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Time Looped
55. Combat Crafting

55. Combat Crafting

Subject is intelligent to know that magic doesn’t exist, but still chooses to use it to express serious issues. It’s possible that he uses them as a layer of protection. A layer within a layer. It would be beneficial to see if a third layer develops in the future.

The session’s focus was on a man, possibly a figure of power or importance in his past. The person was described as “immune” to fire. Often, he’d juggle it in an attempt to impress. When I tried to focus the conversation on the person in question, Daniel changed the topic, returning to the standard dream descriptions.

Will put down the page and relaxed. He had spent hours going through them, and was yet to find anything particularly useful. So far, he had come across five instances of magic descriptions. They were jumbled, like a single thought cut up into pieces. When put together, they gave the vague description of a person—someone with control over fire and lightning, who was claimed to be invincible.

Taken separately, one might think of them as random dream fragments. What Will saw was the description of another class. There was no indication where Danny had come across that class—at least in the pages Will had read so far. It couldn’t be at school, and with Danny’s skill to skip the tutorial, it was possible to be anywhere.

“Shouldn’t you be heading home?” the barista asked.

Will looked glanced in the direction of the street. It was already dark. The streetlights and the coffee shop's lamps had created the illusion that it was still light.

“Yeah.” Will gathered the papers on the table.

“Homework?” The barista peered out of curiosity.

“Something like that.” He had only gotten through a fifth of the file, if that. There was a good chance that there’d be more clues. It would have been a lot easier if Daniel had simply told him; although, if he had, there was a good chance that Will wouldn’t believe him. “You don’t get many customers.”

“Are you kidding me? You’ve been here all day.”

Clearly, the definition of “many” was different for the two of them. Thinking back, Will couldn’t remember a case in all his loops that there had been anyone else present. Even the passersby were rare. It made one think of how the place managed to exist.

“Just kidding,” the barista said with a wink. “Some days are like this. At times, I can’t fit half the people who want to enter. You should see how it gets on birthdays.”

“Right.” Will grabbed his backpacks. “See you tomorrow.”

“Be safe.”

In a manner of speaking, Will could be considered a regular of the place. The only issue was that the barista had no memory of it. With the amount of money he had spent, he was probably eligible for a VIP pass.

With hours of his loop remaining, Will decided to pass through the school after all. With luck, Jace might have even fixed his dagger. If not, he might get to see some new crafter skills.

The entrance door was unlocked when he got there. His classmates hadn’t wasted their time getting to business. Knowing that Helen wouldn’t be there felt a bit off. It also meant that there would be a lot fewer goblins.

No sound of fighting could be heard in the main corridor. Will took out a flashlight and continued further again. Specks of glass near the bathrooms told him that Alex had stocked up on mirror pieces. Clearly, they had completed the first floor, which meant they must have gone further up.

“Bro!” Alex emerged out of nowhere as Will reached the staircase. “You came!”

“Hi.” Will pointed the flashlight in the other’s face. “How far have you gotten?”

“Nah, they already finished, bro,” the Alex at the staircase replied, moving out of the light. It was scary that even now, Will had no way of determining whether he was addressing the real Alex or just a copy. “There are a few of us on every floor, just in case.”

Done already? That was unexpected. Although since they had only wolves to deal with, it must have gone fast.

“Where are they?” Will asked.

“Basement, bro.”

With a nod, Will went down. Jace, Alex, and a small crowd of copies had gathered at the far end of the basement corridor. Normally, one would expect to find a crafter swinging a hammer above an anvil, or a workbench of some sort. Instead, this seemed more like a school fight.

Two copies of Alex were holding wooden chair legs, six feet away from the jock, who had no weapons whatsoever. The remaining Alexes formed a circle, watching with interest.

“Bro!” One of them shouted, causing all the rest to look in Will’s direction.

“You made it, bro!” A tsunami of greetings followed, making Will regret that he had gone to visit.

“So, you showed up, Stoner.” Jace crossed his arms.

“Had nothing better to do,” Will said dismissively. As he got near, he tossed Alex’s backpack to someone in the crowd. “What’s going on? Trying out the knight?”

Jace only smirked.

“You gotta see this, bro!” an Alex said. “It’s lit OP! For real!”

It wasn’t the first time that the goofball had described something as overpowered. The confidence oozing from Jace’s smirk, though, suggested that it surpassed most of the skills the group had used so far.

Will stopped near the ring of mirror copies and waited. On cue, the fight began.

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Both copies of Alex rushed forward, making an overly dramatic and slow attempt to hit the jock on the head. At such speed, anyone could easily evade the blows even without the use of rogue skills. Jace, however, did something completely different.

Neither evading nor parrying, he reached out to grab with his left hand. Simultaneously, his right hand pulled out a handful of wires and other objects, and was also moving in the same direction.

UPGRADE

Chair leg has been transformed into a flail.

Damage capacity x3.

