Universe's End

With two days left until the next wave's arrival, Rory spent his time finishing his final preparations. First was his bow; he’d fashioned a new one in record time using his recently improved knife. A quick analysis brought a hit of disappointment that Rory hadn’t been expecting, though.

Antler Horn Bow

Grade: Poor

A bow crafted from the Antlers of a slightly magical creature. While it has lost most of the magical potency contained during life, it has gained an arrow potency boosting record. Akashic Record: Boosted Arrow Acceleration

“No focus boost?” Rory frowned when he’d first seen the text. “Rough.”

The focus-boosting effect of his previous bow had granted him skill with the bow that would ordinarily require months, if not years, of experience. The new Akashic effect was, on the contrary, much more straightforward. Pull the bowstring back, let a spark of Pneuma flow into it, and release. The arrow would then fly forward with greater velocity than ordinary, which would prove quite helpful if he ever were faced against any sturdy monsters. Still, when his arrows were already more than capable of killing a jackalope in one shot, the extra potency was overkill.

And trying to hit a fast-moving Triumph Fox with an arrow is going to be tough without the Focus Boost effect.

After his bow had been finished, Rory had then spent the rest of his remaining time updating his wall array with the inclusion of his absorption rune. The effects were two-fold. First, its efficiency at utilizing Pneuma was increased. If before it had only been able to accept something like seventy-five percent of Pneuma gathered, now it seemed closer to the full one hundred. The wall's mechanics hadn’t changed or become more efficient; they were just better at lossless intake of Pneuma. The secondary feature of his walls with the new rune inclusion was that they passively drew in Pneuma. The effect was much smaller than when he directly fueled the walls with Pneuma; they had a relatively low saturation point, but it was a passive and continuous effect.

The only thing he hadn’t managed to update his walls with was a rune to draw the attention of monsters directly to them. It was a minor distinction for the time being; as long as his walls stood in the way of monsters, they would be forced to direct their attention toward them, but once monsters started appearing that could leap or fly over, or even dig under, they would bypass his walls. As much as he wanted to incorporate the feature into his walls, he couldn’t stretch the intent of any of his current six runes to encompass such a feat. There needed to be some overlap from what he’d tested with his inscriptions.

It's a feature for the future in that case.

Thus, with a new bow in hand and improved walls, the day of anticipation arrived, and his countdown to the wave was nearing zero.

“Initiate wave early,” Rory called out from his spot near the top of his walls, standing atop his ladder.

One day, I’d like walls that I can properly stand upon.

The countdown instantly dropped to zero before vanishing entirely.

“Here we go.”

By prior experience, the first few stages of the waves would contain jackalopes, monsters he no longer feared. While the jackalopes were hardly an afterthought, the Triumph foxes that would arrive weren’t nearly as casual of a problem.

As for the final stage of the wave, well, he had no idea what to expect other than trouble.

Arrow already drawn back, Rory settled in, waiting. Minutes passed until they began to appear, several jackalopes drawing close until stopping entirely once they were in range to fire upon him without being in melee range.

Which was just fine by Rory. The second he saw the jackalopes, he began launching arrows as quickly as possible. His aim, now unboosted, caused him to miss several times, but what he lost in aim, he gained in speed, the arrow spearing through the air in the blink of an eye.

Within seconds, the first stage was settled; Rory hadn’t even needed to throw a distracting rock yet.

Huh. I don’t think it was just the speed of the arrows, either.

His boosted cognition and flexibility had helped in a way he hadn’t considered, able to more quickly track where the jackalopes were and swiftly draw and fire arrows off.

Guess attributes can help in ways that aren’t just what you’d read on the label.

The next stage arrived shortly after, and while there were more jackalopes -requiring him to toss out a stone- the stage went down much the same as the first. The jackalopes weren’t intelligent fighters; they generally relied solely on instinct.

Jackalopes were promptly murdered, and the fateful stage arrived: two foxes appeared, slowly exiting the forest, their shoulders nearly touching.

Here we go.

His arrow knocked; Rory let Pneuma build for several seconds, allowing it to reach the ‘max’ amount of Pneuma the bow seemed capable of accepting before letting it fly. With a crack of sound that reminded Rory of a gunshot, the arrow flew faster than even his enhanced cognition could process.

