Chronicles of the True Wizard

The remainder of Felix’s time until the event opened was spent in the warehouse, as much of his free time had been lately, dissecting creatures and their biological makeup. He still hadn’t make any alterations but he had finally mentally noted some creatures that were of interest. Once he had more context, he would go back to them.

Integration Event

The Integration Event, Bastorus One, will begin in one hour.

You have a valid invite and are within the restricted level range. Deny?

Inventory system familiarity found, explanation skipped. View?

Event Transport Marble will be placed in hand. Relocate?

Quest system familiarity found, explanation skipped. View?

Felix simply nodded and dismissed the message, having no interest in reading through unnecessary information. All of his preparations were done so he simply went back to dissecting the bodies in the warehouse. He did however, have Grim mentally notify him a few minutes before the event was scheduled to open. He didn’t want to miss it if his consciousness was stuck in a Ring or elsewhere.

The marble that appeared in Felix’s hand an hour later seemed to depict an entire planet with clouds in its atmosphere instead of-what his Pocket Home marble held-a roiling black and grey smoke.

Felix wasted no time and instantly pressed it into the side of a vat next to him, stepping through the portal a moment later.

Immediately Felix caught himself from falling to the ground and looked around. He was hovering in the sky, a half kilometer or so upwards above unnaturally blue, raging rapids that carved their way through a rocky canyon below.

On one side of the river, there was a rocky and grassy biome that Felix didn’t really have a name for. It looked most like a mountain had exploded into a million pieces that were evenly spread out then covered in a thin layer of dirt and left for a few hundred epochs at most resulting in a layer of moss and grass.

On the other side was the complete opposite. Instead of a wet, verdant landscape that had barely been eroded over time, there was a desert. An arid, sand scape covered in dunes with nothing but sand as far as he could see.

Either would work fine for his intentions so he dropped down to the edge of the cliff, after confirming he could safely breathe on the planet, and began his preparations.

Pulling Grim out of his Soul Space, Felix let his spellbook companion float in front of him as he pulled the first spell he needed free and began filling it with mana.

While it was difficult to move an open portal into a solid material, it wasn’t impossible. Felix had done it before and so, that was what his plan relied on. After some tests on Eramith and in his Pocket Home, Felix was pretty confident his plan would work, he just wasn’t sure how long and arduous the process would be.

Once the portal spell form was close to filled, Felix took the relative targeting component of the spell and began pushing on it. As soon as the portal sprung into existence, he exercised as much of his will as he could, allocating as much of his brain to his focus as he could spare to make sure the rest of it was stable.

The portal resisted but Felix’s mana control was stronger and so he pushed the destination portal downwards and into the ground. It floated through earth and rock as the ground slowly grew harder and denser. Felix accelerated the portal’s speed and continued to push downwards, his only concern being how high the temperature got.

His goal was to remain within the crust as, though he could handle much higher temperatures he was pretty sure-using earth as a reference point-going too far could still easily cook him. On the other hand, the higher temperatures would also make the rock softer and easier to dig through though, that ran the risk of damaging anything he stored there as well.

Around 50 kilometers down, by his rough estimation of where the relative portal coordinates settled, Felix stopped the portal and pulled out a number of spell tablets he had created.

He had done similar things in the past but on lower grade materials and on a smaller scale. However, his time at Eramith wasn’t completely wasted and Felix understood much better how the internals of the spells, enchantments and materials actually worked.

Half of the tablets Felix shoved through the portal and activated were inscribed with the reverse of the hardening enchantment. He had theories before but now he knew that effectively what the enchantment did was loosen the bonds between the atoms or rather, excited and strained the bonds directly.

This didn’t actually make it any easier or less expensive than simply melting the stone, though it was much safer. Entropy naturally dispersed the strain over time and it would distribute to the nearby environment similarly to how temperature spread outwards.

Entropy therefore, made it almost twice as efficient for him to simply split his mana.

The other half of the tablets he activated simply heated up the stone and excited the molecules. The energy was then split between straining the bonds and heating the molecules which ultimately worked together to create a, not quite red hot or glowing, magma stream. Either one alone would disperse quickly because of the relatively large energy delta with the surrounding molecules so by splitting the work between them, he was able to save massive amounts of mana and dig much faster.

Using Force spells, Felix scooped the putty like rock out and let it cool and settle on the ground next to him.

It took Felix a couple of hours to fully dig out a completely sealed cave for himself out of the stone, longer than he had hoped but faster than he had expected. He stopped once it was just a few meters in each direction.

Once he was in need of more space, he would keep expanding but for now, he didn’t want to lose any time so, he measured the coordinates inside and outside of his vault. After that, he stored the cooling putty rocks in his inventory to try and mask his location and flew off along the river.

Looking up into the sky as he flew to try and get an idea of what time it was, Felix saw a large whitish blue star just falling past the horizon. The sky wasn’t significantly darkening though and as Felix looked upwards, he saw a massive red object that looked more like a very close and reflective moon than a star. It managed to keep the ground lit though and as night came, instead of darkness, the environment just shifted in hue.

Instead of a bluish grey that was harsh and a little annoying, the moon cast everything in a much warmer color that was far more pleasing, at least to Felix’s current eyes.

There weren’t necessarily cardinal directions on the planet but, judging solely from where the star was setting and designating it as west, Felix was traveling north-north-west. He flew for about a half hour before he chastised himself for forgetting and tapped at his recently adorned wrist.

Felix flipped himself into an upright sitting position and Erevos appeared around his body, as if he had already been sitting in it the whole time. His hands found the controls a moment later and he shot off into the distance, accelerating to a speed multiple orders of magnitude faster than he had been flying by himself.

As he flew, Felix was presented with a number of notifications for available quests that he promptly ignored. He was actually in search of quests but, every notification he got had something to do with collecting a certain mass of lumber from a specific tree or a mass of leaves. The rewards being more inventory points on top of the collected materials themselves.

It was logical for gatherers and profession focused participants to complete those but Felix deemed it a massive waste of time for himself.

His first priority was to map out as much of the area as he could for the future. As he traveled and his mental and System map updated in real time, he marked the mental one with portal coordinates as he intermittently measured them.

The first aspect of the landscape that changed, much further than he had been hoping, was that a mountain range sprung up from the ground to the north. A stream poured down from the mountain and fed the rapids he had been following and they stretched across both biomes on either side of the river.

Heading over the mountains, Felix caught sight of other participants for the first time since arriving. They seemed to be setting up a mining operation from what he could tell and their guards definitely noticed him. They didn’t seem bothered though and simply kept an eye on him as he passed.

Felix also, just a few moments later, got a notification for another quest. It was another gathering quest but it caught his eye because the reward was by far, the highest at 10,000 points. Opening his inventory-something that felt a little odd after living without one for so long-he saw he had used 0 out of 1000 points meaning the quest would massively increase his capacity.

Quickly skimming the description, he found out why. It required participants collect 100kg each of all five notable metals and minerals that could be found in the mountain range. Though impressive and challenging, another massive waste of time for Felix.

Gathering was not his specialty and he had no interest in competing with the gatherers.

After seeing nothing he was interested in for what had felt like hours, Felix decided to check his map to see if there was a new direction he wanted to explore. Passively, Felix knew his map was being filled in but he had been referencing the one in his mind that his skills had created because it was more convenient.

As soon as he opened his System provided map though, Felix groaned at his own incompetence.

Seriously? I wonder if everyone’s looks like this or if instead of quest markers, they get beacons or something. Actual question marks on my map seems a little too video-gamey to be a coincidence. Also, if there are quest markers, is there a quest list? Quest List.

Felix groaned once again as a list of available quests appeared before him. There was an empty section for active and completed quests but also a section of available quests. Picking one out at random, the list even gave him the direction and location of the quest. The screen also indicated there were some quests that were hidden and would only be revealed under specific conditions but there wasn’t anything he could do about those at the moment.

