Ray was concentrating intensely on his own body. His stats screen hovered in the air in front of him, and while his eyes were closed he could still see it clearly. He bunched up his power and focused on his {ALTER II} ability before pushing forward with everything that he had.

Intense pain spiked across his entire body and he was barely able to prevent himself from screaming out. So intense was the paint that his muscles seized and spasmed, to any observer it would appear as if he was having a seizure. He forgot about what he was trying to do, about the screen in his mind's eye, and about holding onto his ability. After several minutes of pure, unrefined agony he collapsed to the floor on his back.

“Ray, are you ok?” Nyx asked worriedly, rushing over to his side from where she had been lying.

Ray only groaned in response, causing the canine to huff in relief that he was alive. Eventually, he got enough breath back to say, “No. That hurt. Badly. Even saying it hurt badly isn’t enough to stress just how badly it hurt. Badly,” He groaned out. “And I didn’t even accomplish anything. It was like trying to put my head through a brick wall, only that brick wall was covered in titanium.”

Nyx sat in contemplation for a moment before responding. “So altering yourself isn’t possible then? Hmm, I figured it would be.”

“It's not that it isn’t possible,” he replied, sitting up. “I can tell that it is entirely possible. But the cost… the cost is so fantastic that the System won't even give me a number to apply for it. I almost feel like I need some kind of, I don’t know, a catalyst to reduce the cost? What that could be though, I have no idea.”

“Hmm. I will discuss this with Rivea to see if we cannot find a solution. There are many things to learn with the System working properly now,” she chuffed in annoyance. “On the other hand, not much has changed at all. Perhaps this was the way it was meant to work the entire time? I am still curious as to why, even with everything you have done, you remain at level nine of the first stage.”

Ray shrugged, “Probably some kind of requirement I have to fulfill. If I spent my entire life plumbing the depths of the System and its requirements I wouldn’t have any time to get anything else done. For now, I plan on keeping it simple and moving forward. Everything else we can tackle when it comes up.”

Standing slowly and shaking the last bits of pain out of his limbs, Ray headed out of his apartment. He paused at the door, “Are you going to come with or hang out here?” he asked his Soul Companion.

“I plan on resting a bit. It has been a busy few days,” she said, laying down and putting her head back on her paws.

Ray just waved as he headed out. Nyx had worked hard recently. Between scouting, fighting, and being killed yet again on his watch she deserved a bit of rest. Heading towards the labs, he figured it was about time for an update from his engineer friend on what he was working on.

It had been a few days since he had spoken with Derrick and Talla about the Power Cubes, and the cursory to that conversation had been his friend's sly hint that he may have solved the transportation issue. Thinking it over, Ray decided he would start there before seeing what he could accomplish with the cubes.

Passing by people in the hallways, he stopped periodically to chat with them. He saw a few Orkin as well, and although they were less articulate they were no less willing to tell him how they were doing. The big surprise was the Goblins, however. They dashed about in greater numbers than he remembered, performing various tasks as well as standing guard at certain areas. He once again marveled at their rate of evolution, as they seemed to adapt rapidly to any role that they were given.

Stopping and chatting resulted in it taking him longer to get to the labs, but he did eventually make it there. Nodding at the Orkin and Goblin guards, he stepped through the reinforced double doors to the large room beyond. There he saw various engineers and specialists discussing projects and working on prototypes. Derrick was himself, off in a corner with a man and a woman hovering over him as they watched him write something on a wide sheet of paper. Making his way over, Ray caught the end of the conversation they were having.

“- should provide enough power and buoyancy. Now, the materials will have to be light and as strong as we can make them. There are several construction materials in the Shop that more than meet our needs. But they are expensive, and I will have to talk to… speak of the devil, here he comes,” Derrick said, turning to Ray with a grin. “I was just explaining that we will have to come talk with you about purchasing some materials to build the prototype airship. The first one will be much smaller than what I have planned for, only sized for one or two people, but it will provide a proof of concept that will allow for larger construction. We will need an eventual yard and station for loading and unloading, but those are future needs.”

Ray held up a hand with a laugh, “Woah, hold on there Derrick. That’s a lot to think about in one go,” he said as the other two engineers laughed with him. “Airships? That was your idea? They didn’t work too well from what I remember. They were limited on size and capacity, at least until we found antigrav technology.”

“True,” Derrick admitted readily. “The ones using conventional technology were extremely limited and required huge amounts of rare gases to make function. But that’s not an issue when we use Mana, Mana Generators, and Power Cubes.”

Ray blinked, “Okay. You had my curiosity, but now you have my… whatever. Explain more please.”

“We can design what amounts to a literal ship that is airborne, not a zeppelin, dirigible, or some variant of those,” the engineer explained. “It would be a literal airship. Powered through a combination of ambient Mana collectors, Mana Generators, and a backup Power Cube for emergencies. We have most of the processes mapped out, but we need to get the materials to test a small build-out with first. I won't lie to you, it's going to be expensive. But once we get it figured out we can build a small fleet of exploratory vessels to travel pretty much wherever you may need to go. Getting back and forth from the dungeon will be child’s play, and it will avoid the water altogether.”

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Ray nodded at that. Ever since Anubis had ‘descended’ onto the world the waterways had become insanely dangerous. Their exceedingly short trip on the river had nearly gotten them all killed as their ship had nearly been overwhelmed by waves of the undead. He couldn’t imagine what threats could be lurking in the deeper waters of the oceans. This was a perfect solution to their travel needs while avoiding the more dangerous options.

“Give me a cost workup of how much we may need to spend,” Ray said. Then his eyes widened as he saw an opportunity. “Oh! This may be a good idea to see what materials you can find that work best with Power. I want to start working on designs for those Mana Batteries.”

