Chapter 188

Chapter 188

Matt felt Aster's excitement bleed over their link like a rising tide as she tried to remain calm enough not to sprint forward ahead of them.

She managed, but he could feel the great effort it took her.

Walking over to Winter, the specter of a woman brought up one hand. Now that he was closer, Matt could see that she only had skin from the wrist down. The forearm was made of twigs and branches, not clothes or some coverings as he first thought.

Dost thou choose my side in the eternal conflict?

Matt and the others agreed, with Aster yipping her excited answer.

Hearing that, Winter's raised hand emanated a blue glow that shone down on all of them.

Matt felt like a cup of cold honey was poured on his head, and it numbed him as it slowly crept down his body to reach his toes.

When it finally settled on him, Matt could feel the boon.

It was like his AI, in a way, except it had no interface and didn't really actively do anything. But that was the best comparison he had for the feeling. With a thought, he could sense exactly what perks the boon provided.

Currently, the feedback was simple. Your ice and shadow powers are strengthened, and you resist damage from the same elements.

Brushing against the boon had the same effect a second, then a third time. On top of that, there was another layer which confirmed what the recruiter had said. They were immune to the cold so long as they were in service of Winter.

After Winter distributed her boon, the four representatives of the seasons faded away until they vanished. In their collective places, a portal appeared in the air that opened into a blustery snowstorm. The first thing they noticed was the sheer amount of mana. Unlike most of Minkalla, where the mana was sparse or entirely absent, outside of some areas containing active magic, this part of the floor was flooded with winter mana. Then again, it probably was an area of active magic, so maybe it wasnt that odd.

Once they were alone, Aster jumped into the air in joy. Minkalla, I forgive you for not giving me a fox tail and ears. I got a winter court! Im the greatest winner ever! Minkalla was expressly made for meeeee!

Matt grabbed her on the descent and tucked her under his arm as the rest of them walked through the portal.

Coming out the other side, Matt was ready for a fight. But instead, he found himself on a busy street.

It could have been any low-tech city that still used stone as the main building material, and was currently having a snowstorm. Everything seemed perfectly normal.

Except the people around them.

At first, they seemed human, but when Matt looked directly at them, that illusion vanished like Aster at the sight of a hot bath.

The people walking by had general human proportions, with the same blue-white skin that Winter had, but without the body parts made of trees. Instead, everything else was slightly off.

Their eyes were both too large. The sclera and pupil were switched, with the center of their eyes being white while the outer edges were various colors.

The differences didn't end there. Their limbs were slightly too long, and their fingers were thin and gangly. It wasnt much, but his mind, enhanced by his Concept and AI alike, picked up on the differences. Once he saw them for himself, he couldnt unsee the somewhat disturbing oddities.

When one smiled, he saw that their teeth all had sharp edges. They weren't like shark teeth, but rather human teeth that someone had taken a file to, which somehow made it worse.

It made for something almost human, and something deep inside Matt wanted to smash everyone until nothing remained.

Before he could do more than look at them, what appeared to be a normal human walked over to their side. Matt inspected the man and saw he was in fact a fellow human, possessing none of the features that the monsters had.

He spoke in the Corporations language, and in a more friendly manner than their dialect typically displayed. Hey there. If you want to register with your faction's leader, follow me.

From what little Matt could read of his body language, he seemed sincere, and they followed him. Still, they kept a decent distance between themselves and the newcomer, ready to react at a moments notice if he turned on them.

The man seemed unbothered and started speaking, trusting them to hear him over the falling snow and noise coming from the monsters around them, which were doing eerily normal things, like buying and selling goods.

The monsters around us are weird. But don't fight them.

Liz asked when the man deliberately didnt say more. Why not?

They could hear the smile in his voice as he explained. First, some background information. He held out a hand behind himself. Matt rolled his eyes internally at the money-hungry mindset of that Great Power and its people, but pulled out a Tier 14 bar of steel and put it in his palm.The debut release of this chapter happened at Ñøv€l-B1n.

After the man inspected it and it vanished into what Matt assumed was a spatial ring, he explained. Theyre Fae, or at least something approximating it. Associated with the seasons and technically human, but not really. Mostly, its in the contracts. Any agreement made is binding, no matter how in jest it may have been made. Treat any offer as serious, because they gain power when fulfilling an agreement, and they gain even more if its broken, assuming you even can break them. Always, always ask for the price and conditions when dealing with them. Theres one poor gal from the monster collective, some kind of mink, who was asked if she could help clean up and politely agreed. Last I heard, she was forced to clean up chamber pots with her own pelt and will be doing so for another two days. At the same time, dont offend them. Im pretty sure they all have some kind of internal code of honor that acts a bit like an agreement, because they can be scary if they feel their honor has been besmirched.

Matt whistled. He knew the old legends a little, but not more than the basics that had been in a popular movie a decade ago. Fae hadnt been seen in a Courtly Warfare floor for at least a few thousand cycles.

They would all need to be careful, and would have to watch themselves around these Fae.

Aster flicked an ear and asked, Why not just leave?

The man continued without asking for more money, which earned him a little respect from Matt.

Like I said, once they enter into a contract with you, they become stronger with the magic to enforce it. Also, even if you manage to kill one on your side, you get no Genesis Energy. You also get blacklisted, the Fae will be hostile to you, and you wont get any Favor, so your boon won't grow. The only way to remove that is to pay off your bounty by killing the other seasons' Fae, and then give up the Favor that you would have received.

Matt pursed his lips, hearing that, and asked, Does that count if you kill one in an accident in a fight? Like wide area attacks?

The man shook his head. Nope. Or at least, we don't think so. It's only happened once when a [Bolt] jumped to a wounded Fae. It killed the Fae, but none of the raiding party turned hostile, and his Favor still increased for the kill of the spring Fae. But I would be careful. This is still Minkalla, and it isn't one to be nice.

Before they could ask another question, the man pointed at the building in front of them.

It, like all the others, was made from stone, but this one at least seemed larger and grander.

When they entered inside, Matt noticed the illusion that had settled over them had vanished to a thin mist. It could be seen through now, even if it still blurred the finer details of everyone.

Their guide led them through the lobby and through a maze of halls until he opened a door with eight desks set up.

Each was manned, and as they walked in, the people sitting at them looked up at them hopefully.

A man on the right side pumped his fist, seeing them. More Empire! Ha!

Waving them over, he gestured them over to his desk and stuck out a hand. Welcome.

As he did so, Matt inspected the man. He was a dark-skinned man with bright orange eyes that Matt felt were manifestations, just like his own white hole eyes.

Bradley. Call me Brad if you wish. Nice to meet you all. The smile he shot at them was hardly visible as the illusion started to creep back over his features, but Matt knew the man.

He was on their list of Empire Pathers who entered Minkalla this cycle openly.

Bradley was part of a team in the last cycle's Tier 10 tournament. He and his wife had come in second place in the team fights, and individually ranked in the top ten for the solo tournament. He was a lava mage with a Talent for the element, but focused on a close-range melee style fighting. He relied on his innate resistance to heat to punish anyone who dared to get close.

Rumor had it that he was changing the definition of what his lava was. From a mix of fire and earth, he was trying to replace the earth part of the lava with metal. It would technically make him a molten metal mage, but what really mattered was if he could make the change with his Talent keeping its effect.

Either way, he was strong and well known.

His wife, Jill, was an archer. Unlike her more hybrid husband, she stuck to more traditional bows and bow spells as much as possible. When fighting in range, she mostly used her bow rather than resorting to magical effects.

While archers normally had issues in close-range combat, Jill had spent more than her fair share of training as a rogue, and was brutally effective with her dagger.

That combo carried the duo through their own Tier 10 tournament without any hiccups.

The second reason he stopped was the growing feeling that Minkalla was using the same space-expanding trick that it used in the safe room to make sure that no one could ever touch the walls on the ceiling above them.

If that was true, it was literally impossible for them to reach the top, and with the veil over the ground, it was a pointless endeavor anyway. The entire point of them taking to the skies was to scout the surroundings.

Still, it was useful to be so high.

Pulling the mirror that broke illusions, they inspected their surroundings, but found no one spying on them.

Matt opened up. "Plans?

Aster yipped before anyone else. Im going to start getting more Favor somehow. I might try to join a scouting party and start learning the surrounding area.

Matt nodded at how seriously she was taking this. While she was overjoyed at getting the floor and theme she so badly wanted, she hadnt forgotten that this was Minkalla.

Susanne nodded. I think Ill join you. That was my plan anyway. I dont really craft anything useful unless we want to send mean letters with really nice handwriting to our enemies. What about you guys?

Liz looked to Matt, and he explained what he wanted to do. I intend to abuse the ever-loving shit out of my Talent. We have time before the fighting starts, and I want to use that time to do some support work. My first thought is about scouting. We're practically blind now that we cant just fly up and check out everything personally, but I have a few ideas about that. If they pan out, I can get us a drone network that will feed information back to the city, where we can aggregate and distribute it. If, and I stress if, it works as I envision, we will have an unparalleled defensive advantage.

Susanne whistled in appreciation. You can do that? Damn. That seems really complicated, but Id love to have an eye in the sky telling me where and when to strike.

Matt nodded. That's the idea, at least. Well see if I can do it, and if I can, whether or not Minkalla will even allow something like that. But I'm hopeful.

Liz smiled at him. I like the idea. I will probably join the scouts for a little while, but I also want to start using the herbs and ingredients we picked up along the way. See what I can do. This floor almost always takes months at minimum for a victor to win, so I have some time to experiment.

With that settled, they headed back into the city and went their separate ways.

While the others went to scout and see if they could stumble on enemies so close to their city, Matt went back to the human base building and talked to Bradley and the other representatives about his idea.

They were noticeably excited at the idea of a way to see their surroundings, and promised to send him all the metal they had. They also showed him a workshop he could start working in.

There was even a Sect woman who had said she was skilled in forging, who they promised to send his way once she returned from her own patrol.

But first he went to the healers area and found someone who could regrow his missing toes.

Once he did that Matt started doing what he always did when he had a new problem to solve through crafting.

Planning things on his own.

With a rough outline of what he wanted, and how he thought it could be done, he then threw mana at the problem.

With his new Concept application, he could push past Minkallas normal restrictions on AIs, and when combined with his 2,560 MPS to throw at the problem, he made progress quickly.

His initial design was based on the golem harvesters he had studied two decades ago, when they dealt with their first ruin.

The golems had small harvesting drones that were able to locate, identify, and collect various items in the area.

He had taken a pair at the time and retrofitted them to work for them harvesting materials in rifts, but eventually, they had gotten stronger, and had access to far more advanced harvesting drones.

He even had a pair of drones that he could use in Minkalla, but they were incredibly complicated, and nearly impossible to even repair, let alone make by the thousands.

And Matt needed thousands, if not tens of thousands of drones for what he wanted.

Which meant he needed to simplify the design.

He had to enter their house and search their crawl space, but he eventually found their own golem drones off in a corner, buried with some of their older equipment that brought back fond memories.

After reminiscing for longer than he should have, Matt went back to his workshop.

Reactivating his AI, he inspected the old drone.

If he had pulled it from a rift, it would have been impossible to read anything, but the golems had been a ruin, and he was able to see how they were built.

Seeing how they worked, Matt shook his head.

It was worse than he remembered, but in a good way.

The drones were dead simple, with Tier 5 runes that used a few clever interactions instead of anything fancy. The issue was that the base design was too simple. He needed something greater than the basic enchantments that the harvester drone had for his plans. Their design worked, but the range was far too limited.

But scaling something up was just a matter of iteration and testing for his AI.

Exiting and putting his house away, Matt used the provided forge and started hammering out a rough drone of copper.

It wasnt pretty, but in four hours, he had recreated the drone and started adding systems and formations as needed.

The sensor was wholly inadequate, which was only to be expected from a Tier 5 item, but Matt had hoped for more. It could detect humans and materials, but the range was awful.

The harvesting drones he currently used had sensors that detected various light types, and used manatronics that were cheaper to make than the Tier 15 plus runes that the more advanced harvesting and scouting drones used. Tier 15 runes were a million times more complicated, and were nearly impossible for anyone below that Tier to comprehend, let alone enchant.

Using his AI and too much mana, Matt scaled up the sensor formation that the golem drone used.

It was abysmal in both efficiency and range when compared to both the Tier 15 runes and the manatronics, but without the Empire's resources, he had no access to the second method, and couldnt enchant the first.

As he let his AI work on trying to make a better formation, Matt hammered out a rough body for the drone he wanted to produce.

Unlike the golem harvester, which needed to hover and pick up material, Matt wanted scouts. They just needed to see and send what they saw back to them.

In that vein, Matt scrapped the four repulsion runes the golem harvester and all other commonly known harvesters used, in favor of a more bird-like shape.

He started his design with a basic glider template. There was almost no hope of outmaneuvering someone dedicated to hunting the scouts down, so mana efficiency would be the main priority over speed and stealth.

At first, he wanted to cut out the body altogether, as he didnt need a fuselage. But he begrudgingly put it back into the design, as he realized he needed somewhere to store their power sources and somewhere for his transmitter.

His next iteration a massive wing-to-body ratio for long-range efficiency, but he ended up quickly cutting that down, as a 41:1 aspect ratio was great for efficiency in static testing, but was awfully visible when he needed something that wouldnt stand out against the clear sky. He knew he couldn't hide the drones but he didn't need them so large it was impossible to miss them.

It took two revisions of his ideas before he ended up scrapping the overall body when he realized that he would be constrained in size by the internals more so than the wingspan.

With that in mind, he started working on the fuselage when a woman in Sect robes entered his forge.

Matt could feel the distrust that radiated off her as she looked around even before she entered the place.

I'm White. What should I call you? Matt offered a hand, but the woman stayed back. It was painfully obvious that she was watching him for hostile movements.

You may call me Young Mistress Blazing Hammer. He was going to say hello when she added. I do not wish to work with imperial scum, but I wish to win more than anything else. If your idea is unworthy, as I expect it to be, I will leave immediately.

Matt sighed.

This was going to be fun. He just knew it.