Sorting through the list, Felix filtered out the gathering quests for minerals, metals, plants and a number of other boring options then quickly read through the list. He found that curiously, a few of his map markers were not accounted for and when he focused on them in his map view, he realized why.

I got dropped onto his planet just a short fly away from the main city of the integrateds? Lucky me I guess…

Felix had every intention of visiting the city but it was a lower priority item compared to some of the quests he had seen. One in particular seemed to tickle his instincts for some reason, the description similar to all the other ancient ruin based quests though. After a minute or so of wondering, Felix couldn’t figure out anything about it that stood out other than that it was the closest ancient ruin quest to his starting location.

Figuring it was a decent starting point for him, Felix flew back towards it though a portal, flying into the weird green and rock biome as he diverged from the river.

Flying over open ground with no visual or physical obstructions, Felix pushed his slicer as fast as it would go, just for a moment, to see what it could do. The enchantments did everything they could to reduce the effect of the rapid acceleration and block out the noise, wind and sonic boom but there was no getting around the fact that, Felix couldn’t see or react fast enough.

If something appeared in front of him, he had no way to dodge it in time because he just didn’t have the stats at the moment. Not feeling safe with the speed and also because he was approaching the quest starting location, Felix slowed the slicer down then unsummoned it and let the momentum throw him to the ground.

Slowing his fall just enough to avoid injury, Felix landed on a large rock and actually shattered it. The rock crumbling surprised him so much, he actually stowed up a small piece in his inventory. It cost him a fraction of a point so he figured he would hold onto it to try and figure out what it was later on.

Other than the stone he broke though, looking around, there was nothing to indicate there was a quest that started where he was. Checking his System provided map, he sighed as he tilted the axis and saw the marker located far below him.

It wasn’t difficult for him to move a portal towards and finally inside of what appeared to be a natural cavern. Stepping through though, Felix became very certain there was nothing natural about it.

The walls and floor exhibited signs of erosion from water falling downwards and the shape seemed off too. The biggest indicator though, was the massive series of beams, supports and braces that held the ceiling aloft.

At first Felix thought it was a mine but upon closer inspection, he realized why the shape seemed so off to him initially. The walls looked like the walls of a canyon which would mean the roof had been added later.

Considering he had just been directly above this canyon a moment ago and had noticed nothing, he couldn’t help but commend the work of whoever had added the ceiling. It was level, solid and whatever they had done on top of it looked completely natural and perfectly fit in with the rest of the landscape.

Looking around, Felix immediately spotted where the quest had pointed him, a large metal door at one end of the canyon. Walking over, Felix couldn’t stop the slight smile from forming on his face, his expectations confirmed when he touched the door.

Ancient Ruins: Dungeon

You have found a dungeon. Would you like to enter?

Yes

No

Note: Entering this dungeon will seal it behind you prohibiting access to anyone else until you and your party leave or complete it. Your current party will be moved inside along with you. Leaving the event for more than 5 days will reset the dungeon and move your transport location to just outside the dungeon entrance.

Note: Being the first to complete the dungeon will result in additional, exclusive rewards.

Ahhhh. Feels good to be back to this again. Almost nostalgic. Yes.

Despite the similarities to both dungeons and vaults in the tutorial and world event respectively, Felix immediately realized this was evidently different. It was closer to a vault from the Trenus world event in that it was not designed to be a dungeon but rather, an existing structure that was later turned into one.

Looking around, Felix felt like he had just walked into the corporate office building of some modern company on earth.

The lobby area he walked into was massive, open concept with solid materials and minimal adornment. There was also plenty of natural light though Felix was certain those were simulated and not actual windows, considering he was deep underground.

In the lobby-as any self respecting or rather, self aggrandizing company would-there were models of their products hung around the area alongside specimens in display cases. Like a personal museum advertising their grandeur as soon as anyone walked in.

The displays should have indicated to Felix what the company did but looking around, he couldn’t be certain. There were clearly constructs of some kind, looking almost robotic in appearance alongside display cases with animals within them, for whatever reason.

He figured the animals were just vanity like dinosaur or dodo bird clones would have been on earth because if they weren’t, he had no idea what the company did. Though, he was just assuming this had been a company building, it could have been a museum of some kind instead or a hospital that specialized in prosthetics for all he knew.

Walking towards the far end of the lobby, Felix moved cautiously, wary of the displays coming to life and attacking him. His worry, while justified, seemed to be unnecessary because he was given ample warning before it happened.

Ancient Ruins: Dungeon, Lobby

This room’s enemies must be cleared before the entrances to the next are opened. Would you like to spawn the first wave now?

Note: Once spawned, your transport marble will no longer function until the room is cleared of enemies. The room will be reset once cleared so no rewards can be damaged during the fighting.

Difficulty for current party: Deadly.

Yes.

No.

That’s not very useful. System, can you display the difficulty in terms of average level and rarity?

…

Difficulty: Special, Lvl 1250, 1 wave

…

Much better. Assuming there aren’t too many of them in the wave, that doesn’t sound so bad. Also, I need to make sure I don’t get too close to C grade. I still haven’t spent enough time working towards my Soulbinder profession. Although… hitting it in my class wouldn’t be too bad I guess. It’s just-not that I would pick them-I do want to see the combined class and profession options. Alright fine, Yes.

Wave 1/1: 10 enemies

As expected, the displays in the room began moving. All the wires suspending the robotic constructs from the ceiling snapped at once and they fell to the ground. At the same time, the glass of the display cases vanished and the creatures leapt free of their podiums.

With as much warning as he had had, Felix already had Grim in hand and a spell readied. As soon as the enemies starting rushing towards him, inadvertently grouping themselves up, Felix released a Fire and Lightning storm right into the middle of the room.

Stretching just a handful of meters in every direction, a circle of roaring flames and arching lightning caught half of the approaching enemies in its appearance.

Felix darted back and Phantom Stepped to the side to dodge a javelin like projectile then shot a cluster of Force Bombs onto the heads of the creatures that were getting just a little too close.

The constructs were the harder ones to deal with in the sense that they didn’t take much damage but, as one rushed Felix from the left, he realized he didn’t need to damage them with his spells.

Reaching out with his mana control, Felix roughly tore all the mana he could grab at once in its body free. The construct collapsed to the ground as he flew over its head back towards the far end of the room.

It took a few moments for the mana in the batteries to resaturate all the enchantments so the construct could stand so in the meantime, it was completely out of the fight.

Once he knew it was possible, Felix danced through the constructs, Mihto’s training proving once again to be one of the best decisions he had ever made. Every time a construct’s limb or body passed within his mana control radius, some of their mana was stolen from them and they were left helpless. Unfortunately, that ate up nearly all of his focus but it was well worth when the constructs were the only threatening enemies in the room. The creatures were not so easily disabled but were conversely, much easier to damage.

Almost passively, Felix dropped basic spells as he flew, a few storms here and there but only because he could. Each and every Fire Ball either seared or threw at least one creature. Most of them got back up to rejoin the fight but not more than a few times.

Felix’s stats, even though he was still in the D grade, were significantly higher than any normal leveler. Even against the creatures that focused on Agility, in the C grade, with 30% more levels, Felix was faster. He didn’t even have to activate his Reaper’s Movement either. His stats were simply absurd.

Kiting and dropping spells behind him, Felix tore through the wave. The constructs were unable to get near him and they didn’t seem to have any intelligence whatsoever so they just kept trying. The creatures were a little smarter and faster overall but way easier for Felix to just drown in superheated flames.

Once all the creatures were dealt with, Felix slowed down and landed on the nearest construct, using his mana senses to pay attention to the others and his enchantment to protect him. As a javelin, or more accurately ballistae bolt now that he had seen the source, bounced off his cloak, Felix reached into the construct beneath him and fished out the battery powering it.

He repeated the process until all four of the constructs were effectively dead and he was notified that the room was cleared.

Ancient Ruins: Dungeon, Lobby [Cleared]

This room has already been cleared and reset. So long as no participants leave this room, it will be considered a safe zone. Afterwards, it will return to being a normal room and enemies may enter once again.

