Chapter 72: Plans for the future

Chapter 72: Plans for the future

Summoning List (Metal)

Name

Material Cost

Mana Cost

Clockwork Arachnid

Tier 1 Circle, Copper Wire

10

Iron Cloud

Tier 2 Circle, Iron Shavings, Marble

50

Barbed Dervish

Tier 3 Circle, Barbed Wire

100

Animated Armor

Tier 4 Circle, Tinfoil, Screws

200

Blade Tempest

Tier 5 Circle, Five Edged Implements

350

...

Isaac looked the summoning list for monsters he could actually face in a traditional battle over with longing in his eyes as he waited on the others in the meeting room. But he’d wait and finally get that damnable Fata Morgana Aspect first. You know, get the hard stuff out of the way, and all that.

Still, while Aspects were rare, they weren’t that rare. According to the law of averages, he should be getting one of them sometime soon. Hopefully. Maybe. Possibly. In theory.

He sighed and tried to put the matter out of his mind. There were better things to do than dwell on than Lady Fortune trying to make him lose his marbles.

But when he reached the site of the new building, he found his way barred by a guy wearing a hardhat.

“Hey, buddy!” the man called out, rushing over “This is an active construction site, you can’t just walk on here without a hardhat. If you’re looking for the foreman’s office, that’s over there.”

The construction worker gestured over towards a container sitting in the corner of the fenced off area.

“I actually work in there?” Isaac said carefully, though now that he was actually looking for it, he noticed that there was no one in the basement of the building that was currently under construction. He wasn’t late by any stretch of the imagination, but he was also rarely the first one here, he’d have expected to hear at least one of his colleagues to have arrived before him.

“This place is still being built.”

The unspoken addition of ‘you nimrod’ was quite clear.

“I know that, but we worked here last Thursday and then ... yeah, on second thought, I should have figured that I should go back to the current office.” Isaac sighed, internally cursing himself. Constant frustration had left him in a bad headspace to make such basic deductions.

“Wait, you’re one of the researchers, then?” the man suddenly grinned at him “There’s something I was wondering: you guys spent all of Thursday fighting monsters down there, right? How the hell is that place still undamaged and spotless?”

Isaac shrugged “Magic. Literal Magic.”

That got a chuckle.

“Fair enough.”

“Anyway, now I have a question: how the hell did you build all this since the event?” Isaac wondered, giving the construction site a good once over. The girders that everything up to the third floor would be up around were already in place, and several tons of concrete had been poured since he’d last seen this place. He’d be the first to admit he didn’t know much about how construction worked, but this seemed unusually fast and he couldn’t see a single person above Level 4 here, meaning that this speed couldn’t be wholly attributed to [Skills]. Sure, there were some in play, but nothing that would make a huge difference, not quite yet.

“Two words: overtime pay. They’ve been hurling money at you guys since the Event and what better way to spend it than to get us to work on a Sunday?”

Isaac chortled at that “I’m guessing that’s a lot of money?”

“Oh yeah.” the man nodded happily “Anyway, you have a nice day now, gotta get back to work.”

“You too.” Isaac bade him goodbye and left, internally scolding himself for not coming to the very rational conclusion that there’d normally be people working at an active construction site.

A quick glance at his watch revealed that he was now on the verge of actually being late, so he decided to hurry, moving at speeds normally reserved for the woods or emergencies.

Being able to take it slow and walk was nice and avoided scaring the hell out the people he passed. Then again, that was what [Stealth] was for. Going invisible, Isaac broke into a run, his feet only touching the ground every ten or so meters until he was nearly there, phasing to let his last step carry him straight into the team’s little part of the basement from the street outside.

“Morning Isaac.” Bailey called from inside the room, clearly pausing whatever he was doing to wait for him to enter, which he promptly did. Sadly, in a group this small, surreptitiously sneaking in while being late simply didn’t fly.

“You know, after that weekend you had, you could have stayed home, right? I started the meeting already because I thought you were taking the day off.” Bailey told him.

“Actually, that’s why I’m here, to ask if there was anything you needed me to do before I took a few days off.” Isaac replied.

“Hol’ up a second, what exactly happened during the weekend?” Amy asked, looking back and forth between the pair.

“Hm, what big thing did happen over the weekend and might have been in the news?” Patrick asked, waggling his eyebrows at her, causing everyone else to roll their eyes.

She gave him a flat look in response.

