Fate/Beyond Chapter 12: Prep Time (Patreon)

Words cannot begin to describe how happy I am at the fact that all of the skeletons died when Gphyl did. Because right now I have a foot and a half in the grave. Because pulling that Ansuz move without practice right after using reinforcement on an enchanted weapon has led to my circuits fucking shitting themselves.

I mean those bastards are burning. I had to chug 3 hp pots in a row to not die basically immediately after. I don't know what gave me the sheer balls to try using Ansuz as an offensive spell like that but I am thankful that it did.

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Quest complete!

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Quest: Instance Dungeon - Gphyl's Crypt - [ Difficulty: F - F+ ](complete)

You have arrived at the Crypt of Gphly, an insane necromancer of old who sealed himself inside a crypt and practiced his necromancy until his demise. To escape you must defeat him.

Clear Condition: Defeat Gphly

Rewards:

• Gphyl's Research into Necromancy
• 1x Minor skill upgrade

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On cue, a book materialized in front of me. Its cover bound in what I assume to be human skin in classical necromancer fashion.  I was disgusted by the book yet my curiosity overpowered my disgust easily but right now I needed to assign the skill upgrade. And considering my currently limited repertoire of skills I think the best option here is material transmutation.

As is I can barely perform reinforcement on mundane objects and using it on special objects makes my circuits freak the fuck out. Which seems to be why it has been stuck at E+ for a while now.

Nodding I confirmed my choice, practising that school of magecraft is a pain anyway.

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| Mineral Transmutation [E+] | ->  | Mineral Transmutation [D-] |

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I felt the information being engraved into my very being as I felt my methods of reinforcement get refined. Having recovered a slight bit I picked up a random trash loot sword dropped by one of the skeletons onto the ground and used reinforcement.

The spell took less od and was easier to use, straining my MOTHERFUCKING GARBAGE PIECE OF ROTTEN SHIT circuits less. This brought an interesting question to my mind.

How does this skill leveling up reduce the od I spend using reinforcement?

Is it reinforcing my magical formula? Or is it something else? What is the difference between my skills and the personal skills of a servant that I can level mine up?

Shaking my head I dismissed the thoughts, curiosity was good. But pondering about questions you have no way of answering at the moment was a waste of time for me. All that mattered was that it helped me get more powerful.

Nothing else mattered that much.

Now that I felt good enough to move I moved over to where Gphyl had perished. Strangely Gphyl in terms of stats barely gave me what an average skeleton would give which was disappointing. But he had dropped his snazzy staff on the ground.

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| Gphyl's Staff - D+ |

An ancient mystic code created by Gphyl to assist him in conducting necromancy. A mediocre mystic code that over time has gathered power and reinforced its own mystery.

-20% mana cost while casting spells categorized as necromancy.

+20% power to all spells categorized as necromancy.

+50% to the amount of undead you can control at a time.

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The staff seemed good, I couldn't really judge how good on the account that I don't know necromancy but it seemed like a very useful tool to use for when I decide to dabble in necromancy.

As for the clocktower, I think practicing it will be fine as long as I don't turn into an undead apostle or turn an entire village into undead. As I retrieved all the goodie looties into my backpack the dungeon around me started to crumble and crack before falling apart completely, putting me back at the blind spot I entered the dungeon in.

Man, it was good to have some fresh air after spending over 48 hours in a moldy crypt filled with decomposing flesh bags. Digging around one of my bags I pulled out my cell phone and turned it on before checking the time. And upon seeing the time I was slightly disappointed.

'No time dilation huh?'

Around 3 days had passed on Earth, which meant that time wasn't dilated when I was in the dungeon. Which made me quite sad as I hoped for a hyperbolic time chamber situation. But I wasnt too disappointed as that wasnt really a real hope that I had, just a fantasy.

I packed my absurdly heavy bags up and called for a taxi to take me home. After arriving I greeted Natalie before immediately going up to my study, I placed all of the bags into a corner before locking the door and taking out Gphyl's notes.

Necromancy.

From what I remember from the wiki, it is the thaumaturgical system that manipulates corpses. From raising undead to creating ungodly chimeras from stitching corpses. It also allows you to look through the memories of the dead I think. Necromancy is more effective in someplace like a graveyard also.

Now the question was, how do I benefit from necromancy?

Although I am not a paragon of all that is good and pure. I also do not want to murder people and use their corpses like glorified sock puppets. I mean, corpse memory reading sounds conditionally useful but would it be worth the effort?

I sat down and spent a few hours analyzing the book.

...

It seems that I was correct. I really won't be benefiting from this kind of necromancy. And even the benefits do not justify putting a big ass target on my back for the church to slit my throat in my sleep. It seems like I have to finally do something I had been dreading of doing for a while now.

I have to visit the clock tower. The best option was for me to turn in this book. It was a brutal form of necromancy but it should be decently stronger than most modern necromancy. Which should give me plenty of juicy contribution points or whatever system the cock tower uses.

But just showing up with a valuable necromancy book is just begging to get murdered by someone unless you already have a decent reputation. I will need to make some preparations before I even think about visiting the clock of the tower.

Reputation was one of the most important thing among magi after all.

At this point going to the clocktower was a necessity. Not going there is just stifling my growth. I can't order anything beyond the very basics through Natalie. I need the resources. That's why I have to go to the clock tower.

Naturally, those elitist assholes won't just let any Joe schmoe in, especially a well-known failure. But at the same time, thanks to the fact that I am from a noble family I can leverage that get a meeting with someone on the inside.

Of course, dead broke I was, I can't afford tuition there. Nor do I possess the theoretical knowledge to pass the exams. So I have to prove myself through accomplishments that will give me a good footing within the clock tower. And I know just the way.

First, I spent a few days compiling an inferior meal craft book to present. It was the main thing I was banking on.

Although mealcraft itself wouldn't be cared for by 95% of the cock tower,  it would still give the clout of being someone who invented a, below-average, yes, but a branch of mage craft regardless.

That reputation should help me in making connections and getting into places as well as finding information. Reputation means a lot to magi.

The only worry I had was the mystery of meal craft becoming distilled, but sometimes you have to make sacrifices. Besides, meal craft wasnt TOO valuable to me.

And after 3 days I managed to make a pretentious and needlessly complicated book going into painful and boring lengths into meal craft and how I 'created' it.

Basically, the story of how I made meal craft was that: I, a small fella with hot garbage circuits was really determined to prove myself, and as I was practicing reinforcement and bounded fields thoughts of applying the effects onto food since I was really obsessed with cooking(I really am not, on the contrary, I dislike it.) and after several months to a year or so of grueling research managed to invent mealcraft.

It wouldn't be much cloud but it would be just enough for me to get a step in. After that, I will have miraculously stumbled upon the research of an ancient necromancer. And graciously decided to "donate" it to the mage's association.

With those contributions, I should be able to freely browse through most of the public library for a long time. For other stuff, if my contributions aren't enough I have a decent chunk of mana crystals which should be worth something.

So after extensive preparations, I went to the clock tower with Natalie in tow.

How bad could it be? It was just a deadly magic college for pretentious arrogant British young masters backstabbing each other for Granpa's inheritance.

Clocktower here I come!