What his and the foxes' cognitions could process were clearly vastly different. The beast flinched, nearly avoiding the arrow.

Thankfully for Rory, nearly was as valuable as a screen door on a submarine. Instead of a clean hit straight through the eye, the arrow ‘merely’ slammed through its skull and nailed the Triumph Fox to the ground.

Huh. Didn’t expect that. Rory mused, already aiming at the second fox. Racing forward, it began to claw at his gate, trying to tear through. Unfortunately for the fox, Rory had already activated the defensive array before the wave started. It put him on a time limit to finish the wave, but he’d been reasonably confident that he could breeze through the early stages with time to spare. Claws sinking only half an inch into the wood, the second fox soon joined the first in the afterlife as an arrow slammed through its skull.

“Ouch.” Rory winced, holding his head like he had been struck by an arrow to the dome. His ineptitude with Pneuma was showing; two maxed-out arrows were enough to cause the beginnings of a headache. “It’s fine. Only two more waves of foxes to go.”

Soon, three more foxes appeared from the woods, arrows flying the moment he saw them. It was a reminder of the world of difference that ranged weapons made against melee weaponry in the hands of humans. It had been a desperate struggle for survival when he’d been forced to fight a Triumph Fox in close-quarters combat.

Safely perched near the top of his walls, able to take his time to aim and fire as the foxes attempted to tear through his magically infused walls? Even if he missed one or two times, Rory was still more than able to kill the three monster foxes with only a small effort.

“It's like shooting fish in a barrel,” Rory commented as the three foxes lay pin-cushioned to the ground. Still, they were beginning to make headway in tearing through his wall. If there were many more stages left, it would be far more concerning, but with only a single stage of foxes left and whatever would arrive for the seventh and final stage, Rory believed they would.

Because if they don’t, well, I’m right done screwed.

The foxes arrived shortly, a little faster than he had estimated but within the margin of acceptable error. Releasing an arrow, he missed by a hair, the arrow ripping through its paw but still allowing the wounded fox to charge his wall.

Rory winced, his head aching.

Damn headache.

Not letting the slightly sooner-than-expected arrival rattle him, Rory took a deep breath, calming himself before he began setting himself to the busy work of hunting foxes. Beginning to run low on arrows, Rory took extra time to measure each shot, judging that the additional time was worth the extra damage to his walls. Each extra second spent aiming was that much larger of a hole in the bottom of his wall, growing precariously large with each passing moment.

Just a little more.

Ignoring the stabbing pain of his head, Rory drew Pneuma through his bow and moments later a fox died in response. Three left; Rory purposely left the wounded fox for last, aiming at the next closest fox with a darker gray coat than its compatriots. Only a breath later, an arrow ripped through its throat in a shower of blood and gore; only two last foxes remained.

As if sensing their impending doom, the foxes began to tear at his walls with reckless abandon, uncaring if they hurt themselves in the process, for it mattered little as their deaths soon rained down upon them. Thirty seconds later, all that remained was the final wounded fox who was swiping at the wall with its uninjured front paw. Not even bothering to draw Pneuma through his bow, Rory freed the final arrow as it struck the fox through the chest.

“Done.” Rory huffed, taking a moment to catch his breath. Channeling Pneuma could be surprisingly taxing on the body; his body ached as if he had been pushing through the grueling summer workouts of his youth.

“Rise and Grind,” Rory muttered to himself, words he remembered a coach telling him during his teenage years after a particularly rough morning workout. The memory briefly brought a smile to his face, but it was dashed shortly as he stared out into the darkness of the forest.

“And then there was the boss.” Rory stared toward the outskirts of the forest nearest his encampment.

What could it be? Maybe a supersized giant squirrel?

A smile briefly touched back upon Rory’s face, even if the thought of supersized squirrel fangs drove a hint of apprehension through him. Ever since college, he’d had what he believed was a healthy apprehension of squirrels; the squirrels you could find on a college campus were all but a different breed. He’d seen one jump out at someone as they were tossing their garbage away, and it had left him with what he considered an appropriate level of fear of the little beasts.

If there is one thing I hope Aelia never bothers recreating, it’s squirrels.