Ding You have gained 4 levels in [D -Legendary] Reaper (778 => 782)

Felix was happy to see the room was safe but still rather annoyed that the batteries he had freed disappeared along with the construct bodies once the room reset. The only other thing in the room was a large sheet on the reception desk. It was probably once a directory for the building but had now been adapted into a dungeon map.

Unfortunately, there was nothing else Felix was interested in in the room as the drawers under the reception desk were empty and there wasn’t really anything else there.

At the far end of the room, there were two hallways on either side, one short and one fairly long. Checking the map, he knew the short hallway contained two lifts and the other contained a number of rooms.

Felix headed towards the rooms because he wanted to clear the floor before heading to a new one.

The rooms on the ground floor seemed to be for storage, one of them a freezer and the other simply a warehouse. The freezer held only waves of frozen creatures while the warehouse only constructs. Felix dealt with all 5 waves of each with relative ease though there was no boss at the end like he had expected. In hindsight though the waves hadn’t gotten progressively stronger though.

Ding You have gained 42 levels in [D -Legendary] Reaper (782 => 824)

Dammit. I’m still in catch-up mode, gaining levels way faster than I should be. Maybe I’ll just finish this, check out the Integrated’s city which is also conveniently close to where I spawned, then try to finish at least one construct. Hopefully that’ll be enough for me to get my profession.

With the rooms were cleared, he ran through looking for loot but for the most part, the warehouse contained a lot of raw material and the freezer a lot of random creatures. None of the creatures were particularly interesting or rare and the raw metals in the warehouse were equally as mundane.

He collected and stowed everything in the event inventory nonetheless because he figured he might be able to trade or sell them with someone who cared for raw metals.

With the ground floor cleared, Felix headed to the lifts and chose the lifts headed upwards first. Based on the dungeon map, the lower floors were entire rooms themselves making them easily the biggest rooms in the entire dungeon. The floors above though were split up many times so he assumed they would be easier and a more natural progression. Either way he planned on clearing the whole thing so it didn’t matter much where he headed first.

Walking over to the lifts, Felix saw one of them was evidently meant for personnel as it was only slightly larger than he would have expected. The other though, was massive. He assumed that one was meant for cargo of some kind.

Felix took the personnel shaft up to the next floor, pressing the button that cleared the shaft and let him fly instead of using the lift itself.

The next floor up held a number of rooms holding a half dozen rooms in total. Each one was nearly identical, a massive open space that-based on the contents-used to house a lab space. They all seemed to be dedicated specifically to constructs but to Felix’s eye, they looked more like robotics.

In Ked’s lab, the constructs were advanced and used interesting techniques, in Felix’s mind, because a lot of it was new. The humanoid constructs used many interlocking plates to form flexible skin and complex enchantments to target and move things. They looked almost like armor or sometimes like androids with slotted enchantment plates and computers within them.

The constructs in the labs around Felix now, were like the ones in the lobby, older and less refined. They had obvious pistons and joints giving them a robotic aesthetic that-had he not ever been integrated-might have seemed incredibly futuristic.

As it was though, Felix recognized them for what they were, dated designs.

Each lab was designated as a clearable room with nothing distinguishing them from each-other so, Felix walked into the closest one.

Ancient Ruins: Dungeon, First Floor: Lab 1

…

Difficulty: Rare, Lvl 1400

…

Not too bad. Yes, start the waves.

The first wave spawned just 3 constructs, each of them rather small compared to the hulking brutes on display in the lobby. They were all similar with complicated upper limbs and simple lower limbs leading Felix to believe they were designed to carry or handle fine and delicate equipment. They would have been incapable of moving over even slight obstacles but the floor was entirely flat and clear.

The constructs leapt at Felix, despite their single wheel lower halves, some of them wielding weapons or tools, none of which he could identify.

He easily dealt with these constructs as he had the others, ripping their mana free from their bodies then manually dismantling them. He slowed down though and took a beat so he could examine the constructs in the first wave because they were odd.

The constructs he’d dealt with in Ked’s lab and class, the humanoid ones, were useful but limited. For them to exhibit behavior as complicated as these did, they either needed a direct connection to a master or puppeteer or a really complicated brain. Felix was fairly confident there was no master as the rooms were self contained so all it left was a complicated brain.

Before he had seen it though, he would have said it was impossible for anyone but him to get a complicated brain in constructs that were as small as half an average human. Anyone other than him, had to rely on biological brains which necessitated an entire set of support systems. At the very least a heart, lungs, stomach and some amount of nerves. The other organs could somewhat be replaced but that was more dependent on the original creature more than anything.

There were also constructs that housed their brains separately from their body, using massive mana computers to function but those required portals in the construct’s head. The issue with those was that any form of anchoring portal, the ones used in cities to redirect teleportation, completely destroyed the construct.

As far as Felix could tell though, these had to be using biological brains which meant this lab had very advanced research in the field, something he had directly been looking for just recently.

Felix quickly summoned Grim to his Soul Garden, “This is… way too convenient to be a coincidence.”

Grim nodded, “I agree. That was good foresight of you to have the conversation here.”

“Yeah. Just not sure if calling The System out would be a good idea. Worst case, it can only do this because nobody noticed and I don’t want to be penalized just for noticing.”

“Agreed. We’ll just have to keep an eye out. If it’s just helping, great. If there is some end goal to all of this though…”

Felix nodded grimly as they both absorbed the implications.

Popping back into his body, Felix destroyed the rest of the wave and blasted through the next four, each of them having one more construct than the last. While there was no boss once again, there was a stronger, larger construct in the last wave that was likely a cargo bot at some point.

Ding You have gained 22 levels in [D -Legendary] Reaper (824 => 846)

With the wave dealt with, Felix searched around for anything of value in the lab. He ended up stowing most of the lab’s contents just because they were construct building tools. There was no actual research of any kind though unfortunately.

The next 5 labs were just as easy as the first and Felix took his time with the last construct of each wave, tearing its head open before it despawned. The trick was to keep it alive while he opened their heads but that was tricky in and of itself.

He didn’t manage to examine the mechanisms themselves, but he did manage to confirm his theory that they were in fact using biological brains in the constructs. He also didn’t come across spewing blood or other organs so, they had some kind of trick he was looking forward to figuring out.

Ding You have gained 48 levels in [D -Legendary] Reaper (846 => 894)

Flying up to the second floor Felix checked his inventory and almost laughed that he was already above the capacity he could leave with just from the random tools he had picked up.

The second floor of the building above the lobby seemed to be an office space because he saw multiple conference rooms and offices containing desks. There weren’t any cubicles or other office mainstays of Earth as they didn’t use the same stationary or computers Earth humans so relied on.

Instead there was parchment-which was at least D grade and nearly impossible to tear-along with quills and skills.

Perusing the offices after clearing the floor, Felix scanned and manually read through every piece of parchment, book, folder and binder he could find. He opened every drawer and tore through every office but found nothing but boring business ledgers.

They weren’t entirely useless as a Bill of Materials still included the materials being used. Employee directories contained a list of job titles so he knew more or less what was worked on. Project budgets were somewhat useful, when he could find a project debrief or something similar but otherwise, the code names made it difficult to figure anything out.

Felix was no accountant but there did seem to be a discrepancy in the books, one he only really found because he literally had a computer glued to his head. He had no idea what it meant but some amount of materials and credits simply went unaccounted for. The credits were being routed through multiple projects, across multiple sets of balance sheets until finally vanishing. He figured he would find out why when he traveled into the basement because one of the floors on the dungeon map was excluded in all the documents he found.

After all of that, the most interesting aspect of the entire floor to Felix, was fighting the coffee and drink serving constructs in the conference rooms. That was only interesting because they fought like an angry barista, throwing drinks at him.

Ding You have gained 5 levels in [D -Legendary] Reaper (894 => 899)

The last floor before he headed to the basement, appeared to be a research lab floor. It was similar to the floor directly above the lobby but with bigger individual labs. There were also, most excitingly, bookshelves.

