“Careful with that. That took six months to grow. I really do not want to have to do that again.”
“Yes, Master.” Apostolos nodded, carefully cradling a large crystal to his chest as he carried it to the center of their camp.
Rory crossed his arms, overseeing the young man, ready to jump into action should he accidentally stumble.
Relax. He’s not a kid anymore.
Six and a half years after he first met the boy, Apostolos was no longer a child. Seventeen, nearly eighteen, the boy was almost an adult.
It's not like there are any actual laws stating what's considered an ‘adult’ anymore.
Apostolos was no longer the young kid he once was; he’d even reached A4 not too long ago. It had taken several years before he could start working to break through A1; children were locked as level ‘null’ until they’d physically matured enough to be comparable to a baseline A1 adult. He’d been fifteen when the level had finally changed from ‘null’ to a standard ten, the beginning level of all humans. From there, it had taken another two and half years to reach A4, slower than Rory by a factor of two, but then he was also still a teenager and not a grown adult like Rory had been when he'd been first dropped onto the planet of Aelia.
Plus, I wouldn’t let the kid throw himself to the wolves like I had to.
After six and a half years with the kid, Rory still had trouble figuring out what he thought of him. He was not quite a son, nor was he precisely a younger brother, but he was too familiar to be an apprentice.
Maybe like a younger cousin?
It didn’t matter what Rory thought, for Apostolos seemed hell-bent on constantly referring to Rory as master.
Seriously, where did he ever pick that up from?
“Hey, master, does this seem alright?”
Rory shook his head, dismissing the wandering thoughts, a trait that had, and likely never would, gone away. Apostolos stood above a hole in the ground, where a matrix-looking structure had been constructed, several cables and pipes jutting out from the matrix and sprawling beneath the ground.
“Yeah, just place her in. Gently.” Rory reminded.
“Yes, master.”
The young man gingerly crouched down and placed the oversized crystal within the matrix, which almost instantly began to glow.
“Perfect.” Rory beamed.
God above, another project, nearly complete.
Apostolos glanced toward Rory, only letting out a sigh of relief as he saw Rory’s smile.
“So, is that it?”
“Basically.” Rory nodded as Apostolos stepped out from the hole. “A few more steps to go, but all the actual project stuff should be complete.”
“Thank Eon,” Apostolos said, an exhausted smile on his face. “No offense, master, but I don’t want ever to have to slave away like this again.”
“Well, that’s too bad because the only thing certain in life-”
“Is ‘Projects oh Projects.’” The young man said, beating Rory to the punch. “I know; I’m not sure I’ve heard you say anything more than that.”
“Smart ass.” Rory shook his head, stifling a smile. As the boy had spent the last six and half years growing up around Rory, he’d long since learned the ways of the Architect.
Which involved excessive manual labor, all in the effort of building something so that you could use more manual labor to accomplish another task.
Like a nesting doll of sore backs and aching muscles.
As for what project his young apprentice was complaining about?
“What is energy?” Rory suddenly questioned, tossing the quiz out to Apostolos.
“Uhh, what type?” The young man asked back.
“Good start. Let’s go with the mystical forms.”
“Ascension, Pneuma, and Essence.” Apostolos listed off as if it had been something he’d often been quizzed on.
Which he had. If Rory had to act the role of a teacher, he was damned well sure he was going to do the best job he could.
“Ascension energy: The energy of creation, the building block of permeance and growth. It’s sourced from the universe itself, and it's behind the, uhh, Ascension of basically everything.”
“And how do you go about obtaining it?”
“Primarily through killing monsters-”
“Theoretically, not just monsters, but we don’t condone murder here.”
“R-right.” Apostolos did his best to ignore how offhandedly his master could sometimes say things like that. “You can also obtain it through making stuff. There are potentially other ways, but we don’t have any direct proof.”
“Good, good. And how exactly does killing stuff obtain Ascension energy.”
“Two bases. First, the ‘base’ energy that a monster may contain is directly proportional to their level and, by extension, their tier. After that, there appears to be a ‘modifier’ effect that Eon dictates. Killing something weaker than you or without challenge rewards less energy, potentially reaching a zero-sum. Kill things stronger or more challenging, and you gain a positive modifier.”
“And?”
“While in theory, the best way to grow would be to constantly challenge high-tier monsters, due to how monster levels work compared to humans or other intelligent life, even a mid-grade monster is significantly more powerful than a low-grade monster of the same tier. Challenging more than half a step up is therefore extensively forbidden.”
“For you, at least.” Rory cut in.
“Yes, for me.” Apostolos sighed. “I’m not a kid anymore.”
“Uh huh, not the first I’ve heard of something like that. Alright, I’m satisfied with your answer. Now, moving on. Pneuma?”