His anticipation of his fated foe was answered when a sizeable wolf-like beast came lumbering out of the shadows of the trees.

No, not a wolf.

It was the size of a wolf, but there was no doubt it was still a fox.

Is this some trick?

Turning his analysis toward the beast, the description surprised him.

???? Fox. Details unknown.

So, it was a fox, if that wasn’t obvious, given it looked like an oversized Triumph Fox on steroids. The fact that it was unknown meant that, unlike the Triumph Foxes, no one else had encountered this breed of monster.

Curious but not so curious as to risk wasting his time against an unknown monster, Rory sent an arrow at the oversized fox. The fox didn’t even bother dodging, swiping the arrow out of the air with contempt.

Oh. Oh, that is not good.

Trying again, he was met with the same result: the fox reacting too quickly for his regular arrows to catch unaware.

Pneuma it is.

Letting one more regular arrow fly, the fox snatched it from the air. The fox’s tail wrapped around the arrow shaft in a single fluid motion before flinging it to the side.

It has a prehensile tail. Wonderful.

Something to keep an eye on, Rory began charging up his first Pneuma arrow. He aimed away from the beast's tail, focusing on its less fatal but easier-to-hit front shoulder. The fox glanced up toward him, and for a moment, Rory almost felt like the creature was judging him for the futility of the attempt.

Jokes on you.

Releasing the string, the fox was caught unaware for the first time as it attempted to swipe the arrow from the air. The arrow launched forward far faster than it anticipated, burying itself into its shoulder with a sudden yelp of pain.

“Bingo.” Rory resisted the urge to pump a fist in success. As if looking to crush his short-lived excitement, the fox dashed forward directly in front of the half-formed hole in his wall.

Oh shit.

If it got through his wall, he’d be shit out of luck; there was no shot in hell that Rory could trade blows with the oversized fox as he had with its smaller cousins.

Yeah, sure, like it's about to wait for me to pincushion it with arrows before it rips through.

Time not on his side, Rory drew two arrows at once, something he’d only seen in movies. Placing them across his bowstring and drawing them back simultaneously, he desperately began channeling Pneuma through them. If his budding headache was an annoying ache before, it was now a fiery torrent exploding behind his eyes that made him want to curl up in a ball and die.

Just… keep…. going….

Waiting until the fox was mid-swipe, Rory released the arrows, and the sudden release of tension between his eyes was a god-sent relief. The arrows struck true, slamming into the back of the beast and puncturing deep, but the monster fox did not stop. Its swipe cleared almost all that remained of the wall between his sanctuary and the beast, the single swipe doing more than what the combined effort of several regular foxes scratching at his wall for cumulative minutes had managed.

Don’t think. Just do.

Once more, the pain of too much drawn Pneuma flowed through his mind, and he again funneled Pneuma through his bow and into the dual arrows. Rather than its back, Rory let the arrows rip into its already wounded shoulder, the fox staggering as the leg lost the ability to support its weight.

It was only too bad that it was a moment too slow as the fox ripped the remainder of its way through his walls, which had grown low on Pneuma since the start of the wave.

Next time, I’ve got to wait until halfway through the wave to activate the defenses if I can.

Leaping away from his spot on his ladder, Rory dashed as far away across his small camp as he could, back against the wall as he drew two more arrows and let the Pneuma build, waiting.

Sure enough, the fox began to lumber inside, struggling with its wounded front shoulder.

I’ve only got one good shot at this.

His camp wasn’t large enough for him to play keep away with the wounded beast. One wrong move, one miscalculation, and it would tear him apart. He would have to leverage the wound he’d already inflicted on the monster to slow it down enough so that he could deliver a guaranteed final blow.

One step after the other, the fox drew closer, and as it closed in, Rory was filled with the strange sense that the fox didn’t want to be here, as if it was fulfilling an obligation, perhaps the only reason it hadn’t attacked with a murderous rage already.

Weird.

Whatever the reason, Rory wasn’t about to turn into a bleeding heart for the oversized fox, not when it would tear his heart out, willfully or not.

A little closer.

As the fox came close enough to lunge at him, there were several seconds of tension as either side watched the other. The fox seemed intelligent enough to be wary of throwing itself forward where empowered arrows would rip through its face. Rory, likewise, couldn’t prematurely release the arrows and risk missing.

