The [Queen] of Windemere told me where the former class Light-1 was. Marisol was roaming the world with Raleigh. Jocelyn became Windemere’s ambassador to Sadian, a risky position for them. I’d turn that country into a smoking crater if something happened to her. Camilla and Melania were married with litters of kids. They became certified Wizards and had a Wizard tower in Saegalla. Euric was an ambassador in Sadian as well, helping Jocelyn navigate the tangled web of foreign politics.
“Would you become Haru for me?” Mirina asked.
I nodded and shapeshifted. She touched my face, caressed my fox ears. I felt ticklish but the forlorn and nostalgic expression on her face was hard to endure. I hugged her. She hugged me back.
“I was waiting for you to come back,” she confessed.
“Sorry.”
“Did you get stronger?”
“Not yet, but I still have room to grow.”
“Do you have to go?”
“Lorna is there. I can’t leave her behind since I was the one who put her there.”
“That’s not objective truth,” Mirina stated. “Did you choose your species?”
“No, it’s random. The System did.”
“Is it?”
“What?”
“Random.”
“What?”
“You always seem to be in the right spot at the right time. From what you told me, it seems there’s a higher purpose to your incarnations. Any time a Demon Lord arose, you were nearby. Whenever the world needed change, you triggered that change. If these Administrators you told me about can do anything to the System, why would they leave such a useful tool alone?”
“Wyxnos never...”
“Not him.”
“Tuisto?”
“Maybe. The third one you whose name you never told me could be the one pulling the strings. That’s just a theory. I don’t believe myself capable of unveiling the whims of the Gods.”
She finished her line staring into my eyes.
“Mirina, I...”
A slender finger on my lips stopped me. “Don’t apologize. When I pledged myself to you at the Academy, I did it out of fear of dying. When we traveled to visit my family, I had a dream. A dream of what could be and I invested in that dream. When I invited you to share my bed, I did it out of love. But I know you’re too big for a single [Queen]’s selfish wishes. The blue demons you thought were garbage is a major threat for the minotaurs. I talked to them.”
I held her neck and caressed her nape as I pulled her for a long kiss. “I don’t have to go right away.”
The curtains of the bedroom closed as I willed them to.
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But I would have to, rather sooner. After visiting some people who would be offended if I didn’t drop by, like Helger, Fat Felix, Kazuyran, and Rydell’s family, I got Nenandil out of the refuge and we flew southeast. Over the now dragon-free mountains and then we landed next to a small stairway dug into the mountain face. Rocks on the ground pointed that it was dug from the inside out.
“This is it. Beyond this point, it’s the dead magic zone. Underneath us, the scavenger gnomes live their filthy lives.”
Nenandil stared at the stairway. “You should’ve marked the transition line. It’s scary to think I would cease to exist if I went down this tunnel.”
“Please don’t. I need you.”
She giggled, “And don’t ever forget that. What would you do without me?”
“Probably destroy the world.”
She rolled her eyes, “So, let’s get this show on the road. What do you need me to do?”
I summoned the {Shadow Workshop}, “Just stay beautiful and inspire me.”
“That I can do.”
I spread my kitsune tails to the maximum length and conjured the tools I needed. It was time to do my {Journeyman’s Trial}. I took my hammer, poured steel ingots out of storage, and started forging.
The reason the raptors could walk and sleep on the sand without sinking was their oversized duck feet. Their weight was spread over a large surface and the pressure they exerted was small enough the sands could hold their weight. That was also the reason the dry turds stayed cluttering the sands. They were too light to sink. The vehicle I intended to build would take advantage of that and have wide, spread-out tracks that would allow the machine to stand on the sand without sinking.
The final project looked like the lovechild between a towboat and a tank. The vehicle was roughly shaped like a towboat with a single mast for a sail, with tank tracks on each side.
I started with the chassis. Eight wide metal plates would double-up as a hull should the tracks sink too deep in the sand. Like a ship, it would spread the weight under an even bigger surface should the need arise, and the weight of the sand on the sides would push the hull upward like a cushion, but I intended to keep the hull away from the sand to avoid drag. Each plate was a five-meter square so the finished chassis would be twelve meters wide (with the tracks) by twenty long. After I finished welding the plates together into a wide boat-like shape, I flew to the edge of the desert to test how it would react to the funky sands.
For the main power supply, I decided to use a steam engine that would store energy inside a gigantic four-meter wide and two-meter tall steel flywheel stack. This physical battery was the heaviest component in the whole build. I also added one mast and sails to take advantage of the winds. If the steam engine ran out of fuel or water to work, I could shift to eolic energy to charge the flywheel. I could deploy a windmill on the mast to catch the wind and make the flywheel spin. This way, unless the wind died which didn’t happen ever according to the gnomes, I would always have a way to gather energy to move the machine.
Shapeshifting into an ogre, I dragged the chassis over the boundary of the dead magic zone. The actual sands started a few hundred meters in so I first tested if I would have any problems surviving inside the dead magic zone in whichever shape I was. Aside from locking down my magical abilities, nothing else happened and I wasn’t forced to shapeshift back.
