Devoid of clothes, Fel sat on a circular platform in a small, white room with a strange device hanging above him.
"Activate lightning chamber 3A."
A cold voice rung out in response, "Lightning chamber 3A activating in 10 seconds."
The device lit up with a harsh, yellow light that rapidly grew in intensity.
"10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1… releasing lightning."
A solid pillar of lightning thundered down onto Fel, enveloping his body. Within the pillar, Fel was using his parivartana lines to refine the lightning into strands of divine energy.
Lightning was closely linked to the divine, and although it was inefficient, it was currently his only source of divine energy.
When he converted his energy before the change, it didn't remain as such for long. Without his attention, the converted energy unravelled, turning back into pure energy. He could do the same now, but he needed permanently converted energy to refine his body, it also wouldn't be any good if his energy pool was to disperse as he slept.
After several hours of circulation, Fel's reservoir 30% full of heavenly thunder. If he was using pure energy, he could've reached this state in only around an hour. Divine energy was simply far too rare. It would take two more days for him to be full, and that's if he didn't use the energy to refine his body. The thought was rather depressing.
Deactivating the chamber, Fel donned a yellow robe and walked through the door into a plain corridor. He had been in the shelter for almost two weeks and the siege above had no sign of abating, despite reinforcements being due a week earlier.
There really wasn't much to do in the bunker, except for dull cultivation and endless experimentation with new weaponry.
Opening the door to his right, he was welcomed to the sight of a humble workshop, with clean white walls and simple, wooden workbenches, a hooded figure looming over one. Kicking the various scraps on the floor out of the way, Fel made his way over to the bench.
"How's it going?"
Mysvain clamped the outer-plating of the chaos sphere together then turned to Fel, "Almost there, just fixing out a few kinks in the system."
He stretched out, clicking his spine into place, "So, I'm guessing you'd like to work on your project now?"
Fel let out a light laugh, in return for being Mysvain's assistant every now and then, Mysvain would help him out with his own projects and cover part of the costs. Right now, Fel was stunningly broke.
He walked over to a workbench in the corner of the room and placed the frame of a mechanical arm upon it. It was Siyla's replacement arm. Though she could create her own, she would have to expend energy to maintain it. She needed a more permanent solution, and this was it.
"You're going to quite the extent to hide this from her though. You even hired the fire-zone blacksmiths to manufacture the parts… How did you even get those materials? Core-steel for the outer casing and mithril for the innards, and that's not mentioning all the other artifacts you sold to cover the costs."
Fel avoided Mysvain's eyes, he couldn't tell him they were Siyla's snacks. He only dared to use them due to the circumstances. As for the artifacts, it wasn't like he used them anyway.
"Well, it doesn't matter." Mysvain reached over and picked up a few parts, "Now we got the parts, we can get to work. Good thing the couriers are still going.
While he put together the arm, Fel struck up a conversation, "About the siege, how's it going?"
"Still at a stalemate. While they haven't received reinforcements, we don't have a large enough force to sally out, and the Association hasn't done shit to help us so far. So much for the oath… Ah, would you look at that, one last panel and we're done."
Just as Mysvain clamped in the last panel, Fel shot out his hand and swiped the arm, stuffing it into his ring, right before a metallic angel burst into the room with a small, wooden chest under her arm.
"Fel, I finished putting together all the bullets and this handgun thing you wanted."
She walked up to the workbench and set the crate down, "By the way, what were you guys doing?"
Fel hoisted himself onto the bench, "Just having a quick break, Mysvain's chaos sphere is a time sink."
Siyla got onto an opposite bench, "Can I join in?"
"That would be great, but, with the bullets here, why don't we move to the testing range?"
Yes, this was another of Fel's projects. After he had heard about spell-matrices from Mysvain's, formations of runes that could cast spells when supplied with energy, he knew exactly what he had to do with them. Of course, it was to create a spell-bullet.
There were two types of spell-matrices. Rechargeable and one-use. An example of a rechargeable spell matrix was Invicta's control panel where the spell matrix was stored in mercury and kept the spell going for ages.
One-use matrices, on the other hand, could only last for a few seconds at most. As few people had vitality or life energy, they were often used to create one-use heals crystals as few people had the right type of energy to recharge those types of matrices.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
So the difference could be summarized as such: Rechargeable spell-matrices were the swords of the Mage world while one-use matrices were akin to arrows, really fragile ones. Both deadly, just one was deadly for longer than the other.
He got Aerl to design a simple spell-matrix, that was suited to his heavenly lightning and got Siyla to carve them out. You didn't need an understanding of how runes worked to carve them, only a deft hand, or in Siyla's case, a flying scalpel.
On the way to the testing range, Fel charged the empty bullets with his newly acquired heavenly lightning. The crystals used as the matrix's base were small and cheap, only able to contain 0.1% of his total energy. Though for now, power wasn't his top priority.
At the range, Fel went over the handgun prototype, making sure that all was in order while Siyla watched from the side.
"What's this gun? It's rather small compared to the others."
"This? Ah, right. If I tried using the other guns without power armour, they'd fracture my arms. This is a handgun. Doesn't pack as much of a punch, but will help you out in a pinch. Especially when you don't happen to have a functional suit of power armour at hand."
Loading the gun and pulling back the slide, Fel aimed it at the metal dummy at the distance.
BANG
A thin stream of gold flashed through the air, piercing into its head and melting a quarter of it into metal sludge. Tapping the trigger in quick succession, Fel reduced the rest of the dummy to molten metal.
"It feels like everything's weak as shit without a barrier protecting them."
