If there was something I’d neglected since this whole thing had started, it was my sword.

Nagelring.

A legendary blade, forged by the dwarven master craftsman Alberich, wielded by Dietrich von Bern, passed along … and so on, and so forth, until eventually, it had wound up in my possession, at the start of the current mess, before mine and Mia’s diverging roles had become apparent.

Because her Balmung had probably doubled its number of monster kills in the last two, almost three, months.

So when we dueled, well, the only active Skill she used was limited to one that prevented injuries, while I was free to use … actually, we’d banned magic and anything that couldn’t be used repeatedly, which took most of my arsenal off the board.

But that was fine, we were mostly just testing the timing aspect of [Magister’s Mind]. Supernaturally perfect timing was something that could theoretically be an entire superpower on its own, I’d certainly seen at least a couple of novels where it served to make its wielder a powerful and memorable character, but just how good it was remained to be seen. However, that was just the concept of timing as a superpower, hardly proof of its real-world capabilities.

It almost certainly wouldn’t put me on par with Mia despite our even more massive than before skill gap, a single normal Skill with a single upgrade was highly unlikely to be potent enough to bridge that kind of divide. Still, we’d have to try it to find out the complete truth.

Two legendary swords clashed, Nagelring in my hands, Balmung in Mia’s. Anytime I swung, she intercepted easily, but when she attacked … well, I also blocked, but it was a hell of a lot easier.

All the combat experience, all the memories of countless fights I’d gained via [Knowledge Trade] combining with [Magiste’s Mind] to not just figure out I needed to block, but when, allowing me to strike at the exactly the right, well, wrong time, from Mia’s perspective, striking the side of her sword when it was as extended as it could be, while still being far enough away from me that the impact would cause it to miss. And then stop the “strike” the instant her sword did miss, not a movement wasted, leaving me with enough time to counterattack …

Mia just leaped back and raised Balmung to counter any potential follow-up.

Incidentally, she used the exact same counter the second time I tried that, and the third, it just straight up stopped working.

She tried to sweep my leg, I raised my foot at the last possible second and kicked her in the knee, trusting her training Skill to prevent permanent or even temporary damage. And the kick did land … simultaneously with her sword poking me in the chest.

Once again, it was a matter of me being able to catch her off balance once, landing a half-decent blow a second time, and being useless anytime after that.

After half an hour, I was black and blue, and Mia sheathed Balmung.

“I think that settles it, doesn’t it?” she announced as she helped me up. “I mean, it’s a cool trick, but …”

“If I have the spare time to play with swords, I have time to study magic instead,” I replied. Becoming a master swordsman would be cool and all, and given an infinite amount of time, I’d likely get around to it sooner or later, but currently, our time was limited, extremely so.

“Oh, speaking of, I heard about your little city killer spell …” Mia trailed off suggestively.

I chuckled softly. “Only partially. You’d only be able to use it when it’s actually raining.”

Then, I shoved the spell over to her, while learning a few sword tricks in turn. And then, we went off for lunch in Washington DC. I hadn’t used a single portal all day, so far at least, and we hadn’t really spent too much time together, and I had been slightly delinquent on fixing stuff there. Well, not delinquent, exactly, but not as focused as I could have been due to general issues of business.

Random diner with good reviews, Mia dipped her fires in her milkshake like the godless heathen she was, and then dropped by the Smithsonian’s Air and Space Museum afterwards.

About as normal a day as we’d had since, honestly, what felt like forever.

***

Francis Drake

What a gorgeous ship. Up until a few years ago, it might have been a relict of a bygone age, a vessel only considered for recommissioning as a cost-saving measure, shells being cheaper for shore bombardment and general fire support than modern missiles.

There had simply been no place for battleships in modern combat, with missiles and fighter jets capable of ripping them apart with ease, relegating the big vessels as little other than target practice until they got close enough to use their big guns, which simply wasn’t very likely.

However, with the System, the paradigm had changed once again. Monsters didn’t launch missiles from well beyond the horizon, monsters didn’t launch a flying mosquito swarm that could spit explosives that could rip through even the heaviest armor.

No, they got up close and personal, and the popguns that even escort ships were reduced to were not up to the task of fending them off.

Well, technically, the Royal Navy did have a ship of the line still in active service, the flagship, in fact, but the HMS Victory was 247 years old and even with his retrofitting Skill, he would not feel comfortable taking the old girl into combat.

