Chapter 354 Fortress Is Up, Time To Hunt The Bastard

"Are you coming or not?" Nadia asked, shortly stopping by the workshop's doors and turning around to glance at Mathew.

"I…" Mathew hesitated for a second. He then curled the ends of his lips up a little. "In a second," he then said, reaching out and grasping at the merchant's shadow.

He established the fortress in this merchant's presence so the access to all the options of the fortress was likely connected to his subspace.

'There we go,' Mathew thought when the time appeared to stop around him while the shadows surged from behind his back.

Soon, the familiar emptiness of this shadowy realm coaxed all his senses, allowing the young man to finally relax.

'Now, let's see,' Mathew blinked his eyes a few times before putting his full focus on the new options of the system that revealed themselves to his eyes.

[Basic Construction Zone]

[Transforms designated space into a manually operated workshop]

[Possible blueprints:

- Basic Fusing Frame

- Basic Component

- Basic Resource Orb]

[Required:

- Settlement unlocked

- Fortress level 3

- Fortress internal level 12]

The second Mathew's eyes fell onto the new window, his vision suddenly changed.

The shadows appeared to disperse, revealing the slightly blurry image of the room where Mathew stood back in the original dimension.

Mathew could see nearly the entire workshop. But to add to the experience, Mathew could see flashing rectangles appearing all over the open room.

'That's where I can summon those construction zones?' Mathew thought, interpreting the strange vision that went away as soon as he turned his eyes away from the window describing the feature.

'Well, now I have all the more reasons to rush for that settlement… But,' Mathew turned his eyes towards one of the shelves that filled the shadowy space of the merchant.

It was his first time visiting this particular merchant, and yet, Mathew could tell that this one particular shelf stood out.

There were no visual clues, there was nothing strange about how it was built. Yet, by mere feeling, Mathew could tell this was the vocal point of the merchant that focused on the thing that interested him the most.

'And those are the upgrades that I need a total of twelve of,' Mathew thought, lowering his eyes over the shelf to look at its content.

And just like back in the school, Mathew could see rows upon rows of scrolls resting upon a small, simple pedestal.

Each of the scrolls was displayed in a way that allowed Mathew to easily read through most of its content that displayed the most important bits of information.

[Barrier level 1]

[Sanitation level 1]

[Illumination level 1]

[Additional defenses level 1]

Those were just a few that Mathew noticed right away, due to how they were displayed in the most eye-catching spot. Yet, as Mathew turned his head to the side, he could see row upon a row filled with those scrolls.

'They are really going above and beyond with the possible content,' Mathew thought as the idea of the higher force controlling the events appeared in his mind for a second.

Mathew shook his head, ridding his thoughts of useless banter and complaining.

'It's a pity I can't really see any way to increase the general level of the fortress,' Mathew thought, raising his hand to his chin as he threw one last look at the aisle of the merchant's subspace.

He then pulled his head to the back as he looked around the place one last time before raising his hand and waving it.

"I wish to leave now," Mathew said.

And the space around him obediently collapsed, pushing him right back to reality.

"And I'm back," Mathew said, putting a small smile on his face.

"Is it one of those rare moments when someone asks for a second and actually finishes everything in said second?" Nadia asked, lightly raising her eyebrows as her hands got close to crossing over her chest.

"Yeah, yeah," Mathew turned away from the merchant and ran up to the girl's side. "I'm done, let's go," he hurried the girl, not giving her any time to scold him for his lateness.

"Where is it?" Mathew asked after barely a few steps he had to make before joining the rest of his group.

"Ten minutes worth of march up to the east," Norbert reported while securing his hold over some sort of automatic weapon hanging down from his neck.

It was clear he wouldn't miss the chance to partake in the coming fight. And one didn't need more than just a single look to see that.

"So it moved to where we came from?" Mathew asked, slightly surprised by the development.

"Yeah," Norbert nodded his head while not even trying to hide a small smirk.

He saw Mathew staring him down for a second and had to understand what kind of thoughts Mathew's mind went through.

"Cheeky little bastard," Mathew then muttered, looking at Norbert in the first half of his sentence but moving his eyes away from the other.

In this way, it was impossible to tell whether he had the massive monster in mind or Norbert.

"Just make sure not to stand out too much. This can be a really tough fight so it might be impossible to keep you safe if you get too close," Mathew warned before turning around in the right direction and starting a relatively relaxed jog.

There was no use wasting one's energy before even making contact with the enemy. Sure, it is only ten minutes away was worrying enough and put Peter's freshly established fortress in danger… But it wasn't close enough for all hell to break loose.

They still had time… But with every passing second, there was less and less of it.

'I wonder if I will be able to take him down with that new spell of mine,' Mathew thought.

He could vaguely remember someone mentioning that the massive monster had some sort of armor. And penetrating armor was exactly what Mathew's new spell excelled at!

Mathew was eager to test the extent of his new spell… but nothing could prepare him for the sight he encountered only eight minutes after they left Peter's base.