It was probably time to give up. Ever since his discovery of “System Overwrite Energy,” Lightforge had been systematically working his way through every item and component in his possession. He was searching for something, or some combination of things, that could produce such energy. That would be the key to changing the world and unlocking a fundamentally new form of item that he could build for himself.
At least, that was the case in theory. Nothing he tried was working. In fact, nothing even seemed to be coming close no matter how many hours he kept at it. As it turned out, the system recognized dozens of types of energy from a wide variety of sources, and while there were mechanics to alter one type into another, they were quite limited.
He'd cleared a section of window that was now set aside for the purpose of documenting his research. He was taking meticulous notes of what energies he discovered and how they interacted and changed. In all honesty, it was probably a bad idea to keep the notes here in the shop. It was usually a good idea to stay quiet about discoveries that had the potential to be this big.
It was nearly midnight, but he was too excited to stop now. There wasn't much left in the tank, especially since he'd sworn off Max Boost. All the same, he was determined to squeeze as much productivity out of himself as he could. Just a few more minutes could make the difference between staying stuck and reaching the next step of development.
But that wasn’t going to happen tonight. He’d made a lot of progress, but there would be more long nights ahead before he was able to reproduce anything resembling the XP potion. Even aside from the elusive system energy, it had been an incredibly complex concoction. And almost all of the component elements were magical in nature, which he wasn’t sure how to duplicate.
In short, there were a lot of hurdles remaining, but he was confident as he locked up the shop for the night and headed home. He’d set up his base just a few blocks from the shop. It had been tempting to put the entrance on one of the store’s outer walls, but he’d resisted that urge. He was still scarred from his early days in this world and was just a bit too paranoid to have his front door be so easy to find.
Instead he continued to rotate the entrance around every few days. The difference was that now he limited his wandering to the area within a short walk from his shop. His paranoia had its limits, and that was only becoming more true as he continued to level up. At level 8 he was already towards the upper end of the power scale for the area, and few individuals were a threat to him at this point. Which, naturally, was why few people fought alone.
While he remained vigilant, he wasn’t overly concerned about being jumped in the streets. Things had been quiet all day as people licked their wounds and analyzed how the various battles had gone around the area. He suspected that the next round of combat would look quite different from the widespread chaos of before. He had no idea how it would change, exactly, but he thought that it would.
Even in his state of vigilance, he didn’t notice when someone appeared and began walking alongside him. In fact, he nearly jumped out of his skin when Circe began speaking casually, as if they’d been walking together the entire time. As far as he knew, they might have been.
“You’re in a good mood. How are your inventions coming along?”
His heart raced as he tried to hide his surprise from the illusionist and her Cheshire Cat grin. It wasn’t news to him that she enjoyed surprising him, and he preferred doing whatever was possible to rob her of that joy. He was very bad at it, but he was trying, which is what he counted.
So he forced himself to shake his head and roll his eyes before replying. It showed off his supposed lack of surprise while also giving him the chance to steady his breathing before speaking.
“Hello to you too, Circe. You know that there are easier ways to get in touch with people, right? Built-in options, even!”
“I prefer the personal touch, so no thanks.”
“You know, there are times when I would like to get in touch with you instead of waiting for you to just appear mysteriously. Has that ever occurred to you?”
“Of course. And you’re right that you should have a way of contacting me when the need arises. If only I had some sort of secure device with such functionality, it would be perfect.”
He stopped walking and openly stared at her in disbelief.
“You can’t be serious. I can only contact you if I make a phone for each of us? That’s ridiculous.”
“No, it’s common sense. If we let our communications run through the system, then they become subject to any weaknesses that might exist within the system.”
“This entire world is run by the system, you can’t escape it. And what weaknesses?”
“I don’t know,” she admitted, though she waved it away dismissively. She shrugged and said, “There are rumors about people getting some form of system access, but there’s no proof out there. And the system isn’t a god; just look to how we’re able to manipulate our own powers in ways that shouldn’t be possible. Things are different, and I’d personally like to hedge my bets.”