Several tense seconds passed until, unable to maintain his composure, Rory flicked his eyes to the side for a split second.

It was all the fox needed, lunging to rip his throat out.

It was also what Rory had been anticipating, his glance nothing more than a calculated feint. Arrows released, Rory dove with all his might to the side, never even bothering to watch if his arrows struck true.

Several things happened at once. First, the headache that had besieged Rory exploded, the worst one yet, the strain of holding two Pneuma-empowered arrows for nearly a full twenty count wreaking havoc on him. The second was his shoulder burned, the fangs of the fox missing his vitals but not missing him entirely, shredding through his flesh like a hot knife through butter.

And finally, the oversized fox slammed into the wall he’d set his back against unabated, the arrows protruding from his face declaring the beast dead instantly.

“Fuckkkk.” Rory rolled around on the ground, clenching his left shoulder in pain where the flesh had been rendered into meaty tears, blood pooling, the entire thing looking like ground human beef. “That hurts.”

Hurt was an understatement; the pain was his entire being as the Pneuma-headache transitioned into full-on Pneuma-wracked to accompany the physical wounds upon his body. Unfortunately for Rory, the two didn’t distract from one another; they seemed to multiply across his nerve endings.

Had Rory been in a better state of mind, he would have largely considered the wave a success. Aside from a killer headache caused by a bad case of Pneuma-wracked and his ground beefed shoulder, the wave had gone perfectly.

While that was all logically true and nice, it didn’t matter in the face of all-encompassing pain.

Thus, without ceremony, still clenching his shoulder, Rory leaned up against his wall next to the dead fox as his eyes rolled back, and he passed out on the spot.

------------------

“Damn.” Rory awoke with a sudden spike of pain stabbing through him. He was lying at an awkward angle against the wall of his small settlement, a dead oversized fox lying next to him, two arrows stabbed through its face.

It had been a damn good shot, even without the use of his prior bow’s Karmic ability to guide his hand and his aim. In fairness, it had also been a rather difficult shot to mess up, all but point blank.

“I lived.” Rory sighed. That was an achievement in itself, another hard-fought battle and valuable lessons learned. Glancing at his interface, Rory was met with the standard post-wave messages, and only skimming through them, he nodded to himself before closing his interface. He’d gained some Ascension Energy for usage, which he intended to turn toward his walls after he did a little bit of updating them. Exactly how his Inscription would be his answer once again, but exactly how, he had yet to come up with an idea.

“Hey, Eon, how long can I hold onto the wave reward?”

A message popped up on his interface, like an old-world pop-up.

Rewards are available until the next wave's completion. Rewards may be stockpiled with proper prerequisites.

“Interesting,” Rory noted the second part of the short message before dismissing it. He’d have some time to decide what exactly his next step was. Examining his encampment, Rory checked for anything out of order, but nothing popped out besides the damage his walls had received during the wave. That was until he returned to the corpse of the giant fox.

“So, I suppose you should get a name- never mind,” Rory muttered. The corpse, once an unnamed monster, was now listed with a name.

Nike Fox.

“So, while I was out, someone else found one of you and named you. Clever name, at least.” Nike was the Greek goddess of victory, so it felt fitting for the more powerful version of a triumph fox to be named as such.

That was hardly the main point he found himself focused on. Staring at the fox, he could feel his eye itching, irritated, and jumpy.

What in the - oh, right. Eye for Potential.

Still unfamiliar with the feature, he activated the skill, and instantly, he could sense what his gaze had sensed. If his skill was anything to gauge by, there was something rather useful in the dead center of the fox.

Curious, Rory pulled his crafting knife from his belt.

My clothes could use some patching or an incinerator, one of the two.

Ignoring his failing cosmetics, he brandished the knife as he approached the corpse, slicing it open with deceptive ease. Reaching into the corpse, doing his best to put down any squeamishness at reaching inside the still-warm body, his hand wrapped around a circular object. Pulling it free, Rory frowned.

“What could you be?” Rory muttered, turning the circular orb around in his hand. It was murky and muddy, like a glass orb stained by mud and ink.

Beast Core

Grade: Poor.

