Lurona city [southern shores of Fuminao Legacy Kingdom], local time [1793.12.27]
This… definitely feels nostalgic, Zeph thought, looking at his notes in the Notebook. He finished the first draft of his development plan just as they entered the Roaming Onsen’s valley. The light from the street lamps danced on the snowy landscape, illuminating the small port village inside the city as they descended from a plateau to its north. But Zeph didn’t pay much attention to the sights. It’s almost like designing a character’s development path in an RPG; my favorite part of those games. He grinned happily. Well, maybe second-favorite. Character creation rules!
Thanks to the information from the System and the copy of possible upgrades from the Exchange, he could finally start planning ahead instead of stumbling in the dark as he did until now. His knowledge wasn’t complete by any means. The System didn’t present him with all the details, as nothing was ever set in stone when it comes to Class sub-specializations, but, at least, he knew what to train and what to learn to make sure he would remain a Generalist and to make effective use of Shaman’s abilities. For more specific paths that people took in the past, he was, predictably, directed to the Library.
As he read the System’s optimization plan, he couldn’t help but agree with the major developing routes they have plotted for him. It was nice to have a validation of his own plans, but not everything they suggested sat well with him. Like the idea of taking advanced mutagens. He was pretty sure his days as an Earth’s human would be numbered if he followed that path.
On a more positive note, Phleya could be easily upgraded to work with his chosen material – the Fullerene complex. Even better, the upgrade would give it a small chance to develop basic sapience and, as a result, Will. In other words, there was a chance their Soul-link would evolve into the Soul-bond, which would allow Zeph to increase his future Fullerene Soul contamination even further. Ghrughah discarded such a possibility, and rightly so, as the cost of directly upgrading the Phleya colony to a species capable of Soul-bonding was counted in millions of UP.
He even found a Class-specific implant that was compatible with Fullerene. It would dry out his UP reserves but would definitely be worth it. It not only strengthened the cardiovascular system, but also improved the ability to channel Mana internally and form Magicules inside one’s body, among other things.
He also learned that his Greater Willpower would grant him an Energy Enhancement after reaching 250 instead of 500. The influence of this Passive Enhancement was, evidently, so strong that the System had to compensate. Zeph had planned to bargain for an early access to the 500-milestone Energy Enhancements of his Memory and Willpower, as it would be impossible to achieve that numbers before his Class hit level 100, but the System didn’t want to even hear about it. The good news was, he could count on his Intuition and, thankfully, Willpower to get them. Also, Willpower should balance out his inflated Intuition, but after getting Willforce Morphon this point became moot. On the other hand, it was his Willpower that was acting up and he would need more Memory to rein in its effects, which he was very hesitant to do as it was a waste of points from the perspective of his Class advancement. The Onji assured him it would be safe to leave the Memory for later if he learned how to meditate on the problem, especially because Willforce Morphon also enhanced that use of Memory, but taking into account his past issues with Passive Enhancements, he wasn’t sure they knew what they were talking about.
As for more mundane Modules at the Exchange, Zeph checked the System’s version of his external Spell Matrix—the cube filled with mercury and stamped with enchanted gizmos all around—and the enchanted explosives. Both searches returned underwhelming results. The ‘Low Mana density Liquid Spell Medium’, as the System called it, was a scam. It was horrendously pricy while doing an even worse job than his own creation. Well, it was ‘optimized’ to work in difficult conditions, but Zeph didn’t care about that part. Its Mana efficiency was horrendous, and it had size restrictions while still requiring modifications in the Spell constructs. The latter issue was mitigated, though, by providing a few in-built enchantment-based tools to simplify the process. The explosives, on the other hand, were just toned-down versions of what their group was producing. Fact, they were absolutely stable but lacked the punch a good, Earth’s grenade could bring to the table. Not to mention, their enchantment’s frameworks were ignoring compatible Soul contaminations, decreasing their usability for certain individuals in their Guild.
As for General Skills, Zeph had made a list of more interesting ones, but he knew he wouldn’t be buying anything in the near future. The lack of UP in the light of his soon-to-be implants was one thing; he actually didn’t have time to read from them, as much as he would like to.