Next test, put the chassis on the actual sand. I walked there and slid the metal board over the shit-covered sand. It stayed in place but I knew items took days to actually sink into the sand. I would need to come back every day to check.
During the time the prototype chassis stayed on the sand, I crafted a backup chassis and started on the parts. Cured monster leather for the threads, sealed bearings for the wheels, and then the rest of the vehicle. The flywheel stack would be completely airproof to avoid getting sand inside.
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“Why are you making it out of steel?” Nenandil asked one day. “Wouldn’t Adamantite be better since you could make the plates thinner with the same strength?”
I stopped working, the {Force Tongs} and tails hovering around as if waiting for an order to resume their frantic crafting pace.
“Adamantite is a magical alloy. I don’t think it would keep existing in a dead magic area,” I explained.
She snorted and snickered, “Yet you didn’t test it.”
“Oh, damn. You’re completely right. Let’s cause some ruckus as Adamantite fails catastrophically without magic. Maybe it’ll even explode. Or let’s scrap all I’ve done so far if it works.”
----------------------------------------
I took one of the adamantite daggers that didn’t work very well out of storage as we stood right before the dead magic zone. I held the dagger in my hand and tossed it with all my might inside. It flew through the invisible boundary and went inside the dead magic zone unimpeded. About a hundred meters inside, it hit the sand.
“Well?” Nenandil chuckled with an ‘I told you so’ smug grin.
“I think you are correct. No, look!”
The sand where the dagger fell started to glow an angry red, then yellow, and finally white. We were a hundred meters away and I could feel the heat. Smoke started to rise from the area and the winds brought the smell of cooked feces straight to our nostrils.
I was kind of expecting it to happen. Carbonium, the key element of Adamantite, was a hyper-heavy isotope of ordinary Carbon and its nucleus could only exist with the help of magic keeping the protons from divorcing each other in rather violent ways. In this case, it wasn’t enough to cause an explosion but it vitrified a large chunk of the desert.
Maybe I could dump enough Carbonium on the desert to turn all of it into glass. But I needed to answer an urgent call. Guess who decided to complain about my little experiment.
----------------------------------------
[Administrator Hotline]
CALL START
Wyxnos: WHAT HAVE YOU DONE THIS TIME?
Matriarch: Me? I’m experimenting with the dead magic zone’s properties. Why do you ask?
Wyxnos: The System just sent me a warning informing me of a nuclear detonation.
Matriarch: Please, do explain.
Wyxnos: Answer me.
Matriarch: Make me.
Tuisto: Since the destruction of Pekothas, we set an alert to warn us of spikes in radioactive energy. One just happened now.
Matriarch: I see. And why do you believe it has anything to do with me?
Tuisto: Because it happened right next to your location.
Matriarch: It’s the fault of this dead magic zone. It reacts badly to magical materials.
Tuisto: Would you please explain?
Matriarch: Sure, T-man! I can demonstrate too. Do you know the blue demons that plague the Scorched continent? The ones that resemble humanoid dinosaur crabs.
Tuisto: I am aware of them.
Matriarch: The blue part of their carapaces contains Carbonium, an ultra-heavy magical isotope of carbon. Well, Carbonium decays violently in areas without magic. Should a blue demon carcass enter this dead magic zone, it would cause a catastrophic meltdown. What you sensed right now were fifty grams of the stuff. A carcass has around a hundred kilograms.
Wyxnos: The siphon is programmed to ignore demon corpses. Stop messing with it.
Matriarch: Siphon, eh? What’s it siphoning exactly?
Wyxnos: It’s a cleaning routine for the world. To avoid pollution! Even your vaunted sewers in Windemere end up in there!
Matriarch: Look at our professor, so worried about the environment. However, does your “cleaning routine” ignores processed demon carapace? What about other hyper-heavy magical isotopes like Truesilver?
Wyxnos: I’ll fix it!
Tuisto: Thank you for your feedback, Matriarch. We’ll work to improve the process. But please don’t dump those elements in the area. It causes too many problems.
Matriarch: If it’s you who’s asking, fine. Tuisto, I was just doing an experiment, that’s why I used a small throwing dagger. If I really wanted to cause trouble, I would’ve used a few tons of blue iron.
Tuisto: I know that and no harm was done this time. If you feel the need to do further experiments, I beg you to please talk to me before you do.
Matriarch: Sure thing.
CALL END
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That reminds me, I probably shouldn’t bleed inside this dead magic zone. Would my blood burn? I knew I didn’t explode, probably because the System was cheating. It could clearly manipulate the antimagic to create that oasis…
Oh.
I cast a Luck bonus spell on me, then walked inside the dead magic field. Checking my Status, the spell was gone. Maybe because it was Luck-based. I tried with other kinds of buff spells, none worked.
“It seems you were correct,” Nenandil approached, apologetic.
I shapeshifted back to my pixie form and held her hands as I dragged her up in the air. “Don’t worry. You were right in suggesting I should try. Now, let’s finish our machine of death.
