Jordan inspected the item he now held. A lump of unrefined metal that was a dull orange with streaks of red spread across its surface. It was a bit bigger than his whole hand with his fingers outstretched, and felt incredibly warm to the touch. In fact, he had a feeling that if his Endurance had still been its base value, this object would definitely be burning him. And naturally, he had already used Appraise on it.
Name: Lesser Infernum
Grade: E1
Description: This common metal has potent energies associated with the concept of fire and heat. So long as the metal remains connected to its concept, the energy within it will continue to slowly increase.
Now Jordan would be the first one to admit something. While Infernum might be a bit on the nose for a metal infused with fire magic, he couldn’t really judge as the guy who picked Industry as a name his Kingdom and Guild would forever be known as. But also, he had to admit another thing. Was there anything cooler than fire metal? And the answer was… probably, he just hadn’t found it yet.
But all in all, the waiting for it to get spit into the chest hadn’t been that bad. It’d taken exactly nine minutes and 18 seconds, at least by his temporarily reset watch’s count. As the top option on the list from before, that did mean that everything else below it would take longer, of course. So as evidenced by the chest as werll, the Industrial Miner didn’t seem to be meant to be the kind of thing he was meant to just babysit. Rather, it’d just be going on in the background and Jordan would just come over as often as he could to collect what it had gathered and then start it up again.
Now, in the spirit of that, can I have you do multiple expedition jobs at the same time? Or at least get them into a queue so I can just walk away for a long while and not worry about it. Jordan placed his hand on the machine and… no.
From the lack of response to his command and intent, it couldn’t do either of those things. But rather than let it get to him too much, he assumed that perhaps that kind of thing would be an upgrade for the future. That the System had intentionally decided to leave some room for improvement, and all that.
Putting away the Lesser Infernum into his pocket space, Jordan wondered if Haje had checked the Guild’s inventory yet. While waiting, Jordan had decided to send a message for the stone giant’s taking only. It was also after a little playing around with the feature that Jordan discovered he could also prevent himself from taking out certain items.
While he doubted he’d ever have a good reason to actually do this, he supposed it was good to know. In any case, Jordan made use of that feature to only give Haje access to the message, and hoped that kind of thing would be a good system for people always knowing which of potentially many future messages were intended for them.
I don’t think those four will exactly love the fact that I asked Haje to turn the people they came here with into Advancement Crystals. Especially since it sounded like Sammy was close to one person who died. So better to just have it done… discretely, and just never acknowledge what happened if any of them ever go back and find out the bodies are gone. It’ll be better that way, Jordan thought to himself, still internally justifying his decision.
While it did feel a bit wrong on some level, he knew that practices like burial or any sort of treating the dead with respect had basically gone out the window. If not now, then soon. To do anything other then turn the corpses into gems was basically just a waste that would only serve to handicap yourself. And if he hadn’t asked Haje to do so now, then it’d only be a matter of time until someone else stumbled upon them and did it themselves.
That discretion was also why Jordan had asked Haje for a private delivery of the Advancement Crystals. As far as Jordan could tell by testing the details of the Guild’s shared inventory, he couldn’t fully hide the things placed within it. It did allow him to prevent people from seeing the details or use Appraise on the item even while they were inside the pocket space, something that he only then learned was even possible because he had discovered that setting. But as far as at least knowing the basic detail that a few dozen gems were in there, he couldn’t hide that.
Maybe that was another one of those functions that would unlock as his Guild grew, or maybe not. Either way, using the communal pocket space meant the others would at least have a chance to know that a number of gems equalling to the number of dead members of their group would be in there, which was a potential conversation he would rather just avoid.
Jordan sighed. Not even a couple of hours since he’d recruited the small group of fellow Humans, and he was already doing something behind their backs to keep as a secret. At the very least, he had a good feeling that Haje wasn’t the type to just randomly spill the beans. And as long as the collected Advancement Crystals remained within Jordan’s own pocket space, nobody would ever know he had them, and once he had enough for another Skill evolution, they would be consumed without a trace.
Aside from that, the only way they could be exposed would be if Jordan died and everything was then expelled from his deleted pocket space. And if there was any advantage to already being dead, it was not really having to care about what the living thought of you. Unless it turned out that the Merging did also include an actual afterlife for them to go to, or it turned out that becoming ghosts was a thing. It was almost a funny thought, where even with the arrival of a System that granted everyone superpowers, what was likely the greatest fear and hope of humanity still remained a mystery.
Checking the Guild inventory to see if Haje had replied yet, Jordan noticed two new additions. The first being some kind of crystal, which when he used Appraise on it…
E5?! Damn Haje, where’d you even find this? Jordan asked himself with wide eyes as he’d read about the Crytal of Earth. Just the Grade alone meant it was leaps and bounds past the mere E1 metal the Miner had just collected for him. He could only assume it must have been near the Earth Elemental Lord, maybe as some kind of treasure that the monster had been guarding?
But then there was another item inside the shared pocket space. Some kind of… rock? Appraise didn’t even work on it, which he assumed meant it really was just a normal rock? Now very curious, Jordan pulled out a stone that was truthfully closer to a boulder in size, and also in weight as he almost immediately struggled.
“Holy!” With a huff, Jordan chose to just drop it. He had no idea how much it actually weighed, only that if it’d been too much for his Strength to for him to hold for more than a few seconds, it’d must of been very.
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He was even pretty sure that with how big it was, such a large object wasn’t even considered valid for his normal pocket space. Did the Guild’s just operate under different rules, then? Or was it because a certain someone who was comparatively larger had been the one to put it in there?
The boulder was pretty flat in terms of shape, while still being several inches thick. Jagged and not at all smooth, but a pretty neat rock, all things considered. But question was, why exactly had Haje saw fit to send it to him? Appraise hadn’t worked on it, and while he had touched it, it hadn’t felt like anything special in terms of supernatural properties.
