Quest: Leviathan Diversion I Complete!

· Acquire 25 kilograms of pure elemental iron.

· Step 1/?? for the construction of the Time Severed Containment Field to house the Eggs.

· Reward: Skill autolearn: Earth Shard.

New Skill: Earth Shard I

· I: Summon and throw a small stone with great speed. 0.5FU per use.

“Oh yeah!” Albert said, looking at the notification with a sense of childish impatience. “New skill!”

He decided to walk towards the location where he would eventually set up the Quadrangle Core and make his base. This was both to get a better feel of the land, and to clear his head of what was left of the many emotions his talk with Mother stirred up in his mind.

It was something of a problem, a problem that would need to be addressed eventually, he felt, but he had no idea how to go and actually do it. He hoped his grandfather could offer some help in that regard, being the older and wiser man. Unbeknown to him, Lloyd had already done his part.

Having an inventory was unbelievably useful. Instead of having to lug around 25 kilograms of iron, two distinct cores and a sword, Albert had simply thrown everything into his personal storage and forgot about them. He could also summon them again at a moment’s notice, only requiring his attention and a small amount of mana to do it.

It was very interesting to see how the system grew and expanded with time and use. It was like it was growing alongside him now, and instead of being the source of his power it was in a sort of symbiotic relationship with him.

But, let’s be real. The thing he was looking forward to the most after seeing the notification was the opportunity to test his new skill. That’s the real reason he decided to walk. Sure, the nature was relaxing, the verdant trees swaying in the wind under the warm light of the sun, clouds passing by, birds chirping…

Thus, the first leg of the journey was spent playing around with the new skill. Anyone who claimed they didn’t feel the need to play with it after acquiring it would be lying. It was basically the ability to shoot a small stone projectile summoned out of thin air on command. The cheap cost meant that it could basically be spammed.

The system didn’t lie when it said the projectile was thrown at a great speed. The first time he used it, Albert had aimed the throw at a small tree not too far from him, and almost jumped out of his skin when the bark of the tree literally exploded in his face and covered him in dead wood. After the dust settled, the tree sported a fairly large hole in its center, with the rock having pierced it from side to side.

A second use of the skill, with [Bullet Time] enabled, showed that the rock did not survive the impact and came out the other side in the form of small pieces of gravel, dust and sand. It would be interesting to see the rock’s actual composition, considering that the broken pieces didn’t disappear after some time but instead stuck around. Was this the beginning of infinite matter duping?

After a while, Albert decided to get a hold of himself before he shot a hole through every tree and large boulder he could see. Nature wouldn’t like that, and the elves would totally not like that.

He was already out of half his mana by that time, and was feeling very ashamed of having wasted so many resources on a stupid task like this. At the same time, however, the wide grin on his face after he made yet another boulder explode into shards betrayed his real state of mind.

There was also the daily use of [Analysis Mode] floating in his mind. He thought about using it to refine the skill and push it to a higher level, perhaps by studying the skill itself or by using it with [Fireball] and then copying the same improvements that brought [Fireball] to level 6 onto [Earth Shard].

In the end, however, he decided to save the use for later.

It was like the problem with rare items in video games. Developers have it the worst when it comes to these items: since they are rare, players tend to stockpile them and never use them. Which means that even when time comes to use them, for instance when a fight revolves around the use of one such items, most players don’t do it in fear of being left without their precious items for when they might need them in the future.

This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

To sum it up: the problem is that it’s never clear exactly when the consumable must be used, or when it can be used to maximum effect.

It was the same thing with analysis mode, with the only saving grace being that Albert knew he had to use it before the end of the day or the daily use would go to waste.

All this thinking managed to distract Albert from his family trouble. And with all the bad things momentarily forgotten about, and a now clear mind, he finally decided to focus on the current task. He teleported to the far side of the valley, close to where he had fought the Pilgrim stone golem and scouted the area.

The two locations he had in mind were: the glade where he killed the golem, and the plateau halfway up the mountain where he had set camp before the fight. Both of them had their good and bad points, which sort of cancelled each other out. Building up would allow him to fortify his position and have a clear view of the forest below, but also limit his expansion to either expensive digs or platforms.

Setting up camp in the forest was the other way around. Lots of space to expand but no visibility and open land to all sides.

