Golden Artificer Prologue (Patreon)

“Ugh… my head.” I slowly opened my eyes. I saw stone pavement, and the smell of some dumpster started to assault my nose.

“...Where the fuck I am?” I slowly stood up. I could feel my head was killing me, and on top of that, this smell was unbearable.

After concentrating for a couple of moments, I realised that I was in some sort of alley.

‘That fucking insane, how on earth I got in an alley, dressed in some linear clothes. That's primitive beyond comprehension.’

I frowned with disgust when I saw my clothes. These were primitive! Like medieval style primitive!

While inspecting myself, I noticed my hands and statue were smaller than I remember.

‘What the hell! I am in the body of a kid! Some random kid!’

For a second, I was dumbstruck; this was wild! The only idea I can come up with is that someone placed me in this body!

That was simply far too extreme. Logically, it was simply impossible for someone who died from a supernova to wake up in a kid’s body of unknown origin and some random alley!

Nope, he isn't buying this.

“Well, whatever, since I got a second chance, I will see what I can do this time. This time, I will become more powerful than a red giant star going Supernova!” I mumbled to myself as I could feel my mana was still around.

That was good; this means my mana reactor came with me.

After inspecting myself, I noticed that I had something in my pocket.

“Crystals?- This feeling. It's mana?” I could sense crystalised mana inside of these.

“Curious. Why does this body have these?”

For now, I decided to keep these as I proceeded to walk.

A few seconds later, I left the alley. My eyes widened immediately.

“...W-What the fuck is this!?”

My eyes bulged out as I saw wooden and stone buildings and people dressed in robes and plate armour; these people— had long ears or had traits of animals, dwarf and tall.

“What is with this bullshit fantasy trope!?” I mumbled to myself.

I swiftly put my hands on my head, no ears! That was good!

“Ouch!”

“Hmm!?”

My head started to hurt again.

“Blood? Did someone smack me on the head? I see, so that's how I got this body.” I whispered to myself. I suppose I could have taken over this body the moment it died from a head injury.

‘Fuck, now I need to patch myself.’

I need to fix that wound. It can get infected. But where to go?

For now, I decided to explore at least a little bit. I need to get a hang of where I was. This place was some medieval fantasy world; it reminded me of those Japanese light novels.

As I pondered on that, I started to walk around. Swiftly, my gaze turned to a massive tower in the middle of the city.

‘It looks similar to the tower of Babel, god complex much? Are these people for real?’

For a few moments, I looked at the tower; while having a god complex is counterproductive, I can't say no to the impressive engineering. Building skyscrapers with primitive tech is complicated, to say the least.

But this was impressive enough. However, I don't want to be anywhere near it.

I don't trust in engineering, which is not my own.

However, for now, I need to explore this place. I need to figure out—something!

~~~

I grimaced when he figured out a few things. For one, I can understand the language. In a sense, it was annoying that I knew the language, but I couldn't access any of the memories this body had.

Apart from that, I have some idea where I was.

The place is called Orario, the Dungeon City. The tower IS called the Babel Tower. Under it is the dungeon, which goes for MANY floors down.

The crystals in my pockets are in the loot the monsters drop there.

Oh, and the elephant in the room, apparently Gods and Goddesses, walk among humans. These gods have sealed their powers, and instead, they act like heads of families or Familia, as they say.

‘In other words, this is like an MMO but turned into real life.’

As I compared the info I acquired with the games I used to play 280 years ago, I could only grimace more and more, and that was not just because I was cleaning the wound in a fountain with drinkable water.

And no, I am no I am not contaminating the water.

The God acts like a guild leader and the one who levels up the person. The real guild acts like a shop, and the dungeon is where one grinds.

They even have parties for dungeon dives, and there are a bunch of species which have unique traits.

Well, I don't know if the last one is true. But knowing the cliche tropes, elves are supposed to live for long, and people with animal traits are supposed to have powers related to the animals.

As I thought about that, I looked at myself in the fountain.

I still have black hair and brown eyes, but it was not my face. Apart from that, I looked around seven to nine years old.

‘Well, I have some idea what is what.’

With a sigh, I got up and looked towards where the guild was.

It's time to get some money, or as they call Valis, and then get some food.

…

…

…

After acquiring some money by exchanging the crystals, I went to get some bread.

“Hmm, not bad.”

The bread was tender and still warm. One thing one can admire in medieval times is that food can taste good because of fresh products.

Apart from food, I was thinking about what to do next.

Well, the idea is quite clear. I will build my workshop once more. But where?

The answer is quite clear: the place where no Familia goes or wants.

And that is the slums.

With the location set, I proceeded to walk to my new ‘home’.