So, two possibilities. Haje is actually really into collecting rocks, and liked this one so much, he decided we should all get to know about it and bask in its glory. Which fair enough, more power to him if that’s the case. Otherwise, this is meant to be something important, but what?
After staring down at it for a few moments and still not seeing anything, Jordan decided on a whim to flip over the large rock. It took a bit of effort, but the good thing about flipping heavy things over is that gravity switched from enemy to friend at the halfway point. Well, friend-ish, if you still wanted to control the descent and not just let it drop down with its full weight.
“Huh, what do we have here?” Jordan asked aloud as he looked at what was on the other side. Scratched into the surface was what could objectively be called chaotic scribbles.
However, through what could only be called System translation shenanigans, he could somehow read it as something actually eligible. Which was extra weird, considering how Haje’s people didn’t even have a writing system to begin with. But if Haje could read what Jordan had written, he guess the other way around had to also be possible? Was it just the intent put into the “written” text? He’d have to ask Haje about it to know for sure.
Jordan’s eyes flickered as he read the message inscribed on the stone. At first his eyes narrows with confusion, but then he felt the click of understanding.
He wants me to finish off the Earth Elemental Lord, and wanted to bring it back here. But he doesn’t know where this Kingdom is, so asks if I can send one of my summons to where we first met, huh? Damn, not sure how he plans on bringing the Lord all the way there while keeping it alive, but sure. If he’s offering, I’d just be an idiot to say no to taking all that Experience for myself. With a mental command, he ordered one of his land drones to immediately stop what it was doing and head over there.
***
After realizing that he dind’t know where Jordan’s main Kingdom actually was, and choosing not to bother figuring out, Haje had opted for the simpler solution of effectively meeting halfway. After sending what he hoped counted as a message by the System, which he’d made by simply focusing rather hard on the intent behind the writing, and even attempted to make a picture of where they’d first met.
Once that was done, Haje had broken off some more pieces of the elemental, including its final arm. Carrying it back over to and through the portal, the humiliated Lord still struggled and squirmed, but it was a futile effort at best.
Luckily, nothing even tried to bother Haje as he went through the gateway and climbed the mountain range. He did look up at the sky and saw a Wyvern in the distance, looking back at him. But rather than attack, it chose to fly away until it was out of sight.
Maybe it wasn’t in the mood for fighting, or maybe it was just smart enough to recognize that Haje was far beyond it now. The Wyvern he’d fought had seemed a bit more intelligent than other beasts that immediately accked, instead only becoming aggressive because he had approached what appeared to be a nest of ice near the peak of a mountain.
When Haje reached the hole in the ground, he simply let gravity take him as he fell in and landed inside. Some more snow had fell into the underground space since the last time he’d been here, but it made no difference to him. Placing the desperately wiggling form of the Earth Elemental Lord on the ground, he simply sat down and began to wait.
A little while later, Haje heard it. The snow being crunched by one the metal summons that moved across the earth, rather than the other type that flew through the air. He heard that it paused, right outside the underground chamber. After waiting a few seconds and noticing that it didn’t choose to fall in, Haje just shrugged before grabbing the Lord and jumping back out.
And once he was back on the surface, the summon instantly reacted as it positioned itself to fire at the thing held held between his hands. With the Lord already so weak and near death, Haje knew that this part wouldn’t take long even with Jordan being a lower Level.
***
Since sending away all his drones, Jordan had already gotten a couple of kill notifications. Enough that it’d put him at 3557/5625 Experience Points. Or at least, that’d been the case until a new screen popped into his vision.
Experience Earned!
+7923 EXP
Level Up!
Level 6 to Level 7
Jordan’s eyes were already wide when he saw that metric fuck ton of Experience given. But before he even had time to think about it, more pop-ups only made his expression twist further with surprise. To the point where if anyone saw him by the end, one might have thought he was actively dying and needed emergency medical attention.
“This… what?!” Jordan barely managed to mutter through his utter bewilderment.
New Title Acquired:
Title: Truly Prodigal Lord Slayer
Description: Be the very first to slay a native Lord of Vervina-C, and do so while still remaining in E Grade. For doing so, you already have a place to stand tall amongst the peak of the world. May this pinnacle achievement be forever remembered as a major step forward in your path to the very top, High Lord.
Benefits: +5 Levels, +10000 Kingdom EXP, +15 to all Stats, +15% to all Stats.
Level Up!
Level 7 to Level 8
Level Up!
Level 8 to Level 9
Level Up!
Level 9 to Level 10
Level Up!
Level 10 to Level 11
Level Up!
Level 11 to Level 12
Congratulations!
Level Requirements for evolution to D Grade have been met!
This evolution includes the chance to select a Subclass.
Evolving now…
With that final pop-up, Jordan’s body slumped forward. Unlike Haje who skilled getting a Subclass due to his Class restriction, the System temporarily rendered him unconscious for this part. This was to allow him to potentially have hours to select in a similar state as to when they initially arrived on this planet, while only a second passed in the real world.
***
Yet in that very same second, a notification had already been sent out. One that Jordan would soon see as well, but only after he finished his evolution. But unlike when the first Mandate was claimed, this was not a Temporary Quest.
It was a warning. Due to the record breaking achievement of a Lord-type monster being slain, the System was now taking off the training wheels.
In just six days, every creature and monster on the planet would experience a jump in Levels. In just six days, the total population of these beasts would see a sudden expansion. In just six days, all the Lord-types would experience an even greater boost in both Levels and be given a sudden comprehension of how to best utilize it. And in just six days…
The High Lord monstrosities would be introduced as a limited number of major threats that nobody, not even the very peak of the 42nd Merging, would be able to handle on their own.