Ripping through the librarian and lab assistant constructs, Felix scanned all the books he could find and grabbed anything that wasn’t tied down then dropped down towards the basement.

Ding You have gained 21 levels in [D -Legendary] Reaper (899 => 925)

On the way down, Grim began sorting through the books and parchment he had found within his head.

The first floor below the ground level was infinitely more interesting to Felix than any of the previous floors he had cleared. Surrounded by light brick walls and on ceramic tile floors sat a series of massive forges connected to other, even larger machines by long stretches of enchanted bridges. The bridges connecting everything together-clearly magical conveyor belts-twisted their way all over the room, even winding their way up to being suspended from the ceiling.

The entire room was effectively a dense jungle of enchanted machinery and molten metal. Normally Felix wouldn’t have expected it to be active but it was a dungeon so he had no idea what the norm was. In this case, it was active but not really. The conveyors moved and the forges were lit but nothing was moving through the machines and being forged.

Ancient Ruins: Dungeon, Basement Level 1: The Forge

…

Difficulty: Special, Lvl 1600, 3 waves

…

Yes spawn the wave. Higher level and rarity than the upper floors… hopefully I don’t gain too many levels.

[C - Special] Molten Alloy Elemental (Lvl 1500)

The first wave spawned just three identical enemies, each one of them easy to spot as they glowed a dull orange in the otherwise monotone grey room.

This was the first time Felix had actually encountered an elemental though he had been offered the race as a potential evolution in the D grade so he wasn’t clueless. He knew they relied on a single stat and that attacking and expending large amounts of energy drained their single resource that represented health, mana and energy.

Three sludgy puddles shot towards Felix, two of them morphing into humanoid blobs and the other remaining a solitary mass without limbs to try and engulf him.

Judging from the glow and heat they were giving off, Felix had already prepared an Ice Storm spell and as soon as they got within a short distance of him, he dropped it before him and bolted back.

The storm managed to claim a small chunk of each Elemental, freezing then sloughing off, but they weren’t dumb and they quickly leapt free of the spell’s radius. They were however, slow.

One of the Elementals shot a stream of molten metal as soon as it landed and the other two tried to surround Felix from both sides. Seeing this, he quickly split the stream in front of him with a wedge shaped Force Shield then released two Frost Blasts to either side.

The front of the attacking Elementals were immediately frozen solid but not for long.

Looking towards each of them, their metal fronts that had been frozen solid had quickly melted and rejoined the rest of the body. Even peering beyond them, the Elemental that had stayed back and attacked from range had apparently eaten up the chunks he had previously frozen off.

Theoretically they’re expending energy to remelt the metal. Can’t rule out a skill that restored them when they regained material though. Okay so what the hell do I do to efficiently hurt them then?

Felix tried a whole host of spells against the Elementals from Cold to Sound to even Light until he remembered something from the job he had taken in Telviras. Orav had said to him, “Try to avoid fire or lightning. Fire tends to destroy corpses, lightning tends to destroy mana channels.”

By that logic, it made sense to him that Lightning might work well against Elementals. Lightning had once been his favorite spell due to its speed and incredible scaling factors. It had even earned him the Stormbringer nickname back in the tutorial and on Trenus. Now though, he didn’t overpower spells at all so scaling mattered little to him and a Lightning spell’s speed was only pseudo instant. He still had to ionize a path towards the target before sending the Lightning itself and that, was not instant at all.

Felix had created a number of spells himself-to cover the full range of everything he felt he would need-which included some Lightning spells despite them having fallen out of favor. Starting with a simple Lightning bolt, the electricity wasn’t nearly as visually magnificent as he would have hoped against a Metal Elemental. Logically he knew molten metal had significantly lower conductivity but that didn’t squash his hopes that they would be consumed by arcs of Lightning coursing through the entirety of their bodies.

The Lightning didn’t even seem to paralyze them for an instant like it did with normal creatures either. He kept it up though, starting with simple Bolts and moving up to persistent orbs, bombs and persistent area storms.

He made sure however, to only target one of the elementals with the Lightning spells. Once it died in a small burst of molten metal that quickly cooled, Felix switched over to Cold alone. Lightning hadn’t been as effective as he had hoped and it wasn’t the clear winner so, he had to test the others.

The next elemental fell after a higher amount of mana but a similar number of spells. In large part he knew, that was because cold spells were just plain mana inefficient.

He didn’t even bother with Fire because it felt too silly but on the last one, he was pretty sure he had figured out the best way of dealing with them. Instead of hitting the creature with a whole slew of Force Bombs and Beams, Felix carefully directed his Force spells to continually pull the creature apart. After tearing the Elemental into small chunks maybe a liter each, he found the one that moved and froze it solid, killing it instantly.

Unfortunately, his learning was much less applicable to the next wave as instead of Molten Elementals, four of the machines making up the factory itself came to life. They were marginally higher at 1550 in level but nothing significant. Using the conveyors attached to them as-very tentacle like-limbs, the machines immediately tried to constrict and drag Felix into them.

They managed to catch him a few times but it was trivial for him to release a burst of Force from his body and free himself shortly afterwards. The issue was that he had no idea how to hurt them efficiently. He also wasn’t inclined to test a bunch of things because he didn’t think he would ever encounter factory machines come to life anywhere else, ever. So, he fell back on the tried and true method of beating the ever living shit out of them with Force Spells.

The last wave of 5 creatures, all at level 1700 were a number of partially finished constructs from the factory combined with chunks of molten elementals to complete their forms. On one, its entire torso was molten metal but the limbs were those of a construct. On another, its legs alone were replaced by molten tentacles.

Felix smiled as he had a very efficient method of dealing with these now that he had experimented on the first wave. It wasn’t trivial dealing with the wave as getting close enough to the constructs to disable them also burned Felix but, Felix’s stats were still significantly higher so the partial-constructs didn’t really stand a chance.

Ding You have gained a level in [D -Legendary] Reaper (925 => 926)

Felix shook his head at how odd it was that as soon as he finished dealing with the waves-despite how broken, beaten and destroyed it may have been-the room completely reset itself to how it was. The rest made it like nothing had happened at all, in an instant, right before his eyes.

Walking through the forge, Felix felt like he was the richest man in the world as he stowed parts and pieces of various constructs. None of them were what he would have made himself, preferring the enchantment heavy design over the mechanical himself, but nonetheless they would be useful.

He stowed ingots of various metals ranging from Common all the way up to Special along with completed arms, legs, wheels, bodies, pistons, levers, plates and a whole host of specialty components.

Despite the lack of traditional reward on the floor, Felix found he was rather happy with the haul as he reviewed his inventory on his way down to the next floor.

The next floor was similar to the last though, severely lacking in forges and molten metal. Instead, the factory like setup of the next floor down seemed to be for manufacturing delicate components and the final assembly of constructs.

Instead of presses there were construct arms that carefully fit pieces together. Instead of forges, there were clean rooms where the pieces could be cleaned then fit together without risking dust and grime getting into the mechanism before it was sealed. There were molds, but the ones on this floor were tiny in comparison. Instead of leg components and large pistons, these molds seemed to produce miniscule components that Felix couldn’t identify the purpose of at first glance. The issue was they just weren’t obviously anything whereas legs and pistons were visually obvious and easy to identify.

Allowing the waves to start, Felix was almost overwhelmed by tiny constructs. The first wave consisted of 40 Special, Incomplete Constructs, each at level 1700. Even though Felix identified them as Incomplete Constructs, he never would have called them that himself.

They weren’t complete enough to be considered a construct of any kind. Instead, he would have named them Living Pile of Parts or Animated Components. They didn’t have clearly constructed arms or legs or a form of any kind. Instead they were like elementals, a whole bunch of tiny intricate parts smashed together to form a creature.

Recognizing their similarity to elementals, Felix hit them with Force spells designed to split up their components and blast them around the room.