~~~

The city of Orario is at least appropriately organised—a circle, with the Babel Tower in the centre. It's easy to navigate. My location was on the east side of the city.

The east side has the Coliseum, the forges, and a graveyard. Squeezed in between them is a cheap area with some homeless people. Well, at least an orphanage exists in this medieval society.

After finding several broken-down houses, I inspected them to see if anyone was there.

Thankfully for me, with the roof broken, no one wants to stick around such a place.

‘Now let's see how magic works.’

While I can sense that my reactor is functioning well, now it's time to see if I can utilise it properly.

“Hmm…”

As magic started to flow to my finger, I tried to utilise my base runes.

“...”

“...”

“...”

“Well, this is worse than I expected.”

I pondered on the realisation that magic doesn't quite respond to intent and visualisation.

“I can't even call this magic if I must instruct everything.” I sighed to myself as I proceeded to expand.

Before this, I could leave a rune with intent and visual deployment.

In other words, a simple word ‘barrier’ with intent and visual ideas carved into it could create a wall of pure magic.

But now, the barrier doesn't respond; it's as if Mana is dumb and needs excessive guidance to do even the basics.

A few moments later, I realised that this won't work at all.

The approach must change as I can't write paragraphs of runic letters on every corner.

That would only make it easier to notice, and it would take ages.

In other words, I am switching to the Platform/software model.

Such an approach means I would create a core of a boundary field and then create ‘corners’ where mana is spread to and create a wall according to the core’s design.

That means I would be able to improve such a boundary field in the future as well.

With a new goal in mind, I looked for a perfect location.

My eyes scanned the surroundings.

I noticed that this slum area has several rows of houses. After looking around for more, I found just the perfect spot.

It's a room behind a corner; it was just big enough for my idea.

I swiftly started with a circle of mana, then a squire inside. I began to lay down letters and more letters. In between the circle and the square, then inside the square, I created another circle with a star in the very middle.

Once I finished with the basics, I wrote the meaning of the visualisation I had in mind.

Before I realised it, I was already hungry again.

So, I pulled out another loaf of bread and proceeded to eat.

A few minutes later, I continued to lay down the functions of this barrier.

A few hours later, I realised that it was getting dark and I won't be able to see jack shit when it was night, and there were no light sources at all.

So I need to hurry; for now, I set up a simple discouraging intent and fundamental illusion.

Illusion one is simple. Basically, it copies the image as it is now and then places it on the barrier wall.

That means people outside won't see what is happening inside this barrier, as it shows how it was before it was erected.

With preparations complete, I proceeded to select the area of my barrier.

I placed simple runic markers on the walls of semi-destroyed buildings in the slums.

The area I marked was around an area of a few buildings wide.

Honestly, part of me is thinking that this is big. But another part of me is being cautious enough, as magic in this place is dumb.

I doubt I will be able to make my Technomancy.

Things like Matter Convertor, Assembly Lines and even my prized Triple Core could be useless here.

I would need to rework the entire infrastructure, which could take hundreds of years.

My Automated Assembly Lines require a room full of precise manifestation runic arrays. But this is impossible with the way the magic of this world works.

In other words, from what I saw so far, the ratio is around 1 to 15.

If I follow this crude maths, one Assembly Line’s array is around 15 thousand times more complex with this dumb-as-hell magic.

‘In other words, I am in hell.’

With a loud sigh, I walked to the central area and sat on the ground.

Crossing my legs, I sat down and pondered on things while looking at the humming circle in the middle of the room.

It absorbs magic from the outside to power itself. This way, I don't need to do anything.

However, this is what annoys me. I can't build my reactor. I need to depend on things found outside.

I haven't needed any of that for a LONG time. Now, it feels like I am back in the stone age.

‘Even if I was in the Stone Age of MY birth world, I could quickly rebuild everything in a decade.

But this is just ugly.’

After pushing the ugly feeling down, I proceeded to recall less complex things I could use.

‘I suppose I could return to what it means to be an Alchemist or, more precisely, Artificer.

This place is a medieval world. With how fundamentally basic mana is, I am sure there is no complex magic system.

People in this place rely on game-like status tattoos.’

After pondering on things like that, I proceeded to snooze and rest; tomorrow was going to be a long day.

Just thinking that I need to rely on others makes my skin crawl.

‘The quicker I get this over, the better it will be for me. I need to rebuild my workshop as soon as possible.’