"You're back," Altia deadpanned as Nero walked into the house-tree, a few minutes past midnight. She took a deep breath and spoke, regret tangible in her whispered voice. "I wish I could go with you."
Nero hugged her. "I got your herbs. Hundreds of each. It's fine."
Altia leveled into the twenties during his work with the shameful prince and is now barred from entering Rafflesia's Meadow. Even though her limiter was blocking a measly fourteen percent of her Attributes, it would still eat into her lifeforce in the lowest-ranked Dungeons. She could go in for a speedy run, courtesy of Nero's [Dungeon Breaker] but for her, the true bounty of the Dungeon was not the cards or the Essence crystals.
Dungeons were snapshots of forlorn times. The battlefields of Yrkandia and the invasion of the goblin army were immortalized in the eponymous Dungeon. The shameful prince and his retinue of indentured females were other examples. In the shambler-infested forests of Rafflesia's Meadow, herbs believed to be extinct thrived.
Nero took the bushels of preserved herbs from his dimensional pouch while she stored them in hers. He used the autonomous [Essence Manipulation] spells not only to prepare timber. "Will you have time to brew them tomorrow?" He asked.
"The term starts tomorrow," Altia told to herself. She met Nero's eyes and smiled. "Thank you, husband. That will help. I'll brew my custom recipes before the teachers. Less chance of somebody calling me a cheater."
During the three months they spent in Rafflesia with the then hiding Princess Serena, Altia modified and rediscovered a few potion recipes using the herbs found there. She now intended to submit her work to the Lyceum for extra credits, just like Nero wanted to do with his [Skill Booster] blueprint.
Altia yawned, the tension of waiting for Nero's return gone. "You're not sleepy!" She punched his chest.
"Come. Let me put you to sleep," He took her hand and led her to the bed. Nero tucked Altia in before crawling under the sheets. He kissed her forehead then her lips. "And don't worry. I'll just lie here quiet, admiring your peaceful sleeping face."
Altia playfully rolled her eyes. "Creep."
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Dressed in their white research assistant uniforms, the couple joined their family at the keep for breakfast. The Count and Countess' days were packed with visitors that poured from every train. The capital added a third daily trip while this influx grows. Minor aristocrats, merchants, opportunists of all sorts wanted a piece of the cake. Crystal's diplomatic skills were invaluable to keep the former adventurer couple from bashing a few skulls. Nero's soup kitchen had to close earlier because all the three thousand meals were sold in record time. Twelve new recruits with level caps lower than fifty also joined Nero's workforce. Finally, crime was on the rise. Some unsavory elements arrived, mixed with the visitors.
"I can make better portals now. Keyed to specific people," Nero announced. "I can set some portals and gateways to block intruders, even those using invisibility or stealth."
His idea was simple. Put key locations of the keep behind a transition box and a pair of portals that could never open at the same time. The transition box had the order to change colors based on the presence of people inside. It would glow green if the pocket dimension felt the weight of a person without the matching visual input. It left flying small races like pixies out as they wouldn't have to set foot on the floor but Nero wasn't too worried about fairy rogues.
With that done, Altia and Nero took a portal to their dorm apartment on the campus. They went their separate ways for the first day of the spring semester. They went separate ways, Altia to the alchemy department and Nero to the familiar gadgeteering building. The warm welcome he expected lasted all of a single minute.
Nero's shoulders slumped as he quietly listened to his professors scolding him on design ethics and experimenting with people. It was the full version of the warning Bezzias gave him when he revealed his [Skill Booster] Accessory. He missed Altia's support but was glad she remained in Honeywitch. The herbs he harvested for her proved to be too much of a distraction. Some of them were unique to Rafflesia, as far as they knew.
"Nobody thought of using the card reading unit from a salvaged Arbitrium whole before to add Skill slots to an accessory because it is madness!" Tinkwezilsky shouted. "You can't be sure the controllers are not corrupted."
"Experimenting on a captured enemy soldier is also a problem," Glom said. "Even wars have rules. This will be bad if the word comes out. I talked to Ms. Moira a few days ago and she won't put you in a tight spot."
"I know you understood. It is partially our fault for not enforcing a full course on ethics," Bezzias concluded. "Nothing bad happened, but you could've incapacitated Ms. Moira or yourself with your recklessness."
"Yes, I do, professors," Nero said with a tight heart.
"Regardless, you did it. Congratulations are in order. For the future models, you should use fresh parts," Bezzias mellowed. "I already talked to Master Hallye and he will set apart some card reading units from the assembly line for us."
They were sitting in a meeting room, the accessories' blueprints spread on the large table. The professors poured over the blueprint and made Nero explain every single design choice over the whole day. There were some improvements and simplifications they pointed out and from the overlapping features of both blueprints, the four [Gadgeteers] worked four days to reach a blueprint for the [Skill Booster] accessory.
> [Skill Booster] - Accessory. Minimum recommended grade: yellow.
>
> Variable Attribute boost. Minor.
>
> Fixed Major Features: X additional first-tier Skill Slots. Base Value: 4 ^X points.
>
> - The Skill Slots take modification points as an addon.
>
> - Added Skills are permanent.
>
> - Numeric Attribute bonuses from added Skills are halved.
>
> - The Skill Slots can only be added to accessories. The [Skill Booster] must remain in permanent contact with the wearer, either as a prosthetic limb or a bandolier module. The accessory can be deactivated to use another but desynchronize with the user if removed, rendering it useless. A wearer can only have one [Skill Booster] active. The device self-deactivates if another is turned on.
With the safety features suggested by Bezzias and the improvements from the professors, Nero registered his blueprint with the Gadgeteering Guild and signed a contract with Hallye, Cordelia, and Arlyana to allow their company to manufacture the modules. During the negotiations, he went for a higher share of the sales but he wouldn't see a single Essence crystal. Instead, his profits would go against his order of card presses. They would craft an inaugural batch of a hundred units and auction them.
He used the visit to purchase more parts to replace what he used for the woodcutting crawlers and some pristine card-reading units to make the Accessories for his family, four of them. Rodther would have to wait his turn or settle for a lower grade. Yellow, maybe. Nero chuckled when he thought of the scaled beast-folk as family already. Maybe he would have to add Hefalina to the mix. He bought purple-grade parts as they would be enough for what he intended.
The professors also dropped their wallets in the factory shop with smiles on their faces. The quartet returned to the Lyceum, where they promptly put themselves to design their own Accessories. Nero's design was for first-tier Skills only. The flow of Anima and Essence required to properly hold higher-tier Skills would burn the device's delicate circuits.
"So that's why your parts cost that much more than mine," Commented Nero when he learned what they were doing.
"Yes," Tinkwezilsky replied without lifting his head. "Orange-grade fifth-tier parts are as expensive as dragon leather."
"I thought there were no dragons on the continent," Nero remarked.
"Not on this continent," Emphasized Bezzias.
They kept working without much idle chatter. The three scholars were trying to figure out how to cram three slots in the orange-grade device without blowing it up. Three slots would eat up a whooping sixty-four modification points, of which the orange-grade material only safely allowed for thirty-six. Nero's thirty-percent increase in this safe margin was no good. It didn't stack with Tinkwezilsky's forty-five.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
Even so, they were twelve points shy, which meant a failure rate of about twenty-five to thirty-something percent. Among the four researchers, one of them was going to get an accessory blown in their bandolier, with unknown ramifications. It was even worse for Glom, as the squiig junior researcher was only tier four and the devices for him had to add a compression circuit to shrink the module. He would have to settle for only two slots.
Greed, however, was a powerful motivator.
"You know you can have more than one, don't you?" Nero asked after the consideration of the matter and its risks dragged on for an hour. "I was thinking of getting a second, but [Mind Library] is too useful and I'm sure I'm going to lose the stored memories if I deactivate the accessory. But having eight instead of six Skills to swap won't do me as much good as having two or three for you that can't switch classes."
Tinkwezilsky looked up. "Our little level zero is getting smug over his black-grade abilities, isn't he?"
"But he has a point," Glom conceded, a spark of joy shining in his eyes. "I'm settling for two accessories with two slots each. That will allow me to add plenty of different modifiers on each. And since they will be attached to me, I can swap them on the fly. Gotta enjoy a lesser version of that flexibility of builds Nero is bragging about," He smirked and twitched his long whiskers.
Bezzias chuckled along. "Me too. I'm going to make two Accessories."
"Bunch of scared nymphs," The gnome cursed. "I'm doing three, and I'm activating mine before you. Now come here, Nero. Give me a hand with the controllers so it blows up less."
"Blows up less," Nero rolled his eyes as he parroted the professor in a whisper. His Class reduced the damage from explosions by thirty percent, not the odds of exploding.
Being a gadgeteer was fun. They were part blacksmiths, part sculptors, part jewelers. When Nero pointed it out during the late afternoon, he was surprised by Bezzias' answer.
"That's because our craft is based on interdisciplinarity, Nero. We are all that you said and more. Magicians maybe, enchanters surely. You have pure sciences like mathematics, natural studies, medicine, philosophy, arts, and crafts. Our discipline of Gadgeteering is born from them and borrows from their principles. The baker must not look down on the miller because he can't bake bread, neither the miller down on the farmer because he can't grind grain. We make use of their work and bring everything together in our craft."
"Yeah, and it is a demanding path," Tinkwezilsky added. "Because you must be at least good in all those subjects. But with a broad view, a generalist. While a mathematician is exploring deep and profound truths in the realm of numbers and equations, we are putting those to good use. However, one day those same esoteric discoveries will find their way into practical use."
The village bumpkin paused and committed the discussion to a new slot of his [Mind Library]. He didn't understand half of what they said. But there was one thing that was bothering him.
"Why does it seem we are stuck in time for so long? As far as I know, we've had the Arbitrii for more than a thousand years."
"Allow me," Glom requested his seniors. Of all the three researchers, he was the one with the best people skills. Bezzias was a former noble but Nero was a commoner at heart. With a nod from his seniors, the diminutive squiig continued, "People happened. Knowledge was found, lost, found again, destroyed, rediscovered, stolen, burned. Driven by jealousy, greed, and ignorance, Royalty would not let knowledge escape their grasp. People would not share their discoveries. Sages died and took their wisdom to their graves."
"That's why the Dean created the Lyceum a century ago, and bows to no king even though we are in Bast's capital. We take students from any nationality and race." Bezzias took over, proud of the institution he was a part of. "Other nations also followed suit, and we finally broke the stranglehold on the world's knowledge. If they want to partake on the Lyceum's vast libraries, they need to share theirs as well."
The work for the day ended and only the disciplined gnome was able to begrudgingly drag the quartet of tinkerers away from their new toys. Nero learned a lot by watching his professors improve on his blueprints and customize their [Skill Booster] accessories with the modifiers they wanted. He had an idea of what modifiers to add but would have to ask his family what they wanted.
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At night, instead of hopping back to Honeywitch to oversee the stew kitchen, Nero and his wife went to visit the Dean. Or Nero slightly-estranged godfather. He still hadn't come around that idea. He had a hunch about why it happened and why the bomb was dropped right in front of the King, but he wanted to hear it straight from the horse's mouth. The draconid received them in comfortable black silk robes bearing the Lyceum's emblem. Not a servant, Nero noticed. Xalazuniox himself answered the door.
"Nero, Altia. Welcome. Please come inside and make yourselves at home."
"Excuse us, Dean," Nero said politely.
Xalazuniox frowned. "Now, now. This is not an academic or professional visit," The towering draconid sighed, a small wisp of smoke escaped his nostrils. "Nero. I'm sorry. I understand your sentiment. Please, make yourselves comfortable, I'll try to explain myself."
Wary, Nero led Altia to a sofa and sat by her side. Xalazuniox took the armchair next to them. Altia studied the elder carefully.
"How was your first day?" He asked, trying to make small talk. The draconid was rubbing his hands, obviously nervous.
"Altia smiled and held Nero's hand. "It was excellent. I presented my winter research and the herbs from Rafflesia. I also got to meet several noble ladies. They seemed friendly."
Nero spoke after a subtle elbow to the rib. "The professors and I went out to shop for parts, then we registered a patent for my [Skill Booster]. We returned to the lab and worked the whole day on the blueprints."
"Yes, an interesting device. Salvaging Arbitrii was a good idea. What inspired you to invent such a device?"
"Rodther, the ietermahue prisoner I hired during my tenure at the western fortress. He mentioned during one of our delves rumors about devices that added Skills. Turns out it was just a rumor and I had quite a lot of bracers to salvage. I looked at the card reading circuit, then the idea came. I'm not proud of the circumstances and trust me, my ears are still hurting from the scolding Bezzias gave me."
Xalazuniox nodded. "The nereid sergeant. What's done is done, and if you learned a lesson from it, the better. You did restore her mobility. Just be mindful in the future."
"I intend to."
He shifted the focus to the other minnid. "Altia, you met the ladies, any good gossip about the court?"
"Three noble houses were dissolved by the King these last few weeks. Nobody was talking about anything else. There were some fear and speculation as to who would be the next and what the King was going to do about the lands."
Nero saw a brief grin in the draconid's snout. "Probably none. The King can't rile up the nobles too much. Without those who kneel, there is no throne. But for what reason they were so punished?"
"Treason was the consensus," Altia replied. "They were caught consorting with the countries poised to invade Bast."
Nero froze. Xalazuniox's eyelids narrowed and he adopted a predatory stance when his wings opened slightly and his gaze shifted to Nero. Somehow he felt guilty for the demotion of these noble houses but he couldn't fathom why,
"That's not all they did. Which brings us to the main point of the night. Why I pushed to become Nero's godfather. While it seemed sudden, I can assure you I did it with not a single dollop of levity. We knew each other for a brief time, but I want this to work. I want to be your godfather, Nero."
Nero was not one to be cowed by a sharp stare and met Xalazuniox's head-on. "It was sudden. We barely knew each other."
"Yes. Our meeting today is to try and remedy this. But back then, I knew for a fact that the King and the First Prince were eager to make you their plaything. Your combination of Skills and Classes, Nero, is worth going to war for. Amaryllis and your parents weren't deterrence enough. I threw my metaphorical gauntlets into the arena. Added my own bet to the pot."
The young [Jester] raised an eyebrow. Xalazuniox leaned back, pinning his wings against the backrest. He relaxed his shoulders and continued.
"They would charge you with some crime, and sentence you to work the Dungeon farms. That was before you defeated Aslanbek and got his debt. Their plan changed and they dropped Honeywitch on your lap, biding you to the Kingdom."
At the mention of the indentured delving Bast's criminals were forced to submit themselves, Nero felt Altia's hands sweat. He squeezed her fingers to reassure her and after exchanging a calming glance, met the draconid's eyes again. "Thank you," He said laconically.
"I'm sorry if it sounds rude," She stammered. "But it sounds like you claimed him first."
"Maybe I did, but I don't intend to shackle him, literally or figuratively," Xalazuniox retorted. "As I said, I want it to work. I can see that Nero's growth has little limits, and as he rises, his range of abilities will only improve. The fact he can adjust his build after learning what problems he is facing is invaluable. A versatility that allowed him to defeat a tier six prince with handpicked abilities. Weakened, truly, but even putting him in those circumstances was Nero's merit.
Xalazuniox crossed his claws and stared at the ceiling. After a moment to collect his thoughts, he looked back at the couple. "What do you think about the idea of the Lyceum?"
"It's marvelous," Altia shot straight on. "The exchange of ideas, access to information. I obtained dozens of potion recipes today alone. [Alchemists] elsewhere hoard their secrets carefully to avoid competition."
The draconid grinned, revealing a few rows of serrated teeth at the back of his muzzle. "Nero?"
"What she said. The freedom inside these walls is exhilarating. The fact that outsiders can't influence or curtail the free-thinking can and will lead to a new age."
His grin shifted to a full-blown smile. "Your contributions to the Lyceum already are above most alumni, Nero. You come from a peculiar position. This position freed your mind from some preconceptions regarding levels and builds. The contest will become a yearly event now. Several professors are already thinking of new ideas to challenge the students next fall. Rooting out Holmes and Chrysopae, propelling Bezzias' theories, reviving the black cards.
"But what endears me, godson," He played with the word in his forked tongue. "Is what lies underneath your ribcage and between your ears. Your mind and heart. Don't give me that confused face. You know what I'm talking about, and if you don't, your lovely lady by your side will be most pleased to explain it to you."
"Don't spoil him," Altia warned with a straight face. Then she broke into laughter. A few minutes into the trio's cathartic mirth, Nero's stomach growled.
Xalazuniox stood up and pointed at a door. "Come. Dinner will be served soon. I bet these [Gadgetters] didn't stop for lunch or a snack the whole day." They stood up. Nero didn't move from his spot before the sofa. "Is something wrong?" Xalazuniox asked.
"The nobles. You never said the real reason they were stripped of their titles."
The draconid gave him a 'are you sure' look. Nero nodded. "They were trying to hire assassins to murder you and your family. Stopping the war made a lot of people lose a lot of wealth. You did well in hiding the acquisition condition for your black cards, except the shelter which the late Holmes, unfortunately, bragged to the four winds. The others... well, that's another subject that's constantly asked in certain circles."
"Assassins," Nero gasped.
"Yes. But don't worry. Recent developments raised the cost of hiring one to get you to impractical levels. It is already over."