“Look, I know Isaac can get a little intense sometimes, but that doesn’t mean that it’ll inevitably end up the news.”

“... except there he is, in the background of the press conference during which they announced that they caught that damn serial killer.” Raul said, holding out his phone so everyone could see the screen. He didn’t bother zooming in, though, literally everyone here was focused into Perception to some degree. And then Isaac noticed the baby dragon poking its head out of the former ranger’s pocket.

Generally, Isaac paid attention to everything around him to make sure there wasn’t anything dangerous around him, that people’s weapons were sheathed and the only monsters there were familiars, pets, and other tamed versions. Brisa, who was currently curled up on a doggy bed in the corner, and this new pet were safe, so he’d registered their presence and then dismissed them as a potential threat. This skill was something he’d been practicing for close to a decade and he’d gotten damn good at it, but it could miss things that weren’t a threat as that was primarily what he was looking.

In this case, what he’d failed to notice was how damn cute the little critter was. Noticing his gaze, it looked back at him and roared.

... or tried to, least. The dragon was tiny, if its head laid on Raul’s wrist, then the tail wouldn’t reach the tip of his index finger, it was that small.

So, in the end, all that came out of its maw was a cute little squeak, revealing toothless gums and a soft light glowing from deeper inside its body. If Isaac didn’t know better, he’d have thought it had yawned.

With great effort and force of will, Isaac dragged his attention away from the adorable little critter and back to the conversation at hand.

“I spend the weekend clubbing and you go out and catch a serial killer, what’s next? End world hunger?” Amy jokingly asked.

“I think the more important question is, what exactly happened during the apprehension and why Isaac is conspicuously hiding his right hand in that picture.” Karl suggested.

The engineer also looked quite a bit differently than he had during the event. He was currently wearing a sweatshirt with metal weaved through it, though it wasn’t just any metal. Rather, it was the malleable-beyond-all-sanity solid steel blob that made up Karl’s soulbound piece of gear. Essentially, this would allow him to manipulate it as if it were a part of his own body, as well as making it tougher than any personal protective equipment currently in existence.

“Let’s just say that people at our level are really fucking terrifying and leave it at that, shall we?” Isaac suggested.

“Is there even a single thing that we might be able to learn that could, in theory, be useful?” Karl countered.

“Fine.” Isaac grumbled “Basically, she specialized in her senses, analyzing anything and everything that the people she saw did and then extrapolating their future actions from that. Then she had a [Skill] that let her act on that, perfectly executing counters to anything her opponent did once the analysis had gone on long enough. As in, she can literally dance through a hail of bullets unleashed by sixteen submachineguns while I’m projecting [Far Strikes].”

“Wait, you actually fought her?” Raul asked.

“Yes. If I hadn’t been there, all those police officers would be dead and she’d have gotten away. That isn’t an overexaggeration to pad my own ego or put down those officers, that is the gods’ honest truth. She could run faster than they could aim, keep moving almost normally even after taking multiple gunshot wounds and had a soulbound knife she could teleport to.” Isaac explained “Also, I found out where the next evolutionary Level is, it’s either 25 or 30, because that’s where her Level was at and she had a [Skill] that I could clearly identify as belonging to a third Evolution [Class].”

“Damn.” Bailey cursed mildly “You seem to have come through fine, though. What kind of power level does something like that have?”

“A retaliation [Skill], completely unnoticeable even to [Skills] that specialize in uncovering hidden things right up to the point where it activated, which attaches to the wounds she inflicts and makes them a million times worse if she loses the fight. Blew off my hand from a healed cut that was maybe a millimeter deep.” Isaac said, wincing at the memory. It was hardly the first limb he’d lost, but it was never a fun thing to have happen.

“[Hydra’s Regeneration]?” Amy asked.

“[Hydra’s Regeneration].” Isaac nodded.

“Alright, so let’s just get back to the topic at hand.” Patrick interrupted “Basically, you headed to Leipzig, helped track down this serial killer, then fought her when it became apparent that the police wouldn’t be able to arrest her and then caught her but lost a hand which you then regrew, do I have that right?”

“Yes.” Isaac sighed “Your point?”

“Just how dangerous are high Level people?”

“Very. If we wanted to, we could be walking natural disasters worse than the LA incident. And right now, there are maybe ten other people in the country that are on our Level.” Isaac pointed out.

“... that would explain the letter I got from the department that issued my visa yesterday. As in, hand delivered and tossed into my mailbox because mail doesn’t get delivered on Sundays.” Raul added thoughtfully.

“They’re kicking you out?” Isaac asked, aghast.

“Nah, the letter basically said ‘your visa has been extended indefinitely, you won’t have to bother reapplying’. Reading between the lines, they’d really like for me to emigrate here.” Raul replied “It’s a little weird, really. Normally, that entire department is like an enhanced interrogation technique in paperwork form where you basically have to be Sherlock Holmes just to figure out where to send the damn forms. And now, they’re not only doing everything without me having to lift a finger, they’re going out of their way to be helpful.”

“Bureaucracy can move at light speed when there’s a need for it. That’s probably how they justify being so damn slow normally.” Amy said “By the way, I got the same letter. How about you, Professor?”

“I’m actually a German citizen, so I didn’t.” Bailey replied “But I must have gotten a dozen letters, emails from the US, asking me to return to the country of my birth. And when I turned that down, the Ambassador showed up on my doorstep.”

As they stared at him questioningly, he flashed them a reassuring smile “Don’t worry, I’m staying. I like it here.”

“Anyway, that was basically it as far as the fight went. I’ll write a proper report and put it into our archives, if anyone is interested.” Isaac announced, trying to bring the meeting back to its original topic before it had gotten sidetracked “Like I said earlier, I’m going to take few days off to get some more Aspects and then evolve my [Class]. In case I need more XP to slot the Aspects than I get while acquiring them, are there any monsters whose Aspects you guys would like? I can’t guarantee they’ll actually end up dropping, but I can try to get them. Also, I do have a few more Aspects from a Wraith, Hydra and Poltergeist, if any you want one of those.”

“That’s very generous, but why the sudden ‘you can have whatever you want’ attitude?” Patrick asked, clearly skeptical of the sudden generosity.

“I got in a fight with someone who was potentially the world’s most dangerous murderer and that made me think. Fighting against a person at our Level is fucking terrifying, and now the whole world knows it. There’s bodycam footage and I sincerely doubt they’ll manage to keep that out of everyone else’s hands in the long run. Everyone knows we work together and that you also spent all of Thursday casually beating Tier 5 monsters. There’s going to be a lot of scrutiny on everyone here, and that could result in some really dangerous scenarios. I’d like to make sure everyone here has what they need to stay safe.”

“Welp, that’s dark. Thanks for thinking of us.” Amy commented dryly.

“Good luck.” Bailey added “Now though, there are a few things I’d like to talk about. First of all, we’ve finally gotten permission to do run some experiments on the nature of autonomous summoning. Our bureaucratic overlords are yet to agree on what specific security measures they want to have in place for creatures that can move freely, but we can run some on aquatic creatures because they can’t move around without a waterway and Professor Sturm from the Aquatic Biology faculty has a suitable location.

“Also, they’re currently pretty much throwing money at our faculty and the construction on our new building is proceeding with record speed. Hell, they’re lighting up the entirety of the construction site so they can work overnight.

“Lastly, I’m pretty sure there’s another raise coming all our way. I haven’t been told anything concrete, but that’s usually the go to response to the whole world trying to poach valued employees.”

The meeting continued on in that vein for a short while, dealing with boring bureaucratical crap until the others went to work doing some experiments while Isaac headed back home, already dreading having to fight oh so many more illusion creating monsters.

Eternal Blades (epic)

After infusing his weapons with mana, the user will never have to worry about their weapons breaking ever again. They will slowly repair themselves over time, a process that can be sped up by applying additional weapon. However, unless the weapon is reduced to atoms, the initial mana investment will suffice.

In addition, the weapons become twice as durable without compromising flexibility.

Cost: 20 mana per kilogram the weapon weighs

He could repair Old Reliable using one of its intrinsic abilites even if it had been reduced to nothing but dust, however, that required all the materials used in its construction, a list that was constantly getting longer and longer. Right now, it was perfectly manageable, but once he started absorbing Event items and weapons forged from the remains of [Raid Bosses]? He’d rather ‘waste’ an Aspect [Skill] than go through that a few years down the road.

As for the new abilities the Aspects gave the weapon via its [Skill] of [Aspect Infusion], they were annoyingly vague.

Aspect Infusion: This gives Old Reliable a variation on each form based on the user’s Aspects (Hydra: Venomsteel, Dunkleosteus: Boneblade, Specter: Astral Dagger, Fata Morgana: Invisible Blade, Blade Tempest: Triple Threat). This costs 15 mana each time a new Aspect is infused, and 10 mana per minute of keeping it active. Only one Aspect can be active at a time.

A few minutes of experimentation yielded the answer, though. Basically, the form based on the Fata Morgana was pretty normal, but barely visible beyond a faint heat haze, making it a stone cold pain in the ass to fight against.

As for the one he’d gotten from the Blade Tempests, it manifested two more blades identical to the one he applied it to moving on a parallel vector and with the same momentum. It was awesome, but taking a hell of a lot of time to master, as the two instances of having a Kriegsmesser bounce of his nose could attest to. Mind you, he was being a hell of a lot more reckless than he’d normally be on account of the only thing that could be hurt being his pride. Testing the limits, at least when it was possible to do so safely, was a good way to learn.

Forcefully stabbing the blade in the direction of a nearby, but still out of reach, tree caused to identical daggers to manifest next to it, flying towards the unfortunate plant. Yellow light flared as he applied [Piercing Strike] to it and the weapons sank into the wood up to the hilt.

It was a pretty cool trick and would let him wield three identical versions of the same weapon using [Blade Control], but using it cost 1 mana per second of manifestation per blade, making it too expensive to use for extended periods of time. What he could do though was cut into a monster’s hide, then manifest the copies at the exact right moment to see them fly in through the wound and apply [Starfang], leaving two burning, envenomed weapons stuck deep in its body while he could still use his other weapons freely.

That left just one more thing to do before evolving, get an Aspect to stack onto his Aspect of the Dunkleosteus. He already knew which one he wanted ... but he wouldn’t be getting it anytime soon.

The Megalodon was a gigantic, prehistoric shark, effectively a normal Great White but a whopping 25 meters long, the length of a standard swimming pool. He could get away with summoning a Dunkleosteus and melting the body in some random nearby lake in the middle of the night. Doing so with this thing ... yeah, he’d get caught and look like one of those crazy summoners he’d been warning about.

It wouldn’t matter that this thing was basically just one big brute that was quite literally stuck in the lake and even if he couldn’t kill it, a few depth charges would.

It was big, scary and Tier 5 was still a pretty alarming word. Summoning it in a public place was not a good idea, even if no one was around.

And it wasn’t like he could just go to some random little puddle, either. For it to not count as an environmental kill, aquatic monsters needed adequate space. Given how big that thing was, there weren’t may candidates.

... or he could just make a space like that. He was buying up the land around him anyway and he was about to get a significant windfall from selling Aspects to the police department.

Building himself his own lake so he could summon aquatic monsters was perfectly doable now, though it also fell solidly under the umbrella of ‘crazy shit that only people with too much money on their hand do’.

Still, he could afford it.

End of the day though, it just wasn't realistic to get the Aspect anytime soon, and trying to get it would delay his evolution by far too long.

So now, he’d evolve his [Class].

Name: Isaac Thoma

Class: Undying Wraith

Species: Human

Level: 24

XP: 1,372/5,000

Health Status: Healthy

Mana: 500/500

Stats

Fortitude

50

Perception

80

Strength

60

Agility

70

Magic Power

50

Magic Regeneration

60

Free Points: 0 Stat, 19 Skill

Central Skills

Form of Horror XVI

The Chosen Weapon XXI

Skills

Hundred Faces XIV

Stealth XVII

Power Strike XXV

Piercing Strike XXVI

Sundering Strike XXIII

Blades XXV

Sneak XVII

Sweeping Strike IX

Far Strike XIX

Manifold Strike XVII

Hunter’s Gaze XXIII

Phantom Step XIII

Unknown Fear XIII

Bestial Regeneration XII

Undying Focus XI

Tools of Terror XII

Fleeting Presence III

Crippling Blow IV

General Skills

Gralloch IX

Alchemy X

Aspects

Aspect Skills

Poltergeist (2 stack)

Poltergeist’s Flight

Poltergeist Shift

Hydra (2 stack)

Hydra’s Regeneration

Redundant Organs

Dunkleosteus

Gills

Fata Morgana (2 stack)

Improved Basic Illusion

Perception Block

Blade Tempest (2 stack)

Blade Control

Eternal Blades

... once he’d regained some of the XP spent on Aspects. Isaac sighed and proceeded to summon a Hydra. After all, those Aspects were selling like hotcakes after he’d regrown a hand. Or rather, they would, once he actually started answering the literally hundreds of requests that had been pouring in via email.