He wondered: how safe was this valley? It was an important piece of information he needed before making a choice. He had a feeling that the sole fact he was setting up base here would make this side of the valley increasingly more dangerous as time went on.

He narrowed his eyes. He really didn’t like the idea of building up a slope of the mountain.

But, there was a third location he could go to. At the base of the mountain there was a clearing where the forest met an almost vertical wall of stone. It was a spacious grassy field, open on two sides and protected on the other two by the presence of the mountain. It had a lot of space to expand towards the forest, and eventually into the forest itself if needed, and it also had the protection of the rock faces.

It felt like the most logical choice.

Yeah, this would make for a good location.

The Quadrangle Core was a hefty ball of unknown crystal matter the size of a basketball. It shone under the direct sunlight, humming with latent power. Albert had no idea how to set it up, however, and the system was being mum about it too. No quests and no hints.

No, wait. I do have a quest about it!

There were just too many quests for him to remember them all at all times. Albert made a mental note to check the list of quests as often as possible, and pulled up the relevant one in search of hints.

Quest: Coreful Setup.

· The Quadrangle core is now in your possession, but after it was removed from its cradle it fell into a dormant state. It will need additional materials in order to be awakened from its dormant state.

· Retrieve 1kg of Plutonium-239

· Reward: Dodge skill video.

“Shit.”

***

Samantha Cromwell stared at her phone like she had just seen an alien. The problem was that she had seen much worse stuff than aliens, and none of what she saw ever managed to even faze her. Yet this single message gave her so much anxiety she could barely breathe.

And what was it she saw on her phone? A simple text message from her son, telling her he was returning home after a useless trip to Elvenhome. Apparently he needed the plutonium to set up the core, and not only after the base was already built like he wrongfully remembered.

Usually receiving this kind of message would have made her a different kind of upset, the kind where she questions whether the person on the other end of the phone is being stupid and what she could do to make sure it would stop being the case. It happened multiple times in her history as the head of the BSA – which she still was, she reminded herself.

And always she had corrected this problem by either replacing or re-educating the underperforming underlings who were at fault at the time.

A kind of thinking, she realized, that she was also applying to her son. But he was not her underling.

This was the kind of mistake that costs one their whole relationship with their son, and she had not been able to see the error of her ways until the moment when it was staring at her in the face. She had allowed herself to get angry at Albert, seeing him as an underperforming irrational teenager with too much power and too little control, constantly putting himself in danger and ignoring the very real problems that soon would threaten the whole world.

Instead, she should have seen him for who he actually is.

That’s why the first thing she did when he appeared in the living room of their house was to rush to hug him.

“What is this for?” He asked, trying to get away by pushing her lightly.

She let him.

“I’m sorry.” She said, feeling the salty water well up in her eyes. She wondered if he could see that she was crying, and what he would think of it. Would he think her tears were fake?

Albert scoffed. “That’s a start.”

“No, you are right.” She said, smiling the self-deprecating smile. “I… fucked up. Bad. I wasn’t a good mother to you these last few days, was I?” She was smiling, laughing and crying at the same time. “I don’t know what came over me! I… I don’t want to blame anyone but myself. I know what I did now, and I can’t fathom why I was being so blind before…”

“What changed?” Albert asked.

“After your… outburst—” Seeing that he was about to speak, she rushed to stop him. “It was completely justifiable, Albert. But I didn’t see it that way at the time. I went to my father to ask for help on how to… educate you.”

Albert scoffed again. “Educate.”

“Yeah…” Samantha said in a low voice. “I see now how dysfunctional it is to even say the word. Still. I went to him with the expectation to find him on my side. He wasn’t. He made me see just how bad I was about to fuck it up with you, and I’d like to think that he stopped me before it was too late.” She smiled. “He did. Right? It’s not too late?”

Albert paced around. After he was done doing a lap around the sofa, he looked at his mother for a long moment. Samantha realized how messed up her face must have been in that very moment, and she felt ashamed of herself. She wanted to just hide.

“It’s not.” Albert said, shaking his head. “Of course it’s not. You are my mom!”

She smiled. It was like the world was not as dark anymore, and Samantha felt like she, together with Albert and Lloyd, could take down anything that ever dared get in their way.