Mysvain walked up to Fel, "Means they work. By the way, how much of your energy did you insert into these bullets?"
"0.1%, What about it."
"… your previous bullets impressed me, but these, these are something else. While they only have the power level of a high apprentice, the raw materials only cost 30 gold coins apiece. That's nothing. Apprentices would drool over this."
"So how much do you think an upgraded version will cost?"
Taking a bullet in hand, Mysvain gave his opinion, "If we improved the design and used better quality crystal, we could make middle level 1 tier bullets for 200 gold coins each. Still dirt cheap."
He paused for a moment, "But still, even lightning isn't this powerful. What kind of energy did you use?"
Siyla placed a hand on Mysvain's shoulder, "Every Mage has their secrets." She didn't quite trust Fel to would keep his mouth shut.
"Fine then, let me present you with a deal."
"For a 15% cut, I'll manufacture the handguns, bullets, and handle the distribution and sales. All you have to do is provide me with the blueprints and matrices, and fill the bullets with your unique energy."
"15% is rather generous for my side."
"The only reason these bullets are so powerful is because of your energy, and I don't want a swindler's reputation under my belt. Also, there are over 10,000 apprentices in the Academy, that's a massive market."
"If we create a bullet at the level of a peak apprentice, we could sell each of them at over 100 gold coins a piece, hell, even 150 isn't a stretch. Most matrices with that kind of power cost a crystal coin or two at the very least."
It was a tempting offer. If every apprentice bought a single bullet, he'd make 1.5 million gold coins. If he sold them in sets of 12, he'd only need to make 830 sales for the same profit. To his knowledge, a crystal coin was worth 1000 gold coins, that was 1000 crystal coins in profit. And that's a conservation estimate.
But at the moment, it was incredibly difficult to create heavenly lightning, before he could take part in this venture, he'd have to secure a larger source of divine energy first. He couldn't afford to spend weeks of his time to create bullets at the expense of his cultivation time.
"I'll have to think about this further. Maybe once we're on the surface."
"Sure, it's not like we're in a rush or anything."
They continued experimenting for an hour before Mysvain left, moving back to his workshop, while Fel and Siyla walked over to another part of the shelter, the arena.
---
"How much energy do you have Siyla?"
"About 25% how about you?"
"28% I guess we'll just have to work with it."
Siyla was in the same predicament with Fel, if not even worse as her parivartana lines weren't fully developed. Sacred energy was a branch of divine energy and specialized in buffing and defence. When fused with her metal energy, it could create a powerful defence energy: Sacred Steel.
However, sacred energy couldn't be easily converted from metallic energy. On the other hand, peaceful and beautiful locations such as small groves and pools could naturally convert various energies to sacred energy.
It was a similar case for divine energy, which would naturally form in grandiose locations.
But in the shelter, there wasn't much of either, only endless blank corridors and rooms.
Siyla congealed a set of light armour along with a steel spear, all sparkling with silver rainbows.
Opposite her, Fel took out a simple longsword, compressing his heavenly thunder around it. They both didn't have enough energy to go all out, so they made the best of what they had.
Dropping her centre of mass, Siyla dashed forth, lunging out with her spear.
When Fel swung his sword around to defend, Siyla retracted the spear into her body, waving her hand to launch out a crescent of sacred steel after Fel had overextended before digging her heel into the ground, launching herself back, sending out a volley of needles as she went.
In response, Fel met the crescent with a thunderous fist, the immediate impact completely disintegrating it while the shockwave continued on to destroy the incoming needles.
Propelling himself with a blast of lightning, Fel appeared before Siyla, sword already descending onto her skull. Her hastily made shield slightly deflected the sword, just enough so she could swerve to the side and snap out with a long dagger.
They made exchange after exchange, rarely using any 'expensive' techniques, trying to conserve as much energy as possible.
In this regard, Siyla had the advantage. Not only did Fel's lightning cost more energy, but Siyla herself was more experienced in melee combat. Slowly but surely, she was pushing Fel back.
Though it may seem stupid for them to fight at such a time, it was, in fact, a very effective training routine. Not only could they gain experience and adapt to their new powers, but their bodies were refined as they expended their energy. It was hitting three birds with one stone.
Finally, after almost an hour had passed, both Fel's sword and Siyla's armour dispersed simultaneously, their energy pools had run out. The battle had ended in a draw, though there were more injuries on Fel's body than there were on Siyla.
Panting, the duo sat down and took a towel to their sweat.
Looking at a clock mysvain gave him, Fel found that it was 11 pm. If he was his previous self, it would've been a could idea to turn in for the night, to keep his body in tip-top condition, but now he was a Mage, a being that could stay up for days on end.
But to get Siyla's arm prepared and kept her busy in the meantime with the handgun, he had stayed up for an entire week. Even a Mage would feel tired by this point.
"So, a quick shower before we go to our room?"
"Sure, why not."
---
In the room, Fel was wrapping up the arm with colourful, silken ribbons. Yet, even though he gave it his all, the end result looked as if someone had vomited unchewed spaghetti onto it. Fel could only hope that his feelings got through.
Hearing the shower had stopped, Fel hid the arm behind his back and kneeled by the bathroom door, planning to give her a surprise.
The door creaked open and Fel raised the arm above his head, like a knight offering his sword, feeling a strange resistance as he did so.
"Surprise!"
An entire minute crawled by, bogged down by large, iron weights. Seeing as there was no response, Fel inclined his head, catching only a glimpse of heaven before an iron fist pummeled him into the ground.
Calmly, Siyla reached down and took the arm, "Viewing tax."
Despite her cold reaction, she didn't keep her wings between them that night.