Lightforge wanted to retort, but something that she’d said caught his attention. Other people were looking for system access? That really shouldn’t surprise him; he’d spent the last several hours doing the same thing. But the idea that someone was further along that path was certainly concerning.
Regardless of Circe’s attitude, it was serious. The system touched every aspect of this world, even if its influence were different from the video game version. There was no way to know just what someone might be able to do with access to it. He was hoping to create more powerful items, but that was just a drop in the bucket. He tried to imagine what he would do with unfettered access to the system.
Some of it would be mostly innocuous, like finding out the real names of the players around him. But if he could find that, what else could he find? Exact levels and lists of abilities? Inventory contents? Base location? Maybe even more, and the only people who would know for sure were those with access.
Frankly, it was a terrifying premise. The more you thought about it the more possibilities came to mind, each more worrisome than the last. But the topic also reminded him of his own strides in that area, so he couldn’t help it when a small grin snuck its way onto his face. He turned to Circe as the grin grew into an excited smile.
“You just reminded me of something super cool. I’ve had a breakthrough?”
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“Oh, really? Please enlighten me.”
He did just that, explaining his new Multispectral Analyzer and the unexpected results from the XP potion. She was immediately intrigued, listening attentively and asking questions about the various energies and combinations that he’d found so far. It was both invigorating and validating that she was willing to listen to his lengthy explanation of what he’d spent most of the day doing.
That good feeling lasted until she stepped in front of him and poked him in the chest. He stopped and looked at her oddly, and she took a deep breath. Then she gently slapped him across the face. It didn’t even sting; it was more shocking than anything else.
“What was that for?”
“For looking so far ahead that you forgot to look for cliffs at your feet.”
“Um… I’m gonna need a little explanation for that.”
“You discovered something incredible. It might well turn out to be revolutionary. But only if you accumulate the skills and power to make it progress. If it’s possible to recreate system energy, I suspect that you’ll need to be higher than level 8 to do so.”
“Well, yeah. You’ve got a point there, I guess. But it’s still worth digging deeper!”
“Of course it is, but there are more pressing concerns ahead of us. For example, that battle last night.”
“What about it? I thought it went pretty well. Those grenades of mine were great, weren’t they?”
Circe let out the longest sigh that Lightforge had ever seen. She nicely coupled it with a roll of her eyes that lasted for a truly improbable length of time. It was a bit of theatrics that just didn’t land. Lightforge was tired, and not just physically. Dealing with Circe’s consistent belief in her own brilliance was exhausting, and he had no interest in entertaining it anymore.
“Please spare me. What’s the oh so obvious problem that I’ve clearly overlooked?”
Anger flashed through her eyes for just an instant, which provoked a small sense of pride to bloom in his chest. He couldn’t help but smirk, which didn’t exactly help with the villain’s mood. She instead started glaring at him.
“The grenades were fine for a rush job, but they weren’t exactly dropping people left and right.”
“It made them scatter. Crowd control is always useful.”
“I suppose that’s fair. But what about after you handed them off to me? You leapt down into the melee and had no gadgets at your disposal.”
“That’s not true! I had my goggles, which let me target the weakest links.”
Her flat stare practically screamed that his statement should have revealed something, but he returned it blankly. What? He’d had good items at his disposal and he’d used them. That was the whole point of being a Gadgeteer, wasn’t it?
Her next sigh was much more realistic than the first one. She even spoke slowly to ensure that he could keep up.
“That’s great. It really is. But all you had to protect yourself and deal damage were your Hard Light Construct abilities. Do you see the problem there?”
He was starting to have a suspicion, and it made his ears feel warm to consider it. He’d been very busy jumping from one project to the next, but maybe he’d neglected something? Of course, it wasn’t without a reason! Never that. He gave a shrug.
“They’ve always been enough for me in a fight. Besides, I thought you wanted me to pay you back? To do that I need to focus on things that other people will buy. And it’s working!”