They weren’t difficult at all to deal with and once he had, 9 larger, half finished constructs appeared.

Felix was fairly easily able to deal with those too, largely on account of the fact that they weren’t complete constructs so their movement was awkward. They would show hints of a scary attack but ultimately, entirely lose their balance.

Finally, the last wave held just one enemy, a completed construct.

[C - Special] Guardian Construct (Lvl 1700)

Considering how easily the other constructs had been to deal with, Felix wasn’t too worried about this one, despite its completed state. Humanoid but more rotund with a thick torso and 8 limbs, the Guardian Construct was easily twice as tall as Felix was, if not more.

The legs were like a crab’s but symmetrical in every direction and strong enough to brace it against an absurd amount of force. Rising out of the legs was a circular tower with four evenly spaced limbs around it. Lastly, the head was a shallow dome that had a slit around it, possibly to see but Felix didn’t really know.

The construct rushed towards Felix faster than any had before as mana surged through its body and its torso began to spin up, its arms poised to throw him to the side.

Felix launched himself out of the way and the construct blew right by him but even the wake in the air around its limbs was enough to knock Felix aside and off course. Mihto’s training once again proved instrumental in his flipping over and kicking off a Phantom Step.

Even though the construct had rushed through Felix’s mana control range, he didn’t have the focus to completely halt its mana flow because he was using it to get away. He definitely didn’t have enough speed by himself to dodge it without assistance. If he didn’t use a spell, he would have been knocked aside and his cloak enchantment possibly overpowered even just from the momentum. Wide spread blunt force countered his enchantment-although the soul suffusing it helped-and the force behind the constructs swings was ridiculous.

Though Felix didn’t have the focus or speed to stop its mana completely, he did have the focus to pay attention to the mana flows within it.

Not only did it use mana for basic movement but there were essentially spells inscribed into plates within its arms, legs and body. Felix used Force spells to move and in the past, to swing Eretheas, but the construct had them embedded and so its timing was perfect. While Felix’s timing was never off by much-never more than a second by his guess-actual perfect timing made a massive difference.

The construct was able to effectively swing with vastly more Strength and Agility than it normally had. Felix had no idea how big its mana pool was either because, after seeing how big the batteries were in Erevos, he knew a construct this big could have an essentially endless supply. At least in a fight against Felix, it would win any battle of attrition where he couldn’t steal its mana.

Force spells felt useless to Felix, considering the thick layer of armored plates on every side of its body. Lightning was a decent possibility but if he was right about the battery size, it wouldn’t be enough.

His best hope was to jostle the inside of the construct which meant getting it within his mana control range, then casting a spell inside of it.

In all the previous fights up to this point, Felix hadn’t been able to activate his Reaper’s skills because they were just too easy. He wasn’t really being pushed at all. In fact, he had lost less than a couple percent of his health in total from burns.

Unfortunately, he still instinctively didn’t see this fight as enough of a challenge either so, he was stuck with his base stats.

Preparing two Force spells, one for himself and one for the construct, Felix let it wind up its attack, spinning up its torso and leaping towards him.

As soon as it was within his mana control range, he released both Force spells. The one targeting his own body wasn’t fast enough though as the construct released a claw from one of its arms, grabbing Felix in mid air.

Unfortunately the one released into his body didn’t seem to do anything either, at least nothing Felix could see.

The claw grabbed and pulled Felix into the constructs spinning, and waiting arms before he had a chance to cast anything. The massive metal limb came spinning around and slammed into Felix’s cloak, ripping right through the enchantment and knocking him aside.

He lost an absurd 10% of his health pool from the hit and subsequent slam into the wall, even after being slowed by his cloak enchantment. The only upside being, the claw had released him.

Felix chastised himself for not foreseeing the ranged attack before getting hit by it as he got back to his feet and dodged the next charge from the construct.

After that, Felix tried Lightning but quickly decided it wasn’t doing anything useful followed by a number of other spells before he finally decided to risk disabling it with his mana control.

All he had to do was get its whole body within 20 meters of him without getting hit.

His plan was rather simple, stand near a wall and let it charge him. Once it was within 20 meters, dive through the spinning arms and land behind it, disabling its mana before he landed.

Executing his plan, was a different story. It took Felix nearly 10 minutes of trying, 5 glancing hits taking over 20% more of his total health pool, and a whole lot of frustration later before he finally managed to disable it. At no point during Felix’s attempts did he manage to consistently activate the Reaper’s buff either because no matter how hard he tried or frustrated he got, he didn’t see this enemy as a challenge.

Once it was disabled, Felix carefully began dismantling it-examining everything-before it finally despawned, its massive battery disappearing along with it.

Ding You have gained 2 levels in [D -Legendary] Reaper (926 => 928)

Felix sighed in disappointment as he looted as much as he could from the room but unfortunately, mostly just ended up with fragile components he had no idea what to do with.

Heading down to the next floor, Felix was swarmed by low level, albeit large, rats. The next wave was similar but with slightly larger creatures followed finally by some kind of ape like creature. None of them posed much of a challenge though because all of Felix’s spells were effective once again. He used Fire, Force, Cold and Lightning to obliterate them and the room, knowing everything would be reset to pristine condition.

Ding You have gained a level in [D -Legendary] Reaper (928 => 929)

The floor seemed to contain advanced surgical equipment, which Felix took as much as he could of, but nothing particularly interesting. The implications though, of tools designed to remove the brains from creatures, were exciting.

He just hoped the next floors would contain something useful in terms of methodology so he knew what to do with half the stuff he had picked up.

The next floor appeared to be a storage room and he was swarmed by both finished and half finished constructs. Most of them weren’t designed for combat so they weren’t too difficult to deal with though, some of the later waves contained multiple completed Guardian Constructs. They were lower level though and Felix knew their internals better now so they weren’t nearly as difficult to deal with.

Ding You have gained a level in [D -Legendary] Reaper (929 => 930)

After the waves were cleared though-despite still not knowing what much of it was-Felix gleefully flew around the room, weaving up and down the shelves and stowing everything in the room.

He got components, assembled limbs, preserved and extracted brains, eye balls and other organs along with a small number of nearly complete, inactive constructs.

With just one floor left, Felix happily hopped into the cargo lift and let it carry him downwards. Where all the other floors had taken at most a few seconds for the lift to reach, this floor seemed to be much further down. It took him a few minutes in the lift, despite how fast he knew it was moving.

When it finally opened, Felix was in awe.

The room was darker than most of the other rooms with blinking lights and slight glows casting odd shadows all over.

In the center of the room there was some kind of object held a few meters off the ground. On top of the object, thousands of tubes and cables fed into a series of needles probing it. Those cables and tubes led all over the room, some of them disappearing through walls and others attached to contraptions around the outside.

Other than the complicated machine before him, the only other thing in the room, was a feeling permeating the ambient anima. Pride or rather, arrogance. The only other time Felix had experienced something even remotely similar was in the presence of The Endless Hunger in Telviras where it permeated a feeling of insatiable hunger.

Felix blocked out the feeling as much as he could and replaced all the spells he needed to in Grim’s pages. Forcing himself to take an extra second, just incase the arrogance was affecting him, he made certain using the logical faculties of his brain, that he was ready before he started the waves.

He stood at a decent vantage point, on the walkway that was a few meters off the ground, all the way around the room. He made sure to have defensive and mobility spells, in Grim’s pages, ready in front of him in case he needed them immediately. He made sure his cloak and robes were completely repaired and his resource pools filled.

Taking a couple of deep breaths to push out the feeling of arrogance permeating the air as much as he could, he started the waves.

Almost immediately, despite being as prepared as he could have been, Felix regretted starting the encounter.

[C - Special] Security Construct (Lvl 1950)

In each corner of the room humanoid constructs each standing 4 meters tall appeared. They had a single solid piece forming their torsos and large plates that almost looked like armor forming the arms and legs. Lastly, they each held small heads with a glass circle that appeared to mimic eyes for them.