If only the General Skills were able to upload the knowledge directly into his brain, like in all those novels from Earth… But no, he had to train everything. Had to spend time, learning. The time he didn’t have.
He decided to try to abuse the Shrine Seed in that regard. With constant access to the Exchange, it would be possible to buy a General Skill necessary for his survivability immediately. He had to start saving the points for that insurance plan, though.
It was getting late, and he was very much mentally spent at the moment. Thankfully, he found Kwan in her office. After informing her that he could become an official member of the Guild, he visited Ghrughah.
The place was in an even worse state than during his visit a few days prior. He had to squeeze between stacks of materials and tools to get to the staircase, only to see that it wasn’t empty anymore.
He cursed under his breath while trying to not cause a literal avalanche. When he finally ascended to the summit of this debris mountain, he spotted the giant in the middle of the floor, working one of the smaller forges.
“Yo! Fancy meeting you in this desolated land!” he shouted, trying to outshout the hum of fire. Zeph had no patience right now to wait for the Blacksmith to finish his work. “Care to accommodate me for a moment?!”
The fire died down, returning to their natural intensity. The Blacksmith glanced at him with a frown, but didn’t comment and started putting away his tools. Whatever he was working at, stayed inside the fires.
“Why the haste?” he asked, wiping his hands with a dirty cloth. “Problems?”
“Yes. With my sleeping schedule,” Zeph answered, coming closer. “I plan to crash down as soon as possible, so no apologizes for the interruption.”
“No problem. If I was working on something important, you wouldn’t be able to interrupt me anyway.”
Zeph smiled mischievously at that. He would test that statement at some point, he was sure. “It’s decided. Fullerene is the way to go.”
“Hmm, another untested tool in your arsenal? Very well. I look forward to your future pleadings for help, HA!” he guffawed.
“Eh, we will cross that line when, and if, it shows up. Anyway, did you find anyone proficient with armors usage?”
“Yes, I have a guy. He wants one of my crafts in exchange, so leave the cost to me. Should we visit Pavail now?”
“No, there is no reason to. I want to study the long-term effects the material can have on my body. And to try interacting with it some more. The implant isn’t bothering me in the slightest, so I might as well find some use for it. Its compatibility with life energy is so potent it made me curious… You can relay that to Pavail, actually.”
“Sure,” the giant nodded. “By the way, the connection tunnels are finished.” He started to fumble with the oversized pockets of his work attire and produced a small file of documents. “Here are the instructions on how to use the passages. Throw it into the furnace after memorizing the contents.” There was no mercy for possible mistakes in the eyes of their security department head.
Zeph did as instructed and soon followed the overly-complicated path to his room. It was evident that the giant took some inspiration from P’pfel’s work, hiding secret passages inside secret passages and behind hidden doors in obscure locations, only to escalate the complexity of it all by adding password-reactive randomization of the maze of tunnels. The passwords themselves were more than just numerical input or amulet scan – some places required a certain behavior or Mana manipulation.
After an hour of searching for an exit, Zeph crashed on his bed, cursing the pseudo-dungeon Ghrughah created.
===============================
Zeph was on his way to the mess hall to procure a breakfast, when suddenly one of the doors in the empty, underground hall opened up and a pale, thin appendage caught his arm.
He suppressed a scream of surprise, only to cry out like a little girl after seeing the ghostly face looming out of the shadows of the room. He jerked back, freeing himself from the bony grip, but paused before his fight-or-flight instinct could take over.
The face, it looked familiar.
“M-Makani?” he stuttered with disbelief.
Indeed, if one ignored the absolutely pale complexion, dark bags under the dead eyes, hair wildly jutting out in all directions, and the grotesque expression of total exhaustion, the face reminded a caricature of Makani’s. In fact, only the familiar goatee was what had given him away so easily.
“Zeeeeph,” whispered the apparition, reaching with his hand. “Heeelp meeeee…”
“Stop with the creepy acting first,” Zeph said, grimacing and taking a step back. “I can feel that you are using a Spell.”
Makani paused and blinked slowly. Then, he straightened up as some life returned to his eyes. “You can? How?!”