“I know it is, but let me ask you a question. What’s going to catch more attention from people? A guy tossing faulty grenades off a roof? Or the guy blitzing the battlefield with his rocket gauntlets, jetpack, and personal shield generator?”
There was a sinking feeling in his stomach that had gotten worse with each and every word that she said. While it was true that people were interested in his bombs, they absolutely lost their minds over his goggles. Everyone who’d seen what they could do had wanted a pair. He could easily turn a tidy profit just building them all day long. And that was with just one piece of custom gear.
“Ok,” he began, “I see your point. That would be pretty impressive.”
“Exactly. And those are just the examples that I came up with off the top of my head. If you want to be the go-to gadgeteer, then you should be covered from head to toe in high tech gadgetry that makes you a living nightmare to fight against.”
“You know, you once encouraged me to appreciate my powers more. Now it sounds an awful lot like you want me to completely ignore my light powers.”
“No, I’m still trying to get you to fully appreciate your gadgeteering. You use hard light constructs in combat and out, for utility and for fighting. Gadgeteering? You only use that outside of combat. You still aren’t balanced in your approach. Use your gadgets to supplement your conjured weapons.”
“Alright, alright. You can stop nagging me, I’ll do it.”
“Good. You can split your time between that, filling orders for other people, and researching your new discoveries.”
“Please remind me why you feel so comfortable ordering me around?”
“Because you owe me a lot of money. Twice as much as you used to, in fact.”
“What? You can’t just double it!”
“I didn’t. You made a bet and lost, and now I’m collecting.”
“What are you talking about? What bet?”
“You forgetting does not absolve you of paying up. Pay up and I’ll stop ordering you around.”
“Does it count as time served at least?”
He was expecting a quick, invective response. Instead she looked thoughtful and closed her eyes for a few moments. Then she nodded and locked eyes with him.
“Alright, that’s fair. Every time you make a new piece of equipment for yourself, show it to me. If I’m impressed I’ll knock the price of parts off your debt. If I’m really impressed then I’ll lower it further. Deal?”
“Uh, yeah! Of course! You’ve got a deal.”
They shook on it and the conversation wound its way to other, less important topics. They chatted as they walked, and it actually felt normal for a few minutes. Eventually they said their goodbyes and Circe vanished into the night while Lightforge made his way back to base.
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Back at home, Lightforge sat cross-legged on his bed. He had stripped down to the spandex bodysuit that provided the base layer of his costume. The rest of the pieces were arrayed on the floor in front of him as he inspected them.
There were four of them: goggles, thick gloves, sturdy boots, and the layered armor that looked a bit like a steel apron. Four pieces of equipment outside of the standard spandex suit that most characters started with. Equipment that could be altered and upgraded via his abilities, as shown by the modifications that he’d made to his goggles.
They’d been all but gift-wrapped for him upon his entrance to this world, and he’d mostly ignored them. He’d only modified his goggles because he didn’t have anything else on hand to use at the time. But just that morning he’d told Aquamarine that he wouldn’t part with them because they were such an important tool for him to have access to.
He could, and should, do the same for everything that was sitting in front of him now. Each one was a platform to increase his strength faster than he could with levels alone. He had plenty of parts available to him thanks to Sam, and he was starting to have enough crafting experience to see what might be possible.
In fact, he had another idea. He reached into his inventory and pulled out some of his earliest work. The pinwheel flier didn’t have much to it at the moment, but it had potential. After all, it was basically the beginnings of a personal drone that could assist him.
With that it was five. Five pieces of equipment just waiting for upgrades and expansions. Five gadgets in waiting that could radically change how he fought his battles. And, as a bonus, each improvement would serve the double purpose of reducing his debt to Circe.
Ideas flashed through his mind, but it would have to wait until the morning. He laid down and as he fell asleep a final stray thought passed through his sleepy brain.
What bet was she talking about?