Derrick nodded emphatically, “Sure thing! If you can get them compact enough, that should lighten the weight considerably. Speaking of Power Cubes though, that one you left out in the public area was fille dup pretty quickly. I had a couple of the Orkin grab it and haul it to your work area. That should give you some fuel to mess around.”

“Thanks. I’m heading that way now. If anything, I need to get another one-fifty cube made today for Argyle. That should give us plenty of funds for you to work o your airship,” Ray said, moving over to his work area as he spoke. Derrick went back to discussing the particulars with his engineers even as he moved away. The shorter man was gesturing with excited animation as the trio headed out of the workshop area, probably to talk to Talla at the Shop.

He arrived at his sectioned-off area of the workshop floor, eying the Power Cube that Derrick had delivered. The large steel and copper cube was sitting on top of the far end of the table. It was bulky and a bit of an eye-sore, Ray knew he could make something better. He examined it, and the System was only too happy to help him with that at least.

{ENHANCED POWER CUBE}

STORES EXCESS POWER FOR LATER USE

CAN BE POWERED BY ANYONE

STORAGE 150 / 150

ATTUNEMENT: NONE

Sighing at what was probably going to be a waste, but not seeing any way around it, Ray gathered the steel and copper together onto an area by the cube. Focusing on it, he attempted to pull Power from the cube to create a second one. For all he attempted it though, nothing happened.

Frustrated he sat there for the next hour trying to use the stored Power to actually do something. Anything. He even tried using his {ALTER II} ability to force it to do what he wanted, but for once something he tried to utilize it on did absolutely nothing. And he didn’t know why. Frustrated, he examined the cube itself for a good while. While there was only a little information to review, his eye was drawn to the Attunement portion of the screen.

“I bet you have something to do with why I can’t do anything. Why are you even there and what do you do?” he muttered to himself, eyes narrowing in focus. He put a hand on the cube and was nearly startled off his chair when a system message popped up:

ATTUNEMENT

ATTUNE {ENHANCED POWER CUBE} TO THE SYSTEM LORD CLAS?

Y / N

“What? Why… so, I guess each cube has to be attuned to a specific class?” he muttered. Tapping yes he looked at the cube again and noticed that the Attunement field now read ‘System Lord’. Frowning, he attempted to use the energy stored within and was immediately presented with a System message to create a new one-fifty cube. Selecting yes, Ray watched as the Power was drained from the cube and infused the materials on the desk. In a matter of minutes a second, an identical {ENHANCED POWER CUBE} was on the desk in front of him, only this wasn’t attuned to a class.

“Insane. Absolutely insane,” he grunted out, sitting back. “Why required the cube to be attuned to a specific class instead of just letting anyone use it? A security feature? Restricting it from use for some reason? I wonder if I can remove the restriction?”

Using his abilities, Ray tinkered with the new cube and found that he could add, edit, and remove a simply staggering number of options from it. However, he wasn’t able to edit the one that was attuned to him at all. He quickly came to the conclusion that the attuning process must be a kind of ‘locking in’ that ensured the Power that was stored functioned how it was intended. He could spend a huge amount of Power to change that function, but what was the point?

“I bet once you attune it the Power is somehow assigned to a specific purpose. It has to be a safety feature,” he said aloud to himself.

“What’s a safety feature?” Derrick asked, walking up and taking a seat next to his friend. “Sweet! You got that second cube made… wait does the first say it's attuned to your class?”

Ray explained what he had found out regarding the attunement process, and the issues he had initially using the Power that was stored. To experiment, Derrick inserted a single power into Ray’s cube only to find that it could still take the Power just fine, but regardless of how he tried the engineer couldn’t use it at all.

“I would say let's attune the second cube to you, but we kind of need the cash right now,” Ray admitted to Derrick. “But we can always make another one and test it out. Besides, I am more interested in getting that airship of yours off the ground, pun intended.”

Derrick rolled his eyes and picked up the new cube. “I will get this over to Talla, she said she would be happy to facilitate the exchange between Argyle and us. Once that’s done I will bring you back a bunch of samples of any materials I can find that might work as new materials for an upgraded battery. We also need a bunch of food, although I have the team working on a design for a multi-floor hydroponics building. We may want to look at taking another territory soon and turning it into a food production zone. You should look through your territory management options, if what we’ve seen so far is any indicator you can probably set each territory to focus on a specific type of industry.”

Ray was sure that the engineer was right about that. That was just another thing that he had to learn about and research. He would have to have a sit-down with the council and see what advice they had for proceeding that way. At a minimum, they would need to take the hex containing the dungeon. That meant bringing in Dennis and his wife Erica and wiping out the bandit infestation. Ray didn’t even really consider those murdering scum people at this point. Just filth that needed to be purged so that humanity could have a fighting chance at getting up again.

He was about to explain that when a commotion by the front doors had the pair turn that way. Dave, their resident spymaster, was making his way over to them rapidly. In a matter of seconds he had crossed the room and was standing in front of the duo.

“Derrick, Ray,” the spymaster greeted them. “We have a serious problem. I don’t know what those assholes in the territory over from us did, but a horde of undead is headed our way. A massive horde. If I didn’t say so, I would think almost every building in the territory emptied out and was sent our direction somehow. On purpose.”

Ray swore even as Derrick paled. “Fuck! Can I get five minutes to figure shit out, please?”

Dave just shook his head even as a distant roar echoed so loudly they heard it inside of the fortified building, causing all three of them to freeze.

“Apparently fucking not,” Ray growled angrily.