“New Veil technique. Not officially approved, though.” He shrugged and took a better look at the Manacaster. “What happened to you? For a moment, I was sure you were an undead…”
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
Makani slouched over dejectedly, his eyes vacant once again. “My journey wasn’t an easy or pleasant one. And what awaited me the moment I have stepped down from the aerostat? A slavery, that’s what!” He sighed heavily and looked hopefully at Zeph. “You have to help me escape. I have finished with the most important documents; I refuse to slave away for Kwan and Aisha any more than that…”
“Escape? Can’t you just… you know, walk out?”
“Ha! Very funny. The guards have orders to keep me inside… I managed to lose my babysitter, but I can’t leave!” He gripped his head dramatically with both hands, looking at the floor with crazed eyes. “It’s insanity. Why did I agree to work with them… It was a mistake…” he started mumbling to himself.
Zeph was taken aback. He suspected the girls would force some administrative labor on him, but it seemed the issues of the twin pilots were more demanding than he thought possible.
“Okay, let’s go to my room first. We are in the open. It’s good you are back, by the way,” he said, grinning widely and slapping his back.
“Grrrruum!” his chest vibrated in greeting.
~~~
A few minutes later, they were sitting in Zeph’s guest room. His place had gained new furniture lately, although it was still mostly empty.
“Here, let’s get it over with,” Zeph said, bumping a fist with him to send an Effigy of his Interface.
“Ghrughah is too paranoid.” Makani did the same nonetheless.
“I don’t care. I would rather not sit through his lecture like Kwan’s guards. I’ve heard it’s quite intense… And we have already confirmed the presence of high-level spies.”
“If you say so. Are we going to bunker down here?” Makani asked, looking curiously around.
“No, no. The passage tunnels are finished, we can go directly to the laboratory building and move from there. There are much more interesting places in the Village, like the bathhouse.” He relaxed in his armchair, thinking about the booming entertainment industry. “I was planning to visit the small marketplaces to poke around some more in search of an Alchemist. Our notices gave no results, even after increasing the reward for any related information. But since you are here,” he smiled widely. “Could you spend some time teaching me, instead?”
“Teaching what? You have every advantage over me that you can possibly have,” he said, grimacing.
“Eh… I don’t really have time to read from my Skills and a few are stuck, so…” Zeph awkwardly scratched his head as Makani glared at him.
“You want me to explain to you the contents of your General Skills? Because you don’t like to read? Wasting time of us both?”
“No, I just need to learn a few techniques. And I am learning faster by practicing, so it’s not a waste of time at all. In fact, I don’t have enough time to read with all that’s going on. And I have some problems with beam Spells, too.”
Makani sighed tiredly. “Of course, you would be learning faster by example. What was I thinking?” He shook his head in disbelief. “What would you need?”
“The most important is Ambient Mana Channeling. I need to learn how to circulate ambient Magicules through my Soul. From what I know, it’s the last technique required for my Skill to tier-up. Also, I am unable to focus the beam Spell enough for them to be usable in battle… And I am not sure how Mana bomb should work.”
Makani relaxed visibly. “And here I have thought you would request an impossible task from me. The first one is easy enough. I guess you want to try circulating Magicules forming in your armor?”
Zeph nodded, amazed he could tell. “Is it a common practice?”
“No, not really. But I know your circumstances quite well.” He smiled mischievously.
“Oh, confident much?” Zeph answered with his own grin. “It’s a new material for contamination modulating, though.”
Makani blinked a few times in surprise. “That...” he shook his head. “How much did you spend on that? You are suddenly rich, or something?”
Zeph chuckled lightly. “I may have a loan or two. The cost of implants is another story, though.”
He grimaced. “I don’t even want to hear about that. Anyway, teaching you how to operate those Spells will be a pain. I Can draw you the shapes, but the nuances are difficult to present in that form. The Mana flow resonates if you are doing it correctly, but the shape is slightly different for each Magicule variant and there are five different, basic effects that you will have to learn…”
Zeph stood up vigorously. “I think I have a perfect tool for just that. Give me a second.” He went to his bedroom to retrieve the LMDLSM, also known as the Cube. After returning, he presented it proudly to his Manacaster friend.