A low-grade Beast Core is a semi-magical organ of sufficiently advanced beasts. A Beast Core can grow and advance within its original owner with time. Once removed, the Core becomes crystalline. Uses- Unknown.

“Well, that’s interesting,” Rory noted, turning the Beast Core around in his hand. “Like some sort of magical kidney or gallbladder, I guess.”

Curious, Rory reached toward a speck of Pneuma, pushing it toward the core. For a moment, he felt the core flicker as the spark of Pneuma vanished into the core itself.

“Now that is curious.” Rory smiled as he examined the core. At the very least, it could store some amount of Pneuma. How much, now that was the question he would have to work on figuring that out in due time.

“If it can store Pneuma, that might be the answer I’ve been looking for.”

The problem with his walls, an issue he was shown during the most recent wave, was that the Pneuma didn’t last very long within, and as it faded, so did the strength it granted. He’d already been considering potential answers to that problem, a problem reminiscent of the energy crises of the early 2020s back on Earth. Renewable energy sources had become widespread and cheap, but without a method to store mass amounts of energy cheaply and efficiently, there had been difficulties in fully implementing the technology. It wasn’t until the back half of the 2020s, into the early 2030s, that cheap and large-capacity batteries had been developed.

Unfortunately for Rory, he’d never fully understood the tech behind it, which didn't matter; he highly doubted it would translate to his current predicament.

With the Beast Core, perhaps he could utilize it to store Pneuma and skip devising his own answer to the problem.

But then, that doesn’t sound like the answer you’re looking for, does it?

Perhaps such a cut-and-dry answer would be enough for some, but it felt too convenient. No, he would use the core as a single component of a greater project.

Smiling to himself, he deactivated Eye for Potential, expecting his eye to once more feel normal.

When it continued twitching, Rory turned the skill on once more.

Well, ain’t that something.

The Core wasn’t the only thing the skill had picked up on. There was something else inside the corpse as well.

Reaching in again, Rory felt around the squishy and warm flesh until, at last, his hand bumped up against something that felt out of place. With his fingers wrapped around the mystery object, he pulled it from the body.

“Now, what in the world are you?”

It was a hexagonal object of all things, composed of dark orange and black-hued… bone-like material, with some specks of milky white calcium-esque deposits throughout.

Let’s see what secrets you hide.

Den Mother’s Nucleus

Quality: Poor* (Unused)

The fledging seed needed to develop and grow a Monster Den, A Den Mother’s Nucleus, can be attuned and altered until implementation, after which a Den will slowly develop organically in tandem with the environment. Development can be further refined or accelerated through external aid, but base nature will remain locked once fostered.

“Alright, well, a few things make more sense now,” Rory said aloud. The Nike Fox had seemed unwilling to attack his camp because it had been more interested in starting its own home.

“Which raises the question, did all the monster dens I cleared start from a Den Mother’s Nucleus, or is there something special about a Den Mother’s Nucleus?”

Perhaps it would be like the difference between him setting up an ordinary camp and establishing a proper settlement through the Syst—through Eon.

“You know,” Rory muttered, “instead of wondering, I can just ask.”

“Hey, Eon, is there a difference between what this thingy can do and a monster creating its own natural den?”

After a moment of stillness, his interface flickered open as a notification displayed.

Den Mother’s Nucleus is categorically different from ordinary monster habitations, but it is considered of similar stature to the settlement-based system.

“You know, now that you’re called Eon and not the system when you say ‘system,’ it’s a lot less confusing,” Rory said, taking the time to appreciate the almost petty change enacted by one of his peers elsewhere.

Eon, apparently, decided the comment beneath its attention to respond to.

Meh, it's not like I care.

What mattered was what Rory had was unique in a way he doubted even a Beast Core was.

So why is its quality only Poor?

The best guess Rory could warrant was that the grading scale of objects was within their ‘classification,’ so the Den Mother’s Nucleus he had, if he used it right now, would only amount to a low ‘quality’ Den.

I'm not sure why I’d use it, though.

He had plenty more questions regarding the Nucleus. The description noted that it wasn’t ironclad in its potential. It could be improved up to the point it was ‘used,’ after which, while it could still be worked on, its foundation couldn’t be altered.