----------------------------------------
A month later, the Sandcrawler Barge “Queen Lorna” was finished, the outside painted with drab pastel desert camouflage. The test hull never sank in the sands, proving my concept was solid. With six heavy steel crossbows mounted on each side and a freaking ballista on the prow and another two on the stern, it was made to dominate the sands and kill kobolds. I just needed a crew.
> You gained 12 points of Gnome Machinist.
>
> You gained 4 points of Metalsmith.
>
> Journeyman’s Trial complete. You lost the Perk, Journeyman’s Trial.
>
> You gained the Perk, Journeyman’s Boon (ultra-rare): You gain a 10x Exp bonus from crafting. This bonus stops if you move into the Second Rank.
We went to the plains outside the dead magic zone. Queen Lorna plowed through the undergrowth, leaving track marks behind her. I tested the steam engine and the flywheel module and both were able to propel the vehicle. Switching power sources worked perfectly as well. While the steam engine running, it would add spin to the flywheel stack until the mechanical battery automatically disengaged when fully charged. If we ran out of fuel, I would switch to the flywheel and drain kinetic energy to keep moving.
On each side, I had a loading crane to collect loot from the desert. It needed a few gnomes to operate so they were stowed away for now.
To my dismay, sailing was impossible. The wind speed necessary to make this metal monstrosity move on land was too big, even with a 68% reduction in internal friction due to my Proficiency. I could still use the mast as a vantage point or the windmill to charge the flywheel, though. Out here I could use my pixie powers to create the wind I needed, but in the dead magic zone, the sails would only add weight.
I summoned the workshop again to switch the sail rig for a gnome-sized crow’s nest on top of the mast, with four mounted crossbows and a barrel of bolts affixed to it.
With Queen Lorna finished, I opened my interface and allocated my Exp. {Surpasser} ate all my Attribute Points.
> You reached Windstorm Pixie level 20
>
> You gained 20 Attribute points.
>
> You gained 10 Dexterity, 6 Endurance, 6 Mind, 5 Willpower, and 20 Magic.
>
> You gained 12 rank 1 species Perks.
>
> Ultimate Surpasser granted you 36 Attribute Points
>
> You reached Puck Trickster level 20
>
> You gained 10 Strength, 20 Dexterity, 10 Endurance, 10 Mind, 10 Willpower, 10 Charisma, and 10 Magic.
>
> You gained 10 rank 1 Class Perks.
>
> Ultimate Surpasser granted you 36 Attribute Points
> Level 80
>
> Strength: 66+23 (89) - Dexterity*: 66+37 (103) - Endurance: 66+24 (90)
>
> Mind: 55+36 (91) / 66 - Willpower*: 60+43 (103) / 66 - Charisma*: 66+34 (100)
>
> Magic*: 62+69 (131) / 66 - Faith: 32+10 (42) / 66
>
> Ego: 34+38 (72) / 66 - Luck: 32+34 (66) / 66 - Soul: 32+42 (74) / 66
>
> HP 2.187.574 (529.252 HP/min) (868 HP/min inside dead magic zone)
>
> Energy 4.874.811 (10.890 E/min) (0 inside dead magic zone)
> You ranked up. All unallocated Exp was divided by 10,000.
> Your species ranked up into a Thundercaller Pixie (2nd rank, very rare). Your progression is:
>
> 1 Attribute point at every level.
>
> +1 Magic every level.
>
> +1 Dexterity, Willpower at every even level.
>
> +1 Mind, Endurance every third level.
>
> +1 Luck every fourth level.
>
> 8 HP per level.
>
> 10 Energy per level.
>
> 1 Perk every even level.
> Your Class ranked up into a Dreamland Trickster (2nd rank Ultra-Rare+++, 5-fused).
>
> +1 Dexterity at every level.
>
> +1 Endurance, Strength, Magic every even level.
>
> +1 Charisma, Mind, Willpower every odd level.
>
> Nothing, Ego, Luck, and Nothing, alternating every four levels.
>
> +1 Luck every fourth level.
>
> 9 HP per level
>
> 12 Energy per level.
>
> 1 Perk every even level.
I filled the cargo platform at the back with dry firewood and let Nenandil go to the refuge. I shapeshifted into Tinarturner’s form and allowed Queen Lorna to enter the dead magic zone. The choice of shape was due to familiarity. I needed to retrieve Grenniana and convince the gnomes to fight the kobolds.
My Magic and Spiritual Attributes were artificially forced to zero and I felt naked without magic once again. But I had a purpose. Maybe I could even make them stop worshipping Wyxnos and convert them to my own faith. The whiny professor didn’t want them anyway.
The sandcrawler left firm land and climbed on the sand, crushing the dry turds as she went. The thread dents scooped huge gulps of sand behind the vehicle as it moved but the lower hull was nowhere near touching the sand. I had fifty kilometers to cross before I could reach the gnome garage cave entrance. At my current speed, that would take an hour and a half. I designed this vehicle for efficiency and endurance, not speed.
Onwards, for vengeance!