Which left the current RN with aircraft carriers, which were vulnerable to monsters, and escorts not designed to fend them off.

Granted, he’d have been more than happy to take a single modern destroyer sans missiles against the entirety of the Spanish Armada, more than capable of ripping it apart from well outside their effective range. In fact, he doubted he’d even have had to move overly much to keep the range open.

But unfortunately, the task he’d woken up to a couple of months ago wasn’t swatting away flies on the right side of a vast technological advantage. It was fighting monsters using ships from a navy designed to fight similar ships. Not monsters.

There were also the small issues of logistics. Missiles weren’t just expensive, they took time to build, complex supply chains, and and required a much larger part of an industrial base that was steadily being eroded by random monsters.

This might be a war, but it was unlike any war that had ever been fought. The enemy could show up anywhere, at any time, without warning or any real way to prevent in their enti- … Drake might have focussed on naval history in his studies, but he had branched out enough to recognize how similar this was to being on the general wrong end of guerilla tactics.

Maybe he’d been wrong on the idea that this kind of fight was new, but the scope of the current conflict had never even close been reached. In total. Even the World Wars had had nations that were uninvolved, areas that were away from the front lines.

This war … it simply didn’t. Even the presence of an ancient only did so much.

So he’d started making inquiries, checking which battleships were still intact, either as museum ships or relatively intact wrecks, then begun sending out gentle diplomatic inquiries and somewhat bugging Admiral Chambers too.

Though it wasn’t until Washington DC that the wheels actually started turning. Because the Americans did have four battleships left. Iowa Class, built during the Second World War, and endlessly flip-flopping between retirement and active duty until they finally became museum ships, one and all.

Bringing them up to active duty would have still taken too long by mundane means. Roughly a year, according to historical precedent, involving this specific class of ship no less. Even accounting for likely increases in speed from the yard crews’ Levels and resultant Skills, it was unlikely that the ship would be made ready using ordinary means in any reasonable amount of time.

… buuut he had means at hand that were about as far from ordinary as they could possibly get.

Besides, the United States had three sister ships to work on, giving away one wouldn’t cost them too many options.

Now he’d just taken a stroll across the deck of the battleship until he’d found himself on its bow, staring back across its deck and at its bridge. Yes, this was the vessel he’d be flying his flag from.

“Take care of the old girl, will you? Big Whiskey here’s seen some shit, wouldn’t do to have her go down over something pointless.”

Drake glanced over at Lieutenant Commander Contreras, who was approaching from the gangplank. The elderly man had long since retired from active duty, but had still been heavily involved in creating and maintaining the museum.

“I plan to,” Drake said.

“You’re not going to rename her, are you?”

“Mate, renaming ships is bad luck,” Drake said solemnly. “She’ll be the HMS Wisconsin when she’s officially commissioned as a vessel of the Royal Navy, but she’ll stay the Wisconsin.”

“If only I were a few decades younger …” Contreras sighed wistfully.

“Would you like to join me on the new Wisconsin’s maiden voyage?” Drake offered, and the old man nodded.

Heh, “old” man. Drake was several centuries his senior, yet of the two of them, it wasn’t Drake who looked like he had one foot in the grave.

He stared down the length of the old warship for another long moment, then cast [Full Restoration].

The wave of energy that rippled down the length of the Wisconsin might have been invisible, but what it did sure as shit wasn’t.

Flecks of rust that would have had most Bosuns livid with rage were wiped away in an instant, decades of bird crap in places not immediately accessible to the public vaporized in the blink of an eye, while all the things that had been added as a part of the museum were obliterated rather more slowly, visibly, as though the Skill were trying to show how much they did not belong on any warship worth it’s salt.

At the same time, while it might not have been visible, deep inside the vessel, all munitions storages were filled, fuel tanks topped up, gears and cranks greased, hinges oiled, and everything else that would have normally taken hundreds of people days or weeks to achieve happened in a matter of seconds.

Barely any time had passed by the time the Skill had finished, but the Wisconsin gleamed like new, as though she had just left the yard.

Actually, Drake sincerely doubted she’d ever looked this good, wear and tear affected ships even in the dry dock. No, this was a vessel that seemed to have rolled straight out off of a television screen, a “prettier than life” creation more suited to a museum than the battlefield. And he hadn’t even upgraded her yet.

