who lived there.
Once he was satisfied that he was far enough away, he told the kobolds to back away. As he did, he couldn’t help but notice that they had grown a little larger than normal rangers, and their scales had taken on a much darker shade. Finally, their eyes twinkled with barely noticeable red energy. Clearly, Zeke’s gift of [Benevolence] had done more than simply giving them access to his path. Some of his attunements had snuck through as well.
“Keep an eye on them. If they go fully demonic…”
“I know,” Zeke said. Then, he added, “Are you ready?”
“Does it matter? Just do it.”
Zeke took a deep breath, then embraced his skill, flooding it with mana. With a gesture of his hand, he aimed it about fifty yards away. When he released the charged energy, the skill manifested.
A thousand copies of Voromir suddenly appeared, each one looking just as solid as the original. They whirled around, though not on a single axis. Instead, their orientation looked entirely chaotic until one realized that they never collided with one another. The ground erupted into a cloud of dust and grass, digging a fifty-foot wide crater.
Zeke snatched at the flow of mana, gesturing to his right. Then, his left. More whirling storms erupted into being, blanketing an area three-hundred feet wide in blunt force. Zeke could sense that each hammer held enough force to rival his own blows, and what’s more, he could use [Storm of Hammers] a dozen times before he started to run low on mana.
It was exactly the sort of skill he needed.
He had plenty of skills to combat a single powerful combatant. However, to quickly and easily clear smaller, weaker enemies – without harming his own forces – was much more difficult. To date, he’d had to use a combination of [Hell Geyser] and manual combat to get the job done.
Now, he had another tool at his disposal.
His skillset was slowly rounding out into a truly devastating show of potential, but already, he was making plans for upgrades and other skills he could build when the time came.
But for now, he’d accomplished his goal. With that done, he needed to turn his attention to the next item on his to-do list, which was dealing with the situation in El’Kireth.
“Or you could take another break,” Eveline suggested. “You’re still not fully recovered. That dungeon took a lot out of you, and –”
“I’m fine.”
“You deserve to be better than fine.”
Her statement fell on deaf ears as Zeke gathered his kobold followers and returned to the tower.