The thing that immediately threw Felix off though, was how they moved. They didn’t move in jilted, robotic movements like the Guardian construct and most other constructs did. Neither did they move naturally like humans. They moved with an unnatural flow in a way humans never could, naturally but with consistent speed and force as they stood.

Felix figured his best bet was to wait and see what they did before he did anything so he waited and let them come to him. Instead of approach him though, once they were all standing, each one of them released a red beam from their faceplates without any forewarning whatsoever.

Felix immediately dove backwards and kept himself low to the ground but it didn’t matter. Before he even landed, their beams had sheared through the platform beneath him.

Taking a direct hit to his shoulder as he dove right, Felix lost nearly a million mana just having his cloak defend him. Even then, he lost a few percent of his health as the entire area was cooked from the residual heat on the air.

Trying to get one of the constructs to hit another with their beam, Felix shot himself laterally but the constructs were smarter than that. Instead of hitting the other construct, the one the furthest from Felix leapt up to the platform behind him to match his height.

With his high ground advantage completely gone, Felix flew up into the air and tried to use the room itself to protect him.

Unfortunately, likely as a product of being reworked into dungeon creatures, the constructs had little regard for the room itself. As Felix flew into the massive tangle of tubes and wires above them, the constructs simply took aim and melted through them.

Felix dodged as much as he could but molten metal from the tubes splattered all over him, eating more mana and health as they rested and cooled on his shoulders.

Dropping down, Felix decided to get in as close as he could to at least one of the constructs to remove its access to mana. As he fell-and dodged all the remaining beams-Felix urged his body to get his Reaper’s buff going but he found that deep down, he didn’t feel like he needed it. He was better than these constructs, he had likely the best mana control in the universe and stats that towered above everyone else’s. He was essentially a go-

Fucking arrogance in the anima. What the hell is that anyways.

Cutting out the feeling, Felix still wasn’t able to activate his Reaper’s buffs but he was able to shift his attention back to the constructs before him.

The one he was dropping onto never stopped trying to fry him with the beam but it did brace itself, its knees bending slightly, back tightening and arms widening to accept his fall.

Felix was more than happy to jump into its arms but he made sure not to make it obvious, despite the arrogance telling him there was no way they could foresee his plan. Felix weaved his way through the air, avoiding the beams as best he could and trying his best to avoid the construct below him and hit the ground instead.

He knew that was impossible though as the construct had its feet on the ground and Agility that seemed to be at least equal to his even without using the spells inscribed into its limbs.

Landing in the constructs arms just as it lost all its mana and collapsed gave Felix a brief second of respite as the others dropped their beams to avoid killing their ally. Once they saw them collapsed on the ground though, they resumed their fire, just as Felix had hoped.

Using Force spells to throw the limp metallic body up, Felix let the other constructs do his work for him. An instant later, mana surged back into its body as Felix had given up on disabling it so he could move it. It was far too late though as the construct was melted through from three different angles.

Smiling to himself-but making damn sure to avoid letting the arrogance get to him-Felix shot himself towards another construct to repeat the exact same thing with them. It didn’t take too long-though he did waste 30% of his health and had already used nearly half his mana-before Felix managed to fell two more constructs using their own beams which just left one of them.

Once it was just the two of them, Felix rushed forwards and dove into its grip, allowing its arms to limply envelop him as he disabled its mana and began tearing it apart from the inside.

Shortly afterwards, the next wave started and Felix was left facing just a single enemy.

[C - Epic] Elite Security Construct (Lvl 1975)

This construct was similar to all the others he had faced in a way but also completely different. It was obvious they had had the same origin with some identical features and components but the assembly was much sleeker.

The Security Construct was just under 3 meters tall and very closely resembled a human in plate armor but with slightly off proportions. The legs-each a thick plated trunk-were located directly laterally from the pelvic joint which was just below a waist that was inhumanly thin with little to no plating. Instead, the waist consisted of a series of complex interlocking rings that formed a naturally armored spine of sorts.

The chest looked normal, though above the waist its size was accentuated, and the head looked very much like a helmet. The shoulders were attached a little too in line with the chest making them look slightly more robotic than human and the thin upper arms attached to them were too thin to contain any human’s arms.

Lastly the forearms were normal and plated, if a little big in comparison to the rest of the arm but they supported what looked to be hands for a creature twice the construct’s size. The hands otherwise though, looked just like human hands which made sense to Felix once he considered the straight blade, single edged sword it removed from its back.

Taking a single step forwards, the construct distorted the metal in the ground kicking off and rushing towards Felix.

The blade swung horizontally and Felix was ready, ducking and using a Force spell to push himself downwards faster than gravity alone could carry him. He felt his hair get yanked by the wind wake of the sword right as the construct’s metal foot smashed into his chest.

Instead of kicking him backwards though, the construct kicked Felix straight into the ground so all the Security Construct had to do was step forwards once to keep him in range.

Damn, my mistake. Those other ones were smart and moved naturally but this one is way smarter and moves with force and intent with experience. If I didn’t know with certainty it wasn’t, I would swear it was a leveler in enchanted armor.

As he had wasted some of his focus on dodging and he wasn’t nearly fast enough, he hadn’t managed to cut the mana flow in the construct before it was on top of him again. Instead, he was forced to use his instinct cast just to push himself out of the way of a quick downwards stab. He wasn’t quite fast enough though as two and a half million mana was ripped out of him in an instant when his cloak failed to stop the blade just a few millimeters above the ground.

Felix created an angled Phantom Step below his feet then kicked off it and flipped himself back upwards as the construct chased him down, never ceasing to try and swing its sword into him.

No matter how hard he tried to set it up, Felix couldn’t find a way to get the construct into range of his mana control without its sword ripping him open at the same time. He already knew his cloak enchantment was insufficient but he decided he was willing to take a strike anyways, so long as he didn’t die from it.

Unfortunately, the construct didn’t ever go for non lethal strikes. If Felix pushed himself aside to make it one, he didn’t have enough remaining focus. Dodging alone, he wasn’t nearly fast enough and either the arrogance in the room or even just his own was enough that he couldn’t consistently get the Reaper’s Movement skill to activate.

Damn. I really need to practice that more.

The construct dashed and swiped for Felix’s neck so he jumped up and over it. The construct pivoted then swung over its head, Felix pushing himself to the side. The construct whirled and reached out for Felix’s ankle managing to grab hold of it right as the sword came back around.

Pulling Felix down and shoving the tip of the sword upwards, the construct tried to spear Felix but he instinct cast and writhed just enough to move his own body out of the way. His foot though, locked into place as it was, got skewered right before the blade was pulled outwards as hard as possible splitting his foot in two.

Doing so forced the construct to release Felix’s foot which was the point he realized how he was going to win this fight.

Ow, my fucking foot! The only reason it would do something so cruel, releasing me just to cause pain… is if it had an ego of its own which means, it is being affected by the arrogance as well. I didn’t think it would affect a construct much but… if they use biological brains like I suspect… actually, all they’d need is a soul of some kind, rig- Later. Right now, it is arrogant.

Rolling on the ground to avoid another strike along with an instinct cast just to be fast enough, Felix pushed off the ground into an upright position pressing his back against the construct.

Its free arm immediately wrapped itself around Felix’s chest and squeezed, not letting his mistake go unpunished. As he was inside the sword’s radius, the construct had to lift it back up to spear him but Felix miscalculated. He wasn’t a swordsman and didn’t know how to properly handle one.

He had expected the construct to have to pull the sword back to spear him but instead, it simply spun its wrist around in a way no human ever could and flicked the blade right up into his neck.

It squeezed against his cloak, breaking the enchantment then pulled back on its sword arm in a motion that would both slit Felix’s throat and cut at least halfway through his neck right as it fell limp behind him.

Felix pushed himself with his full strength, an instinct cast and the Strength and Agility granted to him by Reaper’s Body and Reaper’s Movement, as he finally managed to activate them, right as it seemed too late.