“Lieutenant Commander Contreras, would you join me on the bridge?” Drake asked as he started walking towards the ship’s central tower.

“Where’s the crew?” the old man asked as he followed.

“Magic,” Drake replied. “I can take her out myself, the crew is waiting on the escorts and cargo ships off Virginia Beach, with all the things needed to bring this beautiful old girl into the twenty-first century.”

Contreras raised a skeptical eyebrow at the Englishman.

Drake laughed. “I doubt I would believe someone claiming to be able to control a ship this large on their own either.”

He managed to reach the bridge while maintaining his dignity, not stumbling over a single one of those tiny bulkheads and their lower edges that seemed to have been designed to be at the perfect height to bang your shins into. It had been a painful lesson to learn, but he’d learned it nevertheless.

The bridge of any warship, let alone a capital ship designed with the intention of acting as flagship as needed, was large, with several stations and a dozen different screens, gauges, and other devices to inform the bridge crew what the ship was doing.

However, Drake had gotten to the point where [One With the Ship] could tell him everything that was going on, down to even the smallest detail he actually needed to be aware of… outside of combat. Or similarly stressful situations.

In addition, he had [Remote Override] to remotely work several stations from the captain’s chair, which he was currently occupying. Not simultaneously, but this was a fairly low-stress, low-danger situation, without anything overly unpredictable.

And if something did happen, well, the Wisconsin now had a full load of munitions, including a set of rounds ready to be fired, and [Remote Retargetting] required very little attention to use. He just decided on what he wanted blown away, and they’d aim themselves. At that point, he just had to fire and that wasn’t particularly complicated either.

Continuing the fight the warship would be tricky beyond that point, but there were escorts out in the open ocean.

And the only things that could take a 2,700-pound shell to the face and keep going while not being so large as to be entirely incapable of stealth were other ancients, and they were unlikely to be attacking him.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

Drake grinned as the throttle moved forward, guided by invisible hands, the tremendous engines in the depths of the ancient vessel slowly but steadily coming to life, a low rumbling audible even from the bridge.

Meanwhile, the gangplank detached itself in a similarly automatic manner, vanishing onto the pier.

The USS Wisconsin was off to sail the high seas once again!

Drake suppressed his grin down into a dignified smile as he sat on the captain’s chair and began maneuvering the battleship across the Elizabeth River, and out into the open ocean. In many spots on the shore, where one could reach it without breaking into private property, to be specific, he could see people watching, taking pictures with both professional-looking cameras and those cell phone cameras of theirs.

They were incredible pieces of technology, and Drake liked to think he’d mastered his, though that was likely just hubris talking. Though they could be annoying when someone stuck them in your face to ask for a quote, a selfie, or the like. It rarely happened, but when it did, it frustrated him.

But even the memory of that incident failed to dampen his mood. And as the ship started leaving the shore behind, Drake allowed his thoughts to drift.

Once the Wisconsin reached the fleet that would be escorting it to Portsmouth, all the materials the accompanying cargo ships had brought would be in range for his Skill, and Drake would transform the entire warship.

He just hoped that the plans worked as advertised, and took real-world conditions into account. Because there was absolutely no shortage of horror stories as far as engineering miscalculations went.

From a new sailing ship meant to act as a platform for heavy weaponry outright rolling over, over battleships designed to punch through waves having been so prone to having their bow flooded that they actually had their forwardmost run battery pointed backwards anytime the weather was a little rough, to destroyers so unbalanced that their keels had to be filled with fifty tons of cement as a permanent counterweight before they were allowed on the high seas.

Ultimately, none of that was likely to happen here, the Iowa class of battleships was a solid design and all the retrofits had been planned with the explicit intention to maintain the current weight distribution. Then again, their conviction that things would be alright had blinded many a man to the point where they marched straight into their deaths, be they their actual demise or merely the complete loss of their social standing.

And beyond the design and retrofit of the Wisconsin herself, the rest of the Navy also needed consideration.

For starters, even battleships still needed escorts. Firstly, regardless of the extent of the modifications, one could only depress the barrels of the main guns so far, leaving a significant area around the base of the ship that could not be defended. So escorts, especially ones with non-missile armament, were needed to cover that dead zone.