“Pneuma: The energy of action, of thought into reality. It's everywhere, though it can collect more heavily in certain areas. When concentrated, you can end up with a liquid like that.” Apostolos pointed toward the small pond surrounding the Essence Spire, now taller than Rory. “As for what exactly it is, it’s a more temporary version of Ascension energy. Where ascension energy takes something and makes it more, enhancing reality, Pneuma can usually only enact temporary change, hence magic.”
Stolen novel; please report.
“Good. And?”
“And it can be refined, concentrated to become more potent.”
“Good, bookmark that thought. Next, essence?”
“Well, uhh, it’s concepts made into energy… Right?”
“Sort of, but honestly, it’s going to be a while before I have a better answer on that subject either.” Rory laughed. “I just wanted to see if you would try to make something up.”
“Thanks,” Apostolos muttered. “So, what was the point of the quiz?”
Rory pointed in the four cardinal directions of the camp to the four pylons. “Explain.”
“Pneuma Crushers. They drag Pneuma inward, crushing and grinding against itself. Over time, that forces the Pneuma to subsume itself, refined and richer in energy density.”
“And the point of that?”
“Enriched Pneuma doesn’t permeate as easily as regular Pneuma. After the improvements to the walls-” Apostolos pointed toward the walls, now the color of rusty iron. “-there exists a sort of ‘net’ around our camp that regular pneuma can easily pass through, but the denser enriched pneuma cannot. Making the camp a hotspot of high-quality pneuma.”
“Thus, back to the original topic. The efforts of the last year and a half. What was the point?”
Apostolos thought for a moment. They’d been performing seemingly random renovations to their camp for a year and a half. First, they had been changing the walls, growing as much bloodwood as possible before chipping off the outer shell of their walls. With the inner wooden portion of the walls revealed, an already tedious task, they’d plastered bloodwood plank sidings to the walls. From there, they’d had to reform the outer shell, another excessive and laborious endeavor. It had only been made a tad easier when, at the very end, Rory had initiated a single wave, taken the rewarded energy from it, and then used it to integrate the additions and changes to the wall back into a singular form. Rory had also inscribed quite a few runes and tunnel-like carvings through the wood beforehand, but they were now hidden away under the rust-colored outer shell of the walls.
That had only been the first renovation. From there, they’d spent a lot of time traveling to and from the Maw, collecting ore and sending it back to camp, refining it, and pouring it into pipe molds that Rory had made. Apostolos had questioned what they were for, but Rory only cryptically raised his eyebrows every time and shook his head like it were a secret for Apostolos to figure out. Once they’d had an extensive collection of pipes, the next project had been digging up the camp and laying the metal tubes in the ground before re-burying them, following a pattern Rory had laid out.
Pipes buried, they’d gone on a slaughter rampage of any weak monsters, collecting them and tossing them into the ‘composter’ as Rory had nicknamed it, using the gathered essence and matter to feed into the growth of not trees, but crystals. The crystals started as granular specks obtained through dehydration of the aisormba surrounding the Essence Spire. Those tiny crystal-like grains were pumped full of the essence and matter of the dissolved monsters. Several months later, they’d obtained the oversized crystal that Apostolos had placed within the matrix in their camp's center.
As for the matrix, Rory had spent all his free time slowly working on it himself. It was made of a unique, uncommon-grade metal that Rory himself had devised. It was derived in part from the old-world inspiration of steel and another part from Crimsonite, a metal Rory had obtained as a reward for clearing the first floor of the Maw.
The first step in its creation was collecting Pneuma-Enriched Iron from the Maw, which was even more abundant on the second floor. After the raw ore was collected, it had to be ground down into a gravel-like state. Next, the enriched iron gravel had to be temporarily stored, and the proper catalyst coke was created. Rory had taken some time to debate the best way to obtain the catalyst coke before finally settling upon using bloodwood. Bloodwood itself was already an uncommon-grade material, and its aspects of blood reminded Rory of Crimsonite, which was also an uncommon grade. Merging the ideas, Rory and Apostolos created a coke oven, yet another laborious project. Once the coke oven had been completed, shoveling in plenty of bloodwood was next.
The resulting material had been a blood-colored charcoal, which Rory had promptly named ‘Bloodwood coal’ much to his apprentice’s chagrin.
Upgrading their forge was the second to last step, now adjusted to mimic Rory’s memories of blast furnaces on Earth. The forge upgraded, and all left was shoveling in the enriched iron gravel with the bloodwood coal. Experimenting with that several different times, they’d, at last, obtained the first artificial uncommon-grade metal.
Crimson Steel
Quality: Uncommon.
Forged from the charcoal of a parasitic, bloodthirsty tree and common Pneuma-Enriched Iron. Crimson steel showcases far improved tensile and compression strength and a significantly higher degree of magical conductivity than Enriched Iron.