The momentum of a blade carried by half a million Strength along with enchantments and spells in the arms of the construct was a scary strike in and of itself. In pulling himself back, Felix had saved his spine but the blade did cut through the majority of his throat.

Falling to the ground, Felix simultaneously made damn sure he kept the construct’s mana still as he scrambled to put pressure on his neck and keep the wound closed. Looking at his health, he almost sighed in relief but two things stopped him. He physically couldn’t as blood poured into his lungs choking him and he saw, a moment later, how fast his remaining health was declining.

From 40% health, he dropped by 2-3% every few milliseconds forcing him to take drastic actions. He touched the sword on the ground with his foot and stowed it in his inventory then cast an identical spell in both of his hands, both of which were pressed against his neck. In doing so, he only had a fraction of a second before the construct would reawaken behind him so he didn’t risk doing anything carefully.

He grimaced at the smell of his flesh searing and fusing itself together, the pain almost entirely absent as he had long since disabled it. As he watched his health plummet to 10%, still buffed to a ridiculous degree from Reaper’s body, he felt relief wash through him as he realized the health loss had slowed to nearly nothing.

The construct behind him, capitalizing on the mana flowing back into its body, grasped and lifted Felix. Holding him upside down from the ankle, the construct squeezed enough to break his bone but not enough to separate the limb. To inflict more pain though, it reached its finger out and dug into the wound it had opened in his foot earlier.

Felix didn’t feel the pain with his body and soul suppressing it he felt nothing more than echoes acknowledging its existence but he let just a touch of it through anyways. Enough to make him feel pain and show it but not enough to distract him.

That seemed to be just enough as the construct reveled in its victory as it tried to torture Felix.

A moment later, it fell limp once again, Felix crumpling under its body as it fell. He didn’t dare move though as the skin on his hands was still fused to his neck and he was pretty sure pulling his hands away now was death.

He didn’t have enough focus remaining to manually guide the healing so he just hoped it wouldn’t be too bad when he pulled his hands away. In the meantime, he had enough focus left-especially with his pain being completely blocked out-to have a mental conversation with Grim.

I know we already talked about this but… this construct and this fight… despite level, rarity and therefore stats being vastly lower… was so much harder. The Caster’s Duel was so… easy.

Grim nodded somewhat non-commitally in Felix’s head, I think maybe the lethality has something to do with it. Also in the duels, you’re limited to specific spells and shields, you don’t have to worry about nearly as much.

Felix had somewhat of a realization in that moment and mentally gasped, It’s experience again. In the duels, the options are so limited, it’s not hard to mentally simulate all the options. He uses a red bolt here I use a red shield so he’ll either force me to combine shield colors or expand the shield and then try to hide himself behind my shield and so on.

Yeah. In a real fight with no restrictions, you just rely on your experience and training to know what to do.

Something which I severely lack.

Yeah. Again, you’re getting by on your absurd advantages and more importantly, your unique level of mana control. It’s completely countering these enemies. It would be interesting to see how someone else, a caster especially, handles dueling a construct like that.

Yeah. Only other one is Adaline though… seems she doesn’t like me much… for some reason.

Not sure, you’d have to ask her or Melody who seems to be spending time with her in Group Combat.

Felix mentally shrugged, Maybe I can find memory crystals of her fights. Or just branch out to other casters like Edras when they were younger.

Once his health was back above 70 or so, Felix carefully pulled his hands free, unable to use spells to direct the splitting of the skin, lest he release the construct currently covering him.

He ended up removing most of the skin from his own neck but the bigger arteries remained closed so his regeneration would handle the skin alone in time. Even if it didn’t, he wasn’t losing health fast enough that it worried him. He had more than enough time to dismantle the construct, kill it and enter a meditation.

He already knew this was last wave too.

After peeling back most of the skin on his palms, Felix began pulling apart the construct physically and with instinct casts as he continued to hold its mana completely still. The process somewhat pained him as the construct was the most impressive construct he had ever seen before but that was only a small part of him as, he knew the body would despawn soon enough.

As expected, once Felix dismantled about half of the torso, the corpse completely disappeared and the room completely reset.

Ding You have gained 29 levels in [D -Legendary] Reaper (930 => 959)

Ignoring all the System messages for the time being, Felix dropped into a meditation for just 30 minutes, spending the time in his Soul Garden and library documenting, organizing and making notes on the construct he had dismantled.

Once his health was completely restored, Felix was happy to find none of his arteries, veins, skin or throat had fused themselves together incorrectly so there was nothing he had to do. Back in pristine condition, he let the messages pour in.

Ancient Ruins: Dungeon, Research Lab [Cleared]

This room has already been cleared and reset. As this is the last room of the dungeon, the dungeon is considered cleared. You are the first to clear this specific dungeon and so you will obtain unique rewards for doing so. This dungeon will remain sealed until you leave, with or without your rewards.

Claim rewards now?

Yes.

No.

Yes.

Ancient Ruins: Dungeon, Research Lab

Rewards

[? - ???] Unknown

[C - Epic] Elite Security Construct: Inactive

[C - Special] Security Construct: Inactive

[C - Special] Guardian Construct: Inactive

[B - Legendary] Research Compendium: Combining Biological Matter and Arcanomechanical Constructs

[C - Legendary] Construct Blueprint Compendium: Ancient Ruins, Research Lab

1000 Inventory points.

What in the… Unknown?

Suddenly a quest screen was basically forced on him, replacing the last screen he had been focused on.

Quest: The Grand Design

Collect all ??? of the [? - ???] Unknown [1/???] (1/???)

Uh… Well, that’s a… Okay then.

Pulling the Unknown out of his inventory, Felix’s hand was suddenly filled with what looked almost like an organ. It was covered in a thin film that did nothing to hide the dark veins within but covered and contained whatever was inside it in a squishy layer that Felix couldn’t think of a comparison for. In total it was no bigger than a softball in radius and was slightly capsule or egg shaped.

Felix looked on in disgust as he reached inwards with his mana senses to try and figure out anything he could. He already knew this was source of the arrogance permeating the ambient anima, he could easily feel it. He wasn’t interested in destroying it with his novice soul probing just yet though.

As soon as he reached inwards, Felix had a pretty good idea of what he was holding. He spent his time carefully examining and mapping it out though until he had a perfect mental mapping of it in his mind.

Ding You have become more proficient with the Profession skill: [Arcane] Identify Arcane Component (Initiate V => Adept XXIV)

Ding You have altered the Profession skill: [Arcane] Identify Arcane Component (Adept XXIV => Adept XXIV)

What in the System… I… How many tiers of proficiency did I just skip?

Initiate, Apprentice, Journeyman, Proficient, Adept.

Yeah okay, a lot. Also, why did I just go from Adept 24 to Adept 24 with the alteration? That’s not a mistake right?

25 is the maximum, remember?

Oh right, I need to evolve or grow the skill or something, right?

You probably hit the limit for proficiency for this skill or… something like that. Now you need to upgrade it somehow.

Okay, fair enough. What the hell am I supposed to do about that right now? How do I even upgrade a skill?

You already have a direction you want to take this skill. Why not just… try it?

Yeah I guess there really is no harm in just trying it here. Okay System, let’s have this skill eat all my other identify skills.

Warning Your proficiency in the resultant skill will decrease. The other skills that are consumed will become unavailable until the resultant skill is dismissed. This will consume an item you are wearing. Would you like to continue?

Wait… an item? Screw it, I can replace the ring. Sure.

Ding You have upgraded the Profession skill: [Arcane] Identify Arcane Component (Adept XXIV) => Innate: [Arcane] Arcane Identify (Apprentice XIV)

[Arcane] Arcane Identify has consumed: [Special] Identify Material Flaws, [Uncommon] Identify Arcane Material Properties, [Rare] Identify Material Properties, [Common] Identify.

Huh. So… I suddenly have four free Profession skill slots. Fun… Also, didn’t even realize it was possible to replace the standard Identify skill.