In addition, there was the issue of the superhumans the System created. That Vogt girl could slash as far as she could see, near as he could tell, and based on what he’d overheard, she could bypass armor. That was a terrifying enough power even if it had limitations that prevented it from outright slashing open a reactor from kilometers away. But as far as Drake knew, there was no such limit.

Heck, even injured, almost a kilometer away, and working off of time-delayed information on the location of the Nation Boss’ final core, she’d still come within a literal meter of landing the final blow. And if he’d still been able to use his luck manipulation, she’d have likely done it. That kind of ability, a spotter who didn’t need to send the information along through intermediaries, and another person to improve targetting through some kind of magic … the biggest danger to capital ships since the invention of the torpedo.

And her brother could summon storms. Yes, modern warships were designed to survive harsh weather, but there was a big difference between a regular, natural, storm, and a magically created thunderhead that could unleash a near-endless barrage of of guided lightning that actively sought out the most vulnerable targets.

The Royal Navy should likely have been seeking someone with weather manipulation abilities for far longer.

Now, obviously, Drake’s fellow ancients were terrifying figures as well, but they were like him, singular existences who ran around in a limited number that was highly unlikely to continue to increase.

The Vogt siblings, on the other hand, they were regular inhabitants of the modern age, who’d grown to their current level of strength in barely over two months.

Thankfully, designing ships to fight new threats was someone else’s task, though he’d gotten a look at their creations nevertheless.

Generally, the planned armament for the new ships in general was still fairly missile-heavy, but had a much greater emphasis on shorter-range battles and sustainable fire, rather than the cumbersome nature of large-scale missile reloads.

There was also an idea of creating a new class of ship based on battlecruiser design principles, the speed to run away from anything that posed a threat, and the firepower to rip apart anything that didn’t. That had made them terrifyingly effective cruiser killers, but their speed had come at the cost of armor, and you rarely knew how much armor you could afford to lose without exceedingly painful lessons.

Specifically, the Battle of Jutland had proven that a tiny difference in armor thickness could change a lot.

The British had won a strategic victory in that battle, but only after rapidly losing three battlecruisers to comparatively minor hits, performing so badly that the fleet’s commander remarked on it.

When an admiral turned to his flag captain and, in front of the crew, no less, remarked “there seems to be something wrong with our bloody ships today,” then you knew that something extremely bad had happened.

Drake doubted the boffins could create something adequate. Monsters didn’t have the same relationship between speed, durability, and offensive power that ships did, managing to come up with a vessel that was reliably capable of escaping anything it needed to run from might not even be possible.

It was as he thought this that he Wisconsin slid into place in the flotilla that would be escorting it across the Atlantic, and came into range of the supply ships that had faithfully carried her future parts.

So he activated his Skill.

[Instant Overhaul].

The general design of the Wisconsin didn’t change.

Nine 16-inch guns spread across three turrets, two in front of and one behind the bridge, designed to fire shells that, depending on the purpose of the projectile in question, clocked in around a ton in mass. Each.

Launchers for both cruise and anti-ship missiles, four each

And four anti-aircraft guns, Phalanx CWISs, nicknamed “R2D2” for some inexplicable reason, every single one capable of unleashing four and a half thousand rounds a minute.

Those all stayed.

However, the Wisconsin’s secondary guns were further reduced down to a mere three twin-barreled turrets in favor of tripling the number of CWIS units aboard, the automatically-tracking defensive guns capable of easily shooting missiles out of the air or harassing monsters by shooting at their eyes or other vulnerable spots.

The Iowa-class might have had some of the heaviest anti-air defenses of any battleship, if not the heaviest, but considering the way the modern battlefield worked, both against humans and monsters, he felt that enhancing the air defense was the correct choice.

The main draw of a battleship was its heaviest armament, which had merely been slightly enhanced by stronger materials in spots and otherwise been left alone, while the secondary guns’ equivalents were found on the destroyers the Wisconsin would always be accompanied by. And speaking of destroyers, they were currently in the process of being retrofitted with more actual guns. Cruisers, too, Drake supposed, but the Royal Navy didn’t have any of those.

The Wisconsin simply would never be without destroyers, no battleship realistically could be since the invention of the torpedo, and that statement had only grown more true as aircraft and missile technology grew in power, range, and precision.

In fact, that was where the term “destroyer” came from, it was simply a short version of “torpedo boat destroyer.”