Which was fine and dandy, but then there was the question of why he would do that in the first place. Setting up an Eon-blessed Monster Den in his backyard seemed like a mistake waiting to happen.

And there is another question.

Had he obtained the Nucleus by accident, or was it set up? In truth, he could see it going either direction. With the state of the planet being so young and tumultuous, perhaps the Nike Fox had somehow earned the rights or created, or however, a monster got their hands -paws- on the Nucleus, only to be forcibly drawn to his camp against its will due to his monster beacon, all before it had the opportunity to utilize the Nucleus.

Or perhaps Aelia was curious and making a test. Either he would best the fox and gain a Nucleus in conjunction with his settlement, or the fox would have won and could have potentially utilized the Nucleus within the remains of a former settlement.

“Once again, why don’t I just ask?”

Doing something he’d never done before, Rory brought up his communication interface. Only a single name was listed, but it was exactly who he intended to contact. Pressing the name Aelia, he waited for several seconds, curious, until suddenly, a voice rang through his mind.

“Yes? Is there something you so direly need?”

“Oh. Aelia, is that you?” Rory spoke out loud, unsure how this worked.

“What other Aelia’s do you know?”

“Right, fair.” Rory acknowledged his rather stupid question. “I’ve got a question regarding… something.”

“Well, at least you had the decency to contact me this way instead of calling me there directly like some sort of lap dog.”

“Excuse me?”

“Nothing of your concern. Your question?”

“Uh, I’ve got this object called a ‘Den Mother’s Nucleus’ that I’m assuming you might know something about?”

“Oh, I’m surprised anyone managed to get one so early.”

“What do you mean?” Rory questioned, frowning.

“My surface world isn’t just meant for you all. I realized that while I can continue my own Ascension through the work of you all, I was vastly underutilizing a potential growth route.”

“The monsters themselves,” Rory added.

“Exactly. While your creation of Eon was unexpected and threw an entire wrench into my understanding of everything, I won’t deny it has merits after I had time to consider it. I took the time to contact Eon, and we worked together to develop the equivalent of the Settlement system that sapiens can use. Thus, the Den Mother’s Nucleus was born. I scattered the bones, the seeds of those nuclei, across my surface in areas generally far removed from any of you eight, where the local monsters could fight over them.”

“So, it’s a pure chance one ended up near me?”

“Half and half. I purposely planted a few within relative distance of some of you, hoping that it could foster contention between my founders and some of the early promising monsters. In your case, you just happened to activate that monster beacon feature Eon added into settlements as the current holder of that Nucleus was passing by. While I would have preferred you two not to be forced together so early, even I can’t supersede the control of Eon, and that would be how you got your hands on it.”

“I see. Is there any benefit of me having it, then?”

Rory could almost imagine the World Spirit shrugging as it responded.

“Truthfully, I’m uncertain. I won’t disclose what went into the creation of the Den Mother’s Nucleus and how they operate. Still, I can at least say with honesty that while they weren’t intended for you all, they weren’t meant to be unusable by any sapiens or vice versa; that would have been the height of naivety to assume that there would never arise a situation were either a settlement governor or a Den Ruler wouldn’t end up in a situation where they found themselves with control of their system opposite.”

“Right.” Rory nodded. “So, can be used, but you aren’t planning to explain or help me in that regard, partially because you want to ‘foster our growth’ but also because you aren’t fully certain.”

“Essentially.”

“Well, thanks, I guess,” Rory said.

“You’re welcome,” the world spirit answered. A moment later, a mental connection he hadn’t initially noticed was cut.

“Well then.” Rory turned the Nucleus around in his hand, inspecting it. “What do I do with you then?”

To say he had ideas was a lie. All he had to work with was that it wasn’t unusable.

Yeah, not very helpful.

Without a plan for the object, he did his most preferred answer for such predicaments.

He ignored it.

Dropping the Nucleus off into his shelter, Rory sat on his log beside his fire, thinking.

Another week to prepare.

He hadn’t fully considered his rewards for the Wave, but that didn’t matter as he wasn’t planning to accept them—he planned to keep the ball rolling.

Ten waves. Ten waves straight.

Now that he’d seen a Nike Fox, there was the question if even more would appear. While the waves had been following a set pattern, he couldn’t guarantee that would remain true. His sample size was too small to say for sure.

