Chapter 313 - A Newcomer's Welcome (Patreon)

“You spend half a day ruining a dozen perfectly prepared items and you crafted that?” the weird three-question mark man stops near me, plenty of rods in his arms.

“It ended up quite good,” I defend myself.

The look he gives me tells me he probably doesn’t think that, and then he asks, “Did you send the weapon away through your skill? It felt different from before.”

I just shrug. There is no sense in explaining; the system will censor it all and make the man go blank.

“So what is your plan?” I ask him.

Seeing that I won’t answer, he doesn’t push, “First, we will get to my workshop where I can make much better items. Then we will head towards the control room.”

“Not to the core?” I ask.

“If you have a death wish.”

Then, before I answer, he places three more rods and turns to me after mana radiation lessens even more. He hands me one of the unused spears near me, “Do it again.”

Deciding to listen, I do just that. My skills activate, and I start over again. Then I feel a slap on the back of my head. My body is strengthened, my mana regulator turning a big part of my mana pool into reinforcement, yet it still makes me flinch.

Before I punch the man, he says, “Try it again, and don’t be so hurried about changing the item. Examine the pre-prepared pathways and the intention of the man or woman that created that spear.”

As I keep looking at him, he just snorts, “You can try to punch me later if you want to. So?”

Instead of fighting, I send my senses through the item and start examining it.

“The item you hold is something someone spent hours to create. They spent their mana to do so. They thought about how they wanted this item to look. The materials, rare or not as rare, were carefully picked and smelted in ways that would bring out their fullest potential. For all of that to happen, there were hundreds of years of information our predecessors and teachers collected, and a lot of people had to search for the materials. A place was created to make it all happen.” He continues to observe my attempts. “So the least you can do is to pay a little bit of respect to the item you hold, no matter how minuscule it might look to you.”

“I don’t agree.” I stop with the item.

“Explain,” he asks me with interest.

“Items aren’t important. No matter if they are epic, rare, arcane, or even higher. Sure, it’s fine to use them, to hold them, or be amazed by them. They can be really helpful, or you can learn a lot from them, but that’s it. You can’t rely on them too much because they will slow your growth. You can’t tiptoe around them, worried about damaging them because someone put an effort into creating them.”

“That’s a very cynical way to look at it, but it also says a lot about you.”

“Sure.” I send my senses through the unfinished spear and examine it. “You told me to examine the intentions of the creator of this weapon. But as far as I can see are useless pathways. The spear is pre-prepared so it constantly takes bits of mana from the user to sharpen the blade. Sending more would allow it to extend and become even sharper.”

My skills activate, and I scratch some of the prepared pathways, change others, and straight up block some more. “Like this, the finished item would become low epic at most and prioritize ease of use and reducing the wear.”

Pathways I inscribe are much uglier, harsher, and more direct. They use more mana and require more from the user.

I turn to the man, “It's an item prepared to be pampered. A spear used by someone who prefers ease of use and looks over functionality and for someone who would rarely get into combat. It's a toy, not a weapon.”

The inscriptions I create are more taxing to use but they allow more mana through. They allow damage to the item over time. It's like removing fail-safes, even at the cost of reducing the lifespan of the weapon.

I don't do it this way to make the item of higher rarity and hopefully more expensive for the shop. No, I would do it this way even if I intended to use it or to give it to someone else.

Weapons are tools.

I pause for a while and turn to the man again. He returns my gaze and then nods. It's not in agreement but in understanding. Then he turns back, and I continue what I'm doing.

When multiple hours later the weapon is ready, I sell it, gaining 2,200 more shards. Right after, my duplicate and I send more items to the bunker and wait for the man to finish his work before moving deeper into the station.

Meanwhile, our round of the tutorial has gained a new Beyond explorer.

Beyond 6/10 > Beyond 7/10

Gareth - woah, a new one has joined us, hello friend!

Tacita - (;-_-)ノ

Oh great, another troll.

Gareth - hello, Tacita, I'm Gareth, and I hope we will get along!

Tacita - ʅ(°_°)ʃ

Grumpy - ♡＼(￣▽￣)／♡ !!!

Tacita - (☉_☉)

Grumpy - ʕっ•ᴥ•ʔっ

Tacita - ╭(°ロ°”)╯

After that, there is no message, and I wonder what the hell just happened.

***

The used-to-be-dead man finally finishes his work and puts a chestplate on. The metal is still red-hot, but he ignores that, and it doesn't even burn his clothes. As before, I notice there are no enchantments.

Then he hands us a few more rods, and we pick the ones we placed and head deeper into the bunker, following the man.

“Maybe we should at least ask him for his name,” I tell my duplicate.

“We can call him Bob.”

“We are already calling the arcane archer from the 4th floor Bob. Maybe Dave?”

“Dave sounds good. Are your anchors still on his skin?”