Initially, there didn’t seem to be any change. The mirror copies were still on the offensive, and Jace had merely managed to snatch a weapon from an enemy’s hand. Taking a step back, the jock swung his weapon, shattering the head off one of his opponents. It was only at that point that Will noticed that his classmate was holding a flail instead of a chair leg.

“What the hell?” he couldn’t help but mutter.

Reaching into his pocket, Jace pulled out a small chain, then grabbed hold of the flail’s head.

UPGRADE

Flail has been transformed into a triple nunchuck.

Damage capacity x1.5.

The weapon transformed again, just in time to block the chair leg of the second mirror copy. Things didn’t stop there. Jace took advantage of the block to grab hold of both weapons.

UPGRADE

Triple nunchuck has been transformed into a multi nunchuck.

Damage capacity x1.5.

The weapon transformed again as it was whisked out of the copy’s hands. One elegant swipe with it later, and Jace’s second opponent had been shattered.

“What do you think, bro?” One of the Alexes near Will asked. “Lit OP.”

There was no denying it. The new ability, or combination of abilities, was a lot more impressive than anything they’d seen up to this point. It was almost tempting to call it magic.

The thought caused a knot to appear in Will’s stomach. If crafter skills were this powerful, what could one expect from a magic user?

“Nice,” he admitted.

“Just nice, Stoner?” the other grunted. “Want to have a go?”

As fun as it was to accept, Will really didn’t. Even with such a skill, Jace’s actions remained slow and predictable. He needed to be a lot faster to make proper use of what he obtained.

“I’m good.” Will shook his head. “Did you get the knight?”

“Yeah. That helped with the wolves.” Jace tossed the multi nunchuck at Will.

Looking at it one would never guess that it had been made from a pair of chair legs. By all accounts, it was the genuine article. Will waved it about a few times, testing if anything would come off.

“It’s solid,” Jace said. “I’ve tested it.”

“Neat trick.” Will handed the weapon back. “How does it work?”

“Combat crafting,” the jock replied. “Fourth level skill. It allows me to use other crafter skills in combat. I can disassemble complex weapons before they hit me in most cases. Would be a bit more difficult without the knight’s endurance. Simple things I can upgrade, as long as I have enough components and materials at hand. Best part is that I’m not limited to a single thing.”

Leg to flail to nunchuck. It was quite the showy performance and not only for Will’s benefit. Had they known about this skill, some of the fights would have been a lot easier. It was their fault for taking things for granted. Everything they knew suggested that the crafter had to be a passive participant that supported the other three. As it turned out, he was quite menacing in combat as well, but only after a certain level.

“Your dagger, Stoner.” Jace said, ending Will’s train of thought. “Couldn’t make anything fancy with what I had.”

“Eternal weapon,” an Alex said in-between eating a muffin. “We need eternal materials to make an eternal upgrade. So, we just did an eternal repair.”

“Is it bad that I could understand that?” Jace whispered, as he glanced at the Alex in question. “But yeah. Try not to break things. Repair might not work each time. When I repaired the dagger, I got a tutorial bonus.”

Will took his dagger. It felt exactly as he remembered it, but his mind remained elsewhere. There were six wolf mirrors in the school, which meant that a person could level up four times. One level had to be reserved for the rogue so that he could throw and evade. The remaining three were just enough to reach level four with the crafter and get the skill that Jace had mentioned.

It’s all just pieces, Will thought.

The tutorial was just a puzzle with multiple answers. With enough persistence and a bit of luck, it was possible to defeat an enemy in a way that wasn’t envisioned. Yet, with the right combination of skills and items, the same fights could have been won with minimal effort.

“Guys,” he said. “I need to borrow your skills next loop.”

All eyes fell on him.

“There’s one thing I need to try. I’ll let you have the rogue the loop after that.”

“What’s the plan, Stoner?”

“There’s no plan. I just want to test something. Alone.”

“Bro wants to try out four classes at once.” Alex came to the rescue. “Sure, you can borrow mine.”

It was a classic manipulation. He had provided a plausible explanation and then gladly offered his class without being asked. This way, if Jace were to refuse, he’d look petty and unreasonable.

“Your class for one loop?” the jock asked, already considering the deal. At this point, he had already internally agreed to it, and now was just wondering if he couldn’t haggle a bit for a better price. “And one more when I need it.”

“You got it. Just one more thing. Keep it from Helen. I don’t want her to find out yet.”

“You’re playing a dangerous game, Stoner. You don’t keep the quarterback out of the game.”

“I’ll keep her in the loop, just not yet. We’ll need to be at our best against the boss.”

“Come on. How hard can the fucker be? The three of you killed one. With four of us, it’ll be easy.”

If only it were so easy.

“I’m not sure,” Will said. “According to the hints, there are seven weapons that will help us defeat the boss. It’s safe to say that we’ll get the last one from the vice principal’s mirror.”

“So?”

“We only used three against the hidden boss. Also, at no point did eternity tell us we had to use any.”

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