He took it with a dubious face and started examining each wall, noticing two bone disks. “And what exactly is this?” he asked cluelessly.
“Showing will be faster than explaining.”
Zeph took the cube back and pushed more Mana into the bone disk responsible for producing neutral Mana-L. After making sure the mercury inside was saturated, he started constructing a modified Lesser Light Spell inside. Well, the reversed version. He wanted to see the Spell effect, too, and the reversed Light Spell was ejecting the Will-Magicules around instead of keeping them contained inside its structure. As the walls of the Cube were made from enchanting filler and were saturated with neutral Mana-L to some degree, he had no issues with inserting his own Mana inside and the produced Will-Magicules would be able to escape from the artifact.
He was thinking long and hard about how to simplify the Spell’s modifications required by his External Matrix, aka the Cube. Spell constructs almost always had multiple dead ends in their Mana flow. Normally, Manacaster would stop manipulating Mana at those points, allowing it to disperse around the pathway ends. In the cube, though, mercury was flowing alongside the Mana flow. Pumping so much mercury into one place was causing serious disruptions in the area. Changing the dead ends into additional paths that led the excess material away or back into the previous sections of the construct worked somehow, but required a lot of trial-and-error to keep the Spell working and drastically decreased its efficiency and effectiveness.
He didn’t have much time to test his ideas, but what he had come up with showed promising results. Instead of lengthening the pathways, trying to direct the flow of mercury away from the area near the Spell construct, he found out that branching the pathway endings multiple times—to form a shape resembling a tree crown—simulated the dispersion of Mana in that area and helped with volume distribution of mercury. Besides increasing Spell’s effectiveness, this solution was much more flexible, allowing him to disperse the inflow of mercury over big areas in several different directions while balancing out the pressure differences generated this way. It worked, to some extent, even without tweaking the tree shape – which was a major step forward in the context of Cube’s usability. Not everyone was as proficient in external Mana manipulation as he was, so simplifying and unifying the necessary modifications made to Spells was crucial for low-level Manacasters. He wanted to propagate his ‘External Matrix’ on this stratum in the future, after all.
A moment later, the resistance inside the Cube abated and the Mana flow stabilized. The ambient Mana-L finished condensing, the Lesser Light Spell was now ‘engraved’ in it. The Cube was enchanted.
Small motes of green light started to flicker all around, the more the closer to the Cube, confirming that the Will-Magicules were interacting with ambient Air-Magicules, forcing them to disintegrate while transforming a part of released Mana into the light.
He handed the artifact to Makani, smiling proudly. “Try to power the enchantment inside, the entry is in the middle of this wall,” he said, pointing at one of the smooth, black faces.
Makani’s confusion started to quickly morph into wonder, as he, undoubtedly, felt his Mana flowing through the construct. “Oh, wow. That’s convenient! How much UP did you pay for it?!” he asked eagerly, looking up at Zeph’s smug face.
“Pay? I didn’t pay anything, my friend.” He shook his head in mock disappointment. “I have earned a lot of enchanting-related Spells, three General Skills, and a level in my Profession instead!”
“It’s your prototype?!” Makani asked in shock. “No, that’s actually expected of you… Somewhat… Probably… Anyway,” he shook his head, looking back at the black cube, “the Exchange version must be a marvel…”
“It’s crap, is what it is.” The contempt was clear in his voice. “The only interesting thing it provides is a catalog of pre-enchanted shapes that can be used to deal with a Spell construct’s Mana flow dead ends.”
“Ah, yes. I noticed the fuzzy endings…” he commented, looking up.
“Besides that, both versions have roughly the same restrictions. Only Spells that are ejecting Magicules will work normally, like detection Spells or most Tier 0 Spells. Some can be modified to have their active site…” he paused, seeing Makani’s confusion. Instead of trying to translate English into Rui dialect, he opted for the closest technical term he knew of. “The effector center? If you place it near the walls, the Spell’s effect will have a chance to manifest outside, but because of the solid encasement, some material interference still exists.”
“Ah, you mean flattening the structure, like in the Engraving Enchanting?”
“Not exactly, but close enough.” Zeph shook his head slightly. “You would want to move just the effector center to be near the Spell’s construct boundary, not flatten it fully into a diagram. Oh, that reminded me, Holographic Enchanting should work perfectly as well,” he said, scratching his chin. “Since the emerging Spell construct is always formed above the enchantment layers, we wouldn’t have to worry about the enclosure…”
“Heh. If only using so expensive materials wasn’t an anathema to the art… Actually, now that I think about it, your cube would bring a logistic headache instead of help. Holographic components are known to be very simple and cheap to draw. If you have a blueprint. It’s a long shot, but maybe it would be useful for research? You would have to ask P’pfel.” He shrugged and looked back at the artifact. “Will it be safe to use a Mana beam on it, though?”
“I think it should be. As long as we don’t keep the Spell active for too long, the Cube’s Mana conductivity should be sufficient… Just be careful with the Heat version.”
“Groooom!” his chest vibrated giddily.
Makani smirked. “I will believe in your excitement only after you form eyes to see the possible explosion.”
Zeph blinked in surprise. “You can still understand him?” He was sure the guy’s contract have ended the moment they parted ways in the Torrent mountains. Gru shouldn’t have any Soul connection to leverage his form of communication.
“Barely,” Makani waved his comment off. “We are Guildmates now, above knowing each other rather well. That bond is enough, it seems. How do you reset this thing?” he changed the topic.
Zeph squinted his eyes, sure it wasn’t all, but dropped the topic.
“Just power up the bone disk without a slit. The Electrify enchantment will erase the previous Spell after a minute or so. Actually, having a battery would be a godsend right about now…” he trailed off.
“Nah, it’s good enough. But we don’t have a training hall yet. I suppose you want to learn during our trip?”
“So, the girls clued you in? Yes, that was the idea. I can try to study the structure beforehand a little, too. Even if it will be a pain to stop the Spell from activating.”
“We can use my Tower’s chambers… if you don’t mind being spied on,” Makani suggested hesitantly.
Zeph shook his head. “No. It’s not a finished version, so I would rather keep the Cube under wraps.”
“Sure,” he shrugged. “What variation of Mana beam do you want to study first? I can disrupt the effects of a short activation, so I can enchant it immediately. But we need to visit my Tower anyway for Ambient Mana Channeling training. Or are you planning to leave that for later and visit a volcano or the sea during our trip?”
“I would rather not,” Zeph sighed. “We will only have ten days after the New Year, and I hoped I could learn more about this mercenary business. I doubt their commissions are anywhere near huge Magicule-producing sources. Can’t I just learn with the Air-Magicules?” he asked hopefully.
“That won’t be enough to master the functionality,” Makani shook his head with confidence. “And you need to train with Magicules close to the composition of your armor for maximum efficiency.”
Zeph thought about it for a moment. “I don’t think you will be free anytime soon, but going right now also doesn’t sound right. We would have to sneak out without taking a guardian or Ghrughah’s carriage…”
“It actually plays into our hands – we can leave under a guise. Weren’t you planning to visit markets, too? It would be better to ask about a hidden Alchemist without declaring ourselves some big shots. And frankly, what can they do? Try to attack us? A Blackwind Tower Practitioner and members of Sepia Familia Guild preparing for the Duel tournament? Two Manacasters and one ancient lifeform?” He said the last part with mixed mirth and derision, as if daring their enemies to show themselves.
“Gra!” it vibrated confidently. “Graaah!”
Makani choked on his own saliva. After stopping his coughing fit, he corrected himself. “Ahem… I don’t know when that happened, but… yes, two Manacasters and one Spellwielder.”
Zeph laughed. “Don’t get your hopes up. We haven’t had a chance to test his ability to use Spell Matrices yet,” he said lightly, checking if his Veil was still absent from the area near his solar plexus. He was trying to get used to it for some time now. “Okay, I think you are right. Let’s do it!” he exclaimed, standing up. “It’s not like we are putting our lives on the line here, so what’s the worst that could happen?”