Let's operate under the assumption that there will be more Nike Foxes.

If that were the case, he needed an answer to the foxes, which meant he needed a stronger wall. His weaponry and personal capabilities were limited; he couldn’t rely on killing the Nike foxes quickly.

Impenetrable walls, then.

“Inscription and manual reinforcement are the keys,” Rory said out loud. “First, Inscription.”

Rory had several runes he’d already made, but he needed more.

“Great, all my problems are solved,” Rory grunted a few seconds later. It was one thing to say Inscription was the answer; it was another to figure out precisely how to use the idea of Inscription to create stronger walls.

“Break the problem down,” Rory said, recalling how his favorite math teacher had explained how to make things easier when he was young. “Well, first off, the Pneuma reinforcing the walls doesn’t last long enough. Second, it’s difficult to wound a Nike Fox in the first place without over-relying on Pneuma-enhanced arrows. Third, my personal capabilities will quickly become too low to handle increasingly difficult waves, not without hitting my next ascension breakpoint.”

Rory nodded to himself, the problem more tangible now.

“Let’s start with the issue of my walls and how much Pneuma they can store. I recently acquired a Beast Core, which may allow me to store greater amounts of Pneuma than I currently can, but implementing the Core like an ordinary battery seems… wasteful.”

“What if, rather than simple storage, I also made it a generator of sorts?”

Now, that idea sounded like something someone with the title of Precursor would consider.

Rory already had a rune for absorption, but inscribing it directly upon the Beast Core sounded risky; he had no idea if it would break the core.

A support structure.

Ideas were beginning to form inside his mind. Much like how he’d added built-in Pneuma absorption to his walls, he could recreate the process, and he even had further inspiration to draw on, a glance at his Essence Spire bringing a smile to his face.

“I wish I had a sketch pad for this.” Rory mused before another idea struck him.

Why don’t I make one?

-------------------------------

Several hours later, Rory examined the product of his labors. It was an inky black slate laid within a crude wooden frame.

I can always make a better one later.

Nervous for a moment, Rory tapped the ‘screen’ and held his breath. To his relief, the slate responded to his touch, a cascade of color flowing away from his touch before it once more turned black, attuned to his intent.

It's nice to see the light absorption work as intended.

The creation of the tablet had been in part drawn from Earth tablets, though only in the design itself. As for how he’d made it, the ‘screen’ had been achieved by taking obsidian, ash, and clay, grinding them into a fine powder -something that was easier to do with his increased attributes- and then mixing them all together in a bath of aisormba. Then, keeping the slurry stored in a shoddy-looking clay pot, he’d whipped up the frame. Carving wood into his desired shape with his improved knife was shockingly easy; the wood parted like it was excited to be transformed into something new.

Once the frame had been cut and carved, he’d etched into it several runes. One corner had his rune for absorption; as he carved it, he fully embraced the concept of the would-be tablet drawing in the light shining down upon it and then imagined that concept being transferred into the rune itself. In the next corner, he’d carved the rune representing the earth. It had been a clever usage of the rune’s language. While ‘earth’ was the common word for the soil beneath his feet and solid elements, it also had the benefit of being the name of his former planet. With the rune, he’d instilled everything he understood of tablets from Earth as if he was giving his creation a frame of reference for what it was being modeled after.

His third rune was yet another absorption rune, except he carved a tiny channel etching directly beneath it that flowed into the half-sized energy inscription. If his first absorption rune was meant to draw in light to be utilized, his second one was for drawing in Pneuma to power the entire thing, hence its entwinement with an energy inscription. Binding the two runes together inside a binding circle, he finally moved onto the final corner of the tablet frame, where rather than add a rune, he left a Pneuma ‘circuit’ a circle with nothing inside of it, somewhere he could add a rune in the future.

Inspecting his frame, he quickly amended his first rune with a frown, adding a sub-rune directly beneath it as he had with the energy and absorption runes. In this case, the sub-rune was the rune for liquid. If he wanted the magical tablet to be capable of using light as ‘ink,’ it would probably help to add a rune to infuse the ink itself directly.