Rory had been afraid that the metal might showcase the same parasitic properties of bloodwood. Still, thankfully, the carbonization process the wood underwent alongside the refinement with enriched iron had meant that aside from the coloration, the metal was inert of any of those… less savory traits.
Crimson Steel obtained, Rory had spent months shaping, working, and inscribing runes throughout the metal until he’d finally completed the matrix, the heart of his grand project. Compared to any project he’d ever done, it had taken by far the longest, a year and a half of direct effort plus several months of preparation and planning beforehand.
“The matrix with that crystal.” Apostolos finally spoke after considering the labors of the last two years: “Those pipes. The focus and containment of higher-quality pneuma within our camp. Even the changes to the walls. It’s all meant to be one big system.”
“Bingo.” Rory winked. “For what?”
“I… I’m not sure.” Apostolos said with a sigh.
“Well, that’s because there is one clue you’re missing,” Rory said before revealing something with a pouch.
“W-what’s with the monster core? Why’d you remove it from the Composter?”
“Think. Why would I?”
Apostolos thought about it for only a moment before it came to him.
“The matrix core. Limited to a crystal heart and the matrix foundation, it can direct energy and even store some. However, it’s inefficient; those crystals are better suited for storing physical and conceptual essence. In tandem with a monster core, you could store mass amounts precisely because that core came from a tier eight monster. Altogether, it forms an expansive network; the entire camp becomes one large Pneuma battery, and all those pipes are meant as the physical representation of metaphysical pathways for that energy to travel along far more efficiently than directing it manually. Individually, the parts are impressive on their own; a tier eight monster core could store plenty of pneuma, but when integrated into this entire system, which is fed refined pneuma from the pylons, we’ve got what feels like an endless well of pneuma to draw from!”
“And there you have it.” Rory started clapping. “I figured it could put that all together.”
“Why, though?” Apostolos questioned after a moment. “It’s an amazing idea; I never thought of such a comprehensive system, but why? Isn’t this overkill? We have nothing that requires that much stored high-quality pneuma.”
“Ahh, well, two reasons. One, I felt it was time to settle upon the foundation of an energy grid finally. I’ve been playing with the idea of storing pneuma for a long time now. Initially, I had the core of a tier four monster I had plans for, but I was forced to waste it. With a tier eight-core, I knew I had to go above and beyond my plans at the time for a simple battery. This system will form the basis and foundation of a permanent addition to the settlement from here on out. The second reason, though, goes back to our point of Ascension Energy. What are the two ways to obtain Ascension energy again?”
“Killing things and…” Apostolos drowned out, eyes widening. “This was meant to push you into A6?”
“Or nearly.” Rory shrugged. “In the past, long-term projects have accrued me quite a windfall of energy, and I suspect this will likely do the same. But not just for me. I had a helper, after all.”
Apostolos pointed to himself as if surprised. “I forgot about that.”
“You’re a fast learner, kid, but we still need to work on some common-sense skills.” Rory sighed, amused. “We’ve only got two steps before it's finished.”
“Which is?”
“A proof of concept connection. We need to ‘prove’ the theory to E.O.N. In this case, that’s as simple as retrofitting our forge so that it can utilize the pneuma of this network to fuel it.”
“No more manning the bellows?” Apostolos asked, hope in his eyes.
“No more manning the bellows,” Rory confirmed. “Retrofitting and connecting the two shouldn’t be too difficult. You know those other crystals we grew? We’re going to install them into the forge. I would prefer a monster core, but those bad boys are rare, so the crystals must do. They exist solely as an ‘interface’ connection from which the retrofitted forge can draw.”
“And the second step left?”
“Integration of the network into the settlement utilizing a large reservoir of ascension energy.”
“But that means-”
“Yep,” Rory said, cutting the young man off. “We’re going to have to face several waves in a row. Integrating the grid into our settlement will take a significant amount of energy. Energy that we can’t gather ourselves.”
“But you’ve avoided waves for years now!” Apostolos said.
“Sure, and for good reason. The more waves you tackle without completing the full gauntlet, the more difficult it becomes, but that’s the trade-off of benefitting from the rewards of completing small streaks.”
“How many waves?” The young man asked.
Rory rubbed his chin, thinking for a moment before shrugging.
“Ten, maybe? This is the most complex addition that has been made to the settlement. It’s not just throwing up a single forge or a hut; it’s a fundamental change to the foundation.”
“Will we be able to handle it?” Apostolos asked, concern on his face.
“Realistically? No. One, two, maybe three tier fives at a time are possible, but by wave ten of the mini-gauntlet, we’re likely to see anywhere from five to seven per stage.”
“So, how are we going to manage?”
“Simple. We’re going to get help.”