The door opened with a loud creak, as Ryan and Runar stepped into the gift shop. Ryan quickly approached the 'treasure chest' in the corner of the room and dumped all the coins into it, reserving only one for later. He placed the Moss Sheep's statue inside together with his point card, and then shut the lid.
Ryan waited a few moments and then opened the lid up again. All the coins and the statue had disappeared, and the corresponding points were put right onto the card. It now read 'Points - 1257'. Around 800 more than the first time Ryan bought things from here.
He quickly approached the old wooden counter and knocked on it a few times. The clown popped out immediately, and Ryan immediately gave him the plastic coin he was still holding onto. With an excited grin, the clown held his hand toward Ryan, who immediately shook it.
Just like last time, all the toys and plushies that were on the wall before fell down onto the ground, revealing a number of different vouchers. There were two more seed and sapling vouchers left each, two more weapon vouchers, as well as three more armour vouchers. But beyond those, there were six more vouchers.
> Gregor - Random Blueprint Voucher - 200 Points
>
> Gregor - Random Arm Voucher - 200 Points
"An... arm voucher? I guessed the Blueprint part, but... what does it mean with 'arm'?" Ryan asked out loud, though it was mostly a rhetorical question. One that Runar still felt like answering
"You know, the things coming out from your shoulder."
Ryan looked at his uncle with a blank expression, "Ha-ha. Funny. You know that's not what I meant. Also, why are Gregor's things both 200 Points? Gaia's Seed Vouchers were only 100 points."
"The prices are pretty random, honestly. Either way, just decide what you're going to get and then let's go home," Runar suggested, patting his nephew on the shoulder.
"Right, right, don't rush me."
Ryan quickly looked at the wall in front of him. First, he would grab one of each for Gregor; that would be 400 points. Plus, an armour voucher for Maximus, which would make the total 600. That way, he finally got one of each, since he already got both of Gaia's vouchers last time around. That meant he had another 650 points to spend now.
After a quick briefing with the spirits, Ryan decided to get another one of each of Gaia's vouchers, since the seeds and sapling would take the longest to be ready anyway, and then decided to get another voucher for each of Maximus and Gregor.
Maximus wanted another weapon, and Gregor wanted another 'arm', though Ryan expected he would want another blueprint. Then again, Gregor could make those himself, so maybe that did make sense.
Ryan grabbed the vouchers and put them away for now. He would take a proper look at everything later at home. And with that, Ryan and his uncle made their way out of the dungeon. The healer Kula was waiting outside, but since there was nothing for him to do right now, he was quickly dismissed for now. It seemed like Runar had hired him until the end of the month, so he would be sticking around for a while longer.
The moment the car stopped in front of their home, Runar jumped out and rushed into the café, saying he had to check up on some things regarding Ryan's new skill. Meanwhile, Ryan made his way upstairs.
Finally stepping back into the flat, Ryan let out a loud groan. He was happy he could finally take it a bit easier and think about... everything. He's been so busy trying to level up and get stronger that he had no idea what he was supposed to do right after that.
Why exactly did he want to get stronger? What did he want his part in the Aglecard family to be? Ryan didn't even know what he wanted to do in the future before all of this started happening; he basically just went to university to buy himself some time before shit would have to get real. At least he had a couple of goals to follow for the time being; and that was to finally get Jester to acknowledge him, and to find the remaining parts for Morgana and Violette.
But even that didn't really lead to anything afterward. Once Ryan did all of that, he would have to figure out what else he would do. Or he could just dedicate all his time to helping out the spirits. That seemed like it could be a fulltime job?
Then again, Runar mentioned that a lot of the time, the spirits were supposed to do their own thing once Ryan got the skills that were needed to let them stay further away from him. And once that happened, he might not necessarily have to take care of them too much. Rather, because he was just standing back during the trips to the dungeon every time, he felt pretty useless already. Like he was letting the spirits do all the tough parts.
Ryan groaned lightly as he waved his hand, letting the spirits out of their domains while walking into the living room. He dropped down on the couch next to Liam.
"You're back from your quest?" the boy asked curiously, "Have you finally succeeded in your goal, as you said you hoped to?"
Ryan looked at the young vampire with a smile, pointing at Maximus. He activated the 'Spirit Seal Recovery' skill, and Maximus quickly doubled in size. Liam's eyes started sparkling.
"Woah! That's so cool!" he exclaimed, letting the 'King' mask slip for a few moments, "Can you do that for all of them?"
"Mhm, I can double their size right now. Once the skill levels up, I can make them even larger. We'll actually go downstairs and try it out on Gaia in a bit. Because of her skill that links her to her garden, she has seeds and moss and stuff on her, and we want to know how the skill affects all of that," Ryan explained, opening his backpack to grab the vouchers, "Runar had something to take care of downstairs, so in the meantime, we'll build some more parts for the spirits."
"Ooh! Can I help?" Liam asked, and Ryan nodded immediately.
"Of course. Do you want to go into my room and grab the plastic sorting boxes on my desk?"
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Liam didn't even hesitate as he jumped up, rushing out of the living room as Ryan grabbed the first voucher. It was Gregor's 'arm' vouchers. Since he was the most curious about what this even meant, Ryan tore both of them at the same time
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[Two Random Arm Vouchers have been Redeemed - Two random Arms have been awarded]
-[High-Powered Drill Arm]
-[Precision Assembly Arm]
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Ryan raised his brow as the two expansion boxes appeared in the space between the domains. High-powered drill? Precision assembly?
He quickly pulled both boxes out onto the table in front of him, taking a closer look at the box art. Each one just showed off a different arm that was almost identical to the ones Gregor already had, simply replacing the hand with something else. One of them had, as the name suggested, a rather large drill as its hand, while the other one's hand had ten extremely thin and long fingers arranged in a circle on a round base plate.
"Well, alright... So we'll have some replacement arms for you, huh?" Ryan said, looking at Gregor. But for some reason, the automaton shook his head.
"What do you mean?"
Slowly, Gregor held up one of his hands, showing four fingers, and another one, showing two fingers. He held the two hands together, and Ryan quickly understood.
"So... they'll be added on? Like, you'll have six hands?"
Gregor quickly nodded his head. Ryan was pretty curious about that, but he couldn't help but be a bit hesitant about that. There weren't any more slots on Gregor's body to fit more limbs into, so how was that supposed to go? Well, either way, he should be able to figure it out once the arms were properly constructed.
While Ryan took the frames out of the first box, Liam returned with the plastic sorting boxes and sat down on the ground next to the coffee table, "So, what can I do?"
"I'll take the parts off the frames, and then you put them into the right part of the sorting boxes, alright?"
Liam excitedly nodded his head as Ryan took his tools from his backpack. Though, before he did, he realized that building everything would still take a while.
"Gaia, do you want me to get you the new seeds before I start? That way you can try to plant them upstairs already," Ryan suggested. The golem stepped up with an excited demeanour, so Ryan quickly grabbed Gaia's vouchers and tore both of them at the same time.
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[Random Seed Voucher has been redeemed - Three Random Seeds have been awarded]
-[Pixie Lily Seeds]
-[Furious Orchid Seeds]
-[Strength Pumpkin Seeds]
[Random Sapling Voucher has been redeemed - One Random Sapling has been awarded]
-[White Cherry Tree Sapling]
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Ryan took out the seed packets and gave them to one of the sub-golems, while he gave Gaia herself the cherry tree sapling. The golem made her way outside, and Ryan got started. Ryan activated his 'Spirit Construction' skill, and started quickly taking apart the frames. Liam was able to follow along pretty well, quickly taking the parts that Ryan removed from the frames and putting them into the right part of the sorting boxes.
Of course, not all of the parts were in frames, some of them were in separate small packets like the rest of Gregor's body had been. That was why preparing Gregor's models didn't really take that long, and Ryan was able to take both apart in just a couple of minutes. And then, it was time for Ryan to really try and figure out which of these parts had to go where. The pipes, motors, screws, bolts; they all had to be properly put into the correct position for Gregor's new arms to actually function.
Liam was also pretty curious, but he didn't understand any of what was in front of him. Ryan remembered that Liam even treated the TV as something completely new and foreign; he was practically raised in a completely medieval environment for some reason. It still infuriated Ryan, but now it was better to just focus on how to help Liam adjust to things and introduce him to new concepts. And these sorts of 'machines' were also something new to Liam, so Ryan did his best to explain how all of it worked.
Liam leaned on the table and watched as Ryan pushed all the right parts into place and screwed the tiny screws into their sockets. He let the oil drip into the right spots, clicked the joints into place, and then attached the wooden plating onto the outside. And before long, Gregor's new arms were both finished, even before the skill's first activation was over. It still had a minute on its timer.
Ryan took the small arms and held them out to Gregor. He would know what to do with them, though Ryan also had a bit of an idea. In the parts where these arms should attach to a socket, they had a round plate with some sort of magic engravings on them. He should ask Runar about it later, but for now, he just had to make sure that he had the right idea.
Gregor took his new arms and held them over his shoulder, and Ryan could feel a spark of mana from the automaton as he linked with the arms. These arms started floating behind him, with only a small gap between Gregor's back and those magic engravings.
The arms seemed to be solidly set into place, and Gregor made use of them quite skilfully right away. He flipped open one of the wooden plates on his drill arm and took out a drill-bit that he then attached to the tip of the actual drill part. He turned it on momentarily and seemed quite happy.
His other new arm as well, those extremely thin fingers were able to move with a dexterity even greater than Gregor's fingers usually did, and it was an extreme pleasure to watch. Though, as that was happening, Ryan could feel a tingle on his arm. Tiar was reacting to the arms, and a thought popped into Ryan's head. Or rather; an idea.
"... Do you think you could build those as well?" Ryan asked, and Tiar quickly replied with a large smile emoticon.
"Wait, you can get floating arms like that?" Liam's eyes were practically sparkling, as Ryan shrugged.
"We'll see, maybe. It's worth a try at least, right?"
Just then, Ryan's 'Spirit Construction' skill ran out, and a message popped up in front of him.
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[The -Spirit Construction- Skill has levelled up]
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Ryan didn't even have to hesitate before he pulled up the skill window. It should have finally reached level 10, and that often came with slightly bigger effect upgrades.
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[Spirit Construction]
[Level - 10] [Proficiency – 2%]
[Allows the user to construct the Spirits’ physical bodies]
[Effect – Spirit Construction for 29 Minutes; 10% Boost to Dexterity]
[Cost – 14.5 MP] [Cooldown – 1 Hour 15 Minutes]
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Though the additional cooldown was a little annoying, the 10% boost to his dexterity definitely made it worth it. That meant that Ryan's dexterity was going to be in a true superhuman range whenever the skill was active.
"Fuck yeah," Ryan grinned, realizing what he just said only a moment later. He glanced over at Liam, "Don't say stuff like that."
"What? No fair!" Liam clicked his tongue, as Ryan let out a laugh.
"Right, right, don't worry. Anyway, I'll go upstairs and help Gaia out until I can use the skill again, and then we'll build some more stuff. Sound good?"
"Alright!" with an excited nod, Liam jumped back up onto the couch as Ryan put his tools back into his box. Liam started watching something on the television, while Ryan made his way to the rooftop garden, with a broad smile on his face.
Liam was acting more and more like an actual kid his age, and it was really just wonderful for Ryan to see. He climbed up the metal stairs and quickly saw Gaia, already busily working away. Ryan rolled up his sleeves and walked up to the greenhouse, where Gaia was currently preparing the new seeds. The sapling was still sitting on the counter next to her.
Gaia quickly noticed Ryan coming over and seemed happy for the help, as Ryan started walking around the garden to assist the golem in planting the new seeds and sapling.