Looking down, sure enough, the ring he had gotten back in a vault during the first Trenus world event had vanished. He really couldn’t complain about the results especially when it was such an efficient transaction for him.

Well, let’s see what this new skill can do.

Looking down at the ‘Unknown’ in his hand, Felix identified it once more.

[? - ???] Unknown

???

Oh come on. I already know it’s a mana computer and I know it’s denser than anything except my own. Ugh.. fine.

Reaching outwards with his soul, Felix began to probe the object. He knew he wasn’t allowed to put it in his Soul Space because it was an object from the event but, there was a lot he could learn outside of his Soul Space.

With as light a touch as he could muster, Felix examined the soul bound to the object and was able to determine a few things. Firstly, it used a curse to make it stronger, namely arrogance or something of a similar name. Secondly, there were a few constructed and bound convictions but all of them synergized to try and keep the mana within the computer itself stable. Lastly, the soul was its own and self contained, it wasn’t borrowing a core soul, it had its own.

Ding You have demonstrated sufficient proficiency to unlock the Class Skill: [Reaper’s Identification (Legendary - Novice I) This skill allows the user to examine the structure of a soul within an item or a creature. The identification dr-]

Warning No available class skill slots found. Compatibility with Innate Skill: [Arcane] Arcane Identify found. Would you like to merge the Class Skill [Reaper’s Identification] into your Innate Identify skill?

Warning Merging a Class skill into an Innate skill can cause complications during evolutions. Drastically divergent class upgrades may result in Incomplete skills later until a replacement skill can be found. Would you like to continue?

Warning As skills gained in the Reaper’s class are based solely on demonstrated proficiency, not merging the skill may result in permanent loss of the skill. Demonstrating proficiency in the future will be significantly more difficult. Would you like to continue?

Uh… What? Did The System just have a stroke? Are you sure there aren’t any more warnings? Why did the description get cut off for that skill…

Felix tried opening the description of the class skill but he didn’t actually have the skill in his class so he couldn’t.

Yes. Combine it.

Ding You have become more proficient with the Innate skill: [Arcane] Arcane Identify (Apprentice XIV => Skilled III)

Uhm… This can’t be a normal experience right? That was… ridiculous. Okay, trying again.

[? - ???] Unknown

???

Son of a bitch. Okay, all that’s left is the actual physical makeup of the stupid thing. How the hell do I break it down without destroying it though? If I could… wait a minute.

Taking a scalpel he had looted from one of the previous rooms, Felix carefully tried to remove just a sliver of tissue from the object. As soon as the blade touched the object though, a warning he wasn’t allowed to ignore appeared before him.

Warning

Quest: The Grand Design

Causing irreparable damage to [? - ???] Unknown may result in drastic changes to this quest line. As this is an event wide quest currently held by 7 people, these people will be notified as soon as such changes occur. Your name and location may become a part of the altered quest line in the future.

Wait… this is an event wide quest? 7 others have Unknowns in their inventories? My name and location… It’s implying the quest will become ‘hunt me down’… lovely. Well, I don’t want to damage either but I’m also pretty sure this damage is reparable. That’s the only reason I’m doing this.

Deciding to risk it, Felix brought the scalpel back down and carefully removed a sliver from the outer edge of the flesh sack. He was able to remove a small amount without it seeming like there had been too much damage so he was more than happy with that.

Once he had though, he had to heal the Unknown and luckily, he had memorized a couple of healing spells from the library, solely because they were ridiculously complicated. He didn’t have any hope of raw casting them as his best guess put them around level 500 in terms of complexity. Unfortunately, he didn’t think he could just go with the simplest one either as he didn’t need to stimulate the regeneration or increase the energy flow within the object, he needed to heal it directly.

Finding the only spell he had memorized that could do that, Felix began carefully inscribing it into a plate he had in his inventory. Seeing as his plate was not designed for this, he had to miniaturize the spell a bit but he didn’t alter anything, just shrinking the entire thing directly with some modifications he had learned as an enchanter for the modified channels. After that he used a wonderful material he had bought that was an inlay material ground up into a putty. All he had to do was lay out the putty and melt it with heat.

Once all that was done, Felix placed the plate and a bit of inlay into his Soul Space and finished the spell, to be 100% certain he didn’t gain Profession levels. Pulling it back out, Felix cast the heal on himself just to see how effective it was and laughed when he healed a meager 100 points.

Sighing, he pointed it at the object and repeatedly cast the spell until the object looked whole to him, then cast it another 20 times just to be safe.

Finally, Felix took the small piece he had removed and tried stowing it in his Soul Space. Once again, he found he wasn’t allowed, as he had expected, so he tried his original plan. Directing The Blood Ring, Felix watched the sliver morph into a stream of crimson that poured into his ring.

Not technically storing it directly so… hooray for loopholes.

With the sliver broken down into its cellular components, Felix used The Blood Ring to examine each and every cell he found. By the end, he had learned exactly nothing new. The biological matter did exactly what he had expected it to, it added stability and protection the computer as well as a solid bind point for the soul.

Alright, one last time.

[A - Cursed] Imitation System Core

A Core created to try and build an Imitation System. The core contains a large chunk of a mana computer bound with a cursed soul that uses biological matter for added stability.

Ding You have become more proficient with the Innate skill: [Arcane] Arcane Identify (Skilled III => Skilled VI)

I… What the fuck… So I take it the ques- Wait, open quest: The Grand Design.

Quest: The Grand Design

Collect all 256 of the Imitation System Cores. [1/256] (1/???)

Doesn’t say. Maybe we aren’t trying to power the thing up. Or maybe we are… I guess either way The Real System isn’t really threatened by this Imitation System. Anyways, all that skill nonsense was weird, right?

Grim shrugged in Felix’s mind, I have no fucking clue what’s normal here, don’t ask me.

Fair enough. Oh shit, I can’t believe I almost forgot, the other rewards I got…

Felix quickly pulled each one of his rewards out individually and couldn’t help but smile as he looked over the giant construct corpses that were identical to the ones he had slain. On top of that, reading through the blueprints he had, he was confident he had all the necessary components to make a couple more of at least the basic Guardian Constructs.

Back at Eramith too, if he stretched Melody’s generous coffers, he could use even stronger materials and replicate some the Elite Security Construct, given a few epochs of course.

He stowed everything for now though and sighed as they far exceeded his now 2000 allotted points so, he was going to have do some organizing. The two compendiums he had already memorized so he didn’t mind leaving them behind. The constructs, tools, components and materials were the items of real value to him right now.

The Imitation System Core was cool but more useful with respect to the quest than anything. He could have recreated the thing if he wanted to. In fact, he could do better with his own soul seeds and denser mana computers. The biological component and how it was all interconnected still eluded him but, he didn’t need curses or biological matter to create computers this dense.

The quest though, and the prospect of an Imitation System were interesting enough that he was happy to keep the core. At least, keep it safe in his inventory for now.

Felix briefly examined the room and ended up cutting out and stowing a large portion of it before finally deciding it was time to leave and heading out of the dungeon. Using a portal to return to his spawn location, Felix looked around briefly before he was presented with a warning that he only had 4 minutes left before his inventory was forcibly reduced to capacity.

Quickly checking around to make sure nobody was around, Felix cast a Force bubble around himself that obscured vision then opened a portal into his cache. He then walked in and closed the portal behind him. Instead of emptying right away though, Felix began carving out shelves along the walls so things stayed somewhat organized. Luckily the rock here was solid enough that he didn’t have issues with making the shelves relatively thin.

As he began removing things, he realized that oddly, the Imitation System Core didn’t have a point allotment. Once his inventory was back to within capacity, containing the Elite Construct and the Imitation System Core alone, Felix carved out a room around ten meters to a side and placed the Elite Security Construct: Inactive on the ground. He decided he would use the room as his workshop for the time being.

Happy with that, Felix exited his personal underground cache-vault-cave and also workshop now, then returned to the surface. He made sure to be as careful as possible to ensure no one found his vault before he hopped back into Erevos and headed straight into the desert. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .