Chapter 1843

Chapter 1843

“After receiving your most recent experiment,” Daniel leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers like the villain in a spy movie. He was currently trying his hand at growing out a goatee and Sam believed it looked more wisp than hair but made the effect even more of a satire. “Mr. Ozark is quite pleased with the result; he told me that what they are really looking for are aspects that strengthen the use of images. If you can make one of those and provide it for them, they are willing to trade an Armament. With an emphasis of your choosing.”

Behind them, a child did cartwheels through the grassy field.

Sam raised the wine glass to his lips and sipped. Immediately, he grimaced; he just couldn’t bring himself to enjoy white wine. “Huh. Well, the unusual raw materials are nice... but what the hell is an Armament?”

“From the way Ozark said it, I didn’t want to sound foolish by asking.” Daniel winced and pressed his hair back. “I hoped you knew. I’ll send a message to Randidly to ask about it. But can you do it? Can you make equipment that benefits images?”

The duo sat at one end of a low-topped oak picnic table, their conversation covered up by the bubble of laughter and conversation from the other patrons at the winery. Now that the chill winter of the Calamity had passed, a blooming spring had come to Expira. Their table sat on the rolling green laws of Donnyton’s newest winery and right in front of them was the sprawling, grape-heavy trellis of the vineyard. The sun sank toward the horizon, its rays lengthening and darkening to orange and red.

At the other end of the table were Regina, Mrs. Hamilton, and Theodore, Mrs. Hamilton’s increasingly serious boyfriend. The three of them sampled the various, and damningly white, wine selections offered by the winery.

All of them enjoyed it.

Sam clicked his tongue while he watched a family play horseshoes off to the left. “Well, theoretically yea. I’ve done it before. It’s just usually not my focus because the process takes time. That sort of benefit needs to accumulate. But so long as we figure out the Armament is worth something, I’ll do it.”

“Excellent.” Daniel’s expression brightened. Then he produced an interspatial amulet and slid it across the table. A discrete bonus. “Oh, you’ll like this too. The materials provided are apparently from some alien being that had been mutated by cosmic radiation.”

*****

Randidly clicked his tongue as he considered his options. After sleeping for several hours, he recovered to his peak state. Now, he just had to decide how to proceed.Upstodatee from n(0)/ve/lbIn/.(co/m

Claudette had already returned to her father’s estate to take care of some personal matters before the looming party in six days. Randidly briefly wondered whether the party would be postponed based on the state of the Nexus, he had heard from Lady Iellaya about the constant infighting, attacks, and the fact that a madwoman had essentially become the supreme czar of Military High Command, but it appeared that Don Beigon was not troubled by such developments. His celebration remained on the schedule.

As such, Randidly wouldn’t let it bother him either. He needed to be ready.

Still, that preparedness could take several forms. He could train his images with the Path of Dreams. He could figure out how his attainments with energy ripples could be incorporated into his fighting style, now that he had returned to the Nexus, where images weren’t suppressed to the point of uselessness. And he could also investigate the process of evolving his Nether Core to the next Rarity and generating more Weight.

Finally, his third image appeared, manifesting directly in front of his body. The being was not human, but took a humanoid shape, even while powerful energies had completely evolved the interior beyond the physical limits of its original species. With Randidly’s face, it turned and looked at him, almost sadly. Its left arm was bulkier and armored while its right seemed more graceful and deadly. Determination glittered in its eyes.

The emotions around the Grey Creature began to seeth as all the bottledup fury and indignation Randidly experienced in his time under the thumb of the System came to the surface. The air warped and popped, destabilized to the point of implosion by the vehemency with which the Grey Creature wished to tear down the edifice above them. It released a hissing, misty breath.

Someday, Randidly closed his eyes. Someday.

When he opened his eyes, Randidly’s three images floated down and superimposed themselves on his body. With all three of his images operating at full force, he began to look at the surroundings. His lip curled upward at the dense network of ripples that rebounded endlessly off each other, fueled by the existence of three powerful images, even working in concert.

Congratulations! Your Skill Cutting Tide of Amenonuhoko (T) has grown to Level 603!

Congratulations! Your Skill Philosophy of the Boundless Deluge (M) has grown to Level 585!

If the ripples are this dense with just me activating my images, Randidly thought with glittering eyes. He looked down at his hands, where natural force already had begun to accumulate. The barest hint of a maelstrom swirled around his person, naturally forming as energy seeped into the subconscious patterns he manifested. What can I achieve in a fight? Or on a battlefield, like I had when the Swacc Family assaulted those Pinnacle Seekers?

If I had another chance, I could have directly annihilated that being possessing Techetadore...

However, Randidly pushed the speculation out of his mind. He activated several of his more powerful Skills, pushing them to the fullest and then noting what effects they had on the energy ripples.

Steadily, he consolidated his understanding of his Moirae of Ripples Skillset.

Put simply, it generally functioned as a support to the more powerful attacks that his images could unleash. He could utilize Cutting Tide of Amenonuhoko freely, to improve his spear usage. His understanding of energy and ripples also reduced drag on other attacks. To his surprise, this bonus was surprisingly high: he received perhaps a 50% increase in raw power just from manipulating the patterns in the air into more agreeable shapes.

At the same time, the Skillset provided two steadily accumulating passive abilities. First, the three related Skills from the images rapidly gathered energy to create a force maelstrom around Randidly’s person. Obviously, this wouldn’t stop a truly powerful energy opponent, but weaker opponents would he effortlessly dominated once it gathered momentum, and foes of Randidly’s power would be restricted by the swirling force.

Secondly, the energy maelstrom functioned as a growing bank of power that Randidly could unleash in a potent blast, as he had once done previously. He didn’t dare experiment with how far he could push this, considering the power it had displayed and the lack of a battlefield to pull from, but his understanding of utilizing energy meant that he could channel a much larger amount of power.

“Alright,” Randidly said with a grin as he let his images die. “Time to head to a dinner.”