Satisfied with his inscription work, the next part of making his tablet was taking his slurry from earlier and pouring it evenly into the frame. Once that was done, he placed it on the ground and drew a circle around it, adding two runes to the drawn circle, the runes for heat and earth; it was meant to be the ‘forge’ that would refine the liquid slurry into a screen like slate.

Once that circle was complete, Rory drew a second circle around the first, adding the rune for absorption to it; it would help channel Pneuma into his binding circles.

Finally, adding a last concentric circle, he inscribed the rune representing the earth, instilling within it the concept of stability often associated with the earth. It wasn’t a perfect match -for that, he would need to create a proper stability rune- but as he hadn’t gotten around to that yet, this was the next best thing.

Taking a deep breath, Rory stepped inside his Inscription forge, a term he found appealing considering its similarity with how he’d melted down the metal for his knife. Once inside, Rory began steadily drawing Pneuma into his bound circles, the energy contained by the intent within the circles. His absorption and faux stability rune showed their worth, and the entire process was smoother than when he’d crafted the upgrade to his crafting knife. Once satisfied with the saturation of Pneuma within his bound circles, the air within the rings felt as if a thunderstorm were on the verge of exploding; Rory finally released the energy. Using the now-released energy, he directed it toward and through the innermost ring.

An actual smith would have told him how inefficient the entire process was, and Rory would tend to agree. Typically, when you wanted to melt down something, the process revolved around gradual heating and tempering of the involved materials. In contrast, the Inscription Forge utilized a single explosive increase in heat meant to melt everything in one shot instantly. The issue that Rory had was that he had nothing that could store Pneuma in large amounts, which was necessary if he wanted to sustain a gradual heat. If the Pneuma wasn’t used in a single action, it would dissipate all but instantly, and he would lose all the energy gathered, forcing him to start over from scratch.

Thankfully, it wasn’t so much ‘melting’ as refining that he was doing. He already had his slurry in a non-solid form; the added heat was meant to bind, galvanize, and burn out any impurities from within.

This was to say, after hours of work, it ended within only a handful of seconds as the sudden flash of light generated by the explosive increase in heat vanished, his bound rings burning away as the Pneuma overloaded them. Unlike his knife, which had been bound to him through his own blood essence and was thus primed for improvement, the tablet was just an ordinary object. Even with all that preparation, his rings had nearly failed during the creation process of the tablet. Mentally noting the limit of the bound ring, Rory decided against attempting anything more advanced than what he’d just done until he figured out a more sophisticated method.

“Doesn’t matter.” Rory finally said, tapping at the screen now that he’d confirmed it had succeeded. “Because it worked.”

While his intention was something akin to a tablet in design, it was, functionally, closer to a sketch pad. It had no ‘memory,’ and thus, it couldn’t store prior work, but it was something he could now freely sketch and doodle with if he left it to soak in sunlight for even a bit each day.

“All that work, not even for square one, but to build a tool for square one.” Rory couldn’t help it, chuckling. As he did, it finally occurred to Rory that a gently pulsing red exclamation mark was in the corner of his vision. Mentally ‘clicking’ on it, his interface opened.

Ascension Energy rewarded for the successful fabrication of an Eon-recognized creation.

“Well, that’s nifty.” Rory flicked over to his main screen, checking the difference. It wasn’t much, but it was enough that he could see the difference, maybe a three percent increase.

If Rory were truthful, he would’ve admitted that he had largely forgotten that Ascension energy could be gained through methods that didn’t revolve around the slaughter of demon rabbits and their ilk. It was something that he’d forgotten ever since meditation stopped proving viable for promoting the progress of his ascension.

Which is stupid, in hindsight. How could I have forgotten that? My first big boost was when I built my shelter after all.

Rory would have to test the limits of such avenues for continued growth. Still, if Rory were a betting man, he’d guess that it probably scaled based on the complexity of what was created or other similar variables. For something that took quite a few hours of the day to have granted roughly three percent progress tracked with his prior estimation of how long it would take to achieve his next ascension through combat alone.

I wouldn’t be surprised if there were first-time bonuses as well; recreating something you’ve made a hundred times probably won’t net you as much energy as the first time.

Dismissing the notification, Rory put it to the back of his mind as a happy surprise, focusing instead on his next task.

Time for rune crafting.