On the other hand, the CWIS system could fire continuously, capable of constantly striking and distracting enemies while the 16-inch guns were either being brought to bear or reloading. It didn’t matter that the old 5-inch secondaries hit harder, the lighter weapons were expected to able to more effectively feed enemies to the Wisconsin’s primary armament.

If a battleship was needed to fight an enemy, it was the big guns, no pun intended, which were required. Her escorts could in a way, serve as her secondaries. In fact, a similar thought had been behind the design of another truly impressive ship, the HMS Dreadnought, whose design had been so revolutionary it had sparked a global arms race.

In addition, the anti-air guns were sufficiently light to be hung over the side of the vessel, and sweep the hull clear, though there were still plenty of foes that could easily weather their smaller projectiles.

Speaking of getting monsters off the hull, both electrical and sonic deterrents had been installed by the upgrade, though Drake was rather skeptical as to how effective they would truly be. Would anything that could be chased away by something like that even truly be a threat?

In truth, the thing that he was truly puttin’ his trust in was the depth charges that had replaced the decoy torpedoes and a couple of other electronic warfare systems that were much better at countering manmade foes, not monsters.

And finally, there were the general upgrades. New radar, new screens, modern satellite communications equipment, reactor powered by the remnants of ancient supernovae … the idea of nuclear power generation had terrified him, when he’d first heard of the concept.

But once he’d been convinced of their safety, he’d all but fallen in love with the idea.

Incidentally, the same went for the railguns such a reactor could power. He’d been “promised” they’d be viable before the end of the year, and while he wasn’t certain that they’d be ready in time, being prepared to use them could be valuable.

And just in general, a nuclear reactor could and would power anything they, the brass, or the boffins decided to stick onto the Wisconsin, though any such additions would have to be installed manually.

The Wisconsin did not look excessively changed from the outside, and there were many parts of its interior that were entirely unaltered, but the bridge was almost impossible to recognize as the same one they’d been sitting in a few seconds previously.

“Please tell me all those screens are reliable,” Contreras commented from the side, eyeing the modernized room with distaste. It was what, as far as Drake knew, was often described as “looking like the bridge of a starship.”

“Everything here has been chosen with reliability in mind,” Drake replied, having had the same reaction. He’d dropped his phone a while back, been unpleasantly surprised to see how badly damaged it had been, and outright horrified when he’d learned how downright fragile electronics in general could be.

Granted, one might not throw around books either, but those could generally handle being dropped, and they were far less vital to shipboard operations than its computers were.

He held out his hand to the elderly Hispanic man.

“It’s been a pleasure, Lieutenant Commander Contreras,” Drake said.

“Likewise, Vice Admiral,” Contreras replied, sounding happy, though he was still giving the screens the side-eye.

“A helicopter will take you back to the mainland,” Drake said as he led the way to the deck, where the first crew members were already being transferred aboard.

Because while they could spare a helicopter which would not be in use during the crew embarkment, there was not much time left. After all, they only had six days left to cross the Atlantic and return to Britain, he did not want to get caught out in the middle of the ocean at the start of the fourth challenge while his presence attracted every beasty within sixty miles. Not again.

***

Charlemagne

Tristan had called him the Emperor of Logistics when he thought he wasn’t listening, though Karl wasn’t offended. It was only a part of what he’d achieved in his first life, a tiny portion of what he’d strived to achieve, but that didn’t make it inaccurate, per se.

Karl himself might have preferred the title of “Emperor of Renaissance,” as in, his Class’ name [Legendary Emperor of Renaissance], which covered all his deeds, from the creation of a largely stable empire during his lifetime to the new focus on scholarly efforts, but “logistics” was nevertheless a large part of what had allowed his military victories.

“An army marches on its stomach” was more than just a setup for the “how about you walk with your feet instead” joke, funny as it may be. No, it was the fundamental core of warfare, which had remained true from the first group of cavemen who’d set off to pick a fight with another group of equally primitive individuals, to today.

Germany’s railway lines and meticulous planning had kept it in the First World War for years, fighting most of the world, while poor access to oil and insufficient compensation for that fact had played a large part in dooming the Third Reich. Overextension into Russia had cost Napoleon everything. Lacking one thing or another had resulted in many Crusades falling far short of their goal of conquering Jerusalem.

And so on, and so forth.

An endless parade of lost wars and shattered dreams, too long to list them all even if he had the entire day. And there was likely a far greater number of endeavors that had failed so thoroughly that no one had ever even realized a military action had ever even been attempted.

Which was why he’d been spending the last eighty-three days working on perfecting the Untersberg’s redesign, leaving two days for people to get used to the changes.

The Mandln had dug out huge underground chambers to fill with raw materials to feed the change as well as general supplies to last for years while talented engineers had drawn up plans with and for him.

Then, Karl had made some changes, which were subsequently either accepted or rejected with a proper explanation as to why they wouldn’t work. Oh, he loved working with these modern folks. In his day, while he’d had many competent underlings, there were many more who’d never reached the point of being able to actually stand up to him and warn him before he did something stupid. Or even just non-optimal.

And then, he’d run it past a few of the younger people in the mountain, self-proclaimed “munchkins” despite being of entirely normal size. To see if there were any “exploits” he’d overlooked.

As it turned out, he had. A rather big one.

He could, once a year, transform a fortress using a Skill, using any provided raw materials, which included furniture and the like. So they’d added extra storage rooms, purely for complex spare parts and munitions of every stripe. They did not have anything to put in there, only the blueprints, but that was all he needed, now that he had the component materials.

Not only could he cover the mountain in weapon emplacements, he would magically create enough parts to rebuild everything twice over. Plus literal tons of spares and munitions for all military gear whose blueprints they had, to support their allies.

Everything had been accounted for, both in terms of magically created parts, and design of the defensive emplacements, capable of staring down the remaining four challenges even in their worst-case scenarios came to pass … within reason, at least. Modern technology did have its limits.

Four separate launch shafts for short, medium, and even long-range missiles capable of targetting any monster spotted by one of the thousands of exterior cameras he was planning to install, or the six radars that could simultaneously track over ten thousand individual objects the size of a pea, which would be equidistantly spread around the perimeter of the mountain.

Not only would all that information pass through him via his upgraded [Nexus of Knowledge], but also feed into a state-of-the-art supercomputer, or its backups, should that become necessary.

A custom-designed program would allow the direct feed of information to be used to guide the missiles so even monsters the modern weapons were not designed to track could be targeted.

However, missiles weren’t all the mountain would have to defend itself with.

Five-inch naval guns, would cover the exterior like a hedgehog’s spikes, with the occasional sixteen-inch heavy turret strategically placed, as well as defensive weaponry, as much of an oxymoron as that term was.

Automatically tracking, rapid-firing turrets modern warships used to shoot down missiles and aircraft did, in fact, outnumber the five-inch turrets.

And finally, as though the rest wasn’t enough, four launch sites for modern, US-designed, drones breached the exterior, allowing for the lethal devices to easily target enemies that found their way into blindspots, or cover areas in which the sensors were damaged or otherwise lacking.

Defensively, meanwhile, the redesign hadn’t been quite as complicated, but still rather extreme. Metal beams that were functionally just modern rebar would thread the entire mountain, though much more corrosion- and rust-resistant than regular steel. Pockets of sand and gravel would dot the areas vulnerable to tunneling. Layers of earth and metal to cover the outside to absorb shockwaves and explosives while stopping ground-penetrating ordinance well short of the true exterior.

Heavy plating that was functionally high-tech, high-durability ceramics would cover the most important sections, layered with metal, concrete, and even ballistic cloth that could, somehow, stop bullets.

Speaking off, hard-to-acquire materials like spiderweb cloth also graced the storerooms, though there were limits as to how much could be mined out before the whole thing collapsing became a real threat.

“Attention, all inhabitants of the Untersberg,” Karl der Große announced, his voice ringing throughout the entire mountain. “I will be altering the mountain’s layout, please remain in your current location until the process has finished.”

The Skill said “instant,” however, he had a nagging feeling it wouldn’t be quite that fast.

Still …

“[Instant Improvement],” he intoned, and the world was drowned out by a sound as though the entire mountain were collapsing.

Nothing visibly changed for him, the grand hall wouldn’t be changed, but it was meant to move deeper down, and he could feel it drop into the bowels of the Earth.

So, not instant. But barely twenty seconds later, the rumbling stopped, and through his Skills, Karl could see that he was sitting at the heart of an entirely changed mountain.

It might be hubris, it might be overconfidence, but he had a good feeling about the next Challenge.