I nod, “Two of them. I don't think I would be able to teleport him, but I could slow him down, and we could run. Other than being high constitution, he doesn't seem that strong. Maybe he is just the Absolute's personal blacksmith or something.”

Duplicate agrees, “At least two emblems from the Absolute, and the way he talks. Dave probably used to be an important person. He reminds me of Cael a bit.”

“Probably all craftsmen are like that.” I cut off when Dave stops and places the iron rods in the hallway and one on the opposite side.

Then he turns to one of the doors and sends his mana towards a mana stone that is just over the frame.

Nothing happens, so he repeats it again and again.

He seems surprised, so he examines them and then, with a sigh, turns to me. “Please give me my wife's arm and bracelet,” he says.

It takes a moment for me to realize what he means by that, and I look at the cut-off arm of a dead woman in a beautiful robe and then at the man. He is showing no emotion while saying so, and when I hand him the arm, he takes it, and a moment later, the door opens.

Without me asking, he hands me back the arm and enters the room, places the rods, then while my duplicate and I examine his workshop, he heads to a mana crystal in the corner of the room.

The room is massive, even bigger than the enchanting facility we come from. But this workshop is an unorganized mess. There are tons of materials all over, dried-up trees, armors three times my size, chunks of stone as big as cars, and mana crystals all over the place.

There is no system I could understand, but at the same time, it feels cozier than the organized system of the other facility.

“You two, come here,” he gestures to us, and after exchanging looks, both of us head to him.

He points at the pillar made of mana crystal, “Can you activate it? It should be connected to the core. The core is leaking and that causes the mana levels, but this crystal should still be getting some mana.

I don't ask him why he doesn't do it himself and only slightly examine it, but I don't find anything. So while my duplicate keeps watch, I delve deeper, using my skills to examine it and finally recognize the problem.

“It's physically cut off from the core and the system of this station. Probably some manually started failsafe or something,” I explain.

He nods as if it's something he expected but hoped not to be true, and then examines the rods we are using, “We have an hour or two before rods become useless, and then a similar amount of time with amulets. You can grab whatever you want, and I will point out some things you can move for me to the place you call bunker.”

“Isn't that your workshop? Why would you give us these things?” the duplicate asks.

“Just do what I said.” The man we decided to call Dave then ignores us and starts creating a pile of items he wants to bring with him.

As if planned, we step out of his workshop towards the rods he placed. As he said, they seem to be weakening, a sign of something akin to corrosion on them.

Our [Mana Domain] activates, and [Resonance] as well as we use [Infusion] to make the process even more seamless.

Then we take a step and pass by the rods.

Immediately, the pressure attacks us. It feels as if a rhythmic wave after wave of mana keeps crashing against us, attempting to pass through our domain and Mantle.

It's incredible.

Even after a hundred years, the core of this Veil Ignition Station releases so much mana. A core filled by Champion Niall, as Dave called her.

Leaving anchors behind the rods, we take a few more steps, making sure the amulets the man gave us do no work, all in order to test our skills.

It all feels akin to [Dawn], the skill Champion Tristan, while manipulated by the Mind Mage emperor, used during the end of the second floor. Skill powered by the weapon called Sword of Aeons, the greatest mana battery. And with that, he alone wiped out nearly all of humanity on his planet.

[Mana Domain - lvl 34 > Mana Domain - lvl 35]

[Infusion - lvl 24 > Infusion - lvl 25]

Then, giving our all for a while we get pushed back behind the rods.

Returning back to the workshop, Dave welcomes us, and his weird senses examine our activated skills.

“So, you even have a domain-type skill,” he notes and then points at the pile. “With the help of this, I can prepare some better things so we can head deeper.”

“What is a domain-type skill?” I ask, ignoring his items. When he gives me the look, I add, “We will move your things if you answer.”

Dave almost seems like he wants to ask something but decides against it, “I keep forgetting how little you know. Within classes of skills, there are domain-type skills. If mastered properly, they are one of the most terrifying ones. To learn more, find some disciple, candidate, or Champion. Now move them.”

He doesn't say anything else and only looks in the direction of the core of the station.

After that, we take our time, we examine the place, and move plenty of items to the point where our mana takes a big hit. We also head back and examine more rooms that are further from the core. There, we find more corpses, even corpses of the monsters Duplicate sent through to test if the Gaiathra would notice them. The monsters are as dead as the humans we find.

The man seems to recognize some of them and when he kneels down in front of the corpse of a little girl, we leave him alone.

Soon, we feel the heat fill the tunnels as he activates his emblems, and when he rejoins us, nothing remains of the bodies.

We return to the bastion, and I hand him the cut-off arm with a bracelet.

He stares at it for a moment and I just wait patiently until he grabs it. After taking off the bracelet, he heads to the pile where we put other corpses.

My clone and I leave to do our stuff, and soon the flames light the tunnels of the Bunker.

***

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